You're Not Part of the Club

I looked at myself in the mirror.

That particular action had never resulted in anything good, I don't know why I was surprised.

The girl staring back at me was just as plain and ugly as ever. The hunted look in her eye, hunch of her shoulders and flush of her face did little to improve conditions. Letting a shuddering breath pass my lips, I closed my eyes and tried to reconcile myself to the reflection in the mirror. It was really quite amazing how one could function in daily life without looking, really looking, in a mirror.

Of course I washed my face and brushed my hair, but by focusing on a single part of my anatomy at a time I managed to blot out the overall effect. I could go months without really seeing myself in the mirror. Most days I forgot I was ugly.

This was not most days.

Today I had to face them and I desperately needed courage.

They mocked me. Everyone did. After my last stunt I couldn't really blame them. Jumping out of a window was just damn stupid. I cursed myself for failing to think things through and vowed to stop experimenting with magic. I knew I was lying to myself, as I did every time one of my projects blew up spectacularly in my face. I would never stop.

I was addicted to the adrenaline of experimenting with magic.

It was an extreme sport. That incredible thrill I got every time when just before completing the final step, my mind would race over a million and one connections and remember thousands of pages of text. That moment when anything was possible and the entire way I viewed and understood the world could be changed in an instant. I knew why I chased that high.

I was trying to recapture the moment when I first discovered I was a witch, sitting in my living room and watching McGonagal turn the lamp into an ostrich.

People often use the phrase 'paradigm shift' without really realizing what it means. Carefully touching the ostrich's feathers I believed in magic for the first time. The entire universe had... twisted. Up was down, down was up and thousands of previously un-thought thoughts spontaneously appeared in my mind. I was suddenly different in an unfamiliar world. It was a departure into a radically new reality I could never have conceived before that moment. Everything changed and I stood reeling from the shock-waves.

At first, discovering the wizarding world had been enough. There had been so much to learn, so much I did not know. I soon grew restless. Learning from books was not enough, I wanted Truth.

I no longer accepted the solidity of the foundations of any of my knowledge. If the entire construct of my beliefs could collapse as if built on quicksand once, it could do so again. I wanted to get to the bedrock underneath. I needed Truth.

I knew I would never find it, but I could no longer rest. This terrible addiction would send me searching for the rest of my life.

I was not alone. Almost all magical innovation in the past hundred years had been done by muggleborns. Muggleborns had a greatly reduced life expectancy compared to other witches and wizards. Most did not die of disease or exterminated by Voldemort. They died when experiments went wrong. Throwing the power of magic around in new ways was dangerous. Eventually most went too far, missed a calculation or mishandled an ingredient. That strange younger Ravenclaw...Luna Lovegoods' mother had been a muggleborn.

I was soon going to accidentally blow myself up. I knew it and everyone else knew it too.

I shut my eyes and leaned my forehead on the cool glass, my arms resting on the porcelain sink. I tried calming myself. It was difficult, I hated being ridiculed.

I splashed water on my face before squaring my shoulder and looking at my reflection again.

Nope. I was still as ugly as sin. I tried sneering but only ended up looking like a constipated badger. Oh well...

I left the bathroom and tried to make my way across the common room as quickly and unnoticeable as possible. Ha! As if!

People tried not to stare, though a few first years couldn't help it. Conversations quieted as I came near, giggles were stifled. They all walked on eggshells around me. Hufflepuffs do not ridicule the same way as other people, they get too embarrassed at kicking you when your down. They pity you in a politely considerate way instead. I sometimes wish they'd just be downright nasty so that I would have an excuse to get angry at them. No, they make you feel like crap in more subtle ways.

I had made quite the scene after I finally escaped from the hospital wing yesterday. I started bawling in the middle of dinner. It was pathetically undignified.

My bare feet hitting the cool stone floor as I slipped out the door was the best feeling in the world. I didn't know where I was going but as I turned to leave I noticed Susan Bones crumpled in a heap against the wall.

"Hey, you ok?" I asked. Coming closer I noticed she was pale and shaking.

She turned her beautiful blue eyes towards we. I tried to control my jealousy that even tear-stained, she was effortlessly elegant.

"Bad new," she softly whispered holding up the evening edition of the Daily Prophet.

I sat down beside her and she shifted her blank gaze back to the opposite wall. Oh, Merlin. I was terrible at the whole sympathy thing. Usually I got so uncomfortable with the silence, my mouth just starts spewing uncensored word vomit. THE most inappropriate things are said. I tried to contain the word vomit that I felt bubbling up.

"How... How bad?" I ask hesitatingly.

She surprises me by laughing bitterly in response. "Just an acquaintance from my ministry work during the summer. I guess You-Know-Who never really seemed real before. This isn't something my parents have told me, it's not an unfamiliar stranger that might as well be fiction. This was a living-breathing woman for whom I had to fetch tea. I think I mentioned her...Emilia Beetlebod?"

I must have looked as blank as I felt.

"The one having her tryst in the closet," Susan prompted.

"Oh," I said. "The one you walked in on."

"What a thing to be remembered for," she muttered shaking her head. "She was found decapitated in her house this morning after she failed to report to work. The Dark Mark was above her house."

Susan handed me the newspaper she had been fiercely clutching. I smoothed it out over my knee. On the front page the image of the Dark Mark glowed against the sky under the title High Ranked Ministry Official Dead and Headless! I distractedly wondered if they had a stack of Dark Mark pictures they re-used or whether they actually bothered to take a new picture every time. It would have been a bit of a waste of time, the same two elements were to be found in all instances 1 - Standardized Dark Mark 2 - Sky backdrop. Did wizards have trick photography? Or a magical version of Photoshop? Come to think of it, the title was a bit redundant. Wouldn't being headless imply being dead? My eyes were drawn back to the picture.

The Dark Mark glowed ominously on the page.

OoooooooooooooooooooooO

Both Zabini and I arrived late to our meeting that night.

"Can't bother to show up on time Midgeon?" he said entering the room after me. "Great shifts of power are occurring in Slytherin house, I've have better things to do than wait around for you all day. I have got to protect my interests."

I rolled my eyes, sorely tempted to make a bitchy comment about the pot calling the kettle. Zabini was such a drama queen sometimes. "I had to calm one of my housemates down. Susan was upset because an acquaintance of her's was found murdered today."

"The Emilia Beetlebod murder?" He enquired, quickly searching his bag for the books he promised me.

I nodded, news sure got around fast. But he was Slytherin and they always knew before anyone else so I wasn't really surprised.

"Don't know why she'd be bothered," he said snottily. "Beetlebod was a Death Eater after all."

"What!" I exclaimed, shocked.

He seemed to enjoy sharing his superior knowledge with me. "Beetlebod has been one of the Dark Lord's moles in the ministry for years now. How do you think an incompetent wretch like Fudge stayed in power for so many years? As his public relations manager, she kept him in the good graces of the public and the press to prevent ministry interference as the Dark Lord rebuilt his power base. During that crucial period she prevented anyone competent from organizing any official opposition."

"If she was that useful, why was she murdered by You-Know-Who?"

Blaise looked troubled. "I don't know. It must have been something big. She was incredibly skilled. It was even rumoured she turned down a job as an unspeakable."

While I didn't know where Zabini's alliances lay, he was obviously very anxious at his lack of understanding of these latest events. Which could explain his prissy behaviour, it would be difficult to negotiate positions in Slytherin house without a proper understanding of events.

I couldn't help shaking my head. "And here I though she was just a floozie with loose morals. Death Eaters banging Dubois heirs in supply closets! What's the world coming to?"

Zabini froze so suddenly I looked around with alarm. After looking around in circles a few times, I turned back to him. There was no perceivable threat.

His breath had hitched and was coming rapidly. He came out of it as soon as I reached out to touch his shoulder.

"Where did you get this information? It changes everything," he seethed quietly. I suddenly felt very nervous, like a mouse confronted by a hungry snake. He stared suspiciously at me. His voice was cold, devoid of the usual jovial tones he used with me. I suddenly realized that this was who he was: cold, harsh, supreme manipulator. He could be playing me for all I was worth, over time I had relaxed and warmed to him. What had I done? Slytherins had temporary alliances not friends.

"Where?" he repeated. Magic faintly crackled around the room.

I took a step back, he was starting to scare me. For the first time in years I wondered what on earth had possessed me to think I could tame a Slytherin enough to gain knowledge from him. Why couldn't I just leave well enough alone? I truly did have a death wish.

"Just Hufflepuff gossip. Can I have the books?" I asked trying to grab them

Blaise held the books out of my reach as he considered me. I tensed, readying to flee or fight or I don't really know.

"You don't know what it means," he whispered to himself. "You have no fucking clue how huge this is."

He shook his head in wonder. "You are completely ignorant, clueless. Any pureblood child above the age of six would understand."

Now that was just insulting. However, I did have to admit that he was right. The ways and traditions of the old families were completely unfamiliar to me. It sometimes burned that I was not part of the exclusive and secretive pureblood club. "That's sort of why I thought contact with you was important," I said tartly despite my fear. "So you can explain this foreign culture to me."

Blaise slowly smiled. I was not reassured. He had a look in his eye I could not read. It presaged nothing good.

"The Dark Lord has been trying to make overtures to the French Dark wizards for a long time," he explained. "Their allegiance would dramatically increase his forces as well as establish a foothold on the continent. Both the Richelieu and Dubois houses are extremely powerful and influential. Gaining their support would quickly tip the balance in France to the Dark Lord's favour. A great alliance between the two houses has been planned for a long time. There is a lot at stake for both lineages. The Richelieu and Dubois heirs have been betrothed since before they were born. The Dubois heir's philandering must have been discovered by the Richelieus. They undoubtedly demanded the traditional blood payment of the mistresses' head. In this instance, that would be Beetlebod. By killing her off, the Dark Lord has just secured the Dubois' loyalty. We are all fucked."

Zabini abruptly threw me the books, I struggled to catch them.

"You might need them sooner than you think," he said quietly before quickly stalking out the door. I heard his tread diminish in the distance of the empty corridor.

OoooooooooooooooooooO

I dreamed that night of being betrayed to the Death Eaters by Zabini. He kept repeating: "I had no choice! You didn't know the secret handshake! You didn't know the secret handshake!" I woke knowing I had failed to make a crucial connection. Though I could not put my finger on it, I knew I had missed something huge.