Shadows, or

A Prickle As Sharp As Any Thorn

Chapter 21

Lucia had no problems with her fellow students until the end of October, when the awe of Professor McGonagall and the strict discrimination rules had worn off somewhat and the normalcy of school had well set in. It began in small ways, things she thought were accidents. Tripping in the corridor, pumpkin juice tipped into her bag, a sudden rush for stairs pushing her onto the wrong staircase just as it started moving so that she was late for DADA and received extra homework from McGonagall… Then some of the Gryffindors and a few of the Hufflepuffs started "forgetting" her last name and calling her Malfoy. "It's Bonnefoy," she kept repeating, until she was saying it through gritted teeth. They laughed when she couldn't get the elm brooms to go higher than she was tall, and when she was hit in the shoulder by a bludger during a Quidditch match, the Gryffindor Beater apologized and said it was an accident. "Anyway, it's nothing to what happened to Harry Potter during a Quidditch match," said a nearby Hufflepuff. "He had all the bones in his arm taken out. Nobody had it worse than old Harry Potter." And a Ravenclaw neighbor pointedly agreed. Lucia couldn't help but agree too. How much had he borne, sometimes at the hands of the whole school? Should she complain when her troubles were so much more juvenile? Even if her days were quietly becoming miserable at this school where she thought she'd found a natural home, she wasn't fighting giant snakes or running for her life or being tortured by the headmaster. She was just getting along through life. Mummy had said it would take time, people might be unkind, she must remember what they had suffered.

She took to carrying Victoria everywhere she went, concealed in a pocket, and letting the naturally tiny cat warn her whenever someone was coming. She would step behind a statue or into an empty room until she saw who it was, never quite sure if it would be someone who wanted to stuff a dungbomb down her robes, unless it was a teacher, a Slytherin, or Chador or Luna. After scouring books in the library for protective charms, she set protections around her bag and clothing against future pumpkin juice and other depredations and locked her school trunk with another charm, though no one had yet penetrated into her room. Then she sailed along with her chin set and tried to look as if nothing was happening and as if it didn't keep her awake at night.

It was on Halloween Day that Professor McGonagall caught wind of some part of it. Lucia had gone with the Third Year Slytherins to Transfigurations, which they had with the Gryffindor Third Years. It was a little early, they were waiting for McGonagall, and Lucia was occupying herself with turning her quill pen into a fluttering paper bird and back again. She was quite good at Transfigurations (to make up for being so appalling at flying?), and the younger Slytherins were watching with fascination. Suddenly a hand came out and crushed her paper bird, which turned itself back into a broken quill.

"What are you showing off for, Malfoy?" the Gryffindor girl demanded. "We all already know you Malfoys are good at spells."

"Yeah, Malfoy," a boy joined in. "Have you learned any Dark spells recently?"

"Leave her alone!" the Slytherin boy next to her exclaimed. "She's not a Malfoy!"

"You keep out of this, Slytherin. They should never have let you back in this school. If you're not careful, you'll wish they hadn't."

The boy wilted a little.

"Looks like bullying isn't confined to Death Eater wannabes, Albert Richard," Lucia said calmly. "I thought you Gryffindors were supposed to be courageous and noble. Picking a fight over nothing at all isn't courageous and noble."

"Don't you dare speak about what Gryffindors are supposed to be, Death-Eater spawn!" the girl shouted.

Lucia went white, but before anyone could say anything else, a voice roared over them all, "That is enough!" No one had seen the small tabby cat picking its fastidious way through the room until it turned into Professor McGonagall in their midst, no one except Lucia, who had felt Victoria's claws in her leg as she was speaking.

McGonagall was furious. As furious, someone said later, as when she was confronting Death Eaters, though that of course was an exaggeration. "Everyone return to your seats! Except you, Della Howard and Albert Richard! You two stand before me!" Her two cowed Gryffindor students stood before her desk. "I am ashamed of you! You are not worthy of being called Gryffindors! From now on, you won't be. I warned you all at the beginning of this semester what would happen to students who carry on the ways we have so recently been delivered from. You will be expelled from this school!"

Lucia was on her feet before she knew what she was doing. "Please, Professor, don't expel them!"

The whole classroom stared at her. "What did you say, Miss Bonnefoy?" McGonagall snapped.

"I said, please don't expel them! Not after what they've been through. During their first year, their school was taken over by a woman whose name means Pain and Anger, and their headmaster was murdered—supposedly by my brother. Their second year they were forced to go to school under headmasters who tortured them, and they watched their friends and family be killed and pursued under a regime headquartered in my brother's house. They might even have had family members killed by my father or brother and their family. And this year they're supposed to come back to school and be friendly with me and pretend like nothing ever happened?"

McGonagall still stared at her, then turned her attention to Albert, who was staring at his shoes, and at Della, whose chin was quivering. "Are you presuming to teach me my job, Miss Bonnefoy?"

"No, Professor." She sank down into her chair and stroked Victoria's head numbly.

"Everyone needs to be taught something sometime, Miss Bonnefoy. Don't ever think you have nothing to teach an adult. I learned that from young Mr. Potter. How do you think up these things, child?"

"I—I—" She stuttered a moment. Then she whispered, "I'm as afraid of my family as they are."

The Gryffindors stared at her. She realized they hadn't gotten to hear her story as the Slytherins had.

After a moment, McGonagall gave a curt nod. "Very well, Miss Bonnefoy. Miss Howard, Mr. Richard, you have a defender among the Slytherins, who seem to know more about nobility than you do. You are not expelled, but you will have a good deal of work to do to prove to me that you deserve to be in Gryffindor. You will be confined to your common room during the festivities this evening, and the Slytherin Head of House and I will devise a fitting punishment for you."

They might well have winced. Punishments by the Slytherin Head of House were no longer to be feared as Snape's had been, but Professor Sinistra had acquired a reputation for torturously dull detentions.

"Return to your seats. Class will commence."

Transfigurations commenced, but Lucia did worse in it than usual and hurried away as soon as she could. The festivities would be beginning soon in the Great Hall, but she had no stomach for them.

Her first months here had been so happy! Was it always going to be like this now, having to watch her back at every moment and being accused of being a Death Eater just because of her ancestry? It had all come on so suddenly she felt as though she were reeling from a blow to the head.

"What are you crying for?" Myrtle asked curiously as Lucia sank down on the edge of the bath, not sure why she'd gone there. "You look just like Draco when you cry, you know."

That did not help. "Why is it so unfair?" Lucia sobbed. "And why do I always end up defending them?"

"Aww, is poor widdle Lucia getting picked on?" Myrtle asked sarcastically. She shouted, "Join the club!"

"I know just what it was like for you now."

"You could come back and haunt them with me."

"No! I'm not like that!"

"Well, fine. Your brother thought it was a good idea. He knew what it was like."

"Draco? When did he ever get picked on? He was usually the one doing the tormenting."

"Harry Potter never left him alone, you know. He was very sensitive, and Harry was always getting after him."

Lucia snorted. "From what I've heard, both of them had nasty tempers and made their interpersonal problems worse by attacking each other. Neither of them knew how to control themselves. I do."

"Where's the fun in that?"

"Where's the fun in making matters worse?" she retorted, then sighed. "I don't know what to do. If I attack people back, I'm just as bad as they are. If I control myself, they won't stop tormenting me."

"Did you ever try not keeping it all to yourself?" A tall form was looming over her. Chador. She stared up at him in surprise and tried to whisk her tears away. He sat down, his movements slightly stiff. "Did you think no one noticed, then?"

"I didn't think you did," Lucia muttered. He'd been rather preoccupied and short-tempered recently.

"Hrmph," he said shortly. "Astoria Greengrass says you're to go to the party."

"Astoria can't tell me whether to go to a party or not!" she aid indignantly. "Anyway, I don't want to go. It feels like everyone hates me, and the minute I go in there they'll all stand up and throw their food at me."

Chador gave a snort that might have been a laugh and might not have been.

"Why aren't you at the party?"

"Because I was looking for you." He softened slightly. "I didn't want to go either, actually."

Lucia stared at him. Had he gotten thinner? Had she missed something going on in her preoccupation with herself? He wasn't just her tutor: he was her friend. "Chador—" She stopped short. "Chador, what's that?"

"What?" he asked warily.

"Here—just at your hairline." She touched the hair at his temple. "It's…feathers! Growing out of your skin—like hair. Just very tiny black feathers."

"Merlin's beard!" he snarled and jumped up and peered at himself in the mirror. He clutched the edge of the sink and seemed to make a great effort but finally smashed his fist against the mirror and sat down again, his shoulders slumped, his face pinched. The feathers were still there.

"What is it?" Lucia whispered.

"I don't want to discuss it," he snapped. "At least—not here."

"I want to know!" Myrtle announced.

"Well, you don't exactly have a reputation for discretion, have you?"

"Fine! Lucia, don't let him come here again, or I'll never tell you any more about Draco." She dived into a toilet and was gone.

"Merlin's beard," Chador said again, only softer this time. "I've messed things up for you, haven't I?"

"Not really. She always gets over it. What is wrong, Chador?"

"I will tell you, Lucia. I don't think I'd mind telling you so much. Only Luna knows, so far. Only not here and now. I came because Astoria says you're not supposed to hide anymore."

"What do you mean?" Lucia asked wearily.

"All the prefects and the Head Boy and Girl have gotten together to sort their Houses out. It was Ginny's idea, when she found out what the Gryffindors have been up to."

"Ginny Weasley?" She had stayed far away from Ginny Weasley this whole time, certain she knew what a Weasley must think of anyone with Lucia's relatives.

"Yes, you know, Head Girl? Famous Gryffindor? Mad Quidditch skills? Practically fiancée of Harry Potter?"

"I know who she is. Who doesn't? What does she have to do with it?"

"Well, she reckons it's her job to straighten all this out, being Head Girl and a Gryffindor and all. I think Luna told her most of it. She and the prefects are refusing to let their Houses go to the feast until they've got their priorities straightened out. I almost wish I had gone, just to see the looks on the teachers' faces when they see an empty
Great Hall!" For a moment color came into his face as his eyes brightened.

"Wait—is this about me?"

"Only a little. You're sort of the symbol for the whole thing, an innocent Malfoy, a straight-forward Slytherin, a victim of prejudice, however you want to call it. It's really about doing something about all this stuff people have left over from the war. You know, hatred toward whole families because of what one person did, and so on. We don't need another war based on people's pain and anger, you know? That's happened before—we just barely escaped it in Croatia, my family and I. If it happens again—God help us." His face was more pinched and white than ever.

"It won't," Lucia said. "Not if there's people like Ginny and Luna and Astoria still around."