Ch. 7: Revenge
On the late evening on that Saturday, Ciel and Nezumi were walking back to their common room, tired after the whole day of studying. They even stayed longer than Safu, Shion and Lizzy, which didn't happen often. Only Hermione was still in the library when they left and they both wondered if the Gryffindor girl would ever go to enjoy some free time in the evening.
'Safu said they had some party in the common room, that was why they needed to leave earlier,' Ciel said, mainly to break the silence. The corridors were all but deserted, as it was close to curfew. Nezumi shrugged, but Ciel knew that he was interested. As much as his brother didn't care about the other students, he made a point to know most of the school's gossip.
'Birthday party, didn't she say that?' Nezumi asked. Ciel nodded. 'Malfoy's coming up, do you think he will make a huge party this year again?' he asked. Last year and the year before, Malfoy made a point to make his party one to remember. He even invited the pure bloods from other Houses to the Slytherin common room, of course not asking the other Slytherins if they minded before. Why would Malfoy ask anybody anything? Malfoy ordered people around.
'I hope he chokes on butterbeer if he does,' Ciel replied coldly. He didn't care for the party and the noise, if he wanted silence, there was always the Room of Requirement or he could put a silencing spell on the dormitory. He didn't mind Malfoy showing off with his gifts or the money he had to spend on such a feast either. This kind of thing could only annoy the likes of Weasley. He minded Malfoy. Nezumi laughed quietly, but he knew that his brother shared his opinions on the matter.
They were quite close to the entrance of the common room, when they heard a painful gasp around the corner. Before they could even wonder what was going on, Malfoy's sneering voice sounded.
'Hold him well, that freak,' Malfoy said. Ciel rolled his eyes. One of the reasons that he didn't like Malfoy is that he was giving the pure bloods a bad opinion. With his visible hate for the Muggle born wizards and his bullying, he made people believe that pure bloods were evil. Ciel couldn't care what people thought about him, but having to publicly prove that he didn't have a snake and a skull tattooed on his forearm has been humiliating in more ways than one. The last thing he needed was to see Malfoy beat up a defenceless first-year just for not having the right blood. The last thing he wanted was the moral dispute about whether he should get involved or pretend that he didn't care.
'We'll see how smart your friends will be after I rearrange your face,' Malfoy's sneering voice added over a sound of struggle.
'Let me go,' replied a defiant, although slightly trembling voice, which did not belong to a random, Muggle born first year student. Before Ciel could as much as gasp, Nezumi was already turning the corner and, when Ciel followed him, he saw his brother pinning Malfoy to the wall, hand clasped tightly around the other boy's neck.
'Would you like me to rearrange your face, Malfoy?' Nezumi hissed, his voice dangerously quiet. Malfoy struggled to get free but, Ciel knew, Nezumi was much stronger than the brat who believed that a wand solved all problems.
'Let him go,' Ciel growled at Crabbe and Goyle, who, still holding Shion between themselves, seemed dizzy at the sudden turn of events. Ciel knew that they enjoyed being Malfoy's goons for those very moments, but now they looked at each other and ran. 'Are you alright?' he asked the white-haired boy, getting a nod in reply before Shion rearranged his scarf around his neck again. It loosened, probably in the struggle, and a tiny part of the scar was visible.
'Now let me get one thing straight, Malfoy,' Nezumi continued, ignoring everybody else. 'If you have a problem with me or Ciel, you can take it up with us. Unless you don't have the guts to do so,' he added and let go of Malfoy but not without pushing the boy hard against the wall. Ciel saw Shion wince at the sound of Malfoy's skull hitting the wall behind him.
'Now get lost,' Nezumi ordered him.
'You will regret that, Phantomhive,' Malfoy hissed, taking a couple of steps away from his attacker, but not turning back. 'Or should I say Rutherford,' he added.
'Whatever you call me, I'm not afraid,' Nezumi replied calmly, without hesitation or surprise at Malfoy calling him by the family name of his biological parents. The blond boy took a couple of steps more before finally turning and running. Nezumi watched him until he turned the corner and then looked at Ciel and Shion. 'Took him a while to realise that we're not biological twins, didn't it?' he asked. Ciel grinned.
'I'm still surprised nobody figured that out yet when I'm so much better looking than you are,' he said. Nezumi punched his shoulder lightly before focusing on Shion, who smiled at them. It was obvious that he was bothered by something.
'What were you doing here at this hour?' Ciel asked, realising that the corridor led to the Slytherin common room and there only. 'Aren't you on that birthday party that Safu talked about today?' he added with a frown. His frown only deepened when Shion sighed in reply and looked away.
'I was talking with McGonagall,' he said quietly. 'Apparently some of the teachers don't appreciate my new hair and contact lenses,' he added with a wince. Ciel blinked. Did he really hear correctly? Didn't McGonagall get the letter from father? 'I didn't really feel like joining the party afterwards, so I thought I might try to find you guys.'
'Did McGonagall actually manage to say "contact lenses"?' Nezumi asked, wrapping one arm around Shion's arms and one around Ciel's and leading them away from the common room. His statement actually managed to get a small smile from Shion. His mice sprang out of nowhere, like they had the habit of doing, and chirped excitedly at them. They have probably been worried that their master was not coming back and were happy to see him again. Ciel supposed that Sebastian would show up soon as well, since the cat was usually trailing behind the mice, whenever they were not with Nezumi, protecting them from other cats.
'It's nearly curfew,' Ciel pointed out in protest, although he let Nezumi lead him. They could hardly go talking in the Slytherin common room as things were. 'I don't particularly fancy spending the night in one of the dusty classrooms again,' he added. They did that a couple of times.
'Well then it is good that we have the Room of Requirement, isn't it?' Nezumi asked rhetorically. 'Do you think the old castle will manage to conjure up some Muggle classics for us to read tonight?' Ciel smirked.
'It might be up to the challenge,' he said. When, some minutes later, they opened the door of the Room to find themselves in a cosy looking library with huge armchairs around a fireplace and books lining all the walls, from the floor to the ceiling, Ciel had to admit that the castle managed the challenge pretty well.
Sebastian trotted into the room between their legs, Nezumi's mice in tow, and settled in front of the fireplace, stretching pleasurably. The mice scattered around the Room, squeaking and chirping as they discovered the new place.
Closing the door meant finding themselves in a little universe of their own, something they have used in the past a couple of times. It was convenient that not many students knew about the Room, so they never found it otherwise occupied when they needed it to have a calm place to talk. As much as Dumbledore dreamed about erasing the inter-House barriers between the students, he didn't make it easy for them, with House common rooms locked with a password and no other places for students to sit other than the library, the Great Hall and unused, dusty classrooms. Ciel, Nezumi, Shion, Safu and Lizzy were often forced to use the Room as their meeting place when the weather wasn't good enough to spend time outside.
'So, tell us about McGonagall,' Nezumi said as they sat on the armchairs that were nearly big enough for them to curl up and sleep on them. As soon as Ciel thought that, fluffy blankets appeared on the right armrests. Shion laughed shortly.
'And hot chocolate too?' he asked and a small table appeared between them and the fireplace, with three large mugs full of steaming, dark liquid on it. However, Shion's smile disappeared as he sank back into his armchair. 'Like I said, apparently some teachers don't appreciate my "new, alternative looks", like McGonagall put it. She said that I should consider the status of this school and look like a presentable student should,' he said in a quiet tone, watching the fire.
'I thought father sent her a letter,' Ciel muttered, leaning to pick up the hot chocolate. 'What did you tell her?'
'What could I tell her? The truth of course,' Shion replied, irritation appearing in his voice as he continued. 'Then she went all like "ah yes, I remember, I'm sorry" and "I better tell all the teachers" before she looked at me and said that I should go to Madame Pomfrey and get fixed.'
'Fixed,' Nezumi spat the word out. 'There's nothing broken to be fixed,' he added firmly.
'I can understand that she forgot to tell them before and that she forgot about the letter. I mean it's not always that you become the headmistress of a school and it's bound to have loads of obligations attached,' Shion continued, seemingly ignoring Nezumi's outburst. He still wasn't looking at them, but at the fire. 'But I wish she listened to me when I told her that your dad took me to St. Mungo's. That the Healers spent three days, trying everything they could think of before they determined that it was not harmful in any case and better to leave it like it is, rather than change it. I don't want Madame Pomfrey to go through that again with me, the tests and potions and all, only to get to the same conclusion!'
Silence fell in their private piece of the castle, only broken by the crackling fire in the fireplace. Nezumi, lips pressed in a thin line and eyes narrowed angrily, was looking at the fire before his gaze met Ciel's. Meeting the steely gaze, Ciel remembered the episode in the summer and Shion's mortified face when he had looked in the mirror for the first time after the curse. It has taken Ciel and Nezumi three days to convince him to not skip the meeting with Lizzy and Safu and even longer to make him even consider going back to school. The immediate acceptance on the part of the two girls helped greatly with the latter.
'So tomorrow, because today it was too late, I'm supposed to turn myself in to the Hospital Wing to be poked and prodded,' Shion added bitterly after a moment. He undid the scarf from around his neck and, for the first time since they arrived at Hogwarts, Ciel saw the scar on his neck. It could have been mistaken for strangulation marks from far away and, when they were brainstorming about the story to feed to the students, it crossed their minds. However, strangulation marks would be problematic to explain on their own, especially if they wouldn't disappear.
With a resigned expression, Shion accioed his cup of hot chocolate and sipped the dark liquid, closing his eyes in pleasure. Nezumi followed his example and, for the moment, the fire crackling was the only sound on the room again. Ciel sighed, wondering if there was anything that could be done about the situation. He could understand Shion's dislike for the idea of going to Hospital Wing. Himself, he wouldn't like to be poked and prodded by Madame Pomfrey and he avoided it to the best of his abilities, but the worst would be that Shion would probably miss lessons and then people would start to wonder. It was surprising they haven't yet, really.
'I'll send a message to father,' Nezumi muttered. 'Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people, said Yeats. Hopefully McGonagall will understand the grown-up language of father.'
'It'll not arrive before tomorrow morning,' Shion pointed out, but Nezumi merely smirked and grabbed a pot of floo powder that appeared on the fireplace, probably in the Room's response to Nezumi's thoughts. Shion opened his mouth to protest about waking the man up or disturbing him on the weekend, but Ciel spoke before he could.
'You underestimate how guilty father feels about this whole affair,' he said calmly. 'He will gladly stop whatever he was doing and pester McGonagall until she gives in and leaves you be,' he added, while Nezumi spoke to somebody, presumably father, through the green flames. After a moment and a couple of nods, turned back to them and said that father was finishing up some investment scheme for the company, together with Shion's mother, and they wish them all a nice evening.
'He will floo McGonagall in a moment and said that you should not bother to go to the Hospital Wing,' he added to Shion. The white-haired boy smiled sadly and thanked him before apologising for the trouble. Ciel rolled his eyes.
'It was one of mother's curses, so it is us who should be apologising to you,' he pointed out but, from Shion's expression, he could see that he wasn't going to cheer his friend up that way. He needed to change the game, he thought, and glanced at Nezumi. A devilish smirk fighting to twist his lips, he took out his wand. 'Say, Nezumi, did I tell you that I was going to make you pay for that run in the morning?' he asked conversationally. Nezumi looked at him, blinking in surprise at the abrupt change of topic.
'What?' he asked.
'I figured that this might be a good time to get my revenge,' Ciel said, forcing his tone to be as innocent as possible and flicked his wand. The trousers of Nezumi's uniform immediately transformed into a short skirt, barely reaching halfway down his brother's thighs. Shion looked at the scene with wide eyes and a blush that Ciel committed to memory to tease him about later. Taking in the shocked and then outraged expression on his brother's face, Ciel laughed out.
'You-' Nezumi growled and threw himself at Ciel, who barely managed to spring out of the armchair on time and hide behind it.
'Nezumi, behave like a lady or we are going to see your underwear,' he managed to squeeze out through the overpowering laughter. He heard Shion laugh as well and Nezumi growl and he made a jump to hide behind Shion's armchair. He tried anyway because he collapsed laughing on the ground. It has been a long while since he had so much fun.
'Right, the joke's on you,' Nezumi said, when Ciel's and Shion's laughter died down. He was obviously trying to keep his face, even though he looked to be on the verge of laughter himself. 'I'll make you pay tomorrow when we run,' he added with a cruel smirk.
'Damn,' Ciel groaned. I should have waited till Monday, he thought. Shion snickered. 'Ah, that's it,' he exclaimed, jumping up from the floor, almost disappointed to see that Nezumi transfigured his trousers back. 'You're running with us tomorrow.'