She didn't find out why Mr. Malfoy had been so irate until several weeks later, when she received an owl from Draco.
Frances,
Sorry I haven't written to you yet, father has been unhappy with me, especially for the fact that I "continue to associate with mudbloods." He only let me use the owl because I told him I would be writing to Goyle, as if I'd want to talk to that boring prick.
Anyway, I'd expect he rather hates you now, considering what you said. In any other situation it would have been rather foolish, he really could've gotten you expelled. But the good/bad news is that shortly before he came down to the late he was sacked. I would tell you why, but I'm afraid it'll have to wait until next year, as it's rather sensitive information that I don't think anyone should have to hear through.
Regardless, had you said what you said to anyone else I would've congratulated you on it, it was stupid and funny. As it turns out I'm in a bit of trouble for it. It's fine, however you should probably not write back to me, as there's a fair chance they could read my incoming mail if they want. If I can manage it I'll send you another owl, but not until they cool down. You really did a number.
Congrats,
Draco
Frances received no more post from her friend that summer, but she reread the letter to reassure herself that things were okay. Although, on one day in the middle of June, she felt her ring grow unbearably hot, and it stayed that way for the whole day, it got so bad she had to take it off and keep it in her pocket. She wished she could've written, but she didn't.
The good news was that Neville and his Gran apparated to their house every odd week for afternoon tea. Augusta seemed to like the social time with her parents (they were all very good talkers), and her parents were eager to learn more about the wizarding world. Neville and Frances would occupy themselves in the garden for most of their time together, usually rushing through the sitting room once or twice for cake or biscuits.
They were sitting in the garden on the last of these visits. Augusta had told the Tacets that she could take Frances shopping and get her to the train, and they had agreed. Gemma and Stephen Tacet were protective of their daughter, but they did not like the idea of causing her to miss out on time with her friend. At the end of this visit, Frances would be leaving with her trunk by apparition and going to the Longbottom's in the Yorkshire countryside. Neville had his legs splayed out in front of him, examining the Foxglove flowers that Stephen had managed to coax out of the ground.
"I saw these on the White Cliffs a few summers ago, but I didn't stop to get a closer look," he murmured quietly, as if speaking to the flowers. His hand gently touched the petals, careful not to disturb them more than was necessary.
Frances wasn't really listening, instead she was thinking about something that had been on her mind for nearly two years. "Neville?" she asked, interrupting him as he talked about the toxicity of the plant.
"Yes?" He looked at her, concerned when seeing her focused expression.
For a second she was overcome with affection for him, seeing the way he immediately turned his attention to her, but she refocused herself and said, "What happened to your parents?"
He was shocked, clearly this was the last question he expected her to ask. He was silent for a moment, and Frances suddenly knew she shouldn't have asked, that it wasn't her business. Before he could respond, she said, "Nevermind, you don't have to tell me."
"No, no, it's okay," Neville took a deep breath before he continued, "My parents were part of the Order of the Phoenix, they were the resistance when You-Know-Who rose to power. They got tortured by Bellatrix Lestrange for information when I was very young, but they never gave anything up. She… she really messed them up. They're at St. Mungo's, they aren't… they aren't all there." Neville looked as if he were about to cry, so Frances moved closer to him so she could pull him into a hug, rubbing his back comfortingly and regretting her decision to ask.
He didn't cry, and they only split up when Gemma came outside to let them know it was time to go, she gave them a strange look, raising her eyebrow at Frances inquisitorially.
Frances' first apparition was painful, leaving her gasping for air when she finally felt her two feet on solid ground again. Augusta patted her on the back and said, "Come along. The worst of it is over."
They had apparated to a path a bit below the Longbottom house, which was an old stone building, with several chimneys and blue window panes. The path up to the house was lined with strange flowers and shrubs, some of them moving unnaturally, others with smells so intoxicating that Frances had half a mind to plop down in front of them and never leave. "I wouldn't get to near those," Neville warned of the long stemmed, bright orange-blossomed flowers that were beckoning to her, "They can drive you a little mad."
She forced herself onwards to the house, which upon closer inspection, had a creeping of vines across the facade. As they walked up to the door, it opened on its own, or so it seemed to, until Frances looked down and saw a rather old looking house elf, wearing a very long and very brightly colored jumper.
"Frances, this is Cascus, our house elf," Augusta said, leaning down to give her bag and scarf to him. He slung them over his shoulder in a manner that made it clear he had done it many times before. Cascus then held out his hand for Frances to shake, which she did gladly, wondering when the elf had been freed.
Inside, the house was warm and inviting, if not entirely shabby and strange. Where fire surely burned in the wintertime, ferns and other potted plants had been put in the fireplace. Every window sill had some seedling in a mason jar on it. Frances now very much understood why Neville was so fond of plants.
The walls were lined with books and loose scrolls, some neatly organized on bookshelves, but clearly they had run out of room a long time ago, so they just lay in piles on every flat surface. Something was cooking in the kitchen, it smelled warm and a bit oniony, giving Frances the impression that it was pasta.
"Follow me to your room," said Augusta, flinging her moth eaten hat onto the sofa, where Cascus picked it up nearly immediately. Frances trotted along after the old woman, looking surreptitiously into each open room as she passed by, noticing a surprising lack of evidence of magic. Up a flight of stairs and down a long hallway, they found her room, which had a large sleigh bed with a brown and green, patchworked bedspread, perfectly turned down. Her things were already neatly stacked in the corner. "Wash up for dinner," Augusta ordered, turning and walking out of the room.
Frances obliged, going to the washbasin and admiring how it filled with crystal clear water without the aid of a faucet. After thoroughly cleaning her hands, she bounded downstairs. No one was on the lower level, so she went to the window to look out at their back garden, which was much more manicured than the front garden. She saw the figures of Augusta and Neville sitting at a table, shadowed by the late afternoon sun. Figuring that this was probably where they would be having tea (two teas in one day!), she walked out to meet them.
She sat opposite Neville at the round table, Augusta and Cascus sitting at either end of her. Frances did not know much about house elves, but she figured it was probably very strange for one to sit at the same table with its employer, free or otherwise. The dinner was pasta, with a red sauce, farmer's sausage, and what seemed like an entire garden's worth of zucchini. It was delicious, and Frances told Cascus so. He seemed to enjoy the praise, thanking her several times for her compliment.
Frances and Neville spent their last week of vacation doing a lot of walking. They would stroll aimlessly in the countryside for hours, getting sunburns and balancing on the low stone barriers that lined fields. Sometimes they would climb trees and encounter stray dogs, others times they'd skip stones in the ponds that dotted the low points between fields.
The pastorality of it all almost made Frances forget about what she'd asked Neville in her garden, before they'd left for Yorkshire. One day they were both lying on the grass on a small hill, being warmed by the sun, when Frances heard herself ask, "Did you ever know them, before they were tortured?"
Her heart came to rest in her throat, and she waited with gritted teeth to hear what he said. "No, no I was too young. But my mum kept journals all her life, and Gran had me read them, so I got to know them that way. And when we visit them in the hospital, sometimes I'll get to see little bits of their personalities. Not a lot, but sometimes."
Again, she was wrenched out of her body and into Neville's, seeing herself as her friend, walking in the long-term wing of St. Mungo's, looking down at his frail, wild-eyed parents, who were staring with complete concentration at a painting of the water crashing over rocks in a rough sea. She got the feeling that this was several memories in succession, all showing the same thing.
She was thrown back into her body, Neville looking at her with anger. "What did you do that for?" he asked angrily, getting up from the ground and brushing grass off of his legs.
"Well I didn't do it on purpose," she replied, standing up as well, running after Neville as he stomped off. "You know I've been trying to learn legilimency, and for some reason I'm only able to do it accidentally. I did the same thing to Ron last spring!" She picked up the pace to run in front of him, blocking his path. "Seriously, Neville. I'd never do it to a friend. It's just whenever someone I care about is sad, suddenly I can see their memories. I have no control over it!"
He looked at her, right into her eyes, and finally deciding that she wasn't lying, he said, "Okay, okay. But I don't like it, and I'd thank you to care about me less." He said this last bit with a glimmer of a smile, and Frances laughed at his joke and with the relief from his words. They walked back to the hill and layed down on the grass again.
The day before the train to Hogwarts, Augusta took the pair to Diagon Alley to buy their books and new robes. Neville and Frances spent most of their afternoon at the ice cream shop, trying to figure out why their Care of Magical Creatures professor would require a book that seemed intent on killing them. Augusta went off to go purchase a new cauldron, leaving the two to their own devices. Eventually they wandered into the Leaky Cauldron, where they were staying, and saw the entire Weasley family, as well as Hermione Granger and Harry Potter.
"Harry! Hermione! Ron!" Neville shouted, running over to them and leaving Frances behind, who followed, albeit not at such a quick pace. Neville sat down at the long wooden table with them, Frances pulling out the chair next to him.
"Hey, Frances," Hermione said, Ron and Harry both nodding in greeting as well.
She smiled at her, "It's good to see you unpetrified, Hermione."
"I feel the exact same way."
"Have you heard about Sirius Black?" asked Ron, Harry looking darkly down at his hands.
Neville nodded nervously, but excited at the same time. "My gran said, well she said a lot about him actually." He launched into information surely taken from a tabloid. All of them except for Neville seemed to know that what he was saying was to be taken with a grain of salt. Neville turned out to be a rather good storyteller though, and despite the fact that none of what he was saying was true, it was quite entertaining. They spent a while listening to him talk, Fred and George at one point joining to listen. It was late into the night when Augusta walked into the pub from the staircase to the bedrooms. They were surprised to see her come from there, dressed in her robe and slippers, seeing as they hadn't noticed her come in from shopping. Neville's story really had been enrapturing.
"Neville, Frances, time to go to your rooms. I want you two to get a good night's sleep before tomorrow," Augusta said. Frances had noticed that she spoke almost exclusively in commands.
Neville groaned under his breath a little, but made no other indication of annoyance. They both got up from the table, saying goodnight to the rest, and walked up the stairs after Augusta.
Frances was in her own room, something that Neville found incredibly unfair as he had to share a room with his Gran, who apparently snored too loud for him to get any sleep at all.
Frances always had a difficult time falling to sleep, so she spent a couple hours pacing around her room, trying to get tired to no avail. She was sitting on her bed, trying to bore herself to sleep by reading her arithmancy textbook when a quiet knock disturbed her.
She tiptoed over to the door, opening it as quietly as possible, worried that Augusta would somehow know that she was still not sleeping even though their rooms were at opposite ends of the pub. It was Neville, looking quite frazzled and annoyed. He hadn't been sleeping as well.
Brushing past her, he said, "I have a ringing in my ears from Gran's snoring. Don't think I'll ever get to sleep at this rate."
"No, neither will I. I resorted to reading my textbooks and hoping that would help."
Neville came over to sit on her bed, examining the arithmancy book. "I don't understand why you're not taking divination with me, this looks horrible," he said.
"All I've heard is Trelawney is a hack."
"Well that doesn't mean you can't take the class to be with me," he bugged with a genial smile.
She rolled her eyes, leaning back on her pillows and pulling the covers over her. "You can sleep in here if you want," she offered, picking at a hangnail.
"I was hoping you'd say so." Neville pulled the covers over him too.
"Well you have to do me a favor."
"Anything," he answered immediately.
"Read the arithmancy book to me for a while. I was making real progress before you got in here."
He picked it up dutifully, flipping to a page in the middle and reading in a low, slow voice. "In the Chaldean method, the number nine is usually not used in calculations, although other than this the method is otherwise the same as the…"
Frances fell asleep so quickly she hardly had time to process what was happening. When Neville finally realized that she had gone to sleep, he placed the book gently on the nightstand, going to turn off the gaslamp in the corner, then walking carefully back to the bed.
When Frances woke, she was shoulder to shoulder with him. Her watch read 8:36 in the morning, so she nudged Neville awake. "Hey, go to your gran's room and wake her up. If she asks, say you've been up for a bit."
He nodded blearily, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes to try to make it convincing for her. As soon as the door shut behind him, she sprung up and began putting clothing on. A green and white striped shirt and jeans with her trainers were what she chose. Frances rushed down to find some breakfast, seeing Fred and George doing exactly that. She went to Tom, the innkeeper, and asked, "Can I have some toast, and maybe some sausages?"
"Sorry, Miss. I can get you toast, but those Weasley boys just took the last of the sausages." Tom handed her some toast and she ate it dry while staring as the twins dug into their considerable breakfast, scheming to get one of the their sausages. One of them noticed her looking at their food before she could hatch a plan, and called out, "Slytherin girl, why don't you come over here?"
She looked around uncomfortably, loathing to have so much attention brought to her in such a public place. He waved at her, beckoning her again. She walked over, and said, "My name's Frances, in case you were wondering."
"Oh, good," said the other one, "we were very curious. Asking ourselves all morning-"
"Asking who is that awfully quiet Slytherin girl? Why isn't she calling us a blood traitor and spitting at us?"
"Ah, well I wouldn't have a leg to stand on with that one. I'm a muggleborn."
"Well I certainly feel sorry for you, then. I'm Fred, he's George," Fred said. Frances made a mental note that Fred was in the orange jumper, and George in the blue. "We noticed you were staring at our plate, care for a sausage?" He didn't wait for an answer, and instead took her plate from her hands, and slid some sausages onto it. "Run along now, I'm sure you don't want Ms. Longbottom to worry about where you ran off to."
"I'm sure you're right," she muttered, and thanked them for their food. The sausages nearly slid off her plate as she ran up to her room, her resolving to at least try to eat breakfast slowly. Frances was very excited to go back to school. Her things were repacked into her trunk, somehow unable to fit into it this time around, and so she put her belts around her clothing and pulled as tight as she could to try to compress everything. Eventually she was able to get all of her things to fit inside, even the monster book, which growled at her from within the shut trunk.
The book was still growling as she pushed it to the racks above the seats on the train compartment. She took the seat by the window, panting with the effort of hoisting it up. She'd left Neville to go sit with Draco and the rest.
Most of the ride was spent in lurid tales about Sirius Black that Frances really didn't participate in, she'd gotten enough at the Leaky Cauldron. The weather outside the train window was incredibly stormy. Wind, fog, and rain obfuscated the landscape moving by.
They were discussing the Care of Magical Creatures textbook when the lights started flickering, and the train rattled to a halt, throwing them into darkness. Pansy screamed a little as the train jerked to one side, Goyle shushed her and tried to listen.
Frances lit her wand quietly, and opened the compartment door, looking down the long hallway, and seeing something black-robed and tall move into the train. She was hit with the realization that it was staring right at her, despite her not being able to see its eyes. Her throat closed with fear, like whatever she was looking at had paralyzed her.
Draco and Pansy were yelling at her, but she didn't realize until Goyle and Crabbe pulled her back into the compartment, looking at her like she was insane. The window had entirely frosted over, and they could all see their breath, a thick fog, in the air.
"Are you crazy?" Draco whispered angrily.
She looked at them with confusion, "What is that thing?" Frances knew that the rest of them had already deduced it, being purebloods and well-aware of the finer points of the wizarding world.
Pansy shushed her, watching the glass on the compartment door frost over too. "I think it's coming down the hall," she hissed. Pansy was right, and soon the raggedy black form moved slowly past their door. Frances felt Draco grab her hand tightly. She was thankful for the small bit of comfort she got from that gesture. The thing turned its head slightly to look at the five of them, and they all collectively held their breath, not looking away from the black hole of its hood. Then it turned its head back forward and kept moving, as it passed them by the air got warmer, but only by a negligible amount.
"What was that?" Frances asked, carefully removing her hand from Draco's.
"Dementor," said Goyle, "They guard Azkaban. If I had to guess, they're searching the train for Sirius Black."
The five of them looked at each other, silent with the weight of what that meant. Their ride on the enchanted carriages up to the castle was also very quiet, everyone seemed to be listening outside of the carriage for screams, or something that might indicate Black was there. The stupor of the Dementor wore off by the time they started eating at the feast. This was especially bolstered by the fact that Amir told Draco that Edith had seen Potter passed out in his compartment.
Draco turned around to face Potter gleefully from across the Great Hall, mocking him for being knocked unconscious by a dementor. Frances was reminded once again how much her friend irritated her.
