Chapter 5:
"I would never try to kill you"

But she couldn't say the same of other people. Lestrange wouldn't hesitate to avada blood traitor Weasley just for some practice, as he would call it anyway, when he would invariably boast about his murder to her.
She shuddered, her vividly morbid imagination made getting what little sleep she did even harder.

Having just left the hospital wing, as she turned into a corridor, she heard soft voices coming from further down in the darkness. She stopped, holding her breath, and moved towards the side wall, pressing herself against it. Quickly thoughts flickered through her head; tonight was not her rounds, if it was a younger student she could get away just by using the head girl card, and dock some points from them, but an older student, she might have to embellish a little more. A teacher however, then she would have to try her hardest to not get seen as she made her escape into the darkness.
But as her fight or flight response took over, the voices got fainter and further away.
Breathing slowly and deeply to calm herself down, she suddenly realised that she recognised those voices. Especially the tittering giggly one.
It was Hellebore! The others must be with her.
What were they up to?
The only room down this hall was the library.

Contemplating whether to just go to bed and forget all about it or to go against her better judgment and desire for sleep and follow them, she just stood there and squeezed her eyes shut. Images of Weasley's head being hit with a bludger played in her mind and his subsequent fall as he tipped off his broom…
No! She shook her head.
She had to follow them, why would they do such a thing? And so risky too? It was unlike Lestrange to jeopardise everything for such a public spectacle. What did they even gain from such a stunt? And most importantly why Weasley? Had they found out about his enquiries?
What weren't they telling her?
She had to find out for herself.
Decision made to follow her curiosity, she slowly walked towards the library, keeping close to the wall.

The double doors to the library were left only very slightly ajar, no one would notice it unless they looked very closely.
She stayed outside, trying to hear for their voices. She tried looking through the gap between the doors, but couldn't see a thing in the pitch black. They must be going to the restricted section, why else would they be here this late. No teacher in their right mind would give those pure blood fanatics access to the restricted section anyway.
This was their only way in.

But she knew there had to be some enchantment on the doors to act as a trigger alarm if the door was moved. A quick escape for them, and good security, so very like Lestrange to have his exit planned out before he even entered a room.
She quickly cast a counter charm on herself, so her touch wouldn't activate the particular alarm system she knew he would use in this situation.
She held her breath as she pushed the door slightly further open so she could squeeze through. No alarm went off. So far, so good she thought.
Then she pushed the door back to the way it was when she found it and quickly made her way to where she knew the restricted section would be. The glass door to the restricted section was already hanging open, a faint stream of light coming from the hidden aisle and whispers she couldn't make out filtered through; they were too far down.

She mentally sighed, there was no other option, she would have to do it.
She went down the aisle adjacent to the restricted section and looked up.
She would have to get on top of the book case so she could look down at them from a hidden view.

Once up, she took a moment to rid her self of the lightheadedness she was feeling. Her dreadful fear of heights was ridiculous, she didn't even have any reason for it. No childhood trauma or experience that justified such a weakness. But no matter how many heights she scaled she always felt it - that dizziness like the ground was rushing up to meet her. She shook her head and quietly flitted down the book case until she was directly above them. She could see them clearly now as well as hear them.

"This is going to take forever" Nolan's moaning voice drifted up to her. He was crouching, running his fingers along the spines of the books on the bottom shelf.

"With you it will" Hector retorted snidely. Head in a book he was holding with one hand and the other his wand, casting light on the pages.

"I don't understand why all the professors refuse to give us permission so that we could come here during the day" Hellebore complained, bored as usual in a library.
"Besides we could've just asked Cedrella, little miss head girl could get permission slips from every professor she asked"
"I don't know why they're all so nice to her, she doesn't even do anything special".

"There's a lot you don't know Flint" Lestrange's rasp cut through the silence and made her shiver.
"Black, has a reputation to uphold, we need her head girl privileges and we can't risk her position for every little job".

"I still think you're too soft on her"
"She's always leaving our meetings early and arriving late and barely does anything for us or the cause" Hellebore continued her whining as she slumped against the shelves, sliding down to the ground.

Cedrella couldn't help the grin forming on her face, she always knew Hellebore didn't like her, but it was so amusing to hear her complaints about herself. They reeked of jealousy.

"If you don't start looking, instead of complaining, I'll leave you locked in here for the librarian to find tomorrow morning" Lestrange whispered harshly while flipping through a thick book, his lit wand now tucked behind his ear, casting shadows beneath the ridge of his cheekbone.

They continued to work in silence after that. And she continued watching them from her perch.
Lestrange's brows furrowed, as he went through different books, expertly coaxing the noisy books down before they made so much as a sound.
She thought back to the day she had first met Lestrange.
They were just children, the Lestrange family was a noble family, her mother had warned her and her sisters. They were to be treated with the utmost respect and they were to be on their best behaviour. That day when she had been introduced to him, she had heard his first name. The only other time she had heard it was during the sorting, when he had been placed into Slytherin almost immediately upon the hat touching his hair.
But two times didn't seem enough, she had forgotten his name the first time she had heard it as she was too young, and the second time she had been too distracted by the Slytherin students sitting around her after she had just been sorted, they had all wanted to see how she compared to her older sister. She sometimes wondered if he had cast an enchantment on his name. No one in school called him by his first name, and no one outside school did either, the first name would fall into disuse and then be forgotten altogether, she didn't think anybody apart from his parents remembered it.

"You found something Lestrange?" Hector asked, his voice giving away his tiredness and a hint of irritation.

Lestrange looked up from his book as if just remembering there were other people with him. "Yes, I think I've got it" he just stated, snapping the book shut and tucking it under his arm.

"Why didn't you say so before", Nolan complained loudly looking outraged.

"What did you find?" Hector's interest overriding any irate feelings he had harboured.

"This book mentions a way that an inanimate object can be bewitched utilising a combination of charms, so as to attack a specific group or person, but I will need to experiment more to be able to charm multiple objects to all behave the same way. And there's also the trouble of getting it to target the right kind of people" Lestrange mused, already walking down the aisle lost in thought.

The others rushed after him, but she remained stock still, mind whirring trying to figure Lestrange's plan out. Bewitching inanimate objects?
Targeting specific groups of people?
The bludger that hit Weasley!
Was that some sort of tester trial for bigger plans?
But what?

Her train of thought was interrupted by the sound of the library door closing, and suddenly it occurred to her that if she reached her dormitory after Hellebore got in, she would be suspicious, and would definitely mention it to Lestrange.

She quickly got down from the bookcase and utilising a silencing charm opened and closed the library door without making a noise as she left the library and flew as fast she could to her dormitory.
By the time she reached it, sleep was overpowering any other thoughts that were currently flying through her mind, and as her head hit her pillow she drifted to sleep, where nightmares of the possibilities of Lestrange's plan awaited her, not hearing Hellebore quietly come in five minutes later.

A/N: Hello thank you for reading! So Lestrange and his gang are definitely up to something nefarious and Cedrella seems to be more than stressed now. Please watch this space for the next chapter as the plot thickens! Also as a side note, what got me into writing this story was all the rage around the dark academia aesthetic during lockdowns. So I hope this story fulfills a bit of those dark academia daydreams. Until next upload!