Chapter Five
As George and Nessa made their way to Flourish and Blotts, new supplies and a cat in hand, they noticed a large number of people were gathering around the store, pushing to get inside the store. Nessa sighed and eyed the crowd with apprehension. She hated large crowds.
"Blimey," George said, trying to shove his way through the crowd. "What's gotten into these people?"
Nessa pointed at the sign on the door with a raised eyebrow.
GILDEROY LOCKHART
Will be signing copies of his autobiography
MAGICAL ME today 12:30 PM to 4:30 PM
"Appears I'm not the only one who doesn't know how to read," she said, smirking at him.
"Keep it up, Potter, and I'll get you one of those screaming Yo-Yos for Christmas." He quipped, pulling her inside the shop behind him and looking around for the rest of the group, grabbing their other books along the way.
"Only if you'd like me to chuck it at your head," she snapped, just as they had reached Mrs. Weasley and the others.
"Such violence, Vanessa," George tutted quietly behind her.
"Where have the two of you been?" Fred muttered beside them.
Before either of them could answer, the crowd began buzzing and Vanessa saw Mrs. Weasley hurriedly flatten her hair. Nessa met Tori's eye and had to immediately look away before either of them started laughing.
Gilderoy Lockhart came slowly into view, seated at a table surrounded by large pictures of his own face, all winking and flashing dazzlingly white teeth at the crowd. The real Lockhart was wearing robes of forget-me-not blue that exactly matched his eyes; his wizard's hat was set at a jaunty angle on his wavy, blonde hair.
A short, irritable-looking man was dancing around taking photographs with a large black camera.
"Out of the way, there" he said grumpily to Ron, moving back to get a better shot. "This is for the Daily Prophet –"
"Big deal," Ron muttered, rolling his eyes and rubbing the foot the photographer had stepped on.
Gilderoy Lockhart heard him. He looked up at Ron and then began staring at Harry. Then he leapt to his feet and positively shouted, "It can't be Harry Potter?"
Nessa tensed and reached forward to grab the back of Harry's shirt to pull him away as the crowd began to whisper. Lockhart was much faster than she was, however, and pulled Harry forward by his arm. Nessa scowled and went to take a step forward, but Tori stopped her before she could. Harry's face turned a brilliant shade of red as Lockhart shook hands with him and the crowd burst into applause. The photographer bustled around clicking away madly, wafting thick smoke over the group of them.
When Lockhart had finally let go of Harry's hand, he tried to slide back into the group of Weasleys, but Lockhart threw an arm around his shoulders and pulled him tightly into his side. Nessa knew how much Harry hated the attention, and made to step forward again, but Tori grabbed her wrist.
"Don't, Vanessa," she hissed, ignoring the glare she received in return. "The last thing you need is to land on the front page of the Prophet for screaming at Gilderoy Lockhart."
"Ladies and gentleman," Lockhart yelled loudly, waiting for the crowd to quiet. "What an extraordinary moment this is! The perfect moment for me to make a little announcement I've been sitting on for some time! When young Harry here stepped into Flourish and Blotts today, he only wanted to buy my autobiography – which I will be happy to present him now, free of charge –"
Nessa rolled her eyes as the crowd applauded.
"He had no idea," Lockhart continued, giving Harry a little shake that made his glasses slip down his nose. "That he would shortly be getting much, much more than my book Magical Me. He and his schoolmates will, in fact, be getting the real magical me. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I have great pleasure in announcing that this September, I will be taking up the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!"
"Oh, good," Vanessa said sarcastically, while the crowd erupted in cheers.
Harry, having received the book collection, staggered forward back toward the Weasleys and tipped them all into Ginny's cauldron.
"You have these," he said. "I'll buy my own –"
Vanessa was just opening her mouth to ask if he was okay, when a familiar drawl from behind them interrupted her.
"Bet you loved that, didn't you, Potter?" Harry and Nessa whirled around, as the others moved along to purchase the rest of their books. "Famous Harry Potter," said Malfoy. "Can't even go into a bookshop without making the front page."
Nessa rolled her eyes and eyed Malfoy disdainfully. He always looked smug, but she really found him to be quite sad. She wondered often how someone so young could be so jaded and miserable to others.
"Leave him alone, he didn't want all that!" said Ginny, glaring at Malfoy.
"Potter, you've gotten yourself a girlfriend!" Malfoy sneered. Tori, Fred, and George had just moved toward them, all with a staggering tower of books.
"Here," Tori grunted, pushing a stack of books toward Vanessa. "I got them for you since you were too busy apparently. You can pay me later."
Nessa, briefly distracted from Malfoy and her brother, rolled her eyes at Tori's impatience and took the books from her with a hurried thank you. The calico she had purchased stuck close as she tried to stuff them all into the bag she had brought before picking her up again.
"What's that git want?" Fred said, nodding at Malfoy, his arms full of books of his own.
Nessa peered back and noticed Ron and Hermione had joined the fray and were both glaring at Malfoy. He continued to sneer at them all, unbothered.
"Just trying to impress daddy, I expect," Vanessa muttered just as Ron moved to attack Malfoy and watched as Hermione and Harry grabbed the back of his jacket to stop him.
"Ron!" said Mr. Weasley, sharply. "What are you doing? It's too crowded in here…let's go outside."
Vanessa sighed in relief – it was warm in here from all of the people and she was beginning to regret buying a cat, considering how her arms were beginning to shake from the effort of holding the bag of books on her arm. Not to mention, she really didn't want to see how long it would take for Harry to lose patience and attack Malfoy himself.
"Well, well, well – Arthur Weasley."
It was Mr. Malfoy. He stood with his hand on Draco's shoulder, sneering in just the same way. To her surprise, the cat in her arms hissed at his appearance. He was a very tall man with cold gray eyes that matched his son's. His hair was the same bleach-blonde, but was much longer than Draco's and cascaded down his back, somehow without a single hair out of place. Vanessa hated herself for wondering how he managed to keep it so tidy and wished her hair looked as good as his did. He carried a cane with a silver snake head at the top and she watched his fingers twitch over the top of it as he looked at Mr. Weasley.
Mr. Weasley, for his part, was doing a rather poor job of hiding his own hatred for the man in front of him.
"Lucius," he said, nodding coldly.
"Busy times at the Ministry, I hear" said Mr. Malfoy. "All those raids…I hope they're paying you overtime?"
She felt the twins tense behind her, as he reached into Ginny's cauldron and extracted a very old, battered copy of A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration. Vanessa had a very bad feeling about how this was going to end and shifted from foot to foot, eyeing the door apprehensively.
"Obviously not," Mr. Malfoy said, his lip curling up in disgust. "Dear me, what's the use of being a disgrace to the name of wizard if they don't even pay you well for it?"
Mr. Weasley blushed a deep shade of red.
"We have a very different idea of what disgraces the name of wizard, Malfoy," he said.
"Clearly," Mr. Malfoy slide a disdainful look over Hermione and her parents, who watched apprehensively from the corner. "The company you keep, Weasley…and I thought your family could sink no lower –"
Nessa screamed as Ginny's cauldron and the books Mr. Weasley had been holding went flying into the air. Mr. Weasley had thrown himself at Mr. Malfoy so roughly that he was slammed into the bookshelf behind him and dozens of heavy spellbooks came falling down on top of their heads. The cat struggled fiercely to get out of her arms at the commotion and dug it's claws into her arms as she desperately attempted to keep a hold of it. "Get him, Dad!" Fred and George yelled; Tori was laughing in delight; Mrs. Weasley was shrieking "No, Arthur, no!"; Hermione's parents looked positively frightened.
"Break it up there, gents, break it up –" Hagrid said, pulling the two of them off of each other and nearly lifting them off the ground entirely.
Mr. Weasley had a cut lip and Mr. Malfoy had been hit in the eye with a very large book. Nessa took some smug satisfaction in the fact that his hair was no longer in pristine condition. He was still holding Ginny's book and thrust it at her, his eyes glowing with malice.
"Here, girl – take your book – it's the best your father can give you –" Pulling himself out of Hagrid's grip on his robes, he beckoned to Draco and swept from the shop, his robes billowing behind him.
Vanessa tried desperately to contain the cat in her arms and whispered comfortingly to it until it finally calmed down when they stepped outside after Hagrid. She could feel the cuts stinging beneath the sleeves of her shirt and imagined that some of them had drawn blood. Mrs. Weasley was beside herself with fury and ranted at Mr. Weasley the entire trip back to the Leaky Cauldron where they were intending to take Floo Powder back to The Burrow.
Vanessa hesitated only slightly before taking some Floo Powder and stepping into the fireplace. She prayed this would be the last time she ever had to travel through a fireplace.
-o0o-
It was their final night at the Burrow before their return to Hogwarts and Vanessa was surprised at how disappointed she was to be returning back to the castle. She was usually a little disappointed at the return to school, thinking about all of the schoolwork and time spent in the library while she avoided the other students, but this disappointment was different. It felt much more…all-consuming.
She felt very often that her anxiety prevented her from enjoying Hogwarts as much as the others did, and, while she still felt some of this as well, her disappointment now had little to do with these feelings. She had become comfortable at The Burrow and really never wanted to leave the place that had made her feel the happiest, most worry-free she'd ever been in her whole life. There were no floors to mop or books to dust or cracks and crevices to spend hours cleaning with a toothbrush. She'd eaten more here in the last month than she had in the 12 years she had been with the Dursleys, and spent the majority of her days laughing or spending time with the others outside for entertainment rather than because she had to meticulously prune the plants in the garden before the neighbors could see the single weed sprouting near the Begonias.
During the day, she sat watching as Fred and George continued to work on whatever products they were inventing and listening to them explain to her all of their ideas for their shop. She had grossly misunderstood the Weasley twins, she was coming to realize. They were much smarter than they really let on, and certainly much kinder than she had expected. And particularly ambitious and unafraid to follow their dream, which she admired. She had said so one day while they were explaining to her the theory behind Ton-Tongue Toffees, which they were waiting to perfect when they could freely do magic again at Hogwarts. They had stared at her with a mix of skepticism and appreciation before breaking out into grins.
She had grown rather fond of them and wondered briefly if the return to Hogwarts would also signify a return to their prior relationship of speaking to each other only in passing while she avoided their every move. The thought made her sad, so she pushed it aside hastily.
Her, Tori, and Ginny spent most nights before bed gossipping and giggling until they had fallen asleep. They had regaled Ginny with stories about Hogwarts and the cute boys within it and Nessa had managed — mostly — to keep Tori from teasing the younger girl about her obvious crush on Harry. Ginny seemed even more excited to be starting her first year at Hogwarts, in a way that Nessa envied. Her first year at Hogwarts had been spent being worried about how Harry was doing at home with the Dursleys and hiding in her dormitory to avoid all the stares and questions about if her brother really was the Harry Potter.
She was shaken from her thoughts by her calico, which she had affectionately dubbed Peanut, who jumped into her lap and curled herself into a ball. Vanessa smiled and began to pet her absentmindedly. It was a little chilly out now that the sun had set and she could hear the toads croaking in the pond nearby. The leaves on the trees were rustling in the wind and she could hear grumbles somewhere near the garden, which she assumed were the gnomes causing havoc in some fashion.
The door behind her opened and someone stepped out onto the porch. The sound of pops and laughter filled the air briefly before she was plunged back into the silence of the night. Tori took a seat in the cushioned chair next to her on the porch and handed her a steaming cup of hot chocolate. They sat in silence for a moment before Tori sighed and pulled her legs up to curl under her.
"What are our anxieties this year, Ness?" she said, eyeing her friend over the rim of her mug as she blew on the liquid inside it.
The question would have been condescending had it come from anyone else, but Tori was the only person in the entire world who really understood the chaos inside Vanessa's mind. Despite her own confidence, Tori herself understood more often than she cared to admit how her friend felt. She had just become accustomed to pretending to be too carefree for the world around her.
"Same as usual," Nessa replied, watching the fireflies twinkling in the yard. "Praying Harry can avoid trouble this year, wondering how horrible classes will be, if Lockhart will drive me bonkers enough to take a dive off the Astronomy Tower."
Tori choked on the sip she had been taking.
"Warning, please. I could have died." she said, trying to pretend like her throat was not burning from having sucked in the hot chocolate too quickly.
"Don't be dramatic," Nessa said, rolling her eyes, but she was smirking.
"Classes could be interesting this year. We've got new ones that could be interesting. And personally, I'm more worried about Snape than Lockhart, but to each their own."
"You'd be less worried about Snape if you quit trying to incite him every class period," Nessa said, rolling her eyes.
Tori scoffed. "Please. I could be as well behaved as Percy and he'd still be the most greasy git on the planet." She was the one to roll her eyes next as Nessa opened her mouth to retort. "Oh, don't start on the 'Snape is misunderstood' tirade. Just because he likes you doesn't mean you're blind to how he treats the rest of us."
Nessa wanted to argue, but decided she couldn't. While Professor Snape was always extremely pleased with her own work in Potions class, she did admit to herself that he could be quite cruel to everyone else outside his own House. She had heard horror stories from others about how he threatened to poison them to see if their potions were correct and read embarrassing notes to the entire class. She'd watch him in her own class take points from other Gryffindors for seriously trivial reasons. Harry, in particular, had ranted and raved to her about Snape on countless occasions.
While she hated the way that Snape treated the majority of the school — most certainly how he treated her brother — she couldn't help but feel sorry for him. She refused to believe that someone could show such hatred to others without a particularly good reason. She'd wondered on several occasions what could have happened to him to make him so cruel, but assumed she'd never really find out. When she'd said so to Tori last year, she'd told her that Nessa believed the best in people even when she shouldn't.
"Let's change the subject," Nessa muttered, ignoring the smug look Tori had on her face. "I'll be spending all year listening to Harry complain about Snape as is."
"I'd like to tell you that Harry will stay out of trouble, personally, but I have severe doubts." Tori mumbled, taking another sip. "He's almost worse than Fred and George."
"How do you figure that?!" Nessa said, incredulously.
"Fred and George just like a good laugh," Tori shrugged. "Harry has a death wish."
"Talking to you is always very comforting," Nessa said, voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Look, Nessa," Tori's voice had softened and she was leaning forward to make eye contact. "Whatever happens this year is going to happen whether you sit here worrying or not. Even if Harry does get into some sort of trouble like last year, he's certainly not going to be going through it alone."
Nessa knew she was right. Even without her worrying, Ron and Hermione certainly wouldn't let him go into the face of anything alone. The pit in her stomach eased slightly, but she still wished she could have some sort of assurance that this year would be better than the last.
"What about you then?" Nessa inquired of Tori, taking her last sip of cocoa. "Going to follow Fred and George around blowing things up? Scare the little first-years? Flirt with Oliver Wood again?"
Tori grinned and sat back again, looking at her in a way that frightened her a little.
"All of the above, I'm sure, but flirting with Wood will certainly be the highlight of my year." she said, sighing. "'Course Fred and George will likely be watching me the entire time and ruin the mood like last year."
Nessa laughed. "I don't know that I blame them, honestly. Who wants to see their adopted sister snogging one of their friends after Quidditch practice?"
"Please," Tori snorted. "I've caught them snogging girls plenty of times. They could use a taste of their own medicine, if you ask me."
"Or you could try snogging someone they aren't friends with."
"Ever the pacifist, Vanessa," Tori quipped. "Besides, I've already done that last year. Not that they have any idea."
Nessa looked at her in surprise. "What, who?"
Tori looked suddenly uncomfortable and wouldn't meet her eyes.
"Miles Bletchley," she muttered.
Nessa burst out laughing. "The Slytherin Keeper? You're joking!"
Tori made a face as if she were being tortured by the memory of it. Nessa herself was quite surprised at the news, considering how viciously Tori despised Slytherin House.
"Not my finest hour, I assure you. Extreme lapse in judgment. Thankfully, he was so ashamed of having kissed a Gryffindor, we pretended it didn't happen."
"Lapse in judgment," Nessa laughed. "Nice way of explaining literally nothing about how that could even happen."
Tori rolled her eyes. "I try to block it out of my memory entirely, thank you. That way I can pretend it never happened in the first place."
"I wonder how Fred and George will feel about you fraternizing with the enemy, huh?" Nessa said innocently as Tori turned to glare at her.
She raised a finger at her dangerously. "Don't start, Vanessa, or I promise you I'll push you off that Astronomy Tower myself."
Nessa was laughing uproariously when George popped his head out the door to tell them that Mrs. Weasley insisted they all go to bed for the night. Nessa was still laughing when they had made it upstairs to lie down and Tori had to throw a pillow at her to get her to shut up.
-o0o-
Leaving for Hogwarts the next morning was one of Nessa's worst nightmares. They had all been woken up at dawn, but they were somehow still running very behind. Mrs. Weasley was running around in a bad mood looking for spare socks and quills; people were colliding on the stairs with toast still in their mouth as they packed last minute; and Mr. Weasley almost broke his neck when he tripped on a chicken trying to take out the girls' trunks.
When they had all finally gotten into the car, which to Nessa's shock had been magically modified to fit all of them comfortably side by side, they had made it barely to the end of the driveway before George stated he forgot his box of Filibuster fireworks. Five minutes later, they had to stop again so that Fred could go in to grab his broomstick. Nessa, who was a meticulous planner and had packed everything of her own well in advance, had been resting her head on the back of Mr. Weasley's seat and felt thoroughly overstimulated and on edge once they had finally set off. They had almost reached the highway when Ginny screamed that she had forgotten her diary.
By the time she had clambered back into the car, Nessa's was not the only temper that was high and they were running very late. It was a quarter to eleven when they finally reached King's Cross station and Mrs. Weasley was nervously looking at the clock as they all rushed to the platform between nine and ten and rushed through the barrier with only a minute to spare.
"Hurry along, dear," Mrs. Weasley said, wrapping her in a hug. "Have a good term and let us know if you need anything at all."
Tori gave them a fleeting hug herself before they rushed after Fred and George onto the train just as it began to pull away from the station.
"C'mon, let's go and find Lee," Fred said, dragging his trunk along the hall behind him.
Nessa chewed her fingers and looked awkwardly after his and Tori's retreating backs and the other side of the hall, wondering if she should just go and find Harry or Ginny instead.
"You coming, Potter?"
She jumped a foot in the air. She had forgotten George was still standing next to her and he was eyeing her expectantly.
"Stop doing that," Nessa said, holding a hand over her racing heart and glaring over at him.
He grinned. "Come on, love," he said, grabbing her trunk and pulling it along the corridor with his own. "I'm afraid Fred and I aren't so easy to get rid of. You're stuck with us now." He wiggled his eyebrows conspiratorially and disappeared into one of the compartments.
She rolled her eyes, but she couldn't pretend that the words made her feel a little more light-hearted as she followed behind him, not even noticing in the chaos of boarding the train that Harry and Ron had not boarded with them.
