Okay everyone, a REALLY long chapter this time; I apologize in advance for the potentially awkward and confusing jumps ahead in time. This is where the actual plot line really starts to kick in and I just have to really get it moving. Other than that- just enjoy and have fun!
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~Chapter Twenty-one- Suspicions~
Cari felt rather silly as she clapped politely along with the victories of Ravenclaw team while Lisa exploded into a frenzy every time a goal was scored.
It was another match against Slytherin, so of course Cari was really only there to see Draco.
The two of them had become practically inseparable, but Cari still got that swirling thrill in her chest when he flashed that debonair smile, or his white-blonde hair fell into his sharp grey eyes, or when-
Cari stopped daydreaming abruptly when Lisa flew up beside her, wildly gesticulating and loudly vocalizing her support of Ravenclaw team as another ten points was scored.
"Geez, isn't this exciting?" she breathed as she sat back down, eyes wide and face flushed with excitement.
"Mm-hmm," Cari murmured noncommittally, her mind on other matters. She did feel a twinge of guilt every time she went with him instead of Lindsey, even though she always had her consent. But Lindsey was almost always in the dungeons nowadays anyway, so most of the time Cari's guilt faded quickly. What bad feeling didn't melt away in the presence of her Draco?
"Man, you really love this stuff, don't you?" she asked Lisa, who had been bouncing up and down on the seat, dragging Cari from her reverie.
Lisa nodded vigorously, her hair blown back by the wind and her cheeks, nose, and ears red with the cold. She looked positively radiant and Cari couldn't help but laugh at her enthusiasm. Smiling and shaking her head, she returned her attention back to the "game".
"Where's Lindsey I wonder?" she asked as Slytherin called a time out. "I'd have thought she'd given up on her homework and joined us by now." Lisa looked at her strangely.
"It's Wednesday," she replied, raising her eyebrows. "Lindsey has a tutoring session with Snape tonight… remember?"
"Oh! Of course…" Cari said, smiling to cover her embarrassment. How could she forget that? She'd just have to make a point of asking how it went when they got back to the dorms.
A short time before the game started up again Kristin came to sit by them.
"Hey, guys!" she said brightly. "So, are we winning?"
* * *
As the four girls were returning from the quidditch match later that evening they ran into Lindsey, who was returning from her lesson with Snape.
"We won, we won, we won, we won!" Lisa chanted excitedly, running up and dancing circles around Lindsey.
"She's just a little excited we won our game," Pippy exclaimed, face flushed and still on the euphoric high of victory. Lindsey nodded.
"I can see that."
As the three turned the corner into the corridor leading to the stairway of Ravenclaw Tower what they saw stopped them dead in their tracks.
For fifty feet up on the wall before them was a massive death's head entwined with a snake, burning green.
"The Dark Mark!" Kristin said breathlessly, a hand at her throat. Below this a message was burning in the same magical fire that read:
MUDBLOODS DIE FIRST.
Cari's hand flew to her mouth as the five girls simply stared at the cryptic message. Then they gasped as they saw that that was not all. Below the flickering words, hanging from a noose tied to a sconce on the wall, was a crude effigy in a Hogwarts robe.
Cari, Kristin, Lisa, Pippy, and Lindsey all jumped as one at the sound of more gasps ringing out behind them as more and more people crowded in from the quidditch match.
"Let me through!" The clear, stern voice of Professor McGonagall was heard above the general distressed tumult of the crowd as she and Madam Hooch pushed their way to the front. When they got there Madam Hooch gasped and Professor McGonagall went quite pale.
"Fetch the headmaster," she instructed, and Madam Hooch nodded and pushed her way back again through the crowd, now quite large as most people had returned from the game. Professor McGonagall turned to address them all.
"All students please return to their dormitories at once," she ordered. Immediately prefects of the various houses began herding their students together in a general mob and each went off to their respective dorms.
Cari and Lindsey shared a meaningful look as they followed the rest of their house, led by Rupert Render, up the tower and to their dorms.
"Do you think it was them?" Lindsey asked quietly, holding up her massive History of Magic book to shield Cari and herself from the others in the commonroom.
"The ones I saw that night?" Cari asked. She thought back to the night she and Lindsey had gone in search of Duffer, to the bizarre ritual by firelight she had unintentionally witnessed, and shivered.
"I think it might have been," she said, unable to keep a slight tremor from her voice.
"So, those… those people you saw that night? They were Death-eaters?" Lindsey questioned, watching warily and lowering her voice even more as a third year walked by. Cari nodded again. Lindsey sighed and raised her eyebrows. She had been reading up on the Dark Arts since she had come to Hogwarts, and now knew at least something about the rise and fall of Lord Voldemort, and the ruthlessness of his followers. Certainly a little bit of vandalism wasn't beyond them. In fact, that wasn't usually what they restrained themselves to.
* * *
"Hey, do you want to go build a snowman or something?" Lindsey asked Cari after dinner that Thursday night. Now that it was December it had finally snowed. It had been snowing all week and a wonderfully glistening powder blanketed the grounds. Lindsey had been aching to play in it since the first flake fell. "I don't have a lesson tonight, after all." She was surprised to see Cari look rather uncomfortable, and avoided meeting her eyes as she answered.
"Well, I kind of already have plans," she said apologetically. She finally looked up. "With Draco."
"Oh…"
"You could come too, I suppose…" Cari said quickly, though not too convincingly.
"No, no, don't worry about it," Lindsey cut in. "I've got uh… I've got some Defense Against the Dark Arts I can work on, or… something. You go ahead."
"Sure?" Cari felt bad now, but still didn't want to miss Draco. Lindsey felt similar: she didn't want to be left alone, but she didn't want Cari to miss quality Draco time.
"Yeah, I'm sure."
Cari beamed in gratitude, then proceeded out the portrait hole, tossing her scarf around her neck.
Lindsey sat staring at the empty table before her for several moments, entirely at a loss for what to do now Cari was gone. She turned to look out the window to watch others happily taking advantage of the winter weather. Eventually she even saw Cari and Draco head to the lake and begin to ice skate. Bleakly she wondered what on earth Christmas holidays would be like, since Cari undoubtedly would go with Draco.
* * *
"Lindsey!"
Lindsey sat bolt upright in bed, and Cari jumped back in surprise.
It was morning now, and Lindsey blinked frantically, trying to recall even a scrap of the dream she had been having. She was quite a sight; her hair matted with sweat, shaking all over, her eyes showing too much white.
"Lindsey, what's the matter?" Cari asked with great worry. Lindsey saw Pippy, Kristin, and Lisa's faces also looking at her from inside her bed curtains.
"Just a nightmare," Lindsey tried to put it off lightly, trying to calm her mind, but she was trembling.
"What was it about?" Lisa asked. Cari was just staring at her with intense concern.
"I… I don't remember," Lindsey answered honestly. She really couldn't remember what the dream was about. All she knew for sure was that she'd had it before; many times. And now she was very cold.
* * *
Now it was Monday; the start of the last week before Christmas break, and Lindsey was in Snape's classroom as usual. They were working on boggarts today. Snape showed her the proper spell and explained to her its finer points, then had her give it a try. Lindsey looked rather nervous but swallowed and nodded resolutely.
Then Snape released the boggart.
Her eyes widened in terror as the boggart burst into flame. Then she began to lose it completely, dropping her wand and trying to swat things away from her head in a mad panic.
"No!" she screamed hysterically. "Let me out! No!" Her strange, non-seeing eyes shone with tears and horror.
"Why won't you let me out?!" she sobbed in turmoil, sinking to the ground, head down on her knees, covering the back of her neck with her arms. Then she got up again and began to flail her arms, screaming and seemingly trying to escape some awfulness that surrounded her. Snape had stopped dead and didn't move; something was tugging at the back of his mind. Finally the rather audible damage Lindsey was wreaking upon the classroom brought him back to earth and he pushed the unwanted thoughts away.
"Riddikulus!" Snape shouted, pointing his wand and freeing them, if temporarily, from the boggart. He then ran to Lindsey, who was still in that strange delirium, completely unawares of the real world around her. He grabbed hold of her wrists and forced her arms down before she wrought undoable damage upon a shelf of some rather pricey potion ingredients. Still in her mind Lindsey was wherever she thought she was and continued to lash out at random. One sporadic leg movement caught Snape sharp in the knee.
Crying out in pain he lost his balance and fell towards Lindsey, who broke his fall, still holding her wrists. He heard her head hit the cobbled floor with a thud and cringed, but that seemed to be what awoke her from her trance and her eyes shot open.
Her pupils were hardly more than pinpricks in her dark eyes as she looked around wildly, a thin sheen of sweat on her face.
"P…Professor?" she finally whispered bemusedly, giving him the strangest look. Before anything else could be said however, a cold voice sounded from the doorway, drawing both their attention.
"So, this is what really goes on during these 'tutoring sessions', is it Severus?" Professor Balbossa asked accusatorily, his blue eyes glaring down at the scene before him: Lindsey sprawled on the floor, panting and wild-eyed, Snape on top of her, holding her arms out.
Instantly realizing how it must look Snape jumped up, glaring at Balbossa in disgust.
"That would be what you would think, Jon," he scorned derisively, offering a hand to Lindsey, who gratefully accepted his assistance. Once on her feet she had a difficult time staying so, for her knees insisted on buckling and the rest of her was trembling like a leaf; she clenched her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering audibly.
Snape cast her a secret glance of concern but she just nodded slightly (though unconvincingly) and he let her stand on her own.
"Well what is it then?" Jon asked acerbically.
"First let me ask you, Jon," Snape spit his name contemptuously, "What, pray tell, were you doing down here in the first place?"
"It's obviously a good thing I was!" Balbossa cried, his voice rising.
"Just answer the question!"
"I came to enquire about my boggart- which I see just happens to be here. Convenient, isn't it?" Balbossa's voice had a chilling sarcasm to it that Lindsey did not like at all. "Hmmm, I wonder if I could find the rest of my things…"
"You came to check up on me again, that's why you were here!" Snape roared, unable to control his resentment any longer. "And I do not have any of your things!"
"What about the boggart then? Explain that, Severus! And you still never explained yourself as to the obviously illicit acts being committed before my interruption-"
Lindsey had been watching this angry exchange like a tennis match with growing apprehension. Slowly the two men had advanced upon each other and were now no more than a foot apart, leaning forward aggressively, yelling in each other's faces.
"You mean you have the audacity to first accuse me of stealing, then-"
"I know it was you!" Balbossa finally shouted in outrage, his French accent completely gone. He reached for his wand and Snape did the same; lightning fast both were out and ready, raised for action.
Before either could shout a spell Lindsey yelled, "Professor!" at the top of her lungs. Both turned to face her in surprise, seeming to have forgotten she was there.
"What we were doing, Professor Balbossa," she said evenly, "was teaching me how to fend off a boggart."
"On the floor?" Balbossa spat, glaring at Snape. Snape glared right back, though putting his wand away. Balbossa reluctantly did the same.
"I know you did it," he whispered dangerously, again ignoring Lindsey's presence as Snape backed away, never taking his eyes off Jon. "I know; and you mark my words, I'll prove it!"
He glared one moment longer, then swept out of the room ominously. Lindsey looked up at Snape to see his lip curled malevolently, and his left eye twitching slightly, staring after Balbossa. How she wanted to cry, 'what was that all about?!' but instead she said,
"Do you see what I mean about his accent?"
Snape finally tore his angry gaze from the vacant doorframe to look at her, then proceeded in tidying up the room.
"What happened?" Lindsey asked bewilderedly, helping Snape to right an overturned desk. He looked at her strangely.
"I thought perhaps you would be able to tell me," he said with a quirk of his eyebrow.
"But I… I don't remember," she said slowly, furrowing her brow.
"Well," Snape started, picking up a chair, "you started going into complete hysterics, creating most of the chaos here"- he indicated the disheveled area of the classroom- "right after the boggart… burst into flame." He studied her closely as she thought.
"I don't remember what happened!" she finally cried exasperatedly. "But you know…"
"What?" Snape asked quickly when she didn't elaborate.
"Oh, nothing," she said lightly. What she had been thinking of was the nightmare she always had but could never remember… and was always cold when she woke up.
Lindsey shivered. She was freezing now. Going to her bag she pulled out her sweatshirt (the disgusting one) to try and fend off the intense cold now enveloping her.
"Professor? Uh, what was it Professor Balbossa was talking about… exactly?" she questioned tentatively as she stuck her arms in the sleeves of her hoodie, though she knew full well that he was referring to the Death-eater damage of late.
"Nothing that is any of your concern, Lindsey," he answered shortly.
"And what did you mean when you asked if he was 'checking up on you again'? You mean he's accused you before?" she persisted.
Snape turned in agitation to admonish her, hopefully discouraging her from any more unwanted questions, but her sweatshirt stopped him fast.
"What is that… thing?" he asked in obvious distaste.
"Oh, this is just my sweatshirt!" she explained with a marked degree of embarrassment. "You know, got it in a muggle, ah, store back home," she lied. A dumpster was hardly a store. Snape was still staring thoughtfully so she continued, "Muggles wear them to keep warm-"
"I am well aware of what they do, Lindsey," he snapped, finally tearing his eyes from the decrepit garment. She shrugged and finished putting the nasty thing on, now for some reason quite ashamed of it. She had only clung to it for two reasons: for one, last summer she felt guilty and like she was mooching off the Green's, taking advantage of their generosity and hospitality, despite Cari's assurances she wasn't, and therefore did not wish them to buy her new clothes, but moreover, while coming here to this utterly foreign world it served as a kind of security blanket, if you will; a reminder of home. Now that she was here however and most of her previous apprehensions were dealt with she had no idea why on earth she'd want to be reminded of "home".
* * *
"There's only a week left until Christmas holidays, Cari," Draco persisted again that afternoon. "Have you decided if you're coming or not?" Cari hesitated only a moment.
"Yes," she answered with certainty.
"Excellent."
Cari thrilled, as always, at his charming smile, though her stomach dropped ever so slightly. She hadn't spoken to Lindsey about this since that night back in November. Oh well; it didn't matter now.
The choice was made.
* * *
"I have detention!" Lindsey cried in a furor as she walked in for her lesson with Snape after classes that Friday evening. "Again! Can you believe it?"
"The fact that you have detention," Snape said slickly, "I can believe quite easily. The fact that it was not I who issued it is what surprises me."
"It was Professor Balbossa!" she said in indignation, ignoring Snape's dry comment and yanking out her Astronomy homework irately.
"Professor Balbossa?" Now she had his attention. As opposed to calming his suspicions as time went on, the sordid professor had only increased Snape's relative distrust of him. Not to mention his annoyingly persistent accusation of his own "untrustworthiness".
"I don't know why he hates me!" Lindsey went on crossly, mapping constellations on her parchment for Astronomy.
"I could possibly name a few reasons…" Snape said, smiling slightly.
"Funny, Professor," Lindsey replied with agitated sarcasm, not in the mood for Snape's dry humor, though she had really come to appreciate it. The two were getting along quite well now really.
"Why did you get detention?" he questioned with all seriousness. Now Lindsey seemed rather reluctant to speak.
"Well…" she began diffidently. "I kind of, um… jinxed him."
"You… jinxed him?" Snape asked, a light coming into his eyes and his mouth twitching strangely.
"Not him, exactly," she said quickly. "Just… his pointer."
One of the more annoying things about Balbossa as a teacher was the way that he had recently decided to use a thin wooden pole the length of a yardstick in everything he taught; he used it to point at the chalkboard, to call on people for answers, and to whack students who were not performing that lesson's task correctly, things like that.
"And besides," she added as an afterthought, "It's not like the man didn't deserve it!" Snape couldn't disagree with her there.
She went on to explain to Snape how she had certainly gotten more than her share of whacks (more than everyone else in the class, by any means) and had simply gotten fed up with it. That was why she took the opportunity to use a jinx that she and Snape had been working on recently on the accursed pointer stick, though she had had particular trouble with it in class.
Consequently, the aforementioned jinx was rather similar to the Permanent Sticking Charm; it was another spell cast on an object, and the next person who touched that object would be stuck to it until the jinxer saw fit to release them, or they knew and executed the defense spell. It was very often used as a sort of trap, like digging a hole and covering it with leaves and such so someone can walk by and fall in, only this was much more advanced.
Lindsey went on proudly regaling the tale, not bothering trying to suffuse the roguish grin that spread across her face.
"So he went to use his pointer stick, of course not knowing that I had jinxed it, and when he was done waving it around extravagantly, explaining how to block a Memory Charm, he tried to put it down, and of course couldn't! After about six tries he finally concluded it was jinxed and got so mad…
'Who jinxed this?' he kept asking, really angry, finally using his wand to unjinx the stick. It's really true how his French accent gets suspiciously faint when he's angry. Finally I couldn't take it anymore so I raised my hand.
'What, Miss Wormtongue?' he asked, all exasperated.
'Remember when you yelled at me for not being able to perform a Trap Jinx?' I asked. 'Well, I think I'm pretty good at them now.'"
Snape's eyebrows shot up and a smile played at his lips. This certainly didn't sound like the painfully shy and reserved girl he had been teaching for over a month now.
Lindsey laughed, remembering the look of surprise on Cari's face at her interjection (Cari obviously held the same reserves as Snape), but then sobered up quickly as she continued.
"Well, he got really mad then, really mad. He wasn't yelling anymore. Now he was just real quiet, menacing like, and told me that I'd have a detention, and that I was lucky I didn't get worse." She leaned in closer and spoke secretively, "And boy, the look on his face then… I really did feel lucky."
Snape looked at her a moment longer, then laughed, actually laughed- a good, full laugh- at the thought of what that pompous professor's face must have looked like. Still laughing musingly he ran a hand idly through his greasy hair.
Lindsey joined in his sadistic merriment, his rare laughter quite catching. You know, he's rather good-looking when he smiles, she thought suddenly. Then she caught her breath sharply. There- when he had moved his arm; she was sure she had seen it.
For when Professor Snape had rather carelessly brushed back his hair, he had unwittingly exposed what Lindsey instantly identified as the Dark Mark.
As she walked swiftly back towards the Ravenclaw commonroom her mind raced. The rest of the lesson had been spent as usual; Snape being in a much better disposition since his laugh at the expense of Professor Balbossa; he hadn't noticed the distraction Lindsey tried hard to hide.
As soon as she entered the commonroom her eyes searched for Cari, her heart sinking when she couldn't find her. She must be out with Draco, she thought sullenly; the two were rarely apart of an evening anymore. But then suddenly she spotted her, reading a book in a chair by the window.
"Cari!" Lindsey cried, running over. Cari looked up in surprise.
"I think Professor Snape is the one leading the Death-eaters!" she spoke in a whisper, hardly able to believe her own words.
Since the first offense of the Death-eaters about a month ago in November there had been three other acts of defacement, always with the Dark Mark, glowing green and ominous above the similar messages. Then, the trophy room on the third floor had been completely smashed in, the trophies damaged almost beyond repair- that is, all the trophies but those belonging to Slytherin. And just two days ago, Professor Balbossa had come storming into the hall at breakfast, raging that certain Dark Arts supplies had been stolen from his classroom sometime in the night- what Balbossa had been accusing Severus of.
"What?" Cari asked, blinking. "What do you…?"
"I saw his… his tattoo, his scar, thingy…" Lindsey searched, rubbing her left forearm. "I saw his Dark Mark!" She stared at Cari meaningfully.
"Oh… well then…" Cari murmured, eyebrows raised. "Do you remember that night- when we looked for Duffer?" She turned to Lindsey suddenly, and Lindsey nodded solemnly- how could she forget?
"Well…" Cari hesitated one more moment in thought, then plunged on, "When I saw that… that ceremony and that one person pulled back their hood… I didn't want to tell you at the time but, well… it was Snape."
Lindsey blinked. That should be the end of the matter, and yet… She liked to think she knew him better than that by now, and she could not see him doing anything of the sort. Then she had a thought.
"Wait, no… no that can't be!" she cried, eyes brightening. "That night- he was with me, he couldn't have been there!" She smiled triumphantly, recalling that Snape had actually been the one to retrieve Duffer for her.
"Well yeah, I could've been wrong," Cari said quickly. "But just because that wasn't him that night doesn't mean he isn't still aiding them."
Lindsey thought about that. It made sense, she supposed. And Professor Balbossa had accused him of being behind the Death-eater activity just at the beginning of that week. Still, she shook her head violently.
"No, Professor Snape wouldn't do that," she said strongly.
"How do you explain the Dark Mark then, Lindsey?" Cari challenged. She felt Lindsey was being rather ridiculous defending an obviously guilty professor just because she liked him. "People don't just get them for their fashion value, you know."
"Yes, I know, but…" Lindsey thought back to how he had given her the last healing potion the night of Duffer's rescue, had rescued Duffer in the first place, had obviously made up the "major restocking of potions" to keep her company over winter break, how he'd signed her Hogsmeade permission slip…
No, a man with that much compassion, no matter how unwilling he most often was to show it, would not, could not, be a Death-eater. She told Cari this.
"At least, wouldn't remain a Death-eater," she added thoughtfully. "I mean, no one's perfect- maybe he just made a mistake."
"Mistake or no," Cari insisted gravely, "once you're a Death-eater, there's no going back."
Lindsey stared at the floor. No matter what Cari said, she could not believe that Snape was behind any of the wicked goings-on at the school; her confidence in him was fully restored from her brief moments of doubt.