Seven Years, Chapter 27.
Merula watched Clarice read the receipt over, her face twisted in confusion as her eyes darted from the bottom of the long strip of paper, then to the top, then inched back down again.
"Something wrong, C?" A.J. asked.
"The bill is wrong," Clarice muttered, glancing up and around the room, tossing the receipt onto the table. "We're supposed to be down two hundred pounds, but…"
"But what?" Deborah asked, her head craning over to the bill. "What the… how did that happen?"
Merula looked paused as she stood up, walking over to Clarice and frowning when she saw the bill. Or rather, the single digit charge at the end of the bill, which while looked nice as a number, was nowhere close to two hundred Muggle pounds.
In fact, the lone digit at the bottom of the receipt was a zero.
"Something has to be wrong," Clarice declared, standing up. "I'm taking this to the front-"
"Don't bother," a familiar voice cut Clarice off.
Merula turned over to Marietta Edgecombe, looking rather irritated as she approached their table. "Miss Chang says the payment is thank you for the broom."
"Broom?" Clarice asked, looking confused.
"Merula lent Cho her broom for the Quidditch season this year," Marietta muttered, rolling her eyes. "Miss Chang said she needed to pay you back someway so, well, you see the bill."
"Merula lent her a Nimbus 2001," A.J. supplied helpfully to Clarice, who still looked confused.
Clarice raised an eyebrow but said nothing, though Merula noticed that her eyes flickered over to her direction before going back to Marietta.
Marietta sighed again, rubbing her eyes and glancing toward the back of the Muggle restaurant. "I just thought you might want to know. Cho and the others are in the… powder room, and I'd rather not get a headache before bed."
"Sounds rough," Deborah muttered. "But choosing to hang out with these idiots is hardly better."
To Merula's surprise, Marietta cracked a smirk at that, something she hadn't ever seen before. "Montgomery and Fields take forever to get ready, and most days I wonder if Hastings or Marin is a Slytherin plant. Today I'm leaning closer to Hastings, but maybe I'll change my mind by morning."
Merula raised an eyebrow. "I have no idea who any of those people are."
"You're Slytherins, of course you'll lie through your teeth about spies and plants." Marietta sneered, the smirk fading as quickly as it had come. "Trying to get the truth out of you is like having a Muggle pull teeth."
"Certainly true about us lying through our teeth," Clarice said, pausing for a moment before she waved down a waiter, handing the tired looking Muggle a pair of hundred pound notes before turning back to Marietta. "Well, we're going to get going, but tell Miss Chang we thank her for her generosity."
Merula followed Clarice and the other girls back outside, but she allowed herself one final look at the still-busy Muggle restaurant, but found nothing of interest apart from the sight of an ancient, slender man looking back at her from the table where Marietta had been sitting, his face indescribable.
The street was cooler, now that night had fallen, but they were still bustling with life and cheer, enough for Merula to watch in envy at families passing by. In particular, she watched a Muggle girl her age, still dressed in her school uniform, carried on her father's back down the opposite side of the street, laughing all the way.
It was a bitter pill to swallow, especially when she could only conjure up her father's face from the Mirror of Erised, locked away from her reach. Was it cold in Azkaban? It had been years since she had tried to write even a letter to him, when Lucius had informed her that every letter meant for the prison ended up in a fire rather than in the hands of their intended recipient. Such was the fate of those who found themselves within.
"Hey Merula," A.J. called from a nearby shop, her arms jammed into the pockets of her charmed jacket. "See anything you like?"
Merula grimaced at the words, and she tried to force anything positive, but her mind was elsewhere. She was hardly in the mood for shopping, not when the thought of her missing family, and the unloving replacement that was Narcissa being her only alternative.
"We're heading to the Myers house first thing tomorrow, so you should probably get-" Tiffany started, but she trailed off mid-sentence.
"Are you ok, Merula?" A.J. sounded concerned.
"Fine," Merula hissed through gritted teeth, fighting back tears that threatened to spill out. "Just fine."
"You don't-"
"Let her be," Clarice snapped, cutting Deborah off. "You girls finish your shopping, I'll make sure she's fine."
"I am fine!" Merula snapped, channeling her sorrow into rage. "Just buy a stupid mug or something. Myers deserves-"
Merula was about to say something more when she realized she didn't have lips to speak out of anymore, and her words quite literally died inside of her mouth.
Slowly, still trying her best to be defiant rather than a human shaped puddle, Merula looked up at the single set of eyes staring back at her.
It wasn't Clarice who remained, but A.J., with her green eyes filled not with mischief or anger or confidence, but for the first time, concern, and she said nothing as she pulled Merula aside, into the darkest reaches of a nearby alleyway.
Suddenly, Merula had lips to vent her feelings again, but she simply sank into a crouch, unable to look her friend in the eye.
"If there's anything you wanted to say, any and all of us are here to listen," A.J. said, her voice almost a whisper, in a tone that made Merula believe she was talking to another person entirely, not the de facto queen of Slytherin's seventh year.
Merula forced out a harsh laugh. "Even Deborah?"
A.J. laughed a little and joined Merula in a crouch. "Even sour grapes herself. But I have a feeling that I know why you're so sad."
"How would you-"
"Because I don't have a mother either," A.J. said, her voice freezing the blood in Merula's veins, the laugh gone from her voice, replaced by something a little wistful. "As for the one people say I have… well it would be an insult to all mothers to call her one."
Merula laughed at that. "Narcissa said she adopted me to serve as some sort of shield for Draco."
"Really?" A.J. asked, a bitter amusement in her voice. "I was part of the package deal. I get a free Gryffindor to bully, but nobody at home pays attention to me. Hell, they don't even know I almost bled to death in Knockturn Alley."
Merula closed her eyes again, trying not to think of another one of the few people she cared about dead. "I think mine is trying to kill Potter."
A.J. paused for a long moment, but then she spoke again. "I'm not sure what you mean."
"I…" Merula swallowed before she spoke, looking up at A.J. "Our House Elf Dobby has been sabotaging things at Hogwarts."
"Explain." A.J. sounded a mix of concerned and alarmed.
"That day the second victim was found," Merula explained. "I was-"
"One of the first students on the scene, yes, I'm aware." A.J. said, nodding before she paused, looking backward toward the direction of the restaurant, a look of suspicion on her face. "Along with… Cho Chang and Marietta Edgecombe. The same Cho Chang whose mother just paid our bill."
Merula nodded. "They sent me to the Infirmary to fetch Madam Pomfrey and…"
"A House Elf-"
"Not just any House Elf," Merula cut in. " His name is Dobby. He's been with the Malfoys for as long as I can remember. He… just appeared and started babbling about how he tried to get Potter hurt enough to be sent home."
"Odd," Clarice's voice cut in, and Merula jerked her head up over to the older woman who had appeared suddenly, leaning on the wall above A.J.'s head. "We're done with the shopping, but this sounds rather fascinating."
"House Elves can't act without orders, can they?" Merula asked.
"They certainly can't disobey their master," A.J. said, rubbing her chin. "Although if an order isn't very clear they might have some leeway."
"Father said last year that I was to try to become friends with Potter," Merula said, pausing for a moment to consider her next words. "I don't think he's behind what you're suggesting."
"Well," A.J. said, her tone light, though Merula could have sworn that there was the slightest hint of something else in her voice, hidden under the cheer. "It could be your brother or your mother dearest. They might have said something and then forgotten about it. I mean, I heard some Spanish Muggles declared war on Denmark in the 1700s and forgot to end it until a decade back."
"And that was only because they finally found the paperwork." Clarice chuckled before she turned to Merula. "Did you tell your House Elf to stop?"
"I told him to get out of Hogwarts and stay out." Merula shook her head. "Otherwise I would tell father and have him deal with the problem."
"Clever," Clarice nodded her approval. "Your House Elf won't be able to touch your Gryffindor Golden Boy without being able to access Hogwarts. An elegant way to deal with a troublesome situation."
Merula allowed herself a smile at that, but then she yawned, her exhaustion choosing an oh-so inconvenient time to catch up to her.
"We're done for the night anyhow," Clarice said, gesturing for Merula to follow. "Not too much further."
For the first time since St. Mungos, Merula woke up in a bed she wasn't familiar with, and she sat up, blinking sleep from her eyes.
The room was, unlike Malfoy Manor, a soft cream, well lit with the orange rays of a beautiful dawn, and with a soft carpet under her feet rather than the frigid stone back home.
Merula avoided putting her shoes on as she wandered over to the window, and she caught glimpses of the fading violet of night in the distance, pushed away by the rising sun that signalled a new day.
Merula watched the sun some more, content with being alone, until she could no longer stare into the light without being blinded in the process. Only then did she turn away and collect her shoes by her bedside.
For once, Merula was appreciative that Narcissa had gotten her shoes she could sneak around in, though the expensive leather flats were of nearly no other use and forced Merula to endure every bump and crag in her path as if she was barefoot.
Still, Merula was rewarded by the sight of all three of her roommates, along with two sets of legs sticking out from under a blanket in the study of the house, a most… unwelcome scene, to say the least, doubly so that there were at least two people snoring.
Merula watched her roommates for a long minute, but only after helping herself to the only bottled drink she could find in the house that wasn't opened yet, a orange soda of some sort that was far too sweet for Merula to endure, to the point where Merula simply dumped two thirds of the bottle down the sink, content that nobody would miss the sugary abomination and rinsing her mouth with the water from the tap.
With nothing but a sour, sticky taste on her tongue, Merula checked on the scene in the lounge again, and she winced at how awkwardly each of her friends had fallen asleep. Tiffany, for one, was sprawled facedown on the carpet, still snoring away next to the two sets of legs under a blanket, while Deborah seemed to have been kicked off the sofa by A.J., having slept through it all despite landing in a disorganized heap on the carpet.
The only one to have avoided making a fool of herself seemed to be A.J., who was on top of the sofa, wrapped in a grey blanket, in what was the closest thing to a natural sleeping form Merula could see, a confident smile on her face, as if she knew her position of dominance in the lounge.
Then, as if alerted to her presence, A.J. jerked up like a Muggle pop-up book, a sight that would have been comical if Merula's heart wasn't suddenly in her throat.
Morning, A.J. mouthed as she looked around the room and pushed strands of her messy hair aside, a wry smile on her face as she carefully moved off the sofa, though not before accidentally, or possibly not so accidentally, stepping on Deborah first.
"So," A.J. said when she had cleared the four sleeping bodies in the lounge and reached relatively safe ground in the foyer. "Good morning."
Merula shrugged and glanced down at the two sets of legs, having a sneaky suspicion that she knew who was under the blanket as well as the fact that she had no desire to actually figure out if her suspicions were correct or not.
"Well," A.J. said, shaking her head as she followed Merula's gaze. "I think they kept their make-"
"I don't want to know." Merula shook her head furiously, trying not to show her flaming face.
"Give it a few years," A.J. chuckled. "Then you'll be asking them for tips."
"I'd sooner drink Longbottom's potions." Merula shot back. "Then whatever the hell is Pumpkin Fizz."
At the mention of Pumpkin Fizz, a set of the legs under the blanket twitched, and Merula watched the moving blanket with some interest until the blanket settled down again.
"I admit I'm not the biggest fan of the stuff either," Clarice's voice said from behind Merula. "And if my sister keeps drinking the stuff, she'll have no teeth by thirty."
"Morning C," A.J. said as Merula spun around, suddenly equal parts irritated at how easily someone could sneak up on her and startled that it did happen... again. "I don't suppose you have breakfast handy?"
"The Circle will have food ready for the two of us," Clarice said, shaking her head. "As for Merula, I hear you're attending the Myers party?"
Merula grunted in confirmation. "They might know something about my family and…"
"Who in particular are you looking for?" Clarice asked, her head tilted in the slightest expression of interest.
"You said Magnus Snyde, didn't you?" A.J. asked. "Head Auror of Norway during the First War?"
Merula nodded at that, and she turned back to Clarice, hoping for some reaction, but the older witch shrugged. "Not a name I'm particularly familiar with, but I'll ask around."
Merula felt a pang of disappointment blossom inside her, but she shrugged and suppressed it before she turned to the four sleeping people in the lounge. "And…do we wake them?"
Clarice let out a chuckle at that, one in a tone that made Merula spin around in concern.
"Accio air horn." Clarice said, the smile on her lips widening into a macabre grin as she held up a small can with a bright red nozzle. "A.J., you know what to do."
Merula looked to A.J. for guidance, not quite understanding what an air horn was, but her older roommate was grinning as wide as Clarice was, though she had her hands firmly stuck in her ears.
Merula followed suit, plugging her ears as hard as she could, even as she watched Clarice carefully sneak past Tiffany, like some sort of evil ballerina, before she slid to a crouch and pointed the red nozzle at one of the figures under the blanket. And then she pressed on the nozzle.
The sound blared through the house, and it hurt even though Merula wasn't even close to its intended victim and had plugged her ears as tightly as she could. But the effect on her paled in comparison to what happened to Tiffany and Deborah, and even more so what happened to the two figures under the blanket.
Tiffany recoiled from the blast as if she had been hit, jerking and flopping around the carpet like a beached whale, while Deborah shot straight up, a look of stunned horror on her face as her hands grasped at her chest.
Merula couldn't quite see what was happening, but one of the figures under the blanket, the one who had reacted so violently to the mention of Pumpkin Fizz, had practically scrambled over the other figure in a mad attempt to escape from the little can with the funny nozzle, only the figure's actions had awakened the other figure, and thick, long arms had extended and pinned the figure in place, disturbing the blanket in the process.
Before Merula could avert her eyes, the sight was burned into her mind forevermore, a second before A.J.'s too-late hand blocked her vision and the ringing from the air horn was replaced by panicked screaming from more than one set of lungs.
For a long minute, Merula wasn't sure what was happening. She was screaming for answers, but all that reached her ears was a muffled scream, until her throat was hoarse and a second hand covered her mouth and silenced her attempts to demand answers.
When the hand that covered her mouth was finally removed, Merula tried to ask for the hand over her eyes to be removed, but her voice came out a hoarse whisper, and Merula felt strong hands on her shoulders spin her around, and then the hand over her eyes disappeared.
She was facing the front door of the house now, and when she pulled her hands from her ears she could hear things again. Mostly a shouting match between Ismelda and Clarice Murk, the latter standing over her sister with the most dominant look on her face, even if Clarice looked ridiculous in a bright orange bathrobe and fluffy slippers.
"Stop arguing!" Deborah's shout drowned out both Clarice and Ismelda, and even Merula extended her head to look over at a very irritated Deborah, still sitting by the foot of the sofa, gingerly rubbing her neck. "For the love of Merlin, C, where did you graduate from, Saint Trinian's?"
Clarice turned to face Deborah too, and Merula started to wonder where St. Trinian's was. Perhaps it was some specialized school? Was it where witches learned to torment their many enemies?
"Might is always right," Clarice said, shaking the little murder can in her hand as she advanced on Deborah. "Trample on the weakest, glory to their plight. Isn't that how the line goes?"
"Ah," Deborah said, a scowl still on her face. "A hellion of Trinian to the-"
Deborah didn't get to finish, not when Clarice pressed the top of the little can again, though mercifully for Merula, the blast only seemed to last a half second.
"So," Clarice said, her tone chipper, as if she didn't deafen everyone in the room twice. "How many of you need breakfast?"
At the last word, suddenly, the second figure under the blanket next to Ismelda jerked up, revealing a sleepy but bright eyed Barnaby.
"Did someone say breakfast?" Barnaby asked as he turned his head, still blinking the sleep from his eyes.
Merula's stomach did a little flip. Barnaby's face was covered in lipstick and his neck looked even worse, as if he had just survived a food fight or a very ravenous attack by… something biting him.
Suddenly, Merula didn't want to hear Barnaby's response anymore. In fact, she wanted nothing to do with the house at all.
And the flames of the fireplace looked rather welcoming.
The Floo trip to the Myers house was shorter than the last trip Merula remembered, and Merula leapt from the fireplace the moment her shoes touched solid ground, and she made several checks in a nearby mirror to make sure she wasn't turning a second cloak to ashes.
When she was satisfied that her cloak was indeed fine and not ablaze, Merula took a wider look at the room she had stepped out of.
It was a fairly large lounge, not unlike the one where she had found her drunk roommates in the morning, but it had dark wood floors compared to the thick, cream coloured carpet of the Murk house, with a clean, dark wallpaper and rows upon rows of expensive, leather backed books, in a way that reminded Merula of Lucius' study back home.
A second later, there was a roar of fire, and Merula turned her head to see Tiffany pop up from the fireplace, the usual cheerful grin on her face.
Then Deborah stepped out of the fire, with less cheer, as if she was making her best Dementor impression.
But there was no A.J., no Barnaby, and no Ismelda, even though Merula stared at the fire for a good minute before turning to Tiffany in confusion.
"Something came up with the others," Tiffany said with a little wince. "They have a last minute meeting of some sort. They'll probably join us later."
"Knowing A.J., that's just an excuse to do something in secret. She's probably digging into some ice cream right now." Deborah muttered. "That's what she tends to do anyways. Drown her sorrows in sugar."
Merula glanced over to the window just as a gust of wind knocked an icicle hanging from the roof outside from its perch. Ice cream? In this weather?
"A.J. likes some Muggle flavour," Deborah said, turning to Tiffany. "What was it again? Mint something?"
"Mint chocolate chip," a new voice interrupted them, and Merula turned over in time to see Jenny, the prefect from the train, step through the door to the room, wearing a long, fancy dress. "She ate all of ours the last time she came here."
Tiffany laughed nervously. "I still need to make that up to you, don't I?"
"There's no need," Jenny said, turning her smile over to Deborah, then Merula herself. "Thank you all for coming. It's been a… difficult time with the Heir and all of that."
Merula winced at the mention of the Heir, and she shivered, Dobby's final set of words coming to mind. That the Chamber of Secrets, whatever it was, had been opened.
"We're mostly set up as is," Jenny said, waving Merula and her friends past the doors she had come through and into the foyer of the house, one that was strewn with Christmas decorations everywhere. "We're just waiting on dad's coworkers."
Merula looked around at the decorated foyer, then back at the lounge with the books. Perhaps she could slip back in there when the party was over, to read something interesting rather than chat about useless subjects with complete strangers.
"So Merula," Tiffany said, her voice cheery. "Are you ready for the party?"
Merula grimaced, her eyes darting to the fireplace, the faces of her friends, the window, and back to the fireplace.
"Merula's here for the information on whatshisnane, remember?" Deborah muttered.
"My great grandfather Magnus," Merula added. "All I know about him is that he died- no, he was murdered fighting against Grindelwald."
"Hardly difficult to find information on a Head Auror," Deborah turned to Jenny. "Right?"
Jenny bit her lip, then she shook her head. "I mentioned it to dad, but he hasn't said anything to me yet. Maybe you can ask him?"
Merula paused. It seemed… rude. To barge into a holiday party, particularly one run by a stranger with a weird request was hardly something she was willing to do.
Mostly because it was exactly the type of thing Draco was willing to do, and Merula despised her adoptive brother.
"Maybe I can ask after the party?" Merula asked after a long, awkward moment. "I'd hate to interrupt."
Jenny paused, then she nodded. "If you don't mind waiting. I can point you out to dad during the party, but I can't tell you if he has any time to spare, hosting the party and all."
Merula looked over to Tiffany, just in time to hear a stomach growl and for Tiffany to flush a deep red, almost as red as the red nozzle of the horn Clarice had used.
"Skip breakfast?" Jenny asked with a giggle.
"It's the Murk cottage," Tiffany said through muffled fingers. "No house elf or a stove, and Clarice woke us with an air horn to Izzy's face."
"She was also out the door before any of us could get our hands on her." Deborah muttered. "And Izzy was too wasted to even get off the carpet. Or Barnaby, for that matter."
Merula was about to ask for breakfast when the sight of Barnaby appeared in her mind again, like a hot iron branded the sight into her head. When she recovered, she noticed that Jenny had joined Tiffany in being very red in the face.
"Could I offer you breakfast then?" A new voice, one that Merula had never heard before, asked.
"Oh hey dad," Jenny said. "Uhm, you've met Tiff and Debs."
The older man at the door paused, and his eyes went around the room before they met Merula's.
"Then this must be Miss Snyde, yes?" he asked, extending a hand to shake, one that Merula took, though not without hesitation, given how his hand involved hers in a vice grip.
"Merula," Jenny said, cutting in and smacking her father's gigantic hand away. "My dad."
Merula tried to look into the wizard's eyes, but she found them guarded and emotionless.
"Let us have some breakfast," he said finally, a warm smile breaking across his face but not reaching his eyes. "And… perhaps we can get to your request."
AN: My favourite sports team embarrassed themselves tonight, and since I can't sleep the only thing I can do is angrily post fanfiction.
