[AN re: update schedule
As some of you know, I recently moved and got a new job. While this has been good for me because it means I am closer to friends and family and have an income again, it also means that I have far less time for writing now than I used to, and I'm almost out of buffer chapters.
Unfortunately, it has become increasingly evident over the past months that I will not be able to maintain the current update pace for the remainder of this book. Instead of sacrificing the quality of the story, I have decided that I will be cutting back to monthly posts.
Updates are now scheduled for the first Monday in the month, which means the next chapter will post on the third of April, and the following one on the first of May. My sincerest apologies for any disappointment this may cause.]
Saturday, 19 February 1994
Severus Snape's Office
In a scene eerily reminiscent of Mary's first year, four students sat facing Professor Snape's apparently disorganized desk as he paced behind them, highly irritated. Mary was even sitting in the same place as she had done after the Dragon Evacuation, but this time it was the middle of the afternoon, and all of the torches were lit.
The sound of Snape's boot-heels hitting the ground behind them and the little gust of wind as he turned on his heel, sweeping his robes around himself, were nearly as intimidating as his shadow flickering on the wall had been.
Blaise, nearest the door, had kicked his feet out and crossed his legs at the ankles, apparently as relaxed as though he was lounging in the Commons. Mary herself was next, slouched and sulking over having been caught, and wondering what the punishment for their (closely averted) rule-breaking was likely to be. Theo was as poised and attentive as ever, as though they were all in class. On his far side, Ginny Weasley was silent, red-faced and clearly furious, but her posture, ramrod straight at the edge of her seat, betrayed her nervousness.
His thoughts apparently collected, the Head of Slytherin stalked to his own seat and glared at them. "Which of you would like to explain why you are all here, in my office, after having attempted to summon a class-three demonic entity into the school, rather than down in Hogsmeade tormenting Madam Rosmerta and Lottie Flume?"
Well, it sounded much worse when he put it like that…
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It had all started, as such things tend to do, rather innocuously.
Two days before, Mary had had her third Patronus Lesson. After five weeks of practice (despite Remus' admonitions not to do so unsupervised, which she thought he ought to have known she wouldn't abide by anyway, once they had actually started learning), she had managed to consistently produce a wispy, silver shield, hanging motionless before her, even when faced with the boggart-dementor. Hermione and Lilian were not too far behind: Hermione managed her ghostly shield inconsistently, failing more toward the end of their practice sessions, and Lilian's faltered when faced with the boggart-dementor, every time. Remus called this the 'incorporeal' form of the spell, and said that it was a product of insufficient focus or power. The ironic thing was, according to Hermione's books, it took a lot more effort to sustain the unfocused, incorporeal form than it would if they could just push through and cast the spell properly in the first place.
As the girls had learned at some point in one of their early Charms lessons, there was really only one way to (relatively) safely increase one's capacity to do magic, aside from waiting to grow up and come into one's full power, which normally happened around age fifteen. That way was to use magic a lot. To the point of repeated magical exhaustion, if possible. The theory was that one's body would either adjust, and begin to channel magic more efficiently, or else run itself completely into the ground. The metaphor used most often was learning to function on less-than-optimal amounts of sleep. It was a miserable process and borderline dangerous, but had the potential to be very, very useful.
Professor Flitwick had only mentioned it as part of the reason they shouldn't try to do spells too far out of their league, and why they should stick to their year level in the Standard Book of Spells.
Neither the Slytherins nor Ravenclaws took his warning to heart insofar as sticking to their year's materials went, but they did work out for themselves that the most they could (generally) read ahead and expect to be able to actually do the spells was a couple of years.
The Patronus Charm was NE level – at least three years beyond what Mary and her friends could reasonably be expected to perform.
But, then again, Mary had easily managed to cast the fourth-year Summoning Charm the summer after first year, and Disillusionment, which Snape had showed all the Slytherins as part of the Sneaking Spells regimen, was a seventh-year charm, which most of the third-years could cast at least well enough to obscure their faces (even if they didn't have the power or control to actually become invisible). So it didn't really seem that absurd to think that she might be able to cast a Patronus with enough practice.
If that practice just so happened to exhaust her to the point that her body and magical reserves had to adjust or else, well, she was willing to take that risk. Worst case scenario, if she did end up in hospital again… Honestly she suspected that Madam Pomfrey would be rather upset with her, but that would be nothing new. At least it would be her own fault, and not because someone else had attacked her again. As much as it sucked having to wait a day or two to do magic after a bout of magical exhaustion, it wasn't as though she hadn't gone through it before, multiple times, even.
So she decided, on Thursday evening, that she really just needed more practice. Preferably against the boggart-dementor, because there was no point if she couldn't concentrate past the fear/misery the thing exuded: focus was just as necessary as power in casting magic. The only problem was, she thought, that she didn't have access to a boggart, and she couldn't very well tell Remus that she wanted to practice with it unsupervised.
Lilian went straight to bed, nearly stumbling over a brazier in her exhaustion, while Mary collapsed onto Blaise's couch, wondering how to go about acquiring a boggart of her own. (In hindsight, she might have been getting a bit obsessive over the Patronus thing.)
The boys (Theo and Blaise) fixed her with a similar questioning expression. Rather than answer the unspoken 'What happened to you?' she opted to ask, "You blokes know a lot about boggarts, right?"
Theo rolled his eyes and pointed at his friend. Blaise smirked. "You could say that. Why do you ask?"
"I think I need one."
"Why?" Theo asked drily. "Planning on going into competition with Blaise for creepiest pet?"
Mary snickered half-heartedly. She had forgotten that Blaise supposedly had a pet boggart. "That was true?"
"What? Theo, did you tell Mary about Coco?" The Italian sounded faintly accusatory.
"Daphne did, ages ago," Theo defended himself.
Blaise muttered something under his breath about girls not keeping secrets properly, but it was drowned out by his friend adding, "Yes, it's true. And yes, he really does call it Coco."
"Could you help me catch one?" she asked, turning to the darker boy.
"Um… I suppose I could," he answered, obviously slightly taken aback, "but Theo's question still stands. What do you need it for? You're not learning Occlumency."
It wasn't a question. "I could be. How do you know?"
Theo snorted. Blaise shrugged. "I just do. So… boggart?"
"Oh, well…" Mary had actually forgotten that boggarts were good practice for Occlumency, and now that she had been reminded of that fact, she kind of wanted to try it, though she doubted she would get much of anywhere with self-study. After a moment of indecisiveness, she reluctantly decided not to pursue that particular conversational detour, however. It wouldn't do to get distracted from her primary goal, after all. "Remember how I wanted to learn how to cast the Patronus Charm?"
"Um… yes?" It wasn't as though it was really that big a secret that she had been asking around after the Patronus back in November. Blaise obviously wasn't putting two and two together with their first Defense lesson of the year, but Theo's eyes widened as he got it.
"That's actually really clever."
Mary put on a tone of false offense. "No need to sound so surprised!"
"Who did you get to teach you?" Theo demanded, as Blaise obviously made the connection as well, his mouth dropping open in surprise.
The girl smirked. "Professor Lupin. We've been using a boggart every other Thursday, but I really think I need more practice. So…"
Blaise sat up straight, leaning in to the triangle formed by their shared sofa and Theo's armchair, giving them the illusion of privacy. "So, what will you give us if we help you catch a boggart?"
Mary bit her lip, considering what they might want. "I could try to teach you the charm as well, if you like," she offered.
The boys exchanged a look.
"Dark wizards can't cast the Patronus," Theo said after a moment, admitting aloud for the first time, at least to Mary, that they (or at least he) identified as such, though it wasn't exactly a surprise.
"Professor Snape can," she shrugged. "I'm not promising anything, but I don't think that should stop you. He's got to be a darker wizard than either of you."
The boys exchanged another look.
"I'll do it," Blaise decided, grinning. "What's the matter, Theo? Not up for a challenge?"
He groaned. "No, I'm just not as much of a masochist as you. But what the hell. Sure. When are we doing this?"
"What are you two doing this Saturday?" Mary asked.
"Hogsmeade?" Blaise reminded her.
She made a face at him.
"We can skip it," Theo offered.
Blaise looked at him askance. "Weren't you just the reluctant one?"
"About the Patronus, sure. But I don't need anything from town that I can't just owl-order, and Daphne cancelled your Valentine's date to hang out with the girls, so the only reason to go is to get away from everyone and do something different for a day, and I'm pretty sure skulking around hunting Dark Creatures qualifies, so…"
The Italian sighed in his usual over-dramatic fashion, sharp contrast to his friend's straightforward logic. "Yeah, all right. Saturday it is. But if we're not going to Hogsmeade, I'm sleeping in. Meet after lunch?"
Mary beamed. "Great!" Then she yawned broadly enough that her jaw popped, and excused herself to bed. (In hindsight, she had definitely been a bit obsessive over the Patronus thing, signing up for more Patronus practice in such a state…)
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Ginny had been a last-minute addition to the group. She had showed up to lunch on Saturday fuming, and flipped off the first- and second-year Snakes when they objected to her joining the Slytherin table, much to the amusement of the scattered upperclassmen who had stayed behind in favor of studying for OWLs or NEWTs, or just having a quiet weekend to themselves. They couldn't normally be bothered with what the underclassmen were up to, but even the seventh-years were aware of Ginny's status as an outcast within Gryffindor for her role in the Chamber of Secrets' opening. That, along with her casual disregard for their show of scorn, meant she was as welcome at their table as the average Ravenclaw, at least.
The younger girl ranted about her fellow Gryffindors while Mary scarfed down her food, her complaints ranging from her dorm-mates mocking her association with Neville and their House's continued shunning of him to her youngest brother's incessant bitching about his stupid rat disappearing.
"It's just a stupid rat! It probably up and died in a corner somewhere, or got eaten by one of the literally dozens of cats running around, but he won't shut up about it."
She stopped to take a breath, and Dave raised an eyebrow at Mary. "I don't think she sees the irony," he stage-whispered, causing the older girl to crack up.
The redhead glared at the firstie. "Don't think I didn't hear that, Davey-boy!"
He just gave her a cheeky smirk, the one he had picked up from Lilian. "And yet you don't deny it."
That, of course, led Alex and Nora to add teasing jibes of their own.
Ginny's red-faced irritation at the underclassmen's mockery was almost as amusing as the initial observation. Instead of attempting to deny it (for she had been complaining about it at unreasonable length), she opted to change the subject. "Aren't you done yet?"
"Um, I guess so? Why?"
"Come on then," the Gryffindor demanded, dragging her away from the table firmly by the wrist.
"Gin – what? Uh, bye, you lot…" she called back toward the table, then added, somewhat more quietly, "What the hell, Ginny? I have plans this afternoon – I'm supposed to be meeting Blaise and Theo after lunch…"
"This won't take that long," the younger girl snapped, dragging her into a classroom. "I just… I just need someone to bloody talk to."
"What?" Mary asked blankly. "Why me? Don't you usually talk to Hermione? Or Luna?"
"Not when Hermione is part of the problem, and Luna's… Luna!"
The Slytherin shook her wrist free and cast an anti-eavesdropping charm at the door before taking a seat. "What is the problem?" she asked, curious despite herself.
"Oh, well, let's see, shall we? There's the fact that Neville's been trailing after me like a lost puppy since last weekend, there's the way Hermione keeps treating me like some fragile little kid who's about to break if you look at me wrong, and then today I tried to sneak out to Hogsmeade, only to find out that she's got the twins on her side now! They caught me and made me come back, instead of being all like, 'Sounds like fun times, we'll distract Filch for you!'"
Mary knew that she should probably be more concerned about the resentment Ginny was obviously harboring toward Neville and Hermione, but she was more focused on the fact that she had heard nothing about her friend going to Hogsmeade with one of the twins. "Is she dating one of them?" she asked.
"What?"
"Hermione – you said she was going to Hogsmeade with the twins. Is she dating one of them?"
"No!" the redhead glared, pacing angrily around the room. "First off, I don't think she could date just one of them, and I'm pretty sure they're just friends. But you're completely missing the point! I'm not some little kid who needs to be protected all the time!"
The Slytherin raised an eyebrow at her. "Well, you can't really be surprised they're still a little protective after… you know. Can you really blame them for not wanting you to be out where Sirius Black could get you?"
"Yes! Yes, I can! I can't believe this, I thought you'd be just as angry about being cooped up in the castle."
"I was, at first, but I'm mostly used to it by now." She actually still was fairly irritated, but she had long since resigned herself to the fact that there would be no changing the Professor's mind. "Besides, none of the other second-years are allowed to go, either," she pointed out. "It's not really the same thing."
"None of the other second-years have had to deal with Tom Fucking Riddle in their heads for a whole year! If I can handle that, I think I should be allowed to go visit the Shrieking Shack if I want to! I don't – I'm not –" To Mary's intense consternation, tears of frustration began to leak out of the younger girl's eyes. She collapsed into a nearby chair with a sniffle and dropped her head to the desk.
"Erm… Ginny?" she reached out gingerly to pat the younger girl's arm. "Are you okay?" she asked helplessly.
"Do I look like I'm okay?" the younger girl snapped, though her sniffles rather ruined the effect.
"I – ah…" she had no idea what to say.
Fortunately, it seemed that Ginny didn't need her to say anything, as she continued to mumble into her crossed arms, head down. "I just want to move on, and they won't let me, always treating me like some glass doll – like some fainting bloody flower – it just drags me back! Even on the pitch, they try to protect me all the time, and – and – it's like because I fucked up just once, it's like they'll never trust me to look out for myself again! They haven't played any pranks on me at all since the Chamber, like they think I can't handle it or something. And that's just Fred and George!
"Hermione's worse! She's so afraid of 'triggering' me – that's her word, 'triggering' – that she cuts herself off all the time, talking like a mind healer or something, like she's the responsible adult, and I'm this damaged sodding child! Like she's so much better than me, and not every bit as messed up. I never should have let her have those memories. She thinks she knows me so good now, but she only knows victim Ginny – she doesn't know how I was before, or how I want to be, and she keeps acting like that's all I am! Fucking Riddle's victim. I hate her!
"Every time I get too close to the dementors, I remember – I remember being so fucking weak. I – he wouldn't have been able to get to me if I hadn't been."
Mary tried to interrupt and say it wasn't her fault, but Ginny's head snapped up, glaring, and she talked over her.
"No!" she stood, forcing her way into Mary's personal space. "You don't get to tell me whose fault it was or wasn't! You weren't there! If I hadn't been so overwhelmed by… everything… then I never would have depended on him! I never would have told him everything I did! But I was, and I did, and that's on me. Lilian was right – I should have told someone, at least when I got away, and Luna had the book. That's on me, too. You don't… you don't get to say it wasn't my fault, because then whose fault was it? I wasn't just a puppet from day one!"
Mary nodded, and Ginny spun on her heel, turning to pace as she continued to rant: "And Hermione's all, 'It's okay, Ginny,' and 'No one blames you, Ginny,' and 'You were only eleven – it's not surprising that he managed to trick you,' and 'The important thing is you got away!' But it's not okay and they should blame me, and even if it's not surprising, that doesn't mean it was all him. I made choices! Bad ones, but they were still mine! I – I…" she trailed off, and Mary hazarded a guess at comforting behavior. It wasn't really something she'd had a lot of practice with.
"Do you want a hug?"
"No," the younger girl scowled, but she threw her arms around Mary anyway, tucking her head between the Slytherin's neck and shoulder, pinning her arms to her sides and squeezing as though she meant to crush the air out of the shorter girl. Mary was certain it was the most violent embrace she had ever experienced.
"Um…?" She patted the redhead's shaking back as well as she could, until the Gryffindor let her breathe again. By the time she did, there was a damp spot on the shoulder of her robes, unnoticed until it started growing uncomfortably cold.
"I wouldn't have survived," Ginny said, taking a deep breath herself and settling back into her chair. "She doesn't understand. She has all of my memories, and she still doesn't get it – I didn't escape. The only reason I'm alive is because he stopped me from killing myself. Over and over. He… It was like a game to him. Let me try, let me get close, but then heal me, make me step back, make me go back to my room and forget anything ever happened. I – I'm not stronger than him. I'm weak. I was weak. And every time they act like I need protecting, it's like they're saying I still am – like they're saying I'll never get better. Never be better. Like I'm always going to be his victim, now."
"But, um…"
"What?" Ginny's eyes flashed threateningly.
"Well, you wouldn't have wanted to die if it weren't for him, either," Mary said cautiously, beating back the guilt she felt just being related to the monster that was Tom Riddle. "I… I think I might have done the same, if he was in my head like that. If you're weak, I am, too," she offered. Ginny, miraculously, remained silent, obviously hanging on her words, disbelief etched across her features. She began to feel intensely self-conscious, and tried to explain. "I mean, look at what happened in the Chamber – he got us to agree to modify our memories. It's driving me nuts that I can't figure out how, what he must have said or done, or if there was magic involved, or what, and I can't even imagine how much worse it would have been if I did know, or if it was a whole year, and not just three days. I mean, you might not be stronger than him, but this is the fucking Dark Lord we're talking about, and he was older than us, and I'm pretty sure you're stronger than I am, because if it was me, I might have killed myself after, when he couldn't stop me anymore."
She clapped a hand over her mouth at that admission. She hadn't meant to say it, but she realized as she did that it was true. If she had been made so thoroughly into a victim as Ginny had been, she didn't know whether she would have been able to find her way back to being anything else.
Brown eyes met hers, growing wide with shock. "I can't believe you said that."
"I can't believe I did either." Mary could feel her face glowing red. Ginny, in contrast, was very, very pale.
They were both silent for a long moment, before Ginny said, in a very small voice, "I nearly did, you know. In Egypt. They… They were watching me, all the time, my family. I only got away from them one night, went up on the roof of the hotel. I almost jumped. I think. I don't know if I really believed I could do it. I think I half-expected him to stop me, you know? Even though I knew he wouldn't. Couldn't."
Mary nodded, fascinated and horrified, though she didn't actually know.
"Charlie found me," the Gryffindor admitted, "standing on the ledge, looking down. I don't know how long I was there, but I was working myself up to it. And he talked me down. He – we talked about monsters."
"Riddle?"
Ginny shook her head. "Me," she admitted, in a very small voice. "I… he possessed me. He was inside my head. It was… I felt dirty. I still do, every time I think of him. Like I'm infected with his evil, or something. I… I wanted to get rid of that feeling more than I wanted to live, I think. I – I still do, sometimes."
That Mary did understand. Not the 'more than I wanted to live' part, but feeling dirty and tainted by their association? That she understood all too well. It was her turn to pace around the room, now, she decided, seeing as she was already moving, unconsciously.
After a few long minutes, the younger girl glared at her again, the expression at odds with the complete vulnerability in her body language and painted across her face. "Say something," she demanded.
Mary stopped and turned to look at her. She felt rather light-headed, and her mouth was not entirely under her control as she said, "He's my grandfather."
"What?" The other girl's response was flat and confused.
"You can't tell anyone – no one knows. Not even Lilian or Hermione. Riddle… he was my mother's… sire." She was pretty sure that was the pureblood term for a father who had disowned a child, or never acknowledged them in the first place. "Snape figured it out… made a potion to confirm. He's the only one who knows."
Ginny looked as shocked as Mary felt. There was a long silence, and then: "I won't. Tell anyone, that is," she said rather faintly.
All at once, the Slytherin felt as though a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. "You're not a monster, you know," she replied. "No more than I am. And you're not a victim, either."
"What am I, then?" she asked challengingly, a weak imitation of her usual Gryffindor bravado.
Mary shrugged. "A survivor?" she suggested.
Perhaps if Ginny hadn't looked so relieved, as though she was clinging to that label, embracing it on some fundamental level, or perhaps if Mary hadn't just suffered a bout of temporary insanity and spilled one of her most tightly held secrets to a second-year Gryffindor who wasn't even one of her closest friends, resulting in one of the strangest bonding moments she had ever had, she wouldn't have made the offer she did. But the younger girl nodded and whispered okay, still looking a bit lost, and it had seemed like a good idea to keep an eye on her for a while, and Mary herself was more than ready to change the subject (and suddenly feeling more than a little self-conscious for oversharing), so she said, "I have to go meet Blaise and Theo. We're hunting a boggart. Want to come?"
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Snape had caught them while they were arguing over the cat.
The short version of the story was, boggart-hunting did not go well at all. It turned out that Blaise's expertise in relocating boggarts was of little use if they couldn't find a boggart to attempt to capture in the first place, and after two hours of combing the dungeons for nooks and crannies where one might hide, they were forced to admit that there simply might not be one in the castle at the moment.
It was then that Blaise suggested, in the manner of one who is fed up with tromping around in the dark making no particular progress, that it might have been faster to just summon a fresh boggart, rather than look for one to capture. He probably didn't expect Mary to wholeheartedly endorse the idea. Theo had his reservations, but he didn't speak up against it, and Blaise had (with a fairly significant degree of surprise at their amenability) agreed to try his hand at actually doing so.
In all fairness, once she realized what the ritual entailed, Mary was much less interested in completing it, but by that point, Blaise was already invested and excited about it.
"I'm not letting you sacrifice that cat!" Ginny insisted, stomping in circles, obviously frustrated with the boys.
"I agree," Mary said. Blaise had said nothing about a sacrifice when she had asked him why they couldn't have just summoned a boggart in the first place. But then, that might have been because he obviously didn't see it as a problem.
He was, after all, the one who had been holding and petting the piebald beast, even as he was suggesting they kill it, calmly explaining that its life-blood was necessary to thin the barriers between planes enough to pull the boggart through. Theo had found a bit of chalk in an abandoned classroom, and was tracing what he called a gateway diagram on a desk at the front of the room.
"It belongs to someone, Zabini! For all you know, it's a familiar!"
"That just means its death will have more power," he pointed out. "But if you'd rather use a stray, go find one while Theo and I finish up," he added dismissively. "I'm not stopping you."
"Why didn't you tell me this was a sacrificial sort of thing?" Mary groused.
"Are we doing this or not?" Theo asked. He had agreed rather reluctantly to contribute his own questionable expertise to the project, given that Blaise wasn't entirely sure about how the runes and such worked, and had been willing to 'wing it' – a strategy which had appalled the shorter boy. There was a certain smugness around the corners of the Italian's mouth that suggested Theo had fallen neatly into his plan, as though he had been counting on the other boy's participation all along. But Theo was still clearly nervous, even if they weren't about to 'probably blow themselves up like bloody idiots.'
Mary was, too, to be honest. She was fairly certain that this was not the sort of thing they ought to be doing, especially without a bit more preparation. And she really didn't like the idea of killing the cat, even if Blaise did say that he would do it and spare her squeamish, girly sensibilities. Prat.
"No," Ginny insisted, just as Blaise said, "Yes. Here, hold the cat, Mary."
The cat, perhaps sensing her unease, leapt from her arms as soon as Blaise handed it over, and ran for the door. In all honesty, she had not tried very hard to stop it. This was, however, the impetus for the four of them to turn in the same direction, at which point they spotted a rather irritated Professor Snape leaning against the wall, one eyebrow raised and his customary sneer in place, clearly intending to see how far they were willing to take this impromptu summoning ritual.
"Erm… How long have you been there, sir?" Mary asked.
Snape didn't answer. "My office," he snapped instead. "Now."
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When none of them volunteered an answer to Snape's question, he zeroed in on Theo. "Mr. Nott, perhaps you would care to explain how you know the diagram for the Gate of Iskandar?"
"No, sir," the boy answered smartly, obviously meaning that he did not care to answer, but at Snape's sharp glare, he added, somewhat reluctantly, "Independent study?"
"The same independent study, I suppose, that has Mr. Zabini fooling about with Shadowmancy?"
"Erm… no, sir," Theo said. "Different programmes, as it were."
Snape's eyes narrowed, but he let the answer stand for the moment. "And Mr. Zabini? Was one detention regarding Demonic Congress insufficient to convince you of the severity of your actions? Or are you simply too arrogant to believe you would be punished for your transgression?"
"Well, technically we didn't actually do anything…" Blaise drawled.
"I assure you," Snape cut him off, "that what I witnessed was more than sufficient evidence to convince the Headmaster that you had every intention of following through with your summoning. And you must know that as your Head of House I am obligated to take such evidence far more seriously than a few potentially facetious phrases employed in testing the knowledge and skills of the latest Defense professor."
"Are – are you threatening to expel me, sir?" Blaise actually looked shaken, now, as well as slightly sullen. It was the latter that came across in his tone when he added, "I thought you were cooler than Professor Wolf-Wolf."
Mary punched him in the arm at that, hard.
He yelped, rubbing at the spot. She hoped it bruised. "What?! Stop hitting me, you violent heathen-child!"
"Ginny!" she hissed. The girl in question was leaning around Theo to look at the two of them with unveiled suspicion.
Blaise leaned around her as well to meet the Gryffindor's eyes as he said, "Oh come on, what else am I going to call Remus Lupin? You're the one who's acting like it's a big deal – she wouldn't be half so suspicious if –" Before he could finish his sentence (which Mary was betting would have been 'if you hadn't hit me'), he cut himself off, clapping his hands over his ears with a strained gasp. "Sir," he whined.
"If I catch you attempting that again, Mr. Zabini," the professor said, his tone dangerously cold, "expulsion will be the least of your concerns. Consider yourself warned."
Blaise nodded reluctantly, gently massaging his temples. The girls exchanged a look and a shrug, as Theo groaned. "You didn't," he muttered under his breath. No one answered him, or addressed the girls' confusion.
Professor Snape, in fact, ignored them completely. "Mr. Zabini, you will have detention with me… every Sunday for the last hour before curfew, from now until the Easter Holiday. Mr. Nott, your library privileges are rescinded for that same period. I will inform Madam Pince this evening."
Theo looked even more appalled than Blaise. "But – but what about homework?!"
"You will not be allowed to take books out, nor will you be allowed in the restricted section, regardless of notes from any other professor. Count yourself lucky that this is your first offense. Next time, I will be informing your father of your independent studies."
At that, Theo blanched, and Blaise looked rather ill. "Does that mean you're writing my mother?" he asked.
Snape hummed nastily. "I'm sure she will be most intrigued to hear that her son has been casually showing off knowledge and skills he has no business knowing in school."
"Fuck."
"Language, Mr. Zabini."
"Please, sir –"
"Save it for someone who will actually be fooled by your act, Mr. Zabini," Snape advised him with a contemptuous sneer.
Blaise's features immediately reverted to a blank mask, and he slouched even further into his chair, every pore exuding sullenness. "Fine."
"And you will present yourselves for detention tomorrow evening with Mr. Filch," the professor drawled. Well bugger, Mary thought. That meant she was going to have to miss Dueling Club – she would have to make a point of going to an open practice session next weekend instead: between homework, hospitalizations, and this latest Hogsmeade weekend (which meant none of the approved supervisors were present in the Castle), she still hadn't managed to make it to one yet. All of this ran through her head in the course of Snape's long, dramatic pause. "All of you."
"But I didn't do anything!" Ginny objected.
"You didn't walk away, either," Snape snapped. "You may consider yourself lucky that I have not involved your Head of House in this punishment. Professor McGonagall is far less forgiving than myself regarding attempted use of the Dark Arts."
The Gryffindor subsided at once. Mary, who had held her tongue throughout all of this, accepting her punishment silently, winced at the thought of the Professor getting involved. She was sure that wouldn't be pretty. As though her wince had drawn his attention, Snape's gaze finally fixed on her.
"Miss Potter," he nearly sighed. Mary fancied there was a bit of exasperation there. "How is it that half of the disciplinary problems I must deal with in some way or another involve yourself? It is as though you go seeking out trouble, you insufferable child. I have no doubt whatsoever that you are somehow behind all of this, so tell me: Why were four underclassmen attempting to summon a boggart into my dungeons?"
The girl winced. That was… unfortunately truer than she would have liked, especially so soon after the Honor Duel incident. "I was, um… that is… erm…"
"What have I told you about stuttering?"
Blaise sniggered, apparently recovered from his close brush with expulsion, and Mary caught Theo failing to suppress a smirk out of the corner of her eye. "Don't, sir?" She paused to collect her thoughts before making another stab at speaking. "As you know, I've been trying to master the Patronus Charm. I've been practicing against a boggart in lessons, because my boggart takes the shape of a dementor, and I wanted one to work with during my free time as well. We were just trying to find one in an out-of-the-way corner, but we didn't see any, so Blaise said we might as well have just summoned one for our trouble, and, erm…" She hesitated to implicate herself, but Snape glared at her for stuttering again, so she finished with a resigned sigh. "I said that sounded like a good idea to me. Theo was just trying to make sure we didn't mess it up too badly and hurt ourselves. Ginny didn't have anything to do with it. She was just tagging along."
A rather tense silence followed as she awaited his response. Finally he said, "Very well. You will serve detention with Mr. Filch both Saturday and Sunday evenings next weekend as well as tomorrow. And if you are truly interested in mastering the Patronus Charm, you might try the Tempering Chamber."
"Tempering Chamber?" Mary asked. Ginny and the boys echoed her. It sounded vaguely familiar, like something she might have read about in Hogwarts: A History, years ago, and promptly forgotten about.
Snape nodded. "One of Godric Gryffindor's… less popular additions to the school. I understand that until the late 1800s, all Gryffindors were expected to experience it in a sort of hazing ritual, and again as an end-of-school challenge."
"What is it?" the only Gryffindor among them asked.
"It is, quite simply, a room that makes you face your fears, your flaws, and your weaknesses. It functions not unlike the Sorting Hat, but with a very distinct agenda. My understanding is that it was intended to shape students to appreciate Gryffindor's noble warrior ethos in the absence of actual wars in which they could participate."
Mary bit her lip, considering. It sounded daunting, but if it made her face her fears, she supposed it would be, functionally, quite similar to a boggart. If she could cast a Patronus there, she could probably cast it anywhere. It had to be worth a shot. "Where is it, sir?"
"First dungeon level; there's a closed door at the west end of the North-East Portrait Gallery. The password is chivalry. Now be gone with you all. I do have more important things to do today than tracking down wayward would-be troublemakers. Do not forget to report to Mr. Filch after dinner tomorrow."
The students filed out, Blaise defiantly refusing to mutter "Yes, sir" along with the others. They parted ways almost at once, Mary's curiosity about the Tempering Chamber at odds with the others' irritation about their punishment. She did rather wonder whether this meant that the boys would be angry with her until Easter. Callous though it might be to think it, Ginny didn't exactly have enough friends to shun the few people who would associate with her, and she had only got one night's detention, so she probably wouldn't hold a grudge too long.
As for the boys, there was nothing to be done about it immediately: if they were upset, surely trying to make them talk about it right away would be even more irritating? And besides, it might have been her idea, but she was pretty sure it was mostly Blaise's fault they had got in trouble in the first place. If he had listened to her and Ginny when they said to stop, or if Theo hadn't gone along with him, they wouldn't have at all. Theo, at least, would probably recognize that, though she had a sneaking suspicion she might be spending the next eight weeks supplying him with books to make it up to him for getting him involved.
She dismissed the issue for the moment and returned to her room, wondering impatiently how much longer Lilian and Hermione would be in returning from Hogsmeade. She could hardly wait to discuss a trip to the Tempering Room as soon as possible.
Sunday, 20 February 1994
Daphne's Tea Parlor
To Mary's immense irritation, making that visit to the Tempering Room did not, in fact, happen 'as soon as possible,' for multiple reasons. Chief among these was that neither Hermione nor Lilian was quite ready to make another go at the Patronus again only three days after their last attempt. Hermione pled exhaustion and Lilian busy-ness, and no matter how excited Mary was to try out the new room, she was wary enough of Snape's recent reminder about overconfidence not to go exploring the school alone. After all, if the Room behaved like a boggart, or worse, a dementor, she might end up incapacitated there, which would be terribly embarrassing. Plus it would be nice to have a friend along anyway, for morale.
The fact that she could have gone alone, but didn't, did not make her any less irritated to find herself in the empty classroom Daphne had appropriated for her tea parties the following afternoon. The prior engagement which she had conveniently allowed to slip her mind was the other reason exploring the Room was right out.
There were about twenty girls at any given tea party, not including the third-year Slytherins. A few older students – mostly Slytherins and Hufflepuffs, the sort who recognized the value of making connections, even with the younger years – had come, but for the most part the tables (carefully arranged by familial and personal status, favors owed, and Daphne and Lilian's estimation of the relative value of each girl's future connections) were filled with first- and second-years, eager to interact, even in a highly restricted way, with the Girl Who Lived.
They were, as Mary had found at the first party she had attended, disproportionately Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs (the ones who had not been entirely put off by the title Heir of Slytherin), with a few scattered Ravenclaws. She supposed that most of the Ravens were preoccupied by their own studies or projects, while any Slytherin who cared to could approach her in the Common Room or the Great Hall without owing Daphne for the honor of an introduction.
Mary was well aware that she was being used as a bargaining chip to undermine Fay Dunbar's hold on her Gryffin-puff clique. Popularity games weren't exactly her cup of tea, or of any particular interest, beyond any attempts to use her fame as leverage within them, but she would have had to be both blind and deaf not to know about this, given Blaise's complaining about Daphne spending all her time with The Girls and Lilian's endless plotting. Apparently her best friend had at some point decided that Mary's sarcastic suggestion that she and Catherine ought to just manage Mary's life for her should be taken at face value, and since she didn't want to upset Mary again by going behind her back about it, the logical conclusion was to talk Mary's ear off about it, despite the fact that she was decidedly Not Interested.
She had had high hopes, for a brief period, that this party would be better than the last she had been dragged into… was it really before the hols?
In any case, Nora, her second-year minion, had asked whether she could attend, and Mary, of course, had said yes. It wasn't as though Daphne would refuse to accommodate the only request she had made since the inception of the parties, and it wasn't as though she was dragging Hermione along, or Luna. Nora was a Slytherin, and a half-blood raised by her pureblood family: even if German (or rather Frankish) tea-party etiquette was somewhat different than that of Magical Britain, Mary was confident that she could be trusted not to accidentally offend anyone too badly (or on purpose, as Luna might do just for giggles).
Mary had been hoping that Nora would be another friendly (non-sycophantic) face to talk to (alongside Lilian, Daphne, and occasionally Sadie), but whether by accident or design, the younger girl had been seated with two Hufflepuffs and a Ravenclaw, and seemed to be more than content to make nice with them, discussing the differences in Continental and British pureblood customs, so far as Mary could overhear. If she didn't know better, she would have suspected her minion of pulling a Davis – trying to elevate herself within the social hierarchy by establishing relationships with purebloods, much as Tracey had done with Pansy and Millicent. But she couldn't be – if she were, she would never have allowed herself to be seen with Dave.
The Girl Who Lived, in contrast, had been seated with Daphne, Lilian, Pansy, Lyssa Selwyn (fourth-year Slytherin), and Marietta Edgecombe (fourth-year Ravenclaw). Selwyn and Edgecombe had been engaged in conversation almost immediately by Pansy, comparing their various Ministry connections, while Daphne and Lilian chatted about Professor D'Onofrio latest in-class discussion (Grindelwald: good ideas, poor execution, or entirely misguided). Mary was left fending off the occasional attempt to draw her into the Ministry conversation (it wouldn't do to reveal how little she actually knew about the Ministry's function and the power-structures within it – something to write Catherine about, she noted), and making the occasional comment on the stupidity of trying to define the Greater Good, let alone achieve it through war.
The worst part was, this was the best part of the whole affair: before they actually sat down to tea, there had been mingling, and afterward there would be more mingling as they all said their farewells. Mary had already been introduced to three more namesakes (first-years Marie, Mary-Anne, and Mariah, all of whom seemed to think that Mary would find it fascinating that their parents had named them after her, instead of moderately creepy), and was not looking forward to the process of everyone trying to speak to her one last time before they departed. She didn't care if it was polite for them to bid farewell to everyone at the hostess's table before they took their leave, she still found it entirely uncomfortable how much some of the girls wanted her acknowledgment.
She was certain that half of the reason she had been seated there was that she would be forced to talk to everyone at least once, and couldn't skip out early. (The other half was, of course, that she was the unacknowledged guest of honor, and it would have been inappropriate to seat her anywhere other than at Daphne's table.)
She would much rather have been exploring the Tempering Chamber. Even the hospital wing might have been an improvement. At least there were no little kids staring at her as though she was their hero there.
The part that made it truly miserable, though, was that she could actually imagine this being fun, in other circumstances: getting all dressed up and playing hostess herself, as she had over the holiday, for example, or even with a smaller gathering of actual friends. It would still be another year and a half or so before she could start attending (or hosting) more intimate parties, at least according to Catherine. She attempted to stifle a groan, and did not quite succeed.
"What was that, Elizabeth?" Daphne inquired politely.
Mary sighed, cobbling together a reasonable lie. "I only just recalled that I have a prior engagement this evening with Mr. Filch, courtesy of our Head of House."
The girls, with varying degrees of curiosity, nodded their sympathy.
"What happened?" Edgecombe asked, her eyes alight with excitement at the prospect of juicy gossip.
"Oh, a minor indiscretion over the Hogsmeade weekend," she replied airily.
"Involving Mr. Zabini and Mr. Nott, perhaps?" Pansy asked.
"Ooh, what sort of indiscretion?" Lilian teased.
Mary gave her friend her best inscrutable smile. Lilian knew very well what sort of indiscretion. But she certainly couldn't admit that she had been caught attempting to summon a boggart, and Lilian knew that, too. Unfortunately, the only other thing she could think of was decidedly suggestive and innuendo-esque. Not that that was inappropriate for the tone of the conversation, she just didn't fancy the thought of the entire school talking about her dating one or both of her closest male friends.
She said it anyway: "I'm sure you can imagine."
The other girls tittered, and returned to their own conversations, throwing the occasional speculative look at Mary. She smirked superiorly at them whenever she caught them. ('When in doubt, always act as though you know everything, and everything is under control' was one of Catherine's rules for successfully navigating unfamiliar social waters.)
Meanwhile, however, she silently counted the seconds until the afternoon's diversion would finally be over.
[Also, anyone who likes this portrayal of Ginny's character and her experience with Tom might find the last few one-shots I posted to be of interest. They're canon-compliant, rather than MP compliant, though.]