Ch. 23: Gossip
Eventually, Hermione gave up and went back to Ron and Harry, who were hovering close by the whole time, outright staring at the group when they were laughing. She excused them for being silly and left, sticking her tongue out at Nezumi, for his biting comment about bodyguards.
'You could have gone back to the castle,' she said when she was close enough to Harry and Ron to be able to not shout and far enough from the others, so that they wouldn't hear her words. 'Or at least you could have gone for a walk or something, rather than standing here like that,' she added, stopping next to Ron and Harry.
'We cannot leave you alone, Mione,' Ron protested. 'It's one thing when you're sitting with them in the Great Hall and we keep an eye on you anyway, but here there's nobody to save you in case something bad happens,' he explained. Hermione really wanted to find his worry cute, she really did. It was nice that her friends were always looking after her and she could trust them with her life. She repeated that to herself and said nothing about how it was obvious the twins would not hurt her.
'Did you ask?' Harry asked, changing the topic. She wondered if he noticed her unspoken annoyance. 'You wouldn't leave if you didn't get the answer, would you?' he added. They have been very disappointed when Hermione got a message that her study group wouldn't be meeting that weekend and they insisted that Hermione goes to talk with them anyway. She didn't mind, because she liked talking with them, but she didn't think that Harry and Ron would stay lurking, waiting for her to be done. She didn't want to think what the others thought about her now.
'Yeah, Ciel said that Malfoy is talking about investment schemes for his father's Muggle money,' she said, repeating the exact phrase. Harry and Ron blinked at her in surprise and disappointment, before Ron's eyes narrowed in suspicion.
'Why would Malfoy have Muggle money? He hates Muggles,' he pointed out and Hermione repeated Ciel's explanation, together with Ciel's suspicions about the houses the Malfoy family had. 'What if they are in on the scheme and they lied to you?' Ron asked.
'I don't think they're exactly friendly with Malfoy,' she replied carefully, not wanting to say anything that her friends might not know. In front of the rest of the school, the Slytherins kept an illusion of being united but, spending some time at the Slytherin table, Hermione realised that they were just as divided as any other House.
'I could easily imagine them being best buddies, with their mom working together with the old Malfoy,' Harry grumbled. 'I forgot all about that, you know? How can they even look their Muggle born friends in the eyes if their mother was on the side of Voldemort and was killing Muggle born wizards?'
'That is if they don't stick around just to keep the secret from popping out,' Ron added. 'Do you think we can trust their explanation?'
'Of course I think you can,' Hermione exclaimed. 'Look, I know you don't like them, but they are really nice and I am sure that they mean no harm to Shion, Safu and Lizzy. If they did then I don't think those three are masochistic enough to allow it and I cannot imagine any scenario in which they are forced to. They are not even in the same House, so avoiding Ciel and Nezumi shouldn't be difficult.'
She could see Harry and Ron thinking, trying to come up with arguments. What else was there that she could say to- A sudden thought made her eyes widen in realisation. Why hasn't she thought about it before? How stupid she was to oversee that detail!
'Are you alright, Hermione?' Harry asked worriedly and she focused back on her best friends, smiling and leading them back towards the castle.
'I just had that thought,' she said, almost cheerful. 'You remember how I went to read about the House Curses after the lecture from Professor Kruspe?' she asked, satisfied when they both nodded. 'Well I managed to find out that all entrance curses were either lethal or resulting in serious brain damage.'
'That's nothing to be happy about Hermione,' Harry pointed out cautiously, looking like he was starting to get seriously worried about her mental state. She laughed shortly and continued.
'But that means that the curse Shion suffered from must have been one of the deadly ones, right? The lethal entrance curses, once triggered, take a while to reach their full potential, I read, which means that he hasn't been alone, because somebody must have saved him. I am willing to bet whatever you want that it was Ciel and Nezumi who saved him,' she explained, feeling triumphal. They looked at her, surprised but not protesting. She grinned, already wondering how to spread that information around the castle.
'Or he's good at hiding his damaged brain,' Ron pointed out.
'Don't be silly, Ron,' she scolded, too happy to be seriously upset. 'I'm talking serious brain damage, a bit like some of the Muggle, genetic diseases, or severe memory loss combined with psychosis, depending on the curse. He wouldn't be allowed back in Hogwarts,' she explained.
'Do you think that Kruspe gave us that lecture so that somebody would find out?' Harry asked suddenly. 'Like Snape did with werewolves?' he added. It was a worrying thought, Hermione decided, unsure. 'I mean, he didn't give us tons of homework about it, so maybe it's not exactly the same, but he could have skipped the lesson completely.'
'Do you think he knows?' Ron asked, sounding surprised. Harry shrugged.
'I don't see the teachers accepting a change like that in somebody's appearance, without getting any explanation for that,' he pointed out.
'I don't think that teachers should skip lessons like they want,' Hermione decided. 'Even in this case, imagine that some of us go exploring one day and die as a result of an entrance curse. He cannot take a chance that we never will.'
'It's not like we're going to remember this by next year, if we don't need it for the exams,' Ron pointed out, making Harry laugh. Hermione rolled her eyes and said that it was nothing to be proud of. 'Come on, Hermione, not everybody loves books so much that they spend their free time researching magic they will never need or encounter,' Ron added and she had to agree, even though she didn't like it. As they came closer to the castle, there were more students, sitting outside and enjoying the nice weather.
'Yeah,' Harry agreed as they entered the courtyard. 'Or did you have ulterior motives for researching those curses?' he asked and Hermione did her best to look surprised at the insinuation. She knew that Ciel wouldn't buy it for a second, but Harry was more trusting.
'I don't know what you're talking about,' she said. Ron echoed her words.
'Well, I'm just saying that you've spent an awful time in the library even before and you connected all the facts about the House Curses and Allen so easily just now, so I guess you gave it some thought before,' Harry said, keeping his tone neutral, but making it obvious as to what he was insinuating. Hermione had the grace to blush. 'When did you figure that out?'
'Just after that lecture,' she admitted sheepishly and blushed even more when Harry suggested that the Slytherins didn't figure out the curse on their own. 'Nope, Malfoy overheard me talking about it,' she confessed. 'I suppose he started the gossip as well,' she added.
'I figured there was more to the story with how guilty you looked the other day when Ginny brought the news. It was also weird that the Slytherins would spread gossip like that about their own,' he added. Hermione smiled sadly, remembering that Harry could be quite smart when he wanted to. Ron looked like he was going to complain, but Harry continued before his best friend could say anything. 'A weekend free of Malfoy,' he noted with a grin. 'I could get used to that, so maybe we should try to trick him into attacking more students,' he joked. 'We can make a list so that people don't get too hurt.'
'Harry,' Hermione groaned, unable to hide a smile.
})i({
The following wave of gossip was unexpected. Ciel was sure that the evil whispers would follow him and Nezumi for a couple more weeks, before the students would get bored or disappointed at the lack of reaction from their side. However, just a week after Malfoy's detention, Shion and Safu arrived to the library slightly late and looking thoroughly puzzled.
'Something happened?' Elizabeth asked immediately, while Ciel and Nezumi just looked surprised. 'It's not like you two to be late, even this little late,' she added. Ciel hoped it didn't mean that trouble were back in the Ravenclaw tower, when it has already looked like the dorm mates of Shion would get over the differences and treat him normally. Well, as normally as they could when Shion was still hiding, not wanting anybody to know that the scar on his neck was just a tiny fraction of the scar.
'I suppose you could say that,' Safu replied slowly, sitting down next to Elizabeth and glancing at Shion, obviously wanting him to be the one to do the talking. The white-haired boy sighed.
'Michael Corner came up to us when we were leaving, wanting to confirm the gossip he has heard during lunch on Friday,' he said. Ciel winced, expecting what the gossip was about, while Nezumi already started saying where Corner can put the gossip, but Shion continued, raising his voice just a little to shut Nezumi up. 'He heard from Luna that it was you two guys who saved me from the full extent of the entrance curse and he wanted to know if that was true,' he said calmly, creating a moment of stunned silence.
Shion had suggested that they say that to the students, when this mess started, but Ciel and Nezumi told him that nobody would believe him. If people were willing to think that the twins were faking friendship to keep an eye on Shion and stop him from spilling their dark secret, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to say that they forced him to say that they had saved him.
'Where-' Ciel started, but the arrival of Hermione made him stop and look at the Gryffindor girl with wonder. Her appearance at that particular moment must have been a pure coincidence, but it couldn't have been more obvious a clue.
'Hi guys, sorry I'm late,' she said cheerfully, sitting down between Safu and Shion, on the only empty chair, oblivious to their shock until Nezumi laughed. She looked at them, taking in the wide-eyed expressions of Shion and Elizabeth and the impressed gleam in Safu's eyes, before turning to Nezumi and Ciel, her eyes asking the question her lips didn't utter.
'Hi,' Nezumi said with a knowing smirk. Hermione seemed even more surprised for a moment, but then her expression smoothed into a bright smile as she said that it was a shame it started raining again just before the weekend. So she was not going to say anything about that gossip, was she?
'We heard that you have been spreading gossip about us,' Ciel said, opening the book on the page of the homework topic they wanted to work on. He had no doubt that it has been Hermione that figured out the remaining facts about Shion's condition and connected them to the fact that the pigment depletion was only a side effect in some of the lethal curses.
'Yeah, about that,' Nezumi added, pretending to sound unhappy. 'What are you doing, destroying my image of an evil Slytherin? Do you think I want to be seen as some sort of soft marshmallow?' he asked. Ciel could hear Lizzy and Safu snort and he could just imagine the glare Nezumi sent them, especially when Lizzy said that everybody already knew that Nezumi was a marshmallow on the inside.
He looked up to see Hermione torn between laughing out and trying to come up with a witty reply, biting her lip to not follow Safu into a fit of giggles. Nezumi looked thoroughly indignant, but Ciel knew that it was an act. It was a good act though, and only melted when Shion turned his eyes to Hermione and spoke.
'Thank you,' he said simply. Ciel wondered if Hermione could read the expression in his eyes, if she could see just how grateful Shion really was, because she did something that he hadn't been able to do. He hoped she did. Nezumi smiled slightly.
'Now before this becomes a teary scene worthy of "Titanic",' Ciel commented drily, getting their attention. 'Yes, Safu made us all watch that horrifying film,' he added for Hermione's benefit, ignoring Lizzy's comment that it wasn't horrifying. 'You should really revise your idea of pure-bloods. Not all of us are as ignorant as Weasley, while saying how much we appreciate Muggle born wizards. I dare say that even Malfoy knows more, with all the stock market involvement and stuff.'
'Admittedly, we might be the only ones who had to suffer through "Titanic" in order to please our personal cinematic advisor,' Nezumi added, also in a dry tone. Safu made a face at them, before reminding them that they promised to never complain about it again if she didn't make them watch "Notting Hill".
'You would have to tie us to the chairs,' Ciel informed her. 'Lizzy told me enough about that film to make my ears bleed. I don't want to become blind,' he added, making Hermione laugh, saying that he was being mean. 'In criticism I will be bold, and as sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me,' Ciel answered dully.
'Was that a quote?' Hermione asked. 'It sure sounded like one, but I thought that it was Nezumi who was spitting quotes at every occasion.'
'Edgar Allan Poe is the only exception,' Shion said lightly. 'Ciel used to like him a lot when he was eleven and it kind of stuck,' he added. 'He doesn't quite have the theatrical talents of Nezumi though, so it's not as impressive.'
Ciel wanted to retort that just because he was falling in love with Nezumi didn't mean that he could talk bad about him, but he stopped himself on time. In any case, he wasn't sure that Shion was aware that he was slowly but surely falling for a boy he had called "brother" for the most of his life. Not to mention that he didn't want to face Nezumi's anger afterwards.
'Besides, you know, brothers like to compete,' Lizzy added lightly, grinning at him when he looked at her, disappointed at her "treachery". 'But I think, just a moment ago, Ciel was trying to say that we should start working on that homework,' she added with the same tone, opening her book.