A sound, resembling a cross-breed between a thunderstorm and a boiling
cauldron, woke me up the next morning. The weight on my chest alerted me
that something was wrong, and I opened my eyes. A pair of eyes, one yellow
and intrinsically evil, the other the milky white of blindness, stared back
at me. I choked at first, tensing to strike out, before I realised that it
wasn't one of Frederic's new tricks to test me, and that it wasn't someone
trying to kill me.
It was Marise's cat.
With a caffeine headache clouding my judgement, I sat up abruptly. Instead of dislodging the cat, the move made the evil creature slide its claws out and attach them to my chest. My eyes filled with tears of pain, and I had to grit my teeth not to scream: it bloody hurt, those claws. The cat favoured me with a good look at its impressive range of sharp teeth, yawning before resuming its purr.
"You," I told it seriously, "are evil."
"Stop talking to the cat, Blaise, it's not going to answer," Draco mumbled from where he was lying, face down in his pillow. "Shut up, please, I'm trying to sleep."
"I'm going to the hospital wing," I said, ignoring his request. "Shove off, cat."
It turned up the volume of its purr, but after a few painful attempts, finally decided to go back to terrorizing Marise, and I was let out of my bed. After some additional searching, I located my trousers and a shirt, which hadn't been washed in a while, and put them on. I chose not to use my cleaner shirts, since I was bleeding a little, and didn't want bloodstains on my clothing.
Most of the castle was deserted, but since it was a Sunday, (odd day for the first day of school, but it wasn't like I was protesting) and still quite early in the morning, that wasn't such an odd occurrence. Madam Pomfrey would most likely not be up at this hour of the morning, but I could help myself to some bandages, unless she'd got some healing potions stashed up, as long as I left a note. That was the good thing about getting patched up so many times: Pomfrey immediately assumed that I was truly hurt and needed the supplies, so she wouldn't protest if I walked out of there with all her spare bandages.
As I'd thought, the infirmary was deserted: the door to Pomfrey's office was open, and I could hear snores coming from inside. They sounded decidedly like male snoring, but I could have been wrong. Suppressing a snort, I just picked up the nearest roll of bandages, after pushing the door shut to save her some embarrassment, and unbuttoned my shirt.
I'd read in a Muggle Studies book (which I'd snitched from a Ravenclaw when I was twelve) about Muggle medical-practises, and remembered the little sticky cloth-pieces that stuck to skin, of which I couldn't for the life of me recall the name of, and wondered quietly why the magical world hadn't come up with such an ingenious thing. Of course, we had potions and spells, but when potions and spells were needed elsewhere, Muggle medical aids would be handy.
"Madam Pomfrey?" a horribly familiar voice called, as the door slid open, "Are you th - "
The voice turned into a shocked squeak, and I turned around slowly, willing myself not to blush. I would not turn red at the sight of Hermione, even if I wasn't presently wearing a shirt. And even if I looked like a bloody bean- pole. With shoulders. And a particularly untamed thatch of hair.
"´Lo, nice morning, isn't it?" I said, trying to ignore the fact that Hermione was slowly going red and staring at me as if I was a monster. "You hurt?"
"N-no," she stammered, obviously trying not to stare at me, but failing spectacularly. "Where's Madam Pomfrey?"
"Sleeping," I shrugged. "Did you need anything?"
"Yeah." she blushed even harder, and mumbled something I didn't quite catch.
"What was that?" I asked, finishing bandaging myself up and shrugging on my shirt again, though I didn't bother to button it up. There was no point, really: there was no part of my chest that Hermione hadn't just seen.
"Pain-relief Potion," she mumbled, though a bit louder this time.
"But you just said you weren't hurt." I said blankly.
"I'm not," she glared at me. "I just happen to need it, that's all."
It took an amazing feat of thinking in my caffeine-deprived mind to put two and two together and not come up with anything else than four. When I did come up with four, however, I decided that this was the most awkward moment of my year so far. I considered commenting, as to not seem too out of character, but then I remembered how Millicent and Pansy acted during their periods, and decided not to.
"Right," I mumbled. "Isn't this awkward. I'm sure the potion is in here somewhere though: Pomfrey keeps quite a tight order on her things."
"We can't just take it!" she protested. "That's stealing!"
"I'm aware that it is, technically, stealing," I said, picking the potion up from one of the shelves, "And I'm aware that you think it's immoral. All Gryffindors do. But look at it this way: it's me stealing."
"How's that better?" Hermione asked, snatching the potion up nonetheless.
"It's not." I shrugged. "But I'll take the blame if it comes to that. Not that it will: Pomfrey would let me walk out of here with all of her potions in my pockets if I wanted to."
"Why?" she asked, staring for the door.
"Because I get in trouble so often, and need to be patched up so often that she'd just assumed I needed them," I said, following her.
"You're peculiar, anyone ever tell you that?" she asked me, raising an eyebrow.
"All the time," I sighed. "All the time."
Talking to Hermione wasn't nearly as awkward as I'd thought it would be. When ignoring the fact that I was acting like a silly little first-year on Valentine's Day, it went reasonably well. I wasn't usually this civil to anyone, let alone Hermione, but there was something different now. I'd noticed it when I first returned on the Express: planning pranks on the Gryffindors, while fun, no longer held the same excitement. Disappointed, I decided it was time to realise I'd grown up: petty rivalries just weren't as fun any more.
'''''''''''''''
I returned to the Common Room to find that Millicent was sitting in one of the armchairs, and that Theo's couch didn't look as if it had been slept in. If I hadn't been feeling so downcast, I would have been smirking. Millicent looked up and greeted me with a smile, which turned into a frown when she saw my expression.
"You look like someone died, Blaise. What's wrong?" she asked.
"No one's died, but now that you mention it, Father's death-day was last week, and I missed it," I said gloomily, sitting down in the second armchair. "I just realised mocking the Gryffindors isn't as fun any more."
"What happened, did you grow up?" Millicent chuckled.
"Yes, I did," I replied with frank honesty, "and don't chuckle, Millie: it's not as fun as it looks."
"Well, you'll just have to suffer, won't you?" Millicent replied acerbically, and I raised my eyebrow. "It happens to everyone eventually."
"I know; I'm a boy, Millie, that isn't synonymous with stupid," I rolled my eyes. "I just didn't expect it to happen quite yet."
The entrance flew open, and in walked Snape, interrupting our chat which was quickly turning into a friendly spat. In his black robes, he looked like a vision of Death, minus the scythe, though he did look marginally better than he had during the Welcoming Feast the night before. There were dark rings under his eyes, and he was even paler than usual, almost as pale as Vincent was on a good day, but he looked as surly as ever. He stopped when he spotted Millicent and I, and I tried to look as innocent as I could while wearing a bloodstained shirt. His gaze flickered to the empty couch and then back to us.
"Where is Nott?" he asked, raising his eyebrow. I blinked: even his voice sounded dead.
"Don't know," I shrugged. "Not on the couch is the most helpful remark I can come up with."
"Thank you," Snape replied with a very tight smile. "Nott has spent the last five years on that couch; what has made him stop, I wonder."
"Agnes?" Millicent piped up innocently, then promptly started laughing. I could help by join her.
"What, may I ask, is so amusing?" Snape asked quietly, stopping out laughter.
There were few things I considered frightening in the world: magical breakdowns, an angry Dumbledore, an angry Vincent, Frederic's glasses, and Snape's quiet enquiries had long been part of that list.
"Theo and Agnes," I explained cryptically. "I don't think he has nightmares any more, sir, though it might be a while before he wakes up. Do you need Millicent to get him?"
Both of Snape's eyebrows rose into his greasy hairline, but then he returned to the same expression he always worse: somewhere between distaste and malice, and turned on his heels. Having been a student at Hogwarts himself at one point in time, he knew all too well what I was implying. Millicent and I waited until he was out of the Common Room to laugh ourselves silly.
I might have been forced to grow up, but I wasn't about to stop poking fun at people.
''''''''''''
It was the first school day, but a Sunday, so there were no lessons. Despite the lack of lessons, Millicent, Draco, Pansy and I spent most of the day (after I'd changed into some clean clothing and we'd had some breakfast, of course) going through our course-books. The Potions-book was an inch and a half thick, and Draco kept complaining about how difficult his year would be.
"Be happy you're not fighting the bloody war!" I snapped, throwing my quill at him after a while, before returning to my Arithmancy book. "Now shut up: I want some reading done so Vector doesn't make mince-meat of me the first lesson."
"Why didn't you study over summer?" Millicent asked from the floor, where she was busy trying to read both her Charms and Transfiguration books at once.
"Because I didn't get the list in time; it was more than a week late, and when I went to pick the books up, Death Eaters attacked Diagon Alley," I said, wincing at the memory. "I have the worst timing in the history of man."
"You were there?" Draco looked up, "That made the Daily Prophet it did, even if Fudge doesn't want anyone to know: they said it was a Muggle terrorist attack. No wonder you looked like shit when you came back!"
"Thanks, Draco. But how could Fudge think people would believe that?" I asked, putting down my book once more, "Muggles can't even see the Leaky Cauldron! Who made him Minister for Magic?"
"The Ministry," Pansy shrugged, "They handle all those things internally."
"No wonder they screw it up so badly," I rolled my eyes, "You should see the Department of Mysteries: they haven't had a proper Department Head in months."
"How do you know?" Cain, who was playing gobstones with Theo and Agnes, piped up. "The Unspeakables never talk to anyone."
This was my perfect opportunity. I had said to Vincent that I would tell my friends: we were alone in the Common Room, since Tracy Davies and Daphne Greengrass weren't revising, and those who were had retreated to the library. Crabbe and Goyle had, finally, not managed to scrape enough points on the exams to be allowed into the seventh year: perhaps it was because they hadn't had Snape to favour them in their sixth year. It was now or never.
"Oh, they tend to whine a lot, once they've stopped chasing their biting teapot." I said, marking my place in the book before putting it down. "Chronic complaints seems to be the Unspeakable's modus operandi, though that's not saying a lot, since one of them tends to speak with faked speech impediments, one is also a chronic chain-smoker, and one wakes up every day and takes ten minutes to recognise that fellow in the mirror."
The expressions on my friends' faces could only be described as acutely curious. Clearing my throat, I settled in comfortably, waiting for the bombarding of questions that would inevitably come.
"Everyone's thinking it, so I suppose I'll say it," Pansy drawled, something she'd learned from Draco, "How?"
"It's a long story. You have the rest of the day cleared?" I asked, feeling slightly uncomfortable. It was a big revelation, what I was going to say, more than I had told anyone ever before. Though I had come close to blurting out my secrets to Hermione. And she was smart: for a split second, I worried she might figure it out, but then filed it under Things to Worry About Tomorrow.
"For you?" Theo smirked, "We've got all week, boyo."
"First, what I'm going to tell you does not go beyond this room, or I'm going to steal Potter's glasses and kill you," I said seriously, not realising that using glasses to kill anyone sounded ridiculous to anyone who hadn't met Frederic Lucas. "There's a reason to why I haven't told you this, why I've kept this secret even from you for almost a year now. Understood?"
They nodded, suddenly serious in the face of my cold sobriety. If there was one thing I'd learned, it was how to get someone's attention: a summer with two of the largest personalities in the magical world had taught me that I needed to make space for myself to be heard.
"Good. Vincent has allowed me to tell you, but only if you keep the secret. If it does get out, I'll know who to blame." I stopped as Millicent raised her hand to interrupt me. "What?"
"Who's Vincent?"
"Vincent? Don't you – well, of course you don't, I'm being stupid again: Vincent Lucas." I explained quickly.
"Lucas? How come you call him Vincent?" Agnes protested.
"I'll get to that," I rolled my eyes, "Now shut up, or we'll be here all night. Remember how depressed I was at the beginning of last year?" They nodded again, "Father had just died, my house had burned down, and Mother and Marise and I were living in a little box with a door, so I had good reasons. But because of that, I couldn't sleep properly, I didn't bother to eat regularly, and spent most of my time snapping at people."
"I've been trying to repress those memories," Draco mumbled to Pansy.
"We had a duelling class with Vincent back then, and I duelled Potter, as you all will surely remember." I went on, ignoring Draco's interruption, "And he's strong. He's so strong he frightens even me. Promise me something Draco: never duel him. Ever. Even if he insults your mother: he strong, and I don't want to search the castle for enough pieces of you to bury. He would kill you, Draco, without even meaning to."
"How come you're still standing then?" Draco sneered.
"Because I'm stronger than you are," I said, ignoring the disbelief on his face, "And because he didn't pull out all the stops, like he would have with you. He's locked wands with Voldemort and came out alive: there's a damn good reason for that. But even if I am nearly as strong as he is, as far as I can tell, I didn't come out of that duel unscathed. I depleted my magical reserves to almost nil."
After my so-called praising of Potter, they seemed to realise something truly big had happened, and gathered closer, leaning forward and fixing me with interested stares.
"Thankfully, I rested up a bit afterwards, but not nearly enough, and got through about a month, living on my reserves. Let me tell you, the headache that gave me wasn't pretty: I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy." I winced, remembering the pain. "Migraine isn't half of it. Then, I had my fight with Weasley, and ended up in the hospital wing."
"I remember that," Agnes piped up, "I was so furious with him."
"Ever wonder why I was there twice in two days? No? I'm disappointed. I had a nervous breakdown, or that's at least what I thought it was," I continued, intentionally looking smug that they hadn't realised it. "Vincent had The Talk with me, explaining the punishment Weasley was not receiving and why, and I just snapped. Things started flying, glass shattered and I ended up curled up on the floor, trying to pull glass shards out of my face. Not pleasant, as you might imagine."
"Nervous breakdown?" Millicent asked, "Why?"
"Because Weasley escaping detention and any other kind of punishment made me so angry that I snapped: living on my reserves for weeks was a bad idea, as it turned out." I felt a but uneasy again; I was almost there now, "My magic went wild on me. I lost control and it felt like being back where I started when I was five: with no wand and to tangible hold on my magic. We were all like that at one time, but I didn't exactly expect it to happen again at sixteen."
I was getting a bit hoarse; I hadn't talked this much in years. I wasn't in the habit of making speeches, and Frederic certainly made a better storyteller than I did. That's the price of being anti-social.
"Vincent claimed he knew what had happened and dragged me off to London. I haven't seen any lawyers, and I haven't been on any inquiries about Father's death: that was me doing what we like to refer to as lying. I went with Vincent to the Department of Mysteries." I said, watching their expressions closely.
Millicent nodded as if she'd known it all along, as did Agnes, Theo, Cain and Pansy. Draco, however, just looked betrayed, as if I'd just revealed that I put his father in prison. Draco could be so childish sometimes. He took everything to personally. Sighing, I kept on talking.
"I didn't meet Anja in the cafeteria: she's a chain-smoking Unspeakable with a love of sarcasm. I can't tell you any more than that about who works at the Department of Mysteries, or what it looks like, since they'd kill me if I did," I rattled off in a rather monotone voice. "There, I found out that I wasn't wrong, that I really was crazy. I've got a little piece of paper that says I am now. They took one look inside my head and announced that I might as well throw my wand away: I wouldn't need it any more."
"Why not?" Pansy asked, "Everyone needs a wand, unless they're Squibs. And you're not."
Giving her a tired look, I waved my hand towards the cold fireplace, which had been left unlit because of the heat outside.
"Incendio." I said, in an off-handed manner, and the flames sprung to life again. "My wand is still in my trunk upstairs."
I only had one word for their expressions: comical. Millicent stared at the roaring fire as if it was about to attack her, Pansy's jaw had dropped, Draco was white in what could have been terror, Cain's eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his scull, Theo had jumped a mile high, and Agnes had her wand in her hand, staring at me as if I was a criminal madman.
"There's something about fire; whenever I get really angry, or really afraid, things seem to start burning. I wonder why?" I said, grinning as widely as I could. This was a lot easier than I had thought it would be. "Now, could you please stop staring at me?"
Silence.
Crickets chirping would have been a vast improvement.
"Guys? Are you alright?"
Silence.
"Vincent is going to kill me for damaging your minds."
''''''''''''''''
Ending Notes: And so I reduce Slytherin's finest to dumbness. That was not the original plan, I assure you.
It was Marise's cat.
With a caffeine headache clouding my judgement, I sat up abruptly. Instead of dislodging the cat, the move made the evil creature slide its claws out and attach them to my chest. My eyes filled with tears of pain, and I had to grit my teeth not to scream: it bloody hurt, those claws. The cat favoured me with a good look at its impressive range of sharp teeth, yawning before resuming its purr.
"You," I told it seriously, "are evil."
"Stop talking to the cat, Blaise, it's not going to answer," Draco mumbled from where he was lying, face down in his pillow. "Shut up, please, I'm trying to sleep."
"I'm going to the hospital wing," I said, ignoring his request. "Shove off, cat."
It turned up the volume of its purr, but after a few painful attempts, finally decided to go back to terrorizing Marise, and I was let out of my bed. After some additional searching, I located my trousers and a shirt, which hadn't been washed in a while, and put them on. I chose not to use my cleaner shirts, since I was bleeding a little, and didn't want bloodstains on my clothing.
Most of the castle was deserted, but since it was a Sunday, (odd day for the first day of school, but it wasn't like I was protesting) and still quite early in the morning, that wasn't such an odd occurrence. Madam Pomfrey would most likely not be up at this hour of the morning, but I could help myself to some bandages, unless she'd got some healing potions stashed up, as long as I left a note. That was the good thing about getting patched up so many times: Pomfrey immediately assumed that I was truly hurt and needed the supplies, so she wouldn't protest if I walked out of there with all her spare bandages.
As I'd thought, the infirmary was deserted: the door to Pomfrey's office was open, and I could hear snores coming from inside. They sounded decidedly like male snoring, but I could have been wrong. Suppressing a snort, I just picked up the nearest roll of bandages, after pushing the door shut to save her some embarrassment, and unbuttoned my shirt.
I'd read in a Muggle Studies book (which I'd snitched from a Ravenclaw when I was twelve) about Muggle medical-practises, and remembered the little sticky cloth-pieces that stuck to skin, of which I couldn't for the life of me recall the name of, and wondered quietly why the magical world hadn't come up with such an ingenious thing. Of course, we had potions and spells, but when potions and spells were needed elsewhere, Muggle medical aids would be handy.
"Madam Pomfrey?" a horribly familiar voice called, as the door slid open, "Are you th - "
The voice turned into a shocked squeak, and I turned around slowly, willing myself not to blush. I would not turn red at the sight of Hermione, even if I wasn't presently wearing a shirt. And even if I looked like a bloody bean- pole. With shoulders. And a particularly untamed thatch of hair.
"´Lo, nice morning, isn't it?" I said, trying to ignore the fact that Hermione was slowly going red and staring at me as if I was a monster. "You hurt?"
"N-no," she stammered, obviously trying not to stare at me, but failing spectacularly. "Where's Madam Pomfrey?"
"Sleeping," I shrugged. "Did you need anything?"
"Yeah." she blushed even harder, and mumbled something I didn't quite catch.
"What was that?" I asked, finishing bandaging myself up and shrugging on my shirt again, though I didn't bother to button it up. There was no point, really: there was no part of my chest that Hermione hadn't just seen.
"Pain-relief Potion," she mumbled, though a bit louder this time.
"But you just said you weren't hurt." I said blankly.
"I'm not," she glared at me. "I just happen to need it, that's all."
It took an amazing feat of thinking in my caffeine-deprived mind to put two and two together and not come up with anything else than four. When I did come up with four, however, I decided that this was the most awkward moment of my year so far. I considered commenting, as to not seem too out of character, but then I remembered how Millicent and Pansy acted during their periods, and decided not to.
"Right," I mumbled. "Isn't this awkward. I'm sure the potion is in here somewhere though: Pomfrey keeps quite a tight order on her things."
"We can't just take it!" she protested. "That's stealing!"
"I'm aware that it is, technically, stealing," I said, picking the potion up from one of the shelves, "And I'm aware that you think it's immoral. All Gryffindors do. But look at it this way: it's me stealing."
"How's that better?" Hermione asked, snatching the potion up nonetheless.
"It's not." I shrugged. "But I'll take the blame if it comes to that. Not that it will: Pomfrey would let me walk out of here with all of her potions in my pockets if I wanted to."
"Why?" she asked, staring for the door.
"Because I get in trouble so often, and need to be patched up so often that she'd just assumed I needed them," I said, following her.
"You're peculiar, anyone ever tell you that?" she asked me, raising an eyebrow.
"All the time," I sighed. "All the time."
Talking to Hermione wasn't nearly as awkward as I'd thought it would be. When ignoring the fact that I was acting like a silly little first-year on Valentine's Day, it went reasonably well. I wasn't usually this civil to anyone, let alone Hermione, but there was something different now. I'd noticed it when I first returned on the Express: planning pranks on the Gryffindors, while fun, no longer held the same excitement. Disappointed, I decided it was time to realise I'd grown up: petty rivalries just weren't as fun any more.
'''''''''''''''
I returned to the Common Room to find that Millicent was sitting in one of the armchairs, and that Theo's couch didn't look as if it had been slept in. If I hadn't been feeling so downcast, I would have been smirking. Millicent looked up and greeted me with a smile, which turned into a frown when she saw my expression.
"You look like someone died, Blaise. What's wrong?" she asked.
"No one's died, but now that you mention it, Father's death-day was last week, and I missed it," I said gloomily, sitting down in the second armchair. "I just realised mocking the Gryffindors isn't as fun any more."
"What happened, did you grow up?" Millicent chuckled.
"Yes, I did," I replied with frank honesty, "and don't chuckle, Millie: it's not as fun as it looks."
"Well, you'll just have to suffer, won't you?" Millicent replied acerbically, and I raised my eyebrow. "It happens to everyone eventually."
"I know; I'm a boy, Millie, that isn't synonymous with stupid," I rolled my eyes. "I just didn't expect it to happen quite yet."
The entrance flew open, and in walked Snape, interrupting our chat which was quickly turning into a friendly spat. In his black robes, he looked like a vision of Death, minus the scythe, though he did look marginally better than he had during the Welcoming Feast the night before. There were dark rings under his eyes, and he was even paler than usual, almost as pale as Vincent was on a good day, but he looked as surly as ever. He stopped when he spotted Millicent and I, and I tried to look as innocent as I could while wearing a bloodstained shirt. His gaze flickered to the empty couch and then back to us.
"Where is Nott?" he asked, raising his eyebrow. I blinked: even his voice sounded dead.
"Don't know," I shrugged. "Not on the couch is the most helpful remark I can come up with."
"Thank you," Snape replied with a very tight smile. "Nott has spent the last five years on that couch; what has made him stop, I wonder."
"Agnes?" Millicent piped up innocently, then promptly started laughing. I could help by join her.
"What, may I ask, is so amusing?" Snape asked quietly, stopping out laughter.
There were few things I considered frightening in the world: magical breakdowns, an angry Dumbledore, an angry Vincent, Frederic's glasses, and Snape's quiet enquiries had long been part of that list.
"Theo and Agnes," I explained cryptically. "I don't think he has nightmares any more, sir, though it might be a while before he wakes up. Do you need Millicent to get him?"
Both of Snape's eyebrows rose into his greasy hairline, but then he returned to the same expression he always worse: somewhere between distaste and malice, and turned on his heels. Having been a student at Hogwarts himself at one point in time, he knew all too well what I was implying. Millicent and I waited until he was out of the Common Room to laugh ourselves silly.
I might have been forced to grow up, but I wasn't about to stop poking fun at people.
''''''''''''
It was the first school day, but a Sunday, so there were no lessons. Despite the lack of lessons, Millicent, Draco, Pansy and I spent most of the day (after I'd changed into some clean clothing and we'd had some breakfast, of course) going through our course-books. The Potions-book was an inch and a half thick, and Draco kept complaining about how difficult his year would be.
"Be happy you're not fighting the bloody war!" I snapped, throwing my quill at him after a while, before returning to my Arithmancy book. "Now shut up: I want some reading done so Vector doesn't make mince-meat of me the first lesson."
"Why didn't you study over summer?" Millicent asked from the floor, where she was busy trying to read both her Charms and Transfiguration books at once.
"Because I didn't get the list in time; it was more than a week late, and when I went to pick the books up, Death Eaters attacked Diagon Alley," I said, wincing at the memory. "I have the worst timing in the history of man."
"You were there?" Draco looked up, "That made the Daily Prophet it did, even if Fudge doesn't want anyone to know: they said it was a Muggle terrorist attack. No wonder you looked like shit when you came back!"
"Thanks, Draco. But how could Fudge think people would believe that?" I asked, putting down my book once more, "Muggles can't even see the Leaky Cauldron! Who made him Minister for Magic?"
"The Ministry," Pansy shrugged, "They handle all those things internally."
"No wonder they screw it up so badly," I rolled my eyes, "You should see the Department of Mysteries: they haven't had a proper Department Head in months."
"How do you know?" Cain, who was playing gobstones with Theo and Agnes, piped up. "The Unspeakables never talk to anyone."
This was my perfect opportunity. I had said to Vincent that I would tell my friends: we were alone in the Common Room, since Tracy Davies and Daphne Greengrass weren't revising, and those who were had retreated to the library. Crabbe and Goyle had, finally, not managed to scrape enough points on the exams to be allowed into the seventh year: perhaps it was because they hadn't had Snape to favour them in their sixth year. It was now or never.
"Oh, they tend to whine a lot, once they've stopped chasing their biting teapot." I said, marking my place in the book before putting it down. "Chronic complaints seems to be the Unspeakable's modus operandi, though that's not saying a lot, since one of them tends to speak with faked speech impediments, one is also a chronic chain-smoker, and one wakes up every day and takes ten minutes to recognise that fellow in the mirror."
The expressions on my friends' faces could only be described as acutely curious. Clearing my throat, I settled in comfortably, waiting for the bombarding of questions that would inevitably come.
"Everyone's thinking it, so I suppose I'll say it," Pansy drawled, something she'd learned from Draco, "How?"
"It's a long story. You have the rest of the day cleared?" I asked, feeling slightly uncomfortable. It was a big revelation, what I was going to say, more than I had told anyone ever before. Though I had come close to blurting out my secrets to Hermione. And she was smart: for a split second, I worried she might figure it out, but then filed it under Things to Worry About Tomorrow.
"For you?" Theo smirked, "We've got all week, boyo."
"First, what I'm going to tell you does not go beyond this room, or I'm going to steal Potter's glasses and kill you," I said seriously, not realising that using glasses to kill anyone sounded ridiculous to anyone who hadn't met Frederic Lucas. "There's a reason to why I haven't told you this, why I've kept this secret even from you for almost a year now. Understood?"
They nodded, suddenly serious in the face of my cold sobriety. If there was one thing I'd learned, it was how to get someone's attention: a summer with two of the largest personalities in the magical world had taught me that I needed to make space for myself to be heard.
"Good. Vincent has allowed me to tell you, but only if you keep the secret. If it does get out, I'll know who to blame." I stopped as Millicent raised her hand to interrupt me. "What?"
"Who's Vincent?"
"Vincent? Don't you – well, of course you don't, I'm being stupid again: Vincent Lucas." I explained quickly.
"Lucas? How come you call him Vincent?" Agnes protested.
"I'll get to that," I rolled my eyes, "Now shut up, or we'll be here all night. Remember how depressed I was at the beginning of last year?" They nodded again, "Father had just died, my house had burned down, and Mother and Marise and I were living in a little box with a door, so I had good reasons. But because of that, I couldn't sleep properly, I didn't bother to eat regularly, and spent most of my time snapping at people."
"I've been trying to repress those memories," Draco mumbled to Pansy.
"We had a duelling class with Vincent back then, and I duelled Potter, as you all will surely remember." I went on, ignoring Draco's interruption, "And he's strong. He's so strong he frightens even me. Promise me something Draco: never duel him. Ever. Even if he insults your mother: he strong, and I don't want to search the castle for enough pieces of you to bury. He would kill you, Draco, without even meaning to."
"How come you're still standing then?" Draco sneered.
"Because I'm stronger than you are," I said, ignoring the disbelief on his face, "And because he didn't pull out all the stops, like he would have with you. He's locked wands with Voldemort and came out alive: there's a damn good reason for that. But even if I am nearly as strong as he is, as far as I can tell, I didn't come out of that duel unscathed. I depleted my magical reserves to almost nil."
After my so-called praising of Potter, they seemed to realise something truly big had happened, and gathered closer, leaning forward and fixing me with interested stares.
"Thankfully, I rested up a bit afterwards, but not nearly enough, and got through about a month, living on my reserves. Let me tell you, the headache that gave me wasn't pretty: I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy." I winced, remembering the pain. "Migraine isn't half of it. Then, I had my fight with Weasley, and ended up in the hospital wing."
"I remember that," Agnes piped up, "I was so furious with him."
"Ever wonder why I was there twice in two days? No? I'm disappointed. I had a nervous breakdown, or that's at least what I thought it was," I continued, intentionally looking smug that they hadn't realised it. "Vincent had The Talk with me, explaining the punishment Weasley was not receiving and why, and I just snapped. Things started flying, glass shattered and I ended up curled up on the floor, trying to pull glass shards out of my face. Not pleasant, as you might imagine."
"Nervous breakdown?" Millicent asked, "Why?"
"Because Weasley escaping detention and any other kind of punishment made me so angry that I snapped: living on my reserves for weeks was a bad idea, as it turned out." I felt a but uneasy again; I was almost there now, "My magic went wild on me. I lost control and it felt like being back where I started when I was five: with no wand and to tangible hold on my magic. We were all like that at one time, but I didn't exactly expect it to happen again at sixteen."
I was getting a bit hoarse; I hadn't talked this much in years. I wasn't in the habit of making speeches, and Frederic certainly made a better storyteller than I did. That's the price of being anti-social.
"Vincent claimed he knew what had happened and dragged me off to London. I haven't seen any lawyers, and I haven't been on any inquiries about Father's death: that was me doing what we like to refer to as lying. I went with Vincent to the Department of Mysteries." I said, watching their expressions closely.
Millicent nodded as if she'd known it all along, as did Agnes, Theo, Cain and Pansy. Draco, however, just looked betrayed, as if I'd just revealed that I put his father in prison. Draco could be so childish sometimes. He took everything to personally. Sighing, I kept on talking.
"I didn't meet Anja in the cafeteria: she's a chain-smoking Unspeakable with a love of sarcasm. I can't tell you any more than that about who works at the Department of Mysteries, or what it looks like, since they'd kill me if I did," I rattled off in a rather monotone voice. "There, I found out that I wasn't wrong, that I really was crazy. I've got a little piece of paper that says I am now. They took one look inside my head and announced that I might as well throw my wand away: I wouldn't need it any more."
"Why not?" Pansy asked, "Everyone needs a wand, unless they're Squibs. And you're not."
Giving her a tired look, I waved my hand towards the cold fireplace, which had been left unlit because of the heat outside.
"Incendio." I said, in an off-handed manner, and the flames sprung to life again. "My wand is still in my trunk upstairs."
I only had one word for their expressions: comical. Millicent stared at the roaring fire as if it was about to attack her, Pansy's jaw had dropped, Draco was white in what could have been terror, Cain's eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his scull, Theo had jumped a mile high, and Agnes had her wand in her hand, staring at me as if I was a criminal madman.
"There's something about fire; whenever I get really angry, or really afraid, things seem to start burning. I wonder why?" I said, grinning as widely as I could. This was a lot easier than I had thought it would be. "Now, could you please stop staring at me?"
Silence.
Crickets chirping would have been a vast improvement.
"Guys? Are you alright?"
Silence.
"Vincent is going to kill me for damaging your minds."
''''''''''''''''
Ending Notes: And so I reduce Slytherin's finest to dumbness. That was not the original plan, I assure you.