Chapter Six

Tori watched from the shadows as Simon Bae strode away from the Entrance Hall in the direction of the Hufflepuff Common Room. To Tori's surprise she noticed that the girl, Chloe Saunders – Simon's most recent conquest no doubt – was watching him leave with wariness rather than the longing Tori was so used to seeing. She watched as Chloe waited until Simon was out of sight and then sank onto the bottom steps of the grand staircase and put her head in her hands.

Tori frowned. What was Chloe doing? Why did she look so miserable? A thought occurred to her – perhaps she was thinking of telling Simon her secret. The secret that had drawn Davidoff's attention to her. Perhaps she didn't know Simon and his brother were caught up in Davidoff's net too.

Jealousy swam through Tori's veins as she watched Chloe sit up, take a deep breath and begin the long climb to Gryffindor Tower. She didn't follow – she'd overheard enough to know that Chloe would be in the library for the rest of the day. That wasn't worth reporting back to her mother and Tori didn't want to waste any more time on Chloe Saunders and her friends.

She slinked out from her hiding spot in the shadows, considering spending the rest of the day by the lake with Liz.

X

"Alright," Chloe hissed, slamming the heavy leather-bound book down on Derek's table so hard that dust flew in every direction and a loud crack accompanied the book's impact with the wooden desk, startling students sitting at the surrounding tables who all turned in their seats to stare. "You wanted to talk? Let's talk."

"No," said Derek without looking up. The surly Ravenclaw boy hadn't so much as flinched when the book made impact. Chloe froze in the act of sliding into the chair opposite Derek. She leaned forward, both palms outstretched on the table in front of him.

"What?" she asked incredulously, lowering her voice as she grew conscious of the stares of their fellow students. "Last night you practically harassed me for information about Davidoff. Now I want to talk and you're not interested?"

Derek grunted what was probably a word of assent.

Chloe slumped into the chair and folded her arms across her chest. "Why?"

Derek looked up, meeting her eyes. After a moment he glanced away, looking towards their growing audience. Chloe couldn't see his expression but she'd experienced Derek's glare first-hand. This one must have been particularly menacing. All at once the five nearest students began to pack their books and rolls of parchment into their satchels, practically fleeing from their tables. Once the last terrified third-year had stumbled around the nearest bookcase and out of sight, Derek turned back to Chloe and leaned forward.

"You didn't have to do that," Chloe said before he could speak. "Deliberately intimidate people like that. It's rude."

Derek raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"D-don't act like you don't know what I mean."

"I didn't force them to leave," Derek said almost childishly, leaning back and crossing his arms across his chest, adopting the same defensive pose as her.

Chloe could only shake her head in exasperation. She'd thought that coming here and speaking to the one person who seemed to know what was going on in this castle would help her, but no matter how simple it had seemed in her head, every time she ran into Derek – which seemed to be happening too often recently – her rational thought flew out of the window. Words had escaped her when she'd helped him fend off Peeves, and again, when she'd literally stumbled into him outside Davidoff's office. Yesterday he'd confused and angered her. Now, he was acting petulant and stubborn, causing her to react in the same way. And she'd planned on talking to him calmly and maturely. She took a deep breath and tried again.

"All right," she said. "Let's say I believe you."

Derek's head tilted to one side, betraying his interest. But he said nothing, waiting for her to continue.

"I have some questions," she said, trying to sound firm and authoritative. "And I'm not going to trust you until I've got some answers."

"I don't care whether or not you trust me," Derek said. "I wanted to speak with you yesterday because I thought you might know something about Davidoff that could be of use to me. But it's clear to me now that you don't know anything. I've warned you about him; I don't owe you anything more."

Chloe stared. "You're bluffing," she said. Her heart pounded in her ribcage. She knew she had to choose her next words very carefully if she wanted Derek to see her as an ally. "Even if I don't know what Davidoff's planning, I still have information that can be of use to you. D-don't you want to know what I am? What I c-can do?"

"So you do know what you are," Derek said quickly. A gleam of triumph flashed through those green eyes of his.

"Of c-course I do."

"Does Davidoff know?"

Chloe paused. Davidoff had given her the potion that had affected her vision. She had to assume that he knew what the effects would be. She nodded. "But I don't think that he knows that I know," she said. "Otherwise, why would he have kept his true intentions a secret from me?"

Derek let out a deep breath and then leaned forward again, a gleam in his eye. "I've been looking up hereditary magical abilities and disorders," he said in a rush as if he'd been dying to share this information with somebody but hadn't decided until now whether or not she was trustworthy enough to hear it.

At Chloe's look of confusion he made a noise of impatience and continued. "You know, like Metamorphmagi? Witches and wizards born with the ability to change their appearance at will?"

Chloe nodded. She'd never heard the word 'Metamorphmagi' before, but she remembered seeing a photograph in the Daily Prophet of an Auror whose hair colour had changed from dark violet to shockingly bright pink even as she read.

"It's a rare genetic ability that can be passed on through magical lineage. Like my… condition," he said, lowering his voice on the last two words. He glanced away, eying the librarian who bustled around the corner, stacked a few books on one of the lower shelves and then disappeared into the stacks again. Derek looked sideways at Chloe through a curtain of dark hair. "And I'm guessing your condition is too."

Chloe bit her lip, but she knew that if she wanted to get some answers, she couldn't lie to Derek. Slowly, she nodded.

He opened his mouth to continue speaking, but his gaze fell upon the book on the table and frowned. "I thought I'd lost this."

"You left it in the corridor after that incident with Peeves," Chloe explained. "I meant to return it to you earlier, but…" She trailed off, not wanting to admit that he intimidated her.

He nodded and then looked thoughtfully at her. "The incident with Peeves," he said. "Is that why Davidoff's interested in you?"

Chloe's throat dried up, but she forced herself to respond calmly. "T-that's part of it."

Derek looked curiously at her for a moment longer. She noticed that his usual scowl wasn't quite so prominent when he was deep in thought. He still didn't look conventionally handsome, like his brother, but there was something captivating about him nonetheless. It was a few seconds before she found the will to look away.

He stood, shoving the book into his own bag as if it didn't weigh more than a feather. He didn't thank her. The thought probably didn't even occur to him.

"C'mon," he said, pulling his robes from where he'd folded them carefully over the back of his chair. It was a Saturday so most students were wearing muggle clothes, but Derek tugged his Ravenclaw robe on over the baggy black hoodie he was wearing. Chloe briefly wondered why all his clothes seemed to be cheap and loose-fitting, while his brother always looked immaculate.

He strode away and Chloe jumped from her seat. He didn't wait for her and she had to run to catch up before he disappeared through the library doors.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"Can't talk properly in there," Derek muttered. "We need to find someplace private."

Chloe ducked her head so he wouldn't see her blush. It wasn't that she liked Derek. Not in that way – or any way at all, really. But had anyone been passing them in that moment... she knew they would have taken Derek's need for privacy to mean something very different indeed.

He led her up a staircase, through a doorway hidden behind a tapestry and then up another staircase with a trick step that he warned her gruffly to watch out for.

"Where are we going?" Chloe asked again.

"Prefects' Bathroom," Derek explained in a low whisper. "It's off-limits to most students and no one'll be using it at this time of day."

"But how would you know where to – ah," Chloe said in realisation. "Simon. Must be handy, having a Prefect for a brother."

Derek's lips thinned, as if he was smiling, but he turned away quickly before she could know for sure. "Yeah. Simon's always saying that I abuse his privileges more than he does."

He led them up another staircase as Chloe found the courage to ask the one question she'd been dying to ask him for days.

"You said Davidoff's not to be trusted," she said, rushing over the words. "But he's promised you something. A cure." Her mind flicked back to the book she'd now returned. "A cure for the incurable. Like my condition and yours. But if he's not to be trusted, why were you carrying that book around?"

"I don't trust his motives," Derek explained shortly. "But that doesn't mean everything he says is a lie. His treatments are a mixture of experimental magic and muggle science. I've been researching his methods."

"And?"

Derek shrugged. "And nothing. There's nothing to tell. Not yet, anyway."

Not yet? She wondered what that meant, but before she could ask him to elaborate, they turned another corner and came to a statue of a confused-looking wizard fiddling with his gloves. Derek had just moved to grasp the handle of one of the doors on the right close to the statue, when all at once, a voice as loud as thunder stopped them in their tracks.

STUDENTS OF HOGWARTS –, the voice began.

Chloe jumped and gripped Derek's arm as the voice echoed down the corridor, seeming to come from every direction at once.

–THIS IS AN EMERGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT. WILL ALL STUDENTS PLEASE MAKE THEIR WAY IMMEDIATELY TO THE GREAT HALL IN A CALM AND ORDERLY FASHION. PREFECTS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR ENSURING THAT ALL STUDENTS OF THEIR HOUSE ARE PRESENT AND HAVE REPORTED THEIR ATTENDANCE TO THE HEAD OF THEIR HOUSE. ALL OTHER STAFF PLEASE MAKE YOUR WAY TO THE ENTRANCE HALL. THANK YOU.

The voice faded as quickly as it had come. Chloe and Derek stared at each other.

"W-we should move," Chloe said. "Gryffindor Tower isn't far from here; this corridor will be crowded soon. What do you think this means? Is it something to do with Davidoff?"

Derek was frowning. He shook his head, slowly. She took that to mean that he didn't know. Which frightened her.

"I should find Simon," he said. "Meet me back here as soon as we're allowed out of the Hall, okay?"

Chloe nodded. He paused for a moment, staring down at her hand, still wrapped around his arm. She blushed and let go with a stuttered apology. Derek looked down at her as if he wanted to say something more, but the first wave of students had appeared at the end of the hall and with one last nod he was gone. She made her way in the same direction, struggling against the crowd as more and more students joined the throng to the Great Hall.

"Chloe!" She turned to see Maya, a friendly Gryffindor girl from the year above, with whom she'd always been on good terms. Maya tossed her long dark hair back over her shoulder as she caught up to Chloe. "Do you know what's going on?" she asked. "I keep hearing all kinds of rumours – "

"It's Liz Delaney!" a boy said beside them. Chloe peered over Maya's shoulder to see Daniel Bianchi, one of Maya's closest friends. He leaned in, looking worried. "Tori was the first to notice she was missing. I heard her talking to Professor Danvers. The whole school's on lockdown while they search for her. Nobody's seen her since last night. She's gone. Vanished!"

"Liz?" Maya paled. "You're right… I haven't seen her all day…"

Chloe said nothing, but her stomach dropped. She hadn't seen Liz either, though she usually always saw Liz at the lakeside with a group of friends on Saturday mornings. How could she have missed Liz's absence?

Chloe moved towards the Gryffindor table as they entered the Great Hall, her eyes scanning the room. It didn't take her long to find who she was looking for in the crowd. Derek was standing off to the side, in deep conversation with Professor Bae – his adoptive father, Chloe remembered. As if sensing her arrival, Derek turned his head as she entered, locking eyes with her. She nodded and offered him a half-smile. She looked away as Beth called her name, but even as she manoeuvred her way around the crowd, she could still feel Derek's eyes follow her every movement across the hall.

She needed to speak with him again. Soon.

A/N: FYI, today's my birthday. I think that warrants some reviews, right? ;)

As always, anyone who leaves a signed review will be sent a sneak preview of the next chapter. I'll try to send the preview within the next few days!