Chapter Twelve
For the next few days, the entire school could talk of little else than the fate of Mrs. Norris. Filch kept it fresh in everyone's minds by pacing the spot where she had been attacked, as though he were waiting for the attacker to come back. To be fair, Vanessa didn't find this entirely implausible. She remembered hearing on the news about a Muggle serial killer that had been caught returning to the murder sites — maybe the heir was no different. Of course, Mrs. Norris wasn't dead according to Harry, so maybe the logic didn't track in the same way?
At any rate, Nessa had only walked down the corridor once since the attack, but she had seen Mrs. Skower's All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover around the chair Filch used to stand guard and assumed the caretaker was trying to clean the words off the wall. The words had still gleamed ominously as she'd passed, so it had obviously been done to little effect. She'd taken to avoiding Filch any time she saw him outside of the corridor as he had taken to lunging at students and trying to put them into detention for ridiculous reasons. After having tried to put her and Tori in detention for "looking happy," she had avoided him almost entirely in the halls.
As it stood, Vanessa had taken to sheltering herself in the library every day for nearly every hour of the day since the attacks in an attempt to figure out why the Chamber of Secrets seemed so familiar to her. The entire rest of the school seemed to have the same idea, however, as they had also taken to crowding into the library every day.
Madam Pince was not at all pleased with the increased traffic within the library and had taken to staring at students through stacks of books on the shelves to determine how they treated her precious books. She'd chased a tearful first-year out of the library only twenty minutes before for having dog-eared one of the pages of the text they'd been scouring.
The sound of giggling behind her rose her head once again and she rolled her eyes at the same group of girls that she had seen the night of Halloween, staring at Cedric Diggory again. Apparently, not even the thought of an imminent attack could dissuade them from their extra-curricular activities. She really wished Diggory would decide to study with his friends elsewhere — at the very least to give her the privilege of quiet.
Pushing the copy of the original Hogwarts blueprints away from her, she leaned back in her chair and huffed, crossing her arms across her chest. Ginny looked up at her anxiously.
"I can't find a damn thing about the Chamber of Secrets throughout the entirety of this library," said Nessa, tapping her foot irritatedly against the table leg. "It's like the thing has never existed, but I know I've heard of it before."
Ginny began wringing her hands together, something Nessa noticed she had been prone to doing whenever anyone around her spoke about the Chamber.
"Sorry, Gin," she said, sheepishly, running a hand over her face in exhaustion and trying to control her irritation. "I know you don't like talking about it."
Ginny shook her head hurriedly.
"No, it's okay, it's just…"
Nessa raised an eyebrow at her when she stopped speaking and began chewing her lip. Ginny had not begun to look any better over the last week. On the contrary, she scribbled in her diary now more than ever, and she seemed close to tears every time they'd met. Even more concerning, she hardly ate at mealtimes, something Nessa found especially concerning because she'd never seen a Weasley refuse to eat before.
"It's going to be okay, Ginny," she said softly, if only because she wasn't sure what else to say. She wasn't entirely sure she believed the words because she still had no idea what the school was even facing at this point, but it felt better than saying nothing at all.
"Do you ever not remember something?" Ginny queried abruptly. Nessa eyed her in bemused surprise.
"Er…I assume you don't just mean in the normal sense? You know, like forgetting what I ate the day before or something similar…"
"No, I —" Ginny looked around nervously and Nessa was concerned she was going to clam up when Justin Finch-Fletchley passed by with his nose shoved into a book. "I just mean like… well, have you ever forgotten what you did for a whole day? Like there are just black spots in your memory?"
"What's going on, Ginny?" she queried, slowly, eyeing Ginny in concern and trying not to let her growing anxiety appear too obvious in her body language.
Ginny frowned and shook her head, pulling her diary back towards her and beginning to scribble again. Nessa watched her in silence and it was only when she saw a tear beginning to trail down the younger girl's nose that she chose to speak again.
"Ginny, look….you've been going through a lot lately and you haven't been looking like you feel the best, alright?" she said, leaning forward and placing a hand over the one the girl was using to write and causing her to freeze. "I'm not really sure what's worrying you, but I know how I felt when I first came to Hogwarts and it can be overwhelming. I don't know if it's totally the same as what you're asking, but I have forgotten pretty much the entirety of that first year here."
"Really?" whispered Ginny, looking entirely too vulnerable and weepy.
Nessa leaned back again and shrugged, letting her arms wrap themselves around her body in an attempt to distance herself from the conversation…or maybe to comfort herself, she wasn't totally certain.
"Yeah, I mean, it's sort of how I cope with things, ya know?" she admitted quietly. "It's easier to block it all out then remember how it felt, I guess." As if realizing suddenly what she was saying, she looked sharply at Ginny and said abruptly. "Not that I am encouraging that sort of coping mechanism. I just…well, I don't want you to feel like you're crazy or anything if that's how you've been feeling lately, ya'know?"
Ginny smiled at her kindly and nodded slowly.
"Thank you," she said quietly in response and Nessa nodded mechanically. "It does make me feel a little better, I guess. I mean, I'm not sure if that's what I'm doing, but it helps." She hesitated for a long moment, eyeing Nessa in a way that made her want to squirm. "Do you mind my asking why you hated your first year so much?"
Nessa shifted uncomfortably and tried to breathe through her nose slowly. She hated being emotionally vulnerable in front of other people, she really did. It wasn't a state she often found herself in. She'd always shoved her own feelings and desires away in order to take care of Harry and her only friends were a group of people who were happier than a niffler in Gringotts.
"I, uh ...I don't know, it's probably just me being dramatic about the whole thing, honestly," she said nonchalantly. "Harry's just all I've ever really had in my life and being away from him was difficult. And he wasn't allowed to write to me, so it was like being cut off from him completely and never knowing what my aunt and uncle were doing to him while I was gone." She hesitated a moment longer, watching one of the students at the next table wad up a piece of paper and throw it across the room. "And, you know, I didn't have anyone to talk to about it here either. Not at first anyway. It's an odd sort of mindset to feel so alone when you're surrounded by so many people."
"I get what you mean," Ginny said frankly. Nessa met her eyes again and then cleared her throat abruptly, as if the action alone would distance her from the conversation at hand. "I always thought my first year of Hogwarts would be so exciting. The way my brothers have talked about it. I was always so jealous I couldn't come with them. Now it just feels sort of…"
Nessa chuckled when she struggled to find the word to describe how she felt. She was grateful she wasn't the only one that had such a hard time expressing how she felt out loud.
"We always want the things we can't have, as they say. But yeah, I know what you mean; I was so excited to get away from my aunt and uncle until I actually got here," she said to the younger girl with a smile. "It does get easier, though, Ginny."
"If it could get easier by tomorrow, that would be great," the younger girl muttered to herself.
Nessa laughed.
"Doubtful," she said honestly, pulling the blueprints back toward her. "Hogwarts has gotten much more chaotic since my brother arrived. I'm starting to think he's just a magnet for the insane."
The silence between them settled back into something more comfortable as Vanessa began to scour the drawings in front of her again for any sign of where a chamber could be hidden. She'd viewed the same blueprints in her first year when she had been avoiding eye contact with some of the older students by pretending to look through the filing cabinet with copies of historical documents of Hogwarts. It'd been a much more pleasant experience than she imagined being bombarded about if her brother had shown any signs of magic would have been.
She'd hoped this particular document was the one that mentioned the chamber — whether in the drawings themselves or the set of scribbles that were cramped along the edges.
After another hour of trying to decipher the scribbles, she groaned in frustration and shoved the documents back into their folder. She waved goodbye to Ginny before making her way around the other students still milling in the library. Handing them to Pince on her way out, she grumbled to herself in irritation as she made her way back to the common room. She should have known there would be nothing in those documents. Surely, if there had been, someone would have found the Chamber by now and the teachers wouldn't be looking so concerned every day.
Tori jumped when Nessa slammed her book bag onto the table she was occupying with the twins. Fred and George, who had been previously leaning over what appeared to be a cream filled pastry intently, looked up at her in confusion. Fred smirked almost immediately at the frustration on her face.
"Why, thank you for gracing us with your presence this fine evening, your highness," he said, smirk widening into a grin when her eyes narrowed and she pointed at him accusingly.
"Don't start with your nonsense, Fred," she said in reprimand.
"My nonsense, she says," he said to George, who was also grinning at her. "She ignores us for days —"
"Not true," Nessa interrupted calmly, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms petulantly.
"-and the first thing she does when she returns is try to insult me."
"Did you die of boredom in the library, love?" said George. "Come to us to revive you with some fun and entertainment?"
"Not to worry, munchkin, we're the right blokes for the job," continued Fred and Nessa felt her mood lifting a little, the corner of her mouth twitching despite her attempt to look disapproving of their antics. "Here, take a bite of this, if you don't mind."
He held the pastry out to her suddenly and Nessa shot backward, laughing in alarm.
"Absolutely not," she said.
"Now, listen here, Vanessa —"
"Don't call me that."
"- you've come to us for help with this. You've got to trust us."
"It's just the thing to put you in a good mood again." finished George, leaning forward eagerly.
She eyed them both in exasperation. She'd come to think of that twinkle in their sapphire eyes as something to be very wary of.
"I died of boredom, gentleman, not stupidity," she quipped. Tori snorted from behind her Care of Magical Creatures textbook. "What in the world are you two even doing, poking around a pastry with your wands, anyway?"
"Canary creams," said Fred, grinning widely. "Turns you into a canary when you eat it, remember?"
"That's the idea anyway," said George, eyeing the confection thoughtfully. "Course, so far, we're only growing beaks and I've no idea how to correct it. Looks a bit ridiculous without the feathers."
"Yes, that's what looks ridiculous," said Tori, meeting Nessa's eyes and rolling her own. Fred shoved her off the chair in retaliation, causing Tori to growl and hit him with her book. George was the next one to meet Nessa's eyes and roll his own. She grinned at him. "I assume you didn't find anything in the library then?" said Tori suddenly, taking her seat again and shoving the hair out of her eyes.
Nessa scowled again, huffing loudly.
"No, I didn't," she said in irritation, glaring at the pastry in front of her, as if it were the reason she couldn't remember anything about where she had read about the Chamber of Secrets. "I did get to listen to Diggory's fangirls swoon over him more loudly than was necessary, so y'know, we're all leading productive lives in the library apparently."
Fred and George rolled their eyes at this, but Tori smirked at her dangerously.
"What's wrong with Diggory, then? You don't think he's an attractive bloke?"
Nessa rolled her eyes.
"That's not what I said," she said, ignoring the twins' huffiness at this response. They were not particularly fond of Cedric Diggory, for reasons unbeknownst to her. "You'd have to be blind to think he was unattractive. But his looks aren't really the point, are they? Just because they have a reason to be swooning doesn't mean they have to do it in the library. It's hard enough trying to figure out what the hell the Chamber of Secrets is without them making it worse."
"Setting aside the fact that you sound jealous," said Tori, grinning at Nessa's deadpan expression. "Are you sure you've even heard of it before? I mean, honestly, I think Hermione is getting more sleep than you are at this point and she's been in the library almost as much as you have."
"It might not even be real, for one thing," said Fred. "Could just be Malfoy playing some joke."
"Malfoy doesn't have the brain cells to rub together to think of something as elaborate as that, Fred." Nessa said with an eye roll. "For another, it's certainly real, I've no doubt about that. Haven't you seen the way the teachers have been behaving lately? You'd think they were waiting around for one of us to drop dead in the corridors."
"And Harry said Dumbledore didn't say anything to them after the attack?" queried George for what felt like the hundredth time.
"Nothing," said Nessa. "All I could get out of him was that they found the writing on the wall on their way back to the common room from Nick's party and that Dumbledore said Mrs. Norris had only been petrified, but wasn't dead."
"They were obviously hiding something, though, because Ron and Hermione kept sneaking glances at each other when they thought we weren't looking." said Tori, her eyes going up to the ceiling as if praying for patience at the memory. "It's a wonder they aren't in more trouble, honestly, because they've got horrible poker faces."
"It can't be anything good if Dumbledore doesn't know where to start looking," said Fred seriously.
"I'm telling you, it feels like there is nowhere to look," said Nessa, throwing up her hands in frustration. "It feels like I've gone through the entire history of Hogwarts in the last week and —"
Tori and the twins stared at each other when Nessa stopped talking abruptly, straightening in her seat suddenly with a look of shock on her face.
"Er…if you're pausing for dramatic effect, I'd keep it moving," said Tori matter-of-factly, earning a laugh from the twins.
"The history of Hogwarts, of course! How could I be so stupid?" said Nessa, shooting out of her seat and racing up the stairs to the girls' dormitory without another word to them.
"What just happened?" said Fred, looking over at Tori in bemusement.
"She'll be back," she responded with an eye roll. "She's just figured something out and her inner know-it-all won't let her get by without telling us."
Sure enough, Nessa appeared moments later with her copy of Hogwarts, A History, shoving aside the twins' pastry and flipping through it frantically. Fred eyed her oddly for a moment before raising a finger slowly and poking her in the cheek, as if trying to be sure she was real.
"You've been possessed by Granger, haven't you?" he said seriously, causing Nessa to smack his hand away from her and huff at him, but continued to eye her book. He grabbed her face and forced her to meet his eyes. "Nessa, if you're in there somewhere, show us a sign!"
"You're ridiculous," said Nessa, ignoring the laughter of George and Tori next to her. She shoved Fred away from her, flipping through the book until she found the passage she was looking for. She smirked and pointed at the page triumphantly. "I told you I'd heard of it."
The three of them leaned forward eagerly so that they were all huddled around the book.
The Legend of the Chamber of Secrets
One of the great secrets supposedly hidden within the walls of Hogwarts is aptly referred to as the Chamber of Secrets. As previously discussed within this literature, Hogwarts was founded over a thousand years ago by the greatest witches and wizards of the age: Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin.
For a few years, the founders worked together in harmony, seeking out children who showed signs of magic and educating them within the castle. After several successful years, however, disagreements began to crop up between them about who deserved to attend. Slytherin wished to be more selective about the students admitted to Hogwarts and believed that magical learning should be kept within all-magic families. He believed those students of Muggle parentage to be untrustworthy and unworthy to learn magic. The other founders, however, believed that they should teach any student that desired to learn.
After a serious argument on the subject between Slytherin and Gryffindor, Slytherin left the school and never returned. Reliable sources have told us this much of the story, but whispers abounded that it was not just academia that Slytherin left behind.
According to legend, Slytherin built a hidden chamber within the castle, of which the other founders knew nothing. Slytherin is said to have sealed within the Chamber a monster with which only he could control and it is believed by some that no one but the heir of Slytherin would be able to unseal the Chamber and unleash the horror within, using it to purge the school of all who, Slytherin felt, were unworthy to study magic.
Note: The school has, naturally, been searched for evidence of such a chamber, many times, by all of the headmasters and headmistresses to come after Slytherin. No such chamber has ever been found.
"Well, I can see why you couldn't remember where you'd heard the story before," said Fred, sitting back and crossing his ankles casually. "Sounds like a load of dung to me."
"I've already told you it isn't," said Nessa, looking at him sharply. "The teachers wouldn't be looking so nervous if there wasn't some truth to the tale."
"You're not actually saying you believe this, are you?" said Tori incredulously. "It's a legend, Nessa."
"All legends have a basis in fact," she responded, waving a hand dismissively. "And, anyway, I'm not saying I believe it in its entirety, but it's certainly something to be cognizant about. At the very least it gives us some idea of what the teachers are so worried about."
"Okay, so let's say that we do believe this – this story," said George, waving at the book in emphasis. "That would mean that the heir of Slytherin is currently at Hogwarts, yes?"
"If everything in the legend is true, yes, that would be my assumption." said Nessa, chewing on one of her cuticles thoughtfully. George grabbed her wrist and lowered her hand from her mouth to break the habit.
"So the real question is…Who is the heir of Slytherin?" he said.
"Well, if we give it enough time, Harry will probably figure it out and manage to find the Chamber too," said Tori with an eye roll.
Nessa glared at her.
"Don't even joke about that, Victoria."
-o0o-
It was hours later that Nessa broke away from her friends again with the excuse that she was going to be spending some time with Harry. It was a lie, of course, but one they had believed immediately. She hadn't seen much of her brother since she'd interrogated him on Halloween and she still had very little interest in speaking with him until he decided to admit whatever he'd deliberately chosen to keep from her.
No, Harry was not the particular second-year who held her attention tonight.
She'd been biding her time in the last week, waiting for Draco Malfoy to part from the two bodyguards that he called friends. Her warning had done what she'd wanted it to do and had scared him into avoiding her, but she thought it may have worked a little too well. She'd hardly seen him at all without Crabbe and Goyle by his side, which made teaching him a lesson particularly difficult.
She'd seen him duck away from them after dinner, however, and had followed him out to the Quidditch pitch without his noticing her. The first game — Gryffindor vs. Slytherin — was tomorrow and was highly anticipated by the entire school. Given the fact that he was sitting in the stands alone and staring over at the three hoops on one end of the pitch, she imagined he was feeling a bit nervous.
A part of her felt bad for spying on him in a moment of vulnerability, but the other side of her knew that she was running out of time to make her point. If he got even an inkling that she was too weak to stand up to her word, he'd make her life much, much more irritating. If he sensed any sign of weakness on her part, he would become unbearable — either to her or to Harry, it really didn't matter.
And if, God forbid, Slytherin won the match tomorrow, his unbearable attitude would start far too soon.
With a wave of her wand and a whispered incantation, an unsuspecting Draco Malfoy was covered in mud so thick that it began to fall off in clumps, landing with several loud thuds on the stands around him.
Malfoy shouted in alarm and leaped to his feet.
"It's a lovely evening, Draco, wouldn't you agree?" said Nessa calmly, stepping out of the shadow of the stands to face him. He whirled around to look at her, reaching for his wand. She held hers out at his chest. "Don't even think about it, Malfoy."
He glared at her ferociously, but let his arm drop back down to his side.
"Covering me in mud, Potter?" he sneered, wiping the substance away from his eyes and letting it fall to the ground in globs. "Bit amateur, isn't it?"
Nessa hummed and nodded her head.
"Perhaps, but there was a particular symmetry to the idea." she said, conversationally, as if they were merely having a conversation among friends, her wand hand totally unwavering. "I'd have preferred putting the mud into your gel bottle, but getting into the Slytherin common room seemed like a bit too much work and this made my point just as well." She cocked her head to the side and stared at him thoughtfully. "Of course, I also imagined I could just hex you within an inch of your life, but with the Quidditch game tomorrow, I've no interest in giving you any excuses to make when you lose spectacularly to my brother."
"I won't be losing to your brother at all tomorrow." he said arrogantly. "I've not a doubt about that."
"Really?" she said in mock confusion. "Is that the reason you've been sitting out here staring at the pitch for the last hour?"
He glared at her.
"Your precious brother will be knocked flat off his broom tomorrow within minutes," he snapped. "It's about time someone showed this school how useless he really is."
"Jealousy is such an ugly trait, Draco," she said with an eye roll. "I can't tell if I despise you more for that or the narcissistic drone of your voice, but let's set that aside for a moment shall we?" She lowered her wand and stepped up so that they were eye to eye. "You're going to watch your mouth, Malfoy." she said, dangerously. "You want to insult me or my brother, go right ahead. But I draw the line at being an ignorant, prejudiced prick. The next time I have to have this conversation with you won't be so…amateur, as you called it."
"Standing up for Mudbloods, Potter." he said with a smirk that she bristled at immediately. "You and your brother are as bad as the Weasels you spend your time with."
"Flipendo!"
The blast of blue light momentarily illuminated the stadium and her perfectly calm features, but made the angry glint in her eye look sinister as it hit Malfoy directly in the chest. He was momentarily lifted into the air with so much force that he somersaulted. He landed a distance away from her with a crash and a groan.
"You are no better than any other wizard or witch in this castle, Malfoy," she spat as he worked to straighten himself with a glare. "I don't give a damn about your wealth or your social status. I don't give a damn that you think that your family is something special because you've been marrying each other's cousins for centuries. I don't give a damn about your father either and whatever strings you think he has within this castle. If you do not watch your mouth, it's going to get you into trouble. So get your head out of your arse and quit acting like you're better than the rest of us. Now get the hell away from me before I do something I regret."
She watched him as he scrambled away from her, throwing glares back at her every so often and tracking mud along with him. She gave it several minutes, breathing in the air and the smell of the grass before she thought it safe enough to follow him back.
Hexing him had not been part of the plan at all, but his arrogance made him dangerous, at least in terms of pushing her off the edge. What kind of idiot continues to stoke the fire with a wand at their chest, anyway? She thought derisively.
His blind acceptance of his father's prejudices was certainly going to put him in a position he wasn't prepared for later in life, she was sure. It was one thing to want to please your father, but completely another to so blindly spew hatred to others, simply because it was something you didn't understand. Human beings could be so incredibly cruel to each other — for something as stupid as blood status, no less — just in an attempt to make themselves feel superior and secure.
It was that thought that made her feel so depressed, she didn't even realize she'd made it back to the castle until she'd run straight into Fred.
"Shit, sorry, I — oh, it's you," she deadpanned.
He rolled his eyes and steadied her with a hand on her arm. George and Tori stood off to his side and she could tell just by the look on Tori's face that they knew she hadn't been with Harry and had likely been looking for her for some time. She avoided their eyes by straightening her robes.
"If I didn't know any better, I'd think you didn't like me," said Fred.
"Good thing you know better then, isn't it?" she said, cocking an eyebrow at him, pointedly ignoring Tori's glare.
"Where have you been?" said Tori pointedly, crossing her arms. "And don't give us that bull about Harry because he's up in the common room and has been for the last two hours. And he said the two of you never had plans to meet at all."
"You wouldn't happen to know why Malfoy came back in here dragging mud across the place, would you?" said George, his eyes twinkling mischievously.
"Oh, is that why there's all this mud around?" she said innocently, meeting his stare defiantly. "I was wondering what —"
"You must think we're really thick if you think we're going to fall for that," said Fred with an eye roll.
"Why would you lie about being with Harry?" said Tori again, eyeing her with a disapproving look.
"I needed some space."
"You couldn't just say that?" she said in irritation, throwing her arms in the air. "And I don't believe it anyway. Try again."
"What difference does it make where I was?" said Nessa with a glare. "I don't need a babysitter, Victoria."
"Alright, don't tell us," said George with a shrug before Tori could respond and the argument escalated. "We'll just tell Harry not to worry where you've been. You were just out snogging Malfoy and didn't want anyone to find out."
"Understandable, really," said Fred diplomatically, rocking on the balls of his feet. "Having an affair with that slimy git is bound to embarrass anyone. Not your fault really."
Nessa's jaw dropped to the floor immediately and Tori's face blossomed into a wide smile before she managed to hide it behind her hand.
"Plus, you know, I'm given to understand there's something exciting about keeping a relationship a secret, yes?" said George, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively and grinning at her affronted look.
"Is that your excuse for snogging girls in broom closets then?" snapped Nessa, ignoring Tori's giggling at the twins' suggestion.
"Now, love, don't be jealous," he said, totally unashamed. "You're more than welcome to join, if you'd like."
Nessa blushed at the suggestion and spluttered at him. Fred grinned at her obvious discomfort with the topic.
"After you're done with Malfoy, of course," he added resolutely. "Georgie doesn't like sharing."
"Cut it out, you two," Tori laughed, shoving them away from an increasingly agitated Vanessa. "You're going to give her a stroke."
"Going to end up unable to sit on their brooms tomorrow is more likely," said Nessa with a glare at the both of them.
"Ah, so we were mistaken then," said George, still smirking and seemingly ignoring Tori completely. "She was only giving Malfoy pointers to beat us in the game tomorrow."
"It's hard to say which of those two scenarios would upset Harry more, honestly," said Fred conversationally. "We're going to have to put some thought into this one, George."
"Indeed, Fred."
Nessa could feel her patience running entirely too thin. Dealing with Malfoy had already put her on edge and hexing the two buffoons in front of her seemed a better idea because of it. As if sensing her irritation, Tori stepped in front of the twins and met her dead in the eye.
"Don't listen to them. They're just jealous they didn't get to see you prank Malfoy."
"That was her, actually." said Fred, nonchalantly. "We only wanted to rile you up a bit. Especially because you're such a horrible liar."
"Though seeing you prank Malfoy would have been the highlight of our day, if we're being honest," said George.
"I already told you that wasn't me."
"Really?" said Tori, her voice dripping with disbelief. "Then please let me be the first to ask why there's dried mud splattered down the front of your robes."
Nessa looked down at her robes and swore. She looked between the three of them, running through any other plausible excuse she could give. As the silence stretched and they all continued staring at her and waiting for her to deny it, Fred raised a sarcastic brow.
"You're not going to tell us you were out there rolling around in the mud like a pig, are you?" he said, causing Tori and George to snicker. "Because that's ridiculous even for you."
"Oh, will the three of you shut it already?" she said huffily, pushing past them and stalking back to the common room. She could hear the three of them racing after her, still laughing. "I've got to get out of these robes before Malfoy comes back with McGonagall."
"Relax, he's in Filch's office," said Tori, waving a hand dismissively. "He's going to have detention for a week for tracking all that mud around."
Nessa tried to hide her smirk at this by picking up her pace. She had, of course, hoped that that would be the case. Seemed only fitting that he be punished in more ways than one for his sick ideologies. She'd gotten the idea from Harry, who had told her that Filch had nearly given him detention after Quidditch practice one evening for filthing up the castle with his muddy robes. And with Filch having been so hostile since Mrs. Norris' attack, she had figured, assuming Malfoy ran into him on the way to his common room, that he would have no qualms about doling out another detention.
George caught the look on her face before she managed to get far enough away and grinned.
"I would hazard a guess that our young friend here had that planned as well," he said to Fred and Tori conspiratorially, nodding at the smirk on the redhead's face.
"Nice touch, if I say so myself," said Fred, grinning.
"What happened anyway?" said Tori, still looking a little put out to not have been part of the fun, but growing excited all the same.
"It's pretty self-explanatory, isn't it?" said Nessa. "I followed him out to the Quidditch pitch — I reckon he's nervous about the game tomorrow given how long he was staring at nothing out there, by the way —"
"Don't see what he's got to be bloody nervous about," muttered Fred resentfully. "They've got far better chances than we do with those new brooms."
"Yeah, if Flint manages to transfigure another pair of arms onto his broomstick," said Tori with a snort, waving away Fred's concern about the match tomorrow. "Continue, Nessa."
"Right, well, he was sitting there all nervous about tomorrow and he didn't notice I'd been staring at him for the last hour, waiting to see if the two oafs he hangs around would show up, and I just covered him in mud."
"How'd you get mud on yourself then?" said George in confusion.
"Please tell me you did not catch yourself in the crossfire," said Tori with an eye roll. "Because that's a totally amateur mistake."
Nessa shook her head as they neared the portrait hole.
"Of course not, I'm not stupid," she said. "I, uh….well, he…."
"Some time tonight would be great," deadpanned Fred. She glared at him.
"It got a little out of hand, is all. I told him if he didn't watch his mouth he'd end up getting into trouble and he thought that it would be a great time to say…well, you know what he said. And then he called Fred and George 'Weasels', so I, er…may have hexed him a bit." Tori laughed in delight as the twins' grins grew so wide that Nessa wondered if it hurt to smile so much. "It wasn't really that serious, you know. I just threw him across the pitch and told him I didn't give a damn who he is, he's still an arse. Anyway, the mud probably splattered on me then."
"I don't know what you're looking so guilty for," said Tori gleefully. "You could have left him out there tied up all night and you wouldn't hear any flak from us."
"There's an idea," said George thoughtfully.
"I'd much prefer if you could just hit him with a bludger tomorrow instead," said Nessa. "Because I told him we were going to beat them tomorrow and I'd hate to sound stupid in front of the likes of him." She paused momentarily and then eyed the three of them seriously. "Besides, I'm sure leaving him out there all night is illegal somehow."
"Only if you're caught," said Tori with a shrug.
"I think you have a gross misunderstanding of what illegal actually means."
"Don't worry, love," said George, wrapping an arm around her shoulders as they came upon the portrait hole. "We'd be just chuffed to hit Malfoy with a bludger tomorrow."
"We'll save the illegal bits for later then, yes?" Fred grinned.
Nessa pretended not to have heard him. With her luck, he wasn't joking.