Chapter 9
Von Frettchen's tour of the school, that he did to cover his interest in Nefrita Von Strang was brought up short at the fire writing that said
"Nefrita Von Strang fucks old Rebet."
"Filth" said Von Frettchen in distaste.
"Indeed!" said Madam Bacsó "Libellous filth; and potentially damaging to both one of my staff and one of my pupils!" she clapped her hands and an elf appeared "Elf, find Professor Rebet and Fraulein Von Strang and ask them to come here; whilst it is improper for you to use legilimensy on a young girl, Herr Herzog, you shall question Rebet and clear them both!"
Von Frettchen did not see fit to admit that he had already used legilimensy on Fraulein Baronin Von Strang; he had satisfied himself that she was what and who she said she was and that she was of great potential use to him even if it was rather a shame he would be unlikely to talk HER into sleeping with the Prince to produce a child with claims on Britain too. Perhaps he could work on that!
Jade turned up slightly ahead of Professor Rebet and did a double take.
"Well WHAT a thing to do to a professor to make such dirty allegations of his honour!" she said.
"I rather fancy it was aimed more at you, my dear" said Madam Bacsó dryly.
"And I quite able to disprove it" said Jade calmly absently rebuilding her hymen and retightening her womb "If you would care to use a revelaspell to check my virginity, Madam Bacsó."
"I – perhaps it is necessary" said Madam Bacsó, getting out her wand.
Jade reflected that it would be a nuisance for the next baby – though she could probably reverse the spells – but it might be an advantage to be able to play virginal and scared if Von Frettchen got any funny ideas about her laying with his fat-arsed prince.
Unless she dropped a false memory on the prince that he had had the time of his life, and just got pregnant again with Wolf; that might be funny.
And risky.
Rebet arrived at that moment and spluttered at the message.
"Who has done this iniquitous thing?" he demanded once he had run out of Ukrainian swear words and returned to German.
"Unfortunately that we cannot determine" said Madam Bacsó grimly.
"With due respect, Madam Bacsó, what is wrong with using a chant to engulf the last wand used here so that you have the wand of the culprit?" said Jade "A wand is very personal; and so crude a person, missing it later, would likely admit to having lost it if asked. You then use priori incantatem to reveal their guilt; and enact such punishment as you see fit; and I know what I'd do" she added grimly.
"What is that dear?" said Bacsó who had wondered about expulsion.
"First I'd drop a saponification spell in so filthy a mouth to wash it out, and then as their morals belong in the toilet and they obviously have too much free time I'd have them cleaning the toilets every Saturday afternoon from now until Yule" said Jade. "With elves ordered to treat them not as pupils but as servants during the cleaning period, and ordered not to take notice of orders from such a person to self-punish so they'd do their job with more enthusiasm."
"Very ingenious, Nefrita my dear!" said Bacsó. "Can you er, do this engulfing chant?"
"If Professor Rebet will aid me by writing around it the arithmantic equation for engulfing" said Jade "The source of this filth no doubt being that I have been able to help Professor Rebet by showing him some chanting techniques to enhance potions."
"And very useful it is" said Rebet "And not unchaperoned either; Fraulein Von Strang brings friends who are also interested to learn."
"I am glad to hear it" said Bacsó who did not want ANY scandal attached to her own potential Harry Potter substitute.
Jade chanted cheerfully and soon a wand fell with a dull PLOP from mid-air.
"Ingenious" said Von Frettchen. "Perhaps you should stay on to teach this chanting formally after your ZH exams Fraulein Baronin."
"I might" said Jade "On the other hand I might duel for the position of Dark Arts teacher; just on general principles of efficiency. I HATE inefficiency. If nobody touches that wand I could find out who it belongs to."
"Go on" said Madam Bacsó.
Jade summoned paper from mid-air – without bothering with her own wand and gloves too to put on – and rubbed it up and down the wand.
"Sweat, skin fragments; parts of the owner" she said, deftly folding the paper into a bird. String appeared in her hand to tie to it; and she handed the other end to Madam Bacsó and murmured the finding charm to the bird. Using the wand directly was harder; Willow Black could have done it, but Willow had an affinity for wands. Jade preferred an old fashioned, tried and trusted method such as this that David Fraser had invented and Draco and Harry had used as aurors.
"My uncle Draco has used this method in his capacity as an auror" she volunteered wondering how hard Draco would clip her across the back of the head for appending the 'uncle'.
Unsurprisingly the trail lead to Nachtigall.
"I believe this is your wand" said Madam Bacsó coldly.
"No, mine is….. I say, it's GONE!" said Nachtigall.
"Is this your wand?" asked Madam Bacsó.
"I – yes, I do believe it is!" said Nachtigall, holding out his hand for it.
Madam Bacsó cast Priori Incantatem; and the shadowy fire writing sprang up.
"So" she said "Slanderous and anonymous; taking away the good name of a professor that might have cost him his job had there not been a competent legilimens on hand to check his innocence. You have the manners of the gutter; and a filthy mouth; saponify!" as she cast the saponification spell. Nachtigall retched. "You will spend all your Saturday leisure from now until Yule scrubbing lavatories; as you obviously have too much free time" said Madam Bacsó "And you will be supervised by elves who you will NOT be able to order about or make to punish themselves" she added with satisfaction as his eyes looked cunning on the suggestion elves supervise him. It did not take a legilimens to know he had planned to order THEM to do the work instead.
Nachtgall was horrified.
"But it's not slander, it's TRUE!" he said soapily "I've seen her meeting with him out of school hours!"
"Donner und Blitzen, Nachtigall, does it not occur to you that some of us talk to professors out of school hours because we actually care about the subjects we study" said Cacilia dryly. "In addition to showing several of us, under the kind leadership of Professor Rebet, some English magic techniques that are out of YOUR league, Nefrita has a very exciting Potions project on at the moment – you'd like it Nachtigall, she's reproducing the potion Circe used to turn men into swine, just up your street!"
Nachtigall snarled and blew bubbles.
"You are despicable and low minded" said Bacsó "And if you come once more to my attention in a negative sense, Herr Nachtigall, you will be expelled; and somehow I doubt you'll be able to beg to take your ZH's in an English school, even Hellibore's."
Nachtigall was horrified!
And Herzog Von Frettchen, great man in ODESSA , was nodding!
It was just too bad!
He would have to find some other way to pay back the Von Strang bitch!
Jade did not seriously think that Nachtigall was likely to cause her any significant trouble; the fags hung tightly together and there was very little that he could manage that she could not deal with personally. She made sure to keep a close eye on her friends; who were the vulnerable ones. Nachtigall was a minor nuisance.
She had more important things to do.
Things like persuading her friends towards less supremacist views; which in light of her own supposed declared dislike of goblins and educated elves was going to be hard.
She decided to attack ODESSA first; and held forth after the run; after dismissing the fags.
"The rise of ODESSA was due of course to the brilliance of Gellert Grindelwald" she said "A man who knew how to craft his lies so cleverly that reasonable, sensible people believed in them and truly believed they were working for the good of all."
"What do you mean?" demanded Ritter Kesselring.
That stuffed robe was the most conventional and convinced; if she could win HIM the others would surely be relatively easy!
"Why, the fact that good people, if told that something 'is for the common good', will tend to want to believe it; because good people find it hard to accept that others have less honour" said Jade "Politicians, wizarding and muggle alike, use it all the time. Muggles at the moment are trying to bring in repressive laws and spout the buzz-phrase 'it's for the children'. Which is no more true or based on reality than Grindelwald's phrase, 'for the greater good'. It was for the greater good of Grindelwald; that IS for sure. But when has it been for the greater good to confine people for having a disease that can be either cured or at least contained? Ritter, you know something of the story of Friedolf Nachtigall; I'm now going to reveal the whole truth of that since I think you have a need to know, and Katarina said I might speak of it if I felt it necessary" and she told the story, leaving out only that she and Wolf had removed sundry werewolf families from the compound, implying that they had escaped themselves to try to seek help for their children. "And" she went on "Even before Professor Snape's cure, there was wolfbane potion that contains the manifestations of the disease, permitting the werewolf to go into a lethargy and sleep during the time of full moon. These people were denied that. Moreover, I have heard that goblins suffering from black goblin fever are just shut up and left to die."
"But what else is there to do? It is so contagious and can pass too to humans" said Traudl.
"Well I should have thought curing it would have been a better solution" said Jade dryly.
"There is no cure!" said Traudl.
"Excuse me? Do not lie to me!" said Jade "The disease is extinct in England because of the cure developed a couple of hundred years ago; I will not brook lies!"
Traudl went white.
"I – Nefrita it was not a lie! I have never heard of a cure!"
The others murmured support of her.
Jade looked at her long.
"No; I see you have not" she said "I apologise for doubting you; your words seemed as tritely put as the trotting out of the phrase 'the greater good'; I wondered if you preferred to just blame goblins without caring if they lived or died."
"I thought you did not like goblins?" asked Rodica.
"There is a difference between being dubious about whom I go to school with and having common compassion for those who share our world with us" said Jade "And to be honest with you, having got here, the goblins at Prince Peak are ten times more ladies and gentlemen than the likes of Nachtigall. As I have said, the English are more concerned with courteous usage than birth; and that is shown into a very sharp contrast when such vulgar types as Herr Quabbelig are concerned. And his sadistic little sidekick De Witt. Goblins are a part of our world and there is no reason we should not be civil to them – in their proper place. And I suspect that a little more compassion from the ruling human classes would give them sufficient gratitude that they would keep to their place more readily; rather than resenting being ground down as I have heard goblins here are. Like being denied the cure for a deadly disease; such that even you, some of the most educated in the land, have not heard of. It is easy to brew; and tomorrow morning I shall teach you to brew it, and we shall ask Madam Bacsó to find out if there is an epidemic anywhere and WE will go and cure it; and gain allies in the goblin community who will be grateful to us. And one day we can use their aid to bring down this ridiculous and harmful ODESSA ."
"Why bother?" said Volodya "It's a laughing stock; it will collapse of its own accord."
"Probably; but not before it has caused even more trouble to the German and Russian people and the satellite nations" said Jade "It is a pale shadow of what Grindelwald built but it is still a nuisance for its contumely."
"It is surely a great push to establish proper values!" said Ritter.
"Ah? Then if you are such a gentleman that you think proper values include sending dementors in force against children I do not think I want to accept your brand of loyalty" said Jade.
"What is this? Who has told you such lies?"
"Ritter, I was AT Prince Peak when it was attacked by werewolves; then the first attack by dementors; then the attack during the Triwizard with massed dementors and an army of stormwizards" said Jade "YOU were not; nor were you in the ODESSA attack so you know NOTHING. And I have Malfoy cousins at Hogwarts whose word I accept that there have been similar attacks there. Werewolves, erklings, huorns; DO you think this acceptable?"
"I – no it is not!" the boy was visibly shocked. "Not at all! I did not realise – you swear this is truth?"
"I so swear" said Jade "The first werewolf to turn to Snape's side was captured wounded; and had not known that he and the others were set on children. Even ODESSA 's own TROOPS were lied to. Surely you cannot give any credence then to ANYthing they say?"
"My whole belief structure has fallen in tatters since you came" said Ritter dolefully.
"Blame not me" said Jade "I have merely been the instrument of your escape from the bondage of lies. If you are not strong enough to live in freedom that is scarcely my fault."
"I AM strong enough!" shouted Ritter "I will bring down these lying bastards!"
"I know you are strong enough" said Jade softly, putting a hand on his arm "Sometimes a friend must goad to help another to find his true strength."
He stared at her.
"Yes; you are a friend" he said harshly "You admit when you manipulate."
Jade had a qualm of conscience there; having deliberately accused Traudl of lying, knowing that she was not; knowing that she was manipulating them all shamelessly.
"I have not told any of you whole truth" said Jade "Because you are not ready for it yet. I do swear that I am loyal to you as my friends and will do all I can in your best interests. But I need people who are ready to stand with me; and help against this blasted abomination that is, on the whole, made up of two kinds of people; the misguided, truly believing the lies, such as you, Ritter, would have been had you joined; and the little, petty people using it to grub out a higher position for themselves, sneering at those who have believed the big lie. Such as Hedda Schrempf who gives away her selfish, self-seeking inadequacy at every turn. HER appointment was a big mistake on the part of ODESSA ; for she shows up the true colours of so many of them, of Prince Gerhardt himself; for attitudes come from the top. And he is one who, to make himself one up, must make sure that everyone else is one down."
"Like the followers of his grandfather who would not show respect to anyone else" said Cacilia.
"Precisely" said Jade.
"What do we do?" asked Lazlo.
"We shall be working covertly under Madam Bacsó who will aid us" said Jade "And I shall be attempting to infiltrate ODESSA . I do not ask anyone else to do so; if anyone wishes to, that's going to be crash class in occlumensy time. Herzog Von Frettchen is a legilimens; not a very good one, but he IS a legilimens."
"He's supposed to be very good" said Cacilia mildly.
"When you've been on the carpet in front of Professor Snape you KNOW what very good is and he isn't it" said Jade.
"Is he an honourable man?" asked Ritter. Jade pondered.
"Actually, I believe on the whole he is" she said "I – I should like to separate him from ODESSA but I don't know if I'm good enough. Madam Bacsó will also be working on that but we must be very careful. I do not know if we shall be able to make any move before we leave school; if not, we shall have to be ready afterwards. Be careful; show NOTHING by word or deed. And, I am going to be infinitely rude and legilimens you all; and if you cannot support me I will place a compulsion that you cannot speak of this."
"That's far more subtle than any of the compulsions in the dark arts book!" cried Ritter.
"I AM far more subtle than any of the crap in the dark arts book" said Jade "And modest too; hadn't you noticed?"
The laugh THAT brought cleared some tension; and Jade peered into the eyes of each.
Each mind reflected the same thoughts; that she had given them already far more than any other teacher or pupil, she had given them hope and hope for fags and younger siblings; and she would protect them. And this they KNEW. And so they would support her.
Jade beamed.
She had no reason to suppose any of these was a greater occlumens than she was a legilimens; she after all had prepared herself to be questioned by Voldemort in case he decided to check her daddy's loyalty by questioning his vulnerable children; and she and Lydia had practised secretly during the fear of the Voldemort years. Few people had been using legilimensy from the age of seven.
Next Jade must see Herr Rebet.
Herr Rebet almost smiled at her.
"Sir, may I have permission with other members of the sixth and observers from the lower school to use the potions dungeon before school tomorrow?" she asked.
"I – yes, I trust you; what are you planning on doing?"
"Well sir, as the cure for black goblin fever is left out of the curriculum I thought I would teach them to brew it" said Jade.
Rebet stared.
"There is a CURE?" he demanded.
"Yes sir; it's an old cure; Professor Snape dredged it out because an outbreak was brought to his attention; it's extinct in England of course because the cure is so old" said Jade.
"This is a free period for you? Then demonstrate to me now!" said Rebet as she nodded.
Jade duly brewed the potion; she had learned it well.
"Professor Snape believes it also will act as a prophylactic for up to a week" she said "And I'm not about to argue with him on that."
"No indeed; his abilities are legendary" said Rebet. "And it cures it totally… how long does it take?"
"I believe the symptoms begin reduction in about ten minutes and are gone within twenty four hours even in serious cases" said Jade "Of course if the patient is at the point of death other measures are needed too, rehydration and treatment for general debility. Professor Snape recommended a couple of pints of beer and a pepperup potion."
Rebet laughed.
"Practical; beer as well as being liquid contains sugars to replace those lost vomiting and is easy to digest" he said. "It is diuretic though; but then I suppose that removes any lasting poisons from the body."
"Quite so; and gives the patient the strength to drink plain water and eat properly" said Jade.
"I will sit in while you brew this and help you teach it; and I shall install it as part of the curriculum" said Rebet "It is, as you say, a simple potion; suitable for the fourth year."
"If you are prepared to help me, would you then also help me supervise those younger ones who wish to learn?" said Jade "I would not, of course, have permitted them to work in the dungeon without adult supervision but if more people know of it from the point of view of practical experience…. I wanted the fags to watch."
"Below their level of expertise; yet I suppose one might gauge thereby which ones are likely to actually make potioneers one day" said Rebet "What time?"
"About six thirty after our run" said Jade.
"Your run?"
"Some of us run to increase our stamina and help with sustaining spells; and too it increases lung capacity so we chant better. I hesitated to have the cheek to invite you" she added.
"I – there can be no harm so long as proper respect is retained" said Rebet. "My lungs are so much better; to increase them further in efficacy to aid with chanting would be useful if you are prepared to accept my presence."
"We would be much honoured sir" said Jade. Sooner or later he'd unbend and then he'd be a happier person too!
"We have an in to win goblins" said Jade to Madam Bacsó.
"Er, we do my dear?" said Madam Bacsó.
"We do" said Jade firmly "I have discovered that the cure for black Goblin fever appears to be unknown on the continent; if you can use your contacts to discover any outbreak we, your disciples, can take the cure and succour to the unfortunate afflicted preventing its spread to the poor human population that will doubtless live alongside and so winning THEIR plaudits also. You will be the heroine of the masses; and it will not immediately get to ODESSA because they will take no notice of such people. It gives us a window of opportunity. Von Frettchen MUST woo your support back – I had the impression there was constraint between you, that you had cleverly showed your discontent with ODESSA and such as Schrempf."
Madam Bacsó nodded.
"He is a clever enough man that if I tried effusive support he would realise I lied" she said "Disgruntlement seemed therefore the best course to take."
"We work rather well together you and I, actually" said Jade "I've voiced my own concerns to him; and made some suggestions and dropped in some hints in passing that he'll have to work a little bit to put together. A clever man like that has to be played like a fish on a line; especially if we hope to separate him from ODESSA . You'd make a very handsome duchess, Ma'am."
Madam Bacsó looked startled.
"That's moving rather further than I like" she said.
"Oh, my apologies" said Jade "I was just thinking of the idea of having him kept well in order by a forceful wife who would encourage him to think and plan but not too much. Men get into such dreadful trouble if they're allowed to plan."
Madam Bacsó laughed.
"You have your prejudices, my dear!" she said.
"Well the only plotters I've heard of who managed to breed legitimately are Gellert Grindelwald and Lucius" Jade said "And they are both efficient plotters; I draw the obvious inference that men who are sexually frustrated are too concerned with their sublimination of desire to actually engage brain before letting fly with their plots. Too much time on their hands and not enough womanly common sense to say 'yes dear but had you thought…' to bring them to a full stop before they do anything daft."
"An interesting theory" said Bacsó. "You do not wish to be a duchess yourself?"
"Well he's a little geriatric for me" said Jade. "From your point of view he's an older man without being a several generations sort of older man."
"We are of an age" said Madam Bacsó.
"Well that proves he's in need of having his plots sat on then" said Jade "They're plainly ageing him and unlike wine not in a good way."
Madam Bacsó laughed.
"You are the most impudent child!" she said.
"Well, if it amuses you, I'll take that as a compliment, Madam Bacsó!" said Jade.
Jade had settled into a routine by now; she worked hard enough at her lessons, delighting in covering a different selection of ancient runes to those she already knew, and working on a thesis around her translating discoveries; and also mugging up Linear B to work on the passages written by Circe. She discovered that she had absorbed more than she had realised in herbology, from listening to her father on the subject of properly raised plants and through helping out in the greenhouses before she even went to school; and was well up with the rest in theory of fertiliser. And as for self motile plants, she had received a rather more practical education than most in fighting huorns! She had also picked up quite a lot from Hagrid, enough at least to ask intelligent questions; and Professor Carcano waxed enthusiastic. He had received an encouraging reply from Lucius and a suggestion of a meeting over Yule to cement a business alliance, which meeting he was extremely keen on.
"Lucius is fair; I grant him that" Jade had said "If he thinks there's money in it he'll make sure you get your share of that as well as of fame; he's not mean. I expect he'll arrange a nice water tight contract for you both to sign; and he'll respect you the more if you read it through carefully and ask him if there's any point in too obscure a bit of quaestor-speak for any normal person to follow without a ZH in high falutin'."
Professor Carcano laughed.
"My thanks for the warnings!" he said.
They had been studying dragons, some with the use of omniocular recordings, and mostly in theory; and Jade had fended off his questions about being very close to Hungarian Horntails, so he had heard, at Prince Peak by explaining that she, in common with most of the students, preferred to avoid crossing the courtyard until they had been taken away again, not having the knowledge to cope.
Fortunately the good professor accepted this as sensible and reasonable; he had respect for outsize creatures with too many teeth but no sentimental attachments the way Hagrid did!
And at night, Jade took her invisibility cloak and prowled about logging such secret passages as she might find on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays; and on the other days she slept with her husband and played with their son.
She found a few more passages in addition to the ones she had found during the Triwizard; Jade, after all, had served an apprenticeship of passage finding under Fred and George Weasley who happily babysat for her and Lydia, perceiving the little girls as a most useful alibi and claiming firmly that they were only trying to follow the children when caught breaking bounds. A statue of some gothic druid with the look of dyspepsia concealed one passage that led into the forest; and another passage opened up from the dungeon and led all the way to the head's study with peep holes at various places on the way. Jade caught up on sleep in the afternoons of those days that were free, doing her preparation quickly – most of it was easy enough to her after all – and dozing once she had finished, using spells to prop her in a sitting position in the library allied with cushioning charms for comfort. As she was soon known for reading obscure – and to most people boring – works, she got left alone.
She did ask the Eulenspiegel twins idly,
"How come you and your friends never seem to use the secret passage from your common room to the kitchens and turret room?"
"WHAT secret passage from our common room. Fraulein?" asked Xanthippe.
"You mean you've been here two and a bit years, are the main source of mischief in the school and you haven't found a passage it took me three days to uncover?" said Jade "Shame on you!"
"Indeed!" said Xanthe "I suppose we never thought there might be a secret passage in the school."
"My good Owl-Glass there are dozens!" said Jade "And I'm busy mapping them; and if your lot manage to find any I shall bequeath you my map when I leave."
The twins exchanged looks.
"Excuse me, Fraulein, but have you and the others any more use for us this afternoon?" asked Xanthe.
"I don't think so!" laughed Jade "Cacilia?"
"Oh let them go hunting passages!" laughed Cacilia. The twins needed no second urging! Cacilia added as they went "Is this to give the little ones somewhere to hide if ODESSA attack us here?"
"Not entirely; it's a means to move around if we get occupied by ODESSA " said Jade. "As I don't rule out you know. And it's also healthy mischief to be engaged on, rather than the usual pranks of pay back that has a certain unpleasantness to it, even when thoroughly deserved. Let them maraud about the passages; they might even find some I have not, and we may have a use for them in the furtherance of our schemes."
Cacilia nodded.
"I have to say" she said "I too would like to see these passages; it never occurred to me to look for any either!"
Jade giggled "Then tonight I'll take you on a guided tour" she said.
The invisibility cloak was a surprise to the other girls too; and voted a vital piece of kit when Professor Nagy was discovered prowling!
And in the turret room, Cacilia, Rodica and Traudl could quite see what Nefrita had meant about being a good secret headquarters to plot if they were in some unhappy circumstances for any reason!