Beth spent the morning working with Bruce on Herbology. She had always been a little derisive of Herbology as a subject - it was hard for her to respect people who played in the dirt all day - but now she wished she had never dropped the subject. (Or, she groaned privately, ever tried to take it back up again.) Fortunately, Bruce was willing to help her through most of it, as practice for himself, and tolerated her stupid questions with impressive patience.
"So - a pine tree is - what, deciduous?"
"Coniferous, Beth. Pine cones, you know?"
"Oh. Right."
Bruce leaned back in his chair and regarded her curiously. "I can't believe you're so bad at this."
She cast him a dirty look. "Love you too, Bruce."
"I mean it." Bruce folded his hands behind his head. "You're not stupid. It's not that hard. My gosh - this is Longbottom's best subject."
"Bully for Longbottom," grumbled Beth.
"Well, you'll improve," said Bruce mildly, packing up his things. "Come on - it's time for the Quidditch trials. We can start over in the evening."
"If we have to," said Beth wryly.
They headed down to the Quidditch pitch as Montague had ordered. A number of Slytherins, many clutching broomsticks, already milled around the stands or lounged on the grass below. One of the smaller figures waved at their approach. There stood Melissa - and she was holding a broomstick.
Bruce's jaw dropped. "What are you doing with that thing?"
Melissa raised her chin dangerously. "I told you last year I was going to try out."
"And we told you last year you were nuts," said Bruce, but he looked impressed nevertheless. "What're you riding?" He bent over to examine the handle of her broomstick.
Melissa glanced away, blushing.
Bruce straightened up, looking almost scandalized. "A Twigger 90? You let them get you a Twigger?"
"What's wrong with a Twigger 90?" Beth broke in.
Bruce stared at her. "What's wrong with them? There's a reason we call them White Elephant Idiot Brooms. They've got all these features but you take them over a hundred ten and they start warping like mad-"
"I couldn't help it," Melissa wailed. "My parents got it for my birthday and they were all pleased they'd gotten me the most expensive broom on the market... I mean they're usually fairly smart, I don't know why..." She covered her face with her hands.
"Well-" Bruce said bracingly, casting little glances at the gleaming broomstick. "They're not that bad, I'm sure it'll be fine for, um, games at this level..."
"You called it a White Elephant Idiot Broom!" Melissa said.
"Yes, well..." Bruce didn't look like he could say any more about it than that. "Well, it shouldn't hurt your try-out, anyway..."
Montague's voice boomed across the field. "Come on, everybody into the stands and off the field!"
As much as Beth would have preferred that Bruce be the Quidditch captain, there was no doubt that Montague had a commanding presence. They stowed their broomsticks under the bleachers and climbed up into the stands to wait.
They were not disappointed. Within minutes the Gryffindor team, looking shabby in their practice jerseys, came onto the field amid a torrent of whistling and jeering from their rivals in the stands. They rose into a circle for some kind of passing exercise.
"Interesting choice for Keeper," Bruce muttered, leaning forward.
The youngest Weasley boy flew among the team; as he was the only new member, it was clear that he had been taken on to replace Oliver Wood. Beth thought privately that Bruce shouldn't be too worried about competition from his new counterpart.
The Gryffindors commenced with a noble and doomed attempt at a practice. Draco Malfoy had made himself the anti-cheerleader, calling taunts and leading cheers. Montague, on the other hand, remained perfectly silent. He sprawled back on the bleachers, watching the Gryffindors play, a smile on his lips.
The little Weasley was terrible. He fumbled the Quaffle, missed easy goals and slid all over his broomstick - finally he lobbed the Quaffle into Spinnet's nose, which began gushing blood to the cheers of the Slytherins. It wasn't too long afterward that Johnson, casting a dirty glance at the stands, packed up her team and left. (Spinnet, bleeding like a spigot, went Pomfreyward with the Weasley twins.)
When the last of them had abandoned the pitch, Montague stood up and stretched languorously. He sauntered down the stands and took up a position at the front. Putting his hands on his hips, he looked over the assembled triers-out and hangers-on. Finally, when he had their full attention, he spoke.
"Now that we've had a chance to see what we're up against-" He paused to let the crowd react. "-it looks like we're going to have a damn good season!"
The crowd laughed.
"Seeker first, same format as always. Hurry on down, anyone not on the pitch in two minutes is out of the running."
Draco easily defended his position, snapping up the Snitch in just a few minutes, many yards ahead of the next contender. He did all right, Beth thought, so long as Potter wasn't on the field with him. The little bugger definitely brought out the worst in him.
Likewise, it didn't take long for Bruce to prove himself as the best Keeper in Slytherin house. His experience alone should have been enough to land him the spot; he clinched it with a few impressive saves during his try-out. Montague was looking extremely pleased with himself as he announced Bruce's position.
"You're better than I remembered, Bletchley!" he boomed heartily. "So long as you remember to turn up for the matches!"
Bruce's smile became fixed.
The Beater trials, which were always the most interesting because they were essentially an aboveground dodgeball tournament with especially dangerous equipment, turned out to be the most hard-fought. Aaron got a black eye but fortunately didn't break anything, as had happened before. Surprisingly, several of the larger players were taken out before anyone realized what had done it: Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, working in tandem.
The Slytherin Quidditch trials were dog-eat-dog; nobody had ever teamed up before. Crabbe and Goyle were a devastating pair. It was so novel and so exciting to watch them working together that soon everyone in the stands was cheering for the pair of them. A couple of fourth-year brothers eventually tried to play the same tactic, but by then it was too late; Draco's thuggish cronies decimated the competition and took their places on the team to wild applause.
Finally, Montague turned back toward the stands and called, "Chasers! On the field in two minutes, let's go!"
Melissa stood up, her face flushed and excited. Beth nudged her in the knee. "Go get 'em."
"Thanks." Flashing a half-confident, half-terrified smile, she hurried down the stands, picked up her broom and dashed to the field with the other contenders.
The Chaser competitors filed past Montague, who stood with his hands on his hips, watching them like a cattleman before his herd. He noticed Melissa, raised an eyebrow, and stepped in front of her path.
"Who are you?"
Melissa stopped in front of him. Seeing the two of them together suddenly underscored Melissa's minimal height and build. Montague was two years younger but must have been a foot taller; it was possible that he weighed twice as much.
"Your senior prefect," said Melissa, eyes flashing. "Melissa Ollivander."
Montague looked her over. "You're sort of tiny, Oglethorpe."
"Ollivander," said Melissa irritably. "You want to see how I can fly or not?"
"Suit yourself," said Montague carelessly, still with an appraising eye. "Get up there, Osgood."
"Ollivander! Like your wand!"
Montague gave her a lazy grin. "Me? I've got a Gregorovich."
Glaring at him, Melissa hurried to the field and zoomed into the air.
Montague tested the Chasers much like his predecessor, Marcus Flint: there were a few passing exercises, a few races, finally coming to a shooting match. Montague made no notes, but he seemed to be able to keep record of everyone's performance. He regularly flew into the group to oust an aspiring player. In five minutes he had eliminated half of the contestants - and, oddly, Beth had to agree with the choices he made.
It was exciting to see Melissa make it that far in the proceedings. She wasn't the best flyer that Slytherin had ever produced, but Beth had seen worse (after that morning's Gryffindor practice, much worse). She had actually expected Melissa to be eliminated straight off. She was the only girl trying out...
Her heart sank. Montague rose up into the midst of Melissa's passing circle and thumbed her out.
Melissa wouldn't go immediately; the two hung in the air for a while, exchanging words that Beth couldn't hear from her place in the stands, as well as some interesting hand gestures. Finally, Melissa sank to the ground, grabbed her broomstick by the shaft, and stalked back toward the castle after the other failed contestants.
Beth hesitated for a moment, wondering whether she should follow Melissa or leave her alone to stew, but finally her curiosity got the better of her and she descended the stands to see what had happened.
Judging by the muddy footprints, Melissa had gone to the common room and flopped straight onto the sofa; in fact, the handle of her Twigger 90 poked out from beneath it. Melissa herself was flat on her back, scowling at the ceiling.
"That twit," she said, before Beth could even ask. "He says I'm too small for the team. I told you they'd never let a girl play for Slytherin - all he wants is thugs to foul out the other team - the utter moron! That's the strategy that lost us the Cup."
Beth had expected something similar. She sat down on the floor beside the couch. "His loss."
"Too right," said Melissa, some pride mixed with her tone of disgust. "I was kicking the pants off of half the underclassmen."
Beth wasn't sure Melissa's playing had been quite that superior, but she was willing to concede that Melissa should have lasted longer.
"He was going to axe me from the beginning," Melissa went on, with dead angry certainty. "I mean - it was so pathetically obvious. He only let me try out to cover his back. So he could say I wasn't up to scratch, but at least he'd given me a chance." She looked like she wanted to spit. "Some chance!"
The doors to the common room opened and students flooded inside; clearly, the Quidditch trials were over. Melissa sat up, looking over the entrants as if expecting some of them to be wearing the team jerseys already.
Aaron Pucey spotted them and came over, mopping his face with a towel. He had a bruise on the side of his head and his black eye was growing darker. That was no surprise - Aaron wasn't a bad player, but he hurt himself practically every time he got on a broom.
"Well?" said Melissa, with painfully bad grace.
"Chasers are me and Warrington," he said, almost bashfully. "And of course Montague. You shouldn't feel bad, Mel-" he added, with just a hint of condescension, "up against all those veterans..."
"Veterans?" Melissa's expression was positively venomous. "Half a dozen decent flyers out there, Pucey, and the position was given to someone who can barely hang on to his broom!"
Aaron stopped, thunderstruck. His whole bearing hardened like ice freezing across the surface of a lake.
Melissa seemed to realize how deeply she had cut him. "I - I mean-"
"Oh, I know what you meant," said Aaron savagely, now blossoming red from ear to ear. "You meant to say you should've got it because you're smarter. Well maybe, Ollivander, I'm actually better at something than you!"
"I doubt that," Melissa snapped back, "seeing as the only one who thinks so is that idiot Montague."
Aaron looked like he had been hit. "So now anyone who believes in me is an idiot?"
"Well, I hate to mince words, but yes."
"Fine." Aaron hurled his towel to the floor. "Good thing you didn't make the team. I don't think I could stand flying with you."
"Likewise," Melissa sneered.
And, for the second time that day, Melissa stalked away.
This time Beth gave her friend a little time to cool off before going to hunt her down. She found Melissa in the half-empty library, hunched ferociously over her N.E.W.T.s primer. She hesitated, not wanting to get hit with the loose end of a quarrel, but then went and sat down across from Melissa anyway. What were best friends for, if not to accept and forgive undeserved blows?
Melissa spoke without looking up from her papers. "I suppose Aaron is still gloating over his victory."
"No," said Beth, pulling out her books. "He still looks mad, though."
"Good," said Melissa coldly.
Well, at least there would be no more yelling that day. Beth was willing to accept an uneasy peace in place of war. She dug out her Arithmancy book and opened it to the previous day's section.
At the sight of the page, the memory hit her like a bolt of lightning. The ownerless message that had appeared in class! In the drama surrounding the Quidditch trials, she had completely forgotten about the strange note.
"Oh Mel, that reminds me, I almost forgot to tell you!"
Quickly she described the message that had appeared in her textbook. Melissa's eyebrows furrowed in an expression of both suspicion and fear.
"And you didn't see anyone casting it?" she said slowly.
"No one. I looked up right away. Someone should have been watching for a reaction, if it was just a prank."
Melissa thought for a minute. "Well, who's in your class?"
"Stebbins," said Beth, ticking off names on her fingers. "Davies. Mervin. Towler. Sarah Fawcett. Johnson. Carmichael. Me. Professor Vector. Some Ravenclaw kid who studied over the summer and got bumped up a year. A couple of others I don't know."
"Not much of a rogue's gallery," Melissa commented, in a disgruntled tone. "Except Mervin, of course, but he's not a suspect."
They looked at each other.
"No, he's not a suspect," Melissa said again, shaking her head. "He knows perfectly well why there are no inductees - assuming he actually read that note I sent him."
Beth thought too that Mervin could be eliminated as the messenger. There was no point to it ... and if they couldn't trust themselves, it would be each man for himself. That was the worst thing that could happen.
Well, Beth thought grimly, not the worst thing...
"Beth!" Melissa's voice was a harsh whisper. Beth looked up anxiously; she followed Melissa's gaze to the N.E.W.T.s primer between them.
The words were changing again.
NO MORE MEETINGS?
Beth and Melissa stared at each other.
"How do they know?" whispered Melissa.
"Who are they?" Beth hissed back.
"Riddle was really good at book charms," Melissa muttered, almost to herself.
"He says he can spy..." Beth murmured.
"Hi. Excuse me."
They both looked up. Kiesha Chambers stood over them, looking from one to the other with polite interest.
"Sorry. Hope I'm not interrupting. Have either of you two seen Bruce lately? Bloke promised me a flight round the lake and hasn't paid up."
"I-" Beth looked down at the book. The words had vanished.
"We..." Melissa began slowly, also hazarding a glance at the book. She turned back to Kiesha with obvious relief. "We haven't seen him since the trials this morning. I'm sorry. I hope you catch him."
"Me too," said Kiesha, with good humor. "Well, thanks anyway."
"Good luck," Melissa called after her. She turned back to Beth with a wide-eyed, haggard look. "We can't let this go on."
Beth glanced down at the N.E.W.T.s primer, now perfectly normal, lying motionless on the library table with all its words firmly in place.
"I'm not sure we have a choice."
There were no strange messages on Sunday, apart from a hilarious love note that someone intercepted between Warrington and Antigone. Beth and Melissa spent the day sprawled on the lawn, pretending to study. Melissa got a fabulous tan. Beth, who had to wear long sleeves to cover the Dark Mark on her arm, got a sweaty shirt and a burn on her nose.
When the sun went down they joined Mervin and Bruce in a game of Exploding Snap, which ended in them flicking the cards at one another, covered in ash. They stayed up late, chattering and hogging the space in front of the fire, and went to bed well past midnight.
It had been a lot of fun, Beth reflected in the morning, but that sort of fun has a price. By the time she made it to breakfast, it was nearly over; she bypassed real food in favor of a strong cup of coffee and sat there sipping tiredly, feeling as if the circles under her eyes drooped all the way down to the table.
Suddenly Melissa, who had been reading a letter, let out a gasp. Beth glanced over blearily.
"What's wrong?"
Melissa read the rest of the letter quickly before leaning over to show her. "It's from Vivian," she said, spreading out the letter in front of them. "Dell's been reassigned from Transfiguration Today to the Daily Prophet. He's furious."
Beth swigged back some more coffee. "What do you mean, reassigned?"
"Oh, just read it yourself." Melissa tapped her finger at a line in the letter.
... Ebenezer Nott sent a letter telling Dell that the Dark Lord wanted him to quit his job and move
to the Daily Prophet, where he'd be more 'useful', whatever that means. He's just furious - he was
right in line for a promotion and had to give it up and start all over at the bottom of the ladder at
the Prophet. On top of it the Prophet is losing its reputation...
It's frightening, Mel. It's like we've lost control of our lives. Dell and I have postponed the
wedding. Our parents don't understand, and we can't tell them, but we don't want to start something
at a time when everything is so uncertain...
As she read, Beth found herself coming more and more alert until she finally looked up sharply. "Postponed!"
Melissa nodded grimly.
"But that's crazy!" It didn't make any sense: Dell and Vivian were the closest couple she knew. And yet, knowing what they were facing, and knowing that in the Dark Lord's eyes, affection was the most exploitable weakness of all...
"No, it's not," said Melissa, her voice soft, and Beth nodded agreement. "I'd wondered, when I didn't get an invitation over the summer..." She let out a short sigh. "I guess we all have to change the way we do things."
Beth thought about Richard and let out a sigh of her own.
The bell interrupted their ruminations, and they joined the crowd on the way to Charms. Flitwick was the one real N.E.W.T.s cheerleader they had that year; every single lecture turned back to the applicability of the spell and the value of their test scores (which, according to Flitwick, had the power to shape their futures even unto their children's children).
They had been doing Conjurations all week; as Flitwick explained it, the discipline crossed over between Charms and Transfiguration, creating something from thin air. He had been teaching them to conjure small things like marbles and scarves; today he wanted nothing less than a bouquet of flowers apiece. It was an easy incantation but a terribly difficult wand motion; Beth's flowers nearly always came out wilted, when she managed to get them at all.
But today something clicked for them, and by the time the bell rang for break, the Charms classroom looked like a florist's. All the girls had blossoms behind their ears, and Mervin had managed to nestle at least a dozen rose petals into Warrington's hair without being noticed. Flitwick looked quite pleased with their progress. He Banished most of the flowers downstairs, but kept a nice bouquet for his desk.
"Lovely job!" he squeaked. "Just lovely! At this rate you'll all have an 'Exceeds Expectations' for sure!"
They left with the girls chattering excitedly, while the boys tried to pretend they hadn't been so pleased with their success.
"I loved the dandelions," Antigone purred in Warrington's ear, as the Quidditch player turned as pink as the petals still stuck to his hair.
"I did think we did a splendid job," Melissa burbled. "Aaron, those tiger lilies were-"
Aaron pushed past without a glance in her direction.
Melissa's face darkened. "Pathetic," she finished loudly, at his back. He made no sign of hearing her. "Twit," she muttered, and sulked until the next class.
Arithmancy was the usual mind-blowing jumble of calculations and theorems that Beth had come to expect. She left for lunch with twenty homework problems and no idea how to do them. Worse, Mervin had gotten an allergy attack from the pollen left over on his hands from Charms and left for the Infirmary, so she couldn't even beg to borrow his notes. Still, being lost in class was such a familiar feeling by now that it hardly bothered her. She would either figure it out in the end, or they would move on.
She entered the Great Hall in high spirits, despite Arithmancy.
"I got another one," Melissa whispered, when Beth slid into the Slytherin table.
Beth looked at her blankly. "Another what?"
"A message! In my Ancient Runes book!"
Beth's jaw dropped. "What did it say?" she asked quickly.
"At first I couldn't tell, I was reading in Varangian and I thought it was just a property of the runes to move - don't look at me like that, some of them do you know - and then it was a little hard to switch back to English..."
"What did it say?" Beth pressed.
"It said, 'You are avoiding each other.'"
"Wow." Beth sat back in her chair, her mind churning through the implications of the short phrase. "We are. But that means they know who all of us are, not just you and me..."
Melissa nodded. "And it means they've been watching us close enough to know who we're interacting with." She looked highly troubled at the thought. "I wonder if anyone else is getting any messages?"
"We could ask at the meeting - drat," Beth interrupted herself. S.S.A meetings were currently out of the question. "I guess we could ask around, discreetly..."
"If they already know this much," said Melissa grimly, "I doubt that discretion will help."
They broke off the conversation as someone approached; it was Bruce, carrying a copy of the Daily Prophet and looking worried.
"Extra, extra. Read it and weep," said Bruce darkly. He handed over the newspaper.
The front page was crammed with the news: Dolores Jane Umbridge, former Secretary to the Minister, had been appointed to the position of "Hogwarts High Inquisitor" which gave her the power to inspect the other teachers.
"Kiesha showed me the article," Bruce explained. "And I heard the Weasleys griping on the way to lunch; she inspected their class with Flitwick."
"What's the point?" Beth asked, reading the article with furrowed brow. "I mean, what's she going to be inspecting for?"
Bruce shrugged, but Melissa had an answer. "Competence, probably. And," she added, in an offhand way, "to be sure that the teachers aren't saying anything contradictory to Ministry position. Want some strawberries, Beth?"
Beth accepted the bowl of strawberries, still frowning. "And what happens if she doesn't like someone?"
"I expect that they get the sack."
The cool, drawling voice came from behind them. Draco Malfoy had wandered up and was watching them with his hands behind his back.
"Personally, I'm delighted. Things have been haphazard around here for far too long, and with O.W.L.s coming up it's good to see some standardization."
"Yes, it will help our N.E.W.T.s too," Melissa replied pleasantly, switching smoothly into her aristocratic-schmoozing mode that matched Draco's so well.
"Frankly, I think that a classroom inspector is exactly what we need. Think about what's been allowed to teach here in the past few years!"
He ticked them off on his fingers.
"Stuttering idiot with the Dark Lord sticking out of his head. Plagiarist. Werewolf. Imposter and escaped convict. Not to mention that half-giant raising God-knows-what out in the paddock. Who knows what she'll uncover about the rest?"
Despite her uneasiness about Umbridge's abrupt promotion, Beth thought that Draco had a point.
Discreetly or not, over the following day Beth and Melissa managed to corner each of the members alone or in pairs to ask if any of them had been the recipient of any unusual correspondence. Apart from Oren, who had gotten some fan mail for a letter he'd written to the editor of Transfiguration Today, and Mervin, who had received a flyer for Busty Betsy's Breast Enhancement Charms, everyone's mail had been pretty routine. It seemed that the two girls alone were targeted in the strange campaign.
"But why us?" Beth whispered angrily, on the way to Defense Against the Dark Arts on Tuesday. "Why just you and me?"
"That's obvious," Melissa muttered back. "I'm the president and you're the secretary. They're getting at the Society from the top."
Somehow, her words were not a comfort.
They went into D.A.D.A., took their usual seats, and endured the now-standard singsong liturgy:
"Good morning, class!"
"Good morning, Professor Umbridge!"
"Wands away, please. You will be reading chapter three of Slinkhard's book. There will be no need to talk."
There was no need to read, either. Umbridge had given no indication that they would be tested on the dubious opinions of Wilbert Slinkhard. Carefully, making sure that Umbridge wasn't watching, Beth left the Slinkhard book in her knapsack and pulled out her N.E.W.T.s primer.
"Now, class," said Professor Umbridge, when the books had stopped rustling, "I do think that we have gotten to trust one another over these past few days, and you have always been such good little boys and girls in class!"
Melissa looked insulted at the unexpected declaration; Aaron Pucey, who had never been a good little boy in any class, looked strictly baffled.
"I must leave you to fulfill my role as Hogwarts High Inquisitor," she went on. "Although I know that I can count on you to be excellent little students in my absence, I would be simply remiss if I left you all alone!" She laughed, although no one knew why. "I'll just be leaving something behind to keep an eye on you. Now, I want you all to pretend as if this is me, and go about your work as you would..."
She opened a desk drawer and extracted something.
"Here we are."
Onto the top of her desk she placed a colorful, porcelain garden gnome.
The gnome had a shiny red cap and stiff white beard, all rigid and stone. The large green eyes, however, blinked once, and began to rove from this way to that, continuously surveying the room in much the same way that Umbridge did.
Mervin muffled a gasp of utter horror.
"Don't forget, chapter three!" Umbridge sang out, gathering her things and starting for the door. "Remember - I will be watching!"
She left and shut the door behind her.
For a moment everyone just sat there, watching the gnome roam its weird glassy eyes from one side to the other. Beth wondered (her eyes following the path of the gnome's) whether the creepy object was recording what it saw or actually beaming it back to Umbridge like an exceptionally ugly security camera. While she was doing her inspection, was Umbridge simultaneously keeping her eye on them...?
Without warning, the ceramic gnome rocked back on its little flat feet and shattered.
A loose gobstone spun off of the desk and landed on the floor, where it spun noisily amid tiny shards of porcelain and finally grew still.
Aaron Pucey got up, went forward, and claimed his gobstone. He looked over the gnome. Its face had been demolished; anything recorded in those enormous glassy eyes would have been shot to pieces.
"Right between the eyes," he remarked with satisfaction. "Too bad I can't brag about it."
Even Melissa had to agree that it had been a fine shot, and that it was a great shame indeed that the wind had swept in unexpectedly and tipped over that precious little gnome.
With the gnome gone, it was business as usual. Aaron and Warrington got out the rest of their gobstones and set up a ring in the back of the room; Antigone, draped over Warrington's shoulder, offered no help or encouragement whatsoever. Bruce spent a few minutes wrapping up some Transfiguration homework and then went to watch them. Mervin fell asleep, drool puddling onto his Slinkhard textbook. Melissa, never one to miss out on an opportunity, went on with her N.E.W.T.s primer; and it was under her stern glare that Beth did the same.
She spent a few pages on the Arithmancy section, which was fun but unchallenging, and then decided that she would do better to work on one of her weak sections. She flipped through the primer. Potions, no problem there ... Muggle Studies, as if that was going to be difficult to pass ... Herbology.
Drat.
With a sigh, she flipped open the book and got to work.
It was appallingly difficult. No, Beth decided, difficult wasn't the word; there was little reasoning involved, just memorization. Unfortunately most of the questions covered things that she hadn't memorized. It was going to be a long haul.
She ran through the page, marking off the questions she knew and circling the ones she didn't. By the end of the page, the circles had won by a margin of two to one. Sighing, she flipped to the next page.
It was blank.
She was all ready to move on when she saw something twist in the center of the page. Oh no, she thought, dread filling her chest. She watched as tendrils of ink curled from the very center of the paper and stretched into the words:
RICHARD SHAW
DIE?
Beth slammed the book shut, her heart suddenly pounding. They knew Rich was involved ... and they knew that there had been something suspicious about his "death." That meant they knew too much.
"Cripes, Beth," said Aaron mildly, from the back of the room, "I know the primer's hard, but get a grip."
Beth flushed red. She glanced back at Aaron and managed a casual grin. "I really hate this stuff," she stammered, by way of explanation. Turning back, she opened the book again; but the page, as always, was back to normal. Although Beth kept a close watch, the words in the primer stayed firmly in place.
After the bell rang for lunch, Melissa fell into easy step beside her and steered her toward an empty part of the Slytherin table.
"It happened again, didn't it?"
"Yeah." Beth took a sandwich from the platter that sprung up between them. She looked it over, not feeling hungry, and finally dropped it to her plate in despair. "Mel, there was no one else in that room but Slytherins. Is it one of us, is someone doing it from a distance, was the book charmed ahead of time?" She broke off and shook her head helplessly, suddenly overwhelmed by the strange, dangerous position they were in. "What are we going to do?"
Melissa's lips thinned. She looked as if she was thinking hard. Finally she said, "Here's what we're going to do. We're going to find Bruce and Mervin and have a little group study time in the library after dinner. If they're after all of us..." Her eyes narrowed. "They're going to get us."
The September evening was cool and bright; few students had chosen to spend it in the gloomy, stale-aired library. The seventh-year S.S.A. members gathered at their usual corner in the back. They had all brought textbooks, but they lay open at random; the four faces around the table, furtive and worried, never glanced at them.
It didn't take long to explain the situation to Bruce and Mervin. Just describing it, in fact, brought back to Beth the sense of dread that she had felt upon seeing that first dangerously good question. By the boys' expressions, they too saw the implied danger.
"All they do is ask questions," Melissa said thoughtfully, tapping her fingers in agitation. "They never wait for the answers."
"And they ask about things they shouldn't know," Beth said. "How would they know that we don't have meetings anymore? How would they know that Richard was involved?"
Bruce looked over at her, surprised.
Beth blushed. "They asked me how Rich died," she admitted. The words sounded strange to say.
Melissa's eyes narrowed. "How dare they!" She frowned around at the library for a moment, as if hoping to find the offender so she could give him a piece of her mind. "We cannot let this go on," she said at last. "We have to find them."
"I don't think we're going to have to go looking for them," Bruce said suddenly.
They all looked over at him, then down at the book which was open before him. Spread across the pages was one more message:
MIDNIGHT
They stared at it in dumb silence.
"It's a trap," said Mervin at last. "We can't risk going."
"But-" Beth started, and she saw hesitation in Melissa's eyes as well. What if the messages were from Dumbledore, aware of their potentially constant surveillance? Or what if they were from the Dark Lord, suspicious that they were defying him? Could they really risk not going?
Melissa let out a sigh. As president, the decision rested with her; Beth felt sure that she was feeling the same pressure that had so strained Richard during his own term of office. "We'd better at least go see who it is," she said at last. "Just the four of us. I'm going to tell Blaise where we're going. Just in case."
She glanced around at them, her eyes serious.
"Bring your wands. And be ready to use them."
... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Busty Betsy's Breast Enhancement Charms are copyright Poppy P, as seen in her very enjoyable fanfic Padma's Quest, and I love the idea so much that this is the second time I've swiped it. See my Favorite Stories list for the link.
