29. Fight or Flight
She returned to his office the next morning, letting herself in again. All she could think about the previous night was whether her Potions professor had been in that God damn maze. If he had killed Cedric Diggory.
And if You Know Who was really back.
Now it occurred to her that if he really was back, and Snape really had betrayed him all those years ago... was there a certain reason why he'd disappeared last night, and why he wasn't in his office now?
You don't piss off the greatest dark wizard that ever lived and get away with it, she thought.
A burst of flames sounded in the fireplace off to the side, startling Callie, and Snape appeared... looking rather shaken.
He stepped out of the fireplace and paused when he found her sitting behind his desk looking guilty and nervous.
"What - in the hell - are you doing in here?" he asked.
She shot up to her feet, holding her hands up as if in surrender. "I'll leave!" she said, moving out from behind the desk.
"Fine, but before you do, would you grab me the God damn dittany?"
Surprised, she went over to his store of potions and grabbed the bottle. As he made his way over to the desk, she noticed him limping, and that his clothes were dirty and disheveled. She thought it best not to comment. He pulled out a bottle of what looked like wine from his desk, along with a glass, and she set the dittany in front of him.
"Pour me a glass, would you?" he ordered, conjuring a cloth and soaking it with the healing potion. She did as told.
"Cedric Diggory's dead," she informed him.
He cocked a brow at her. "No kidding?" he said sarcastically. "Must've missed that in this morning's Prophet."
She stood before the desk as he touched up some cuts on his arms and neck. What the fuck happened to him? she wondered. He looked like he'd been in a fight.
In the maze, perhaps?
"Professor?"
"What?" he snapped. She hesitated, biting her lip. He looked up at her, taking in her expression, and said, "It's exactly what you think it is."
Oh, God. Her eyes widened, her jaw dropped open at what he'd just confirmed. "You..." she said, shaking her head and backing away, "...you killed him? You killed Cedric?"
He looked up at her with a what-in-the-hell-are-you-talking-about sort of face. "What? No!"
"You said it was exactly what I think!"
"You think I killed Diggory?" he asked, completely taken aback.
Relaxing a little, she said, "You didn't?"
Rolling his eyes with a sigh, he said, "Christ in Heaven, you're backwards. No, I didn't kill him. Think Dumbledore would let me live if I had?"
"Then what-" She paused, not so sure of herself anymore. "What has happened, then?"
"What do you think?"
After a pause, she said, "You tell me what I think."
"Ugh," he sighed. "I'm in no mood for games, Warbeck. Nor have I the time or the energy to go flipping through your thoughts."
"He's back then," she said. "Right? You would know, the Mark would've burned."
He looked at her, hesitated, and said, "Yes it would."
He didn't elaborate, but Callie took that as confirmation that You Know Who had returned. Despite the hints she'd gotten from him, Dumbledore, and Karkaroff that this was coming, she'd still been hoping they were all somehow wrong.
"Bloody hell," she sighed. Was she seriously going to have to send her mother into hiding?
"Don't say anything to anyone," Snape ordered. "Dumbledore wants to keep it under wraps until he figures out how he wants to proceed."
"Right, sir. I won't say anything." She stood quiet for a moment, before she said, "Sir?"
"What now?" he asked, growing ever more agitated.
Where were you last night? What happened?
"Are you all right?" she asked instead.
He paused cleaning up his wounds, glancing up at her. Then he resumed his work and said in a bitter sort of tone, "I'll be fine."
She supposed that was enough for now. "Good to know, sir." With that, she left him to himself.
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The Prophet hadn't said anything about You Know Who's return, or even Cedric's Death. From what Hermione had told her, the Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge, refused to even believe You Know Who was back, and that the Ministry was interfering with the press to keep everything quiet.
"They don't want to cause alarm," she'd said bitterly. "Disrupt everybody's sense of peace since You Know Who's downfall."
"That's just stupid. He's going to build up his army again and regain his power whether people believe it or not," Callie argued. "Why in the hell would they bury their heads in the sand?"
"Because they're idiots! And who knows, maybe Fudge wouldn't mind himself if the purebloods regained power. He doesn't seem quite so sympathetic to muggles and muggle-borns."
It occurred to Callie that Hermione's parents were muggle. "Hey," she said, "supposing it all starts up again - the killings and everything..." She paused, before asking, "What about your parents? And my Mum? Should we be worried about them?"
Hermione pondered it, looking rather anxious herself. "I don't know why we shouldn't," she said. "If things start to become like they were before, every muggle in Britain could be at risk. And every muggle-born."
Bloody hell. It would be all too easy for the Death Eaters to find Hermione - or any other muggle-born student - right here at Hogwarts. The girl had already been petrified due to her status. Callie was suddenly worried about her best girlfriend, as well as their parents.
"Would you flee?" Callie asked. "You and your parents, if it came to it?"
"I'd have them go somewhere safe, that's for certain."
"What about you?"
Hermione thought about it. "If there's going to be another war on my kind," she said, "I'm going to fight."
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The end-of-term feast wasn't exactly the joyous occasion it usually was. Instead of banners in the winning house's colors, black curtains hung up in the Great Hall. Quiet murmurs filled the room; everyone at the Hufflepuff table looked absolutely gutted. Callie always made it a point to sit at her own table for the welcome and leaving feasts, as a sort of obligation, but tonight she didn't give a damn, and remained with her Gryffindor friends.
If the Minister for Magic and the press were going to keep quiet about Cedric's death and You Know Who's return, then Dumbledore sure as hell wasn't. During the feast, he stood up and announced, "There is much that I would like to say to you all tonight, but I must first acknowledge the loss of a very fine person, who should be sitting here, enjoying our feast with us. I would like you all, please, to stand, and raise your glasses, to Cedric Diggory."
The entire room did as he said. As Callie raised her glass, a tear rolled down her cheek as she said, with the rest of the Hall, "Cedric Diggory."
She may not have been so affected by the boy's death - after all, she'd never even met him - if her father was still alive. But now that she'd had such a personal experience with death, she felt the gravity of it more than she ever had.
A nice thought occurred to her though, the idea of her father meeting Cedric in the afterlife, and she felt as if the boy was in good hands.
Take care of him, Daddy.
Dumbledore said a few words about Cedric, how he was good and loyal and fair. And then he said, to Callie's surprise, "His death has affected you all, whether you knew him well or not. I think that you have the right, therefore, to know exactly how it came about." Callie cocked a brow, before Dumbledore announced, "Cedric Diggory was murdered by Lord Voldemort."
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On the train home, Neville presented Callie with a jasmine flower. "Supposed to be uplifting, right?" he said with a slight smile curling his lip.
Tucking the stem behind her ear, Callie replied, "Ya know, for someone who's so forgetful, you have a good memory for all the random things I say."
"Well-" he shrugged "-figure I better listen when you talk. Or face the wrath."
She chuckled at that, shaking her head. "Right, 'cause I'm an 'evildoer.'"
"Exactly."
They were quiet for a while, until Callie said, "Wanna know the real reason why I want to go to the States?"
He gave her a quizzical look and asked "Why?"
She explained, "Because I want to try and convince my mum to stay there if... if another war breaks out." She sighed, before continuing, "Dad told me once that You Know Who wouldn't take on those 'crazy American bastards.' Not until he conquered all of Europe, at least."
"Think she'll go for it?" Neville asked.
Callie wasn't sure, but she said, "If she doesn't, I can always Imperius her."
Neville assumed she was kidding and chuckled. "That's illegal," he reminded.
"So is murder," she countered. "Anything goes in wartime." After a pause, she continued, "I was talking to Hermione the other day. I asked if she would flee Britain with her parents if she had to."
"What did she say?"
"She said she'd send them into hiding, but that she'd stay and fight for her people."
"She's only fifteen."
"We'll be fifteen soon, and I would fight."
"You can't-" he began, but paused.
"Why, because I'm a girl?"
"No, because you're a kid."
She smiled sadly and said, "I don't feel much like a kid nowadays. Feel like I've aged twenty years since the start of term."
They were both quiet for a moment, before Neville said, "Well... if you fight, I fight. Comrade?" He held out his hand, and she shook it.
When the train pulled up to platform nine and three-quarters, she and Neville got off together. As he looked around for his gran, Callie stood back with a far-off look in her eye.
Noticing her unsettled expression, Neville asked, "What's wrong?"
She met his eye, and after a second, she replied, "I've never gotten off the train and he wasn't here."
His face took on a sympathetic expression, and he stepped towards her, taking the back of her head in his hand and placing a kiss on her forehead.
"It'll be all right," he said softly. Then he took her hand and said, "Let's go get ice cream."
She rested her head on his shoulder and they walked off arm in arm.
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Author's note: Four years done, three to go :) Let me know what you think so far.
(P.S. - Take no offense to the "crazy American bastards" line. I myself am American.)