The first few days were hellish. Moon's disappearance had shaken us all,
and put a wall of distance between us and the others. Slytherins understood
well enough, but those who hadn't been there didn't feel the same rage, the
same helplessness as we did. The other Houses knew of course; Dumbledore
had informed them. I could see the Hufflepuffs' sympathetic looks as I
walked down the corridor, the Ravenclaws' awkward silences when they didn't
know how to handle things as they were. Gryffindors' surprised looks
annoyed me somewhat. It seemed as if they didn't believe for one second
that Moon had been taken.
The glass beads of Moon's necklace had fallen off their string, and without even discussing it, all of us who had been at the Three Broomsticks that night divided the beads between us. We got one bead each. In a melodramatic moment, Pansy dubbed them Moon's Tears, and that nickname stuck. It was the only thing we had left after a girl who had lived in our dormitories for five years. Sarah Moon hadn't been the smartest, or the most cunning, or even the clumsiest. She was just plain and normal, but she had been one of us, and to have her snatched from our grasp like that was somehow more horrifying than if Draco or Pansy had been taken. The knowledge that anyone could be in danger was more frightening than I liked to think about.
But in his cradle-snatching, the Dark Lord had made a mistake. The day he took Moon away from us, he lost whatever support he had in Slytherin. Some of the older students, who had already been ordered by their parents to side with Voldemort, took their letters from home and burned them. But some, too blinded by the lure of power, took Moon's abduction as a sign that Voldemort would win. The had made their choice, we had made ours. There was no plotting, no mistrustful sidelong glances. There was not words exchanged, no minds to convince. What was done was done. But from that night, Slytherin was not one, but two Houses.
We stood divided.
The rift between us would never be mended, that I knew. We could not turn back. Solidarity had never been our thing, but honour was. To come crawling back, asking for forgiveness and to be let within the fold of another group was beneath us all. No one would swallow their pride to that degree. I knew I wouldn't. Those who carried Moon's Tears all irrevocably turned their backs on Voldemort. Others joined us, but not all. The others kept in the opposite end of the Common Room. There was no longer any card-games at night, and the tournament had been cancelled. No one could concentrate on duelling friends and foes when Moon was gone.
Lessons were cancelled, but only for two days, to give us some time to get over our tragic loss, as McGonagall termed it. After that, it was back to the normal routine. I welcomed it with open arms; one more day in our Common Room, sitting silently at the fireplace, wondering how to start talking about something that wouldn't hurt so damn much, and I would have gone crazy. I hadn't known Moon well; I had barely known her at all, but she had somehow always been there, smiling in the background. And the loss of her reminded me all too much of my personal loss. I didn't want to think about it, and so I wouldn't. I refused to.
My mind was numb, and I spent my days when not in the Common Room pacing up and down the corridors, not thinking. The only lesson I really paid attention in was Defence, because I knew Lucas would have my head if I didn't shape up. Curled up in my seat, shoulder to shoulder with Millicent, we waited for our first Defence class since the attack. As the only Slytherins in the class, we kept close to each other. Ravenclaws attempted to offer condolences, but after the initial glares, they kept to the side. In a move that utterly surprised me, Susan Bones came up to us and shook both our hands.
"I'm sorry for your loss, I know how you feel." She said before walking to her seat.
I thanked her silently. When a Hufflepuff, and a well-liked Hufflepuff like Bones showed her sympathy for the devil, or rather the Slytherins, not even the Gryffindors dared to cause trouble with us. Weasley looked as if he wanted to say something, but looked away as Lucas entered. I sent Weasley one last glare before concentrating my attention on something more useful, like the lesson and Lucas for example.
Lucas looked different, somehow. His hair, usually kept in that ridiculously long ponytail of his had come undone and hung down his back like a badly-kept rug. His red eyes were dull, and his shoulders were slumped. I supposed it was because of Moon's disappearance. Lucas had after all been a Slytherin. Though there was something definitely odd about that. He never showed up in the yearbooks, and my father, who had been to school at Hogwarts just two years ahead of Snape never mentioned Lucas. But of course, I hadn't seen him much over the last few years. Lucas marched up to his desk and turned to look at us.
"Today will be just as any other day," He said slowly, as if having to stop and think before forming the words, "Even in light of what has happened, the Headmaster has come to the decision that all teaching shall be conducted as it always has been. However, you are no longer allowed to leave my sight during lessons, which makes our project difficult to complete. I have not yet found a way around this predicament, so today will be rather different from the lesson I planned."
He settled down on his desk and sighed. Obviously unhappy with Dumbledore's orders, Lucas picked up one of the many books cluttering up his desk. Opening it on a random page, he appeared to be looking for something. The class was either too tired or too indifferent to say anything or protest because they weren't allowed to work on their projects, and sat on their chairs silently, not even bother to fidget. Lucas cleared his throat and began to read from the book, and I felt Millicent's hand creep into mine. I clutched at it, trying to reassure her silently. She had done little else but cry since Moon disappeared. But she would not break down in class; Slytherin pride would not allow it.
"Curses are, one and all, created to trouble their victims in some way. Some confuse, some stun, some create pain that shakes the very bones and breaks the spirit. Curses are used to defend oneself, or to maim and hurt, but only a few can kill, or break the mind. These curses are most often filed under the name Dark Arts. Some people use these regularly, either in defence of themselves and others, or as a weapon." Lucas looked up from his text and watched us, as if he just realised we were there. "But no matter for which the purpose is, the Dark Arts preys on the mind and body. Long use of it changes appearance and mind. Only the strongest keep sane after regular use of the worst spells and Dark Arts."
This new topic had potential to become interesting, depending on what exactly we were supposed to do. Hogwarts had one of the best Defence Against the Dark Arts curriculum in the known world, but we never got to learn about the curses themselves, only how to make them harmless. Durmstrang was the exact opposite. But now, Lucas just might teach us the real way of everything. Know thy enemy and all, since he was so find of words. I refocused on him; he had continued speaking.
"The Unforgivable Curses are only a fraction of all the Dark Arts of this world. The binding spells, blood rites, mind-controlling spells and mutilating hexes are all part of what you will be forced to defend yourself against in this war. And you will fight." The smile that flashed by was all other than happy, "I survived the last war, and I know what will happen. Children as young as fourteen were forced to fight for their lives on the battlefields. No one speaks of it now, because they are afraid, but that is the truth. And I don't want your blood on my hands, your lives on my conscience. It might be a war, but survivors are what counts, not the number of dead."
"Well, we know it's a war, but what's this got to do with winning it?" Potter interrupted, "We need to learn spells and hexes, not talk about how horrible they are!"
Lucas motioned for him to be quiet, not liking the interruption of his lesson. It didn't take a genius to figure that out. Partly, I agreed with Potter, something I would never admit to, but I could see the logic in talking about it instead of practising it. None of us, bar a few, were even ready to handle learning some of the defence-spells. Truth be told, we were ridiculously behind, all of us, though some of us had taken up extra- curricular activities that more than made up for it. For example, my knowledge of less-than-legal spells was damn near encyclopaedic by the time I was through both my personal library and the small one kept in the Slytherin Common Room. Millicent could recite Woddley's Sequence, the strongest defence against memory-blockage known to man, effortlessly. Potter was obviously unique in his encounters with Voldemort, and he was strong enough to defend himself no matter what was thrown at him, loath as I was to admit it, and Granger's bookworming had earned her knowledge she knew how to use. Bones, for all her Hufflepuff qualities, was tougher than she looked, and from eavesdropping I knew she'd earned an O in Defence. No one did that unless they knew what they were doing.
But the rest, the rest were mediocre. Longbottom, was one of the names that surprised me, seeing as he was damn near a Squib, but he had made it this far without breaking. He'd make it another few paces. But he wasn't as good as sixth year students ought to be, had been before the terrible teachers came along. None of us were as good as we could be.
"A good wizard, a wizard able to survive this upcoming war, will not only be able to hex and curse his foes, but also know when and why to do it." Lucas' voice remained steady, although his irritation was obvious. "If you have any objection to how I teach my subject, feel free to argue it with me, as Zabini did. But never disrupt my lesson again, Mr Potter, or you will be raking muck out of the Owlry till kingdom come."
I looked away from the window at the mention of my name, and watched Potter sink back into his seat with rage written in his eyes. Lucas matched Potter's glare with one of his own, and he won. A few days ago, I would have smirked superiorly, at the sight of Potter's defeat, but I couldn't be bothered now. It had somehow grown unimportant to prove myself. My list made at the beginning of the term had been thrown in the waste-paper basket. It was almost funny, how something could change everything so fast. All that mattered now was keeping together, not falling apart on them.
"And that, unfortunately, concludes our lesson for today." Lucas said, snapping the book shut suddenly. "Your homework is to pick out the one curse or spell you think is the worst, and argue for it. I will not set a length, but it is quality over quantity, you hear?"
The class that came out of that lesson was a more controlled and subdued class than the one that went in. Something in Lucas's words had gotten through to them. Millicent and I were already more silent and subdued than the rest of them, but even I could see the truth in what he had said. I fingered the bead that I kept in my pocket, and tried not to think too much. It was a strategy I had gotten used to. I had avoided thinking about my father's death, and so I had avoided a nervous break-down. And it was working.
********'
The homework assignment was something to get my mind off things as they were, but it had proved harder than I thought it would. It was hard to choose, considering the disgusting imagination humans seemed to have when it came to hurting and maiming someone. Blood rites, binding someone to oneself, or hurting them, but taking some of their blood and keeping it. Binding Spells, bonding the victim to the caster's mind, giving the ability to almost control the victim. Bone breaking curses and the one nasty hex that turned ones innards inside-out. That one made me nauseous, with the descriptive pictures in the book. I was having a hard time making up my mind about which one to choose.
I settled in with a book of mine, and tried to read it, but my mind was too scattered. I was working on auto-pilot, or whatever the Muggle term was. I'd heard it mentioned by some Ravenclaws once. It was almost as if I wasn't in control of my own actions. I reminded myself of somebody else. Somebody letting someone control their mind.
My eyes snapped open. There it was. I knew exactly what to write about. Mind-controlling spells. Imperius, among others, were just the sort of spell or curse that everyone should fear more than anything. I nearly flew up from my seat and began a wild search for a quill and bottled ink, plotting out the argumentation in my head. It was going to be perfect, but I needed to research first. I knew there was something about Imperius in the House library downstairs. I raced down the stairs, dodged a rather put out Tracy Davies, and vaulted over the couch. I snatched the book from Agnes's grasp and ran back up the stairs.
Flipping through the pages, I read as much as I could about how the Imperius worked. If it was going to be a good argumentation, it had to be based in fact. Stands to reason. I buried myself under the covers of my bed and read the book, all of it in one sitting, in less than three hours. It helped that I's read it before, and I got a lot of information on the curse, things I really rather I didn't know. I started jotting things down randomly, and didn't even look up when Draco entered. He stood in the doorway, observing my makeshift house, made out of blankets and pillows, and shook his head.
"Agnes is furious, you know," He commented.
"Let her be," I answered. "I need this for homework. She was only reading it for leisure. Oh, and about that; please shove off, I'm working."
"Defence homework?"
"How did you know?"
"Millie's down in the Common Room, tearing out her hair trying to decide which curse to choose." Draco chuckled, "Quite funny to watch, really. Gaspar was going frantic trying to calm her down, so it was quite the show."
"Hope Gaspar gets his head together and snogs her sometime soon," I mumbled while I flipped through the pages trying to look for the date of Imperius' creation. "Wonder if I could bash some sense into him with a book. Should make him less scatter-brained where Millie's concerned."
"You're actually rooting for that relationship?" Draco sounded incredulous. He threw himself down on his bed and, propping his head up on his arms, stared at me in disbelief. "It's never going to happen. Millie's never had a boyfriend before, she won't know what to do with one if you threw Gaspar after her."
"Then we'll throw her an instruction manual as well; she's a bright girl, she can read. She'll figure it out." I shrugged the best I could lying down. "Now shut up, I'm still working."
Draco grumbled, but did shut up long enough for me to get somewhere with my essay. Darkness fell, and I'd missed dinner before I finally re-emerged from the deep Caverns of Dread, where the feared Homework lives and thrives on the minds of unsuspecting students. I returned the book to a rather annoyed Agnes Lestrange, patted Millicent's now less-than-fully-haired head and set off in search of the nearest coffee-cup.
*****'
I really shouldn't be walking in the corridors as this time of night and especially not alone, but I had missed dinner and I needed coffee and some food. There was plainly no living without it; there wasn't enough caffeine in my body to keep my heart beating. Besides, after having snatched a Slytherin, Voldemort wasn't probable to snatch another one from under Dumbledore's nose. Not in the dungeons, and not now, right after Moon. Why he ever snatched a Slytherin at all was a mystery to me; it had neatly separated what could be called "his" House in two. Sheer stupidity, in my opinion.
Strolling down the corridors, I began to count the paintings. By the end of the first corridor, I was convinced there was enough paintings in Hogwarts to adorn the walls of a large house. After the second, I'd added an outhouse to that equation. After the third, a three-story house with an outhouse and a broom-shed. After the fourth, it was getting ridiculous. After the fifth and sixth, I'd gotten to three large houses and a flat in Paris. By then I had also reached the kitchen. Giving up on ever reckoning how many paintings there were at Hogwarts, I tickled the pear in the painting and entered the kitchen.
"What is Master wanting?" A high pitched, almost squeaky voice asked from somewhere in the vicinity of my knees.
"Coffee, and sandwiches." I said, sitting down in one of the ridiculously undersized chairs.
The House Elf wandered off in the now rather dark caverns of the huge kitchen, humming what sounded like ´Mrs Widgery's Lodger´ on the way. A few other Elves were moving around in the darkness, muttering in their high- pitched voices amongst themselves, in a language I guessed was their own. The sandwiches as the coffee was soon on the table in front of me, and with a smile and a nod at the overjoyed Elf, I set to work. The sandwiches disappeared quickly, as did the coffee. I filled it up again at least three more times before I had had enough, and pushed the cup away. Immediately, the Elf was there to pick it up and carry it away, shining with happiness.
House Elves were creepy. They always wanted to please and serve, but their happiness as they did so, and their absolute unquestionable loyalty to their masters who were often mistreating them was outright frightening. I left the kitchen as quickly as I could, and started back for the Slytherin Common Room. Most of the paintings were asleep, though there was a rather wild party going on in the one of the Lowsley witches, on the first floor, just above the staircase. Obviously someone had smuggled alcohol into their picture and they were past tipsy and well on their way into pissed when I walked past.
Snape patrolled down near the kitchen, but his rounds didn't start until four in the morning, and it wasn't even one o' clock yet, so I was safe. Hogwarts was a very odd place in the middle of the night. While the paintings slept, the castle came alive. Stairs moved and the steps jumped over each other and rearranged themselves. Suits of armour took strolls in the corridors. Rooms appeared and disappeared randomly. Lights went on and off, in different colours and different corridors. I was just turning around the corner of the corridor which lead to the Common Room when I heard steps behind me.
I halted abruptly, and listened. There was no accompanying weird mumble, so it couldn't be Filch. It wasn't the long, sweeping steps of Snape, and no other had reason to be down in the dungeons at this time of night. The footfalls were short, quick and determined, the footfalls of a person who knows where they were going. Footfalls I didn't recognise. I froze, paralysed by the thought that it might be one of the Death Eaters entering Hogwarts to snatch away another student. It was a completely unreasonable idea, since the wards on the castle had been strengthened even more after Moon was taken, so that now not even a fly could get in undetected. However unreasonable, I wasn't exactly thinking straight. What if it was a Death Eater, who had gotten in undetected? I might be good at duelling, but Death Eaters had no scruples. They would not wait for me to get my wand out before they knocked me out and killed me or carried me away. Panic started to rise in my chest and I stared at the corner of the corridor in fear.
"Mr Zabini, what are you doing in the corridors at night, and alone?" McGonagalls voice, no matter how berating, had never been more welcome.
"Drinking coffee?" I tried.
"Try again, please, and seriously this time," McGonagall tapped her foot and crossed her arms.
"I was in the kitchen, getting something to eat since I missed dinner doing my homework," I rattled off the details, "And I was just heading back to the Common Room to get some sleep."
"Students are not allowed to go out after dinner, Mr Zabini, and definitely not alone." Her voice was a careful monotone, but I could tell she was angry with me. As she should be, being a teacher, "I am in no position to take points from you outside lessons, as I am not your Head of House. Please follow me."
Trailing after McGonagall, I felt like I'd been caught with my hand in the cookie jar right before dinner. We climbed the stairs, which made me wonder a bit. Snape had his office in the dungeon, so there would be no sense in climbing stairs. But, knowing that each time I opened my mouth I would only get further into trouble, I didn't say anything. McGonagall knew what she was doing. Hopefully. We came up on the second floor before McGonagall turned away from the stairs and headed down one of the corridors. She was walking so fast that if I hadn't been as tall as I was, I would have had to run to keep up with her. She seemed oddly nervous, something that I'd never seen happen with the formidable Head of Gryffindor. Needless to say, it unnerved me somewhat.
We didn't stop walking until we were standing outside the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom. By then, I had gone by puzzled and was a good way into confused. Snape was my Head of House and the logical one to go to when in need of detention and points taken. I was just about to open my mouth and ask about it when McGonagall knocked on the door. Lucas voice said something that might have been ´Come in´ and she opened the door. Lucas was sitting at his desk with a stack of parchment in front of him, still grading at one in the morning. He looked tired, but then again everyone did these days. Rubbing his eyes, he waved us into the room. One eyebrow was raised when I stepped inside and shut the door, but he didn't say anything, waiting for McGonagall to explain.
"Mr Zabini broke rules by wandering around alone in the dungeons after dinner." McGonagall informed him before turning on her heels and headed out the door.
The silence was unbearable, but I wasn't about to break it. Instead, I sat down in a chair in front of Lucas' desk, and puzzled over the mystery of why McGonagall hadn't taken me to Snape. Lucas put down his quill and leaned forward, elbows on the table and rubbed his eyes before looking at me directly. I looked back and waited for him to speak.
"Zabini, I'm sure you understand the severity of what you have done without me explaining it to you. I would like to know why you were out traipsing around the castle at one in the morning." Lucas raised an eyebrow.
"Severe caffeine-to-blood ratio drop." I answered with a perfectly straight face. "Besides, I'd missed dinner and needed to eat."
"You certainly are one of a kind, Zabini." Lucas shook his head sadly, but I could see him flash a fraction of a second smile, "Only you of all students in this creaky old castle would go out for a cup of coffee at one in the morning. You do understand that you've earned yourself detention and ten points will be removed from Slytherin?"
"Yes, what a horrible person I am. I deserve to be hanged upside down from the Great Hall ceiling with a red-and-gold bow on my head, just to make the humiliation complete." Was my flat-voiced reply. "Now, before I get going back to the Common Room and some much needed sleep, can I ask a question?"
"What is it?"
"Where's Snape? Why am I here? I should be talking to him right now, not you."
Lucas sighed and shuffled the parchments around on his desk. I waited. I had all night. Assignments written in black ink, slashed over with red ink changed places on the desk-top, and Lucas put his quill in a desk drawer. I waited. I had all night. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Lucas stopped shuffling parchment and looked at me again.
"Professor McGonagall, for all that she is a formidable woman, believes in not telling her students things. I for one do not agree with that method. Maybe too many years in the field has made me paranoid; the more you know the better prepared you are." He looked uneasy even though he stated I needed to know. "Severus Snape isn't here."
"Not here as in not in the room?" I raised an eyebrow. "That's obvious."
"As in presently not in the castle of the immediate vicinity of the castle." Lucas looked troubled. "And he will not be returning in the immediate future. In the meantime, I am temporary Head of Slytherin, as one of the three Slytherins presently on staff. Since Ataria did not feel her day-rhythm was up to par with taking care of a House, and Severus left, I was the only one left capable of dealing with taking care of you. Professor McGonagall does not appreciate it, as I am not her favourite person in the world, but she would never let personal feelings get in the way of running the school. I am going to let you go now, and I want you to go back to the Common Room as fast as possible, and tell everyone still awake about the arrangement. I will be coming by tomorrow morning to see you all, and to tell you the details of your detention."
Information overload had taken hold of my brain, so I could merely nod and follow his instructions. The next few weeks were going to be interesting. Not that I didn't think Lucas was up to it, oh no, but I didn't think all Slytherins were going to accept him as readily as I did.
The glass beads of Moon's necklace had fallen off their string, and without even discussing it, all of us who had been at the Three Broomsticks that night divided the beads between us. We got one bead each. In a melodramatic moment, Pansy dubbed them Moon's Tears, and that nickname stuck. It was the only thing we had left after a girl who had lived in our dormitories for five years. Sarah Moon hadn't been the smartest, or the most cunning, or even the clumsiest. She was just plain and normal, but she had been one of us, and to have her snatched from our grasp like that was somehow more horrifying than if Draco or Pansy had been taken. The knowledge that anyone could be in danger was more frightening than I liked to think about.
But in his cradle-snatching, the Dark Lord had made a mistake. The day he took Moon away from us, he lost whatever support he had in Slytherin. Some of the older students, who had already been ordered by their parents to side with Voldemort, took their letters from home and burned them. But some, too blinded by the lure of power, took Moon's abduction as a sign that Voldemort would win. The had made their choice, we had made ours. There was no plotting, no mistrustful sidelong glances. There was not words exchanged, no minds to convince. What was done was done. But from that night, Slytherin was not one, but two Houses.
We stood divided.
The rift between us would never be mended, that I knew. We could not turn back. Solidarity had never been our thing, but honour was. To come crawling back, asking for forgiveness and to be let within the fold of another group was beneath us all. No one would swallow their pride to that degree. I knew I wouldn't. Those who carried Moon's Tears all irrevocably turned their backs on Voldemort. Others joined us, but not all. The others kept in the opposite end of the Common Room. There was no longer any card-games at night, and the tournament had been cancelled. No one could concentrate on duelling friends and foes when Moon was gone.
Lessons were cancelled, but only for two days, to give us some time to get over our tragic loss, as McGonagall termed it. After that, it was back to the normal routine. I welcomed it with open arms; one more day in our Common Room, sitting silently at the fireplace, wondering how to start talking about something that wouldn't hurt so damn much, and I would have gone crazy. I hadn't known Moon well; I had barely known her at all, but she had somehow always been there, smiling in the background. And the loss of her reminded me all too much of my personal loss. I didn't want to think about it, and so I wouldn't. I refused to.
My mind was numb, and I spent my days when not in the Common Room pacing up and down the corridors, not thinking. The only lesson I really paid attention in was Defence, because I knew Lucas would have my head if I didn't shape up. Curled up in my seat, shoulder to shoulder with Millicent, we waited for our first Defence class since the attack. As the only Slytherins in the class, we kept close to each other. Ravenclaws attempted to offer condolences, but after the initial glares, they kept to the side. In a move that utterly surprised me, Susan Bones came up to us and shook both our hands.
"I'm sorry for your loss, I know how you feel." She said before walking to her seat.
I thanked her silently. When a Hufflepuff, and a well-liked Hufflepuff like Bones showed her sympathy for the devil, or rather the Slytherins, not even the Gryffindors dared to cause trouble with us. Weasley looked as if he wanted to say something, but looked away as Lucas entered. I sent Weasley one last glare before concentrating my attention on something more useful, like the lesson and Lucas for example.
Lucas looked different, somehow. His hair, usually kept in that ridiculously long ponytail of his had come undone and hung down his back like a badly-kept rug. His red eyes were dull, and his shoulders were slumped. I supposed it was because of Moon's disappearance. Lucas had after all been a Slytherin. Though there was something definitely odd about that. He never showed up in the yearbooks, and my father, who had been to school at Hogwarts just two years ahead of Snape never mentioned Lucas. But of course, I hadn't seen him much over the last few years. Lucas marched up to his desk and turned to look at us.
"Today will be just as any other day," He said slowly, as if having to stop and think before forming the words, "Even in light of what has happened, the Headmaster has come to the decision that all teaching shall be conducted as it always has been. However, you are no longer allowed to leave my sight during lessons, which makes our project difficult to complete. I have not yet found a way around this predicament, so today will be rather different from the lesson I planned."
He settled down on his desk and sighed. Obviously unhappy with Dumbledore's orders, Lucas picked up one of the many books cluttering up his desk. Opening it on a random page, he appeared to be looking for something. The class was either too tired or too indifferent to say anything or protest because they weren't allowed to work on their projects, and sat on their chairs silently, not even bother to fidget. Lucas cleared his throat and began to read from the book, and I felt Millicent's hand creep into mine. I clutched at it, trying to reassure her silently. She had done little else but cry since Moon disappeared. But she would not break down in class; Slytherin pride would not allow it.
"Curses are, one and all, created to trouble their victims in some way. Some confuse, some stun, some create pain that shakes the very bones and breaks the spirit. Curses are used to defend oneself, or to maim and hurt, but only a few can kill, or break the mind. These curses are most often filed under the name Dark Arts. Some people use these regularly, either in defence of themselves and others, or as a weapon." Lucas looked up from his text and watched us, as if he just realised we were there. "But no matter for which the purpose is, the Dark Arts preys on the mind and body. Long use of it changes appearance and mind. Only the strongest keep sane after regular use of the worst spells and Dark Arts."
This new topic had potential to become interesting, depending on what exactly we were supposed to do. Hogwarts had one of the best Defence Against the Dark Arts curriculum in the known world, but we never got to learn about the curses themselves, only how to make them harmless. Durmstrang was the exact opposite. But now, Lucas just might teach us the real way of everything. Know thy enemy and all, since he was so find of words. I refocused on him; he had continued speaking.
"The Unforgivable Curses are only a fraction of all the Dark Arts of this world. The binding spells, blood rites, mind-controlling spells and mutilating hexes are all part of what you will be forced to defend yourself against in this war. And you will fight." The smile that flashed by was all other than happy, "I survived the last war, and I know what will happen. Children as young as fourteen were forced to fight for their lives on the battlefields. No one speaks of it now, because they are afraid, but that is the truth. And I don't want your blood on my hands, your lives on my conscience. It might be a war, but survivors are what counts, not the number of dead."
"Well, we know it's a war, but what's this got to do with winning it?" Potter interrupted, "We need to learn spells and hexes, not talk about how horrible they are!"
Lucas motioned for him to be quiet, not liking the interruption of his lesson. It didn't take a genius to figure that out. Partly, I agreed with Potter, something I would never admit to, but I could see the logic in talking about it instead of practising it. None of us, bar a few, were even ready to handle learning some of the defence-spells. Truth be told, we were ridiculously behind, all of us, though some of us had taken up extra- curricular activities that more than made up for it. For example, my knowledge of less-than-legal spells was damn near encyclopaedic by the time I was through both my personal library and the small one kept in the Slytherin Common Room. Millicent could recite Woddley's Sequence, the strongest defence against memory-blockage known to man, effortlessly. Potter was obviously unique in his encounters with Voldemort, and he was strong enough to defend himself no matter what was thrown at him, loath as I was to admit it, and Granger's bookworming had earned her knowledge she knew how to use. Bones, for all her Hufflepuff qualities, was tougher than she looked, and from eavesdropping I knew she'd earned an O in Defence. No one did that unless they knew what they were doing.
But the rest, the rest were mediocre. Longbottom, was one of the names that surprised me, seeing as he was damn near a Squib, but he had made it this far without breaking. He'd make it another few paces. But he wasn't as good as sixth year students ought to be, had been before the terrible teachers came along. None of us were as good as we could be.
"A good wizard, a wizard able to survive this upcoming war, will not only be able to hex and curse his foes, but also know when and why to do it." Lucas' voice remained steady, although his irritation was obvious. "If you have any objection to how I teach my subject, feel free to argue it with me, as Zabini did. But never disrupt my lesson again, Mr Potter, or you will be raking muck out of the Owlry till kingdom come."
I looked away from the window at the mention of my name, and watched Potter sink back into his seat with rage written in his eyes. Lucas matched Potter's glare with one of his own, and he won. A few days ago, I would have smirked superiorly, at the sight of Potter's defeat, but I couldn't be bothered now. It had somehow grown unimportant to prove myself. My list made at the beginning of the term had been thrown in the waste-paper basket. It was almost funny, how something could change everything so fast. All that mattered now was keeping together, not falling apart on them.
"And that, unfortunately, concludes our lesson for today." Lucas said, snapping the book shut suddenly. "Your homework is to pick out the one curse or spell you think is the worst, and argue for it. I will not set a length, but it is quality over quantity, you hear?"
The class that came out of that lesson was a more controlled and subdued class than the one that went in. Something in Lucas's words had gotten through to them. Millicent and I were already more silent and subdued than the rest of them, but even I could see the truth in what he had said. I fingered the bead that I kept in my pocket, and tried not to think too much. It was a strategy I had gotten used to. I had avoided thinking about my father's death, and so I had avoided a nervous break-down. And it was working.
********'
The homework assignment was something to get my mind off things as they were, but it had proved harder than I thought it would. It was hard to choose, considering the disgusting imagination humans seemed to have when it came to hurting and maiming someone. Blood rites, binding someone to oneself, or hurting them, but taking some of their blood and keeping it. Binding Spells, bonding the victim to the caster's mind, giving the ability to almost control the victim. Bone breaking curses and the one nasty hex that turned ones innards inside-out. That one made me nauseous, with the descriptive pictures in the book. I was having a hard time making up my mind about which one to choose.
I settled in with a book of mine, and tried to read it, but my mind was too scattered. I was working on auto-pilot, or whatever the Muggle term was. I'd heard it mentioned by some Ravenclaws once. It was almost as if I wasn't in control of my own actions. I reminded myself of somebody else. Somebody letting someone control their mind.
My eyes snapped open. There it was. I knew exactly what to write about. Mind-controlling spells. Imperius, among others, were just the sort of spell or curse that everyone should fear more than anything. I nearly flew up from my seat and began a wild search for a quill and bottled ink, plotting out the argumentation in my head. It was going to be perfect, but I needed to research first. I knew there was something about Imperius in the House library downstairs. I raced down the stairs, dodged a rather put out Tracy Davies, and vaulted over the couch. I snatched the book from Agnes's grasp and ran back up the stairs.
Flipping through the pages, I read as much as I could about how the Imperius worked. If it was going to be a good argumentation, it had to be based in fact. Stands to reason. I buried myself under the covers of my bed and read the book, all of it in one sitting, in less than three hours. It helped that I's read it before, and I got a lot of information on the curse, things I really rather I didn't know. I started jotting things down randomly, and didn't even look up when Draco entered. He stood in the doorway, observing my makeshift house, made out of blankets and pillows, and shook his head.
"Agnes is furious, you know," He commented.
"Let her be," I answered. "I need this for homework. She was only reading it for leisure. Oh, and about that; please shove off, I'm working."
"Defence homework?"
"How did you know?"
"Millie's down in the Common Room, tearing out her hair trying to decide which curse to choose." Draco chuckled, "Quite funny to watch, really. Gaspar was going frantic trying to calm her down, so it was quite the show."
"Hope Gaspar gets his head together and snogs her sometime soon," I mumbled while I flipped through the pages trying to look for the date of Imperius' creation. "Wonder if I could bash some sense into him with a book. Should make him less scatter-brained where Millie's concerned."
"You're actually rooting for that relationship?" Draco sounded incredulous. He threw himself down on his bed and, propping his head up on his arms, stared at me in disbelief. "It's never going to happen. Millie's never had a boyfriend before, she won't know what to do with one if you threw Gaspar after her."
"Then we'll throw her an instruction manual as well; she's a bright girl, she can read. She'll figure it out." I shrugged the best I could lying down. "Now shut up, I'm still working."
Draco grumbled, but did shut up long enough for me to get somewhere with my essay. Darkness fell, and I'd missed dinner before I finally re-emerged from the deep Caverns of Dread, where the feared Homework lives and thrives on the minds of unsuspecting students. I returned the book to a rather annoyed Agnes Lestrange, patted Millicent's now less-than-fully-haired head and set off in search of the nearest coffee-cup.
*****'
I really shouldn't be walking in the corridors as this time of night and especially not alone, but I had missed dinner and I needed coffee and some food. There was plainly no living without it; there wasn't enough caffeine in my body to keep my heart beating. Besides, after having snatched a Slytherin, Voldemort wasn't probable to snatch another one from under Dumbledore's nose. Not in the dungeons, and not now, right after Moon. Why he ever snatched a Slytherin at all was a mystery to me; it had neatly separated what could be called "his" House in two. Sheer stupidity, in my opinion.
Strolling down the corridors, I began to count the paintings. By the end of the first corridor, I was convinced there was enough paintings in Hogwarts to adorn the walls of a large house. After the second, I'd added an outhouse to that equation. After the third, a three-story house with an outhouse and a broom-shed. After the fourth, it was getting ridiculous. After the fifth and sixth, I'd gotten to three large houses and a flat in Paris. By then I had also reached the kitchen. Giving up on ever reckoning how many paintings there were at Hogwarts, I tickled the pear in the painting and entered the kitchen.
"What is Master wanting?" A high pitched, almost squeaky voice asked from somewhere in the vicinity of my knees.
"Coffee, and sandwiches." I said, sitting down in one of the ridiculously undersized chairs.
The House Elf wandered off in the now rather dark caverns of the huge kitchen, humming what sounded like ´Mrs Widgery's Lodger´ on the way. A few other Elves were moving around in the darkness, muttering in their high- pitched voices amongst themselves, in a language I guessed was their own. The sandwiches as the coffee was soon on the table in front of me, and with a smile and a nod at the overjoyed Elf, I set to work. The sandwiches disappeared quickly, as did the coffee. I filled it up again at least three more times before I had had enough, and pushed the cup away. Immediately, the Elf was there to pick it up and carry it away, shining with happiness.
House Elves were creepy. They always wanted to please and serve, but their happiness as they did so, and their absolute unquestionable loyalty to their masters who were often mistreating them was outright frightening. I left the kitchen as quickly as I could, and started back for the Slytherin Common Room. Most of the paintings were asleep, though there was a rather wild party going on in the one of the Lowsley witches, on the first floor, just above the staircase. Obviously someone had smuggled alcohol into their picture and they were past tipsy and well on their way into pissed when I walked past.
Snape patrolled down near the kitchen, but his rounds didn't start until four in the morning, and it wasn't even one o' clock yet, so I was safe. Hogwarts was a very odd place in the middle of the night. While the paintings slept, the castle came alive. Stairs moved and the steps jumped over each other and rearranged themselves. Suits of armour took strolls in the corridors. Rooms appeared and disappeared randomly. Lights went on and off, in different colours and different corridors. I was just turning around the corner of the corridor which lead to the Common Room when I heard steps behind me.
I halted abruptly, and listened. There was no accompanying weird mumble, so it couldn't be Filch. It wasn't the long, sweeping steps of Snape, and no other had reason to be down in the dungeons at this time of night. The footfalls were short, quick and determined, the footfalls of a person who knows where they were going. Footfalls I didn't recognise. I froze, paralysed by the thought that it might be one of the Death Eaters entering Hogwarts to snatch away another student. It was a completely unreasonable idea, since the wards on the castle had been strengthened even more after Moon was taken, so that now not even a fly could get in undetected. However unreasonable, I wasn't exactly thinking straight. What if it was a Death Eater, who had gotten in undetected? I might be good at duelling, but Death Eaters had no scruples. They would not wait for me to get my wand out before they knocked me out and killed me or carried me away. Panic started to rise in my chest and I stared at the corner of the corridor in fear.
"Mr Zabini, what are you doing in the corridors at night, and alone?" McGonagalls voice, no matter how berating, had never been more welcome.
"Drinking coffee?" I tried.
"Try again, please, and seriously this time," McGonagall tapped her foot and crossed her arms.
"I was in the kitchen, getting something to eat since I missed dinner doing my homework," I rattled off the details, "And I was just heading back to the Common Room to get some sleep."
"Students are not allowed to go out after dinner, Mr Zabini, and definitely not alone." Her voice was a careful monotone, but I could tell she was angry with me. As she should be, being a teacher, "I am in no position to take points from you outside lessons, as I am not your Head of House. Please follow me."
Trailing after McGonagall, I felt like I'd been caught with my hand in the cookie jar right before dinner. We climbed the stairs, which made me wonder a bit. Snape had his office in the dungeon, so there would be no sense in climbing stairs. But, knowing that each time I opened my mouth I would only get further into trouble, I didn't say anything. McGonagall knew what she was doing. Hopefully. We came up on the second floor before McGonagall turned away from the stairs and headed down one of the corridors. She was walking so fast that if I hadn't been as tall as I was, I would have had to run to keep up with her. She seemed oddly nervous, something that I'd never seen happen with the formidable Head of Gryffindor. Needless to say, it unnerved me somewhat.
We didn't stop walking until we were standing outside the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom. By then, I had gone by puzzled and was a good way into confused. Snape was my Head of House and the logical one to go to when in need of detention and points taken. I was just about to open my mouth and ask about it when McGonagall knocked on the door. Lucas voice said something that might have been ´Come in´ and she opened the door. Lucas was sitting at his desk with a stack of parchment in front of him, still grading at one in the morning. He looked tired, but then again everyone did these days. Rubbing his eyes, he waved us into the room. One eyebrow was raised when I stepped inside and shut the door, but he didn't say anything, waiting for McGonagall to explain.
"Mr Zabini broke rules by wandering around alone in the dungeons after dinner." McGonagall informed him before turning on her heels and headed out the door.
The silence was unbearable, but I wasn't about to break it. Instead, I sat down in a chair in front of Lucas' desk, and puzzled over the mystery of why McGonagall hadn't taken me to Snape. Lucas put down his quill and leaned forward, elbows on the table and rubbed his eyes before looking at me directly. I looked back and waited for him to speak.
"Zabini, I'm sure you understand the severity of what you have done without me explaining it to you. I would like to know why you were out traipsing around the castle at one in the morning." Lucas raised an eyebrow.
"Severe caffeine-to-blood ratio drop." I answered with a perfectly straight face. "Besides, I'd missed dinner and needed to eat."
"You certainly are one of a kind, Zabini." Lucas shook his head sadly, but I could see him flash a fraction of a second smile, "Only you of all students in this creaky old castle would go out for a cup of coffee at one in the morning. You do understand that you've earned yourself detention and ten points will be removed from Slytherin?"
"Yes, what a horrible person I am. I deserve to be hanged upside down from the Great Hall ceiling with a red-and-gold bow on my head, just to make the humiliation complete." Was my flat-voiced reply. "Now, before I get going back to the Common Room and some much needed sleep, can I ask a question?"
"What is it?"
"Where's Snape? Why am I here? I should be talking to him right now, not you."
Lucas sighed and shuffled the parchments around on his desk. I waited. I had all night. Assignments written in black ink, slashed over with red ink changed places on the desk-top, and Lucas put his quill in a desk drawer. I waited. I had all night. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Lucas stopped shuffling parchment and looked at me again.
"Professor McGonagall, for all that she is a formidable woman, believes in not telling her students things. I for one do not agree with that method. Maybe too many years in the field has made me paranoid; the more you know the better prepared you are." He looked uneasy even though he stated I needed to know. "Severus Snape isn't here."
"Not here as in not in the room?" I raised an eyebrow. "That's obvious."
"As in presently not in the castle of the immediate vicinity of the castle." Lucas looked troubled. "And he will not be returning in the immediate future. In the meantime, I am temporary Head of Slytherin, as one of the three Slytherins presently on staff. Since Ataria did not feel her day-rhythm was up to par with taking care of a House, and Severus left, I was the only one left capable of dealing with taking care of you. Professor McGonagall does not appreciate it, as I am not her favourite person in the world, but she would never let personal feelings get in the way of running the school. I am going to let you go now, and I want you to go back to the Common Room as fast as possible, and tell everyone still awake about the arrangement. I will be coming by tomorrow morning to see you all, and to tell you the details of your detention."
Information overload had taken hold of my brain, so I could merely nod and follow his instructions. The next few weeks were going to be interesting. Not that I didn't think Lucas was up to it, oh no, but I didn't think all Slytherins were going to accept him as readily as I did.