Chapter Twenty-One: News and Notices

There was a new Educational Decree waiting for them the next morning.

"Number Twenty-Six," Melissa read from the notice that had been affixed to the message board. "Teachers are hereby banned from giving their students any information that is not strictly related to the subject they are paid to teach."

"She's mad," said Bruce bluntly. "Raving mad."

"Do you think that goes for prefects too?" said Mervin to Melissa. "What if some firstie asks us where's the loo? Do we have to tell them?"

"This," said Melissa, ignoring him, "is quite simply the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard of." She sighed. "Well, I suppose we'll have to live with it. I think I'll complement her on her foresight. What do you suppose brought it on?"

"Fit of insanity," said Bruce, with dead certainty. He cast a glance toward Beth. "Anyway, maybe it'll distract everyone from the Azkaban breakout."

Beth doubted it, but she gave him a smile just for trying. "That would be nice."

The Great Hall, in fact, fluttered with whispered conversations as if everyone was worried that talking about non-subject material might be illegal for students too. The seventh-years took their usual place at the table. Aaron and Warrington were already there. Aaron raised his hand in greeting; but when he caught sight of Beth, his eyes widened.

Beth sat down, steeling herself. She knew what was coming.

"Beth!" Aaron gaped at her for a moment. Then: "Decided to filch a few more days of vacation, eh?"

"Yeah," said Beth breathlessly. Her heart slowed down. She thought he was going to ask...

"Take me with you next time," Aaron went on, reaching for the ketchup. "Wait won't be a next time, will there? No more long holidays at Christmas. Adrian's got a job and he only gets two twitchy days at Christmas and two at New Year's, it's a gyp is what it is..." He doused his eggs liberally. "Saw the new decree? I'm going to see if it keeps Flitwick from harping on the N.E.W.T.s all the time."

Beth took a piece of toast. Good old oblivious Aaron. If only the rest of the student body was that dim...

Aaron paused as if he'd had a thought and turned back to her.

"So who's that guy escaped from Azkaban?" he blurted. "Your da?"

Beth was almost too surprised to be insulted. "You've met my dad!" she said derisively. "That's my brother."

"Oh." Aaron looked momentarily ashamed. Beth realized that the thing she had most dreaded the admission was already over. The worst had passed and she hadn't even noticed...

Then Aaron pulled a copy of the Daily Prophet from his backpack and spread it out eagerly between them. He pointed to the picture of a man in the top left-hand corner of the front page. "Didn't I ever tell you about my cousins the Jugsons? Lots of times removed, of course looks like only one of 'em got out, doesn't it?"

Beth stared at the newspaper. So it was more than just Chris...

"Right," said Melissa, looking a little ashamed herself. "Remember I told you about my aunt once? She was married to him" She pointed to the photograph of Mulciber. "but she's remarried now. Has twins," she added, unnecessarily.

Blaise Zabini, who had been passing, leaned over Melissa's shoulder to peer at the article. "He used to be a friend of my mother," she said, looking at Mulciber who leered back menacingly. "She's got photographs in the living room. And that's Draco's aunt and uncle." She tapped the photograph of the woman, captioned Bellatrix Lestrange, and the man in the next photograph over.

"My grandfather used to work with Rookwood," inserted Antigone von Dervish, from down the table.

"My cousin Mundungus knew him too," Mervin added. "Both spent a lot of time at the Ministry. On different sides of the witness box of course."

Beth was speechless. Where she had thought herself alone, she was surrounded by peers. What had been her shame was others' pride. She met Melissa's eye, overwhelmed.

"I told you once," said Melissa, casually, intentionally so. "In fifth year, after Lupin's awful boggart. We've all got someone. Remember?"

"I remember," said Beth. But she had never believed it until now.

-'-'-

Bruce had been partially right. Talk of Professor Umbridge's bizarre new decree diluted talk of the Azkaban breakout not to mention preventing any of the teachers from mentioning it. Aaron was delighted by the decree and spent Charms asking Professor Flitwick irrelevant questions to see if he would forget and answer them. Professor Vector, in Arithmancy, sideskirted the whole issue by putting an assignment on the board and making them work silently for an hour. The seventh-year Slytherins joined up again after lunch in History of Magic (which wasn't affected by the decree since Binns never spoke about anything except the subject he was paid to teach) and spent the hour in their N.E.W.T.s primers while Bruce, whose turn it was to pay attention, doggedly took notes while slugging down coffee he had smuggled in from lunch.

"Now," he said, on the way out to class, "we get to see if Umbridge sticks to her own decree."

Beth glanced at him quizzically.

"Umbridge? Isn't today Wednesday?"

Melissa twisted her eyebrows uncomprehendingly; then her face cleared. "I'd completely forgotten, you weren't here! Hagrid's under probation. Umbridge was in his class on Monday, she's sure to be there today as well."

"Ugh." The last thing Beth wanted was to spend another class with Umbridge. "I'm not surprised about the probation, though."

"Of course not," said Melissa disdainfully, "he quite had it coming. Trying to teach about something that hardly anybody can even see! There won't be a thing about thestrals on the N.E.W.T.s. Wait and see."

Beth let out a groan. She had barely even thought about the N.E.W.T.s since before Christmas. She started to wish she had just stayed in London.

Speaking of London !

"Melissa," she said suddenly, "I saw Bode"

But she was forced to break off. They had reached the paddock; sure enough, Professor Umbridge stood there in the snow, a flowery knit scarf around her neck and her beloved clipboard in her hands. Hagrid was nearby in his enormous overcoat, shuffling nervously in front of a large cage set behind him. As the students approached he gave them a wave and a nervous sort of smile.

"Come on over, tha's right," he called, as the Slytherins and Gryffindors crowded around. "Got a bit of a treat for you for the start of term."

A few people stepped backward. Hagrid had thought the Blast-Ended Skrewts were a "bit of a treat" too.

"Now, eh they're a bit jumpy, I'll ask you not to make any quick motions or or, shout, or anythin'." He couldn't seem to keep his thoughts on track; the breaks in his speech coincided with the little glances he kept shooting at Umbridge, whose smile never left her face. "An' they may bite"

"Bite?" spoke up Aaron incredulously.

Beth knew what he was thinking. Practically all of Hagrid's animals had been known to bite, and he had never warned them about it. What on earth was he keeping in that cage? She began to wish she'd brought her dragon-hide gloves.

Umbridge, meantime, leapt at Aaron's comment. "Incites fear in the students..." she muttered, not quite softly enough to hide her words behind the scratching of her quill, "threatens physical harm..."

"Er" said Hagrid, reddening beneath his beard. "Well, yeah, they'll nip yeh on'y if they're afraid, jus' treat 'em right an' there's, er, nothin' to be afraid of..."

"Plays down danger..." muttered Umbridge, scribbling all the while.

Angelina Johnson glanced at her classmates for support, then spoke up, "We'd like to see them, all right, Hagrid?"

Hagrid seemed grateful for her kind tone. "Righ'," he said, nodding. "Well here they are."

He stepped aside.

Lying in the bottom of a cage was a brown-and-white Jack Russell terrier, surrounded by at least seven puppies.

Half the class crooned, while the other half breathed sighs of relief.

"They're precious!" gasped Alicia Spinnet, coming a little closer to watch the puppies snuggling and play-fighting. "How old are they?"

"Jus' a few weeks now," said Hagrid, sounding greatly relieved at the class reaction. "They're not mine, really, a chap in Hogsmeade had a litter well it wasn't him had the litter, it was Daisy there an' he loaned 'em to me for class..." He caught another glance at Professor Umbridge and trailed off.

"They're they're adorable, Hagrid," said Angelina Johnson, "but are they um, they don't seem very magical."

"Blimey!" said Hagrid, slapping a hand to his forehead, "I forgot to tell you! These ain't just terriers they're Crups!"

He undid a flap at the top of the cage and reached inside. When his fist emerged again it held a squirming puppy, licking the snow from his thumb. He displayed it to the class. Protruding from the puppy's backside was a long forked tail.

"Tha' tail's the only way t' tell the difference," he said, and handed it to Alicia. "Got to be removed after the firs' few weeks, that's why I had to bring young 'uns to show yeh."

"Hem hem."

It had to come sometime. Everyone turned toward Umbridge, who was simpering at her best.

"Could you tell us, please, Mr. Hagrid, under what Ministry provision must a Crup's tail be severed?"

A look of thorough blankness covered Hagrid's face. He tried to cover with a hasty laugh.

"Un'er the sharpest one, would work the best ... heh heh, sever, sharp, get it..." He trailed off.

Umbridge's smile never flickered. "Under which provision, Mr. Hagrid?"

Hagrid's face, flaming now, was nearly buried in his collar, so intent was he on staring at the ground. "I, uh can't say's I know exactly," he muttered.

"I see." Umbridge nodded, thoroughly unsurprised, and went back to her clipboard. "Fails to integrate basic government knowledge into lesson..."

The tone of the lesson had been set. Crups were interesting, without a doubt, and the puppies were adorable, but Professor Umbridge's very presence had a way of tainting everything and everyone around her. Hagrid's uncharacteristic jumpiness, combined with the way Umbridge kept Hem-heming and asking little pointed questions, made it clear that the Hogwarts High Inquisitor was not only dubious of Hagrid's teaching skills: she was looking for a reason to sack him.

"You're quite sure Umbridge isn't a Death Eater?" Melissa whispered to Beth, after Umbridge had made a big point about Hagrid's failure to mention the licensing procedure for Crup ownership.

"If she is, she's sure missed a lot of meetings," Beth muttered back.

The end of class came as something of a relief; they all handed back their Crups to Hagrid and hurried toward dinner, hoping that Umbridge was short and stocky enough that she couldn't catch up with them.

"Another class with her!" Beth hissed, when she gauged they were safely away. "She's atrocious."

"You should complain!" said Melissa. "I'm still in Divination, remember, that means I've got three classes with the old bag."

"How does she do it?" said Mervin blankly. "It's like triple the load how can she possibly be showing up everywhere she's supposed to be?"

"It's not like her own classes are that much of a strain," Bruce grumbled. This was a fact. D.A.D.A. had never been a more brainless way to pass the time, and that included the days when they had to watch Lockhart reenact his own exploits. The homework consisted of fill-in-the-blank sentences which could be filled out by flipping through the current chapter of Slinkhard. Umbridge had never given them an exam. She thought they were on chapter twenty-five.

The seventh-years swarmed the Slytherin table and commandeered some rolls and a vat of stew from the firsties.

"At least, Crups are useful," Melissa went on, after they had started eating. "There was something on the O.W.L.s, remember? They're sure to turn up again on the N.E.W.T.s, don't you think?"

"Melissa," said Bruce, ladling stew over a thick piece of bread, "I can't remember a single question from the O.W.L.s."

"I can't remember them at all," Aaron claimed. "It's like I was asleep the whole two weeks, eh?"

"Which explains your score perfectly," said Melissa, with something of an edge.

To Beth's utter dismay, they spent the entire meal talking about N.E.W.T.s the one topic she didn't want to think about. It was so big, so obviously important, yet she had absolutely no time to worry about it, and compared to everything else she had to worry about, it seemed so inconsequential. Melissa was nearly mad about them; even Aaron, who feigned indifference, had been recently studying more than in his first six years combined.

After dinner the Quidditch boys went out to fly while Beth, Melissa, and Mervin trudged back to the dormitories. "You know, we do have five more months," Beth reminded them, somewhat testily, as they entered the common room.

"It took me six months to learn Switching Spells," said Mervin bleakly. "I'm going to get another P in Transfiguration, I know it."

He threw himself into an armchair.

With no warning, a vast serpent slithered from behind the armchair and curled around Mervin's legs.

Beth leapt backward but almost immediately her jaw dropped in astonished recognition. "That is not who I think it is."

The diamond-patterned scales were wholly familiar.

"It's Gina," Mervin said guiltily. The snake raised her head at the sound of her own name. "She found my house over Christmas ... she was hurt, scared ... I couldn't just leave her..."

"She was very good on the train back," Melissa added, a little hopelessly.

Beth couldn't believe it. "Mervin, do you know whose pet this is now?" she hissed.

Pain and anger flashed in Mervin's eyes. "She will always be mine," he hissed back. "Look at her, look what he was doing to her!"

Beth got down on her knees and took a close look at Gina. Long scratches ran along her sides and back, and a set of parallel scoring marked the side of her head. One of her fangs had been broken off at the tip.

"She got these in a fight," Beth guessed, holding the giant scaly head in both hands. "I saw her at Halloween. She looked fine then."

"He put her up to it," Mervin seethed. "I know he did. She would never"

Beth and Melissa raised their eyebrows.

"Well, she would never try to attack someone that could do this much damage," Mervin finished. "She has more sense."

"If she has more sense than you, that's nothing to brag about," said Melissa, her eyes flashing.

"She ran away from him," said Mervin stubbornly, "and I'm keeping her until she wants to leave." He ran his knuckles over her head. "Isn't that right, girl?"

Gina wrapped herself around his legs and settled her head comfortably between his feet, for all the world like a faithful dog.

Beth shook her head with a little resigned sigh. It was nice to have Gina back, she couldn't deny that; but the last thing they needed was another point on which to butt heads with the Dark Lord. All in all, she thought the reappearance of Gina boded very ill.

-'-'-

The Azkaban breakout remained the sole topic of conversation throughout January. It was interesting how many issues could relate back to it: memories of Sirius Black's break-ins and speculation on his whereabouts, murmurs about the usefulness of the Ministry, long arguments about how it might have been managed, and news of the most recent sighting (now popping up daily).

The names of the victims Longbottom, Bones, Prewett came up more than the names of the Death Eaters themselves, and for that Beth was continuously grateful. She could still see her brother Chris in the doorway with snow on his shoulders. She still saw the strained face and dead eyes. She still heard the stammer of too many hours in despair.

But while the outside world sought convicts, life inside Hogwarts was quiet. The Society kept its distance from the Guild, and vice versa; Kiesha and Bruce remained together, but they did so discreetly. The teachers taught and the students learned, or did a good job faking it; house points were given and taken, but these failed to hold the thrill that they had in first year. Beth and her classmates felt the passage of time with fresh pangs. The last half of the last year now it was down to a few months before the end. And, they presumed, some sort of beginning...

Aaron had already put in an application with the magimechanical engineering firm his brother Adrian worked at, and been rejected. Bruce sent off letters requesting try-outs with his three favorite Quidditch teams, then his favorite ten, then all of the teams in the British Isles and twenty on the continent. (Except the Quiberon Quafflepunchers. "I speak the language," Bruce said, chucking his letter in the bin at the last minute, "but I couldn't stand to wear the uniforms.")

Beth had trouble imagining herself five years into the future. In truth, she was afraid to envision it, afraid to make assumptions. She finally understood why Vivian and Dell had postponed their wedding. Anything could happen a broken dream, once fully articulated, only becomes more difficult to bear.

Finally, in the beginning of February not too far from the Valentine's Day Hogsmeade trip, Beth went down to the dungeons to grade potions for Snape and found him waiting there with a bundle of parchments in his hand, which he gave her without comment.

"Thanks," said Beth, flipping through the papers. "What are these again?"

"They are job applications," said Professor Snape. "Three, to be precise. All from institutions which I am told are in need of an entry-level alchemist."

"Oh," said Beth, looking at them more closely. "Hey, wow. Thanks!"

"You will also find," said Professor Snape, clearing his throat and turning away to fuss with some glass tubing, "three letters of recommendation."

Beth looked down at the parchments in her hand. Among the forms and brochures were three sealed envelopes bearing the Hogwarts crest.

"From you?" she said stupidly.

Professor Snape glanced over at her with a raised eyebrow. "Need I retract them?"

"No," said Beth, blushing heavily. "No, thank you." She realized what she had: letters of recommendation from the only potions teacher at the only magical school in the British Isles. "Thank you so much."

"Thank you, Miss Parson," Snape returned gravely. "I am constantly beset by students. A few of them are actually capable. But is very rare to encounter someone who enjoys this discipline as I do."

Then Snape turned to grade a pile of reports, and Beth put away the applications and letters and began checking the snake-blood content of some surprisingly good third-year potions, and neither of them spoke another word for the rest of the afternoon; but Beth thought that they finally understood each other.

-'-'-

Beth returned to the common room after grading the potions, reading the applications as she went. One was for the Le Fay Center for Magical Research, which Beth had heard was part laboratory, part secondary learning. Word was that they had developed the Pax Lycanthrum werewolf potion with some researchers in Germany. The second was for Smoot and Biddle, a private company that had done everything from making Floo Powder mass-producible to helping Mrs. Skower perfect her All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover. Both sounded all right for a start. Beth flipped them to the back of the stack and looked at the third.

She stopped in the middle of the hall.

The top of the purple application bore a wincingly familiar insignia: the large "M" seal of the Ministry. From the heading down it looked like any of the others fill in your personal information, qualifications, attach résumé please but the top bore the ominous marquee: Application for Employment: Department of Mysteries.

All Beth knew about the Department of Mysteries was what Bode and Croaker had told her. (And look what happened to them, she thought, with an angry twist in her stomach.) She had no idea what they would need an alchemist for the two garrulous Cockneys didn't seem Potions-oriented to her but allowed that since no one, including the employees, knew exactly what went on down there, it was likely that many different disciplines were required. And would she be willing to give up all memories of the workplace, in return for the protection of a government job?

Then again, the idea of being involved with England's top secrets was very tempting...

She gazed at the application for a moment longer, then put them all back in her knapsack and continued to the dormitories. Perhaps she would apply and see what happened. Being an Unspeakable might be useful. It could even be fun.

She thought of Croaker, memories of his best friend slipping through his fingers.

She would apply and see, she decided firmly. After all, there were many months yet before she had to choose.

Beth paused before the stone wall of the dungeons and spoke the password; as the hidden door swung open she stepped inside. At first glance, the common room seemed empty but no, there was a kind of commotion, and once she was inside and her field of vision widened, she saw nearly the entire house crowded around the fireplace. At the center of it stood Warrington and Antigone, in the middle of a blazing row.

She spotted Melissa and sidled up to her. "What happened?" she muttered.

"Warrington caught some kid eyeing up Antigone," Melissa whispered out of the side of her mouth, "and didn't threaten to beat him up."

Beth let out a low whistle. "Sounds like it didn't go over well."

"Antigone's not thrilled."

A screamed curse and the sound of breaking glass confirmed her analysis.

This, of course, was not an event to be missed. Beth and Melissa fought their way to the front lines so that they could clearly see the pair faced off in front of the fireplace.

"You don't care about defending my honor anymore!" More breaking glass. "You're so complacent, so smug, you no longer realize what a treasure I am!"

Warrington ventured to insert a word. "But"

"I thought that you loved me," Antigone hissed.

"I..."

"Don't you want us to be together?"

"Uh"

They had always said that Warrington would be crushed in a battle of wits, but it was almost pitiful to watch it actually happen.

"You said once that you would kill for me!" cried Antigone dramatically.

Warrington raised his hands in frustration. "Just tell me who!"

Everybody backed away a step.

"No, the time is past," Antigone hissed. "You had your chance with me, Mr. Warrington, and you have lost it."

For a moment Warrington stood stupefied. Then his face cleared into a look of stupid cunning. "Then who are you going to go to Hogsmeade with?" he roared triumphantly.

"Roger Davies."

Warrington's face fell a thousand miles and crashed on the stones. Antigone watched his realization smugly, arms crossed, sharp-eyed. He shook his head a couple of times, then said, "No you're not!" in a loud but unconvincing tone.

"Watch me," said Antigone viciously. She turned on her heel, crossed the common room in a few hard strides, and slammed the door behind her.

Warrington stared at the door for a bare few seconds before he turned away with a growl and barged off to the boys' dormitories.

Beth and Melissa exchanged a worried glance. "I think," said Melissa, "that it's time to venture into dangerous territory."

"If it ever was," Beth agreed.

They got up and, together, made their way to the boys' dorms.

-'-'-

The boys' hallway was barren stone and smelled like men. Beth and Melissa went up to the seventh-years' room in tandem, ignoring appalled looks from a trio of second-year fellows, and knocked in syncopation.

There came a growl in which the words "go" and "away" were interspersed with those of a less polite nature.

"We're coming in," said Melissa loudly, through the door.

The response was a grunt; it sounded indifferent, or at least not very threatening, so Melissa forged ahead and opened the door.

The room looked precisely as Beth had always imagined it: arranged similar to the girls' room, with four canopy beds, but simply scattered with books, crumpled papers and articles of clothing. The wall above what had to be Aaron's bed was plastered with posters of the Ballycastle Bats, whose moving subjects taunted the Pride of Portree posters over Bruce's. The one with a twenty-foot-long snakeskin under the bed could only belong to Mervin. On the fourth and final bed they found Warrington, sitting on the edge with his hands between his knees, staring at the floor.

Beth and Melissa went to sit on either side of him. The mattress sagged under his weight, pulling the three together like a gravitational force. Beth was struck, suddenly, by Warrington's impressive physique; he must have weighed as much as both girls together, in solid muscle. Why had Antigone, who was attracted to sheer power, given this up?

"Antigone..." Melissa began, and hesitated.

"She's just like that," Beth filled in, gesturing vaguely in the air.

Melissa nodded. "Nobody's ever been good enough for her, she's so certain she's wonderful, and she wants so much no one could possibly stand up..."

"I want her back," rumbled Warrington bleakly.

Beth and Melissa exchanged glances behind his back.

"She doesn't deserve you," said Melissa bluntly. "She's a stuck-up, manipulative"

Warrington sprang to his feet. Turning, he bore down on the girls with sudden, terrifying ferocity.

"What do you know? She's more perfect than anyone in this school, don't call her that, and she was always too good for me!"

He broke off, red-faced and panting. Then he turned on his heel and stormed away, slamming the door behind him.

Beth watched him go, then faced Melissa, who still sat staring wide-eyed and pale-faced after him.

"I think he really loves her," she said.

Melissa shook her head sadly. "That's what Antigone doesn't deserve."

-'-'-

Antigone made a very public show of ignoring Warrington for the rest of the week, and took to stopping by the Ravenclaw table before dinner for a quick snog with Roger Davies. Warrington, each time he saw this, seemed unable to rouse up an appetite and began skipping mealtimes entirely.

"And his flying's suffering," Bruce reported, one evening as he and Beth hunkered in the usual table, picking listlessly at a bit of Charms work.

"I don't like it," Beth said. "It feels wrong. It feels like everything, this year it feels as if the whole school is wearing down, and things are getting ready to fly apart."

She glanced over toward the fireplace, where Mervin sat studying with a huge snake wrapped round his legs.

For the second time, Gina took up residence in the Slytherin common room; this time, fully mature and at an impressive size, she made herself completely at home. It was hard to get a seat by the fireplace because Gina took up all the space. She slunk around between the chairs, sometimes slithering up for a pat on the head, sometimes lunging at a hole in the wall and coming back with a tail between her teeth.

The second-years, who were well known as a bunch of imperious brats, absolutely adored her.

Gina, for her own part, enjoyed the company as well. She seemed to have a special fondness for Morag. Bruce said he reckoned that the snake fancied redheads.

"The Dark Lord is bald," Beth pointed out.

Bruce blinked. "Really?"

"Like a cue ball," said Beth, feeling reckless. "I guess not many people know that, huh?"

"You might want to keep it to yourself from now on," Bruce agreed. He contemplated. "Bald. Who would've thought?"

Still, Beth couldn't help but relate the exchange to Melissa as they were getting ready for bed. Quite unlike Beth, who had found it slightly amusing, Melissa didn't seem to think it was remotely funny.

"Beth, you must be more careful about what you say!" she insisted, with sincere concern. "Please, remember Diggory!"

Beth scowled. "What's he got to do with anything?"

"All year we told him, 'Be careful, you could die, be careful, you could die.' He wouldn't listen!" Melissa looked genuinely upset. "Beth, your banshee is screaming, you've got the Dark Mark, your brother tried to kill you over Christmas break, and your boyfriend got murdered this summer. Now I'm telling you be careful. You could really die."

"Rich wasn't" Beth stopped herself, but too late. Her best friend's expression had changed. With a sigh, she finished what she had started to say. "Rich wasn't murdered. It was a ploy. He's in London and trying to contact the alumni. We gave him the Draught of the Living Death so we could get the ring off him and so he could move freely. I was going to tell you eventually oof!"

Melissa had flung her arms around her and was almost shouting in her ear. "That explains everything! Why you never talked about it I thought you'd gone half mad where you'd snuck off to" She hugged her fervently, and then broke away laughing triumphantly. Beth was astonished to see tears in her eyes. "Is he really all right?"

"He's fine," said Beth. She felt an unexpected rush of relief, like the first night when she'd found out it had all gone well. A smile broke on her face. "He's fine. His apartment's a mess. You'd never believe it..."

Melissa attacked her again.