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Chapter 15 - S.S.P.E.W.
"Excuse me...perhaps we heard you wrong?" asked Dumbledore with a hint of worry on his benign face. No self-respecting school would expel a student unless they have done something particularly evil or with malicious intent towards other people and as headmaster, it was his most tedious task to ensure the safety of his students.
The three young men shifted uneasily on their seats, wondering where to start. They knew that a time for them to reveal their past would come but somehow, it never crossed their minds that it would happen in a room full of people they had just met. But it must be done...
"Before we begin, we want to let you know that we don't have any idea who our parents were...We knew our mother's names -- Bernadette Snape is my mom, Anthea Nott is Chuck's and Nadia Parkinson is Matt's -- but that's the most we know...that's why that journal had become very important for us...to the point that we let it distract us from our ultimate mission -- to vanquish Voldemort once and for all..." At this, most of the people in the room gasped in surprise. Even the Order members who had entertained that idea in their minds were taken aback.
"We lived comfortably, yes...luxurious actually to be more precise, but financial stability and lavish comforts are not the only things that we need. Unfortunately, what we craved for was the one hardest to achieve...a family..." Billy paused for breath and closed his eyes as if blocking some negative emotions from surfacing. "For so long, the three of us have been living under the same roof, cared for by servants who always seemed to disappear as soon as we got close enough to them. We never knew what happened to them, though...there were always plausible excuses for their abrupt departure and we never heard of them after they stepped outside our home..."
"At the time, we thought it was just normal but after a while, we discovered a pattern and decided not to let it happen again. We became aloof and kept mostly to ourselves...We were never allowed to go out anyway... and that was how our thirty-seventh caretaker retained her job until we reached our eleventh birthday."
"Needless to say, we were jubilant and hopeful after the news that we're going to school reached our innocent ears especially when we heard that it was a magical school. Freedom, at last! or so we foolishly thought...It turned out that that school was infinitely worse than what we expected. We imagined a school where we could learn a lot of things, do some magic and stuff...We also visualized it to be full of young ones who we could finally refer to as real friend...but nothing of the sort. Instead, we found ourselves locked in a cage that just looked like a castle. The place was huge and breath-taking but pitifully cold. The students were purely evil and did not have any qualms at killing anyone who stood on their way."
"Day after day, we had to watch our backs and our feet lest we accidentally step on someone's foot. We lived in fear. It was a miracle that we even reached our third year unscathed. Day after day, we had to learn how to properly attack someone, how to shoot a fatal wound, how to concoct killing and pain-inducing potions and how not to be merciful in front of an enemy. We were being trained to become mercenaries...and we have no any desire at all to be like that..." At this point, the three band members looked at each other remorsefully. No one was left with any doubt that they despised what they had to endure for so long.
"I see...so I trust that was the reason why you were expelled?" queried Dumbledore cautiously while the others were too dumbfounded to say anything.
"Yes, sir. We thought we were free of them at last, but it turned out that expulsion for them meant an entirely different thing...exactly a week after we had returned to our home, we were attacked and the kind servant, who had become very dear to us without her knowledge, was severely injured. We were all able to escape but after giving us a letter and three separate keys, she passed away on our hands." Chuck continued, his voice distant and tear drop rolled down his cheeks in memory of their fallen friend. Billy and Matt also held the same expression of hurt and regret.
"Imagine how traumatic that experience for us were...We were only thirteen, with nowhere to go and without a knut to help us through. But fortunately, it turned out that our loyal caretaker had been a very wise person, indeed. She knew that it would happen eventually and she had prepared for it. Through the letter, she explained to us that our mothers were all killed..."
"WHAT?!? I thought they all committed suicide because they couldn't stand the shame that they had brought to our families." snarled Snape as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "They were sent away after some spineless jerks got them pregnant and refused to bear the responsibility for their actions!"
Everyone gasped, except for the four band members, as they got a clearer picture as to why Snape seemed to harbour some intense loathing towards James Potter and his friends. They just assumed that it had something to do with academics and sports rivalry but it never occurred to them that there was something deeper behind it.
"WE DID NO SUCH THING!!!" declared Lupin heatedly. "We would have been there for them if only we had known the situation but they were the ones who left us...They wrote us that they never wanted to see us anymore and that we are not up to their noble standards."
"Pathetic reasoning! Did you not even stop to think that maybe they were not the ones who wrote those stupid letters? I suppose they were expelled because they were pregnant and if you just had some sense in your puny brains, you should have realized that too!" yelled Snape, the memories of the painful farewell with Bernadette, his twin sister, came rushing back to his senses. He would have killed the marauders then if Dumbledore did not intervene.
"Well, excuse us for being young and ignorant! You should have told us, you know, if you're so high and mighty!" Lupin retorted angrily, momentarily forgetting that they were in the presence of impressionable teenagers.
"And what? Be eternally associated with your kind? No thanks!"
Dumbledore sighed at witnessing the familiar bickering that he rather hoped he would never see again. "Severus, Remus, please calm down. It's all in the past now and none of you could change that." He turned his gaze on the raving Potions professor.
"Severus, if you're so adamant on blaming someone, maybe you should put that on these boys' grandparents. They were the ones who insisted on taking the girls out of the school. That's their right as parents but they never told me why. I just found out the real reason today. And no, they were not expelled...It was just what the local grapevine had concocted to rationalize the event. We just did nothing to stop it." Dumbledore noticed the hostile glances that Severus and Lupin kept shooting each other. "And Remus, in Severus' defense, he didn't know anything too...He just heard that they were expelled and that your group was somehow involved..." He then turned to the three young men who glared at Snape and Lupin for the interruption. "Now, if you could please continue..."
"Yes, as we were saying, our mothers were ruthlessly killed after we were born because our grandparents deemed them unworthy to live. Our caretaker just never told us before because she believed that we were still too young to hear the truth. She wanted to protect us."
"Our grandparents never showed us love and compassion. Heck, they did not even come to visit us or anything....not even on Christmas...and we were never allowed inside their homes. It was like they were avoiding us. We wondered about that. We thought they hated us for what happened to our parents but now we realized that they are just not capable of such emotions...Then later, we found out that the school was also under Voldemort's ruthless command. It was a training ground for future more powerful and merciless servants..."
"Our caretaker told us to go to a certain place she had prepared in case something like that happened...There, we managed to master our gifts with the help of the books she stealthily procured for us. It turned out that she had been preparing to lead us away from the dark side but unfortunately, she did not survive the process..."
"Then, Voldemort's minions found us again and destroyed our haven once more...But that time, we were not the cowering and easily intimidated children anymore. We fought back with such a ferocity that it almost frightened us. We annihilated them all using our elemental powers but though we were relieved to be alive, we did not relish the life-taking we had done..."
"We really hated ourselves for that...In a blink of an eye, we had become like those who we swore we would never become...and it was all Voldemort's fault! He had forced us to do something vile and we cannot accept that even if we did that in self-defense...Then we ran again but each time, his minions would find us and destroy everything we have built for ourselves."
"It was a never-ending cycle until we realized that unless we vanquish the bloody aggravating monster, we would never have any peace at all..."
A brooding silence followed. No one expected those things to happen to the three young men before them or maybe they were just too focused on the misery of the-boy-who-lived that they failed to realize that maybe there were other children targeted by Voldemort.
"What about me? Where do I fit in the story? I thought you said Billy is my brother....or is that just a white lie?" asked Jeric in a rather confused and hurt tone. He was already comfortable with the idea that he had a brother but something seemed to be missing in the whole picture. Not once was he mentioned in the band members' tale of horror.
Billy stared hard at him for a while before giving his reply. "Well, it's just a feeling I have when I found out that you're a wizard too but we can never be sure unless we read that journal but you're so like a brother I never had and I kinda wish you are..."
"So what happened then?" asked Hermione curiously though if truth be told, she was already queasy at hearing their experiences. It was almost comparable to Harry's own life story.
Matt continued when neither Billy nor Chuck seemed willing to do so. "Then come our sixteenth birthday...We each received a letter from Gringotts Bank informing us of that our grandparents had died and that each of us had inherited a hefty sum and several properties. We weren't able to attend the funeral. Up to the very end, our grandparents' hearts were still as hard as steel. That was when we decided to cool it for a while and form a band and create music that was the only thing that was keeping us sane all those years. We became mobile enough to avoid being traced...and we acted muggle-like enough to avoid suspicion while secretly training for our ultimate goal..."
"Then the journal came though up to now, we still couldn't figure out how the owl found us. We thought that we finally lost Voldemort's followers when the attacks stopped a few months back. Nevertheless, we all read his letter and were extremely surprised that we need to find some Potter fellow just so we could open some bloody journal. We were so frustrated! How could we find someone who we didn't even know? Of course our old school never had any lesson about the downfall of Voldemort so there wasn't really any mention of Harry Potter at all there...We reckon that it was an utterly humiliating experience that he never wished his servants-in-training to know. So, pardon us if we didn't recognize him immediately."
"But we did some research and found out what happened to Harry. We decided to find him first though it was very difficult since all the pictures we have of him are kind of blurry and he was so young then...Then we could read the journal then hopefully, we can forge an alliance with him against the dark lord...That's our story...Now you know...We just hope you understand..." said Billy and stared at the listeners intently.
"Of course we do and I could honestly say that you're not alone in that noble endeavor. There are so many others who wish to do the same thing...however...not so many were as fortunate as you." said Dumbledore after a while. His eyes held a certain mischievous twinkle that usually meant he had either thought of something brilliant or something crazy. "I am just extremely curious though, as I believe everyone else in the room are...May we know the name of your previous school? It's just that I pride myself of knowing almost every magical school there is but I never heard of such a dark learning institution before..."
"We're fairly sure that only a few have heard of it...after all, it was Salazar Slytherin himself who had built it and he was known for his brilliance in concealing things...anyway, it is called S.S.P.E.W or Slytherin's School for Patriotic and Empowered Wizardry...Quite a noble name, isn't it?" said Billy dryly.
Ron and Hermione almost choked at hearing the school's acronym. Ron's expression was mischievous while Hermione looked highly insulted...
"SSPEW?!?" they blurted out at the same though with varied intentions.
"Hermione, there goes your SPEW thing...still want to continue it?" asked Ron, feigning an innocent look.
"Quite a noble name, indeed, though a little twisted in interpretation." murmured Dumbledore softly, almost to himself before calling the other Order members for a short discussion.
Billy, Chuck and Matt engaged Jeric in a little discussion of their own. Draco just stared on the ceiling, contemplating on his actions that night, how his father would react, and what would happen to him later... Should he beg for his father's forgiveness and claim that he was under the Imperius Curse? Or should he seek for Dumbledore's help instead? What about Harry? Should he throw away everything for a possible friendship with someone who might not even return it when he regained his memory? And he wasn't even sure if he really wanted to pursue that friendship. He had a gut feeling a that Slytherin-Gryffindor friendship was inappropriate if not totally unacceptable. He was interrupted from his rather distressing reflection when someone made a snide remark. He tuned in to listen.
"I wonder why Malfoy did not go to that school..." commented Ron suddenly, smirking at the pale figure lying on the nearby sofa. He knew the blond boy heard him. He noticed Malfoy's muscles tense but the boy chose not to retaliate. What Ron didn't notice was that Jeric gave him a disapproving gaze when he heard his taunt.
"Ron!" exclaimed Hermione and gave Ron a warning glance.
"What? I'm just stating a fact. Malfoy should have gone there. You know I really think he'd fit perfectly in that school since he's such a rotten, slimy..." Ron was cut short by a sudden movement from the sofa. Draco was glaring at him openly and had his wand pointed at him.
"Are you really sure you want to finish that sentence, Weasley? If so, you might just find out that I'm not a death-eater's son for nothing..." stated the Slytherin boy evenly, his wand shaking in anger.
"Professor, when are we going back to Hogwarts?" Hermione called out to the headmaster who was still deep in conversation with the other Order members. She threw a nasty glare at Ron who didn't look like he regretted what he stated at all.
Dumbledore noticed another undercurrent of hostility among the younger group but he opt to ignore it for the mean time. He was rather tired of being the peacemaker and decided to take a few minute's break from that role. Instead, he directed his gaze at Jeric who nodded in assent. The boy still appeared reluctant but it was enough for the old man. "Very well, kindly pack your belongings and we can proceed immediately after."
Billy, Chuck and Matt were ready in no time. Each carried a large trunk that resembled the trunk used before by the fake Moody. It was Jeric who took a long time organizing his things. When he emerged from his room, however, they were all surprised to see him carrying just a small backpack.
"You took a long time packing that miniscule trunk that's made of cloth?" asked Ron incredulously, pointing his fingers on Jeric's baggage.
Jeric glared once more at the red headed guy. He couldn't believe that his supposed-to-be bestfriend was so insensitive and tactless. The more he knew about him, the more he disliked him.
"Backpack, Ron." corrected Hermione. Ron only rolled his eyes in exasperation. "But really, what took you so long? Were you having some doubts about coming with us?" she asked and stared at him nervously.
Jeric shifted uneasily at her steady gaze and tried to explain. "No, I haven't changed my mind about that. Actually, the packing part only took me a few minutes since, as you can obviously see, I only have so little to pack. What took me long was figuring out what the tiny things in my bag were. Here, look." said Jeric as he showed them a small thing that he retrieved from the bag's side pocket.
Hermione smiled as she took a good look at it. "Oh, I suppose that's your real trunk. You must have shrunk it before the accident happened." she explained, giving him a radiant smile.
"Oh..." said Jeric and stared once more at the girl standing before him. For some reason, he couldn't keep his mind off the image of them kissing. "Ah, Hermione... I...umm...." he wondered how he could ask her about that without offending or humiliating her.
"Harry..." whispered Hermione, waiting expectantly for what he was going to say.
Jeric grimaced. Maybe it was not yet the time and place for that question. Maybe later..."Please don't call me that." he said instead.
"Why do you still refuse to go by your real bloody name? It's just a name...nothing more." asked Ron in his usual oh-so-charming manner. It irritated Jeric once more and didn't waste time putting the annoying red head on his place.
"Just a name? May I remind you that using that name goes along with endless strings of torments and responsibilities. The time that I agree to use that name would be the time I accept my destiny ...again." he paused for breath and eyed Ron derisively. "And please, if you're incapable of acting your age, at least think before you say anything or you might find yourself in a very delicate situation."
Ron's jaw dropped. "I'm just being my usual self, you know. Not like some ferret guy here who's suddenly acting suspiciously nice. I'd watch your back, if I were you. He might stab you in the back."
"Thanks for your concern...but maybe you should start acting nicer too. He's not doing anything wrong." said Jeric in Draco's defense.
"You've changed..." said Ron dryly.
"For the better, I hope..."
"Not if you're going to hang out with Malfoy..." stated Ron, eyeing Draco with utmost contempt.
"If you're just being your usual self, then maybe I'd rather hang out with Malfoy..." declared Jeric in an even tone and left Ron staring at him unhappily.
Author's note: There, I hope Voldie's Band's story was explained enough and I hope you like this chapter. Don't worry, I'm almost finished with the next part and I think I can post it on Monday --- It's entitled "Back to Hogwarts..."
Please review. Thanks!