The Quibbler article remained illegal; so, of course, not a student in the school missed reading it. By the end of the day even the non-Society Slytherins had gotten hold of it. Beth wasn't surprised at how the article had propagated through the school what astonished her was that Umbridge had yet to catch anyone with it.
"I'm impressed," Melissa agreed, when she mentioned this. "I would've thought she'd have picked up loads of Hufflepuffs by now."
Ironically, the mood around school had taken on a strangely businesslike timbre. With the teachers forbidden from lecturing outside of their subjects, and everyone prevented from talking about the Quibbler, the easiest thing to do was focus on schoolwork. There was also an undercurrent of caution that Hogwarts had never seen. Who knew what would be the next unforgivable sin? No, the best course was to keep your head down. It may not have been a good way to run a school, but it sure helped with N.E.W.T.s preparations.
"This sounds crazy," said Bruce, around their usual spot in the common room that Tuesday afternoon, "but I think I might actually get a N.E.W.T. or two."
"After all those practices, you had better," said Melissa primly. She addressed the rest of them. "Has anyone had any luck finding more information on the contraction theory in Shrinking Spells?"
Grunts and shaking of heads.
"You know Professor Flitwick said they were certain to appear!" Melissa chided them.
"I found a footnote reference," Mervin said gloomily. "Metamagical Phenomena, by Ptolemy somebody. It's not in the library. Pince spent an hour looking for it. She was bloody annoyed," he added, perking up a little at the memory.
Beth yawned and stretched her hands over her head. "I wonder if the Guild has a copy? Their tower's stacked with books."
She was met with dubious glances.
"I suppose they might," said Melissa coldly. "But I have no intention of asking them."
"We don't have to," said Beth. In truth, she was getting restless from sitting and wanted an excuse to take a walk. "Look, I'll just pop up to the Ravenclaw tower and see if they've got it in stock."
Melissa bit her lip. "All right ... but if they catch you, it wasn't my idea."
"It wasn't your idea anyway."
"Of course not. I don't get such silly ideas."
"You'll be sorry when I come back and don't let you read it," Beth grinned, getting up from the table.
"You'll be sorry when you don't come back," said Melissa, a teasing grin lurking in her eyes nonetheless.
Beth waved aside her comment and left for the Entrance Hall.
It was that oft-wasted hour between classes and dinner; the halls were nearly empty. Beth loitered in the Entrance Hall until the coast was clear. Then she tapped the enchanted floor, stepped to the center, and swept upward toward the tower of the Guild.
She popped through the floor easily, but hesitated before going further into the room.
Beth had expected the Ravenclaw tower to be abandoned; or in the worst case, empty except for Deirdre, in her permanent position behind the broad wooden desk. The last thing she expected to see was Evan Wilkes lounging in a corner with a fat book across his lap, and Cova Lynn on the other side of the room reading quietly to herself.
Evan was absorbed in his reading; his face held a frighteningly intense concentration. He was clearly drinking in every word. Wanting to see what happened, Beth crossed the room carefully to where Cova Lynn sat, now watching her with her usual perky, elfin smile.
Beth slid into the table beside the little girl, keeping her voice low.
"What's he doing here?"
"The same thing you're doing here, I imagine," said Cova Lynn brightly.
"How long's he been there?"
Cova Lynn shrugged. "I don't know, I only came in just now. He says he's doing schoolwork."
"Really." Beth had rarely seen Evan actually do schoolwork; it just seemed to become done when necessary. "Can you see what he's reading?"
Cova Lynn shook her head.
Just then, Evan looked up from his book. His cool dark eyes fixed on Beth first, then skipped dismissively over Cova Lynn's curious little face. He closed the book with a snap. Instantly, it vanished from his hands. The books on the far shelf nudged each other and shifted in place, but Beth wasn't quick enough to tell where among them the book had reappeared.
Evan stood and picked up the knapsack that he always seemed to carry these days. Without a word he strode across the room, flicked his wand, and sank into the quicksand floor.
Instantly, Beth leapt for the shelf where Evan's book had shelved itself. "It's got to be here somewhere," she muttered, running her hands over the dozens of volumes stacked side-by-side. "I think it was ... a red one..."
"May I help?" said Cova Lynn curiously. She had come up beside Beth, her perky little face turned upward. Beth glanced down (noting with embarrassment how much she loomed over the tiny girl) and shrugged.
"Suit yourself."
Cova Lynn took out her wand and laid it flat on her palm.
"Point Me."
The wand in her palm swung like the needle of a compass and finally fixed on a large volume bound in red leather. Cova Lynn plucked it from the shelf and handed it to Beth, who eagerly flipped to the title page.
It read:
The Mysteries and Uses of Wizards' Blood
(A Practical Guide)
Beth's jaw dropped. Despite how well she knew Evan, she hadn't expected something so blatantly malevolent.
Cova Lynn leaned over her shoulder, brightly interested. "Do you think he's gong to kill someone?"
Beth turned to Cova Lynn incredulously. "Why do you people even have this kind of book anyway?" she demanded.
Cova Lynn shrugged. "It is awfully hard to get something from the Restricted Section, you know."
"And they call us the evil house," said Beth, shaking her head.
"Yes," said Cova Lynn thoughtfully. "Odd, isn't it?"
Beth closed the book and tucked it back into its place on the shelf. "Listen, Cova," she said, "I think it would be best if we didn't tell anybody that we saw Evan reading a book about blood."
"Why?" said Cova Lynn, eyes wide and curious.
"They'll think he's up to something. I mean, he is, he's always up to something, but ... I think it would be a distraction ... somebody's bound to make a mountain out of a molehill."
"Like Deirdre," said Cova Lynn.
The girl was smarter than she looked. "Well, yes," said Beth. "Don't let Deirdre know. I'll tell the Society and if there's something wrong, we'll take care of it. Deirdre would just freak out."
"She enjoys it," said Cova Lynn.
"But it's not so fun for the rest of us," Beth said. "Will you keep quiet?"
Cova Lynn considered. "Yes," she decided, with a kind of childlike solemnity. "I would never want anyone tattling on me."
"All right." For an unsettling moment, Beth wondered what a fresh-faced first-year was doing that she wouldn't want tattled on. She decided it was none of her business and turned to go, anxious to tell Melissa what she had seen.
Just before stepping onto the enchanted floor, she paused and turned around.
"Do you guys have a copy of Metamagical Phenomena, by ... er ... Ptolemy somebody?"
"Try the Advanced Charms section," said Cova Lynn, and pointed her in the right direction.
-'-'-
Beth returned to the common room, book in hand.
"Did you get it?" said Melissa, without looking up from her own work.
"Oh, I got it," said Beth, tossing it onto the table. "Wait 'til you hear what else I got."
She described Evan's actions in the Ravenclaw tower and the ominous book he had been absorbed in.
"What if the Guild had caught him?" was Melissa's first reaction.
"Cova Lynn was in there," Beth told her, "and she didn't seem to mind."
"Yes, but that little thing's a bit odd herself," Mervin pointed out.
"I'm really worried now," Beth said aloud, settling back into her chair. "I have a very bad feeling about that project. Doing one gives you practically unlimited access to the ingredients stores. We already know there's a diamond in there, which is really weird. He could be putting in unicorn blood and hemlock for all we know. Evan and unstable elements that's just not a combination I want to think about." She tapped her cheek distractedly. "He's always up to something. I mean, he spent all last year trying to do in Professor Moody."
"That wasn't Professor Moody," Bruce reminded her, "just some chap with Polyjuice potion."
"And that's the only thing that saved him," Beth countered. "Evan thought he'd got the wrong room. You'd have to be crazy to break into Mad-Eye Moody's bedroom, I'll bet whoever-he-was just hexed up the door and didn't worry if his potion wore off halfway through the night."
Melissa's chin rested in her hands; her eyes were vague with thought. At last she raised herself up and looked from one to the other. "This is going to sound a little bizarre," said Melissa, "but listen, all right? Every year we think Evan's up to something evil, and every year it turns out he's actually not."
Bruce stared at her. "Did you miss the part about killing Professor Moody?"
"Well that aside," said Melissa, "he's really only ever done good by us. The Society, I mean. And you told me yourself, he doesn't exactly seem to be enjoying those Death Eater meetings. I think he's just as ... as confused as you are. I think that until we find out for sure what he's up to, we ought to trust Evan."
Beth chewed her lower lip. Of all the students in the school, she had come to think of Evan as sort of her counterpart. He had been present for the most frightening event of her life.
"I want to," she said slowly, "but I'm afraid that someday we're going to be right."
-'-'-
As if every ominous event of the year was linked in her mind, seeing Evan's suspicious activities made Beth think of the banshee. She said little during dinner, content to half-listen to the conversation around her. It was only over dessert that she remembered that she was not the only one in the school to bear this particular burden.
"I never did meet her," she said aloud, gazing at the next table over.
Melissa glanced up from her apple pie, eyebrows furrowed. "Who's 'her'?"
"My cousin. The Parsimmer. Dad thought I ought to meet her sometime, since she's here at Hogwarts."
"Oh." Melissa, too, glanced over at the Hufflepuff table, but found no long-lost relative of her own. "Well, no time like the present, they say."
"I tried when she was a first-year," Beth remembered, "but Diggory chased me away. I think she was afraid of me."
"I'm afraid of you," said Bruce, across the table. "Both of you, actually."
Melissa responded with a huff. "She'll have matured since then," she told Beth. "You really ought to try again. It can't hurt. Besides, maybe she knows something you don't maybe her great-uncle is hanging on to life by a thread, or something. That would be a relief."
It sounded unlikely to Beth, but she agreed that there was no point in putting it off. When her classmates got up and headed down to the common room for some well-deserved time off, she hung around in the Entrance Hall until she saw the blonde, round-faced Louisa Parsimmer emerge with a cluster of friends.
Trying very hard to look friendly, she approached the group within a few feet. "Louisa?"
The girl stopped walking and turned around, her friends stopping a few feet behind her. Her face fell at the sight of Beth, but before she could say anything, Beth stuck out her hand.
"My name is Beth Parson. I don't know if your father ever mentioned me or not, but we're cousins."
Louisa looked skeptical but shook her hand anyway. "No, he didn't," she said slowly, "and I think he would have said something..."
"I can prove it," said Beth. "Didn't you hear the banshee last night?"
Louisa's rosy face grew pronouncedly pale. "Yes," she said. "Yes, I did ... I was in bed, and everyone thought I was bit by a bedbug or something, the way I jumped over to the window..." She looked Beth over carefully. "Then it was you I saw in the hallway my first year."
Beth nodded.
"That was when Great-Grandmum got eaten by a crocodile," the girl added sadly.
Beth struggled to keep herself from laughing. "I heard about that."
"You weren't at the funeral," Louisa remembered, tugging one of her braids absently. "She was your great-grandmother too."
"I guess so." Beth hadn't thought of that. "I never met any of my family. I don't even know your father." She felt a pang, suddenly. All those years she had been alone with her father, when there were uncles and aunts and cousins out there, who could have been with them ... she banished the uncomfortable thought. She knew why it had been that way. "My father wanted me to get to know you. In case."
"In case of the banshee." Louisa's round face was serious.
"Right."
Their eyes met, and showed a kindred fear.
"All right," said Louisa, glancing over her shoulder at her classmates. "Let's go for a walk."
-'-'-
The cold February breeze nipped their hands and faces until their cheeks shone the same shade of pink. Up close, Beth could pick out hallmarks of a family resemblance: the shade of hair, the slightly protruding chin (muted by her mother's side of the family, to Louisa's good fortune). They made small talk along the path to the lake: House, year, favorite classes, hometown, and the like. However, it wasn't long before Louisa got to the topic.
"I always think it's going to be my little sister," said Louisa. "She's in first year. Or my mother ... she's sickly sometimes," she explained without elaboration. "Of course there are the healers and the house elves and the experts, but I always do wonder..." Beth remembered that in addition to being a proper pureblood family, the Parsimmers were also rich.
"My father's getting old," said Beth, feeling strange to be speaking so openly to a near stranger. "Very old, actually. He could be my grandfather. And my brothers are ..."
"Escaped from Azkaban," Louisa said suddenly. "I heard about that."
Beth had been going to say something like, "in constant danger." Instead she nodded. "One of them. The other's still in there, with my mother. I can't believe they've lasted this long."
"I even thought it might be me," said Louisa. She gazed out at the rippling surface of the lake. "But I think we're safe here at Hogwarts. You and I ... and it can't be more than a few months away, can it? She came back in the middle of November. It can't be too long now."
But whether that was a comfort, Beth couldn't be sure.
The cousins made a full circuit around the lake; their conversation ranged far and wide but always came back to the shared fear, the family curse. Though it brought to the fore of her mind that ever-festering worry, Beth was glad to be able to talk freely; it was incredible to know that someone else existed who knew what she was going through.
By the time they returned to the Entrance Hall, it was well past dark; curfew would fall within half an hour. Beth shook Louisa's hand, grateful that they had finally met. It occurred to Beth, as she started toward the dungeons, that it was only the second time in her Hogwarts career that she had made friends with someone from Hufflepuff house. The first, Cedric Diggory, had also been living under the Damocles' sword of a deadly curse, though his was self-inflicted. Beth hoped that this relationship would not end as the last one had. Of course, Beth thought, the curse of the banshee wasn't death, it was foreknowledge ... and in some ways that was worse...
Louisa was only halfway across the Entrance Hall when Beth let out a yelp of pain.
The burning pain on her forearm was unmistakable. Louisa turned around, concerned at the noise, but Beth kept her composure enough to say, "Uh stubbed my toe. See you around, all right?"
"All right..." said Louisa dubiously.
Evan Wilkes tore up the staircase from the dungeons, still tugging on his winter cloak. He brushed past Louisa and skidded up to Beth. "Ready?" he said breathlessly.
"Have a good night," Beth called to Louisa, trying hard to sound casual, before she and Evan dashed out of the Entrance Hall and onto the dark grounds.
-'-'-
They appeared in the snowy graveyard minutes later, fingers red from the cold, white masks already in place. It was such an early meeting, Beth thought, as they started toward the Riddle grave. All the rest had taken place at midnight. What could be so urgent that it warranted a more dangerous meeting time?
The Dark Lord was already there, a tall, stark figure against the snowy graveyard and cloudy nighttime sky. There was something large and dark huddled in the snow at his feet. The ring seemed larger than before: the twelve escaped prisoners had returned to their places. Danger crackled like static around them. Beth and Evan hurried to take their places in the growing circle. This was not a night to be tardy.
The creature at his feet was sobbing; a man, but a desperate one, reaching for the hem of the Dark Lord's robes and gasping out apologies. The Dark Lord shook him off like a dog. He addressed the circle with the same quiet, dangerously authoritative voice which he always used although Beth sensed the fury in his tone and grew tense with fear.
"We are betrayed."
His words sent a shudder through the Death Eaters. The man at his feet sputtered, "No no!" ineffectively. The Dark Lord ignored him.
"Avery has wasted months of our time..." said the Dark Lord, disdain in his tone. "Not intentionally ... but not excusably. The fool knows less of the Department of Mysteries than he claimed."
Beth stared at the groveling figure, thunderstruck. That was all he had done? Some kind of misinformation, some kind of false intelligence? And for that, humiliation before a full assembly here in the snow?
"Listen now," hissed the Dark Lord, and every white-rimmed eye turned to him. "I will not be insulted with lies or misled by weak guesses. Avery has done less than his best. I will accept nothing but your best."
His unspoken threat hung in the cold air.
"Now Avery will be punished ... by those he has deceived."
He raised one slender white hand and pointed around the circle: once, twice, thrice. The three silently chosen ones raised their wands. Avery began to whimper again, kneeling helpless and shameless in a mess of disheveled snow.
One of the chosen ones was just three persons to the right of Beth. She avoided looking at him and shuddered to think how close she had been.
The three spoke together.
"Crucio."
There was a moment, a shining quiet moment, when Beth could hear the word being spoken beside her: clear as day, heart-stoppingly familiar.
She had never heard it say that word, but she knew the voice. She knew it because she had heard it nearly every day for the past seven years ... because it had lectured her and scolded her ... because it had given her orders, asked her questions, and taught her the most interesting subject at school ... and now this achingly familiar voice murmured one soft word and was covered in the sounds of Avery's screams.
Beth had seen the Cruciatus Curse performed before. And cast it myself, she reminded herself bitterly. She closed her eyes as if it would cut out the sounds of pain, forced herself not to wince. She ignored the spell by thinking of the caster. How could he do this? How could he be here? And then the terrifying question: Has Professor Snape recognized me, too?
The screams lasted far too long, at last dying off in the cold air. Avery lay sniveling on the ground just as he had at that first meeting, Beth remembered. Had he not yet learned how to keep out of his master's eye?
"Rookwood has corrected Avery's ... fallacy," said Lord Voldemort calmly, ignoring the cringing man at his feet. "He will be rewarded for his loyalty ... and his long patience."
One of the figures made an unsteady half-bow of obeisance toward the Dark Lord.
"That puppet of Dumbledore's is scheduled for release from Azkaban in two weeks. I wish to discuss how to ... handle him."
Another two Death Eaters made small bows. The Dark Lord gestured to them. The three vanished with wisps of dark smoke.
At the disappearance of the Dark Lord, the circle broke apart, with an air of relief; those remaining had been spared the wrath of their master for one more night. Beth turned quickly to find a clear place to Disapparate. She didn't want to risk a face-to-face meeting with Professor Snape.
A firm hand fell on her shoulder. Beth froze.
"Hello there."
Even in a whisper, Riggs's smug tone came through clearly.
"Go away," said Beth, not moving.
Riggs chuckled. "Still don't know where Nagini is?"
Beth was silent.
Riggs raised a gloved hand. There was a folded piece of parchment between his fingers.
"Give this to Mervin."
His tone was quiet, authoritative, undeniable. Beth took the parchment.
"Good girl," Riggs whispered, patting her on the back. Without another word, he turned away and disappeared among the other black figures dispersing across the graveyard.
Evan came up to her, his posture indicating impatience. Beth put the parchment in her pocket and followed him to an empty part of the graveyard. They linked hands; the cold February wind swirled around them and they landed softly in the snow outside of the gates to Hogwarts.
There were no footprints on the path to the castle; either they had gotten back before Snape, or the Potions Master knew another way into and out of the castle. Silently, they ran up the stone steps, through the Entrance Hall, and down into the dungeons, trailing snow behind them.
"They'll still be awake," Evan murmured, before they entered the common room.
"Tell them we were doing Potions," Beth murmured back. "Rackharrow." The stones slid apart; they came into the warm and chatty common room, removing their wet cloaks, utterly isolated from the comfortable atmosphere around them.
They hovered together by the door for a moment. Beth wanted to speak about what they had seen; but just as urgently, she wanted to keep quiet and pretend it had never happened.
Evan, at last, broke the silence.
"You heard him."
So he, too, had perceived the voice of the Potions Master. "I heard him," Beth said, her words as bitter as a curse. Then she slammed her fist onto the back of a chair, hard enough to hurt her fingers. "He knows about us, doesn't he?"
"I wouldn't doubt it," said Evan. "He probably watched them Mark us."
Beth rubbed her fist and stared at the floor. She couldn't remember the last time she had been so angry or felt so betrayed. Privately, Snape had always been her favorite professor. She had thought they got along fairly well. She had even thought he may have respected her ... and all that time he had been watching, keeping their shared secret, but ever watching. And what were they to do, now that they knew?
"We can't tell anyone," Beth said.
"No," said Evan. Neither would look directly at the other. "He would know we did the telling. It would be death."
"It would," Beth echoed. Some would have taken the risk of death to save all of Hogwarts School; but Beth knew that she would never willingly make that choice. Angry with the situation, angry with herself, she finally spat out what had disturbed her the most.
"I can't believe he did it."
Professor Snape was many things, but Beth had never imagined him to be handy with the Cruciatus Curse. Evan glanced up at her. His dark eyes held an unusual pain.
"You wouldn't have said no."
Beth turned slowly to look at him. He was right. But... "Evan," she said, meeting his eye, "what are you working on for Alchemy?"
Evan's expression became fixed. "I'll tell you when I'm done." Then he slung his wet cloak over his arm and took off down the corridor to his bedroom, collected as ever.
Beth watched him go. She made no move to follow. The events of the night had tempered her curiosity; she understood, now, how there could be things that she never wanted to know.
-'-'-
That night, Beth sat on the edge of her bed thinking, long after the lights had gone out.
She had almost forgotten, insulated in the security of the school, how sudden and insistent the call of the Dark Lord could be and how deadly the results. She was lucky so far to go unnoticed. Melissa was right: Beth was in more danger than she would admit. But so was everyone else she loved, from her friends and family to Richard and the entire Society. Someday soon that danger would ripen into true peril; and then what?
Her heart lurched in realization. Her brother Chris must have been at the meeting. More luck, she thought bitterly. He must not have known her behind the mask.
She wished that it had been Lycaeon to escape instead.
No, that wasn't completely true. She missed him more than she would ever admit, and it killed her inside to think of him wasted and tormented within the stony walls of Azkaban. But what if he had gone with the rest of the Death Eaters? Lycaeon would have been irreparably bound to the Dark Lord, forever in debt. Now he was in the constant thrall of the dementors ... but for now, he was safe from the Dark Lord's reach. Maybe someday...
Beth stopped herself before she could think anything too hopeful.
She sighed and ran a hand over her eyes in the dark. It only struck her at times like this, in the quiet dark near midnight, when all the year's woes came down on her shoulders at once and left her sleepless and aching. There was too much to deal with. A few years ago she would have been in pieces. Now, she thought, reaching up at last to pull back the canopy of her bed, all this worry was just another part of her daily life. Would it ever
The silence was pierced with a long, shrill scream.
Neither Melissa nor Antigone stirred. Beth gripped the curtain until her hand felt numb. And that's the worst of all, she thought, barely able to think over the banshee's wails. I know that it's going to end badly.
She climbed into bed, her jaw set, and closed her eyes against the banshee's lullaby.
-'-'-
"Good lord, Beth, you look horrible."
"Wow. Love you too, Mel."
"I just mean goodness sakes, did you get any sleep at all?"
"Sure." Beth spat toothpaste into the sink and stuck her toothbrush back into her mouth, speaking around the bristles. "Plenty."
"You are the world's worst liar," Melissa sighed. She scrubbed her washcloth over her face then tensed suddenly and cast a fearful look at Beth. "You had another meeting, didn't you?"
"We were back before ten." It annoyed her, suddenly, that Melissa had taken so long to notice, even though there was no reason why she should have. "And then I heard the banshee around midnight. I think I woke up every half-hour, thinking it was going to happen again."
"You poor thing," said Melissa, with uncommon and genuine compassion. "Did anything happen that we should know about?"
Yes, actually, Beth thought sarcastically, with no intention of actually saying it. We saw Professor Snape torturing someone named Avery. And then Riggs showed up
"Riggs showed up," she said aloud, surprised at the memory. "He gave me a note for Mervin."
"What?" cried Melissa, going pale, as Beth jammed the toothbrush into her mouth and dashed back into the bedroom. She returned with the note. Neither paused to wonder if it was private not that they would have cared as they unfolded it and read it together, bent over the sink.
The Dark Lord demands the return of his snake. She will be brought to the crypt and released before the end of the month.
Your dedicated Secretary,
Ebenezer Nott
Melissa groaned loudly and put her face in her hands. "That twit I told him we all told him"
Beth folded the note and put it in her pocket. "Don't tell him," she said. "It'll just ruin his day. I'll give it to him after classes."
"Can it really wait?"
"He's got to the end of the month." Beth finished brushing her teeth and fluffed her hair one last time before heading out to breakfast. "And if I know Mervin, it's going to take that long just to convince him to do it."
-'-'-
It was only after dinner, with the four of them gathered in the common room, that Beth handed Mervin the note from Ebenezer Nott.
He took it skeptically, read it with widening eyes, and finally slumped back in his high-backed chair in utter despair. He had lost his snake once before. Clearly, he was reliving a nightmare.
"We did warn you," Melissa said primly.
Mervin put his face in his hands. Red hair peeked through his fingers. "Can't be happening..." Beth heard him mutter, though his voice was muffled. "Won't do it..."
"Don't be silly, you've no choice," said Melissa firmly.
Bruce made an appeal to reason. "You've done what you can for her. She's back to normal."
They all glanced over at Gina, coiled as usual before the fire. Over the past several months, the serpent's health had dramatically improved. The sheen had returned to her skin; the scratches on her snout faded. The broken fang would never regrow, of course, but the sharpest bits had been worn down so they no longer cut into the scales around her jaws.
Mervin shook his head. His freckles stood out against the pale skin, as did the red marks where his palms had rested. "I will not give her up again."
Worry had made Melissa's patience thin. "Mervin, you have got to send her back before somebody comes and takes her!"
"Never," said Mervin flatly, "he could kill her."
"Would you rather he kills you?" said Bruce.
Mervin thinned his lips and did not answer.
"I don't believe you," Melissa breathed, crossing her arms. "Letting her out so some Death Eater could see her and report back. If you're going to keep a runaway snake you ought to at least keep her where no one can"
Mervin interrupted angrily. "But she hasn't been outside of the common room since she got here!"
Melissa stopped; her face took on a strange look. "At all?"
Mervin shook his head.
Melissa looked down at the ground. The others watched her, amazed at the response. Finally she raised her head and looked around at them. Her face was white.
"I'm afraid," she said, "that he's been in again."
They understood her at once.
"I'm calling a meeting in the Vase Room at eleven o'clock tonight. Spread the word."
Beth opened her mouth, then closed it again. There was something that she should say ... about who might have seen Gina, and reported it to the Dark Lord ... but she knew that she never would.
-'-'-
The air in the Vase Room was musty; the many vases, pots, and low couches bore a thin coat of dust, the product of months of neglect. Beth and Mervin waited to make sure that everyone got out of the common room all right, then crept through the halls to whisper "Ouch! My toe!" at the hidden door to the Society headquarters. The old password still worked flawlessly. With the ten of them all together in these familiar surroundings, it almost felt like the old days.
Beth took a seat beside Evan. She had spoken to him earlier that evening about the upcoming meeting; again, they agreed that no one else must know about Professor Snape's hidden loyalty. They knew it was a danger look at what Quirrell had almost managed to do but if he had made no bold moves yet, there was a chance that he would continue to serve only as a spy. He could not act while Dumbledore was watching.
That was what they decided, and it almost put Beth's conscience at ease.
Melissa began the meeting. "I guess you've all heard," she said, by way of introduction. "The Dark Lord found out somehow that we've got Gina inside the castle. He wants her back. And he'll get her," she added, with a menacing look at Mervin who was going to interrupt. "But that's not the issue. I don't know how he found out. Audra tells me he wasn't here himself" She gestured to the white-haired girl, who gazed back implacably. "so that means someone told him. If any of you know who could have heard about it and told the Dark Lord, I want to know."
There was a moment of silence.
Blaise spoke up hesitantly. "There are ... a few of my classmates," she said. "And ... in theory ... they have connections..."
"But so does Beth," said Bruce, almost querulously, "and it wasn't her. Or Evan," he added, though he sounded less certain of that.
Beth's cheeks flamed as the entire Society turned to look at her. (Just like the old days, she thought again.) "I don't think they would have recognized Gina," she said, to cover her blush. "As far as we know, we're the only two students who've ever gone to a Death Eater meeting." She did not mention any teachers who had.
Herne cleared his throat. "We should make a list of suspects," he suggested shyly.
"A muckle list," said Morag, frowning. "Every Slytherin kens she's here. An' the house elves besides..."
"And if one of the teachers kens er, knows," said Blaise, "surely all of them do." Beth and Evan exchanged an imperceptible glance. Her guess was too good.
"My whole family knows," said Mervin miserably. "But they'd never turn her in."
"Anyone could have written home about it," said Bruce, lacing his hands behind his head in frustration.
Oren Bergeron nodded, straightening his rimless glasses. "Or spoken about it. I mentioned it to Randall."
Melissa's head whipped toward him. "Who's Randall?"
"You know." Oren's eyes were wide with surprise at her reaction. "One of the old prefects. I met him in Hogsmeade. Randall Riggs."
A wave of relief and despair washed over Beth's mind. The secret of Professor Snape was safe ... but there was Riggs again, doing his master's bidding, ever more dangerous to the Society. Melissa and Bruce exchanged gloomy looks.
The younger students glanced at each other uncertainly. Oren cleared his throat. "Is there something wrong with him?"
Melissa sighed heavily. "I guess we're to blame we never really talked about him. Riggs was a Society member who ... went bad. I don't know exactly what happened, I don't think any of us do. Remember when the basilisk was loose, with the Dark Lord controlling it? It turned out that Riggs had been helping him nearly the whole time. He made sure those two girls were attacked so they couldn't tell anyone what the 'monster of Slytherin' was."
"Oh," said Oren, his dark face falling at the realization of his own gaffe.
Melissa nodded. "Soon after that he held us all hostage to keep us from stopping the basilisk. He transferred to Durmstrang. And we recently found out," she added, her voice taking on an edge of anger, "that he's finally gone the whole way and become a Death Eater. So there's not a spy in the school. Just an idiot."
"I say," said Oren, rallying at that, "I didn't know about"
"Just because he wears a ring doesn't make him a friend," said Melissa coldly. She glanced around at the entire Society. "You'd all do well to remember that.
"I know we haven't talked much this year," she said, addressing them all. "So I have to say it again. We must not put ourselves in any more danger than we already are. Don't talk about the Dark Lord, don't get caught with Potter's article, don't raise any eyebrows, don't do anything to draw attention to us. I know in the past we've been active in and out of the school. That's not going to work anymore. We have to continue to lay low. He has no mercy and no limits. He'll find our friends and families. There are things worse than death."
The Vase Room rang with grim silence.
"So be careful. We're not just protecting ourselves."
Terrible words; but the most terrible are often the most true.
