37. Caught
She awoke the next day with a pounding headache, and Bela tapping his nose against her face. "Little bugger," she groaned, shooing him away. But noting how dark the lake outside the window was, she checked the clock and saw that it was six in the evening. "Oh, you're hungry." She forced herself up to put some food in his cage, shutting him in when he flew in after it.
"Bloody hell," she breathed, rubbing her aching forehead. She'd slept through all four of her classes, and dinner was already being served. Thank Merlin she'd fallen asleep in her clothes, because she didn't have the energy or inclination to change. Running a hand through her hair, she made her way out of the dormitory.
In the Great Hall, she went up to the head table to apologize to her various teachers for missing class. "Professor Sprout," she began, "I'm sorry I wasn't in class today. I wasn't feeling so well."
"Not to worry, dear," the friendly woman replied with a smile. "Professor Snape has excused you from class."
"He has?" Callie said, cocking a brow.
"Oi," Hagrid piped up, catching her attention, "mine too."
She shot the potions master a glance down the table, but he was too consumed in a conversation with Professor Sinistra to notice her. Figuring he'd cleared her for the other two classes as well, she made her way over to the Gryffindor table.
Before she could take a seat, Seamus got up and stood before her. "I'm sorry, lass," he said, and Callie gave him a quizzical look. "For calling you a Death Eater last year."
Callie gave a questioning look to Neville, who explained, "He's read the Quibbler."
"Yes, he's converted," Fred added.
Looking back at Seamus, who bowed his head in shame, Callie said, "You're forgiven," and held out her hand for a shake. Afterwards, she gave him a peck on the cheek and made her way over to Neville.
"Astoria said you refused to get up today," he informed her. "You all right?"
After settling into her seat, Callie leaned over and wrapped her arms around him in a tight embrace.
"What's this?" he asked.
"I feel a bit sick," she explained. "Needed something soothing." The previous night had been intense. Severus Snape was so God damn... dark. After all that, she needed a taste of something light, his complete opposite - Neville Longbottom.
She could feel his hand settle on her lower back, before he must've thought that was too intimate and brought it to her shoulder instead. When Callie finally pulled away, she noticed Hermione looking at them with an odd expression on her face. It was almost like... sadness, but with a hint of bitterness - possibly anger - mixed in. Callie furrowed her brow but didn't say anything.
Why is she looking at me like that? She doesn't...
Suddenly, the idea that her Gryffindor girlfriend might fancy Neville crossed her mind.
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And I always thought she was mad for Red, Callie pondered as the girl's attitude towards her continued to be rather cold and dismissive. She kept her eye on her two best friends - who happened to share a common room - for the next few weeks, looking for any signs of attraction between them. In Potions, they often sat close to one another so Hermione could whisper instructions in his ear. Despite their friendship and all the help she gave him outside of class, Callie had always preferred to work alone and had remained at her seat up front ever since she had stopped being partners with Tracey in third year. Now she was wondering if that was a mistake.
She's pretty, Callie thought regarding the Gryffindor girl. And she's brilliant and kind and they share a common room. She gets special time with him.
"Warbeck, pay attention, your cauldron is boiling over!" Snape called out, pulling her attention away from her friends.
Lowering the flame, she muttered, "Sorry, sir."
"Tell me you don't need Granger to practically brew your own potion for you, too," he said.
"No, sir," she replied. "Just... checking something."
One day in the middle of March, Callie was shocked to have Hermione come up to her and ask for help with a Draught of Peace. "The O.W.L.s are in three months!" she said. "I want to be overprepared, I need all the practice I can get." She paused, before adding, "And you got an O on the moonstone essay. I didn't."
Callie brought her down to her and Neville's dungeon, and they got to work. Hermione was rather quiet the whole time, and Callie didn't know if it was because she was too focused on her potion to talk, or if she was still giving her the cold shoulder. However, this time alone provided the perfect opportunity to find out what was going on.
"Why have you been so..." Callie began, searching for the right word, "distant with me lately?"
"I haven't been distant," the girl replied, not taking her eyes off her draught. "I've been busy."
"Busy doing what?" Callie asked. Neville?
"Studying!" Hermione practically shouted. "Bloody hell, Callie, don't you worry at all about what's going to happen come June?"
"Yes, I worry!" the Slytherin replied. "It takes five N.E.W.T.s to get into the healer program - Charms, Transfig, Potions, Herbology, and Defense. And we haven't had a legitimate Defense teacher all year."
Hermione shot her a look. Technically, Harry was their Defense teacher.
"You know what I mean," Callie said, rolling her eyes. After a moment, she went on, "But that's not it. I see the way you interact with everyone else. You're not nearly as cold with them as you are with me lately. It's not the studying, it's something with me."
Hermione stayed silent and didn't face her.
Callie dove right in. "You fancy Neville, don't you?"
That forced the girl to face her, looking stunned by the suggestion. "What?!" she exclaimed. "No!"
She seemed sincere in her response, and Callie asked, "So what's the problem then?"
Hermione studied her a moment, before she asked, "Do you fancy Neville?"
Callie hesitated. Her two Gryffindor friends did have special time together. Maybe they spoke about things that they didn't want Callie to know. Could Hermione be trusted to keep her mouth shut? "I-" she began, but didn't know how to go on.
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Blimey, you're impossible," she said.
"Why am I impossible?" She wasn't expecting the answer she got.
"Because you're so insensitive you're almost cruel!" the Gryffindor shouted out. "Three years now you've been dangling yourself in front of the boy like a banana in front of an ape!"
Callie gaped at her. What the bloody hell?
Sighing to calm herself, Hermione said, "I'm sorry. But sometimes I hate the way you play with his feelings."
The Slytherin was offended now. "'Play with his feelings?'" she echoed.
Hermione faced her. "You're leading him on," she explained. "Joking that you're engaged, hugging him, flirting with him..." She paused. "He told me you even got in bed with him one night over the summer."
"That was nothing!" Callie argued.
"Right. That's what he said. And it's always been nothing. How would you feel if the person you fancied didn't fancy you?"
Callie pondered that. "And how do you know that he fancies me?" she asked.
Sighing in exasperation, Hermione replied, "Callie, wake up! You've seen the way he looks at you, the way he talks to you, the way he'll try and have a go at anyone who talks bad about you. Hell, look how he went at Seamus the day he called you a Death Eater."
"You weren't even there!"
"No, but I heard about it. And the way he was ready to fight whoever's spell that was that hit you." She paused, before adding in a quiet voice, "Plus, he told me himself."
"Told you what?"
Hermione hesitated, torn between her loyalty to Neville, and her frustration with the Slytherin. Finally, she said, "That he's mad for you."
Callie's heart skipped a beat. Mad for her. "When did he say that?" she asked.
Again, the girl hesitated, but replied, "A year ago. When your father died and you wouldn't speak to him."
She was stunned. A year ago he'd told Hermione that he fancied her? All this time he'd been "mad for her" and he hadn't given any indication of that? "Why hasn't he said anything to me?"
Hermione gave her a look that said it should've been obvious. "Because he doesn't think he's good enough for you."
"That's rubbish."
"I know. But he doesn't. You're pretty and talented and outgoing and confident, and he doesn't think you'd ever go for him."
Callie considered all that. So much for the self-assured soldier that she'd thought he was becoming. After all this time, he still had so little faith in himself.
"Would you?" Hermione asked, pulling Callie from her thoughts.
"Would I what?"
"Would you go for him?" When Callie didn't answer right away, Hermione added, "Because if you wouldn't then you'd better let him know. Then he can move on, at least."
Still, the Slytherin didn't respond.
"Callie, don't toy with him," Hermione said.
"I'm not toying with him," she replied. "I'm only trying to think before I act for once."
"Think about what?"
Again, she didn't respond right away.
The slightest smile curled Hermione's lip. "You do fancy him," she said. Callie gave her a knowing look but kept quiet. "Then why don't you tell him?" the Gryffindor asked.
"Because..." Callie said, and then sighed. "Because he was there for me when my dad died." She started to pace the room, running a hand through her hair. "And he let me stay with him when I was having that row with my mum. And he gave me a jasmine because it's uplifting. And he stands up for me. And he's done all that without staring or trying to get in my knickers when I crawled into his bed."
"You don't think he wants to?" Hermione said with a smirk.
"I know he does!"
"Then what's the problem?!"
Coming to a halt to face the girl, Callie sighed again and said with a pained expression, "I like him as a boy, Hermione." And then, after a pause. "But I love him as a friend. What if we broke up and then I wouldn't even have that?"
Hermione considered it, and said, "Neville loves you too, Callie. Believe me, he'd never abandoned you, no matter what happens."
The Slytherin still looked unconvinced.
"Take my advice," the Gryffindor went on, "tell him how you feel. All of it. He's not going to make the first move."
That she could believe. "Don't push me into it," she said. "Don't tell him what I said either."
"I'm not going to tell him," Hermione said. "That's your job."
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But it wasn't a job she was particularly keen on getting done, and as they worked on the Patronus Charm during their next D.A. meeting, she felt her frustration regarding Neville mingling with her frustration at Snape.
God damn it, he could've at least given me some tips, she thought. Nobody was really getting the hang of it, except Hermione, who'd managed to produce a fully corporeal Patronus (an otter), and Cho Chang (a swan). However, Snape's assertion that Dark witches and wizards couldn't conjure a Patronus made the only Slytherin in the room question whether she was capable. After an hour of trying, she couldn't even manage a single silver wisp.
"God... damn it!" she exclaimed through gritted teeth. Tossing her wand to the floor, she said, "Accio!" and her redwood beater's bat flew into her hand. Everybody watched as she took it over to the knight statue and bashed it against the hard stone. "Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!" she growled with every hit. And then she turned and whipped the bat across the room into a wall. The knight ended up with a minor chip; the bat came out unscathed.
Everybody was staring at her, stunned, until Neville spoke up. "It really is indestructible."
"Bloody hell," Red exclaimed.
Callie ran a tired hand over her face and said, "I'm sorry."
Harry went to pick up the bat and then approached her. "Here," he said, holding it out to her. "Hit the Dementors with this, it'll kill 'em."
Callie half-scoffed, half-chuckled, stepping towards Harry and giving him an appreciative hug. "Thank you," she said. "I needed a laugh."
This was the second time Neville had seen them so close to each other, and he looked even more affected than he had the first time. Resigned almost.
He thinks I fancy Harry, she realized. Letting go of the Boy Who Lived as though he had suddenly caught fire, she took the bat and said, "Anyone else wanna have a go with this?"
They all laughed before getting back to work. Callie approached the still-despondent Neville and said, "I don't fancy him."
"Who?" he asked, not meeting her eye.
"Harry," she replied. "I just-" she began, then shrugged. "I'm just a touchy-feely person, I guess."
"I noticed," he said, and there was something rather sad about his tone of voice.
You've been touching him a lot. If you don't fancy Harry, then what must he assume about himself?
"Neville," she said after a moment, taking a deep breath. "I-"
But before she could go any further, the door into the Room opened up and Dobby the house-elf appeared. "Harry Potter, sir," the trembling elf said, tugging at the boy's robes, "Dobby has come to warn you. But the house-elves have been warned not to tell."
Suddenly the creature ran headfirst into a wall, and bounced off. Setting him back on his feet, Harry asked, "What's happened, Dobby?"
"Harry Potter," the elf said, "she... she..." Rather than explaining, he hit himself on the nose.
"Who's 'she,' Dobby?" Harry asked, holding both the creature's arms to restrain him. "Umbridge?"
Oh, fuck.
"What about her?" Harry went on. "Dobby, she hasn't found out about this- About us- About the D.A.?"
The elf gave him a terrified look, then fell to his knees.
"Is she coming?" Harry asked.
"Yes, Harry Potter, yes!"
Callie and Neville exchanged a wide-eyed glance. Harry turned to the group and shouted, "WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? RUN!"
Everyone made for the door at once. Callie tried to shove her way through but she was trapped behind at least fifteen people. Get out of the way, damn it, I'll be in more trouble than you will! The herd finally thinned as more people got out, and Callie stumbled into the corridor, with Neville right behind her.
"Come on!" she said, grabbing him by the arm and dragging him in the direction of the owlery, where several other people had already gone. When they got there, Fred and George, Angelina Johnson, Luna Lovegood, and Zacharias Smith were hunched over gasping or leaning against the wall, red in the face. Justin and Hannah Abbott followed Callie and Neville in, along with Anthony Goldstein and Terry Boot.
"Bloody hell," Fred exclaimed between breaths. "That was a close one, wasn't it?"
"What do you mean, 'close,' he said she's coming!" Anthony said.
"Think she'll find it?" Callie asked.
"It's supposed to keep her out," Angelina said.
"Who told?" Zacharias cut in. "Somebody had to have told, how else would she have found out?"
"Nobody told," George said. "They wouldn't have."
Callie was trapped in a room with four Gryffindors, three Ravenclaws, and three Hufflepuffs. And who else would Zacharias have turned on but her?
Glaring at the only Slytherin, he declared, "It was you!"
"Oi, don't go at her!" Fred warned. It was Neville, though, who got between Callie and Zacharias.
"She didn't tell," he said in a dangerous tone. "And don't you ever accuse her again."
"She wouldn't have said anything, Zach," Angelina spoke up. "She's a Slytherin."
"Exactly!" the boy shot back.
As if they were discussing something much more pleasant than all of their necks being on the line, Luna cut in, "Her housemates don't like her already. If they found out she's been learning from Harry, they wouldn't be too pleased with that, I imagine."
Neville looked from her to Zacharias. "See?" he said. "She gets it." Turning on the rest of the group, he asked, "Anybody else wanna have a go at her?"
"We're on your side, mate," George reminded him. Indicating Zacharias, he added, "This dafty git probably told."
"Really?" the Hufflepuff boy said. "You think I would do that?"
"You think I would?" Callie said, approaching him. "Why, because I'm a foul loathsome cockroach like Malfoy or Parkinson?"
Grabbing her gently by the arm, Neville said, "Callie-"
"No!" she yelled, ripping her arm away.
"Nobody thinks that about you," Justin said. "He's just being a stupid arse like he always is."
"Bullshit!" she said, turning on him and the others. "You all think I'm an outsider! Not one of you, not really. I'm a Slytherin lass, I'm the enemy!"
"No, you're not!" Neville said.
"Warbeck," Fred said, approaching her, "you are not the enemy. But you are one of us. No one in this room, including him-" he nodded towards Zacharias "-believes you would rat us out. Not because you signed that parchment, or because you'd get your arse in hot water if your housemates found out. But because you're a good person. We all know that."
He paused, and Callie took his words in, thinking back to her desperate but failed attempts to conjure up even a wisp of silver light in the Room of Requirement. Looking up at Fred with a distressed expression, she said, "I couldn't conjure a Patronus. Not even an incorporeal one. Sna-" She paused, catching herself. "Someone told me dark wizards and witches can't do it."
Without missing a beat, Fred said, "Neither can I, and we learned about Patronuses last year. Do you think I'm a dark wizard?" He paused. "Or witch?"
Callie scoffed, smiling and shaking her head. Leave it to one of the twins to get her laughing at a time like this.
He repeated, "You are not the enemy. I would trust you with my life, I would. Especially after seeing you work that bat. You'd kill a man who tried to mess with any of us."
She looked around at George, Angelina, Justin, Hannah, Luna, Anthony, and Terry. Then, to her side, Neville, and behind her, Zacharias, who she locked eyes with as she said, "Yes. I would." He bowed his head and looked away from her.
Angelina came to stand beside Fred, setting her hand on his shoulder as she said, "He likes to fuck around, he does. But he's dead serious about this. And so am I. You are nothing like Malfoy or Parkinson." Callie smiled up at the girl, who added, "And I can't conjure a Patronus either."
After a beat, Justin said, "Neither can I."
"Nor I," Terry said.
"Not a corporeal one," Anthony chimed in.
"I can do it." They all looked over to Luna, who went on in her dreamy tone, "It's a hare."
Everyone looked like they might want to smack her - including Callie. But the Slytherin only said, "Good, Luna. That's fantastic." Whether the girl took that as sarcasm or not, Callie didn't care.
After a moment, George turned to Anthony and said, "Wanna see if the coast is clear?"
The latter cracked open the door, looked out and said, "I don't see anyone."
"Think it's safe to venture out?" Angelina asked Fred.
The twins looked at each other and nodded. "Let's go," Fred said.
Everyone made their way out, except Callie and Zacharias, who kept their places. Neville made to leave, but turned back to Callie and asked, "What's wrong?"
She kept her arms folded and her eyes on the ground, waiting. After a moment, Zacharias came to stand before her, and she met his gaze.
"I'm sorry," he said. And after a beat, Callie held her hand out to him.
"Comrade?" she said.
A small smile curled his lip, and he took her hand to shake. "Comrade," he agreed. Callie and Neville watched him go, and then they faced each other.
"We're in deep shit," Callie said.
"I gather," he replied. Wrapping his arm around her waist, he added, "Die a hero."
"Or live as a coward," she finished as they stepped into the corridor.
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