Chapter 31
On Valentine's Day the next morning, Merula and her friends reached the Great Hall fairly early. Despite their haste, they weren't the first students to reach the Great Hall, but they were the first Slytherins, getting their pick of seats at the Slytherin table and a clear view of the rest of the Great Hall, which was now many nauseating shades of pink that Merula wanted to set on fire.
Merula personally watched the main doors, perhaps the only part of the Great Hall that hadn't turned pink, waiting in silence as students continued to stream in, annoyed that neither of her intended victims had yet to arrive, though she recognized some other faces amongst the steady stream of students.
Blaise, for instance, was the fourth Slytherin student to make his way to the Great Hall, and he tipped his head in her direction in greeting before he went to his breakfast. All the pieces were in place, with the notable exception of their two victims.
She also saw Marietta arrive alone, looking sour, as she usually did, though the older girl gave Merula a cold look before she settled into a seat close to where she usually sat, as if she was wary that Merula was up so early.
Merula wondered if Cedric had already sent word of the interview mentioned at the pub yesterday, but she wasn't exactly in a position to ask.
Then Draco stomped through the doors, storming over to his usual spot at the opposite side of the table, close to the headmaster and the other professors. Absent of course, were the two idiots probably trapped in some sort of detention. No fun for them. No chance they could save Draco from humiliation.
That, Merula had realized over the weeks of waiting, had been A.J. 's reason to cut Not-Crabbe and Not-Goyle loose after catching them red-handed. By sending Not-Crabbe and Not-Goyle into a forbidden area with a dozen witnesses, the real Crabbe and Goyle would have been in detention when the Sunday morning Valentine's Day prank began.
That, and whatever A.J. was planning with the invisibility cloak.
If Draco didn't suspect that there was anything wrong with this day, given that Merula and her friends, with the exception of Tiffany sitting at their regular spot, had relocated themselves to where the only exits to the Great Hall were, then he was an idiot who deserved every bit of what was about to happen to him.
Merula shovelled a forkful of eggs into her mouth and continued watching the entrance to the Great Hall. She saw a few faces she recognized. The Weasley brat, the Weasley twins, Percy Weasley with… evidence he had been busy. And of course, Cedric Diggory, who walked suspiciously close to Edgecombe, stopping to ask her a question, one Merula couldn't hear the contents of, nor could she see what the Not-Weasley was saying in response.
Merula wondered from her safe distance if Cedric was arranging the interview, but for all she knew, Cedric was asking where Cho was, given that it was, in fact, Valentine's Day.
All in all, it was a pretty regular morning. Nothing worth writing home about, not that Lucius had responded to any of her letters for the better part of half a year.
Then the victim- erm, guest of honour arrived, with the slightly older but certainly less mature Weasley brat and Granger by his side, looking sleepy and rather confused. Standard Gryffindor, never enough brain to go with overgrown bodies.
Merula shifted her eyes away, not wanting to spring her trap until she had the right go-ahead, and turned her head over to Cho Chang, who had just headed into the room at the head of her pack of idiots, and ran straight at Cedric, who seemed to summon a large bouquet of flowers to greet his girlfriend out of thin air.
Again, Merula shifted her eyes away from the couple and the unlucky third wheel sitting next to them and focused her eyes back on the Gryffindors. She wasn't sure if she wanted the trap to be sprung when Potter was tired and hungry or when he was mid-meal and surprised.
Then, with her eyes still on Potter and midway through a bite of sausage, something sounded that blew Merula's eardrums out, and she nearly fell out of her seat in the process, managing to glare at the source of the riot only when she had her hands plugged in her ears.
Where Lockhart had summoned a full self-playing band from, Merula did not know, but the ringing in her head made her want to faceplant into something nice and soft and hopefully quiet.
"Good morning Hogwarts!" Lockhart shouted when the band stopped, in a voice so obnoxious Merula wished the deafening band would start playing again. Being deaf was preferable to being tortured, after all.
Merula looked over to A.J., but her roommate had made her way to the main doors along with Deborah, ensuring that there would be no escape from the torment Merula was about to visit upon Draco and Potter. Meanwhile, Tiffany was nowhere to be seen, as if she had disappeared into thin air.
Lockhart was still droning on, his voice making Merula relish the idea of seeing him rot in prison. First petrifying Muggle students, then the crime against music, now a crime against the English language. Lockhart seemed insistent on becoming worse by the day. What was next? Crime against poetry?
Then a tall, ridiculous looking troll appeared, and Merula joined a loud cheer from most of the girls present and half the boys when she realized it was holding some form of script in its large, dirty hands.
But that wasn't the only reason Merula cheered, because she was finally able to see Crabbe and Goyle, both looking equal parts miserable and ridiculous, dressed as miserable fat angels waving around bows and arrows halfheartedly. The whole scene was awful, so awful Merula wanted to feed Lockhart, and the troll along with him, to the Selkies. Azkaban was too good for either of them.
And why not throw in Crabbe and Goyle for dessert? Nobody would miss them anyway.
"And before the festivities begin!" Lockhart shouted when the din died down, gesturing to the giant, ugly troll beside him. "My friend here has received two particularly special declarations of love that I feel must be shared with Hogwarts!"
Merula glanced over to A.J., who responded with a shrug and a raised eyebrow, but otherwise remained at her post. Two special declarations of love? Was this why Cedric was talking with Edgecombe earlier? He had messed up with horrible poetry?
Merula snuck a glance at the direction of Cedric, who was sitting with Cho at the Hufflepuff table close to her circle of friends, though Merula couldn't see either of their faces. Judging from the lack of reaction from either of the couple, Merula decided to move on.
Before she could focus on another possible target, the troll began to sing, and his voice was so awful that Merula wanted to rip her ears off.
"His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad," the troll began. "His hair is as dark as a blackboard."
Well, the topic was Potter, that much was obvious. And given Lockhart's predisposition for chasing fame, Merula could see why he was giving special attention to this particular abomination of a confession. Now the question was who had commissioned the crime against music. Merula felt like they deserved a full trial by Wizengamot, because even the Selkies wouldn't eat garbage like that.
"I wish he was mine, he's really divine, the hero who conquered the Dark Lord."
Merula gagged on the second line, and she snuck a glance across the room. There were a lot of students who worshipped Potter, but the most obvious answer, the one with the now-burnt camera, had been whacked by Lockhart, so that left… the Weasley?
But that also seemed silly. Where would she find the galleons to hire the troll?
And yet, surely enough, when Merula glanced over to where she had last seen the Weasley sister, there was now a conspicuous lack of annoying red hair and hand-me down clothes. She had gotten it in one guess. Impressive.
Just as Merula felt a sense of smug satisfaction that she had found her target, or at least who her target should have been, the first of the boos rang out.
Merula spun her head toward the sound. She wasn't sure who had started it, even if it sounded oddly like Tiffany, but the chorus spread like out of control Fiendfyre, and it seemed that at least three of the four tables had voiced their opposition to the crime against music.
Merula considered joining in, but given that there seemed to be enough voices expressing the same feelings she had for the song, Merula instead focused her attention on the source of the musical abomination.
It wasn't a hard process. There were only so many exits to the Great Hall, and Merula suspected that the Weasley brat would slink over to the closest one, and surely enough, she caught the sight of the Weasley sister just about to escape the riotous Great Hall.
It was almost a shame that she was right next to A.J., who had extended one innocent foot out of step, casually, as if she was merely watching the scene unfold, an innocent bystander when Merula knew she was anything but.
Merula couldn't hear exactly what had happened, but the idea of Ginny Weasley taking a graceless tumble onto the cold floor made Merula grin, even though in reality the Weasley brat was spared a painful landing by A.J.'s grip on her shoulder.
There was a pang of disappointment inside Merula, but she managed to reach her roommate and their victim moments later, hoping to rub salt in the brat's emotional wounds just a little bit.
"She's fine," A.J. said, her calm voice hiding her role in the ballet of chaos. "Aren't you, Ginny?"
"I-" Ginny started, her voice an awkward stammer. "I need to go."
"I'm sure you do," A.J. soothed, her voice hiding the malice that lurked underneath. "Just watch where-"
"You!" Draco's voice cut through the air, and Merula turned in time to see him marching toward her, his hand extended, an accusatory finger pointed like the Elder Wand… At Weasley?
"I don't think Potter liked your Valentine's song very much," Draco called out, his voice a vindictive challenge. "As it so happens, neither did anyone else!"
Merula, for once, agreed with her brother. But this wasn't the right time or place to make a scene. If this continued, Lucius would certainly be hearing about it, and Merula doubted he would be pleased.
Then the band played a single, terrible note, and the troll began to sing again. It was awful, lovey dovey garbage that had caused her to lose a great deal of respect for Blaise when she had read it. It was so bad that Merula felt it was unfit to print.
Draco, however, had turned around as the music began, and Merula would have paid a fortune to see the look on his face. Would he understand that the poem was supposed to be his?
There were a few giggles now, aside glances across the room as other students tried to find the author of the embarrassingly awful poem. Perhaps some would recognize that only an alleged rival of Potter would be the author. But the final line, Blaise's coup-de-grace, would there be any hint.
Another line later, Merula was suddenly aware that her face was burning, and a quick glance around the room saw more than a few flushed faces. But the song, and the shared embarrassment that it caused, would soon be over. Well, except for Draco. His torment was only beginning.
"I can't help but remember." The troll's voice was louder now, booming even as it sang the last, horrible line. "How you swept me off my broom last November."
There was silence across the room. A moment of it, then two, then three, as if the words hadn't settled into every mind inside the Great Hall yet.
Then the whispers began.
Merula couldn't hear every whisper, but she could see the results of them. Slowly, at the pace of an ice cream left to melt in the heat, every set of eyes in the room came to settle on Draco.
It helped, perhaps, that he was still standing in the middle of the room, his accusation against Weasley sounding more and more like the rant of an envious rival.
Then the first bursts of applause began. Blaise, from the corner of Merula's eye, rising to clap, whistled cheers leaving his lips.
And just with the eyes turned to Draco, the hands of Hogwarts came up in a thunderous din, along with a relentless cheer, led by who else but Lockhart?
Merula allowed herself to smirk as Draco turned around, horror dawning upon his little useless brain.
"You," Draco gasped, understanding crossing his eyes, far too late to be of any use. "You-"
"Father will hear about this." Merula answered simply, and to her delight, Draco almost fell over, fear replacing the angry understanding he had before. By Merlin, using Draco's favourite line against him felt good. "Father will know everything. And perhaps he will pay for writing lessons."
A.J. expelled a few giggles at that, and somehow Draco's face became even more ashen.
"Potter!" Draco shouted, his face bright red. If there had been any eyes not on him in the room, his outburst made sure that they were all glued to him now. "I despise-"
Merula wasn't sure what happened, but one moment Draco had been raising an accusatory finger at Potter's direction, and the next it seemed as if he had been shot from a cannon, flying across the room with a shriek, his body twisted like an unbaked croissant, one that flew past the Hufflepuff table and landed onto the Gryffindor table with a heavy thud.
Much to her annoyance, Merula noted that Draco hadn't gotten close to Potter. Potter, in a testament to his quick reflexes and admittedly not awful Quidditch skills, had managed to avoid Draco's hilarious crash into Gryffindor's breakfast.
"Hey Merula?" Tiffany's voice, gentle and soft, yet audible despite the chaos unfolding in the Great Hall, came so close to Merula that she swore she could feel her roommate's breath on her skin despite being nowhere in sight just a moment before. "Are you going to check on your brother?"
Merula spun around to see Tiffany stand behind her, looking oh so concerned for Draco. Merula knew it was fake, of course, but she couldn't understand the answer to why.
"I…" Merula stammered, wondering how Tiffany had managed to reach behind her without being noticed. "Yes?"
"Since your brother isn't able to do it himself, could you bring this package to his Valentine?" Tiffany asked, holding up a cheap looking paper bag in Slytherin colours. "I found it under his seat at the table."
Merula frowned as she looked down at the little bag before it hit her. The package, whatever it was, was also part of the prank. "I mean, sure, why not?"
"Thank you," Tiffany said with a smile before she headed back to her table, her job complete.
Merula headed over to the Gryffindor table then, reaching Draco, who, attended to by Madam Pomfrey, was being carried away by two Gryffindor prefects.
"I'll make sure your Valentine's Day Gift gets to its destination!" Merula called after Draco's retreating form.
There was a muffled shout, perhaps the result of a hex cast by a Gryffindor, perhaps the result of Draco hitting his head, not that he had any brain cells in it, as well as a twitch of his ankles, not that he could do much with a Prefect holding on to his legs.
"Now," Merula turned to her second victim before she looked down at the green and silver package and noted that it was, indeed, supposed to be delivered to Harry Potter, the name written in a lovely cursive and with a much less lovely heart behind it. "Potter, here's your present, from my idiot brother."
Potter, the ungrateful swine, merely scowled. "What is it? A dung bomb?"
Merula looked down and opened the bag. Then she frowned and turned the package upside down. Why… Why was the package empty?
Just as she wondered about the mysteriously empty package, something light and airy fell around her ankles, and when she looked down to pick the offending article up, whatever it was, Merula almost jumped out of her skin.
She couldn't see the bottom of her robes anymore.
"I'll have my cloak back, thanks," Potter growled, a second before he reached down and tore the invisibility cloak away from the ground, revealing Merula's ankles and boots again.
Merula paused for a moment, and then she turned back to A.J., her roommate, who had a small smile on her face with a slight, questioning tilt of her head.
"As a matter of fact," A.J. had promised that day, the words sounding increasingly ominous replaying inside Merula's head. "I can also guarantee that I will not use it for any… mischief during that time."
The key word, Merula realized, her eyes darting over to Tiffany, now sitting next to A.J. with a wild grin on her face, had been I. Tiffany, invisible under the cloak, had been the one to start the booing, and Merula suddenly had an answer to how Draco learned to fly as well.
"Happy Valentine's Day, Potter." Merula said, finally comprehending the scale of the operation and its masterful execution, apart from Tiffany's flying curse having missed its target. It felt good, doubly so when her stream of thought was interrupted by a flock of arriving owls, one she knew was coming for a certain impoverished Gryffindor. "And oh Weasley?"
"Huh?" Ron looked up from his plate of food. "Me?"
"Watch out for the Howler," Merula said with a grin before she turned and headed back to her table.
She reached halfway across the Ravenclaw table when the Howler got to Weasley.
"Merula?" A.J. sounded rather annoyed when Merula turned the hallway that led to the secret wall, and the unexpected summon caused Merula to have her heart jump into her throat.
"What are you doing here?" Merula gasped, trying and failing to maintain some level of dignity.
A.J. scoffed and shook her head. "You know who patrols. I can't get to my shift today."
Merula frowned. "Why?"
"Potter," A.J. grumbled, rolling her eyes. "I didn't exactly leave any evidence behind, but our Headmaster seems insistent that I come in for a chat regardless."
"Unfortunate," Merula nodded. "And why me?"
A.J. shrugged. "I was going to ask Tiff or Debs but I can't find either."
Merula had seen Deborah, but the one finger salute she had received when she walked in on her roommate snogging a boy had sent Merula on a 180 degree turn right back out of the room.
"So that leaves me then," Merula muttered.
"Yep," A.J. replied, walking by Merula as she talked. "I need to hurry, but I'll cover your next shift. If you need help, ask Cedric."
Merula didn't have the chance to protest, not when A.J. 's longer legs made it so that she reached the first floor well before Merula could even reach halfway.
By the time Merula, panting and with burning legs, reached the first floor, A.J. had disappeared, leaving Merula to curse into empty air before she stormed off to find Cedric.
"Headmaster's trip?" Cedric asked as Merula arrived, to which Merula simply rolled her eyes to.
"Probably," Merula replied with a shrug, wincing as she caught her breath. "You know what for, right?"
"The Badeea special." Cedric sighed. "It's a useful Jinx, particularly for… more malevolent uses. Still, I'm not sure how Tiffany-"
"Invisibility cloak," Merula corrected Cedric.
Cedric raised an eyebrow before raising his hands in mock surrender. "And how did A- ah nevermind, I don't want to know."
Merula laughed at that. She trusted Cedric enough to let her guard down, just a little. "Is our lovely Heir out and about today or has he committed enough crimes against good taste?"
Cedric laughed this time, shaking his head. "He's been inside all afternoon. Or that's what Fred tells me. He was on shift beforehand."
Merula raised an eyebrow, impressed because she couldn't so much as tell Crabbe and Goyle apart, even if half the reason was that the fact that they had been replaced by impostors under Polyjuice once already. "You can tell the two of them apart?"
"I have my own little secrets," Cedric said.
Merula nodded. "Like what you were asking Edgecombe this morning?"
Cedric opened his mouth, then closed it again. "You saw that?"
"Yes," a voice behind Merula said. "I even glared at her when I came into breakfast today."
For the second time in less than ten minutes, Merula's heart jumped out of her throat, and she turned to glare at the half-invisible Ravenclaw that emerged from a shadowed corridor, standing behind her with her arms crossed and looking bitter, as usual.
"You mentioned something else at breakfast before Cho cut us off." Marietta turned to Cedric. "Let me guess, Circle of Khanna business?"
Merula glanced at Cedric, who nodded at the question. "Granted, it wasn't me who recommended you."
"What?" Marietta sneered, turning over to look at Merula, her head tilted in a questioning angle. "Her? Recommendations from the blond ferret's sister?"
"A.J., recommended you." Cedric corrected Merula's least favourite Ravenclaw. "You impressed her. How? I'm not so sure."
"I'm flattered," Marietta muttered, rolling her eyes. "And if I say no?"
Cedric grimaced. He paused for a moment, as if he was surprised things had even gotten to this point. "Then I'd at least ask you to not mention any of this to Cho."
Marietta paused for a moment, closing her eyes, as if debating something. "She won't like it, me doing whatever it is you do behind her back, especially if-"
"None of that," Cedric raised his hands in surrender. "The… seniors, as you might remember them, are willing to step in if the situation becomes serious. All we need you to do is keep an eye out in Ravenclaw. We've been blind there since the last group graduated."
Marietta's lips turned from a frown to a tight line. "So you're saying I get the chance to have a normal seven years."
"We've already had one Defense professor turn out to be Voldemort," Cedric pointed out. "And that's not even mentioning how R was taken down in-"
"Can it," Marietta raised her hands and Cedric took the hint. "So what you're saying is that the odds of me having a quiet five and a half years is slim to none."
Cedric seemed to slump a little, but he nodded. "But inside the Circle, we should be better prepared to stop anything that comes against Hogwarts. And this past decade has shown that life at Hogwarts isn't always quiet like we want it to be."
Marietta nodded. "And Cho? Why not ask her?"
Cedric glanced over at Merula. "Could you give me a moment here?"
Merula shrugged and stepped aside, plugging her ears as she wandered down the hallway, keen to give the two older students the privacy they needed.
She hadn't even reached the end of the hallway when an arm shot out of the dark and grabbed at her.
Merula liked to think of herself as on the level of Potter, but the move was so sudden, so unexpected, that all she could do was scream in shock as the pale hand grabbed at her, then suddenly retracted into the corridor a second later, as if stung.
"What are you even doing here?" Merula hissed at Cho Chang, her hand on her chest, in a vain effort to keep her heart from exploding for the third time in less than ten minutes.
"I-" Cho stammered before suddenly breaking into a language Merula didn't understand. But just her presence, so close to Cedric and Marietta, gave Merula a nagging feeling to her true intentions.
Merula spared Cedric and Marietta a glance, and sure enough, Cedric was already hurrying toward her, while Marietta, suddenly promoted to Merula's second-least favourite Ravenclaw, had simply face-palmed behind Cedric's back, as if she refused to witness the impending row between the two not-particularly subtle lovers.
"Cedric," Merula took a step back, away from Cho before she moved to join Marietta in being discreet and out of the way. "I think, for all of our sakes, that you deal with this in private."
Cedric paused, midstep. Merula was sure he could not see Cho yet, not unless he had the ability to see through walls, but understanding crossed his face.
"Right," he finished, his voice stiff as Merula spared Cho one last glance, still half hidden in shadow but with a face flushed as red as Marietta's hair. "I'll- I'll handle this."
Once again, Merula plugged her ears as she went back to watching Lockhart's door, exchanging a glance with a increasingly irritated Marietta as she did so.
But just as Merula leaned against the wall, a shouting voice came from a distant corridor, one muffled as distorted by echoes as it reached Merula, but she couldn't deny that it drew her attention and planted a seed of paranoia in her mind.
Merula met Marietta's eyes again, and she saw the older girl grimace, her stance no longer a cross between bored and irritated but careful and guarded instead.
"Professor!" Merula could hear the distant voice shout, shaking and exhausted. "The-"
"Heir," Marietta muttered, shaking her head and glaring at Merula, exasperation in her voice. "It has to be the Heir."
Merula nodded as she glanced back at the door to Lockhart's office. Marietta's cold, dull energy was already seeping into Merula like a wet blanket, but Merula fought it off. If she was lucky and Lockhart had been careless, perhaps he could be exposed before yet another victim could be whacked. And perhaps then Merula could enjoy a quiet year for once.
"Professor Lockhart!" the voice was closer this time. "There's been another attack from the Heir!"
Merula gritted her teeth, and she noticed even Marietta clench her fists, even as Cedric and Cho stepped out of the side corridor, their… intimate business cast to the side for the time being.
Merula snapped to attention, ready to kick down Lockhart's door when the messenger, face as red as Cho from earlier, though for an obviously different reason, burst into the hallway, tripping on the floor in the process and landing face-first onto the ground.
Merula headed forward to the downed Gryffindor boy, but she was further away from Cedric and Cho, who helped the downed boy up, and she reached the downed boy several moments later, but just in time to hear his message.
"-and we have a witness this time." The boy was babbling, his eyes unfocused even as Cedric pulled out a handkerchief to stem his bleeding nose. "We have-"
"Enough with you," Cedric barked, and the boy stopped his shouting. "Rest now. Merula, we should-"
Merula was about to ask Cedric what was wrong when she felt a shadow come over her, and she spun around, just in time to see Lockhart come to a stop behind her.
"I think we should all investigate the scene, no?" Lockhart said with the biggest smile on his face, as if he hadn't just petrified the victim. "Come, we shall discover the truth together."
AN: This chapter is sort of an introduction for the future core of the story, namely, Merula, Cho, and Marietta.
The reasons are manifold:
1: I need someone to take the spots of Barnaby and Ismelda (while both of them will feature later on, a seven year time gap makes them unrelatable to Merula.)
2: Two of the four houses are, for lack of a better word, no-go zones, Gryffindor, (for what Merula did to Ginny and what she's going to do in the future), and Slytherin (because Draco, Blaise, and Pansy exist, and I really can't see Merula be friends with any one of them).
3: Cho and Marietta are really quite underused in the story, and while I won't change too much, both of them deserve... better endings to their stories, even if one of them is going to have a lot worse of a life before things get better.
4: I need a reason to make a magic microwave joke. If you get it you get it.
