Wangdoodled
Gryffindor Common Room, October Fifteenth
"Checkmate."
Jezibell knocked the white king over with a flick of her middle finger and an inward sigh. It was ninth time she fell for the sneak attack bishop in the twenty-six games lost to Ron Weasley. This was something Jezibell would never come to understand. How Ron, who couldn't strategize his way out of detention from Snape once a week, became mastermind once on the chessboard. Perhaps it was for this reason, to prove a person with no foresight cannot be crowned king of the checkered fields, that Jezibell took Harry and Hermione's place in the seat opposite the youngest Weasley brother and suffered her latest defeat by a decoy knight and stealthy bishop.
Ron smirked while gathering up the broken wizard's chess pieces that were already starting to reassemble. "You want to go for another round?"
"Yes, let's try for an even thirty," replied Jezibell coolly removing her own squirming man from the pile of wounded. Ron was laughing at her though he took care not to show it. Probably thought Jezibell would set Emmy on him if he did. She wouldn't, but it wasn't a bad assumption to have.
It's not that Jezibell was a terrible player - she was actually quite good within her own league. Part of the problem was the chess pieces themselves. They hated her. The ivory army was once property of her grandfather, Abraxas, and like his owl they seemed to be more aware of their surroundings than regular animated objects. Fully acknowledging and berating the fact they were stuck in the Gryffindor common room playing a bloodtraiter, they constantly griped and groaned about her military tactics. Jezibell supposed she would have better luck with them had she made Slytherin, but if she were Slytherin it is unlikely she would be playing or slaying a Weasley at chess. By now the feelings between army and commander were mutual. She couldn't stand the little buggers spouting off about Slytherin pride in the middle of a game and sometimes got a secret pleasure when Ron swept the floor with them.
But still, twenty-six games was a lot to lose. It was all Harry's fault. Jezibell wouldn't have played so many if she and Ron hadn't both finished their homework before Hermione and he was also available for slaughter. Harry had evening Quidditch practice, that lucky duck. Captain Oliver Wood was forcing his team to play at all hours ever since he heard Slytherin switched places with Hufflepuff in the upcoming match. This was thanks to Jezibell's stupid, stupid brother and his perfectly fine sling-ridden arm, which was also the same reason why Hagrid and Buckbeak were facing trial within the year and by extent why Jezibell was on her twenty-seventh round of chess this evening.
Jezibell made a rather rash move, taking a sacrificial pawn without checking around which resulted in one of her rooks being dragged off the board. Emmy snarled abruptly from her chair by the fire. The noise jerked Hermione out of a homework coma and she looked around at the back of the snake-cat's chair.
"Did that mean anything?"
"She heard Hagrid throwing out the dead flobberworms and wanted one," Jezibell casually ordered her king out of harm's way and Hermione nodded vaguely before diving back down into her heap of algorithms and rune translations. One problem Jezibell discovered with the Time Turner, though Hermione saw in to be a nonissue, was that though it gave you extra hours in the day, it did not let sleep you any longer nor do homework any later. Of course Hermione always ran on less sleep and less time to complete a five paragraph transfiguration essay than most human beings, but there must be some compensation for six more hours than usual.
The worst time sucker was Arithmancy, the paper Jezibell suspected Hermione was laboring over now. It was an incredibly finicky subject that predicted events in an organized numerically based fashion requiring long calculations and the constant adding and dividing of numbers to get a proper score, which was supposed to tell you something reasonable. In Jezibell's opinion this made it no more accurate than staring at tea dregs until your eyes went, but Hermione absolutely loved it. The other students in the class were mostly of the Ravenclaw Flock and a few Slytherins, the people who weren't satisfied with fortune telling from Professor T. The first day, they were supposed to translate what their partner's name said about them. Hermione was type 4, meaning she was reliable, reasonable, organized, stubborn, suspicious, prone to angry outbursts and practical to a fault. Jezibell was a 9 apparently. She was strongly determined, working tirelessly and an inspiration to others. This of course made great sense. Jezibell frequently inspired her classmates in creative new ways of projecting spit balls.
In other academics, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Lupin was making a good impression of himself. Granted, after Nohead, expectations were not high, but if any teachers prior set any Lupin surely surpassed them. The first day he presented the class with a Boggart, shapeshifter that turned into whatever its subject feared the most, and gave Neville the first and last shot at it. He'd become something of a hero among students and, despite being a little raggedly around the edges (Jezibell's first impression was that of a teddy bear dragged through Knockturn Alley) he possessed a quiet sense of eloquence. Lupin was decidedly one of the good guys seeing the performance with the Dementoron the train, where he warded it away from the students in his compartment and afterword fed them chocolate. It was also worthy to note that he made himself a fast enemy of Snape – something Harry said was because he got the DADA post that Snape was after for years, but may also have to do with the Boggart-Snape Neville forced into his grandmother's clothes. The focus of their studies this year was Dark Creatures and Lupin brought several interesting things to class (more than what one could say for Professor Hagrid nowadays) for hands-on experience.
But despite all of this, Jezibell didn't like him. It was a loose impression she got, how he stared at her sometimes while walking with Harry, Ron and Hermione to other classes, as if he saw something in her she didn't. Jezibell knew full well how much she resembled certain high profile relatives and was accustomed to the older staff seeing someone else when they looked at her, but this was different. She couldn't define how, but Lupin's looks were not the fearful animosity found in most and Jezibell liked them less. He paid close attention to the four, the others liked it and found it paternal, but Lupin always put Jezibell on edge. For what, she didn't know. There was the time in the first class when she sidestepped the Boggart, letting Harry take center, and he looked at her curiously as if he was trying to figure out her motives. It was riddikulus. She didn't tell the others any of it, they'd think she was paranoid, or it was just her creepy aura at work on the new guy. She told Emmy though, in private, and the cat promised to keep her eyes, ears and nose on the new professor. She came to class sometimes, surreptitiously watching him show the proper ways to fight various darklings.
On the lighter note, Jezibell was pleased that her new wand was working beautifully in these trials, subduing grindylows and red caps without a hint of trouble. Whether it was the birch, the basilisk or simply having her own instrument again, all lessons that required wand movement were much easier than last year. Transfiguration was catching up to Potions for her best subject. She still hadn't gotten another smile from McGonagall, like Hermione did almost daily, but Jezibell knew she must be one of the top students in the class.
The same could be said, ironically enough, for Muggle Studies. As Burbage had promised, her class had a bit of fun to it not found in others. For instance, for one day they had the class project to create a wheel out of paper cards without using magic. Quirky, but fun. Jezibell supposed that Burbage could afford to be more innovative than most because of how little the school board expected from the class. Their first issued 'test' was on names of muggle inventions and what they did. Pure cake, everyone finished in ten minutes, and Burbage spent the rest of the period showing them the inner workings of a used car she brought to class. Much of the focus for now was of how muggles and Wizards interacted through the years and comparing their technologies. It wasn't hard, interesting even and Jezibell's only problem was going to be the look on her father's face when the end of term reports sported her excellent grades.
Back in the common room, Jezibell was in the middle of fending off Ron's knight, his favored piece, when out of the corner of her eye she saw Emmy straightened up from her chair and stare pointedly at the left wall where the notice board hung. Jezibell looked over at it too and registered a new slip of paper must have appeared seconds before.
"Check," proclaimed Ron happily glancing up at Jezibell then following her gaze to the recent addition, "What's that for?"
"What's what for?" asked Hermione as Ron crossed the room with a few other observant Gryffindors to check out the sign.
"Trip to Hogmeade's comin' up," grinned Seamus Finnegan, "This weekend, it says."
"Oh, that's perfect," twittered a fifth year girl to her friends, "I just have to get those blue dress robes Gladrags has on sale!"
The Weasley twins returned from Quidditch practice. They looked at the poster and exchanged evil grins.
"Think I can find a way to shut up our Big Head boy in the Shrieking Shack?" asked one to the other.
"The Shrieking Shack is notably the most haunted estate in England," Hermione huffed indignantly, "You shouldn't be sticking people inside – it might damage the site."
"All I want to get inside is Honeydukes," Ron came back to the chessboard, though having abandoned all thoughts of playing, closed his eyes in reminiscence. "They've the most amazing chocolate coated Wangdoodles there, you know, the ones with the ripe strawberry and crème in the middle. I heard they got a new kind out with walnuts too," he sighed in rapture, "What about you, Jez? What do you want to see?"
Jez. This nickname was cropping up among the guys every few days in conversation. In the beginning, Jezibell debated whether or not to squash it, but decided it wasn't a hill to die on. Besides, she rather liked the new identity, Jez.
"The Three Broomsticks," she offered, "It's said to have hags and trolls."
"Oh yeah, we'll be sure to get some Butterbeer. Have you ever tried any?"
Harry came over to their corner, taking a seat near Hermione and tried to see the notice board which was now mobbed by students, "What's happened?"
Ron informed him of the first Hogsmeade weekend on Halloween and Jezibell remembered a puncture in the party balloon. Harry would not be coming to Hogsmeade now and for the rest of his life because his muggle family didn't sign the permission form and, after the inflation of Auntie Marge, likely never would. The teachers may have taken pity on him and let him go, if it were not for the crazed Azkaban escapee after him. Ron suggested he ask McGonagall anyway and Hermione promptly started brewing an argument with him over this, forgetting as they often did that Harry and Jezibell were there. Jezibell made conversation with Harry under the debate, something that was becoming a frequent pastime of theirs.
"She'd say no."
"I know," he agreed, "but I suppose it's worth a shot."
Crookshanks climbed into the conversations, chewing on a large dead bug in his mouth. While Hermione crooned to her cat and Ron fake vomited, Emmy hissed from her perch, "Bet you the rat's next."
A few people edged further away from her chair, which now had its own bubble of solitude in the vat of Hogsmeade gossip. Ron and Hermione stopped their fighting to focus on Emmy.
"She asked about Scabbers," Harry said quickly, half glancing at Jezibell who was surprised at his intervention. Often she forgot he could understand Emmy's little comments too.
"Tell her not to get any ideas," said Ron patting a quivering lump in his book bag, "Scabbers is taking a nap in my bag, safe from any maniac cats."
Hermione scowled, "Crookshanks is a very well behaved pet. I don't see why you keep –"
She let off when Crookshanks pounced.
He leapt agilely from Hermione's side onto Ron's bag and scratched ferociously at it with unsheathed claws. Ron yelled at the furry ball of death as he swung his bag around to get him off. Hermione screamed when her poor baby made liftoff and flew from the bag along with a lint ball flying out the top. Scabbers landed and scrambled for a nearby cabinet. Crookshanks started to chase him, but then the hunter became hunted. Emmy sprung up from her nap by the fire and with an unearthly wail tackled the ginger tom.
The two cats wrestled about the common room in a flurry of brown and orange. People backed away from the fight for fear of injury. It didn't last long. The serpentine-felid came out on top pinning down the bulkier animal with long claws at his throat. Emmy's mouth was fixed in a terrible snarl, showing off long venomous front teeth with her face pulled back in way that is very unnatural for a cat.
There was shocked silence in common room for a moment, all eyes on Emmy's wide open jaws. Jezibell saw her this way a few times before, catching songbirds in the yard, but to everyone else she must have looked like a small dragon. Crookshanks was no longer struggling, probably regretting every last meal a la mouse, and Jezibell figured she'd better call off Emmy before he had a heart attack.
"Emmy," She spoke in a smooth but firm warning. Emmy relaxed her position and stepped off the still immobilized Crookshanks, taking care to tread on his tail as she slunk over to Jezibell. She twisted around at her mistress's feet and snarled to Crookshanks (though in parseltongue so he couldn't understand anyway).
"Touch the rat and you're scat."
Hermione gathered up Crookshanks who was still trembling and glared at Jezibell in suppressed anger.
"You think my cat's crazy," She nuzzled the top of Crookshanks' head, "Talk about a maniac, that beast could have killed him!"
"What about Scabbers?" demanded Ron furiously, "With both of your lunatic pets rolling around the place, how's he supposed to get the rest and relaxation he needs?"
"Shut up!" said Hermione and Jezibell in unison.
Jezibell was highly offended. Emmy was her sole friend through last year, the one creature on earth that stuck with her after Durmstrang and preserved her mental wellbeing while the trio did their best to get her expelled. How dare Hermione accuse her familiar of being a monster?
"Emmy saved Scabbers," Jezibell stated.
"You sure," said Hermione peevishly, "Or was she looking for any excuse to take out Crookshankie's throat!"
Ron however was taken off guard, "Emmy saved Scabbers?"
He puzzled as if the words were in the wrong order.
Jezibell rolled her eyes in frustration. "It's not that difficult. She jumped Crookshanks so your rat wouldn't be eaten. She knows other people's pets are off limits, that's why she didn't take him out last year."
Now both familiar and mistress were having regrets on that.
"Off limits," steamed Hermione, "SHE ALMOST KILLED HIM!"
"Your right," snapped Jezibell, "Emmy has no problem ripping Crookshankie's head off. But she didn't. Emmy knows control. You should have taught your pet the same before bringing him to school."
"Crookshanks has every right as Emmy to be here! Actually more, since last I checked hybrids aren't on the list of eligible pets!"
"Neither are rats," Ron pointed out spitefully. Their audience murmured in agreement. Rats were not cats, toads or owls, yet Ron never ran into any problems with Scabbers.
"A rat isn't going to rip another animals head off."
"Pot, have you met my friend kettle?"
Hermione stood for a second clutching Crookshanks and glancing around, "Isn't anyone on my side?"
"Man's got a point," muttered Seamus from the bulletin board, "Who attacked who first?"
Hermione hugged Crookshanks to her bosom, stormed up the stairs to the girls' dormitory. The Gryffindors returned to their business. Jezibell leaned back into her chair and closed her eyes. Suddenly she was very tired. She felt horrible for her fight with Hermione. Not because of her stance – every word she said for Emmy was justified – but she knew siding with Ron was the worst thing she could have done. This made her angry again. There was so much less of this to deal with when it was just her and Emmy and everyone else was against them. Sometimes Jezibell wondered if she liked it better when it was all simpler.
Ron poked around under the chest to coax out Scabbers and Harry came over to Jezibell.
"I heard everything," He said, giving Emmy a tentative rub between the ears. Emmy hunkered down and closed her slit pupil eyes in pleasure, "And you're right, but maybe you ought to say something to Hermione when you go up."
Jezibell nodded her head to say she got the message. After all, she was working tirelessly to be a strong inspiration. But no, even that wasn't fair. Harry didn't deserve her unsaid sarcasm; he was only trying to keep the peace between his best friends and needed Jezibell to help him bear the mantle. Unfortunately for him, she wasn't quite strong enough for it yet. She looked up from Emmy to see Ron still rummaging under the furniture with one of his chess pieces. Harry and Jezibell watched him for bit, before Harry spoke again.
"Poor Scabbers. He's not coming out until June."
June. Eight months of fun-filled friendship away.
Ronald Weasley
It was strange, but in some ways, it felt like Jezibell had always been friends with them.
Sure, at first Hermione and Ron just went along with her because Harry was so convinced Jez (Don't ask how the nickname started, it just made her easier to deal with somehow) was alright for a Malfoy. She was still creepy and dark and smiled as often as Snape, but after a few months it was natural for Ron to look over his shoulder and see her there walking beside him, Harry and Hermione. She never said much unless you asked her something so she wasn't a fourth wheel when they talked. If she said anything it was usually to put in a snide comment to make sure nobody got too serious about what they were saying. She could actually be very funny given the right timing, bitterly dry stale cracker humor that it was.
There wasn't any coaching involved with teaching her the juggling routine either. Jez caught on quick to the balance of the new quartet. Hermione likes to be smart, let her raise her hand in class even if you know the answer. Harry needs his space sometimes and don't make a fuss that he uses You-know-who's name; if anybody has a right to, it's him. Do not mention the fact that Ron's robes are too short and when Hermione starts to give you lecture it's best to shut up and act like you're listening. The faceoff between Crookshanks and Emmy was a brief spat. Ron assumed the girls made up in their dormitory because they were back to being on something resembling good terms the next day (though the cats were still snarling enough to make you think Norbert was back). She knew most of the short-cuts and secret passages around Hogwarts Harry discovered with the invisibility cloak (which was funny as Ron didn't remember them showing her any) She understood them all perfectly; it was Jezibell the rest of them had trouble making sense of.
But there were other things Ron noticed about having Jez around. The students in their year treated her like she was a one-eyed animal in an alley. They approached in inches, unsure whether or not she was friendly, to offer a bite of small talk, unwilling to meet her distrustful glare and half expecting Jez to hiss at them like Emmy does. She didn't seem to care what other people made of her, but Ron wondered (and if he was being honest, worried) what other people made of her in their group. Harry didn't get it at all, why the sudden change of friend to enemy might make people think they were nutters too. Not that he thought Jez was, but she had this thing about not being able see a line without crossing it that made her awkward to be around. Like when she used magic in Diagon Alley or clapped for Slytherins during the sorting. Of course Ron joined in too, but it was more to save face than actual support. Mostly. It was complicated.
Hermione understood this, a something that was getting rarer as she was being completely unreasonable about everything else. Crookshanks attacked Scabbers, fact. Emmy saved Scabbers, fact. Scabbers was ill and therefore needed rest, fact. So why was Hermione acting like all this rat and cat business was his fault? Maybe Jezibell's weirdness was catching. Jezibellitis. Yesterday Ron snuck a look at Hermione's schedule and it said Muggle Studies at three and Divination and Ancient Runes. Now something about that didn't seem right, but hang it all if Harry noticed. Frustrated as he was, Ron supposed that Harry's deaf ear to complaints about the girls was the chocolate coating around their Wangdoodle group. The hard sweet stuff held everything thing else firmly inside so the different parts wouldn't fall splat on the ground.
Which meant the Hogsmeade trip would be a bit of a challenge. Without Harry to remind the three that they were all good friends it could get hairy. The Slytherin's weren't making things any easier. Solo shopping in Diagon Alley was one thing; going through Hogsmeade with the rest of the third year plus the original Malfoy was something else.
It was a sweet morning. A crisp and clean October day devoid of the rain promised for next week. The trio waved goodbye to Harry on the steps going down from the Great Hall, Ron promising to bring him back the cellar of Honeydukes Sweetshop, when Malfoy just couldn't resist putting his two bronze in. Something about Dementors that made Harry scowl and Jez narrow her eyes.
When they were out of ear shot, Hermione commented on the latter, "You know, sometimes it's hard to believe you and Draco are even related. You're nothing alike."
This was the gospel truth. The Malfoy twins were shared only a birthdate, two sides of the same jinxed galleon. Where Draco Malfoy was a bum wipe git, playing up the bad rich boy art better than thou act, Jezibell Malfoy didn't actively go about making people miserable. Instead she'd stare and glare through her black bangs giving the impression that she could gut you with her hairband and leave the corpse as a scratching post for Emmy, but was too apathetic to waste the effort on you for now. They were both evil, but a different sort of evil. Their features weren't anything alike either, though they were supposed to be twins leading Ron to wonder if Jezibell might be adopted. He'd seen her dad a couple times and she didn't look a bit like the white blond pale skinned Lucius Malfoy. Now he silently thanked Hermione for making the leap of faith for him.
"I take after my mother's side," Jez wore a weird darkish smirk, "In their family portrait, I'd fit neatly."
She frowned to herself, glaring at the descending stairs and that was the end of that. Jez did that a lot – randomly giving the evil eye to the back of somebody's head or staring at person long after a conversation ended. She was a bit like Harry that way, except with Harry there was usually an explanation of some sort to accompany his thoughts. Jezibell preferred to stew in silence.
But not even the gloomy clouds of Jezibell Malfoy could dampen Ron's spirits today, when he at long last went to Hogsmeade. Pumped with enough electecity enough for a million batteries, they all were. Every third year wanted to be the first inside Zonko's, pull a fast one on whoever got close to the Shrieking Shack, taste some of Honeyduke's legendary fudge and coolly sip the mild alcohol in Butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks bar. A brave new world was at their itching fingertips begging to be explored. Of course in all these fantastic feelings of adventure everyone forgot the Dementors.
Before they were permitted to enter the village, Filch needed to wave that Secrecy Sensor of his everywhere. The secrecy sensor was long golden rod that, by the relish the known squib wielded it with, was compensating for something. It took forever to pass the old git's security test. He even prodded under their armpits to see what might be hidden.
"What?" Ron asked in surprise when the caretaker directed them to the gates after ten minutes of being combed over, "You're not going to stick that thing up our bums to see if Sirius Black's stuffed there?"
"Ron!" Hermione scowled indignantly and Ron snickered.
"He doesn't have to," Jez said unfazed, looking at what was guarding the gates ahead of them. There were at least a dozen, though since all the tall black hoods were identical it made the impression of many more Dementors present. The patch of grass and dirt where they hovered was dusted in frost and as the third year group passed through it they received the sudden blast of icy chill. It was like walking through Nearly Headless Nick without the apologies. Forced to cut the comments on Filch's hygiene, Ron concentrated on keeping his eyes trained on Hogsmeade. The heaven pass this hell. If he paused, even for a moment, he would be sure he was deep in the Forbidden Forest with Aragog's spiders closing in on him. Under Filch's reluctant orders, the Dementors parted to let the now solemn troops pass though a few lingered on the edges of the levitation trying to suck the remaining warmth and happy feelings away. One strayed rather close to Ron and at the sound of its labored breathing he felt the rest of his enthusiasm for the trip dwindle and die.
"Wonder what Azkaban must be like," he thought aloud, shuddering.
"It sucks."
He turned at the bleak answer to his rhetorical question to see Jez glaring up the hood of a wayward Dementor like she wanted to murder it, preferably in the most painful way possible. Ron could feel her cold anger at whatever it was making her see and it frightened him almost worse than the spiders prowling and clicking at the edges of his thoughts.
"We're almost there," Hermione's voice trembled faintly and Ron put a hand on her frigid shoulder. Indeed, the terrible hike was nearly over and as they left their ghoulish escort at the gates Ron out more thought into Jezibell's bald statement. It was the way she had spoken, like she'd actually been to seen the prison on holiday, looked around and made her judgment. She hadn't, right?
It was hard to say. Anyone else and no bloody way, but with Jez, Ron knew nothing about her and what she did before coming to Hogwarts. Everyone talked a great deal about why she might've been expelled, Parvati and Lavender did a good job on manufacturing a new theory every week, but no one bothered to asked Jezibell herself why. It felt like a bad idea, in the same way as sticking your hand out to pet a poisonous viper. But now Ron wondered. Did Jez spend time in Azkaban?
The mild October breeze brushed over the throng as they entered Hogsmeade. Ron breathed in deep to take in the atmosphere of the village to cleanse himself of the overwhelming sense of desolation that clung to his mind like some soul-sucking leech (Dementors, among other side effects, made one an instant gothic poet).
"I really hate those things," mumbled Hermione, having abandoned all Hogsmeade induced excitement, "I know they're only here to catch Black and aren't supposed to harm us, but when that one came so near…"
Unable to complete the sentence, she drew her cloak shakily around her. Ron patted her on the shoulder and realized he needed to take matters into his own hands to save what was supposed to be a fun trip. He clapped them together sharply to draw his friends melancholy attention.
"Alright, that was heart stopping terrifying (some of the Dementor's influence still lingered) but we've got all of Hogsmeade to cover before dark and I know just where we should go first," He paused and girls looked expectantly at him.
"I'll bite," said Jez after a beat, "Where?"
"Oh, you will bite," Ron let the moment sit a second longer, reveling in the brilliance of his plan, "We're going to Honeydukes Sweetshop."
Fifteen minutes later (much sooner than anybody wanted) the trio exited the sweetshop arms laden with bags of Wangdoodles, sugar quills and all other delicacies. Dementors, Ron sucked a free sample of the new hippogriff tracks fudge, what Dementors? They'd tried a bit of everything that was on sale and a few things that weren't (courtesy of Jez) ending up with enough sweet bags for Harry that he could open up his own private business. Hermione even found a box of mouse treats for her tiger on skele-grow that wouldn't be eaten.
Strolling through the streets of Hogsmeade, nibbling on chocolate, peeking in various stores and avoiding eye contact with the Sirius Black posters, Ron spotted Malfoy giving an elderly passerby some grief when they caught Crabbe and Goyle in the act of pick pocketing. The trio saw the argument between Malfoy and the Hogsmeade local unfold, the old man shaking his cane furiously while darling Draco snarled some obscenities at him. Meanwhile Crabbe and Goyle, who Malfoy was defending, had wandered off to the Zonko's store.
"Great company they are," Hermione huffed, "Just walking out on their best friend like that. Why does Malfoy even keep Crab and Goyle around, he can't possibly trust them at all."
Jez said, "Of course Draco trusts them. They're predictable and he can make plans around that consistency."
Another one of Jezibell's twisted little pearls for how to control the people around you that made you wonder what exactly was going on under that hairband. Something Slytherin style disturbing was Ron's guess.
"Are we predictable?" Hermione asked seeing a double meaning to Jezibell's words.
Jez came close to laughing at this measurement, "You people are the most spontaneous I've ever met."
"So…?"
"So that's the deference between you and Scab and Boil."
Ron snorted a laugh despite the serious tone, "Scab and Boil? Where'd that come from?"
"Nicknames, it's an honor system in Slytherin house."
No, Ron hadn't heard of people giving each other insulting nicknames. But what did he know of Slytherin hierarchy?
"I guess that makes sense, seeing as they're all slimy gits it might as well be out in the open," Ron chuckled again, "Scab and Boil. That's what I'm going to call those two from now on, Scab and Boil."
He repeated the new names a few times to himself as they traveled back to the main street where all the stores were. They found themselves in some of the fancier lanes of Hogsmeade where stores sold gold plated quills and jeweled cauldrons. They passed one furniture store where you could own a silver threaded loveseat monogrammed with your initials for 3,000 galleons.
"Who buys this junk," He chortled, "Serious nutters, especially with that lacey fluff on the edges? It looks terribly uncomfortable to sit in."
"You mean you don't have one yet?" asked Jezibell.
Ron's jaw hit the bricks beneath their feet. No bloody way. Then again how do you be sure? Her dad was rolling in gold, everybody knew. Did Jez own thousand galleon chairs? Hermione and Ron exchanged equal looks of incredulity.
"Seriously?" questioned Ron hoarsely.
"Yes, my family has money to waste on patented loveseats that are so stiff nobody would want to place themselves on for fear of permanent muscular dysfunction."
She was lightly mocking them, her tone flecked with sarcasm but so masterfully that you couldn't tell if it was obviously true or obviously not.
"The Three Broomsticks is a few blocks down," Jez continued like she didn't just let loose the mind scrambler of the century, "How about Butterbeer and then back to the castle."
Ron and Hermione walked a ways behind her so they could exchange notes.
"I think she lied about the loveseat," said Hermione, "Yes, I'm almost positive."
Ron shrugged unconvinced, "How can you tell? It's all the same to me."
"I can't, but I think she wants us to be confused."
That would make sense. Jez was often saying or doing things like that, where she'd seem to give away something mad about herself but it would be just mad enough so you couldn't tell if it was the truth. Now that Ron considered it, that nugget about the Slytherin nicknames could have been one those too. He totally fell for it.
"Well she's mental then," said Ron hotly, "Why else would she lie to us left and right. If she doesn't want to talk about herself, that's fine! It's just conversation, all human beings do it. Why can't she act normal like everyone else? "
"Maybe she can't be. Or maybe we won't let her," said Hermione quietly, though Jezibell was several paces in front of them, "The joke is on us, really, for taking what she said literally. If anybody else said it you know we would have laughed. It's our own fault for treating like we did last year. She won't act normal because she knows we won't perceive her as such. Though she did bring it onto herself, she was completely supercilious when I tried to introduce myself."
"It's like the phoenix and the ash. Which came first, our thinking she's weird or her being weird?"
"Does it really matter at this point? She shares a dormitory with Parvati and Lavender. She knows exactly what people say about her and that half the time we do believe it. Maybe this was her rubbing it all in our faces. Like you or Fred and George would. The real humor isthat we didn't understand it."
"But people tell jokes for other people, not themselves. If we're not supposed to understand it who is?"
Jezibell reached The Three Broomsticks a block ahead of them and now was turned around catching Ron and Hermione blatantly talking behind her back. Her expression didn't show if she heard them, but dark eyes bored into both of them, Ron in particular, as if she was trying to petrify. Ron remembered a Ravenclaw saying that she had hearing as good as her cat and suppressed a gulp.
"Coming?" she said flatly after a long pause.
"Are we?" Ron muttered under his breath.
"Of course we are!" said Hermione, answering both of them and hurried up the steps to follow Jez inside, Ron still stalling outside.
So Hermione was with Jezibell, was she? What had happened to the whole thing with the cats? Jez could have lied about Emmy helping Scabbers and nobody could tell the difference. In hindsight, Ron started spotting Jezibell's little maybe lies everywhere, sprinkled all over their conversations like falsehood fairy dust. It was embarrassing.
But what about Harry? Ron knew he hated lying and liars. Considering he had been lied to by his muggle family for pretty much his whole life, the concept wasn't something he took lightly. Surely he wouldn't be able to trust Jezibell if he knew about all this. Ron considered leaving the girls and going back to the castle, maybe to see Harry, maybe just for some time alone. But somehow he couldn't bring himself to it. The afternoon was getting cold and the warmth of the bar drew him. The girls were probably wondering what had gotten to him and one would be coming out soon to check. Ron sighed with the autumn breeze that blew across the street and started up the stairs. He was coming.
The Three Broomsticks did not have hags or trolls, at least not today, but it had just about everything else. Goblins bargained in corners, smartly dressed ministry men chatted over huge smoking goblets, house elves darted around the tables so quick if you didn't know what to look for you'd miss them, shrunken heads dangled from walls and a very interesting creature in a red barmaids robe caught Ron's eye while she was serving students Butterbeer.
"Over here!"
Hermione was flagging him down from a corner (not one of the counter stools to Ron's disappointment) He marveled at more wonders that passed him as he came to the girls' booth.
"Sorry for the hold up," he apologized quickly, sliding into the booth next to Hermione and opposite Jez, "Did you see some of the mad stuff they've got here? I swear that one goblin bloke looks like Flitwick's granddad."
The barmaid poured some of the smoking magenta drink perfectly into a large goblet, filling it to exactly the brim without a drop spilling over. The smoke wafted up word making a pink haze around her golden blond hair that flowed down onto her –
"I'm glad to see you're taking an interest in the more historic sites of Hogsmeade," said Hermione, breaking Ron's concentration.
"Yeah, brilliant," he answered without thinking, "Maybe I should go-"
"I'll get the drinks," Hermione interrupted sharply. She glared, shifting around him in the wide booth and stalked off to counter. What was her problem? Ron shrugged it off. She'd been in a mood all week, still hadn't got over Lavender and her rabbit proving her wrong about Divination.
"I guess after this, we'd better go back to the main street and see if we can find more souvenirs for Harry," he said, not really expecting Jez to answer. She sometimes didn't to non-questions. He avoided eye contact with her, trying to catch the barmaid's and waiting for Hermione's return.
"You put a lot of faith in him." said Jezibell abruptly.
"Sorry, who?"
"Harry. You and Hermione would follow him off the end of the earth if he jumped first."
Was this her trying to start a conversation? Maybe she was joking, like before with the loveseat. He decided to play along.
"Oh, like you wouldn't," he laughed.
"No. If my sibling was taken to the Chamber of Secrets, I would have trusted only myself to find him. Not another student, in any case."
Ok, not joking. It was sort of an unspoken rule with Harry, Ron and Hermione that their wacky adventures of the year before were not to be discussed at length after the fact. No point in going through it all twice. When Jezibell came along they hadn't considered she might want to talk, especially not since she hardly talked regularly.
"You don't think we would have tried our hardest to save anyone, even Malfoy?"
"He would have tucked his tail between his legs and ran if it was one of you."
Ron snorted, "I think we're a little more honorable than Draco Malfoy."
"Yes," she agreed, "You are."
He thought about that. He wouldn't have expected Jezibell to go along with him calling her brother a cowardly little git. Or maybe she wasn't agreeing about that, but acknowledging the trio was more honorable than anyone. Or maybe she was deliberating confusing him so she could laugh about it later with her illegal hybrid. Ron wasn't accustomed to thinking like this and it made him uncomfortable which made him annoyed, which made him want to give something back to the source of his discomfort.
"So, what about you? If it had been one of us, would you have tried?"
Jez didn't answer and as soon as Ron asked, he wanted to eat his words. It had been one of them, his sister. And Jez did more than try. She succeeded. Harry told him afterword the exact part she played, staring down the basilisk so he would be ready for it with the sword. Basilisk-whispering, he called it. Harry could understand her parseltongue; he knew full the in jokes between her and Emmy and trusted her anyway. No wonder, she saved his life.
"We do trust you, you know," Ron broke the awkward silence.
"Harry does."
"And you think we don't."
"I think it's a bad idea to put faith in people you don't know. Worse in the ones you do."
So she was saying they shouldn't trust her? This was getting too deep, too confusing. And why did it matter anyway, as they sat in the Three Broomsticks on a school fieldtrip, if any of them really trusted each other anyway? The answer was found in the filthy enraged face of Sirius Black, glowering from the adjacent wall. Black was after Harry, mad and dangerous as a rabid dog. Dumbledore, the Ministry and the Dementors could do whatever they wanted to make the castle a fortress, but if two years at Hogwarts taught Ron anything it was none of their plans would matter at the end of the day. Something would go down, like it did before, big and trust testing involving a real nutter bent on killing Harry and anyone who defended him. When Ron and Hermione signed up to be Harry's friend, they knew this was an occupational hazard but they also knew he was worth it. Did Jezibell?
"Do you trust us?"
"Yes."
"Do you trust me?" Ron was thinking of his family heritage when saying this, testing her. She had saved Harry's life once, but Harry wasn't the only person who might have to rely on her. Would Jezibell admit to putting any degree of trust in a Weasley?
Jezibell smirked quirkily. "Sometimes."
Hermione returned with the drinks and Jezibell sank in the back of the booth, retreating under her bangs like she'd said too much (which was a bit daft seeing as she said hardly anything at all). The Butterbeer was delicious, molten gold that went inside you and warmed to the brim. Even Hermione was in good mood after trying some. Ron tried to give more thought to the conversation with Jez, trying to decide it she had actually meant any of it. It was useless. Some things were just better left unfathomed. The pretty barmaid came around to collect their empty mugs and Ron took the opportunity to make friends with the locals.
"Hey, miss, did you hear a good one about a hag, a Healer and a Mimbulus Mimbletonia?" Ron looked down at the table, trying to remember the exact wording. He'd come up with the lines himself, even Fred thought it was funny. It'd be sure to impress.
"See, there's this old hag whose been keeping a Mimbulus Mimbletonia in a cupboard for years and –"
"Yes I believe I have heard that one, Mr. Weasley" The barmaid flashed sweet smile of even white teeth, "Your brothers gave me their version not fifteen minutes ago."
She swiped their mugs from the table and gave giggle, "Some advice, now, if you want to impress a lady who's seen every trick in the book at least try to come up with your own jokes."
She winked at Hermione and sashayed back to the bar leaving Ron feeling a hot red blush bubbling up his cheeks.
"Smooth," observed Jezibell.
"Oh, stuff it!" scowled Ron, "It's not my fault Fred and George stole the joke. If we'd only got here twenty minutes earlier, she'd have cleaned our table first and the punch line would be on them. Come on. Let's go to Zonko's. They've already been and I don't want to have to see their faces."
"I can't believe you," exclaimed Hermione as they were leaving, "She had to be at least in her late thirties."
"Your point?"
"Well, it's just, it just doesn't seem," she spluttered for the right word to describe the crime, "Right for you to be going after some older woman."
"Who might have been that well-traveled bloke that came to teach last year? The guy with all the books in his twenties who's Valentine's Day card you kept under your pillow. What was his name, it was just at the tip of my tongue. Something like Blockyard or Goldilocks or –"
"Nohead," supplied Jez. She nicknamed him Nohead. If it wasn't for that Jezibell was a Malfoy, and therefore genetically imbued with being an upper class prick, she might be very likable.
"That is demeaning to a person with severe memory loss," Hermione said indignantly, "Gilderoy Lockhart is a world famous personnel who exploited countless cases of dark sorcery in his life time. It only made sense that I, as a student, would feel drawn to a person with such knowledge. Some middle aged lady who gets stupid men drunk is hardly a comparison!"
"I can't believe you're still defending him, even before the memory charm he was thicker than Hagrid's rock cakes," Ron rolled his eyes, "Maybe I'm a little muddled on this point, but didn't your precious Lockhart turn out to be a total phony and betrayed me and Harry before wiped his memories with his own spell, which also caused a cave in because he had no clue how to aim."
"He missed because he using your spell-o-tape wand, which got that way because you crashed a car into a tree."
"You know the story behind that! We had to fly the car 'cause Dobby blocked the bloody entrance!"
"Yes, but you could have