Chapter Fifteen

Apparently Confrontation Isn't My Strong Suit


It wasn't easy, but I had them all promise me they wouldn't go to Dumbledore about this, or worse, go after Rider themselves. Like I told them, Rider didn't hardly know anything about the Iasi people and the gift we possessed in general, and the fact that he had five people to choose from proved that he really wasn't that close to finding out anything. So long as we—I—kept a low profile, he'd never find out.

But then again it didn't hurt to speed up his exit out of Hogwarts and away from the people I cared about, and me.

"Alright you disgusting perverted dickhead," I spat once I found Rider in the library, sitting down at a table reading.

"It's always so good to see you, Brochevska," he replied, not bothering to look up at me. In response, I flung the satchel at him, placing my hands on my hips as I watched it hit him in the face. He looked as if he was going to snap at me, but then he actually saw what I had thrown at him.

"What the hell?" He looked up at me, an eyebrow raised. "Why'd you have to go and do that?"

"W-what?" I had to admit, he caught me by surprise. His tone sounded genuinely disappointed, almost like he hadn't wanted me to give the stupid thing back to him.

"We were just starting to get along, Brochevska, and you had to go and ruin it." He sighed, shaking his head as he set it in the seat next to him.

"I don't know what kind of world you live in, but we were not getting along."

"Sure we were. We shared a moment out on that stage, remember?"

"Fuck you."

"Well yes, that was the message I was getting."

"You've got to be kidding me!" I laughed, not able to believe the turn this conversation was taking. "You do realize I'm a performer, right? I'm an expert at acting and playing along with the music, dumbass."

"Your insults are so endearing. I never get tired of hearing them."

"Listen here you—"

"Miss Brochevska!" the librarian hissed at me from her desk. "Either keep your voice down or leave. This is a library, not the Quidditch field."

"Sorry ma'am," I muttered. I sat down in a chair across from him and gestured at the satchel. "Why the hell is my picture in there?"

"Isn't this conversation a little overdo?" He closed the book he was reading and leaned towards me, hands crossed on the table. "I can't deny I wasn't surprised when you didn't demand answers as soon as we crossed paths again."

"I didn't open it until I was sure it wasn't jinxed. But the point is I've seen what's inside. And I want to know where the hell you got that picture of me from, and all the information too."

"That's funny, because I want some answers from you too. Tell you what, you give me some information and in return I'll tell you what you want to know."

"You're in no position to be making demands of me you son of a bitch. All these profiles in here are of people I care about and, in case you hadn't noticed, I don't treat anybody who threatens the people I care about nicely."

"I hate to play this card, but you leave me no choice: have you forgotten who I am, underneath all this?" He gestured to the body of the cover he was using.

"No, as a matter of fact I haven't. Which is precisely why you're in a little bit of a sticky situation here. You're going to tell me why you have these or I'm going to out you." I reached out and touched his face, furrowing my eyebrows. "I wonder what the reward for your head is up to now? I'm sure any number of these people, myself included, could greatly benefit from whatever it is the Ministry is willing to pay."

He grabbed my hand, pulling me out of my chair so I was leaning over the table until my hand rested on his heart. "You wound me here, Brochevska."

"I doubt there's anything in there," I said sweetly, pulling out of his grasp.

"Fine," he whined, leaning back in his chair. "You win. You really wanna know why I have your mugshots? For research purposes only. Meaning I wasn't stalking you or your boyfriends or girlfriend."

"Researching is just the polite version of stalking," I countered. "So what do you, or better yet what does Voldemort want with me and my friends? We're nothing special. We're just a group of teenagers trying to get through school in one piece. You can't tell me that piece of shit doesn't have anything better to do with his time than to relive his Hogwarts years through us."

"He would love your spunk," Rider laughed, "but you would be dead within seconds. No, he's interested in your families. Purebloods who, oddly enough, aren't siding with him."

"Okay, that's like three families out of all the Purebloods. In case you hadn't noticed, the Blacks are very much devoted to that bastard, all except Sirius, hence why he's disowned, meaning he's technically not a member of the Black family anymore. Everybody knows that, so why look into him?"

"He has his reasons."

"Fine. Why look into the Potters? They're not even technically a Pureblood family anymore. They've mixed with muggles and all sorts of different kinds." In response, he just shrugged, his face not giving anything away.

"Well why look into me then?" I finally asked. "My family's all dead, so it doesn't matter whether or not they were Purebloods or not. Which, by the way, I don't even know if they were, considering they died before I got the chance to learn anything."

"Yes, your past and family history I find quite interesting." He once again leaned closer to me, eyes glinting. "Considering there's hardly anything out there, it does tend to make one more curious about the subject."

"I'm sure it does," I said dryly. "So when you find out more, do me a favor and send it my way too. I'd love to learn more about my lineage." I rose to my feet and glared down at him. "Now that you've successfully ruined my day by bringing up the fact that I'm an orphaned little girl who has nobody in this world, you can go ahead and be on your way. You have what you wanted from the beginning, so you can get the hell out of this school and my life."

"As much as it pains me to let you down, I'm afraid that's not going to happen."

"Why the hell not?" I demanded.

"Miss Brochevska!" the librarian snapped. "I'm not going to tell you again!"

"Well I can't tell you everything, now can I? If I did, I'd lose this mysterious air I have about me, and then I'd never be able to draw you in."

"Listen here Rider," I hissed, snatching the front of his shirt, my face just inches from his. "I don't know what kind game you're playing, but I don't want any part of it and I sure as hell don't want my friends involved. So you have a choice: either get the hell out of Hogwarts on your own terms, or I'm going to get the Ministry involved, and you'll be lucky if they let you rot in Azkaban for the rest of your life."

He leaned in even closer until our noses were almost touching and whispered, "You know, you're not very good at being confrontational. It's really hard to be intimidated by you when I find your angry face just so damn adorable."

Muttering a stream of curses under my breath, I shoved him away from me and stormed out of the library. What the hell was I supposed to do now? The fact that he didn't want to leave meant that he was still searching for information, or he wasn't entirely convinced yet that none of us five didn't possess what the research called the Healing Touch. And I didn't exactly know how or what it was going to take to convince him that all of us were just plain ordinary teenage wizards…even if I wasn't.

I rounded a corner and found Sirius waiting for me. "I'd ask how it went, but I could practically feel the hatred radiating off of you from a ways away." The frown he was already wearing deepened. "What happened?"

"Shouldn't you be in Potions?"

"I've got more important things going on right now like, oh, I don't know, the fact that my sister is in fucking danger in what's supposed to be the safest place for her," he snapped. "So no, Eridani, I'm not in Potions. And I'm probably not going to go back to any class until that man is on the opposite side of this planet from you."

"You're over-reacting. He doesn't know anything."

"No, he let you think he doesn't know anything. Do you honestly think anything he told you is the truth?"

"Of course not. But Sirius…" I sighed, taking his hand in mine and squeezing it. "I know you're worried and on edge. Believe me, I am too. But if you don't act like there's nothing wrong, he's going to know something's up. He's going to notice how you and the others are paying extra close attention to me. And, in case you've forgotten, this man is Voldemort's right hand man, meaning he's probably just as dangerous, just as keen, and just as smart as Voldemort himself. So if we want to keep attention off of me, we have to act like there's nothing wrong, like we were before we opened the satchel."

"You can't seriously expect me to just sit by and watch."

"No, but I do expect you to not act like a dumbass and do something stupid that'll get both of us hurt or killed. Because he's not leaving any time soon, so we just need to learn to deal with it. Understand?"

"Fine. But I don't want you having anymore alone time with him."

"Believe me, that won't be a problem. It's not like we were spending any quality time together before."

"I mean it Eridani." The look in his eyes was almost enough to break my heart when he said, "I don't know what I'd do if I lost you. You're all I have left."