A/N: In which we learn what was really going on with Antares during Christmas.
Chapter 16: Defence Against the Blind Arts
Antares had had intimate experience with bad luck before. There had been the horribly memorable incident down at the Dragon's Breath pub, with the cool, almost dead eyes of the vampire following him long after he'd made his escape. And there had been several periods in his life where all had just gone wrong for him, for no reason he could divine – his burns would awaken for a day or even a week, and would distract him with painful twinges at inappropriate times, or he'd start flubbing steals for no real reason and seem barely able to keep his magic in check, or his mum would have one of her vigilant fits and watch his comings and goings with narrowed eyes, preventing him from getting to do anything fun. Then there were the horrid days at Hogwarts, when Draco's insults seemed to be more on-target than usual, or when participating in Quidditch practice didn't result in his ending up on a broom, but in Flint yelling at everyone and calling him a bloodsucking, freeloading cunt for not looking in the right direction for the third time.
Nothing had ever been this bad.
Bella and Severus' strange, garbled conversation continued to echo in his ringing ears even as he stumbled up the stairs and into his room, shutting the door and swiping off the cloak and stuffing it frantically into a place he hoped, he really hoped his mother wouldn't look.
"Fuck you, Severus," Antares kept hearing, over and over, "Not everyone has your blatant disregard for rules –"
Antares, starting to breathe a little harder than normal, wandered over to his bed and sat down, trying to think logically. It was good for him, to sit and try and be calm and not panic over the thought that someone might take his new cloak away from him just by looking inside his head in some bizarre –
"Fuck," Antares swore, softly. For a long moment, he considered locking the door, but realised it would do no good. If Bella came up for the night, a locked door would only make her feel surer that he was guilty of something. And if Snape came –
"…reading minds is illegal," Antares had heard, and now, he remembered very well Snape had called it tripe. He wouldn't hesitate, then, if he knew Antares was hiding something. He'd just pick up his wand and fix his horrible dark eyes on him and know –
"It's not fair," Antares whispered to himself, knowing he was shaking his head and curling in on himself in a very childish way, but not being able to help it. It wasn't, honestly – how was he to have known an Invisibility Cloak would get sent to him? It was the last thing he'd think of getting for Christmas from anyone he knew, and he didn't fool himself by thinking someone had sent it to him on purpose – the rambling, nearly incoherent note that had come with it had certainly not mentioned him – but it was hard to have watched it slip out and felt it in his hands and seen the rippling silver folds cascade just so when he let it fall. It was hard to have felt and seen and, despite the note, feel oddly as if it was his; all that, and not want to keep it. And if Antares knew anything, he knew his mother would be the last person to let him keep an Invisibility Cloak, priceless or not, from some mysterious, unknown source, no matter how vague and not-directed-at-him the letter had been.
Antares rose quickly, heading for the small stash of wrapping paper in his trunk. He knelt quickly before it, his heartbeat thudding hard in his ears as he tried hard to listen for footsteps just in case, as he opened his trunk. His fingers found the heavy parchment of the letter almost before he knew what he was looking for, and Antares sat back, straining his eyes, not caring how dark it was or how dangerous it was to read this again, so openly in his room, when Snape and his mother were discussing reading minds and secrets downstairs.
Still, he read. Slowly, out loud, and to himself. There are wizards who cannot forgive themselves. There are many reasons for subjecting oneself to shame, to remorse, even when its other participants are long gone. Perhaps this resource will be lost, and perhaps not, but a wizard may not keep what is not his in trust for another, when that other is gone, and by his hand – by his failure. To your fathers may this gift, this sacrifice go. May it be found again, in need, in use. To forgiveness, this is sent. But not to forgetfulness – a shamed wizard must remember
And there it blotted off, narrow, loopy handwriting that Antares had never seen before in his life. He folded it away, still puzzled, still wondering, and hoped selfishly that he never saw that handwriting again in his life.
As selfish as that felt, it strengthened him to know that he'd decided, finally, what to do with the cloak. His cloak, if he tried his best and played his cards right and – Antares flinched – lied to Bella with a straight face. But, looking at the corner of the room where the cloak slept, unseen, there was nothing else he wanted to do. Nothing he wanted to hold on to more, apart from his wand, maybe. No, Antares thought, I'll keep it, whatever I have to do.
Just like that, as he stashed the letter, slipped away from his trunk and climbed into his empty bed, the great mass of want and hope and possibility hit him. All the thoughts he'd been stifling all day seemed to dance a merry, overwhelming circus through his head – thoughts of playing pranks with Blaise, sneaking out of Slytherin whenever he bloody well felt like it, maybe finding a way into the Restricted Section to read that book that idiot Bletchley had taunted him about in Quidditch practice that last time. It was a long time before Antares could get the nervous grin off his face and go to sleep, and even then, he crept out of bed one last time to just make sure the cloak was still there, before he allowed himself to curl up and close his eyes.
Morning dawned, and when Antares rolled over to see that his mother was not there, he felt a fierce joy seep into him. He rose quietly, moved softly to his hiding place, and tried not to smile too hard when he felt those soft, silvery folds again. It was stupid, he knew, that touching the stupid thing made him smile even when it might be taken from him any moment, but – well, that was what it did. No getting around it – might as well be accepted, if he really wanted to try to hold on to the Cloak.
"The Cloak," Antares said, firmly, to the empty room, a smile twitching at his lips. He could get used to calling it that. With a guilty peek and another smile, he hid it again, marvelling at how it folded so small, then went to his half-open trunk again, determination welling in him from last night. If he was going to keep this thing, this – this Cloak, he had to try to understand who it came from, and why, just in case. Antares dug out the letter and, eyes shifting to the door every few minutes, read and re-read until the loopy little words blurred before his eyes and they jabbered in his head, the phrase, 'to forgiveness, this is sent' repeating over and over again. Finally, when he caught himself staring at the final blot and wondering if there were words inside it, he folded the note and put it away, retrieving a scrap of parchment and a quill and some ink in its place.
The list, he wrote down slowly, thinking hard. There were so many things he might have to do to find out what Legilimency entailed, and how to block it, but Antares knew he would go nowhere fast (and in utter panic) if he didn't try to force some kind of order to his search, at least for now.
1, he wrote, cautiously, Flourish and Blott's. Antares sighed as he finished the last word, but knew it couldn't be helped. Flourish was the best bookshop he could afford to go to in London, and the extra expense of buying anything there obviously went to getting clerks that didn't glare at you (well, that didn't glare at you if you looked like you had some money) or sneer when you asked for help finding a book. Blaise wouldn't have bothered to lie about their superior service, as well, and anyway it had to be Antares' first option because Bella's eye would be on him, Blaise and Tracey for at least the first few minutes during the outing this afternoon, and she'd note where they went and recognise if he was already dragging them down Knockturn so early in the day.
2, Antares continued, The Bell and The Book. It was the least frightening bookshop on Knockturn, with only a rather shabbier look and feel to it rather than the air of menace that coated places like Borgin's, and it would probably have the same stock as Flourish, if quite a bit cheaper. And by then, Antares would know what he was looking for, or at least he hoped he would.
Ormerall's Order-All, Antares wrote quickly, next to the tentative 3 he put down next, and that would be his last resort. Getting a book or two on Legilimency owled to him would be horribly expensive, but if he couldn't find one elsewhere, it would have to do. And anyway, there was always digging into the tiny bag of Galleons he'd saved from the first trip to Gringotts with Snape – surely, that would be enough for one or two solid books about defence against Legilimency, especially put together with the astronomical sum of seven Galleons that Bella had seen fit to send him for Christmas.
The list finished for now, Antares sat back, chewing on his lip as he looked it over. It didn't look suspicious at all, in his opinion – if found, Bella or Snape would probably think he was just listing shops he'd visit today. Coupled with the thought that they couldn't possibly already know what he was planning to do or learn to protect his ownership of the Cloak, Antares felt quite safe in folding and tucking the piece of parchment into the pair of trousers he'd likely be wearing today, among other things, and, after a whispered, slightly panicked admonition to himself to not think about the Cloak, Antares was soon banging out of his room and downstairs into the kitchen with a somewhat forced cheery smile on his face and his head carefully full of meeting Tracey and Blaise.
"It's been absolutely charming meeting with your friends, Antares, but I simply must be off," Bella said, her familiar intonation reassuring Antares momentarily that the strange woman – the same that had accompanied him to Platform Nine and Three quarters on that first journey on the Hogwarts Express – that was smiling pleasantly down at him was really his mother. Blaise and Tracey nodded politely as Bella moved quickly away, leaving them standing just in front of Flourish and Blott's as she ducked past a group of giggling girls into Madame Malkin's.
Then, as Antares had been half-expecting since he saw that confused look on Blaise's face once introduced to Antares Black's Mother, Blaise gave Antares an obstinate look and opened his mouth.
"That's not your mum," he said bluntly, narrowing his eyes at Antares when he looked down at his feet.
"It's not?" Tracey said, immediately fixing Antares with a curious look of her own. "But –"
"Your mum's got darker hair, for a start," Blaise said, barrelling away at Antares without even a reply to Tracey, "and she's a bit scary – that woman's got nothing on her –"
"Will you even let me try to explain?" Antares asked, cutting in with a scowl on his face. There was no time for silly arguments like this – "She wears a glamour when she's with me, now –"
"Does that mean she has enemies?" Tracey asked eagerly, lowering her voice to an excited whisper. "Because –"
"Not exactly," Antares said, rolling his eyes as he cut Tracey off. "It's just – she hasn't had an exactly innocent life, so –"
"So she has enemies?"
"Well for someone with enemies, she's very open with her real name," Blaise said shortly, getting that faraway look Antares was quickly learning to dread as his Look of Searching Meanings Out, "and apparently, it's –"
"Blaise, for god's sake, shut up!" Antares hissed, latching hold of his fiendishly thinking friend's arm. "There's a bloody reason she uses one, all right? And it's not one that means you can go shouting her bloody name on the street for everyone to hear –"
"Why aren't you grabbing Tracey, then? She was the one going on about enemies –"
"But Blaise, obviously –"
Ignoring them both, Antares seized hold of Tracey and dragged the pair of them through the ragged crowd in front of Flourish and Blott's storefront. That done, he simply let them go and began to head for the loudest, most frequented section of the shop (which, incidentally, turned out to be the area around the shelf on Silencing Magic). As he'd expected, both of them followed him, obviously bursting to sound him out about his horrible treatment of them.
"Antares Black," Tracey began, catching up to him first, "if you think –"
"I got an Invisibility Cloak for Christmas," Antares whispered quickly, noting that no one in radius was even giving them a second look.
"And if you expect us to believe that –" Blaise began, but Antares was already thumping down in one of the small, rather uncomfortable seats in the section and busily extracting a tiny bit of fabric from his pocket in about as discreet a manner as he could. Blaise's eyes bulged as he caught sight of Antares' fingers and some of his leg disappearing in short bursts as he tugged out more of the Cloak, and Tracey let out a gasp that made Antares cringe for just how loud it was.
"Shut up and get us something to hide behind," Antares whispered furiously in both directions. Tracey was first to cotton on, heading off in a rather twitchy manner to lug down a rather large book with a blank, grey silk cover. Blaise followed suit as Antares surreptitiously stuffed and slid the corner of the Cloak back into his pocket, actually levitating down a rather colourful book that seemed to be filled solely with engravings of the letter S. Somehow, in the next few minutes, Antares managed to let both of his friends know that he wanted to sit on the floor in an area just as noisy as this, but with far less suspicious eyes watching them – the children's section. One by one, Blaise, Tracey and Antares browsed nervously in that direction, Antares sweating and only able to hear his pounding heart for half the age it seemed to take them to get there, and seeing people staring at his pocket for the other half.
When they were finally tucked in an especially noisy part of the children's section against a shelf of singing books, Antares finally nodded, and let them open the various books they'd all picked up along the way and begin to discuss them.
Or rather, discuss the Cloak.
"You're having us on," Blaise said tersely, after a minute or two of him and Tracey sneaking stealthy looks at the pocket in question. "You've got to be –"
"Read this," was all Antares had to say, as he stuck out his tongue and had a rummage in his patchy robes for a copy of the note that had come with the cloak. He'd only just had time to make one before this outing, and was rapidly regretting that as Tracey and Blaise fought and nudged each other to bend their heads over it.
"But it doesn't make any flipping sense," Tracey bit out, sounding frustrated. "You –"
"Don't think I didn't notice that, Trace," Antares said, cutting her off. "How many bloody times do you think I have to have read and re-read that? I know very bloody well it doesn't make sense." Blaise said nothing, peering closely at the hastily copied note and muttering things under his breath. "Any idea what it means, Blaise?"
"I'm not sure," was the immediate answer, "but –"
"I don't think either of us really cares, Blaise," Tracey said, nudging him encouragingly.
Blaise looked dubious. "It'll sound stupid…"
"Not as stupid as the idea that it was sent to me by Father Christmas sounds," Antares muttered. "And believe me, that's the most workable thing I can think of to explain it. If your idea's any stupider, I'll burn the thing myself."
"Don't say I didn't warn you," Blaise said, a slightly pleased undertone colouring his otherwise grudging answer. It made Antares exchange a sly look with Tracey – Blaise was always fond of expressing his ideas, and this instance of his love of doing so brightened Antares' still rather gloomy outlook on the whole issue of actually getting somewhere on why on earth the Cloak might've come to him, despite everything. "Antares, you said you couldn't think of anything to explain it, right? Well, let's say there isn't – that it wasn't sent to you on purpose –"
"I thought of that," Antares said, wishing he didn't have to interrupt, "and it's obvious, but if it's true, then who was sending it and who were they sending it to? They don't mention anyone, I mean – they don't even finish the fucking note –"
"And that's where my stepdad comes in," Blaise said, with a slightly knowing look. "I've told you he's mad for broom modding, yeah, but I didn't mention just how mad. He wrote a book on –"
"As much as it pains me to ask," Tracey began, rolling her eyes, but Blaise held up a placating hand.
"I swear, Tracey, I'm on point," he insisted, giving them both appealing looks. "My stepdad did research into brooms and the practice of giving them as gifts – I know, Tracey, I'm getting to it – and he turned up something really funny that he put into one of his books." Tracey rolled her eyes and started to say something, but was wisely cut off by Blaise. "When Quidditch players died as a result of their injuries during games, sometimes their – er – their brooms sort of, I don't know, retained a little of their essence…" This time, Antares rolled his eyes. Good Lord, the tales people came up with – "…so members of their family would pass the brooms down and stuff. Sometimes, if no one from their family was present or known at that point, someone would keep the broom in trust for a year, and if the unknown family members or relations didn't come up, they'd publicly post the broom in a way that would make sure that the descendants or relatives of the person would get it. Now, obviously, if the person didn't have any, the owl would go to their grave, or if they didn't have one, the site of their death. It was really popular at a point, even with brooms that didn't have people die or get hurt on them –"
Tracey groaned. "Blaise, for goodness' sake –"
"I'm getting to it! The spell on the owl and the broom had to have the sender – the trust person, that is – repeat some words in public as part of it, before sending it off. The thing is –"
"Don't tell us you remember some 12th Century postage ritual word for word, Blaise, or I'll –"
"I said it was stupid, all right? All I'm saying is, some of the words in this remind me of how the chant went. And before you say anything, Tracey, I only remember the bloody thing because it sounded depressingly stupid – all self-insults and vowing that the witch or wizard keeping the broom in trust wasn't trying to steal the dead person's glory or possessions away from their real family and all that, while at the same time they were holding a big public ceremony and charging people to come watch!"
Privately thinking he'd probably have been on the side of the enterprising trust people – the sheer thought of doing something like that with Dangerous Dai's broom was quite enough to convince him, thanks – Antares decided to put a stop to the pending argument.
"Look, you guys, this isn't even the point," he said, swatting at both of them with a small book on Hymns for Holy Little Wizards a little harder than was necessary. Ignoring their glares, he continued to speak. "The real problem is keeping Snape from finding out." Silence erupted for a moment, making Antares want to sigh, long and hard.
"That shouldn't be too hard," Tracey finally said, a little weakly.
Blaise snorted. "If we don't actually ever speak of it again, yeah –"
"That's not even the problem, all right?" Antares hissed, waving Hymns in a threatening manner as the two of them eyed each other and opened their mouths to disagree with each other's comments. "The problem is Snape knows how to read minds!"
Tracey's eyes widened, and Blaise tried very hard to look disbelieving, but only looked quite the opposite. "How do you know?" he said defensively, looking a little embarrassed. "That's only something the older years tell everyone –"
"My mum told me," Antares said, lying, in his opinion, only a little. She'd told Snape, and in Antares' hearing range, and that was quite enough for him to believe it – Snape wasn't the kind of man you accused of that sort of thing falsely. And anyway, it had seemed and felt too true and too like the bloody Professor to be otherwise; since getting into Hogwarts, Antares had gradually developed a strong feeling that Snape saw through all his lies quite easily, and the new information explained it.
And, by the frightened looks his friends were giving him, they believed it just as easily as he did.
"Burn it," Tracey blurted out, eyes glazing over a little with fear. "God, can you imagine what he'd do when he found out? He'd confiscate it so fast –"
"Of course he can't burn it," Blaise scolded shakily. "He'll sell it instead – won't you, Antares? They're so bloody expensive nowadays, too –"
"No," Antares said firmly.
"No?" Tracey squeaked. "Well just owl it to him, then! Taking it back to Hogwarts is as good as handing it to him gift-wrapped, you nonce –"
"And don't get any ideas of giving it to your mum," Blaise said, rather accusingly. "She'd give it to him, wouldn't she? She'd probably feel all obligated…" he trailed off into silence, shaking his head at the last word like it was some sort of crime. Antares rolled his eyes. What on earth did they take him for, anyway? Despite the fact that he had an inkling that Bella did feel rather, er, obligated to Snape, he doubted she'd just hand such a priceless item over to him without some serious negotiation. She'd be most likely to take it and hoard it her self, anyway –
"I'm not giving it to anyone," Antares said finally, as firmly as he could.
"But –"
"What I was thinking," Antares continued, ignoring Tracey's indignant cry, "was that I could learn how to block the mind-reading thing. From Snape, you know?" Tracey stared at him like people stared at madmen, and Blaise began to shake his head. "Look, I don't think it's actually that hard, all right? I was nervous as hell going down to breakfast this morning because of him, and all I did was just not think about –"
"Wait a minute," Blaise said, narrowing his eyes at him. "Did you just say breakfast this morning?" Antares reddened, suddenly realising his slip, and Blaise crowed triumphantly. "See, Tracey, I told you they were living with Snape –"
"Oh shut up gloating, Blaise," Tracey snapped, looking a little put out. Antares sighed, fighting the urge to put his head in his hands; he never seemed to be able to keep even the simplest things a secret from these two – "Just let him finish, all right?" Blaise sobered up immediately, and Antares sighed again, preparing to speak. "And don't think you're not going to tell us how that happened, Antares – we're going to have a long, long talk about it soon enough."
"Fine, all right? Fine," Antares said crossly, when they gave him disbelieving looks. "Look, it's not like I do it because I want to –"
"We know, Antares," Blaise said, cutting him off with a roll of his eyes. "You were saying about breakfast?"
Antares gave him an accusing look, but continued anyway, explaining how he somehow thought only of meeting with the both of them throughout the entire meal, and how he'd seen Snape exchange an arch look with his mum just before they left and how he'd said something cryptic about 'no chance of that' when Bella had laid down the usual 'don't get in trouble' rule. Blaise smiled knowingly for a moment, but Antares ignored him, now listing out all he'd heard about Legilimency and Occlumency, and how he thought that was what they called the mind-reading and the way to block it. After a fevered argument, they all decided that Tracey'd ask the store clerk what it was all about (she lied the best under polite circumstances), and have her try to buy or order the book with the bag of galleons Antares reluctantly handed over.
And then it was actually happening. Looking profoundly silly, Tracey nonced up to the nearest, most frazzled clerk and asked carefully about beginners' guides to Occlumency. Feeling dizzy with the nearness of it, Antares lay in waiting with Blaise, following the irritated clerk as he showed Tracey increasingly shabbier-looking books with mysterious sigils and characters drawn on them. After an age or two, Tracey appeared to choose two of the least shabby books, and Blaise and Antares watched with bated breath as she pottered after the clerk to the till and handed over some money. Antares bit his lip, watching the blurred, slightly obscured exchange – he couldn't see how much she'd given him from this distance, and he was suddenly afraid that she mightn't have enough to get what they needed.
"D'you think I gave her enough?" he whispered, to Blaise.
Blaise gave him a Look. "Even if you didn't, she'll cover it, won't she? This is important."
"But I don't want to owe her anything," Antares said, shoulders sagging as he watched Tracey nonce out of the shop door.
"Why? So you can make sure she hasn't got a right to use your Cloak?" Blaise said, a little belligerently. "God, you're so weird about money – if that's how it is, I'm buying refreshments, all right? I mean great pranks to come from that Cloak, I tell you." And before Antares could say anything to dissuade him, Blaise was off, striding off through the thickening crowd within the shop. Cursing himself with feeling, Antares followed, feeling both sheepish and irritated. It was just like Blaise to think up such a load of tripe on a whim, and have it be sort of true.
Despite the niggling, panicky feeling that Antares carried with him for about half an hour after Tracey's purchase at Flourish and the fact that they hadn't even thought to shop around and maybe try Knockturn Alley for a cheaper price, it all turned out quite well in the end. After being dragged into Florean Fortescue's ice cream shop by his friends, Antares had only just loosened up and stopped plunging his hand down his pockets every few minutes just in case when Bella walked in, a rather worried look on her face. It turned out that she would be far too busy to keep much of an eye on them that afternoon, and therefore would rather they disbanded their little outing in twenty minutes.
Antares, practically melting with relief that they'd bought some reading material on Occlumency at all, covered his rising mood with an accusing expression and a sulky, rapidly whispered argument with his surprisingly contrite mother. Which ended in her slipping him an extra Sickle or two out of guilty pity, and added to Blaise and Tracey's pocket money, enabling them to buy a veritable cartload of sweets between them. As the trio waited for Bella to hurry out of Madame Malkin's to see them off to the Leaky Cauldron to Floo home safely, Antares swore at least ten oaths of secrecy to Blaise and Tracey on the matter of sharing The Cloak with them.
Combined with everything else, the silly grins on the faces of Antares' friends as they finally parted company was worth his discovery of the plethora of sweets they'd somehow stuffed into his smaller-looking bag, along with the reassuring weight of the shrunken books in his pocket. Not to mention the hurried lecture on stealing and Blacks that he got from Bella on returning home, despite how many times he told her that he hadn't stolen anything on the trip at all.
The rest of the Christmas holiday seemed to whip by strangely, time flowing past like a lumpy soup, with great clumps of slow stretches when Antares thought he would go mad from cycling an endless string of thoughts about Quidditch and his friends through his brain, and too-thin bits of venturing here and there about the house under The Cloak. Antares finally convinced Bella of the fact that he hadn't stolen anything on the Boxing Day trip with Blaise and Tracey only to be caught swiping Severus' nifty watch from right under his big greasy nose in the kitchen a few hours later.
Antares tried to feel guilty during the quite serious talk he'd gotten from Bella at that point. He gave up after fifteen minutes, pasting a tired, serious look on his face and trying to cycle through dull thoughts of studying Astronomy and History of Magic while repeating the occasional "Sorry, Mum" and "I know, Mum". Bella gave up just before dinner, complaining that she had work to do, and when Antares saw her sneaking a bottle of Firewhiskey from the pantry, he did feel guilty.
Well, only until he'd snuck past her and up the stairs into his room, and stealthily occupied himself with memorising every detail of the covers of the books Tracey had bought with the aid of wand light and the calming influence of a good piece of toffee. Antares eventually heard Snape tramping up the stairs to his drafty old room, and forced himself to hide everything immediately as quietly as he could. As the sound of Snape's slightly slurred grumbling – hmm, Snape, on Firewhiskey? Nah, have to see it to believe it – Antares bit his lip, and wondered when and where he could learn some kind of charm to use to, er, conceal the sound of his activities.
It took two Long-Lasting Lollygags and a frustrated hour's read before Antares, finally satisfied that there was nothing really helpful in his current Charms textbook on noise-limiting charms, allowed his tired arms and legs to drag him back into bed, his eyelids heavy with frustration and a strong desire to get out The Cloak just for the hell of it.
It was, therefore, rather shocking to wake the next morning and find Bella stirring sleepily beside him, muttering about how he better not forget anything important in the house, as his poor mother would be too busy recovering from her hellish week at Malkin's to find anything but the fridge. Antares, quite forgetting about The Cloak, Snape's evil mind-reading abilities and even the Lollygag he'd been fuzzily thinking of having this morning, ran right downstairs and made the messiest, unhealthiest fry-up he could think of, and forced his blinking mum to eat close to every scrap of it.
From then, the hours passed by like the cold, whipping wind that howled irritatingly down the chimney, and Antares found himself too busy cheerfully playing tag with Bella and trying not to irritate Snape to bother thinking much about the fact that he'd be going to Hogwarts the next morning. Letters came unusually late because of how windy and cold it was – almost after lunch – and they took up even more valuable time, as did dozing off by the fire while Bella tacked and cursed the squirmy mannequins over by the saggy couch in the living room. Quite suddenly, Antares found himself being led up to bed yet again, and soon found himself waking up and having mere minutes to frantically stuff away the most important things he'd gained during the holiday in his robe pockets and schoolbag while Snape sneered and popped in at horribly uncomfortable moments throughout the process of getting his scattered belongings all stuffed back into his trunk.
Thankfully, Bella roused herself enough to accompany Antares and Snape to King's Cross for the early train back. She even made polite conversation with an even wearier looking Professor Sinistra, who laughed when Antares asked her if she'd been to another conference lately. And when it was time for Antares to hop on the train, it was a lot easier not to cling to Bella a little longer than usual and say goodbye with a smile that wasn't forced, and that somehow gave Antares hope for the weeks ahead of him – long weeks of secret dealings and mysterious new concepts he had to learn.
Unfortunately, whatever god that watched over travel was not listening. Antares, stretched out a little uncomfortably on one side of the compartment he was sharing with the two other Apprentices, thought he had never had such a horrible train journey in his life. It was bad enough making small talk with Adrian and Charles, the former still being a bit prickly over the whole business with condolences and as likely to berate Antares as to ignore him. But what made it so nerve-wracking was the possibility that Snape might pop his batlike arse through the door at any moment and suddenly realise that Antares had an invisibility cloak in his pocket, and act accordingly. Even after Snape made a thankfully short appearance, Antares couldn't calm down – and supposed he wouldn't until he got to Hogwarts and enclosed himself in one of those abandoned dungeons no one went into so he could finally enlarge those books he'd bought and do something about his mind being like a frigging open book to anyone who knew Legilimency –
"Antares? What is wrong with you?" Antares started, looking up at Charles, who now had a bemused smile on his face. "I just told you your arse was a teapot, and you said yes…"
Antares blushed, and immediately set about listening to Charles' enthusiastic description of the series of balls he'd attended over Christmas. Adrian scowled at him, but it didn't make any difference – he wasn't Snape, after all, and couldn't see that Antares thought him quite silly for holding a grudge over something he'd done to Antares, so…
By the time Antares had finally dredged up the courage to set out for an abandoned dungeon to safely brood over his cloak (it was his now, he didn't care what that bloody note had said) and the books on Occlumency, it was far past his bedtime and a ripe time for being caught (and searched, don't forget that) by Filch or, even worse, by Snape, so instead of carefully unshrinking the books that he'd carried on him for so long in a cold, silent dungeon well away from Slytherin proper, he found himself doing so in his own bed in his dormitory, behind clumsily spelled drapes, his cloak well hidden and very much out of sight in case someone came in.
It was paranoid, but still – with him, an invisibility cloak would attract so much attention if found that it didn't bear thinking about.
"Engorgio maxima," Antares whispered, gently tapping the first small square as he focused on the book returning to normal size, as it had said in the instructional note Tracey had wangled from the clerk. The book swelled slowly to full size and stopped with a slight pop, looking nicely unharmed, and he decided to thumb through it first to see if he and his friends had made the right decision in putting up the money for it. Its cover was still as dusty as ever, making him sneeze as silently as he could, but the text within it was unchanged.
The Artes Wich Neede No Sighte, written in cramped, medieval script, sent a shiver through him like it had in the shop, and Antares found himself turning the pages slowly, in deference to the faint, almost heavy sort of crackle they made as he handled them. The heading An Protection Muche Esteemed caught his eye just as much as the strange comments about the Artes Communicable and the Artes Clean, and Antares found himself absorbed in the strange, dry narrative about the Blind Arts as a whole almost before he decided to read it through. The strange names of the other Arts were mostly incomprehensible, but the descriptions, particularly of Conturomency and Eradomency, struck a chord – they sounded like Medieval forms of what Obliviators did nowadays, and it excited him strangely to hear of such a mundane job being one of the Blind Arts.
Antares turned another page, his hand shaking slightly as he digested that thought. Why, it meant he could learn Occlumency, for if the Ministry, inept as they were, taught their employees some form of the Blind Arts, it meant he, Antares, could probably learn Occlumency with no trouble, if he just put in the effort.
Antares smiled, and, being barely able to focus on the dry text after that as thoughts of freedom and being able to have five Invisibility Cloaks if he wanted and meet Quirrel every morning and afternoon without Snape's knowledge danced through his mind. Feeling smugly satisfied with himself, he closed and gently re-shrunk the book, turning his attention to the other one.
It was by the same author, and had come strangely cheap in comparison with the other, bigger book (according to Tracey), which, to Antares, either meant it was worse, or that it had less information.
He was wrong. In the book was a wealth of pages, more than it looked like it contained, and all on or about some particular technique or part of Occlumency. He read this one late into the night, feeling more and more confused and daunted as he went on encountering meaningless terms like associations and whatnot. He closed it after a while, feeling drained but yet determined to puzzle out what it was about, and, after shrinking it and hiding it along with its partner, was soon adrift in an uneasy dream where Snape hammered open his skull and drew out the Cloak in shimmering, blood-soaked folds.
The next day started off in a strangely normal way, with a sleepy breakfast with Adrian and Charles and the rest of the students that had stayed behind for Christmas. Antares was more than surprised to see Hermione Granger alone at the Gryffindor table – not that it was surprising that she was alone, bossy and overbearing as she was, but that she hadn't thought to escape the probably hostile air of her house and go home for the two weeks of the holiday. It intrigued him so much that he found himself actually sending a sarcastic hello her way when he passed the Gryffindor table on his way out, but not enough to deter him from returning to his dorm to continue his perusal of the Occlumency books in broad daylight. After a little deliberation, Antares decided to smuggle the books (and The Cloak, because he couldn't bear to leave it unwatched in his dorm) into the library with him along with others, and to try to sit in one of the corners no one went to so that he wouldn't be disturbed. All in all, a good plan.
Unfortunately, he hadn't counted on the sheer nerve and irritativeness of Granger, of all people.
"Erm – Black? Antares?" Antares started horribly, knocking The Arte of Shielding off his table and thereby losing his page as Granger's horrid frizzy hair loomed over his left shoulder. "Oh, sorry –"
"What do you want?" Antares snapped, cutting her off both verbally and physically, making sure to slide his Charms notebook over the other Occlumency book before stooping to snatch up The Arte. Granger bit her lip as she watched him do it, making him roll her eyes even as a weird sort of guilt shot through him. "Sit down, for goodness' sake – it's bloody irritating when people hover like that."
"People shouldn't swear," she pointed out uncertainly, but she did sit down. Antares cleared his throat and opened his Charms notebook, trying to think of why on earth he'd asked her to sit down in the first place. "That wasn't what you were reading –"
"Well, that's just too bad, isn't it?" Antares said flatly, giving her a cold look. "What do you want, Granger?"
"I – I wanted to ask – Neville and Ron, they're always talking about some person," Granger said, lowly, looking shifty as all hell. Antares fought the urge to roll his eyes – just before the holiday had begun, he'd seen how she'd started talking to them in Potions and other classes, all shy and nervous. He just bet – "Some person called Nicholas Flamel, I don't know if –"
"If I know anything? We are sitting in a library, Granger, and you do happen to have working eyes, arms and legs. Find Flamel yourself."
"But we've been looking all Christmas, and –"
"Oh, it's we, is it?" Antares snapped his book shut and stood abruptly, fed up. "I'm not some kind of bloody almanac. If Golden Boy and his lackey want research done, they can do it themselves."
"But you're –"
Antares almost groaned. "An Apprentice. Not an almanac, Granger! Morgana – tell them to ask a bloody teacher –"
"But we can't," Granger hissed, dogging him determinedly as he began to gather up his things. "You know something, don't you?"
"What?" Antares sped up, avoiding a pair of glowering Ravenclaws as he started to head for the doors. He'd take his chances in the dorm if he had to, to avoid being bothered like this –
"You didn't say you didn't know who he was," Granger snapped, pausing Antares in his tracks.
"Really?" He gave her an appraising glance – he'd been about to try saying that, to get her off his case. Interesting that she would notice, but irritating, just the same. There were far more important things he could be doing than this.
"So? Nicholas Flamel?" He'd reached the library doors without mishap by now, and she was still following him, an irritatingly determined look on her face.
Antares, giving up, gave her a hard look. "How important is it to you?"
Granger sighed, but looked oddly relieved. "Really important."
Antares did roll his eyes, then. "Spell it out for me." Thank god there was no one in the hallway just outside the library – despite the fact that he was an Apprentice, and was supposed to talk to everyone and anyone who needed help, he'd get so ribbed for talking to Granger if anyone saw him – "And be quick, for Morgana's sake. I've got something a lot more important to do than listening to you –"
"I'll help," Granger said, suddenly. "I'll – er – volunteer. In – erm, Potions –"
"You're not allowed to do that," Antares said, a little shocked. "And Snape would laugh you out of the classroom –"
"What I mean is, if you need help with something, I'll help," Granger insisted, not seeming to hear him. "It's that important."
Antares boggled at her for a moment. No one would willingly risk courting ridicule from Snape, not even him – the fact that she'd even offer, falsely or not, said quite a lot about how determined she was. And, possibly, how foolish – what if he'd been the kind of person to take her up on her offer, just to see her ensuing humiliation? He knew how the Gryffindors – and, for that matter, how everyone else saw Slytherins as the Enemy. The Ones that were Out to Get You. And here was Granger, likely thinking the same thing in the back of her mind, and still offering.
Mind-boggling, exactly. "Is it, then? Nicholas Flamel, eh? Well, he invented the Philosopher's Stone – you probably know what that is – and Dumbledore worked with him once, or something. Tempus – right, lunchtime. I'll just be –"
"Wait! Black – you didn't tell me what you wanted!"
Rolling his eyes again, Antares gave Granger a look over his shoulder. "I'll tell you when I think of something, for crying out loud. Go study, or something." Ignoring the indignant noises she was making, Antares started off for the Great Hall at a proper speed, sighing to himself. It wasn't his fault the little idiot didn't know not to give open-ended promises to anyone – better she learnt it from him, at any rate.
And besides, Antares mused, as he turned the corner, if anyone can ask questions without making teachers suspicious, it's definitely her. From the sheer amount of strange practices and spells referenced in The Arte of Shielding, Granger probably wouldn't have to stew that long – there were certain things Antares knew instinctively that he, Tracey and Blaise couldn't ask without attracting attention.
Lunch took rather a longer time to get to and through, as Antares made the mistake of tentatively asking Professor Flitwick about charms or spells that could limit noise. After a long lecture on the ethics of silencing charms (the spell family for limiting noise, as far as Antares had been able to understand) and the difficulties of using such charms in real-life situations, because of how easy Flitwick said it was to train oneself to notice simple sounds that aren't there, Antares was more than ready to beg off the subject and forget about somehow soundproofing the discussions he knew he'd want to have with Blaise and Tracey about Occlumency. For that was what he'd decided – if he knew those two at all, they'd want to share in whatever mischief he got up to with the Cloak. And it would be simple enough for Snape to read their minds if he was suspicious of Antares' goings on, and couldn't read Antares' own mind, hence Antares planning to suggest to his friends that they learn along with him if they wanted to be a part of the activities to do with the Cloak.
Somehow, Antares even managed to get free of the obviously bored Adrian and Charles, who he could tell were itching to start some trouble, by pretending to be tired and sullen about school starting, and anxious about a (fake) Potions assignment that was due within the week. Having decided against returning to the library for Granger-related reasons, Antares had tried remaining in the dorm so he could really try out the Invisibility Cloak without the threat of discovery hanging over his head. Only Adrian kept barging in and asking stupid questions and trying to get him to come out and break the rules by doing some flying (first years weren't strictly allowed to, outside of flying lessons – the only reason they let him anywhere near a broom during Quidditch practices was because there was some provision for first years on Quidditch teams), which, as tempted as Antares was to try, was a phenomenally bad idea what with the teachers bustling around preparing for the Feast and for classes tomorrow and so on.
After having to pretend to have been inside the shower room for the second time, Antares gave up, stuffed the Cloak as gently as possible into a pocket, and resolved to find somewhere in the dungeons where he wouldn't be disturbed, or where he'd at least have some warning if he was going to be. Slipping out of the common room with a glum look and a Potions book concealing The Arte of Shielding under his arm, he finally found himself wandering in the dungeons, completely alone.
And, therefore, ready to sit down and really try to understand what was in the book. It took a while and a lot of jumping at drips and strange sounds before he found a smallish dungeon room, one that unlocked with Alohomora that had a few desks and chairs and boasted even a tiny, grimy window that looked out – or, rather, into the lake. Antares, pouring more effort into brightening his lit wand, watched strange-looking creatures go past the thick window for a minute or two, wobbling on top of the sturdiest desk in the classroom, which he'd needed to see out (or was it into, or under?) properly.
Then he could no longer put it off. Drawing out the Cloak, he began to practise walking around, as quietly as he could. It took a while and quite a lot of patience before he could minimise the sound of his footsteps, and took even longer for him to walk quickly with it covering every inch of him (the Cloak always felt like it was slipping off his shoulders, which slowed him down a lot), but by the time he finally took the magnificent silver fabric off, Antares felt like he was ready to try something sneaky tonight, when Blaise and Tracey finally got here with the others – well after the Feast and everything.
That was until he looked at the Potions book and the shabby book it was resting on top of, and remembered why he'd come out here in the first place. Cursing himself, Antares folded away the Cloak and tucked it as deep into his robe pockets as it would go, then sat down to have another go at the Occlumency book.
It wasn't until well into the dinner hour that Antares, completely absorbed in the oddly easy examples and exercises in The Arte, thought to finally cast a quick Tempus for the time. Eyes widening, he shut the book and shot out of the rickety chair he'd been sitting in – if the Express had been on time, the Feast had probably been going on for about ten or fifteen minutes. Sweating with fear – because, how much more suspicious could a person look, absenting themselves from the Great Hall when everyone was already there – he locked the dungeon room with a hasty offirmo that he well knew might not take and retraced his steps as best as he could to Slytherin, then dropped off his books in the empty dorm before racing out and heading for the Great Hall. By the time Antares got there, it was already nearly full with people fresh off the Express, and most of the teachers were at the high table, conversing loudly. The Slytherin table was almost full, and –
"Antares! Where've you been?" – Tracey was there, looking almost frighteningly excited. Daphne and Pansy, who were conversing in low tones beside her, both gave her highly irritated looks that only made Antares grin slightly – she could be so infuriating when excited – "I think Blaise went to the toilet for a bit or something, but anyway –"
"I hear you, Tracey, but could you keep it down a bit? Snape's probably glaring at us…"
The transformation that simple, unthinking statement caused was just as frightening as the excitement that had preceded the dismay on Tracey's face. Antares swore, reaching out and latching onto Tracey's twitching hand as he slid awkwardly into his seat. "Christ, Tracey, calm down, I was just saying that –"
"Look who's finally here," Blaise said darkly, from behind Antares, suddenly enough that it made him jump. "Oh, calm down, Tracey, Snape's not even here yet." And, to Antares' surprise, Blaise was right – Snape was nowhere to be seen at the high table. It made him feel that much better about being so conspicuously late, as the bastard, if told by anyone, was more likely to equate Antares with the other students that were still filing in through the double doors – late for some trivial reason or the other, and therefore not suspicious in the least. Tracey glared at them both, but Blaise took no notice, sliding diffidently into place beside Antares as he sat down. "She's been like this the whole way here, honestly –"
"Oh, fuck you, Blaise," Tracey muttered vehemently. "You've been just as paranoid as I have – what about when you wouldn't leave the compartment because someone said Snape was on the train?"
"There's no point in going on like this," Antares began to say, hastily, as Daphne and Pansy were starting to stare at them, but he was too late.
"Are you three in trouble, then?" Daphne asked, suspiciously. "Because –"
"The only trouble we're in is of starving," Antares said, his cheeks heating with embarrassment at making such a stupid joke. "These two are just being paranoid, that's all –"
"You better be," Pansy said, a little nastily. "I just heard from Marcombe that one of the seventh years got docked big time for being caught sneaking somewhere – we're almost forty bloody points down, now, and anything that adds to that…"
"Don't be so paranoid, Pansy," Blaise said, recovering from his initial panic at partial discovery. "We were just thinking about the Potions homework due on –"
Antares gasped. "Wait a minute, there is something due?" After a confused-looking nod in reply, he scowled at his plate. And everything had been going so well…
"What do you mean, we can't see it now?" Tracey hissed, her face reddening with indignation. "Antares, you promised!"
Antares looked up from the horribly messy corner table he was trying to work at in the common room, scowling thoroughly in her direction. "And when I 'promised', I obviously didn't know there was a bloody great piece of shitty homework due, did I?"
"Antares –"
He rolled his eyes, jabbing his quill into the nearest inkpot with an angry jerk of his fingers. "Look, do you want me to get caught?" Blaise sighed loudly, but Antares ignored him, ploughing on despite Tracey's increasingly darkening expression. "Do you want us to get caught, Tracey?"
"Of course I bloody don't!" she snapped, a little louder than was necessary, and Antares scowled at her again as he bent down over the roll of parchment spread out before him, slashing words carelessly onto it. He'd spent the entire Feast worrying about this, and what did he get? Irritation. Anger. When all he was trying to do was to finish the cursed assignment as soon and as well as possible, so that Snape had no beef (well, no more than usual) with him the next day. Antares, after reading through many descriptions of preliminary tests and experiments in The Arte, had no illusions of how well he could do against Snape if the man really wanted to know what was going on.
And yet, Tracey was still glaring at him, shoulders stiff. Antares sighed, angrily, and made his answer in as low and calm a tone as he could manage. "The way to doing that is not being suspicious, you idiot! If we don't do anything suspicious or different, he won't notice us, and –"
"Are you three planning something against the rules?" Antares, Blaise and Tracey all looked up at the angry tone, Antares trying not to jump even as he recognised the voice as belonging to Marcus Flint, who gave them no time to answer. "Because if you get into trouble and lose points – correction, Black, if you get into trouble, your punishment better not keep you off the Quidditch team. Important things will be taught in the next practice, understand? If you don't learn them, you might as well stop fucking coming – you hear me?" Antares nodded hastily, not needing to look at Tracey and Blaise to see that they were doing the same. Flint smiled nastily, then wandered away, leaving behind a pregnant silence.
A silence that itched dreadfully, in Antares' opinion – an uncomfortable one. He broke it. "Don't be too worried, he's always like that –"
"What, threatening to take away the only chance at popularity – no, scratch that, at being normal, that you'll likely ever have?" Antares gave Blaise a hard look, and saw, to his surprise, that his friend's tone and expression were serious.
"Blaise, Flint's a fucking tyrant," Antares said slowly, inking his quill again. "Of course he does."
Tracey stirred, now seemingly no longer angry with Antares, but with someone else. "But that's –"
"Is it because of Snape?" Blaise asked, talking over Tracey with that intense look on his face – his Puzzle-Solving one. Antares tried to write out a sentence as he tried to think of an answer.
A minute later, he put down his quill, finally fed up. "Do you understand now why I have to finish this?" he demanded, eyes flicking from Blaise to Tracey and back. "Flint would never pull me out, because I'm supposedly too good a flyer to let go, and everyone would question his sanity if he did so. But Snape…see anyone questioning his sanity lately? To his face?"
Blaise looked down at his feet, and Tracey sighed, shifting uncomfortably. Antares picked up his quill again, toying with the limp parts of the feather as he echoed Tracey's sigh. "This is for high stakes, all right? I don't know how you missed that before now, but that's got to fucking stop. If you can't be patient, or can't help me keep be patient about all this, then…"
"What about if Snape looks us up?" Tracey suddenly said, her tone low and frightened. "I mean, I'd do that, if I suspected anything, and I couldn't get through to you –"
"Which is why we should all learn it," Antares said, elbowing her as calmly as possible. Tracey's eyes went wide, and Blaise straightened out of his slouch opposite them on the chair. "We could practice on each other, couldn't we? It'd be easier all doing it together, too."
"That makes sense," Blaise allowed, fidgeting nervously, his eyes scanning the common room, which was now starting to empty. It was a minute or two before he piped up again. "But wouldn't that mean learning the opposite?" He gave Antares a meaningful look as he continued, in a low whisper. "You know, Legiliwhatsy?"
"Probably," Antares admitted, "but I'd feel a lot more comfy having you two rooting around than anyone else. As long as we promise to stay out of certain areas –"
Tracey frowned, looking confused. "Certain areas? There are areas?"
"Yeah…well, sort of. You'll understand, when you read it." Antares gave them both meaningful looks. "When both of you read it, yeah. Maybe not tonight, but still."
"Still, yeah," Blaise said, Tracey mumbling a sort of echo while she stared into space, no doubt off in Occlumency- and Legilimency-related spy adventures. Or something. Antares merely shook his head, smiling softly for the first time since dinner, and went back to trying to finish his assignment.
Surprisingly, it took a long time for either of his friends to realise that they hadn't decided anything about the Invisibility Cloak. The common room had nearly emptied, and Antares was just doing a final scan of his messy but serviceable roll of parchment while Blaise and Tracey played a near-silent game of Exploding Snap, Tracey having gone off to fetch a pack of cards. And, true to form, it was Blaise that first brought it up.
"Antares?"
"Mmm?"
"The Cloak," Blaise said, his tone deliberate. He was still looking through a mildly smoking hand, his attention more centred on Antares than on the cards Tracey was tidily switching while Blaise gave Antares a hard look.
Despite his weariness and irritation at a sentence that didn't seem to read right, Antares smiled. "I was wondering when someone was going to ask that."
Blaise snorted quietly, but didn't look away. "Wondering as in wondering how to fob us off, or wondering as in how to include us in its ownership?"
"Remember, Antares, I bought you the books," Tracey interjected, sounding relatively unperturbed in comparison to Blaise. "And Blaise got us refreshments, too – thirsty work, that shopping –"
"Shelve it, you two," Antares said, sighing. "It's still mine; I'll do what I want with it."
Blaise put down his cards, looking a little angry for the first time. "But you'll share what you're doing, because our actions –"
"Calm down, I didn't say I wouldn't share it with you," Antares said, cutting him off. "All I'm saying is it is mine – I'd rather give up a leg than give it away, right now. The sheer possibilities of that thing –"
"I knew it," Tracey breathed, putting down her own cards. "You tried it out, didn't you? At home, or…?"
"At – at home, yeah," Antares said, stumbling over the word 'home' as he suddenly realised Bella might be starting to think of it that way, just as he was, "and here, too, in some dungeon. I'll show you."
"So you'll let both of us use it?" Blaise said, his tone a lot more belligerent than the hopeful expression on his face implied. "Really, truly let us use it?"
"Of course," Antares said, trying not to grin at the way Blaise's eyes widened like saucers. "Then again, if I hear you telling anyone else –"
"Don't be stupid," Tracey said, rolling her eyes, but Antares ignored her.
"Tell anyone else, and I swear I'll Obliviate the two of you. And them." Blaise snorted, but Antares purposely kept his expression serious, as if he was telling the truth. "You think it's only Occlumency in those books? It's all to do with the mind, so it's bloody well related, I think. And anyway, if I really wanted to, I could."
Blaise and Tracey exchanged a slightly disbelieving look, but it was Tracey that spoke eventually. "You're a first year, Antares – Ministry Obliviators are a lot older and a lot more experienced than first years, you know that."
"And we supposedly study the will and the word," Antares shot back calmly, parroting what Bella had always told him. "There's a word for memory charms, and if either of you turned me in or blabbed to someone, you can be sure there would be the will." At the unreadable look his friends exchanged, Antares bent back over his work. "I'm just saying, that's all – there's a lot I'd be willing to do to keep that Cloak. Nothing particularly new, I should think."
"Nothing particularly new?" Blaise said, sounding a little too pleased to be as cowed as Antares had been expecting. "I think you just threatened us properly for the first time, you ninny."
"Excuse me?"
"Blaise is right, Antares," Tracey said, a rather smug look coming over her face. "Honestly, we were starting to wonder whether Slytherin would be right for you."
Antares tried not to splutter, but his indignant answer was not far off from one. "Tracey, my mum's family was traditionally Slytherin for years, all right? She was a Slytherin, and she raised me as one –"
"It's nothing personal," Blaise amended, sounding a little amused. "It's just that you've never seemed very – well – Slytherin, not until you threatened us with Obliviation –"
"I mean, I'm sorry, but the name thing was a bit of a joke," Tracey said, her tone apologetic.
Antares scowled. "And do you hear anyone calling me nicknames all over the place?" Tracey blushed a little and averted her eyes, and Antares wished strongly that he could already cast some rudimentary form of the mind-reading spell just so that he could see who –
"Antares, you're overreacting," Blaise said, sounding patient as he began to collect the cards, which were all starting to vibrate a little angrily on the table between him and Tracey. "It's not so much the fact that your threats aren't quite up to standard, okay? It's more the way you don't seem to think about something before you try it. Come on, if I was as blindly heroic as you, you'd be thinking the same thing."
"I've half a bloody mind to Obliviate both of you right now," Antares said coolly, rolling up his parchment with angry, nervous movements. "Blindly heroic, my arse –"
"Blaise didn't mean that," Tracey said firmly, giving the slightly taken-aback Blaise a hard look. "Did you, Blaise?"
"Antares, I –"
"If I'd been one to think before trying," Antares said through gritted teeth, rising angrily from his seat, "your brains would still be splattered all over that shop front in Knockturn Alley. Don't try to fucking tell me about thinking before trying, Blaise – if you'd thought, you wouldn't have been there in the first place –"
"It's not my fault that I didn't know enough about Knockturn!" Blaise said, standing up a little jerkily, his expression starting to become rather irritated. "If I'd known –"
"Blaise, shut up," Tracey hissed, shoving at his side as she stood up as well. Antares gave both of them a cold look as he began to gather up his inkpot and various textbooks, an awful, tight feeling taking hold of his chest. His own friends – "Antares, please, you know how this idiot is –"
"I also know," Antares hissed, "how my threats aren't up to fucking standard, and how people call me names behind my back – names that you hear, and won't tell me. You tell anyone about the Cloak, and Obliviation'll be the least of your worries, understand? Good bloody night." He stormed off, ignoring Blaise's indignant comments and Tracey's slightly panicked tone as she called an apology after him. Barging into his dorm, Antares headed straight for his bed, ignoring Draco's whining about noisy peasants in favour of stuffing away his belongings as fast as he could and dragging out the shrunk copy of The Arte and climbing haphazardly into his bed and dragging the curtains closed. Hearing the door open again, Antares gritted his teeth, willing the stinging pain of the Stinging Hex into the curtains around him as he whispered the hex, directing it at them and just hoping Blaise would try to poke his fat head in and be stung until he cried.
It felt like a jolt, seeing the thin stream of magic hit the curtains directly in front of him and fizzle into them with an ominous crackle, and Antares' mouth dropped open in surprise. He'd only been half-expecting it to work, in truth, and suspected, as he leaned forward to tentatively touch his still normal-looking curtains, that more anger than sense had gone into thinking of doing this –
"Ow," he whispered, jerking back his stung hand. Bewilderment washed over him, mingling with his anger and shame at having his friends – his own friends, telling him he didn't belong here. Telling him, essentially, that he was too soft, too weak, too heroic for Slytherin. Antares scowled, poking the dusty book hard with his wand without thinking anything in particular.
He didn't understand what he'd just done. But, then again, he'd never felt like this, felt so tremulously alive and scared and angry and shamed all at the same time, never wanted so much to prove himself to these people, to all the people that gave him sly looks in the corridors and muttered that he was just a stupid halfblood swot, that thought he wouldn't amount to anything.
"I'll show them," Antares muttered fiercely, barely seeing the words as he split open The Arte with rough, careless movements, flipping through to the first page of the small section on Legilimency.
And, by Morgana, he would.
A/N: So then. The spoiler competition, of course, is truly over now, eh? But still – how'd you like it? I feel pretty clever for coming up with the go-around of Occlumency (canon, no less) to ward off certain plot holes in the future. Hope the chapter was fun for you – it was fun for me, especially the last bit.
Next chapter is from Severus' POV, and is going to be fun, fun, fun, because Severus + Antares' various situations delicious conflict. Oh yeah – I can see it already…
