Chapter Fourteen: On the Defensive

The next few days brought another interesting leaf on the gossip tree: Professor Trelawney, it seemed, had been put on probation, giving Professor Umbridge the right to sit in on all of her classes. For at least a week, the most pervasive joke in the school was the fact that the teacher of Divination just hadn't seen it coming.

"I told you so," said Beth to Melissa, multiple times.

"All right!" Melissa cried at last. "All right! You're a Seer and she's a fraud! I have to have class with Umbridge six times a week, now shut up and pity me!"

The weather turned cold not long into October. Beth was grateful for the chill; it drew less attention to the fact that she always wore long sleeves these days, to hide the skull on her arm.

Evan Wilkes, who had always worn long sleeves, didn't face that particular problem, even though he was in the same boat as Beth. She tried occasionally to talk to him about it. Evan, however, was notoriously difficult to get a straight answer from, and she made little progress. Sometimes it irked her; other times, she admitted that the Dark Lord (and the mark placed unwittingly on their skin) was not a subject to be freely discussed.

Still, Evan could have been more accommodating. One afternoon she found him in the library, picking through the Potions books - a clear sign that he was working on his final Alchemy project for Snape and Vector. She paused to ask, "How's the project going?"

"Privately," said Evan, with a cold glance.

Beth decided to pretend that he had made a socially appropriate response. "Yeah, mine didn't get off the ground for the first couple weeks either."

She almost expected another retort, but Evan answered her blandly. "It's off the ground." He then left before she had a chance to ask what, exactly, his project entailed.

The Society and the Guild continued to avoid each other studiously in public, and exchange information in private. Meanwhile, an organization of another sort was brewing.

"The defense club's begun," Cho Chang reported at the Guild meeting that Tuesday. Her eyes were alight with excitement. "We had our first meeting on Wednesday. Harry's taught us the Disarming Charm."

"I would say," said Kiesha saucily, "that Harry already had you disarmed with his charms."

"Enough of that," said Deirdre coldly, as Cho flushed a brilliant red. "Can I presume that you will be meeting in the future?"

Anthony Goldstein spoke up importantly. "Oh yes. We're keeping the meetings irregular, you see, throw Umbridge off the scent, as it were. It's a bit funny," he added, "they all seem quite sure that they're the first ones to come up with the idea of a secret society within the school..."

Everybody laughed, except, of course, for Deirdre.

"And they will continue to think so," she said severely. "The three of you, in the meantime-" She looked at Cho, Anthony and Michael Corner. "-will continue to report on what goes on at these meetings. If it ever escalates beyond private lessons, I expect to be informed."

"Of course," said Anthony proudly, as Michael rolled his eyes.

"I think Potter and Cho are going to be doing some private lessons..." Kiesha broke in impishly, but Deirdre silenced her with a glare.

"I'll write you out a list of members," said Cho, her blush flaring up again. "We've a name now as well. The D.A."

The Slytherins glanced at each other.

Michael Corner leveled them with a look. "It stands for Dumbledore's Army," he said defensively. "And my girlfriend made up the name."

"Did she?" said Melissa carelessly. She turned to Deirdre. "I'm not sure we can be much help in keeping tabs on this "D.A." There's not a Slytherin among them."

"Because none were invited," Michael thought it prudent to mention.

"Which is proof of the inherent distrust and prejudice shown toward our house," Melissa continued without a pause.

Michael looked irritated.

"Three of you are prefects," said Deirdre. "As are Anthony and myself. It won't be difficult to manipulate the after-curfews hallway patrol schedule so that only we are assigned to that particular hallway."

Melissa nodded. Mervin, who had never enjoyed his prefect duties to begin with, sighed heavily and sank into his chair.

"It is in the best interest of the school, not to mention our members in the D.A.," said Deirdre, "that the defense club continues unmolested. Consider it our duty to protect them from discovery."

She sounded so much like Richard just then that Beth threw back her head and laughed.

Deirdre fixed her gaze on her. "Yes?"

"Nothing. You just reminded me of someone."

"What did I tell you?" said Kiesha. "Mad-Eye Moody."

Deirdre glared. "Is there any further business to share with our guests?"

There was none. As always, the Society made their way to the visitor's exit and dropped back down to the Entrance Hall, leaving the Guild to speak amongst themselves.

They crept back to the common room without incident. After all ten had climbed inside, Melissa closed the door tightly behind them. Then she said, in a strangely strangled voice, "Potter's club is called the D.A."

"Dorks Anonymous," said Mervin instantly, his mouth twitching.

"Dweeb Association," said Beth, struggling against a smile.

"Desperately Average," interjected Blaise, covering her mouth.

"Dam-" began Evan, but Herne stopped him.

"Oh, but we mustn't mock," Melissa said, now obviously struggling to speak, "Michael's girlfriend made it up."

The Society smothered their laughter, there in the doorway of the common room. Halfway across the castle, the Guild of the Eagle was discussing topics too sensitive to share with the Slytherins; but it was satisfying to know that they were being secretly mocked while they did it.

-'-'-

In a way, Beth was pleased to not be a part of this "Dumbledore's Army": she was already neck-deep in schoolwork.

The teachers, for all their harping about the importance of the N.E.W.T.s, did not seem to understand how much their own assignments were taking away from studying for them. Beth herself was barely a tenth of the way through the primer, despite working through nearly every History of Magic and D.A.D.A. class. (Melissa was a quarter of the way through, and also insufferable.) When she was working on the N.E.W.T.s she would think about her regular classwork; while doing her classwork, her mind invariably turned back to the N.E.W.T.s. In between times, there was her work for Snape, getting progressively harder as the lower classes moved on to more complicated potions. It made it very hard to get anything done.

Beth, Melissa and Bruce took to studying by themselves at a table in the common room - a six-seater, though they needed the extra space, and were able to take it by virtue of their seniority (not to mention Melissa's prefect status and Bruce's build). Daily, the table was scattered with textbooks, scrolls and loose equipment: a potted plant for Herbology, the occasional mess of bird entrails for Divination.

One cozy evening in mid-October found the three of them enmeshed in an essay for Flitwick, none of them having mastered the Messenger Spell from the day before. The spell was intended to charm a bottle to receive the speaker's words so that, when uncorked, it would deliver the spoken message to a recipient. Beth's bottle hadn't made a peep. Bruce's got garbled somewhere along the line and recorded his message in Russian (although he was the only one present who knew Russian, so he may have been fibbing). Melissa's came out a mess of static.

That kind of dramatic failure had set them up for a three-foot essay on the theory; however, their textbooks didn't have enough material to fill that kind of parchment, so Beth volunteered to sweet-talk Pince into helping them while the other two held down the table. She returned laden with books. As she approached the table, however, she saw the pair of them bent together, backs to the common room, speaking in low tones. She slowed down to eavesdrop.

"I mean it's not normal to be so - so blithe about it..."

"Maybe she's still in shock," came Bruce's voice, low and concerned. "I mean, I still can't believe ... how was she at the funeral?"

"Distant," said Melissa. "I would have thought ... I expected us to have talked about it by now. But since then she's barely mentioned it. It's almost as if..." She paused, then started again. "It's almost as if she never thinks about it all."

Bruce sighed.

It was obvious what they were talking about. Beth froze to the spot. In a way, she wanted to hear what they had to say.

"And then there's Cho Chang," Melissa went on. "She lost Cedric, and she's a wreck - you can't see it all the time of course, but sometimes at meals, or in the bathrooms, or in the hallways, and Herne tells me she even cries in class sometimes ... I know, I know, I wouldn't expect Beth to be quite so weepy..." She seemed to be reacting to Bruce's expression. "But remember fifth year, with the banshee and her brother's trial and her father's arrest and everything? She was stressed, and you could tell."

Beth thought it was time to put this conversation to an end. She gathered her textbooks to her chest and bustled up to her chair as if she hadn't heard a word.

"Good news," she said, taking a perverse inward delight at the way Bruce and Melissa were trying to pretend they hadn't been talking about her, "Pince gave me four or five good ones ... and this one's illegal, but she let me check it out anyway." She dumped the books onto the table, flopped into a seat and started flipping through one of them.

"Great," said Bruce, much too loudly. "That's good of her."

"So have you two gotten very far?" said Beth innocently.

"We've been talking about N.E.W.T.s instead," said Melissa. She was a better liar than Bruce. "Has your Herbology been going well?" She was also adept at subject-changing.

"All right." There was another lie. Beth knew that Herbology was important to an alchemist, and she knew it was supposed to be easy, but she just couldn't make herself care. "Come on. Let's get back to this essay."

The glance exchanged between Bruce and Melissa was not lost on her.

Despite it all, the month plodded on without major event. The Society continued to meet the Guild in their tower on Tuesday nights. Wednesday afternoons were given to the N.E.W.T.s practices, at which Patricia Stimpson continued to faint with amazing regularity. Then in the last week of October, Bruce failed to show up for the weekly N.E.W.T.s practice session.

"This can mean only one thing," said Beth.

Melissa nodded darkly. "Quidditch season."

The first game was, as always, Slytherin versus Gryffindor, to be played two weeks into November. Montague started getting the team up early for before-school practices, and had been seen prowling the common room to be sure they got to bed on time. Again, Beth had to admit to herself that his leadership of the team was not all bad. He may have been cocky, coarse, and uncaring, but he was beating the Quidditch players into great shape.

The Halloween feast was held on a delightfully overcast Friday night. The seventh-years enjoyed themselves immensely, picking around the food and making snarky comments on the decorations. After the dancing skeletons - reprising their highly successful floor show from fourth year - clattered away for the evening to wild applause, Dumbledore sent them all to bed.

"Just think," said Melissa, on the way back to the dorms, "a year ago, we were greeting the Durmstrang students for the first time."

"It feels like forever," said Beth truthfully. So much had happened in the meantime. "You got into an argument with Andrei Gregorovich."

"Right..." Melissa blushed fervently. "Well - Josef Poliakoff was all excited to be eating dinner with you, remember? And he kept telling stories ... I had never seen Viktor Krum smiling until then..."

"Karkaroff kept babying him."

They reached their dormitory and got ready for bed, each absorbed in her own memories. The previous year, Beth thought, had been easier - true, there was her Alchemy project, and so much time spent with Diggory, and all year she had to watch Gypsy fawning over Richard, but there hadn't been so much hanging over their heads all the time. There hadn't been as much at stake.

She lay back against the soft cotton sheets. For once, it was nice to have a quiet Halloween. She closed her eyes.

Pain shot up her arm.

Beth's eyes flew open. Sitting straight up in bed, she wrenched back the sleeve of her nightgown and stared at her forearm. The dark skull, which usually glowed red against her pale skin, was burning black.

There was no time to think; the pain of the Dark Mark would have inhibited thought anyway. Beth tumbled out of bed and began tugging on her clothes. Melissa, in the next bed over, peeked out from between the canopies with a groggy expression. "Whassa matter, troll in the dungeons?"

"I have to leave," Beth hissed, wrapping her school cloak around her shoulders. "I'll be back by morning."

"Suit yourself," said Melissa sleepily, and rolled back over.

Pulling up the hood of her cloak, Beth slipped out of the dark bedroom.

She crept down the hall to the common room. She could still see tiny embers twinkling in the fireplace, and faint candlelight from the sconces that lined the far wall. She would use the tunnel to the grounds and then go through the gate to Apparate; but she must be swift, when the Dark Lord called it did not do to tarry...

She took one step into the common room and stopped.

Someone was there.

A hood was pulled aside and Evan Wilkes' fathomless eyes stared into hers. Of course; Evan couldn't Apparate himself yet. Wordlessly, they moved to an edge of the common room and shifted an armchair so that a corner of the rug could be turned back. "Lettus outtathis madhaus." Stone shifted like quicksilver; a gaping hole bubbled open. They slipped into the tunnel and concealed its entrance with the rug.

Through the stone tunnel lit blue by wandlight; upward to the dewy grounds under a cold crescent moon. Beth and Evan ran along the treeline until they passed through the great iron gates.

"Creo persona."

A mask fell over each of their faces.

"Ceteris paribus." Gripping Evan's hands in hers, Beth closed her eyes and thought of the graveyard. A heartbeat later, with a crack like the report of a pistol, the street was empty.

-'-'-

A chilly harvest wind brushed the leaning tombstones.

An enormous snake glided in between the grave markers, her scales rasping on the ancient slabs of slate. She was not happy to be here. The chill of October leached into her cold blood, making her sluggish and crabby. A clear night like this would have been perfect for stalking rats, or slithering down burrows after naive young rabbits - or better, inside the House curled in front of the fire, languorously toasting her shining diamond-pattern coils. Still, she thought, her friend the man-and-rat would be there, as well as the man-and-snake she had nursed with her venom. The man-and-snake was her child, in a way, but he was also her Master, and she had seen him become fierce. No, if the Master wanted her to brave the cold of Halloween, she would only obey.

Cracks and snaps began to clutter out the night sounds, and the snake wound herself around a yew tree and coiled comfortably among its branches. She knew they would be coming, of course - they always did, when the Master grabbed her friend's arm like that. But they were unpleasant, and always reeked of fear. She found she preferred to watch from afar and idly speculate on which would be the tastiest.

The sporadic popping noise speckled the night, like slow bubbles sliding one by one to the surface of a lake. The snake settled in and watched as dark-hooded men began to appear willy-nilly among the gravestones. She flicked her tongue derisively and tasted the stench of servility.

On the whole, she much preferred rats.

-'-'-

Beth and Evan whirled in space, hands linked, before their feet settled into the cool dewy grass of the Little Hangleton churchyard. Already dozens of hooded figures were winding through the tombstones to the meeting place. Quickly and silently, they took their places in the growing circle. Beth almost felt as if she had grown used to the routine.

The children of the Dark Lord came together from all corners of the graveyard to form a black ring amid the white and rotting tombs.

Like a lens coming into focus, the tall black figure emerged from the air to stand quietly amid them. He made no move and said not a word, yet drew their attention like a black hole - an undeniable force. Around him, the formation grew until the gaps were closed and his servants stood shoulder-to-shoulder, masked and motionless, tense in anticipation.

The sky crackled.

The Dark Lord raised both his hands and the air around him shimmered. Above one palm there appeared a bronze goblet, glinting red under the moon; above the other, a glimmering knife. The two floated gently above his hands for several moments - then, with a flick of his fingers, the pair careened across the circle into the waiting hands of a cloaked Death Eater opposite his Lord.

"The strongest bonds," said the Dark Lord.

The hooded man gripped the knife in one hand, the goblet in the other. In one swift jerking motion, he ran his thumb over the edge of the blade and held it over the rim of the goblet. Thick red drops trickled into the cup.

He passed the object to the right. The same ritual was performed in another's hands.

Soon the knife's edge was slick with blood, and the goblet sticky from being passed from wounded to wounded. When the objects came to Beth, she clenched her teeth and slashed her thumb as had those before her. She felt dizzy and disconnected; the things around her made no sense, they were surreal as a dream; and how could one argue with a dream?

The stars wobbled in their paths.

When the knife and cup came again to that first hooded man, the Dark Lord stretched out his hands again, and they came soaring into his grasp. The knife vanished at his touch. He raised the goblet towards them - a macabre toast.

"The strongest bonds ... on the strongest night..."

He tilted back his head and drank the goblet dry.

Beth felt a strange warmth swell at the center of her arm and start to spread out, flowing through her veins, reaching out to the edges of her body. She felt her face flush; little beads of sweat began to form along her hairline under the stifling mask. The slash on her thumb pulled apart and began to bleed anew.

The air seemed to quake under a power that Beth had never seen nor dreamt of. The Dark Lord tossed the empty goblet into the midst of them and then extended a hand: the cup evaporated before it hit the ground. Lightning crossed the clear, cloudless sky. The trees began to quiver without a breeze.

"My true family," said the Dark Lord, but there was no fondness in his voice - only greed, ownership, and pride. "You will be mine in life and death. You will suffer and die in my name. But those who are true - you will share the glory ... the wealth ... and the unfettered power that will be my interminable reign!"

Lightning struck again, but Beth heard no thunder. It was swallowed in the roar of want and hate that rose from the ring of Dark. She could not tell, and would never know, whether her own voice joined it.

-'-'-

The humans broke from their circle and vanished, one by one, into the air. All the better, the snake thought. She wasn't fond of them.

A pair of them, still masked, came toward her tree and joined hands; but on catching sight of her they broke apart and looked up into the tree where she curled comfortably. The snake tasted the air curiously. They were very familiar... Of course! These were the two young ones from her master's second birth.

The boy reached up a hand and chucked her under the chin. He smelled like her home, where she had been raised. "Hullo, Gina." She flicked her tongue, nostalgically basking in the smell.

The girl, too, raised her hand and stroked the snake's head. "Hi, Gina." The slitted eyes closed in pleasure. This was a delightful surprise. She'd forgotten, in the thrill of open spaces and the freedom to eat whatever she could catch, how nice it had been surrounded by the young humans.

The human hand was retracted. The two young ones bent together, bid their farewell, and joined hands once again. "Ceteris paribus." There was a sharp sound, a cold breeze from no cloud, and the two of them became gone.

Gina slunk down the trunk of the tree and slithered across the graveyard. Her master was finished for the evening. Perhaps he would have saved her some of the delicious lifejuice she had smelled from so far away. Perhaps he would want to stroke her head and mutter words sweet with anger and ambition.

Anyway, he would probably light the fireplace; and as far as Gina was concerned, that was all she needed to make it a good evening.

-'-'-

Beth woke up feeling as exhausted as if she had never slept. It was a quiet Saturday; she lay in bed blinking up at the canopy for another hour or so, wanting desperately to go back to sleep. When that didn't work, she grudgingly rolled out of bed and yanked on a dressing robe before stumbling to the powder room.

Melissa was already there, peering closely into the mirror with her teeth in a grimace.

"I think my teeth have gone yellow from too much coffee," she said, when she saw Beth. "Do you think my teeth are yellow?" She bared her teeth.

"No more than ever," said Beth. She checked her own teeth in the mirror. They looked about the same as usual, despite the horrendous amounts of coffee she had been drinking lately.

"So," said Melissa, squeezing out some toothpaste, "where did you get off to last night?"

"A little birdie," said Beth, rolling up her sleeves, "told me to show up for a meeting." She gestured to the Dark Mark and then got to washing her face.

Melissa's jaw dropped. "No! Why didn't you tell me?"

"You were half asleep. Besides, what would you have done anyway? Written me a doctor's excuse?"

"That," said Melissa, "was uncalled for." She started brushing her teeth thoughtfully. "Well, did anything happen that we ought to know about?"

Beth considered while drying her face. "No." The strange ceremony of blood was strictly Death-Eater related; and while it didn't seem exactly harmless, it was obviously nothing new. "I saw Gina," she corrected. "She's looking well."

"I don't suppose you noticed any people you recognized."

"Now, that was uncalled for," Beth retorted. "Nott was there. He's the only ... wait. There was Riggs."

"Riggs," said Melissa through her teeth. She spat toothpaste into the sink.

"He must have gotten the Dark Mark sometime this fall," Beth mused. "I didn't notice him in August..."

"You had one in August too?" said Melissa, appalled.

"They're going to happen a lot," said Beth crankily. "You'd better get used to it."

"I'd just like to know if I need to worry about you dying!"

"Our lord's too busy to even notice me." Beth wiped her hands, and then paused, struck by her own words. "I mean, the Dark Lord."

Melissa stared at her for a moment. "You have access to Hogwarts," she said finally, "and you were dating the guy who took his Ledger. If he ever does notice you, Beth..."

"So far so good," said Beth brusquely, and left for the showers.

They met back up in the powder room, drying their hair together without speaking. It had been like that a lot lately, Beth thought, with an unusual twinge of worry. Maybe she should spend more time talking to Melissa instead of clamming up. Maybe she ought to tell her about Richard...

Too dangerous, Beth decided firmly. Two may keep a secret if one of them is dead. But it wasn't fair - the shadow of the Dark Lord had begun to encroach even on her closest friendships.

They headed out to the common room together, still silent, but a cool, brash voice broke in from the corner:

"Parson."

Beth turned back at the sound of her name. Evan Wilkes lounged in one of the high-backed chairs. Judging by the mud on the hem of his robes, and by the circles under his eyes, she guessed he hadn't gone to bed after they got back.

She and Melissa went up to him. "Filled her in already?" he asked Beth, nodding his head towards Melissa.

"I only mentioned who we saw," she said, trying to indicate with her tone that there wasn't anything more to tell.

"Did you mention who we didn't see?"

"Well, no," Beth shot back, "it would've taken too long to list them all."

Evan gave her a genuine, appreciative grin, by which she knew she'd gotten in a zinger up to his standards. It vanished almost instantly as he addressed Melissa.

"Umbridge wasn't there."

"Oh!" Melissa's expression changed as she considered this. "Hmm. You're sure?"

Evan regarded her almost pityingly.

Beth thought back through the past few hours. "He's right," she said, surprised to realize it. "You'd know that figure anywhere. I never met anybody shaped like her. I suppose she could have been ... I don't know, under an illusion-"

"She wasn't," Evan broke in coolly. "I put Stealth Sensors all around her rooms during the Halloween feast. Just in case."

Beth remembered how Evan had met her in the common room, almost as if he had been expecting her.

"She never left," Evan went on. "Believe me, when the Dark Lord calls you don't just say, 'Sorry, not tonight'. She may be crazy and evil, but the woman is no Death Eater."

Melissa put her hands on her hips and stared at the floor, pondering. Finally she looked back up.

"If Umbridge isn't working for the Dark Lord," she said slowly, "then all these decrees are her own idea." She shook her head. "I don't know whether to be relieved, or more worried than ever."