Two ~ A Trip to Hogsmeade

My confrontation with Olive Hornby did not go well, to make a grievous understatement.

After coming out of class that morning, I went to lunch hoping that Myrtle Markels would have forgotten about the entire incident, but I had no such good fortune, for Myrtle beamed at me as soon as I strode into the Great Hall, and probably would have yelled a greeting if not for the sandwich occupying her mouth. I had a sudden and almost irresistible urge to rip off my Prefect's badge and shove it into my robes, as though this could somehow absolve me of any responsibility.

I nodded at Myrtle – perfunctorily – and made my way over to the Ravenclaw table, where Olive was sitting and moaning to her friends about how fattening junket was and how she'd have to come up with a charm to prevent it from having too much of an ill effect on her waistline. I stepped up behind her and coughed. She turned around. "Olive, could I have a word with you in private?"

"Minerva, what—" She stopped, and her gaze swung round to where Myrtle was sitting at the Gryffindor table. "You!" she shrieked, pointing one long finger at the other girl. "You little coward, going off to your house Prefect instead of coming to talk to me yourself!" I saw fury flashing in her eyes and instinctively caved back a little, shocked at the swiftness of her reaction, as she rose up out of her chair and shrieked a few more choice words at Myrtle; heads from the other tables were beginning to turn.

Myrtle, for her part, was already up on unsteady legs. Her messy, curly hair bobbed around her face as if conscious of her anger. "What did you expect me to do, you – you vile little snipe! All you ever do is make fun of me and say awful things about me to all your friends!" She wasn't looking at Olive, though; she was looking at the Hufflepuff table where Emmet Fawcett was laughing quite rudely. In that instant I felt completely horrible for her. I didn't know then, but she must have watched him for a long time, and there he was, laughing at her. I believe he grew up to do low-level administrative duties for the Kwikspell Corporation, though I highly doubt this would have calmed Myrtle if she had known.

Olive had begun ranting at me. "Minerva, you simply don't understand, she's just so creepy – she's always watching my friends and I in the library! I'll catch her peering round a stack of books and then she'll whisk off and act like nothing happened!"

"That's a lie!" Myrtle cried passionately. "It's a lie you made up to make it look like you aren't such a – such a horrible bitch!"

A collective gasp rose up from the Great Hall. It may be common for the students of today to swear, but, back then, it was something of a surprising crime. My own heart was beating rapidly; I could feel Headmaster Dippet's eyes burning into the back of my head, waiting for me to deal with this. But before I could take any points off Myrtle or even open my mouth, Olive had marched right up into Myrtle's face.

"I will not be insulted in such a manner," Olive seethed, quietly enough for only herself, Myrtle, and me to hear. "Especially not by a Muggle-born – pardon me, two Muggle-borns," she amended, looking directly at me.

I blinked. It was time to act. Headmaster Dippet was still watching the argument unfold. "Both of you. Follow me into the corridor." I yanked on Myrtle's sleeve rather forcefully and both girls came after me into the hallway – not because of deference to my authority, I suspect, but because both wanted to continue the fight uninterrupted. When we were safely away from the Great Hall and its spectators, I turned to them both and put on my severest expression. "Ten points from each of your houses for causing a disruption and – and for insults unbecoming of proper witches."

"Really—"

"It is my duty to resolve conflicts, but not to police over squalling children," I said fiercely.

"That's so unfair!" Olive cried.

I did not see how it was unfair – I had taken the same amount of points from both Gryffindor and Ravenclaw – but I did not say this. "Be that as it may, you have conducted yourself badly and you will suffer the repercussions." My language had an odd habit of going formal whenever I played the role of Prefect.

"It's not my fault she's a whiny cry-baby!"

"I'm a whiny cry-baby! Listen to you!"

Then they were shouting again, right in the middle of the corridor. I didn't dare stop them; both girls looked about ready to rip the other's hair out and I didn't want to be caught in the crossfire. I could only stand there and stare and wait. I have always been baffled by how women fight. And then there was a hand clamped down on my shoulder, dismissively pushing me out of the way. I turned to look.

It was Tom Riddle, as if the situation had somehow demanded to get much worse. I glared at his profile. He didn't seem to notice. Both Olive and Myrtle quieted instantly.

"What's going on here?" Riddle asked quietly. There was always a quality to his voice I couldn't quite describe; the best adjective I can come up with is serpentine and even that doesn't seem right.

"We were just having a friendly spat, weren't we, Myrtle?" Olive whispered, staring at Riddle as though he had somehow compelled her to do so.

"Yes, that's all," Myrtle said breathily.

"It looked like more." He moved his gaze from Olive to Myrtle, then back onto me. "Especially with a Prefect standing right here – officiating, is it, McGonagall? Playing referee?"

"I took points from them both," I snapped at him. "There is nothing more I can do." Abruptly, I could stand there no longer, so I shouldered my bookbag and set off down the hall to Arithmancy; at that moment, I loathed all three of them. Myrtle Markels, Olive Hornby, and especially Tom Riddle. Myrtle I could sympathize with slightly because only the most horrid of people use parentage as an insult, but she had been the one who'd got me into the argument into the first place and so she did not escape my anger. Olive Hornby really was horrid and I knew then that I preferred her asleep on the desk with drool coming from her mouth rather than vitriol – and Riddle, I hated him the most, with the way one cruel gaze could undermine anything I had done. He had no right – absolutely no right – to take away my authority.

"It's not as though I could've done anything more," I muttered to myself when they were all out of earshot. "I can't exactly hex the sparring – I should be allowed to hex the sparring. Furnunculus! Take that, Olive Hornby!" This cheered me slightly.

I came out of class still seething a little and, instead of risking more ridiculous drama at dinner, I curled up onto my bed and read. I had hidden a box of Muggle toffees mailed to me by Kitty (for my fifteenth birthday, and I was thankful for sisters because Mum and Dad would never have sent sweets) under my bed, and I ate those. There were so many things about Animagi that I didn't know. The transformations are often excruciating at first, for example, and it takes a great deal of time and practice to be able to transform without crying out in pain beforehand. I wondered, briefly, where Professor Dumbledore had come into the possession of such books. I found that I was anticipating the next Thursday with agonizing excitement and I almost didn't hear the other girls coming into the dormitory. I was barely able to shove the book under my pillow before Cliona Brocklehurst and Cora Turpin pulled the curtains aside.

"We saw what happened in the Great Hall at lunch!" Cora said. "Myrtle said you took house points off that Olive – good on you, she's such a bully! Of course, you took them off Myrtle, too, but Myrtle's used to it by now. She never gets any of Professor Caldecott's questions right."

Cora was a short fifth-year girl with blonde hair and a wide, unassuming face; rumours around school indicated that she was taking almost all remedial classes and had received zero OWLS on her first attempt, and this seemed true enough, as she was old enough to be in her seventh year. Her general compatriot, Cliona, was a lanky, athletic girl, the only girl on any of the Quidditch teams, with dark hair and eyes. "Myrtle also said you're coming to Hogsmeade with us tomorrow – is this true?"

"She asked – er – if you don't want me to go, that's perfectly fine."

"Oh, don't be ridiculous, Minerva," Cliona said, leaning in a little, to whisper to me. She had an easy sort of grin that made you want to smile back at her. "I know you think all the girls don't like you, and you're right about that, I suppose. They don't like me either." She made a face. "I probably stink too much from Quidditch practice for their delicate noses to tolerate."

"No, no," Cora said earnestly, "they're just jealous that you could sneak about in the boys' changing rooms if you wanted to."

Cliona wrinkled her nose. "As if I'd want to! What a thought!"

I laughed in spite of myself. "All right then, I'll go."

"Brilliant!" Cliona said. "We'll see you in the morning."

It seemed like very little, but I lay down and thought about this for a long time after they'd let me alone. Was it only because I had braved confronting Olive Hornby, a girl who had doubtlessly teased each one of them? But that couldn't have been the reason because I had only being doing my duty as a Prefect, nothing more. I never really knew. I suppose they saw in me another lonely girl. Cliona was shunned for her boyishness, Cora for her perceived stupidity, and Myrtle simply for being Myrtle. At the time, I considered Professor Dumbledore my only friend, and even that was foolish because he only treated me in a kind, teacherly manner – the way a professor treats a favourite pupil. I certainly couldn't go gallivanting round Hogsmeade with the Transfiguration teacher.

Myrtle woke me up in the morning, predictably enough. "Minerva! That – that hairy boy has brought his creatures up into the common room again! Bowtruckles, the hugest ones I ever saw!"

One of the most unpleasant things to wake up to is certainly the image of Myrtle's eyes, large and swimmy behind her spectacles, pushed up near your face. "There's nothing I can do about Hagrid, Myrtle. He's got special permission to work with his – animals – up here as long as they're not harmful ones and as long as he cleans up after them."

"Oh."

"Hagrid's harmless, anyhow," I assured her. "He knows how to control those beasts better than any of us could."

Myrtle goggled. "I know, but it shouldn't be allowed," she said sulkily. Then, after a pause: "Well, get dressed then, we want to get to Hogsmeade early." She sprang away, presumably to get her own autumn coat on.

For the first time in my life, I wondered what to wear. Ordinarily, I had no problem with the utilitarian Hogwarts uniform, or my robes, but neither seemed very appropriate for Hogsmeade. I put on my school blouse and a tartan skirt Mum had sent me from home; Mum was born a MacDuff and had a great deal of pride in their clan tartan, and made me wear it even though I was born a McGonagall. I had a navy duffel coat that had belonged to Mum as well; I took this, too.

Three hours later, I was simply amazed at how much time Myrtle and Cora could spend in Gladrags. Cliona and I were sitting boredly in the chairs usually reserved for exhausted beaus and husbands while Cora tried on a set of yellow summer robes. "I know I can't wear them for a year at least," Cora confessed, "but aren't they just lovely?"

"Gorgeous," Cliona said, without looking up.

"They're on half price, too, Cora," Myrtle said, awed. "I think you ought to buy them. And take a look at this – Beautiful Skin Potion. I wonder if it really works?"

"I heard it does – ooh, it's on sale as well!"

Cliona looked about ready to tear her hair out. "Who cares?" she moaned. "This is torture! Buy the robes! Buy the potion! They've got a shipment of new broomsticks in at Dervish and Banges and I don't want to be the only one on the team who hasn't seen that new Cleansweep model! I'll look like a raging idiot if they all go off chatting about it and I just stand there gap-mouthed!"

"Oh, fine," Cora said, smiling as though she were accustomed to Cliona's impatience, and she went to the counter to purchase the summer robes.

After a visit to Dervish and Banges that took an hour long, with all Cliona's fawning over a high-quality servicing kit, we went to Honeydukes, where Myrtle bought fudge and we split in it in fours, and then to Zonko's where Cliona bought a pad of Emergency Exploding Notepaper ("For when Cora passes me notes about Emmet Fawcett in Astronomy," Cliona chuckled, to which Cora shouted an indignant "I do no such thing!") and four Pepper Imps, which we ate on the way out. We emerged from the store shrieking with delighted agony – I had never done such a thing, squealed in such a girlish way, and, surprisingly, it was not unpleasant. When Myrtle bent double and coughed a spray of fire onto the cobblestones of the street, Cora suggested, mid-wheeze, that we ought to get something to drink.

I couldn't reply for fear of breathing fire all over her, so I just followed along.

The Three Broomsticks was another place I'd never been, and it was warm and inviting, rustic with its green-brown walls and its wooden floors and tables. We found a table near where the fire was blazing happily; we took off our autumn coats and looped them around the chairs. A pretty witch came over to take our order – four butterbeers, of course – and Cora leaned forward conspiratorially. "Look over there, Myrtle, it's Emmet Fawcett with the rest of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team."

"Oh, hell," Cliona said.

I chanced a glance at Emmet; he seemed to be trying to convince the witch serving drinks that he was old enough for a bottle of Ogden's Old. Niall MacDougal, the Hufflepuff Seeker, was looking on hopefully. I watched for a second longer than necessary; while I didn't care much for Emmet, Niall was very handsome. Of course, I said nothing of these thoughts.

"I like how he's got his hair tousled," Cora remarked.

Cliona snorted. "I don't understand you. Either of you. I whacked that great babyish lunk in the arm with a Bludger last year and he acted like I'd broken it." She rolled her eyes. "Truthfully, I'd only fractured the wretched thing – I wonder how he'd have reacted if I'd injured his precious face instead?"

"Really, what does that matter?" Cora argued. "I'd take care of his injured arm for him, anyway." The witch came with our butterbeers; I took a sip and marvelled at the pleasant warm fizziness uncurling in my stomach. "You shouldn't have hit him, anyway."

"Like hell I shouldn't have; it's part of the ruddy game!"

Cora frowned. "Don't curse," she admonished softly. She faced Myrtle, who was looking quite dismal as she stared into her mug of butterbeer. "You agree with me, don't you, Myrtle?"

"He laughed at me," she whispered. Even when she was speaking in hushed tones, her voice never lost its ghostly, airy quality.

"When was this?"

"Yesterday morning, when Minerva went to talk to Olive, and Olive started shouting at me. I looked over at Emmet and he was laughing at me like I was some sort of funny little creature." She frowned and I could see tears starting to form in her eyes. I watched with a strange sort of fascination; I wasn't much of a crier myself and feminine weeping wasn't all that familiar to me. Mum once told me, when I fell off a horse, that sitting and crying about my bruised arse wasn't going to de-bruise it, and that had been that.

Cliona was clapping Myrtle on the back, comforting her. "He's a bad Beater anyhow. Really quite sulky, if you ask me."

Cora seemed unconvinced. "Maybe was laughing at Olive Hornby, Myrtle, and not at you. Olive did get rather red in the face; she looked like an overstuffed tomato. I would have laughed at her myself if she weren't so vicious."

"No, I could tell," Myrtle said with finality. "I don't like him anymore. I'm done with him." Her fingers curled around the handle of her mug and tapped against the glass for a minute, and she looked down at her shoes on the rough wooden floor. "It's foolish, really, that I should watch him all the time. And besides – oh, no, never mind."

"Ah, but you can't do that!" Cora said with a wink. "And besides?" she prodded.

"And besides – well, I like someone else." Myrtle had gone very red in the face, and she took off her thick glasses to dab at the lenses, even though they were perfectly clean.

"Who?" Cliona was trying her best to seem disinterested. I was content to sit and sip my drink and listen to the conversation float around me; I was rarely privy to this sort of girl talk.

"I can't tell you, you'll just make jokes about it," Myrtle said stubbornly.

"We're your friends, Myrtle," Cora said dramatically, pounding her mug down on the table for effect. "Your friends! You've just got to tell us; you can't go on keeping secrets from us because everyone knows that keeping secrets'll just eat you up in the end." She finished with a satisfied smirk.

"Oh, fine," Myrtle said. "It's – it's Tom Riddle."

I choked on my butterbeer and nearly spat all over the table. "Tom Riddle?" I repeated, incredulous. "Tom Riddle! The Slytherin? The same one I've got Potions with? You've gone mad, Myrtle, he's the worst bastard I've ever met!"

"But look how he got Olive and I to stop fighting," she persisted. "A few words and that was that. It was so very – powerful." She gave a little shiver. "And he does have the most lovely eyes."

I stared at her, feeling cold. "They're – they're unsettling."

Myrtle shook her head. "Well, I think you're wrong, Minerva," she said airily. "I think he's wonderful, so much better than Emmet. And you don't see him sitting in the Three Broomsticks and bothering the waitwitches – I just bet he's in the library, studying for his OWLs."

"How dreadfully boring of him," Cliona said dryly.

"I'll say," Cora agreed. "Minerva, I've always wanted to pick your brain a bit – maybe it'll rub off on me," she said sheepishly, expertly changing the subject – probably because of the miserable look on Myrtle's face. "Where were you born? Where did you grow up? Were your parents flabbergasted at the Hogwarts letter?"

"Mine were," Myrtle interjected.

So I put Riddle into the back of my mind and told them everything about me, how I was born on the farm and my father had given a chicken to the midwife as payment, how Kitty came along shortly after, how I'd had to wake up early to do my chores before school – they were particularly fascinated with my Muggle school, which only had five other children besides Kitty and I, all of us stuffed into one room – and everything else. It was strangely relieving, explaining at all like that, as if the fact that my family were all Muggles didn't matter. Of course, Myrtle's were all Muggles, too.

I thought about Myrtle's fixation with Riddle long after; I was so preoccupied and exhausted from the day that I didn't even consider getting back at my term project that night. It is difficult for me to remember how I felt about it then, knowing what I know at present, because I did not know it then. I believe I was more pitying of Myrtle than anything else; she was destined to choose objects of affection that looked on her as if she were an insect or something equally worthless. I think I wanted for Myrtle to have someone to love her for all her faults and indiscretions, but I know that never happened, and I grieve for that even more than I grieve for her – but I get ahead of myself.

It is lonely here in my rooms now. The candles are burning down and suddenly I miss them, all three of them, Cliona Brocklehurst, Cora Turpin, and Myrtle Markels. From that day onward, we were friends of a sort – a coterie of outcasts that Hogwarts didn't quite know what to make of. I was not as close as most friends are, as it was very necessary to isolate myself in that year, yet there were so many times I laughed with them – Hogsmeade weekends, games of Gobstones in the common room, and even after that year I laughed with them, albeit halfheartedly, when there were only three of us left.