--
By the time you swear you're his,
Shivering and Sighing,
And he vows this passion is
INFINATE-
UNDYING,
Make a note of this,
one of you is LYING.
-Ozaki, Minami
Roz: Well this took for-bloody-ever, but it really couldn't be helped. Honest. Moving, moving, moving, working, working, working. It was all very tiring, I assure you. But here it is, chapter nine in all it's chapter nine-ness. Enjoy it for what it's worth and ignore it for what it's not worth.
Chapter 9: Barry and Birds
Harry noted that Lucinda's mind was not completely on the potion they were brewing, though he found it quite interesting that, only paying half attention, she was still able to correct his errors. Thus far, Harry'd been able to pick up a few tricks about stirring (Lucinda said it was always best to stir your mixture slowly and clockwise unless directions specified otherwise), some new uses for monksfoot (Lucinda professed that it could be used as a substitute for curryscow root in most potions and in most cases made the draughts more potent), and had managed to get absolutely no new information about the prefect, herself (Lucinda had scowled at him and threatened detention if he kept speaking out of turn). All in all, he thought as Lucinda accompanied him back to Gryffindor house, it had been a rather pleasant evening.
"Needing someone to walk you home now, Scarhead." Draco Malfoy sauntered up toward them, his thin lips curled in a sneer though his icy eyes held in them something Harry couldn't properly read.
"Are you insinuating, Mr. Malfoy, that I have nothing better to do than baby-sit students?" the Britholden prefect hissed, though Harry could tell she meant Draco no harm. Pity. Yawning, Harry relaxed and prepared to watch Draco tremble and stutter out apologies.
"Not at all Miss Vesdemort, I was simply..."
"Name calling is a bit childish, don't you think?" the prefect continued, taking a moment to wink at Harry as Draco bowed down low in apology, almost as if here were going to drop to his knees and kiss her boots. Sighing inwardly Lucinda was wondering why it was that she was always forced into the most despicable tasks...Potions tutor indeed. Dragnon was probably still mad at her over the entire Alohamora incident last year when she'd caused every lock in the school to explode, injuring three professors, of which Dragnon had been one, and thirty students. It was the first time in years that the hospital wing had been packed full. "Perhaps a few evenings of detention will hasten your maturation, Draco. I will meet you here tomorrow before dinner, I have some Potions work to do and you will assist me. Bring your dragon's hide gloves, wear something you don't mind ruining, and leave your attitude locked securely in your trunk, am I understood?"
*******
Harry lay on his bed listening as Ron sang along, quite decently he had to admit, to a small radio-thing the redhead had been given last Christmas from Fred and George. The twins had managed to create an orb that randomly received muggle radio, wizarding radio, and eavesdropped in on conversations. Whenever a muggle song would come on Ron would cringe away from the orb and busy himself with his homework. It was, Harry noted, the only time he busied himself with his homework. "If you don't keep your studies up you're going to fail," he tossed off at his friend when the singing faded and sounds of someone named Leola breaking up with her boyfriend, whom had yet to be called anything other than "you bastard" or "despicable dolt" filled the air.
"You're sounding like 'Mione, stop it." Ron snapped.
"What's wrong now?" Harry sighed, "You two didn't have another fight did you?" He took Ron's grunt as assent and decided to change the subject, usually a smart plan when Ron was upset. "Big Quidditch match tomorrow, you think we're ready?"
"We're going to crush those nancy, no good Hufflepuffs into the ground and dance on their graves," Ron snarled, beating his right fist into his palm and grinning devilishly. "I only wish their idiot prefect was on the team so our Beaters could send a bludger right into his idiot..."
"Ron, I understand you're brassed off at them for interfering with you and Hermione, but don't you think you're going a bit far?" Ron shot him a deathly glare and he gulped but stood his ground, or rather sat his bed as the case may be. "Don't get me wrong, mate, I want to beat them so badly that their children and grandchildren will hear of their miserable defeat and be scorned forever because of it, but dancing on their graves is a bit much, don't you think?"
Ron laughed at Harry's joke but, despite his friend's words, he still floated to sleep with images of little gravestones with the Hufflepuff crest on them, shattered broomsticks lying in a cross above freshly made graves, and the members of the Gryffindor Quidditch team dancing around a bonfire, roasting marshmallows (Harry had once shown him how to create this muggle treat and he had to admit they were rather good) and sending off fireworks from their wands.
*****
"Draco, stir more forcefully, the potion will never be done at this rate." Lucinda stood behind Draco in an emerald green sundress and a white Chef's apron that read across it "Witches Brew it Better." The apron was a recent addition to her collection of muggle artifacts and she'd been waiting for the perfect chance to break it in. "Mr. Potter, can you tell me why we would stir a potion such as this more forcefully than, shall we say, a sleeping potion?"
"The ingredients in a sleeping draught, no matter the type, are more fluid and fluid potions should be stirred lightly and slowly as to not damage them. However, in a corrosive spell like this the ingredients are more granular and if you want them to blend properly you must mix quickly and with force." Harry sneered at Draco when Lucinda turned to get something from one of Professor Snape's personal cabinets. Draco glowered back, his eyes promising retribution upon his old rival.
"Draco, stir," Lucinda commanded. "Harry, if you're going to pester us then make yourself useful and make this." She thrust a paper at Harry, who looked at the list and groaned; by the time he finished this potion he'd have just enough time to freshen up before lunch, then the Quidditch match would commence.
"I expect you'll be ruthless in the game this afternoon, Potter," Draco tossed off as he stirred, his arms beginning to get tired though he'd be damned if he'd let it show in front of Potter.
"No Malfoy, I planned on just letting the Bludgers hit me, forget about swatting them at the other teams. Isn't it time we make Quidditch into a more friendly sport? How about we just toss water balloons instead of Bludgers, much nicer don't you think?"
"Draco, send that brew over to this pot will you?" Lucinda motioned to a pot that stood beside her, tapping it on the brim twice with her wand. As the mixture sailed toward her, the prefect eyed it critically. "Perfect, well done Draco. Harry, in all your sarcasm have you managed to get the potion base made?"
"Cauldron's empty," Draco snickered, giving his wand a swish and moving his own cauldron back to its storage shelf.
"Nevermind, I'll do it tomorrow," Lucinda sighed. "Let's go get some food, shall..." Lucinda's eyes lit up and her posture straightened. "Come, quickly!"
"The devil?" Harry asked, pausing before following Lucinda and Draco out of the dungeons and out toward the field, where a large fiery dragon was rampaging across the lawn.
"Well that worked nicely," Lucinda congratulated herself quietly. When she had first arrived on campus she had taken it upon herself as a sort of warm up Charms exercise to place a translocation Charm on an old money pouch and leave it lying about the lawn. The first person to pull out one of the ten galleons within would find themselves faced with a fully grown Norwegian Ridgeback.
"Where did that come from?" Draco pondered while he watched a Gryffindor run in screaming circles around the dragon, his hand clutching a galleon that seemed a bit shinier than usual.
"Guess that'll teach him to go thieving about," Harry chuckled. "You'll have to show us that one, it's rather beautiful to watch." Draco turned and observed his rival for a moment, his brows knit in frustration. Potter hadn't been acting at all like Potter in the last week and it was getting bothersome, particularly for Draco, who had made a study of the Gryffindor poster child since they had first met so many years ago. Harry's chin was held a little higher these days and his sense of humor was a bit darker; more sharp and morbid. If he didn't know better, he'd have bet a thousand galleons that this Harry Potter wasn't Potter at all, but some old Hogwarts School Slytherin having some fun with a bit of Polyjuice Potion. The thought of Harry tied up and starving in a basement while some sinister character masqueraded around in his likeness was enough to bring a chuckle from low in Draco's throat, catching the attention of both Harry and Lucinda. Harry immediately dismissed it as another of Draco's idiosyncrasies and Lucinda, after lifting a questioning brow was too taken up in the glory of her Charms experiment to care about some First Year Slytherin indulging in fantasies.
"Nicely done Vesdemort, what're you doing for an encore?" a snide voice rung through the air, cutting Lucinda's joy short. Standing before her was Barry Erdman, the bane of her existence. The rat had been pestering her endlessly since she was a First Year and took any opportunity he could to tattle on her to the Cadaver, seeing as he was her favorite student.
"We all know I can't do Charms to save my life, Erdman, now go run to the Cadaver, for a moment I was beginning to think a bit of your own foul stench was beginning to break through the scent of her rotting bitterness." Professor McGaver wore a very...distinctive perfume that she blended herself, from the blood of expelled students no doubt.
"Oh look, it's your mangy little bird, seems like she's contracted leprosy. Don't you take care of your pets, Vesdemort?" The tall blonde looked toward Rhaja who had most definitely had worse Burning times, but now that her Burning Day was but a few days off, she really shouldn't have been out at all. Of course, telling the bird this and having her listen was a different matter entirely. Rhaja was quite like her master and refused to show any sign that she might not be feeling up to par, like the time Lucinda had contracted pneumonia and collapsed in the middle of Potions because she had decided not to disclose her illness to anyone, particularly the Mediwizardry personnel and Professor Dragnon, who then forced her to stay in her bed for a week and drink purposefully nasty recovery potions.
"Rhaja is quite capable of taking care of herself, Erdman, now scamper off, I have students here and I don't want them to contract any of your stupidity." Here she turned to Harry and Draco with a tight smile. "Mediwizardry still can't find a cure for a case as severe as his, but a few good thwacks with a broom ought to smarten you two up again." A pained squawk cut through the air and all three turned to see Barry pluck a feather from Rhaja's tail, holding it in front of himself in disgust.
"This thing smells horrid, why don't you let me put it out of its misery. We can't have it flying around infecting other animals with whatever disease it has."
"First, phoenixes do not contract diseases, which any first year apprentice would know. And second, I suggest you get your wand out because no one touches my things without asking." Lucinda pulled her wand out of an apron pocket before taking the beloved item off and handing it in a folded pile to Draco. "I trust you'll keep it safe."
"Remember what happened last time we dueled, you almost got expelled?" Barry seemed hesitant to draw his wand, taking a few steps back, fear flickering in his hazel eyes, bringing the highlights of green he had inherited from his mother to the fore.
"And you almost got killed. Pity that last one missed the mark, I would've loved to look into your dead eyes, I imagine they would be quite lovely." Lucinda flicked her wand and an invisible barrier began to grow around her and Barry, pushing what few onlookers there were back. "Can't have you running away."
****
"Miss Riddle, I believe you know why you're here." Professor McGaver's skeletal face peered at Lucinda from behind carefully folded and raised hands. McGaver's office, which appeared more like a cave to the prefect, was a large place with tall stone walls and a sloping ceiling, though there was but one thing adorning the entirety of the room, save volumes of texts placed alphabetically and categorically on sunk in shelves, and that was a poster that read in letters that flashed from black to red to gold to silver, "Obedience Saves Lives."
"There are actually several things that I could be here for, Professor McGaver, but I don't want to go incriminating myself, now do I?" She spared a kind, sweet smile for the decaying woman before her. "So, if it wouldn't be too much trouble, could you possibly paraphrase the incident in question so that we might come to a solution together?" The last bit had been regurgitated verbatim from Lucinda's first visit to McGaver's office in her first year when she had disapparated Barry's left arm after stunning him and flying him off school grounds. Had the incident not occurred out of school jurisdiction, McGaver would've expelled her.
"I am referring, Miss Riddle, to your duel with Mister Erdman this morning, in which you performed several spells whose use have been banned from this campus, as you may well know seeing as you're the reason these spells were banned in the first place." A skeletal hand raised to point at the seemingly calm prefect who was sure that this would be the incident that tipped the scales out of her favor. She could torment students so long as none of them had lasting injuries; that was the silent agreement between the two that had been the outcome of their first meeting and, until now, Lucinda had kept to that agreement. "You are aware, of course, that we have yet to find a counter-charm to whatever you did to him. Your punishment might be less severe if you cooperate with us."
"I haven't a clue what happened. I was endeavoring an Expelliarmus and everything went wrong." It wasn't a complete lie, she had been thinking about the charm and then had decided, at the last moment, to improvise; the result of that being Barry's wand exploding in a fantastic show of colors and knocking him into a coma, his body swathed in a sheet of electricity that nothing seemed to be able to penetrate. It was Lucinda's all time best work and she had no idea if she could ever replicate it.
"I'll be speaking with Dean Palmerdore on this incident and in the meantime you're suspended from all school activities, including the observation of this afternoon's Quidditch match." McGaver's fingertips drummed lightly against one another as she peered over her partly clasped hands at a white-faced Lucinda. "Struck a cord, have I? Don't think that I don't know that you were the cause of all this dissention between the Houses, a child of evil could breed no less. Your father was a worthless cur and was tossed out of the Ministry for it, I doubt you'll do any better if you even get that far. All of the Wizarding World knows the worth of a Riddle." Lucinda's body shook in small tremors and she refused to look up into McGaver's contented face. "You may leave my office now."
*****
"Did you hear about Miss Vesdemort?" a Hufflepuff asked his companion in an unusually loud whisper.
"I heard she and Barry Erdmann from Gryffindor House got into it and she killed him!" a Piagera replied, not bothering to pretend secrecy; she knew the facts and wanted everyone in the Great Hall to know it.
"She'll be expelled, no doubt," the Hufflepuff replied, his gamine features smug and satisfied.
"Walled up in Azkaban if there's any justice in this world," a Gryffindor chimed in, warming to the discussion. "Have you noticed the members of Britholden are nowhere to be seen?"
"They're probably hiding in shame, I know I would be if Feiffer ever committed such a heinous act," a second Hufflepuff added in passing.
"Maybe Erdmann is a git and deserved what he got," Harry called as he walked past the gossiping gaggle, not bothering to stop and relish their looks of disgust. He knew he was bound to hear a bevy of "Potter's gone mad" and "what's gotten into him" when he next came into the Great Hall and couldn't find it in himself to care. These people were idiots and their opinions weren't worth consideration. Despite his words though, he wasn't entirely sure that what Lucinda had done was the proper thing. She had entrapped Erdmann and fried the living Hell out of him, not particularly sporting. Of course, from what he heard of their past, the two were never sporting. Deciding that he'd had enough of his fellow schoolmates, Harry made his way out to find Lucinda and see if she had been expelled yet. Knowing the Britholden prefect as he did, Harry was betting she would be in the gardens under the statue, brooding to herself and hoping no one noticed.
*****
On unsteady feet Lucinda made her way to the gardens, where she sat under her favorite statue, one of Professor Dumbledore. She recalled her first day at Hogwarts and how the old man had been the only one not to cast a wary glance at her, the only one not afraid of her lineage and it's taint. "I don't know why I even bother," she sighed, leaning back against the statue's pedestal and sinking to the ground, pulling her knees to her chest and wrapping her robes tightly about her.
"Because if you don't then everyone else wins," came a tired reply. Harry, his face pale and haunted sat down next to the prefect.
"You've been thinking unpleasant thoughts," Lucinda remarked, eyeing him critically "and you should be eating lunch in preparation for the match." The last thing Lucinda wanted was some first year fuddling around her when she was feeling wretched, though fate always seemed to enjoy giving her wretchedness an audience.
"After you smashed Erdman the Gryffindors started wondering if me taking Potions lessons from you was the wisest course of action, seeing that everyone knows you're tutoring me and no one will ever let me live down how poorly I did in it at Hogwarts School." Harry made a sour face at the memory then turned his attention to stare off toward the Quidditch field. "Whatever made Erdman decide to study law in Gryffindor was definitely not working in his better interest. Now that you've more or less offed him, Gryffindor house is terrified that you'll do the same to anyone who crosses you in the House War.
"It's going to be odd not hunting the Snitch, isn't it?" Lucinda asked, following Harry's gaze and taking the first opportunity possible to steer the conversation away from the incident with Erdman.
"It's not going to be too bad, being a Beater's a lot different, you have a different mindset. Instead of dodging and running, you stand your ground and hunt out others; I like that." Harry frowned and turned back to the forlorn prefect, crossing his arms over his chest and standing up so he cast a shadow on her huddled form. "What were you worrying about? And don't tell me that first years shouldn't meddle in the affairs of prefects because I'll be forced to hit you, and I can do a proper Expelliarmus."
"Touche," Lucinda grumbled, getting to her feet with a faint smile. This was almost like her discussions with Professor Snape back in the Slytherin common room at Hogwarts School. Late at night Lucinda would be up studying with her books, quills, and scrolls scattered about the floor and Snape would come in, frowning because it was "past the time all horrid little children should be in bed." Lucinda would then go on about some problem she was having with her classmates, at which point Snape would tell her to set a nasty trap for whomever was bothering her as "seeing your enemy flounder about in misery always seems to dissipate your own." Lucinda studied Harry for a moment as he glowered at her in what she assumed was disapproval and smiled at him with a touch of the weariness she felt showing. "I was just thinking, Mr. Potter, about the nature of evil."
"And why would you be doing that?" was the immediate response, even as Harry unconsciously looked off in the direction of McGaver's office.
"Imagine yourself the progeny of a long line of dark wizards and witches, most of them harmless due to their bumbling idiocy, but some of them with enough skill and power to do truly horrible things." Lucinda motioned for Harry to follow her along the garden's path. "Now can a person of such a lineage be anything other than what it sprung from? Can a heart of pitch and stone create one of flesh and blood? Or does it create something of a mutant heart? And what good can the sensibilities, tarnished by birth as they are, ever amount to?"
"You're not evil if that's what you're getting at." Though Harry was quick to reassure Lucinda of what he perceived her fear to be, the prefect's words had given him pause.
"I'm talking in abstract, Harry not in the particular." Lucinda stopped at bush of amaryllis and looked at it for a moment before sighing. "We have not yet come to a decision on our original question: how does one become evil? Is it something one is born with or something that is acquired slowly over time? When have you crossed the line to stand firmly on the side of evil and what does evil constitute? Is it a conscious process or does the fact that someone is labeled evil reside solely on the outlook of others? Is it some comparative that we've devised to mark out individuals that our morals and honor cannot accept?"
Harry paused, giving the question good thought, and couldn't think of a bugger-all thing to say besides, "I don't know."
"You see Harry, the problem is that no one knows the answer to that question." Lucinda's gaze was far off again, focused on something near the horizon. Her eyes glinted in the fading sun and Harry thought he caught a saline haze sliding slowly over them. "We can say 'that's evil' and mean it with all our hearts, but we couldn't, for the life of us tell you why it's evil. Take Voldemort for example." Harry most certainly did not want to take Voldemort for anything. In fact, he'd rather the name never be mentioned again, particularly since with the name came seven years of bloody memories that he'd rather like to forget. "He was once just Tom Riddle, the annoying son of my grandfather's adopted muggle brother. At some point he became the greatest evil the Wizarding World has ever known. But was it the first killing that turned him? The ideas and hatred roiling in his head? What makes him so very different from every other cruel person out there or every other man who's ever killed to back up his beliefs? Perhaps Tom was only doing what he thought to be right, maybe to him we are the evil ones."
Harry didn't respond, couldn't really for he had nothing to add to that. He had hated Voldemort with an intensity he was sure he'd never feel again and he was fairly sure that Voldemort felt the same about him. Despite this, he couldn't say what it was that made Voldemort evil, it was just a feeling he got when he heard the wizard's name, a churning in the pit of his stomach whenever they had come into contact with one another. With a sigh Harry followed Lucinda's stare and his eyes came to rest upon a remarkable sunset. The clouds were thin wisps in the air, alight like phoenix fire in shades of orange and red with thin streams of pure white around the edges. "So what got you thinking about all this mess?" he asked, his eyes still watching the dropping sun. "It's not something you'd just come up with out of the blue."
"I was just wondering where I fit into it all," she admitted through a sigh. The sigh told Harry everything he needed to know about why the prefect was pondering evil. It held in it loneliness, despair, and confusion; all emotions Harry knew well.
"You're not evil, we already covered that," he said, this time his voice held a little more sympathy, though he couldn't figure out why Lucinda Riddle would conceive herself an evil person. She was ambitious, true. She was direct, almost to the point of tactlessness. But Lucinda had never failed to take care of her housemates or her friends, at least that Harry had heard of and although he knew that Frances was a thorn in Lucinda's side, she hadn't lifted her wand to him once. Harry took a moment to wonder when his opinion of the prefect had changed and realized that it was while he had been learning Potions that he had come to tolerate her. Though she was decidedly difficult at times, Lucinda had taught him what he'd need to know for Dragnon's "special project" and some besides. No evil woman could've done the same.
"So sure of that are you, Mr. Potter? So sure that I'm not evil even when you cannot pinpoint what it is that would make me evil?" Lucinda stretched her neck to either side, popping the bones back into place before turning to look at Harry with earnest green eyes. "Consider these things, some traits I've noted in some we might call evil. Number one, willingness to use the Dark Arts."
"If it's to defend yourself or protect others, there's no problem with it." Harry was quick to reply, seeing as he'd used the Dark Arts for such a purpose and he most certainly wasn't evil.
"But in the context of an offensive attack in, say a duel?" Harry didn't like the look in Lucinda's eyes but was forced to reply anyhow.
"Wrong of course." He couldn't bring himself to say it was an evil act, particularly when he knew that Lucinda had once used a Dark spell in a duel. The feeling that he was being lead into a verbal trap intensified as the prefect continued to question him, leaving just enough time for him to respond before pressing on.
"Striving for mental control of another?"
"Most definitely wrong," Harry said with conviction. Lucinda asked question after question until she had tried Harry's patience.
"Murder of a rival?"
"I don't see what any of this has to do with you being evil." During the questioning Harry's head had come to rest lightly on the pedestal he was using as a backrest. It was almost time for him to prepare for the Quidditch match and he couldn't go into the game with dark thoughts dancing in his head; he'd get distracted.
"Don't you? my first year here I was in detention for half a year for use of the Dark Arts in a duel, well thirty six duels to be precise. Emilia Dixon still can't cast a proper spell because of what I did to her. And then you look at what I did to Erdmann today, without even thinking." Lucinda took a deep breath and stood up. "But don't worry about it Harry, it's just me being hormonal or some such nonsense, it'll be gone before too long. Now why don't you start getting ready for the Quidditch match, we're counting on you lot to trounce Hufflepuff."
"Where will you be sitting, I'll try to launch one of the Hufflepuff players your way for a good beating." Harry smiled, glad they had dropped the subject.
"I'll be sitting in my room, in detention where the Cadaver wants me." Lucinda shrugged and stretched her arms above her head. "Could be worse, I could've been expelled." She patted the top of Harry's head and strode off toward Britholden House, a gesture Harry was not fond of at all. "Bloody 'em good!" she called over her shoulder.
Harry decided that if Ms. Riddle mussed his hair like that again the Hufflepuffs would not be the only ones getting bloodied. All thoughts of evil and old enemies gone, Harry ran off to Gryffindor House to don his Quidditch uniform and prepare to give Hufflepuff a taste of bludger. Harry had studied the stats and listened to Rita go on about Hufflepuff's players; there was no way they were going to lose.