All her remaining classes went as she'd expected. Transfiguration would certainly be her most challenging—but nothing she wouldn't enjoy. Arithmancy, taught by Professor Vector, was interesting enough, though she had to endure study with Hermione Granger who practically threw herself out of her seat every time a question was asked. Hearing Vector award points to Gryffindor every five minutes quickly grew tiresome, even after a single class. Lili resolved to read over the text that night in some effort to stifle the Gryffindor girl's incessant hand-raising.
Her final class of the day was Charms with the tiny and not unlikable Professor Flitwick. Though her neck cricked a little from constantly looking down for instruction, she certainly loved the class almost as much as the subject. At some point during her casting, he had taken a keen interest in her wand and was excitedly remarking on the qualities of dragon heartstring from the Orient compared to its English equivalent when an owl zoomed in through an open window. It landed on Flitwick's desk with a ruffle of feathers and a pompous hoot.
"Just one moment, Miss Lee," he said, stepping down from the stack of books on which he'd been standing and scuttling over to his desk. Though the owl protested a bit, he removed a small scroll of parchment from its leg, awarding the recalcitrant messenger with a bit of cracker he'd tucked in a robe pocket. "Ahh, Miss Lee. It seems you're wanted in Headmaster Dumbledore's office immediately. I do hope everything is okay." The strange tilt of his lips belied a quick regret at having said this. "Can you find your way there?"
She shook her head, though none to anxious to admit that she only found her way anywhere in the castle because she followed other Slytherins with her schedule.
"Well, perhaps I'll escort you myself, Miss Lee. Miss Morrighan, please keep an eye on things while I'm gone." He raised his voice to a resounding trill. "And I expect everyone to have looked over the list of Class 7 N.E.W.T. level charms on page 242 by the time I'm back!"
She tried to pay some attention to the winding path Professor Flitwick took but was distracted by the number of questions the tiny Charms professor whipped at her. He inquired after her wand's properties, a number of theoretical principles of Eastern magic, and the linguistic differences between spell castings. She couldn't help but make the uneven comparison with Snape's tour the night before.
"It sounds as if you had to relearn quite a bit before your arrival here. I mean, to relearn spells in another language. I myself know very few other charm classes."
Lili, growing more and more wary as they neared Dumbledore's office (well, she supposed they must be nearing it by now), replied only half-heartedly. "No, it isn't so bad. My father had taught me many of the basics even during my time at Zhong Mo Xue. He wanted to make sure I was well-versed enough in case I got to return here."
Flitwick grinned. "Yes, Edward was a fine pupil. Must run in the family, from what I can tell." A pause. "I think--yes. Don't mention this to too many of your friends, but I'm thinking of starting up a dueling club this year. They tried to start one a few years back, but, well the teacher then wasn't quite up to it. Hopefully I can do better. I was a three time national dueling champion myself you know." Beaming, pure nostalgia. "Anyway, I feel that you would do quite well to join. I think you have a potential Auror hiding in you somewhere, Slytherin or not. What do you say?" The Charms professor had paused before the gargoyle Lili recognized as the entrance to Headmaster Dumbledore's office and was staring at her with eyes that seemed unnaturally wide for being set in such a small face.
An Auror? Her? She couldn't believe he was saying this to her of all people: the rotten apple, the girl who had just snapped at Harry Potter, the girl who had just found solace among Slytherins.
She forced a smile. "I'll think about it; thank you, Professor."
And, what was more, she wasn't sure if she liked the idea. Her stomach had made a strange turn at the sound of the word "auror."
"Ahh, Miss Lee." The familiar, warm voice of the Headmaster descended from what had seemed an immovable stone ceiling. "Glad you came so quickly. Please, please come in. You have a visitor."
Flitwick blinked at her kindly over his small wire spectacles. "Please do think about it, Miss Lee. Now, to see how many students have hexed one another in my absence…"
Following Dumbledore up the stairs, she found her heart beating faster than normal. Who would be visiting her? Somehow, she vaguely wished it would be one of her friends from Zhong Mo Xue. Or perhaps Headmaster Zhi. What she wouldn't give to see a familiar face right--
"Dad?"
She had entered Dumbledore's office, anxious to see her visitor's face. The face of her father, stern and green-eyed, stared back at her, steady.
"Dad?" she, repeated, mouth suddenly empty.
Her father sat across from the Headmaster, his face forcing a smile at her, but his tight set jaw telling a different story. She glanced around to see another figure sitting in a chair next to --but seemingly opposed to-- her father's. His stiff, black-cut figure gave her the impression that, though he was sitting so near them in the room, he was somewhere quite far away. His face, turned to the window, seemed even more ashen in the daylight than it had in the dungeons earlier that morning.
Her father didn't speak, merely standing with open arms. She embraced him.
"What are you doing here, Dad?"
"I got your owl and I came as quick as I could. I've been talking to the Headmaster here about things, and I believe we've got everything worked out."
Lili allowed herself a half-grin. "You mean Artibius?"
"Not quite, Miss Lee. It seems your father believes a mistake has been made. He's asked for a formal transfer of houses." The Headmaster sat.
"Transfer of houses? You mean move me out of Slytherin?" It had been her heart's desire not more than eight hours ago. "Can you do that?"
"No, of course not," the figure sitting besideandacross from her father growled. "If parents got to choose their children's houses there'd be no need for the Sorting would there." It was not a question.
"That is our general policy, yes. We do not feel that it is the parental respons-"
"It's a mistake!" Her father's voice remained quiet but his tone was one she recognized: it was the same tone he'd used when she'd been particularly disobedient and was in for the most severe punishment. "That should be damned obvious to everyone here."
"Not to me." Snape sat further back in his chair, and Lili recognized the relaxing-coiling gesture from the night before. Her father's passion seemed to have the opposite effect on Snape, who became, if possible, even more severely stoic. "She seems to fit in quite well, in my estimation. She's intelligent, diligent, high-sighted—"
Her father stood from his chair and cleared his throat with an unevenly depressed anger. "She's not one of--do you think I want my daughter to be around the likes of you? And the little spawn of Death Eaters?" His voice was no longer quiet. "Don't think I don't know what you did, what you are—"
Snape barely seemed to be breathing. Only his eyes were alive, boiling with the hate of one who has no intention of defending himself.
"Mister Lee," Dumbledore intoned, reaching out a hand as if somehow trying to stop the words in mid-air. "I believe, in Lili's case, I would be willing to make an exception. I will approve the transfer of houses."
Both men turned, and her father stilled. She couldn't be certain but, by the flatness that suddenly veiled his boiling eyes, Snape seemed somehow stung.
"Well--thank you, Headmaster." Her father sat down, taking a deep breath, squeezing and releasing white-knuckled fists. "I assure you that--"
"Solely, of course, on the condition that this is the course of action desired by Miss Lee herself."
Once again, all eyes turned to her. Her mouth became so dry she felt she would never be able to speak again.
"Well, go ahead, Lil."
Lili met his eyes for a long while before turning towards Professor Snape. The latter's mouth had fallen lower, revealing creases at the corners. His gaze, unlike her father's, watched her with little expectation, now totally veiled from any show of emotion. Did he want her to stay? It seemed the tables had turned for him as well. If the opportunity to oust her had presented itself the previous night, he would certainly have dismissed her with a wave of those spidery hands and a 'Good riddance.' But now-- she couldn't see past the wall of his gaze…
She heard her own voice speaking but tried very hard to detach from it.
"I don't think so, Headmaster, if it's all the same to you. I've made some friends in Slytherin, and, I think-" she paused making certain not to turn towards her father. "I don't think it was a mistake."
Dumbledore only nodded.
"Lili." Her father moved, face drawn with attempted composure, into her line of sight. "You don't understand. You haven't been here long enough to understand what Slytherin means. Albus." He turned, pleading, to a more receptive audience. "She doesn't understand, Albus. She's been away; she doesn't understand the difference between a Ravenclaw and a Sly--"
"Maybe not. But I understand prejudice: and I understand the difference between Slytherins and everyone who thinks they know what being a Slytherin means. I understand the difference between—hypocritical judgment and-and" She stumbled, eyes sliding from her father's eyes to Snape's. "And-- honest ambition."
She wasn't sure what part of her these words came from, but they fell from her mouth, with subtle but ringing quiet, clanging to the floor.
"I don't understand." Her father's voice had turned in, cautious, like an animal, still with ears pricked.
She couldn't explain the bitterness in her stomach, hearing her father explain her own feelings to her. Hearing him speak of Slytherin as if—well as if she should be ashamed of herself for wanting anything other than an escape. As if she should be ashamed to make Slytherin friends or—or to be sorted there in the first place. She straightened her body, and a voice somewhere deep within her began to speak, slow. "I know when someone is hateful for no reason. And I know that anyone who can hate something he doesn't know—he's the one who doesn't understand."
Her father said nothing, merely watching her as if willing her to take it all back with a hearty laugh. She tore her eyes away from his hurt face and towards the Potion Master. The ringing words seemed to both trouble and please him, a tiny pinprick of some emotion—indecipherable—now showing through his eyes.
Dumbledore merely frowned.
After several moments of thick silence, Mister Lee stood from his chair and nodded, stiff, to Dumbledore. "I suppose I'm sorry to have disturbed you, Headmaster. It seems my daughter understands what is best for her after all." He glanced at her only briefly, and it appeared to Lili as the look one might give a corpse.
"Dad." She wrung her throat tight to keep out any emotion.
He paused at the door but did not turn.
"What about Artibius?" Her heart welled up, refusing to be dammed.
"The Headmaster has approved it. I've left him with some of the house elves who've taken him to your room."
He turned and, jerking on his wool hat with great force, slammed the office door behind him, steps echoing off stone walls.
It was only then that the tears began to sting Lili's eyes.
The firelight danced on her lap, parchment lying limp and worn in the skipping shadow. The common room was almost completely empty --it was dinnertime, but she didn't find herself with much of an appetite-- and she felt somewhat glad to be alone. Dia and Milicent had come up and, in true Slytherin fashion, tried to pry something juicy from her. But she brushed them off, closing the curtains on her bed and rolling up within herself.
She glanced around, looking for Artibius. She wasn't sure where he'd gone after the owl from her father had arrived, but she hadn't seen him since Dia and Milicent left for the Great Hall.
The moment in Dumbledore's office played relentlessly in her mind. She examined every possible situation, every outcome, as if she were lining up equations in Arithmancy. What if she had simply agreed with her father and transferred to Ravenclaw? Hell, what if she had stated her decision more tactfully? It had seemed the right thing to do at the moment, but now she wondered what had come over her. It was true her father had behaved badly, but to have said such things…
Her green eyes fell to the parchment, reading it again.
Honest ambition indeed. Why had she felt the need to stand up for Slytherin? For Snape, for that matter. She had only been there a day, and she knew little or nothing about any of this place—even less about him. And, from what she had heard whispered, he, in particular, seemed to have been, in the past, anything but "honest."
And yet a part of her still didn't regret standing by him. He certainly had stood by her. Intelligent, diligent, high-sighted…
But she knew that, really, deep down, she wasn't standing up for anyone or anything more than herself. If, as her father had said so many times, the Sorting Hat was never wrong, then she must belong in Slytherin. And she refused to believe that there was something wrong with her.
"Lili, right?"
It was a familiar voice, but she didn't turn. She searched for the name and face.
"Yes --Draco Malfoy."
She could feel his smile—well, smirk—perhaps pleased that she'd remembered his name. He stepped beside her chair with a cool composure she envied infinitely at that moment.
He tried to glance down at the parchment in her lap, but she rolled it up quickly. "Erm, Dia and Milicent said you wouldn't tell them what happened. I mean, why you went to Dumbledore's office today. What's wrong? Someone die or something?" He sounded oddly hopeful.
"No, my father wasn't too happy with my being put in Slytherin. He wanted Dumbledore to transfer me to Ravenclaw." She didn't look up at him again, her eyes fixed, unblinking, on the blazing orange of the fireplace until her entire body seemed to sink in the flames.
"I see. And Dumbledore wouldn't do it?"
"No, he was ready to. I didn't want it."
There was a long silence.
"Well, I must say that's a bit of a shock. I mean, your family isn't really known to be--well, you know. You're family isn't really Slytherin, is it?" An attempt at regaining the earlier suave composure. "You'll be an asset, though, I imagine. Slytherin needs more good students. I mean, Gryffindor has that Granger twerp --they've almost got a monopoly on academic points."
Ahh, the House Cup. That makes is all better. She closed her eyes, concentrating on the warmth of the flames crawling up her skin, willing Draco to leave. At that moment, she didn't want to guard anything anymore. She didn't want to play games or be wheedled.
Somehow, Draco sensed this. There was another longer silence, and he glanced around the room, as if searching for something to say.
"Say, are you the type who likes Quidditch?" He tried again. "There's a game next week: Slytherin vs. Hufflepuff. Should be a cinch for us. I'm the team's Seeker. You should come watch. That'll make you proud to be a Slytherin for sure. You'll see, it's worth a little tiff with your dad to see us really wallop those gits."
She couldn't help a small but unenthusiastic smile at his fervor. "Actually, I've never seen a Quidditch game. Don't know anything about it. In China, everyone plays Feimadong."
"You've never seen a Quidditch game!" His disapproval was almost as hot and fierce as the fire. "Well, I really doubt that this fay-mah-whatever is anything to compare. I mean, flying on a broomstick, bludgers zooming past your ears while you search for a tiny little golden Snitch. There's really nothing like it."
This made Lili smile in earnest, though her eyes remained bathed in heat. She wondered if she should tell him that Feimadong was played on small flying horses at night, the field lit by the horses' glowing gold eyes and hooves, a blue flame dancing back and forth across in the dark. "Well I suppose I'll have to see a game then." The words were happening somewhere in the distance.
Draco sighed. "Your father sent you that parchment, didn't he?"
His voice cut through somehow. She turnd her eys to him, vision filled with dark spots and lingering images of flame. "Er, what do you mean?"
A frown stretched, haughty, across his face, and he ran his fingers through his white-gold hair before taking a seat on the chair's arm. "He sent you that parchment after he left. It must say something very bad." He shifted a little.
She searched the boy's eyes for some trace of mockery but found none. It was some sort of genuine understanding. Coming from someone in Slytherin, anything genuine was slightly--unnerving. Especially suspicious as she'd heard nothing but insults about anything and anyone Malfoy. "Well, uh, he did actually. It's not--" She felt the tears threatening behind her throat and paused. She knew it wasn't seemly to cry in front of another Slytherin…
Draco lowered his voice. "He said he didn't want to see you again, didn't he?"
The softness of the question forced her to swallow hard. His face betrayed something in him she wouldn't have guessed was there, the way he strutted around, quipping, flanked by two brainless leviathans. It almost seemed, for a moment, as if a distance existed between the gray of his eyes and brain. "Well, he sort of said, Don't bother coming home for Christmas…" A tear slipped past her guard and down her cheek. Then several more, a sob wringing her throat. Her eyes found the fire again, hiding.
Draco squirmed, and she knew she'd crossed some sort of Slytherin line. She bit her tongue harder and stopped the tears dead in their tracks.
"That's happened to loads of us here. You should have seen the fit Dia's parents threw when she got sorted here. It's just-- being a Slytherin."
"Not to you." She knew enough about Malfoys to know they were the consummate Slytherins.
He squirmed a little more, uncertain and watching his hands with great interest. "Yeah, my dad was pretty happy I was in Slytherin, actually. But everything since the Sorting has sort of resulted in the 'Don't come home for Christmas' threat."
Once again she found her eyes on him, on his wringing hands and the macho smirk he was trying to fit over a face contorted with discomfort.
From somewhere above there was a loud fluttering of wings, and, before Draco knew what was happening, a dark blur flashed down from the rafters of the common room rocketing straight into his chest. He tumbled over backwards.
"Artibius!" Lili said, jumping up and removing the large, sable bat from Draco's chest. "Artibius, no, it's okay. He's a friend."
The bat was agitated, clicking madly, tiny gray eyes gleaming.
Draco was barely able to stand from shock. He propped himself up from the floor to see the bat licking Lili's tear-wet cheeks. "Disgusting," he growled, brushing off his black robes in vexation.
Lili smiled as the bat crawled from one of her shoulders to the other, wrapping his wings around her in a strange mock-embrace. "This is my friend, Artibius. We've known each other for a very long time. I'm sorry if he frightened you. He probably heard me crying and thought you were doing something bad to me." She looked round to the bat's sharp face. "It's ok. This is Draco. He was—just talking. A—friend." She wiped the remnants of tears from her eyes and watched Draco sideways, waiting to see how he would respond to the accusation of being anybody's "friend."
"I don't think your rat likes me much."
"Sure he likes you, he's just a little protective of me, that's all. Here, I know one way you can make friends very quickly." She pulled a small velvet bag from the folds of her robes and placed it in Draco's hand. "They're called suan mei. They're his favorite: dried sugared plums on the stern. He doesn't get them too often, but if you give him one now, he'll warm up to you, no problem." She grinned. "They're quite good. You can eat one too, if you like."
Draco looked at her dubiously but pulled two of the small treats from the bag nevertheless. Grimacing in that same superior way, he fed one to Artibius and popped one in his own mouth.
The bat accepted the treat only after very careful consideration.
"They're not horrible," Draco mumbled after a moment, a look of uncertainty and caution tightening his expression as he swirled the dried plum through his mouth. "A little sour, but-" He was stopped mid-sentence by a rather large bat who had taken to licking his face with great fervor.
"Oh bugger!"
"See what I mean."
Draco wiped his cheeks, annoyed, and settled himself somewhat angrily against the chair. He sneered down at Artibius as if looking at Harry Potter. "Well, he certainly is—a bat. Where'd you find him?"
"Oh, my dad bought him for me just after we'd arrived in China," Lili said, feeling a slight tension in her shoulders and a lump in her throat as she mentioned her father. "I was still very upset cause I wouldn't get to go to Hogwarts like he and Mum, so he bought me Artibius as a gift. I took him to school with me instead of the normal cat, and he kept me company for those first lonely months. I had trouble fitting in, and Artibius here helped me feel more at home." She scratched him under the chin in a spot that made his wings flap furiously. She chuckled. "He also gave me my first lesson in dongwujing."
"You'll have to speak English with me."
"It means 'animal eyes'.I don't know if you have anything like it here. My first charms professor at Zhong Mo Xue told me about it. Basically, you're eyes take on the animal's vision. You can see what you see as well as what they see at the same time. It takes a lot of getting used to, and it will only work with animals you have a strong connection with. But let me tell you. There is nothing more thrilling than seeing what it's like to soar above the treetops among the stars."
"I thought bats had poor vision."
"Most bats do. But Artibius here is an Eastern Horned Bat. And while he has excellent hearing, his vision, unlike other species of bats, is about ten times better than a human's."
Artibius looked up at Draco, seeming proud of this fact. "That must be interesting." He seemed to disapprove of it: as if it were childish.
"Useful too." She looked down at Artibius who was clicking back at Draco with equal dislike. "The second month of school, this bully started making fun of me because I couldn't speak Chinese very well, and I was having some problems learning things. Well, I was practicing a little dongwujing when Artibius here decided to try something very strange. He flew in that girl's dormitory room and saw her sleeping with a big, pink teddy bear. She was fifteen at the time, mind you. After everyone heard about that, she didn't feel like making fun of me anymore. Nor did anyone else."
Draco's eyes sparked for the first time, and his tilted smile became real. "That's not bad…" Reluctantly, he graced Artibius with a single stroke down the nose. "I could use something like that. Spy on Potter and that Weasley girl. I know they've been out at night snogging all around the school." She could almost see the Slytherin wheels turning in his brain. "Can you hear things?"
"No."
He grinned despite himself. "Could you show me?"
"You couldn't link with Artibius. You have to have known the Sight Animal for a while. Not only that, you have to be specially connected with the animal—you can't just do it with any old rat in the cellar." It was Artibius' turn to look offended by the comparison. "Besides it's very difficult to get used to two layers of vision. It made me sick the first few times."
"Then you do it. I just want to see."
She sighed. She wasn't normally inclined to use dongwujing around others, but seeing as he was clearly doing things outside his normal inclination –and had successfully taken her mind off her father, she realized quite suddenly--she thought it was the least she could do. "Alright. I'll get him to fly into the Great Hall. We'll see what everyone at dinner's up to." Assuming a similar position to that she'd used for meditation, she took several deep breaths before allowing Artibius to settle on her shoulder lightly.
She closed her eyes and felt Artibius' wings tickling her neck. After a few moments of intense concentration, blue dots swarming her darkened eyes, a small tingling built in the back of her mind. "Jiejing a!"
Her eyes bolted open and her vision was strangely blurred, as if two layers of a similar image were overlaid. "Alright, Artibius. Do you know the way to the Great Hall? Go on, we'll be fine here."
The bat clicked a couple of times before zooming down a small drainage opening that she could only assume led out of the common room.
After a few seconds of vertiginous dark, corridors began whirring past dizzily, forms rising and falling as if on water. She hadn't seen Artibius in a while, much less exchanged sight with him. Her stomach turned.
Faintly, behind the jostled picture of the corridors, she could see Draco watching her closely. "Is it working?"
"Yes, he's heading for the Great Hall right now."
"You look strange. You're eyes are all kind of glazed over. It's almost like I can see his vision clouding up yours. Kind of creepy. Looks like you're in a coma." He waved his hands in front of her wide eyes.
The nausea was severe now, as Artibius found his way into the Great Hall, making a wide circle under the clear night sky-ceiling. He swooped down as far as he could without being seen. "I see the Slytherin table. Oh, there are your two little--well, not little--your friends. They seem a bit lost without you. And there are Milicent and Dia." She grinned. "Looks like Dia's flirting with that fifth year, um, I think she said his name was Daniel? Milicent's on her third helping of dessert. Ah, Gryffindor table. There's that girl, Granger. Oh and Potter. And, what's the other boy's name? Red hair?"
"Weasley?"
"Yes, him."
Artibius settled on a buttress above the Gryffindor and the faculty tables and began looking across the room. His eyes rested for a moment on Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley who were whispering back and forth rather seriously while their friend, Harry, helped himself to another lump of steaming cobbler. Artibius then turned toward the faculty table, eyeing Dumbledore, McGonagall, Flitwick and Snape for a long moment.
Snape was sitting beside McGonagall, two seats away from Dumbledore. While the rest of the faculty talked, smiling over their food, Snape remained silent, looking distracted and poking at his dinner in much the same way she had at her breakfast earlier that morning. His hair hung limp down his cheeks casting shadows across his face. She wondered vaguely at this: was he always so distant and melancholy?
Artibius' vision swiveled suddenly, even against Lili's will. She furled her brow.
"What? What is it?" Draco leaned forward and squinted at Lili's clouded green eyes, trying to see something in them.
"Oh, I don't know," she said, squinting a little herself, trying to make out the image past Draco's face. "It's just that, well, Granger and Weasley were whispering together and then Granger walked out. And now, a few seconds later, Ron's walking out too. It's like, well, maybe they're going somewhere but they don't want anyone to know…"
"Oh, follow them! Follow them!"
Luckily, Artibius had the same idea and trailed Ron's red hair from a reasonable distance. "Oh, there she is! She was waiting for him behind a suit of armor."
Draco was positively—and almost literally-- jumping for joy. "What now? What are they doing?"
"They're just walking, holding hands, oh, they opened up a secret passage!" She shook her head slightly. "How did they know about that?"
"Oh, Weasley's twin brothers knew every one of them inside this castle. I'm sure he knows all the best spots…Do you know where they are?"
Surprisingly enough, she did. She remembered it from her walk with Professor Flitwick just that afternoon. "Yes, it's just about three minutes from the Headmaster's office. Right behind the painting of the sailor."
Artibius, realizing he couldn't follow the two, began heading back, lost again in the black of the castle drains.
Lili sighed, only then feeling the impact on her senses. She whispered the spell again and severed the link. Draco's ecstatic face came slowly into focus.
"That was marvelous. I knew those two had a thing for each other. I'll have to tell Filch to start searching that corridor at night. He'll catch them snogging for sure. It'll be points from Gryffindor not to mention Weasley going as red as his filthy hair."
Lili smiled back but felt a little strange. It wasn't terribly honest spying on two people she barely knew. In fairness, however, they had been spreading rumors about her. And she knew, by now, Harry would have told them about Potions, and no one in Gryffindor would afford her much kindness. Certainly not of the type Draco seemed to be trying, in his own proud Slytherin way, to extend to her now.
Artibius fluttered up from the drain, nudging her, expectant. She pulled out another suan mei, and he grabbed it greedily.
"Do you know what I wouldn't give for something like that? Incredible…" Something in the way he said "incredible" made her wonder if he was talking about the prospect of catching potential public displays of affection from two of his obvious foes or about herself and Artibius.
From across the room, she heard the sounds of people beginning to enter, shaking the common room out of silence again. Suddenly, for a reason she couldn't quite understand, she began to blush.
"I'm feeling tired," she lied, standing, and scooping Artibius up in one hand. "I think I'll just get some rest. Thank you for—" She broke off the gratitude with a smile. Any acknowledgement of kindness on his part would, in Slytherin, no doubt be grounds for embarrassment. She glanced over and saw Crabbe and Goyle approaching at their Neanderthal speed.
"Yeah." He seemed, mentally, to brush off his features, everything becoming, again, steely and cool. "So you'll come watch the Quidditch match next week?" His voice was, once again, unnervingly suave.
"I won't miss it."
Draco gave her one last crooked smile, before strutting over to his twin thugs.
The heat of the fire drizzled away from her with every step she took towards her room. Her cheeks were still stiff with dry tears, but her throat had loosened, allowing breath to pass without the threat of sorrow. Thinking of the parchment rolled in her hand, she no longer had to fight with herself. She felt heavy and her gait was slow, but, at least, thanks to Draco and Artibius, the desperate tears had stopped--for the moment.
And now she wasn't exactly sure what to think. A Slytherin who showed her some sympathy—or a pretty good likeness of it, anyway. She wracked her brain trying to figure out a way in which it was really manipulation, but could think of none. Perhaps he had been honest. The pain was part of being Slytherin: he had merely shown her his understanding.
But even darker than Draco in the back of her mind, another face, hunched over his meal, looking utterly…
Yes, the pain was part of being Slytherin. But what was his pain?
Whatever it was, he wore it on every inch of his body, hanging on him as heavy as his robes.
Artibius nibbled her finger again, this time a little harder.
What? She asked him with a look.
He clicked several times and took off up the stairwell.
He thinks I'm in over my head, she thought, watching Artibius disappear. He thinks I won't be able to handle all this and still stay away from…The words trembled-- didn't want to come clearly. Hac dao. The dark arts. Artibius was afraid she would fall prey, as so many Slytherins did, to the dark path…
Is he wrong?
It was a voice within her, one she hadn't heard in some time.
Shaking her head, she dismissed it. She knew what she was doing. She'd done nothing wrong. She couldn't let other people's prejudices frighten her. She had made the right decision.
She had made the right decision.
She continued to remind herself of that fact as she mounted the stairs to try and, somehow, convince Artibius.