Matt Briar did not return to classes for two weeks.
The first 'post-disaster' walk to breakfast was not nearly as bad as Drucy had feared. She slept late, and hurried through a mostly-empty common room before reaching a Great Hall already filled with students. To her surprise, there was no particular hush when she entered the room. Some of the students at the Gryffindor table glared from the other end of the enormous room. Her fellow Slytherins, on the other hand, greeted her with a subdued friendliness, as if they did not want to show their approval too strongly. When she glanced up at the Head Table, Hagrid winked at her, but none of the other teachers were looking in her direction.
Drucy didn't take long to sit down with Roenna and fill her in. They settled close to the Common Room window just after their last class, watching the anemone garden as Drucy told her the whole story, in detail, including the part that nobody else had yet heard… how Drucy felt about this whole thing, her fears and hopes. Roenna proved herself to be a true friend. Not knowing what to say, she remained mostly silent, except to assure Drucy that she wasn't crazy, and her feelings were not wrong, which was exactly what Drucy needed to hear. Drucy was afraid that she had driven away her Gryffindor friend when he did not approach her for a couple of days, but Daniel finally caught up with her between classes and admitted that, though he had given her some space to work things through, he had also followed her quietly whenever he could, to see that she would come to no harm. Drucy wasn't sure if she was touched or secretly irritated, but Roenna told Drucy that he was being adorable.
As the Matt Briar-Free weeks unfolded, two major details stood out for Drucy. The first was that, suddenly, it seemed that one could not walk down a hallway in peace without being hoisted up by the ankle. Snape was apparently not the only person who knew about this particular spell, and Flitwick assured his classes that it tended to wander into vogue from time to time, like lace edging on men's dress robes. Like the lace edging, he opined, the sooner it passed on, the better.
Drucy asked Snape's portrait if there was a way to shield from Levicorpus, or to use Liberacorpus on yourself rather than waiting for your tormenter to let you down. "Oh yes," he told her. "All you need is sufficient force of will, and you can collapse the spell. Levicorpus does not even require a particularly strong will to break. If you can cast it on another, you can end it on yourself, and with a little practice, you can even deflect it completely, if you wish."
"Why wouldn't you wish?" Drucy asked in surprise.
Snape's portrait looked grim for a moment, eyes distant. "If you wanted to show someone… if you were willing to sacrifice your own dignity, to put a bully's behavior on display, so that… others… would see him for who he really was."
Drucy guessed by his reaction that he was speaking of himself and another person, long before she was born. She remained silent for a moment, respectfully. Then she asked, quietly and delicately, "Did it work?"
"No," the portrait said, and fell silent for the rest of the evening. This was not the first time Snape had refused to speak for a while. Drucy was beginning to learn which subjects seemed to particularly bother him, and she knew that he never held any grudges against her, so if she hit upon a sore point, she knew that she could merely speak to him tomorrow.
The second notable event was Drucy's breakthrough in Charms Class. A few days after 'the disaster', when Charms was the last period before supper, Professor Flitwick asked her to stay after class. "I don't usually go into detail on the theory behind Charms in the first year," he told her, "but I think that you will find this useful." She tried desperately to understand the mini-lecture that followed. Near the end of it, though, he said something that caught her attention. "Charms are curses," the small-statured professor told her, "and curses are charms. Hexes, jinxes, and curses… the only reason why we do not teach them as charms, the only reason why we separate them in our vernacular is because of the intent of the caster. However, I have seen charms used to injure, and I have seen hexes, jinxes, and curses used to save lives. I know now that you have what may seem like a terribly difficult wand for charms. Charm wands like to be more flexible and not quite so long. English Oak is unyielding by nature. But I am told that you are marvelously good at Levicorpus. This is a form of the levitation charm. I would like to try it with you."
Flitwick had two wooden gimbals of some sort. Drucy didn't know what they were originally for, but he lifted his into the air and directed her to use Wingardium Leviosa to knock it out of the air with the other. Drucy posed it to her wand as a challenge, and found that she enjoyed the game so much that she didn't even fully realize that she had mastered a charm until he asked her to simply use it on a feather, just like the rest of the class had done in their very first class. To her astonishment, her wand performed the spell easily and with none of its usual obstinacy!
"It seems that you need an alternative teaching method, at least to start," Flitwick told her kindly. "I will arrange a time for remedial classes, and you should be back on schedule by spring break."
"Please don't fail me for Christmas," Drucy begged, and he assured her that he would grade her based on her remedial work rather than ranking her with the other students. She was so happy by the time she left the classroom that she felt as if she had applied Wingardium Leviosa to her own body, and it didn't even matter to her that she had utterly missed supper. When she began to realize that she was hungry, she retreated to her room for an 'early night', called Topsy, and ordered a snack, which the house elf was only too happy to provide.
Drucy was tired that night, but she was not too tired to notice a change in the family house-elf. Topsy seemed almost nervous, maybe even a little frightened. As she watched Topsy deliver the snack and remove the empty dishes, Drucy didn't notice any odd behavior towards herself personally, but something was obviously bothering the house-elf. As Drucy settled down in her bed, tired as she was, she decided to address it. "Topsy, are you okay? Is something the matter?"
"Mistress Drucy is very kind," Topsy replied. Her voice trembled slightly. "All is well at the manor. The place is clean and the chores are done."
Drucy's mother had taught her how to treat a house-elf kindly. Her father, kind as he was in all other respects, never seemed to have anything to do with them, nor did he take any special care for their comfort. "Topsy," Drucy said carefully. "I can see that something is bothering you. You're not in any trouble. Can you tell me what it is? Have you been ordered not to tell?"
That was enough encouragement for Topsy, who poured out her tale of woe. She knew she was getting older. Mistress Millicent had been so kind to her, and had kept her for so many years, but now Topsy had heard that Mistress Millicent was planning to buy two more house-elves, younger, quicker ones who could work harder and faster. Topsy knew that there were house-elves who had been sent away from their masters or forcibly retired when they grew old. She was terrified of being told that she could no longer work. She did not know what was going to become of her.
Drucy knew that house-elves liked to work, and that, with a few rare exceptions, they actually liked to be owned. As she saw the house-elf who had tended to her and sung her to sleep for as long as she could remember, she realized that she had never known exactly why. "Topsy…" She had to phrase this carefully, delicately. "Are you able to tell me why you are frightened of being retired? Why house-elves - most of them, anyways - want a master? I admit I've never wondered, and nobody has ever told me."
Topsy looked up at Drucy, her eyes enormous. "Oh, Topsy can explain. Topsy can tell Little Mistress all about it. We were created. Topsy was born, but the mother… and mother… and mother… and mother… and mother…"
"I get the idea," Drucy broke in, caught between amusement, intrigue, and concern. "Go on. House-elves themselves were created? Not natural beings like dragons or flobberworms? Who created your kind?"
"Big… Big bad… terrible…" Topsy shivered. "Topsy does not want to think on it, oh no. Something cruel. He would take possession. Mistress Drucy understands? He made a hole in house-elves, and he would fill it, and house-elves must do his bidding. But the wizards came, and they were kinder and gentler. They became master, and he could not take possession, because they did, and he was angry, and they fought him…"
Drucy thought this over for a moment. "He created you to serve. All you could do was to decide who your master would be. If we own you… he can't? Or couldn't? Is he dead?"
Topsy shook her head hard, eyes shut tight, ears flopping. "Topsy does not know," she said, her voice low and terrified. "No house-elf knows. But if he comes back, he can take possession…"
"…if you have no master," Drucy finished, understanding now. "You don't know if he's dead, and you don't want to take that chance. I'm guessing the contract means that you have to work, or we have to acknowledge that you work, or something like that."
"Mistress Drucy understands," Topsy answered, opening her eyes again. "Little Mistress is very wise. Sometimes, the house-elf wants to take the chance. Topsy does not want to take the chance…" She was obviously distressed, but at least she wasn't trying to punish herself. Drucy watched the little old house-elf for a moment, feeling very sorry for her. She knew she had to try to help.
"Topsy, don't be frightened. I'll talk to Mom - you didn't do anything wrong - and I'll make sure you have a master. Or mistress. Or someone." Ideas were already forming in her mind. "Christmas break is soon, I'll be home, and I'll make sure everything's okay. Okay? Don't be afraid."
Drucy didn't know if everything would be alright. She wasn't even entirely sure what she was going to say to her mother, and she didn't even know if it would do any good. But just saying it, just trying to assert it, made Topsy feel so much better that she was glad she had done it, and determined to try any trick to help her… old friend.