Note: this chapter has gasp talk of and implied corporal punishment. Again, like the last chapter, only to add to the atmosphere, as it really has nothing to do with plot itself.
Note 2: this is AU. Hogwarts is divided up into something like warring states, with Gryffindor mainly on guard against Slytherin for reasons not yet explained. They've been in this situation for around three months. Harry left, or tried to leave, a month after the trouble started. He hasn't been heard from since.
Happy reading (despite the fact it's more than a bit depressing)!
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The Common Room, even this late at night, buzzes with activity. Almost the whole of Gryffindor House gathers here every night, to talk and nervously play in what is considered to be the safest room in what the Circle calls their 'dominions'. There is no expense spared on the room: a fire is kept continually burning whether the finicky warming charms are working or not and, despite the official rationing that is going on, great piles of candy sit heaped in a reading alcove, sent from Hogsmeade before communications were cut off.
The atmosphere is generally light, and especially so this evening. While the nine remaining First Years sit in a hunched circle on two oval couches in a far corner, away from the noise, the rest of the room awaits the verdict of the High Court. It has become perhaps the most talked-of new institution that carries the burden of order in the new Gryffindor: the other committees, the revered ambassadors, and even the Circle itself seems to exert less sway over the groups of talking people. They are constantly reminded, if not by the ubiquitous security precautions then by the looming specter of the missing and presumed dead, of the power of the Court. It can send one to the corridors to spend nights hoping the half-done wards will not come crashing down in some Slytherin raid. But the hope tonight, at least among the entertainment-starved middle Years, is that the small First Year will get strapped: an anomaly introduced by none other than their lost, revered, illustrious leader.
The Fat Lady, who had fled her portrait and was only lured back by the promise of extra protection, opens slowly. The eighty or so people in the room gradually fall quiet, their pale faces eager for news. The high judge climbs over the threshold first, followed by the young First Year. Whispers race through the small group of his compatriots at the sight of his downcast face, and then the two jurors climb over. Colin Creevy takes off his dark robe impatiently and virtually runs up the stairs to his dorm, while the other takes a few steps to the right and leans quietly against the stone wall.
There is a pause while the judge leads the First Year up to stand in front of the fireplace. Two girls support each other as they climb through the picture and then it closes behind them, blocking out the dark and forbidding corridor beyond. Both friends, taut with anger, go directly to a group of milling older boys and pulls one aside, unmindful of the drama that unfolds in the cleared circle in front of the fire.
"The High Court has reached a verdict."
The beginning of the impromptu speech is interrupted by a loud voice from the back of the room. "Of course it has, like it always does. You wouldn't be back here if you hadn't decided to kill the boy or something."
There is a slow ripple of tight laughter that falls abruptly silent when the judge stamps his foot impatiently.
"Yes, well, we have. Jurors Creevy and Thomas—" He looks around as if lost and Dean walks slowly up. "Oh, so Colin's gone now, is he?"
Dean nods slowly.
"Anyway." The judge quiets the room with a wave. "I know you've been waiting for our answer. The truth is as you have, I'm sure, found it: Greg Edwards admitted to passing messages for the Ravenclaws."
He ends on a triumphant note and the room starts to speak again in condemnation. The two girls, watched by none, had left up the stairs with their friend they had pulled along behind, seemingly in search of the lost juror. There is a silence, the Common Room quieting almost together in agreement: yes, get on with it: the verdict?
"He is to be strapped in ten minutes."
The room erupts and the judge raises his voice. "It's not without precedent. If you want to argue the verdict, come up now. Otherwise get up and out—go to bed, there's to be no sightseers along for the ride tonight."
There is a general movement of bodies towards the stairs and soon the room, in accordance with the judge's wishes, is empty. Echoes can be heard down the stairs of excited students conversing in none-too-quiet tones, and the judge turns to Dean.
"Over here, you think?"
Dean looks at the floor. "Seamus—I don't think that we should be doing this. After all, he's only a First Year. Can't we just pretend, or whip a chair instead? It wouldn't make any difference. It's just… not right."
His voice trails off and Seamus pushes up his sleeves. "I know. I know. I… Harry told me to keep Gryffindor under control. So that the whole House doesn't get killed for some stupid reason, or taken prisoner by the Slytherins, or starve. Merlin knows why he didn't ask Hermione to do it. It's terrible—"
"It's like some horrible game. Look up on the wall." Dean points to the large sign hung to the right of the fireplace. It has five faces pasted on it: three pretty girls bedecked in Yule Ball gowns, a boy with a lost expression, and an almost-hidden face with messy black hair and green eyes. They don't move in their pictures, like wizard photos, and he finds it strange. "Four people gone in that raid two weeks ago, in some Slytherin dungeon. Like it's a war in Hogwarts. It shouldn't be; it's not that hard to just ally with the Ravenclaws and the Hufflepuffs. You know we'd have enough wands together to give them to the top people and we could… we could at least get Parvati, Susan, and Emily back for some hostages we take. One Sixth Year and two Third Years. Gone. That's what the boy wanted to do."
"D'you think you could do this? D'you think I'm happy being the Supreme Mugwump of whatever this little Gryffindor place in Hogwarts is, not in touch with anybody and within weeks of starvation aside from that pile of candy?" Seamus shakes his head violently, the only result being a mussed head of sandy hair.
"Go. Why don't you do it? I'll say that since Harry gave me the responsibility, I'm giving it to you. If you could do a better job, take it."
Seamus looks at Dean, whose dark face is looking at the First Year. "But I know you don't want to either. So I have to do what I think would be best. This time—who knows? What, flip a coin to strap the boy or save him? It wouldn't make half the House happy for someone we've branded as a criminal to come upstairs with an unblemished bum and if we actually do it the other half would revolt. You saw Hermione and Ginny in the courtroom. They're already like mothers, protective of everything, and then they drag Ron upstairs to go bang Creevy around for sentencing Greg."
Dean's face twists into a strange grin. "Yes, I saw them. And no, I don't think I could do it better. Go ahead."
He leaves, watched by the silent First Year that had curled up on a large and plush chair, its upholstery recently stained. The room suddenly seems far too large and empty to Seamus and he walks over to the boy, his feet heavy on the rug. They look at each other and then Seamus throws up his hands.
"What d'you want me to do?"
The boy shrugs.
"Fine, don't reply." Seamus' voice gets louder. "I'll just flip a knut, shall I, and the outcome'll be the same either way. You get strapped now or get beaten up by some Third Years hungering for revenge against someone, anyone."
The boy answers him in a quiet voice. "Flip a knut, then. It's your job, after all."
The knut lands loudly, clanking on the wooden surface of a game table before rolling in a frenzied circle and coming to rest. The boy breaths out, the only noise aside from the crackling fire in front of him, and the Common Room is silent for some more time.
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Hermione and Ginny have him backed up against the headboard of his bed. He sits on it with an irritated but helpless look on his face. There had been movements from the girls to attempt to draw Ron into the discussion but he only slumps against the wall, looking out the window at the inky sky, black with hints of deep grey clouds.
"And you don't think at all what you did was in any way bad?" Ginny was, at this point, nearly screeching in a fairly good imitation of her mother. "You, Colin Creevy, you and Dean Thomas—both of you!"
She is brimming with indignation, her cause lighting her drawn face with a fire.
"You sacrificed this random First Year who did nothing to appease the crowd!"
Hermione, who had drawn back to let Ginny berate Colin, noted that she sounded like some old Greek or Roman orator. It was funny, she thought, and she let Ginny's argument blend into the background. She had had lots of practice at withdrawing in the past few months. She was nominally in charge of warding the corridors leading to the Common Room and the few classrooms used for storage. The anger she felt when she found her wand burning in her hand during the raid two weeks ago returns to her often, filling her with a fury she has tried to suppress.
She sits down on a bed—cleanly made, one that hadn't been slept in for weeks. She knows, in the back of her mind, who used to sleep where she is sitting, but she doesn't want to think about it. The fabric of the bedspread is smooth against her warm hand and she grabs it in a fist.
"Yes! We knew that Greg would just be the object of some attack. All of the younger Years have cabin fever—how could they not? To not convict him was… suicidal! They would've strapped Dean and me instead of him and none of us would have been better off. It's hard, Ginny—you try it sometime. Convince Seamus to let you be a juror on a trial of some poor little girl who took extra food because she was hungry."
"I'd let her off, of course! How can you blame her? She was only hungry."
She sees Colin lean forward on his bed, caught up in the debate. "But the food she takes is food that others can't get. And if you don't convict her we'll have our food supplies set on by hoards of snarling kids who, as you say, 'are only hungry'. It'd be chaos."
Hermione stands up and her worn shoes hit the stone floor together. "Forget about it. There's nothing we can do about it now, I guess. It's probably already done."
Ron looks at his Muggle watch for loss of Tempus. "Hermione."
"Yes?"
"It's after curfew. The meeting'll be starting soon."
She can still see the residual hurt in his eyes from when Harry left. Ron wasn't given any special position in the Circle—no, the fruits of a simple argument left him without any place, without any job to serve. He sits often, now, in an empty classroom that is used for a communal showers on weekends since the bathroom water supply was shut off a month ago. The room is damp throughout the week, and now Ron always smells of must. Must and gloom, and anger.
Ginny steps back and opens the door. "OK. Let's go down, now, and not speak of it." She looks around, as if expecting others to agree; Hermione meets her gaze but says nothing. They head down the darkened staircase in a ragged group, rapping on doors here and there where whispered chatting can be heard. The candles mounted on the walls are miraculously lit and their shadows fall up across the vaulted walls. There is a feeling of security behind the plastered stone, of strength and permanence that abruptly vanishes when they enter the Common Room.
There is, like always, some chairs pulled roughly in a circle. Hermione goes to her spot, the one with a little red cushion. It is on the left-hand side of an enormous plush monstrosity that is empty, and will be empty, and then on its right sits Seamus, already there. She notes, as Ginny takes the seat next to her, that there is no sign of the First Year. She hopes that nothing had happened to him, or, as Colin feared, will happen.
The circle fills up quickly as it is not very big. Harry chose mostly his friends for positions among the new quasi-rulers, and she sees anew his choices reflected in the composition of the varied faces. Seamus sits to the right of what is or was Harry's chair, picked over Ron. She watches Neville, then, still round-faced, upright in a deep chair with piles of assorted cushions. To his right is another empty chair, for Parvati, and then Dean. Colin has taken his place when she wasn't watching and picks at a fingernail. Ginny is next to her, leaning on her plush red armrest and looking pensive.
Despite the fact that the Common Room is virtually silent anyway Seamus talks in a raised voice. "I'm… I'd like to apologize for the trial tonight. It was another hard situation, like Romilda and guard duty after the raid."
"That brainless snot fell asleep and endangered everybody. Not like him. Greg didn't do anything."
Hermione looks over from studying the design on her chair with surprise as Colin continued. "He only did what he thought was right. "
Seamus looks hard at Colin. "So why did you sentence him?"
Colin exchanges a quick glance with Dean and then continues. "I… I had to. You know why; we all know why. So let's just leave it."
There is a tense silence and then Seamus rakes a hand through his hair. "Fine. But let me say that he… agreed. Edwards agreed to be strapped, and he was. He's smart, realized what he had to do. It wasn't hard, just enough to make his bum red enough to placate his yearmates."
Hermione sucks in her breath and closes her eyes. She doesn't want to imagine how he must have felt in such a position. She knows how it happens; she watched last time to make sure Ron wasn't hurt, not that she thought that Seamus would actually injure somebody. At least, not on purpose. It was, she thinks, as painful for her as it was for him, though he later assured her that the marks didn't stay and it didn't matter because nobody saw them anyway.
"But Colin's right. Let's drop it and get to the other part of the meeting. Dennis is out at the East Barricade. He should be safe there for the night, but after we leave I'm going to check on him with Dean."
Dean jerks his head around for a moment to look at Seamus and then lets his gaze return to his lap.
"The West hallway with the knight is progressing slowly. Hermione, could you get out there tomorrow to make sure that McLaggen and Richards are doing their job instead of snogging in the corner or worse?"
She nods to the accompaniment of soft laughter. As if she had a choice.
Seamus nods broadly. "Good. There's still the matter of the stairs to the Great Hall. I don't know if we should try to keep our position there or if it's too dangerous."
She knows that he knows that everybody knows why he doesn't elaborate. Four Gryffindors taken prisoner at what he called the heroic defense of the staircase. It's surrealistic and at the same time scarily real and she rubs her hands together, suddenly cold. She thinks that she couldn't last with the Slytherins, not like they know what goes on down there. Not that they want to…
"I think that we should keep the staircase. It'd look bad if we retreat." Ron had evidently stood up from his position in front of the fire. Still miffed about being excluded from the Circle, he was a constant presence at the meetings and, to Hermione's annoyance, often intruded with what were too often half-baked ideas.
"It's too hard. You know that, Ron. Do you want to be patrolling there this Friday and have to deal with fighting on the stairs if something happens?" She twists around to look at Ron's reaction to Ginny's statement but only sees him slouch down again.
"Any other opinions?"
The Circle remains mute and Seamus sighs dramatically. "All right, then. Let's vote, if nobody wants to say something. Hands up for leaving the staircase for the intersection with the stained glass of the frog."
Hermione wearily raises her hand halfway. She knows what the outcome will be, and indeed everybody agrees. It's sad, she thinks, that Harry couldn't have had the foresight to include any others who perhaps didn't agree with what he wanted. Then perhaps the Circle wouldn't be just people with one mission, distanced from the masses who want food and entertainment and freedom. But she's tried it before, and was voted down: even the quiet Neville spoke against it.
"OK. Tomorrow we move behind the door with the stained glass. That means that tonight somebody has to move the supplies from the closet right outside. Any volunteers?"
Seamus' voice is tired and Hermione knows that he is sick of his position. He knows, she is sure, that nobody will want to go out at night to fifty feet away from the spot where Parvati's wrist was cut and then hastily mended before she was gone. And not one of the Circle says anything to break the noise of the ever-crackling fire.
"Fine. I'll go with Dean after we check on Colin."
There is no reaction from the other boy in question. "Dean? Yes?"
An apathetic nod is returned.
"Fine. Fine… after Ginny speaks to us about the food and if there aren't any more concerns—"
Neville raises himself up from the depths of his cushions. "The younger Years expect another party on Friday. I say we should give it to them. Perhaps do the showers that night too; they can play in the water if they want. Not like they have much else to do. Whatever happened to that run we were going to make through Hufflepuff to the Library to bring back books?"
Hermione can tell that the strain of the past months has hardened the last Longbottom. He had went into a private room with Harry before he left and apparently had a talk, and ever since then he had been stiffer. More like she remembers his father being in that old Order of the Phoenix picture Moody had showed them so long ago.
"The party's fine. And, in case the rest of you are wondering, the library plan didn't come through because the Hufflepuff envoy—I think it was supposed to be Macmillan, was probably off somewhere crying over his picture of Finch-Fletchley. We're sending out somebody tomorrow to try to meet with the Hufflepuffs again."
This was news to her and she could tell that the whole Circle was paying closer attention. Ever since the failed joint meeting with Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff there had been much talk of trying to resupply food stocks through the Hufflepuffs, who somehow happened to have the house elves with them. As far as she had known, nothing had been done about it, and it angered her somewhat that she hadn't been privy to the knowledge beforehand.
"And speaking of the Hufflepuffs. Food." Ginny stands up and the cushion she had placed behind her neck falls down to the floor. "I think that, without giving extra food during the party, we'll have enough for eighteen more days."
Her eyes hardened and looked around the Circle, somehow managing to stare at everybody at the same time except for Hermione. "If we don't have anything a week from now, I'm going out myself to see why not."
There is a collective intake of breath, punctured by the sound of a howling meow. Crookshanks jumps into her lap, his claws tearing at her robe and widening the hole beneath the pocket. He curls there immediately with his tail wrapped around his body and purrs, giving no indication of the reason for his screech.
"Ginny, I don't think—"
"You haven't done anything." This, she felt, was more than a bit unfair to Seamus. "And since you're doing nothing, I'll do something. Whatever. Something here and something there, and maybe we'll find out why Harry hasn't come back and what's wrong."
It's what they've all been waiting to hear. Someone besides Harry actually say that they'll find something to do, to fix the situation. To actually find out what's wrong.
She pushes back her chair, out of the Circle, and takes Crookshanks in her arms. "I'll go up to the dorms to make sure everything's quiet. Then I'm going to bed."
Hermione walks with a measured stride, knowing that the rest of the Circle is staring at her back. She needs to do something, like Ginny, or like Dean, who at least still has his wand but has no experience whatsoever in ward-casting. Like Neville, who goes around making friends with the younger Years, or Seamus, who does practically everything. And then there are her and Ron. Ron sits in a room for most of the time, lethargic, sometimes reading or writing something she hasn't been able to get a look at. And she, Hermione Granger, smartest witch in her class, or what's left of it?
The stairs are long and winding up to the boys' side of the dorms and halfway up them Crookshanks decides he is tired of being in her arms and jumps back down to run off towards the Common Room. The stairs seem darker than when she descended them with Colin and Ginny earlier and she notices that many of the candle stubs had gone out. The Second and Third year rooms, on the first floor of the dorm tower, are quiet, any possible whispers hidden by the thick wooden doors. On the second story, however, light shines from beneath the door of the room all the First Years have crowded into for companionship. She opens it to find a guilty semi-circle of faces crowded around the backside of Gregory Edwards, hastily pulling up his pajama bottoms.
They watch her and, when Edwards has his pants done, he turns around with a red face. "They only wanted to see."
She knows and almost wants to laugh at how cowed they are by her presence. "I see that. All of you should know that Greg did what he thought was right today. What I say next you can't tell anyone. He had a choice of whether to be strapped or not and he chose to abide by the Circle's Code."
Edwards turns even more red but apparently doesn't want to move to hide in some dark corner. "I can really say that I'm proud of him. For the rest of you—"
One boy actually squeaks and Hermione fails to stifle her laugh. The six First Years stand transfixed before her, waiting to hear what she would say. "Please don't go looking down people's pajamas. It's not exactly a habit you want to have."
Six faces smile back at her ashamedly, as if they are all marionettes manipulated by one master. She turns and, after blowing out the candle on the wall, closes the door behind her. The Third and Forth Year dormitories are silent as well, and she figures that the older Years could police themselves. Not to mention the possibility of breaking in on some terrible sight she doesn't want to ever see…
It doesn't take her very long to use the Prefect's passageway between the boy and girl dorm towers and then she is in her room. It is only her room now, and even when she had a choice to pick between the prefect's bedroom and her dorm she picked the room with the two other empty beds. She feels that she owes something to Parvati, who she last saw a few minutes before she reportedly was grabbed and taken; Lavender left at the first warning signs of an imminent storm on the horizons. It was, she thinks as she slips into pajamas, a smart thing to do, if cowardly.
She props the door open for Crookshanks to come in later and tugs the curtain across the window. Hermione doesn't want to see the dark sky, or anything outside, anything that taunts her with promises that can't be fulfilled.
The room is dark, then, though without a candle she can see enough to get under the comforting weight of the heavy down comforter. Her stomach rumbles in hunger, and then some time after she falls asleep, cheek against the smooth coolness of the pillow, thinking of what could have been.