"If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts." -the Counting Crows
Films About Ghosts
Chapter Seven: Daphne Greengrass
The dormitory was full when Ariane returned. Daphne was lying on her stomach on the floor, painting her nails pale pink with a tiny bottle and brush. Pansy was sitting in bed reading the back of a bottle of some sort of beauty potion, and Tuyet was perched on her trunk with a hairbrush in hand. Her hair was still in a dusty snarl from her Quidditch practice that afternoon. Only Millicent was nowhere to be seen, which meant she couldn't be in the dorm. Millicent was too large to hide.
"Hey," Tuyet greeted her, trying to pull a hair ribbon out of her knotted hair. "Where have you been?"
"I had to see Snape about my classes," she lied, and vaulted up to the windowsill. "How was Quidditch?" Ariane had not known what Quidditch was until lunchtime that day, when Tuyet and Draco had talked about it for what seemed like hours. It was the first time she had seen them talk without Tuyet holding back every other word.
Tuyet rolled her eyes. "We'd be better if Crabbe and Goyle remembered the plays. I'm not saying they're bad Beaters, because they're really quite good, but they're dumber than rocks."
Daphne stopped painting and blew on her nails. "What position did you get this year?" she asked in between puffs of air.
"Keeper."
Pansy snorted. "If you were the best for that position then Slytherin has fallen on hard times indeed."
"At least I've got something that resembles talent, though if you want to sub for me you're welcome," Tuyet replied acidly. "All the Chasers would zip off at the sight of your face." She waved her hairbrush around and contorted her face into a look of mock-fright. "It's a boggart on a broomstick! It's a hag in Slytherin green! It's—"
"Shut up!"
Daphne caught Ariane's eye and shook her head despairingly at Pansy and Tuyet, who were glaring daggers at one another. Ariane smiled tentatively. "What're you doing?" she asked.
"Painting my nails," the pretty girl replied, examining the pink polish critically. "I could do yours, if you like." Ariane didn't have a mad desire to, but seeing as the only other option was to listen to Pansy and Tuyet snipe at each other it seemed like the better option. She nodded her consent and let Daphne pick out a color, then climbed down to the floor and let the other girl attack her nails with a rough strip called a nail file.
"How do you like Hogwarts so far?" Daphne asked conversationally as she scrubbed away. "What classes are you in?"
"Hogwarts is big," Ariane said with feeling, and Daphne giggled. "I'm taking Potions, Charms, Transfiguration, Herbology, and History of Magic. Oh, and Defense Against the Dark Arts."
"Wow, that's a lot of classes. I'm in Charms, Divination, Astronomy and Herbology and I'm terrible at Transfiguration," the springy curls that surrounded her face trembled as she sighed. "I accidentally turned my armadillo into a really peculiar-looking turban last year at the big exams and I haven't got a clue how it happened. My examiner seemed to like it, though. He asked if he could keep it." She inspected Ariane's left hand critically before picking up her right. "You've got a lot of calluses. Do you play an instrument?"
"Yes, the flute," the silver-haired girl replied. "How did you guess?"
"I used to have piano lessons," Daphne said, wiggling her fingers as though she were playing a keyboard. "I got pretty good, but I had to stop when I entered Hogwarts. Have you got a flute with you? I'd love to hear you play sometime."
Ariane squinted at her classmate, trying to see if she was joking. Daphne looked a little too simple for anything like Tuyet's subtle sarcasm, and once Ariane looked past her lovely face she could see a very honest, nice person. "I lost mine while I was traveling," Ariane said truthfully, omitting that her method of travel had landed her in a sodden heap on the side of the Hogwarts Lake.
"That's a pity. I couldn't exactly bring a piano in my trunk." They both giggled shyly. "So what classes have you had so far?"
"Potions," Ariane made a face. "Professor Snape doesn't seem to like me."
Daphne picked up the bottle of mauve nail polish and rolled it between her palms. "Why do you say that? He likes Slytherins, as long as we don't do anything really dimwitted." Her fingers handled the tiny brush expertly, painting on a thin coat of a shimmery pink like the inside of a seashell.
"He's partnered me with Harry Potter for the term," Ariane said a little gloomily.
Pansy's head snapped around to look at her. "What? You're partnering Potter in Potions?"
Ariane shrugged. "Yes—he's not bad at it, he's just so shy."
Tuyet paused with her brush halfway through her hair. "Shy? Potter, shy?" She laughed. "I'm surprised he didn't pick a fight with Snape when he split him up from Granger."
"He's known for his big mouth," Pansy agreed, and then tried to look as though she hadn't. "Of course, so are most Gryffindors."
Daphne leaned in conspiratorially. "Do you think he fancies you?" she asked, her grey-blue eyes wide.
Ariane laughed, accidentally smearing her nail polish. Daphne tutted and fixed it with a tap of her wand. "Harry, fancy me? He barely said ten words to me the whole class!"
Tuyet waggled her eyebrows and vaulted to Millicent's bed, which was closer to the two sitting on the floor. Her hairbrush was still dangling from her tangled hair. "You've struck him dumb with your beauty," she said in a dramatic voice. "And now he shall only think of how pretty you are and with luck render himself incapable of trashing us when we play him in Quidditch." She struck what was meant to be a yearning, romantic pose, and might have been if the hairbrush hadn't been swinging by her jaw.
Ariane was laughing with the other girls when a horrifying thought reoccurred in her head. God, Draco fancies me! He said I was pretty in the common room...Pansy'll be furious if she ever finds out. What am I going to do if he kisses me again?
As it turned out, Draco was almost as careful as she was. He managed to corner her the next morning in the common room after most people had gone to breakfast. This time Ariane was ready for him.
"I really don't think this is a good idea. I'm not popular at all, and you need someone popular to keep up appearances," she blurted when he twirled one of her silver curls around his index finger. Ariane waited for his reply, pleased that she had a rational argument to fend him off with this time. Draco paused for a second, very close to her. He smelled good.
"You're not popular yet," Draco corrected her, tugging at her hair. "As I said, you're pretty. Boys will be following you around by the end of your third week."
"If you say so," Ariane said doubtfully, leaning back against the pillar he had backed her into.
"I'm good at spotting trends," he told her smugly. "Probably the best in the school."
And the most self-centered, Ariane thought with irritation. "I've got to get to breakfast."
"So do I," he agreed, then leaned in and kissed her for the second time since they'd met.
She crouched in her bedroom, terrified. There were men in the house—many men and a woman with a heart like ice. They had brought other people with them this time and the new people were screaming and screaming until she began to scream as well. Her mother came and picked her up, bounced her a little, and then whispered "Draco, darling, you can stay with me until Daddy's finished his business. How would you like that?" She buried her head into a shoulder that smelled like jasmine and sobbed.
Their lips parted, and Ariane opened her eyes. Draco's gray eyes were barely six inches from hers and he was smirking, but when she looked right into them all she could think of was the little boy crying into his mother's shoulder. Her heart softened despite herself, and she looked away so that she wouldn't be tempted to stare at him all day. He was very good- looking—nothing like Laramy, of course—but she didn't want him to like her. Ariane really didn't want herself to start liking him, though a small part of her was beginning to.
He left for breakfast, leaving her staring at the ground. It wasn't until Tuyet came marching through the stone wall with a cheerful look on her face that Ariane snapped back to life. "Though this display of melancholy is certainly poetic," she said with a grin—an eagle was painted on her cheek in green and silver— "it doesn't look like much fun. Come on, let's go to the match."
The Hufflepuff v. Ravenclaw match was well attended, if not the most fiercely contested match ever played. According to Tuyet—who had a lot to say about this match and almost every match in existence, or so it seemed—the best match of the year was almost always between Gryffindor and Slytherin. "But I won't have to watch it from the stands this year," she said with a smile, watching a player in yellow zip by with the Quaffle in his hand. It didn't seem like a big loss to Ariane, who had a hard time just following the game, let alone playing it.
Ravenclaw won, their Seeker moving so quickly that cheers surrounded Ariane before she knew what was happening. She screamed along with everyone else, feeling silly and elated, and let the mood of the crowd carry her. There was a celebratory party in the Ravenclaw common room that Tuyet, Pansy, and Daphne went to (an action that was very much against the rules), but Ariane chose to meander back down towards the Slytherin dormitories, not caring if she found them or not. Her whole soul felt like it was made of lead, her mood crashed from the Quidditch high to the lowest points of depression.
She shuffled her feet in their modern shoes and thought about Salazar, who had died over nine hundred years ago. Nine hundred years. Ariane couldn't fathom such a long time, let alone image Salazar waiting and waiting for her to wake from her death-sleep. Had he been disappointed? Had he thought that he had failed? She didn't want him to have died thinking that he was a failure; she wanted to talk to him and tell him that he had succeeded, though belatedly.
And what of Rowena? Of Helga, and Godric, and all the students? Had they forgotten her after her death? Ariane froze in the middle of the hallway as a brand-new thought struck her. Laramy. Had Laramy married another? Had he pined for her, or had he forgotten what she looked like and married a woman with plain hair who knew nothing of the stars? Her purple eyes filled with tears; her heart roiled with the need to know. What had happened to those she loved? Ariane rubbed her fingers into her stinging eyes, trying to erase Laramy from her inner sight. It wasn't important, she told herself, it couldn't be changed. It was ancient history now.
But she needed to know! Ariane began to pace back and forth in the hallway.
Ancient history. Professor Binns had wheezed out something about the library in yesterday's lesson. Apparently Madam Pince was in the process of going through the very old sections of the library and restoring her beloved books. At the time Ariane had dismissed the statement with the vague thought that she might want to look through those old tomes at some point, with a bit of curiosity about whether she'd been put down with the early records of Hogwarts. Now the records might hold another link to her past, something more solid than the handful of memories of her past.
She wasn't sure where the library was located, but hope gave her speed and Hogwarts seemed to understand Ariane's need to find the room, and after ten minutes fast walking she found the library and ran straight into someone as they tried to go through the door at the same time.
"Ouch!" she grunted as their heads collided. Lights popped in her vision, not quite obscuring Harry as he clutched his own forehead.
"Watch where you're going!" he snapped, bending to pick up the books he had dropped. "What're you in such a hurry for?"
Ariane shrugged mulishly and helped him gather up his things. "Just curious about the library."
Harry gave her a strange look. "You're a little too excited about it, if you ask me."
"I didn't," she replied with a polite smile, and rushed into the library before he had time to reply. Tuyet's dramatic proclamation of Harry's undying devotion, though probably untrue, was echoing in her head and making her think odd things. Harry did have nice eyes, she decided after a moment's thought in the privacy of a set of shelves. Not blue-green like Laramy's, but pure green from iris edge to pupil.
Ariane approached the librarian hesitantly. Madam Pince was pinched and tall, with bony hands that dangled off her wrists like the claws of a praying mantis. Her gray hair was pulled into a knot so tight that it lifted the corners of her eyes, which were watery and pale. "Excuse me," she whispered, not wanting to disturb the near-sacred silence in the library. When Madam Pince did not look up from the book cover she was polishing, Ariane cleared her throat as loudly as she dared.
"What do you want, girl?" Madam Pince said, her voice harsh and altogether too loud for the quiet library. She sounded like a wheezing bird of prey.
"Um," Ariane hesitated, and Madam Pince looked up so sharply that she jumped. "Where do you keep the old school records? I mean the really old ones."
"From how many years ago?" Her pale eyes had narrowed as her librarian brain began to flip through its catalogue.
"About nine hundred. Maybe even earlier than that." Ariane wilted a little under the predatory stare. "But only if you have them."
"Dumbledore told me you might ask to see those," she said in her loud voice, drawing the attention of several people nearby. Ariane felt her cheeks going red. "He left it up to my discretion. Let me see your hands!" she barked. Ariane held them out, palm up, and Madam Pince inspected them minutely. "Clean enough," she grumbled, "Come this way."
Ariane followed the thin, hunched back to a set of shelves that held green, leather-bound tomes at least six inches across at the spine. "Hogwarts, a History," Ariane read silently from their spines. The next set of shelves was protected by magical glass that glimmered with yellow, red, and blue fires. They were bowed under the weight of reams of parchment, yellowed with age.
"There's the more contemporary accounts, collaborated by reliable sources from about 1250 on," Madam Pince gestured with one claw-like hand at the green books. "And those are records from about 1500 back, which are pretty accurate but also in Old French. I'm not going to sort through them for you. Translation dictionaries are over on the northern side."
"Is—is there any particular order to them?" Ariane gulped, surveying her self-appointed task with dismay. "A beginning?" At least she didn't have to worry about the language barrier: Rowena had insisted that Ariane learn to read French as well as English, and since she had learned the French a thousand years before it stood to reason that it was now considered 'old'.
"The ones that look really old—they are really old. Just go by that if you need any help. Most are dated, but they aren't in any chronological order or anything. If I took the time to do that the library would fall down around my ears." She stalked off, leaving the silver-haired girl alone with a thousand years of history on as many shelves.
Hesitantly Ariane reached out and took the first volume of Hogwarts, A History, flipped it open, and began to peruse the contents. Since each volume weighed more or less twenty pounds, she then sought out a window seat and piled the first three volumes on it and started reading. About fifteen minutes into the second volume, she got into the 1400's, well past when everyone at her Hogwarts would have been dead and decaying. Laramy wasn't mentioned, but to Ariane's surprise she was, on page 157: 'The reason for Salazar Slytherin's defection from the school has been debated, though it was almost certainly because he disliked the growing influence of Muggle-borns and half-breed wizards in Hogwarts, but it must be noted that he left soon after the death of his sister, Ariane.'
Ariane raised her eyebrows in disbelief at this minor mentioning, though it didn't surprise her after some more reading. The authors of Hogwarts, a History seemed to concentrate on the three Founders who had remained at Hogwarts until their deaths. Salazar's section was less than half as thick as Rowena's and little more than a quarter of Godric's.
She closed the book, and leaned back to ease the knot in her spine. Then she yelped and nearly fell out of her seat as she noticed the boy who had been standing next to her.
"Shh!" Draco said with a snicker as she used his shoulder to regain her balance. "Madam Pince'll put you in detention for shouting in the library."
"How long have you been standing there?" Ariane demanded, lowering herself to the ground and pushing her fringe out of her eyes. "Haven't you got anything better to do?" She stopped before she said something that would get her tongue hexed off.
"I'm always open to suggestion. What're you doing?" He peered at the books, then at the shelves of old records. "Looks boring."
"It's all right," Ariane replied, stuffing the volumes back onto their shelves and taking a pile of records off the shelves that looked sufficiently old and dilapidated. When she turned, Draco was still watching her. "Were you wanting anything?" she asked, annoyed. She immediately regretted her choice of words as he smiled slowly and raked her from head to foot with his pale eyes and smiled very slowly.
"You want to go for a walk?" he asked. When she blanched, he amended hastily: "Not to go off and do things like you're thinking. Just to talk."
Right. Why do I get the feeling that he'll be doing most of the talking? Ariane wondered. "We shouldn't be seen together."
"Come on. If it's Pansy you're worried about, she's still at that Ravenclaw party with Tuyet." He smiled winningly at her, and, unwillingly, Ariane felt her mouth curving up at the sides in reply. "Let's go, just dump that dusty parchment there."
Ariane put it back on its shelf, making a mental note to get back to this pile later. They left the library together, Draco casual like always, Ariane with her hands stuffed in her pockets and shoulders rigid. On her way out she saw Harry watching them over his Potions text, but he looked back down at it when he saw her see him.
"So what are you reading up on ancient Hogwarts for?" Draco asked conversationally.
Ariane shrugged, buying time until she thought up a suitable lie. "I was researching my family," she replied after a pause. It was true, to a point.
"Your family goes back to the Middle Ages?" he said with something close to respect in his voice. "That's impressive. Are you all pureblood?"
"I think so," Ariane said with a frown. She was fairly certain that her mother was a witch, but since she didn't know her father she could easily be half-breed. "We're probably not the purest family there is, though," she smiled up at him. "How far back does your family go?"
"Oh, forever," he said with a gusty sigh. "It's an object of pride for my family to hold up like a shield." He ran a hand over his white-blonde hair to hide his irritation.
"You don't value your birth?" she asked with shock in her voice. "Birth is everything!" Draco snorted. Ariane continued her argument silently: I was born a peasant. No one could tell you better than I that a good birth is everything. "Do you not like your family?"
"I like them," he told her, "but they expect me to marry a pureblood and there really aren't any left. It's becoming a hot issue at home."
"There must be a few," Ariane said as they turned a corner. "They can't all have died out."
"No, but we're so inbred that the only English purebloods I can marry are first cousins," he replied with a wry grin. "And they're exceptionally ugly."
Ariane rolled her eyes. "Do you think of nothing but what people look like?" she asked impatiently. "Sometimes people who are lovely to look at have the personalities of trolls." She blinked and looked down at the ground, silently berating herself for losing control of her tongue.
Draco laughed. It was a strange noise that didn't look like it should have popped from his mouth. "Sometimes people who are lovely to look at are much more fun than trolls."
"Thank you," Ariane replied, suddenly feeling very giggly. "For your gallant complement." Somehow she kept hold of her urge to titter like a little girl.
"'Twas nothing," he said, with a short bow and a smile.
After a few more steps Ariane began their conversation again. "So why were you in the library?"
"I was looking for you."
"Was that all?"
"I can't think of a better reason to venture into the library on a Saturday evening," Draco said with a grimace. "That Madam Pince is scary."
Ariane nodded in agreement. "She's very loud for a librarian," she observed as they passed a suit of armor that was rocking suspiciously. "She enforces quiet at the top of her lungs."
"In my experience the loudest people in the world are librarians," Draco told her gravely, brushing his white-blonde hair out of his eyes. "Doesn't Madam Pince resemble a vulture, though? A really skinny one?"
She laughed aloud. "That's exactly what she looks like!" she exclaimed. "I'm going to think of that every time I see her now." Draco tilted his head and studied her as they turned towards the fifth floor. It was still light enough in the halls that she could tell that he was raking her with his eyes again. She stopped walking, and he stopped in front of her. "What is it?"
He shrugged. "I've never seen you laugh before." Draco leaned forward until his nose was an inch away from Ariane's. "It's very fetching."
"Oh," she breathed. There wasn't anything to say, so Ariane half-hoped that he would kiss her because she didn't have the nerve to kiss him. After a few moments suspended like this, they continued walking in some silent agreement, but this time their hands met mid-stride and stayed entwined.
They continued to meander through the dimly lit hallways; peeking looks at each other while pretending that nothing had changed between them. Ariane watched him through her eyelashes, admiring the aristocratic set of his face and his icy coloring as they ascended a flight of stairs. Then, abruptly, she fell through the stair. A shriek of surprise tore from her mouth as she sank up to her knees in solid stone. Draco grabbed her under the arms and lifted her easily out of the false stair, putting her on the step above it with a laugh. "You've got to watch out for the staircases. They play tricks."
Ariane leaned forward and propped her arms against his shoulders so that their faces were an inch apart once more. "Are the staircases the only things that play tricks?" she asked coyly. This wasn't a time for thought, this was a time of night and shadows and staircases. Ariane was vaguely aware of the rest of the world floating outside; her whole mind focused on Draco's fingers running through her hair. Her scalp crackled with the electricity of his touch.
"I dunno," he whispered. "Some of the girls here are pretty tricky as well." She leaned down to meet his kiss.
"What do you mean, 'it was an accident'?" Snape roared. "You could have permanently damaged her, you could have killed her, and if it hadn't come back you could have been expelled."
Ariane watched from around the door as a thirteen year-old Pansy took the berating wordlessly. Snape was stalking up and down his office, looking royally displeased—but also rather proud, though he was hiding it.
"I'd prefer it if you left punishments up to teachers in the future, Miss Parkinson."
"Don't worry, Professor," Pansy said in limpid tones. "I won't let my temper get the better of me next time."
Snape sighed. "A week's worth of detentions, and let it be a warning to be cautious." Pansy nodded, looking appropriately remorseful and downtrodden. "Get out of my sight." She bobbed her head and exited though the door Ariane stood by, simpering as she walked past.
She fell into step with Pansy and asked "A week's worth of detentions from Snape! What did you do?"
A low female voice and a pair of very strong hands interrupted their kiss. "Honestly, do you lot think this is a brothel?" Ariane twisted, still a little disconcerted by Draco's memory, to see a tall, thin woman with a lot of wavy bronze-colored hair standing on the stairs above them. She was pale and had an abundance of freckles, and her green eyes seemed to be constantly half-closed due to the long pale eyelashes that drooped from her heavy eyelids. "Both of you get to your common room. I shan't accompany you, I have better things to do than rein in hormones." She brushed past them on the stairs, neatly skipping the trick step.
"Who was that?" Ariane asked once the woman was safely out of earshot. "Was that a teacher?"
"Professor Connor," Draco replied, disgust weighing down his words. "She teaches Defense Against the Dark Arts."
Ariane realized with a pang of embarrassment that she would be seeing Professor Connor on Wednesdays for a double period of N.E.W.T. Defense Against the Dark Arts. She vowed to do all she could to hide in that class. If she had to face Professor Connor again, she feared that she'd burst into flames in embarrassment. "You don't like her much, then?"
"She's a werewolf," he said darkly as they began descending the stairs. Ariane nearly tumbled down the stairs in shock. A werewolf! In Hogwarts! Was Dumbledore mad? Draco steadied her as they made their way back down the stairs. When Ariane raised quizzical eyebrows at him, he elaborated. "It's against the law for her to hold a job here, but Dumbledore insisted that she was the only suitable candidate. The Ministry was forced to make an exception."
"She doesn't look like a werewolf," Ariane whispered, half to herself.
"They usually don't," he replied wryly. They walked in silence for a few more minutes, alone with their thoughts.
Ariane was thinking over the memory that was fresh in her head—a memory that wasn't hers. She was fairly certain it belong to Draco, and was at a complete loss as to why it had ended up with her. She supposed it could have rubbed off on her while they were kissing, but she had never heard of such a thing happening. What was she to do with thoughts that did not belong to her? Give them back? Ariane rubbed her forehead and wondered if she was going quietly mad. Should she tell Snape or Dumbledore? Maybe—and this made her worry a bit—all Salazar's necromancy had addled her brain and she wasn't fit to remain among the honest living, those who still have their original lives with no raising of the dead involved.
Suddenly Draco stopped walking. Voices were coming their way, along with the faint glow of wand lights. Ariane glanced at him nervously, but then she stood silently, listening to the discussion going on around the corner.
Author's Note: Not much of a cliffhanger, but I thought it best to end it there because the next chapter's pretty packed. Please review, it takes about 10 seconds and brightens my day.