Another chapter because I missed posting for two weekends in a row. Now that I've made up for those weekends, I will see you all this weekend (for certain, as I am off until the New Year).
Enjoy and I appreciate you all!
Chapter Twenty
As January faded into February, the bitterly cold weather continued. Nessa spent the majority of her time wearing several layers and trying not to complain too much about how much she hated the winter months. Aside from the cold, the days were always overcast — even if there was no snow — and she severely took for granted the power that sunlight had on her overall mental health. Not only just because every day felt dreary, but also because Fred refused to postpone their runs for the winter. There was no amount of clothing that would help keep her fingers from going numb, despite Fred telling her that she was being overly dramatic.
Her brother was still not talking to Hermione, despite her harsh words a few weeks previous, and had started badgering McGonagall at the end of every Transfiguration class for updates on his beloved broomstick. Nessa assumed that the entire thing was not going over well based on his continuously morose mood, and the fact that McGonagall had asked her personally to tell her brother to stop badgering her about it. Telling him so had been the only time that they'd really talked in the last several weeks as it was because, apparently, her taking Hermione's side had been far more offensive to him than he'd truly let on. She might have cared except she felt the entire thing was ridiculous.
While the twins and Tori had not made their opinions on the Firebolt entirely clear, she could tell that they were incredibly interested to know if he would have the broom for their game against Ravenclaw. She half suspected that the three of them were just trying to have a ride on the broomstick themselves. And, although they hadn't made their opinion overtly clear, Nessa could still tell that they weren't very confident that the broom had come from Sirius Black. Not that Nessa truly blamed them because she went back and forth on this likelihood at least twice a day and she still felt like the entire thing was insane just on the face of it.
She'd still maintain until the day that she died that she supported Hermione's decision in being cautious about the entire thing, however. Even if the match with Ravenclaw was creeping steadily closer and she knew that Harry still had not ordered a broomstick. It was a cause of stress for not just her, but the entirety of the Gryffindor Quidditch team.
Nessa could hardly keep herself from nagging at him to get over the Firebolt and order a broom. She wanted to win the Quidditch match, and the Cup, but she also was becoming sick and tired of listening to Oliver Wood drone on and work every one of her friends into the ground. She hardly wanted to think what his reaction would be if Harry didn't order a broom and they lost the match entirely.
In order to avoid her brother entirely, and save herself the argument she knew would ensue if she told him to get over himself, she sat in the darkest corner of the common room, much to the irritation of the twins and Tori, who were working alongside her.
"You're thinking about it too much," Nessa said to the three of them seriously. "It should be natural. More like an extension of yourself. In the same way as your wand."
"This is ridiculous," said Tori in irritation, glaring at the quill they'd been trying to levitate for at least an hour. "This is exactly why we have wands."
Nessa rolled her eyes and made a twirling motion with her fingers and muttered, "Wingardium Leviosa!" The quill rose immediately into the air and followed the movement of her pointer finger as she moved it across the room. Tori huffed in irritation and Nessa made another motion, sharper this time, and muttered "Finite Incantatem." The spell stopped immediately and the quill fell back to the table with a barely perceptible noise.
"The magic comes from you, not your wand," Nessa said. "Your wand is merely a tool to help channel your magic. Some people think the wand makes the spellwork more powerful, but there are plenty of wizarding communities that don't use wands at all that are no less powerful than any wizarding community in Europe."
"Explain the concept again," said George, squinting at the quill in front of him as if it would rise based on sheer will alone.
George was certainly the easiest of them to teach and had, on one occasion, managed to levitate the quill in front of him, although he'd become so startled by his success that it had dropped immediately. Fred and Tori were quickly aggravated by their lack of success, although neither one of them seemed inclined to stop trying to learn, if only because they refused to accept failure on principle.
"Using magic wandlessly requires a certain amount of skill and discipline, only because that sort of raw magic, without a wand, is harder to control. You need less focus and attention when you use your wand because every wand has a magical core that amplifies the magic without you needing to exert too much of yourself in the process. When you use magic wandlessly, there's nothing to help mitigate the intensity — you pull it directly from your magical core, so to speak, and have to maintain a certain level of control over your mind and body in order to channel it successfully." she explained.
"Sounds exhausting if you ask me," Fred grumbled, glaring at the quill in front of him and muttering the spell to himself over and over again.
"It is," said Nessa patiently. "It's sort of like building up to running a mile. The more you run, the stronger your heart and lungs become, the easier that mile becomes. Wandless magic is the same: the more you practice, the less exhausting it becomes and the more power you can exert over time. The most powerful wizards in the world aren't powerful because they possess more magic than the rest of us. They simply pushed the boundaries of their own magical core to the point that their magic was forced to grow to accommodate for the increased strain."
"The only thing that's feeling exhausted at the moment is my fingers from pointing so long at this stupid quill. Colin Creevey keeps looking at me like I've lost my head."
Nessa snorted at Tori's growing irritation, trying to remember exactly how she'd imagined the essence of it when she'd first started learning to work without her wand. It had been so long since then that the movements and magic were natural at this point and she hardly had to think at all when she attempted to perform the spells without her wand, unless she was learning a new spell or pulling for a large amount of power, which she tried not to do as it left her feeling heavy and exhausted.
"It's easier if you imagine the magic like a well of power that comes from inside yourself," she said slowly. "When you want to cast the spell, imagine pulling from that well in the same way you would pull water through a straw — slowly and consistently enough that the magic flows through your fingers. Eventually, you'll become so used to performing the magic that it will come more naturally, but the imagination portion is easier in the beginning."
The four of them lapsed into silence again as they focused on their respective quills and Nessa worked on trying to practice defensive spells without the use of her wand. Teaching the three of them how to perform wandless magic wasn't exactly what she'd imagined doing for the day, but they'd taken an interest in watching her attempt to sever a piece of parchment in front of her with harsh swipes of her hand. Their amusement at her frustration in the process had been the real reason for her having told them that they were going to learn how to do it themselves. It at least spared her from having them snigger at her every time she failed to cast the charm successfully.
She wouldn't have admitted it to any of them, but she'd become a tad obsessed with learning wandless magic since being overwhelmed by Murton and shoved into that trunk. Since coming back to school after break, she'd become tense and jumpy any time that she saw the three Slytherins together, and had had a hard time sleeping through the night without having nightmares about being smothered in oppressive darkness. She wasn't sure if seeing Murton and her friends again had triggered the anxious responses, but she'd had enough of feeling helpless about the situation every time one of them smirked at her.
So, instead, she'd taken up practicing wandless magic to the point of exhaustion any time she had spare time. She played off the exhaustion pretty well, considering how much she had going on at the moment between classes, tutoring Cedric, Harry, and her running schedule, but she was starting to suspect that Tori was becoming more and more suspicious of her increased agitation and lethargy.
She was pushing herself too far, and she knew it. Knew that wandless magic could be extremely volatile if the wielder didn't possess a clear frame of mind, but she was so anxious about being overwhelmed by someone again that she couldn't bring herself to stop pushing herself so hard. She might have been exhausted beyond belief, but she could definitely tell the difference the amount of work had had on the amount of power she was able to channel without her wand. She'd also noticed an increase in the intensity of her spells even with her wand, but this excited her a little less, if only because if she'd had her wand when Murton and her friends had cornered her, she was fairly certain she could have gotten out of the situation entirely. The wandless magic was her real focus at the moment.
Nessa hardly noticed when every head in the common room looked at her brother and Ron as they entered. She hardly even noticed the excited murmur of students when they saw him holding his Firebolt with a large grin. She only really noticed what was happening when the twins and Tori disappeared to rush forward to take a look at the broom. Looking up, she rolled her eyes at the number of people surrounding her brother to ask if they could just hold it for a moment. She'd have sooner thought that Harry had solved world hunger for the amount of excitement he was garnering. She caught Hermione's eye from across the room and smiled at her sadly before focusing on the piece of parchment in front of her again.
She looked up when her friends, Harry, and Ron sat next to her nearly ten minutes later.
"I got it back," said Harry, grinning at her and shoving the Firebolt excitedly at her.
She rolled her eyes, but couldn't help her smile at his excitement.
"I can see that," she said in amusement. "I take it that it's entirely safe for you to fly then."
"McGonagall said they found nothing," Harry agreed, looking torn between being giddy and smug at having been correct in his assumption that the broom was safe. "She said we'd better win the match, too. Snape told her if we don't, this will be the eighth year in a row that we haven't been in the running for the Cup."
Nessa grinned at the immediate bristling of the twins and Tori at these words. It had been horribly long since they'd been even close to making it to finals, which she found odd considering how good of a team they had. They hadn't won the Cup since Charlie Weasley was Seeker.
"Well, luckily, I don't think anyone will stand a chance with you flying that," she said truthfully.
"Imagine the look on Mafoy's face when he sees it, Harry," said Ron excitedly.
Nessa rolled her eyes good-naturedly when Harry's grin widened.
"I hope the two of you intend to talk to Hermione now that you've got the broom back," she said seriously.
Harry and Ron looked over at the table that Hermione was sitting at, carefully avoiding their eyes.
"Yeah, I suppose we should," said Harry. "She was only trying to help…"
"And you thought that broomstick couldn't work miracles," said Tori jokingly to Vanessa, who laughed at the look of exasperation that immediately colored Harry's features.
"If the two of you are just going to start being insulting, I think I'll be off," he said seriously, grabbing the broom and walking off toward Hermione.
"No wonder he never hangs out with us," said Fred with a grin. "The two of you are always being insulting."
Nessa balled up the parchment she'd been using earlier and threw it at his head in reproach. He caught it in his hands with a cocky smirk.
"I'd still like to know who got him a Firebolt," said George honestly. "If it wasn't Vanessa —"
"It wasn't," she said with an eye roll. "I'm almost positive my parents didn't leave us a fortune for me to blow it on a ridiculous broomstick."
Fred sighed heavily, looking terribly exhausted by her words.
"Honestly, munchkin, we have got to work on your people skills," he said morosely. George laughed at the indignant noise she made in response to this. "How many times do we have to explain to you that it is not just a 'ridiculous broomstick?'"
"It's a piece of wood and twigs —-"
"The fastest piece of wood and twigs in the world, love," said George seriously.
"Well, regardless, I hardly think —"
Whatever Vanessa thought about the entire thing, they never found out. At that precise moment, a strangled yell echoed down the boys' staircase. The whole common room fell silent, staring, petrified, at the entrance. Every muscle in Nessa's body seized as every horrible thing that could have possibly occurred upstairs. She looked frantically for Harry, and found him sitting next to Hermione and looking just as petrified as the rest of the students in the common room. She relaxed minutely until hurried footsteps sounded down the staircase, growing louder and louder — and then Ron came leaping into view, dragging with him a bedsheet.
"LOOK!" he bellowed, striding over to Hermione's table. "LOOK!" he yelled, shaking the sheets in her face.
The silence in the common room made every word he screamed ricochet off the walls and made every word Hermione spoke to him in response as vivid as if they had been standing directly next to her.
"Ron, what —"
"SCABBERS! LOOK! SCABBERS!"
Hermione was leaning away from Ron, looking utterly bewildered. Nessa stood and pushed her way toward the three of them, to try and calm the situation or to tell Ron to back off, she wasn't entirely sure, but Harry looked about as bewildered as Hermione and Nessa had a very bad idea about where this conversation was headed.
"BLOOD!" Ron yelled into the stunned silence, so angry that he didn't notice at all when she appeared behind Hermione with the twins and Tori. Looking down at the sheet he was holding, she could see something red splattered across it. "HE'S GONE! AND YOU KNOW WHAT WAS ON THE FLOOR?"
"N-no," said Hermione in a trembling voice.
Ron threw something down onto Hermione's rune translation. They all leaned forward to look. Lying on top of the weird, spiky shapes that Nessa recognized from her own Ancient Runes classwork, were several long, ginger cat hairs.
"HE KILLED HIM!" Ron raged. "I TOLD YOU TO KEEP AN EYE ON YOUR BLOODY CAT AND NOW LOOK AT WHAT HE'S DONE!"
"Ron, you can't — I mean, you don't know that that's what happened," said Hermione desperately, looking at Harry imploringly. Harry looked for all the world like he'd rather be anywhere else. "Those hairs could have been there since Christmas. Have you checked under all of the beds?"
"HE'S NOT UNDER THE BEDS, HERMIONE!" Ron said, clearly having no interest in a debate about the innocence of Hermione's bushy-haired feline. "THAT BEAST HAS HAD IT OUT FOR SCABBERS FROM DAY ONE!"
"Don't be so ridiculous, Ron!" said Hermione angrily, balling her hands into fists and jumping up from her seat. "He's a cat — it's in his nature! He doesn't know any better! You've been prejudiced against Crookshanks since I got him —"
"Prejudiced?" Ron said furiously. "I haven't been prejudiced at all! He's a menace to society!"
"You haven't said a thing to Nessa about Peanut sniffing around, now have you?" said Hermione shrilly. Nessa released a long breath at the mention of her name in their argument, although Ron didn't appear to be listening anyway. "You have no proof that Crookshanks ate him, Ron!"
"Well, he didn't just disappear into thin air, Hermione!"
Hermione yelled in aggravation and started packing up her things angrily, clearly having no further interest in arguing with Ron. At the sight of tears in her eyes, Nessa stepped forward and put a placating hand on her arm to still her angry movements.
"Harry, go upstairs with Ron and see if you can find Scabbers," she said calmly to her brother.
"He isn't up there, Nessa —" Ron began furiously.
"Watch your tone, Ron," George snapped before he could further pick a fight.
Nessa gave Ron a hard look.
"Go upstairs," she said firmly. "You can have it out with Hermione tomorrow once you've cooled off."
Ron opened his mouth angrily, but Harry, sensing that Nessa was not likely to back down from her stance, grabbed Ron by the arm and dragged him up the stairs, with one last apologetic look at Hermione. The silence within the common room lingered as the shock of the last several minutes settled heavily into the room. Hermione made a choked noise in the back of her throat that tugged at Nessa's heart.
"Mind your business, you lot," said Fred loudly to the common room of spectators.
"Nothing to see here," said George.
The awkwardness within the room dissipated slowly at these words, as the students all turned back to their friends and began chattering again. When Nessa was sure that no one was listening to them anymore, she kneeled down in front of Hermione's chair with a gentle smile.
"Don't cry, Hermione," she said kindly. "He'll come around. He's just upset about Scabbers."
"I'm just — I'm just so tired, Nessa," Hermione sobbed into her hands. "I have so much to do and they've been ignoring me for weeks because of the Firebolt and then I thought it was going to be okay and now th-this."
Nessa sighed sadly and wished she had something better to say to make her feel better. Unfortunately, Ron was not known for his kindness or quickness to forgive. And he and Hermione had a particular proclivity to irritate each other. The likelihood that Ron would see the error of his ways in this case would likely take at least another several weeks, if not longer. She expected longer, considering how irrational people tended to be about their pets.
And Nessa couldn't entirely blame him for being upset because, objectively speaking, she'd likely have been upset if roles were reversed. She wasn't entirely sure that she'd have been so harsh with Tori if it had been her pet's fault, but the sentiment would likely have been the same nonetheless. She also couldn't particularly blame Hermione for not wanting to admit that her cat had eaten Scabbers because she had enough going on at the moment and was clearly very close with her cat. She wasn't sure she'd have responded any differently if it had been Peanut who'd eaten him instead.
"I'm sorry, Hermione," she said truthfully. "I know they've been harsh with you lately. Crookshanks is just being a cat, and this isn't your fault, you know. You can't watch him every second of every day."
"It could have been something else," said Hermione stubbornly.
Nessa did not bother saying anything contrary to this. Ron didn't have proof that Crookshanks had eaten Scabbers, but it seemed fairly obvious that that was the most likely scenario. She wasn't stupid enough to say so to Hermione, however, especially considering how upset the girl already was. She needed support from somewhere and Nessa knew her brother handled these sorts of situations horribly, and wasn't likely to provide the sort of support that the younger girl likely needed.
So she said nothing to this response and just let Hermione cry for a moment before suggesting she take a break from her coursework and head up to bed for the night. Hermione looked like she might argue, considering all of the work she had in front of her, but seemed to be too depressed to argue. When Hermione disappeared up the girls' staircase with a teary farewell, Nessa released a heavy breath and sank into the seat she'd vacated.
The twins and Tori, who had been respectfully keeping their distance while the younger Gryffindor had cried, approached again and took seats next to her. Tori grimaced at her in understanding.
"Well, that was a nice thirty seconds of peace, wasn't it?"
-o0o-
In the days that followed, Vanessa was almost certain that Ron and Hermione would not make up. They were each so angry with the other that she couldn't even imagine a scenario in which they would ever be friends again. Tori said that she'd thought the same thing about her and George and clearly she'd been wrong. Nessa had not deigned to respond to that statement.
Nessa had spent most nights working silently next to Hermione so that she didn't feel alone, which she wasn't entirely sure was working. The younger girl was buckling under the stress of all of her coursework and Nessa wondered if she even had time to remember that she was arguing with Ron at all. Of course, it was hard for her to ignore when Ron made overly loud, snide remarks about Crookshanks whenever he thought Hermione was becoming too apathetic toward the situation.
It irritated Nessa to no end, but Ron was taking the loss of his rat very hard indeed. Much harder than she'd have imagined he would have, considering how often he'd complained about the animal. Fred said as much that morning at breakfast when Ron came down looking as depressed as ever.
"Come on, Ron, you were always saying how boring Scabbers was," said Fred bracingly. "And he's been off-color for ages, he was wasting away. It was probably better for him to snuff it quickly — one swallow — he probably didn't feel a thing."
"Fred!" said Ginny and Nessa indignantly.
Honestly, she never should have convinced the twins to try and cheer their brother up. Or maybe she should have only asked George to do it.
"All he did was eat and sleep, Ron, you said it yourself," said George.
"He bit Goyle for us once!" Ron said miserably. "Remember, Harry?"
"Yeah, that's true," said Harry, in a voice Nessa assumed was supposed to be bracing, although he shot a panicked look in her direction as if he were afraid Ron might ask him to say more on the subject.
She tried very hard to keep a straight face at this.
"His finest hour," said Fred, unable to keep a straight face. "Let the scar on Goyle's finger stand as a lasting tribute to his memory. Oh, come on, Ron, get yourself down to Hogsmeade and buy a new rat, what's the point of moaning?"
Nessa groaned as if in pain at these words and Ginny snapped at him again about being more sensitive to Ron's feelings.
"What am I supposed to say?" Fred said indignantly. "Scabbers is still going to be dead anyway."
"For God's sake, Fred, please stop talking," Nessa said in annoyance. "I don't know why I thought having you talk to him was a good idea."
Fred rolled his eyes.
"He was barely alive at all," he said. "I don't know what we're all so depressed about anyway. I'd have let Crookshanks eat him myself just to give the poor thing a break."
Tori snorted into her porridge and Nessa kicked her in the shin. Tori had said very little because she didn't feel very morose about it herself. She'd told Ron that he'd lived far longer than any other rat on the planet and that he shouldn't be so upset about his passing, considering she didn't understand how he could possibly believe that "that brown lump of skin 'alive'."
Nessa had gaped at her for several long moments, ignoring Fred and George's poor attempts at masking their laughter at this statement, before she'd told Tori that if she wasn't going to help, she shouldn't say anything at all. She'd been silent ever since, watching the Slytherin table in interest, although Nessa had no idea what for.
"Okay, that's fine," said Ron angrily. "You can stop trying to cheer me up now."
Nessa opened her mouth to say something, but Tori stood abruptly and gave a serious look to the twins. The look alone gave her pause because she'd never particularly seen them look at each other seriously like that before. The haste with which the twins stood and bid them farewell startled her even further and she looked after them in shock as the three of them hurried off out of the Great Hall, muttering to each other quietly.
"What the bloody hell was that about?" said Ron, clearly as bewildered as Nessa felt.
"It's probably best we don't ask too many questions, you know," said Ginny only half-joking. "That way we can plead our innocence more convincingly when McGonagall comes around asking questions."
Ron only made a disinterested noise, but Harry grinned at her in amusement, which, of course, set Ginny into an anxious tizzy. Nessa hardly noticed as she was still staring after her three friends in confusion.
"Just go find them, Nessa," said Harry seriously. "You're practically vibrating from the restraint you're using to sit here with us."
"No, I —"
"Don't bother," said Ginny with an eye roll. "Harry and I can handle Ron for the next ten minutes. It'll take you at least twice as long to convince those three to tell you what they're up to."
Nessa rolled her eyes, shoved the last bit of her toast into her mouth, and rushed after them with an apologetic grimace to Harry and Ginny, who were already trying to cheer Ron up again. She turned left toward the dungeons to follow where they'd disappeared to, but she had no clue what direction to take from there. Perhaps she should have asked Harry for the Map. She chose to head toward the Potions classroom first, although she had severe doubts that they'd have any desire to be in Snape's vicinity so early in the morning.
What use the three of them would have for waltzing around the dungeons outside of Potions, she had not a clue and suspected she didn't entirely want to know, but she couldn't quell her curiosity at their hasty departure. She cursed silently when she rounded the corner and did not see them outside the locked Potions classroom. It was still far too early for Snape or any other students to be waiting in the hallway before lessons, so she grumbled to herself, pulling her robes more tightly around herself to ward off the colder temperatures, and proceeded toward the end of the corridor.
She looked both directions, only just beginning to debate which direction she would choose to follow next, when she froze in surprise.
"What are you three doing?" she said in horror. "Have you completely lost your minds?"
None of them bothered looking over at her, although the three Slytherins they'd cornered shot a nervous glance in her direction as if hoping she were a teacher or prefect. Pickens, who was being held at wandpoint by Fred, rolled her eyes and opened her mouth to make a snide comment, but Fred growled low in his throat and pushed his wand further into her chest in warning. The brown-haired girl, who Nessa had learned was named Penelope Sinclair, was being held back by a clearly angry George, whose wand was held in the same place as his twin's was at Pickens, but he was shaking from his attempt to maintain control of his anger and his jaw was clenched so tightly she was worried he might break it.
As disturbing as seeing the twins so close to violence was for Nessa, her concern, and her gaze, rested more heavily on Tori and Adelaide. Tori had forgone her wand as a whole and was holding Adelaide against the wall of the dungeons by a forearm to her neck. Nessa was fairly certain she wasn't applying much pressure as Adelaide appeared to be breathing quite easily, but it didn't make her any less anxious. Add on the fact that neither of the twins were able to pull Tori back from the brink when she took things a step too far and her anxiety levels ratcheted up from zero to being in an Acromantula den in less than a second.
"We're just chatting," said Tori, whose voice was far more friendly than Nessa would have suspected. The tone did not help quell her anxiety. She'd heard that tone many times before and it had always resulted in either several detentions or a visit to the Hospital Wing. "I was only telling Murton to keep her distance. It's for the safety of everyone involved, isn't it?"
Nessa gaped at her.
"I — I don't know how to respond to that, Victoria," she said, her surprise at the situation before her having completely short-circuited her brain. She could barely remember any words within the English language at this point.
"Potter got what she deserved, Hastings," Murton sneered. "Personally, I'd have been much happier if she'd snuffed it —"
Tori snarled and pushed her arm harder against her throat, so that Adelaide was forced to claw at the arm against her in an attempt to maintain her breath.
"Victoria!" said Nessa shrilly.
Tori's gaze shot to her briefly before she rolled her eyes and eased up again. Nessa hardly had any time to relax when Adelaide started gasping for air and glared at the half-deranged Gryffindor in front of her.
"You stay the fuck away from her, Adelaide, or I will kill you myself," Tori snapped viciously. "If you even so much as look at her the wrong way, I will drop you where you stand."
"I could give a shit what you'd do, Hastings," Murton gasped snidely. "And I expected better from you, Potter. Such arrogance about your magical prowess and yet you send your guard dogs to threaten us —"
"I didn't send them to do anything, Adelaide, you stupid cow," Nessa snapped. "Let her go, Victoria."
Her tone was harsh and firm, but Tori ignored her until she took a step forward and pulled her back from the girl by force with a huff.
"What were you going to do, strangle her?" she snapped at her best friend indignantly.
"I might have," Tori snapped back. "She's got a smart mouth for someone so stupid."
"Do you still think about it, Potter?" Adelaide said from behind her. Nessa tensed at the cruel lilt to her tone and had to put an arm out to stop Tori from lunging at her. "I've watched you leave the library and you can't even walk past the chest at all. You take the long way back to the common room every time."
Nessa stared at her and tried to maintain some semblance of control over her emotions. Tried to ignore the panic that reared when she thought about walking down that corridor, about the heat and darkness that had engulfed her once the lid had shut and the panic had taken over. Tried to hide the clear exhaustion she felt because she'd been pushing herself too hard in an attempt to keep herself from feeling so weak again.
"You could have killed her," George said angrily, his wand still trained on Sinclair, despite the fact that he looked ready to throttle Murton himself. Nessa tried to focus on his rage and convince herself that that's how she should be feeling about the entire situation — not panicky and on the verge of running. "And for what? Because she told you to stop gossiping about her friend? That's pathetic."
"Just about as pathetic as you lying to yourself about how you feel about her just so you can continue shagging your bimbo of a girlfriend, Weasley," Murton snapped at him. Nessa flinched, but George only glared at her. "Tell me something, Potter. Are you so pathetic that you'll let Weasley string you along just so you can feel important?"
George snarled and whirled toward her, letting Sinclair go completely. Tori stepped forward with her wand immediately to keep her from turning tail and running, and Nessa was forced to shove herself between George and Murton.
"George, don't," she said frantically, trying desperately to push him away from the younger Slytherin with her hands on either side of his waist. "Just ignore her! She's a miserable bitch —"
"Takes one to know one, Potter."
Nessa ignored her completely and used a hand to hold George's wand hand firmly in an attempt to get him to lower it.
"George, please don't," she pleaded. "She isn't worth it. Don't give her the satisfaction of upsetting you. Just — please, can we just go? I don't want to be here anymore."
George looked at her then and there was a flash of pain beneath the anger in his face. She knew he could tell how much she was shaking because they were standing so close together and her hand was on his wrist. She tried to fight the panic, but being near the women who had left her to die was hard enough without adding her anxiety about confrontation into the mix as well. She also knew that, while Adelaide didn't know her well enough to pick up on it, George could hear the note of desperation in her voice.
He looked like he wanted to argue some more, like he wanted to make it clear to Murton and her friends that he had no intention of letting them get away with what they'd done to her. But whatever he saw on her face seemed to take precedence over how he felt. He lowered his wand grudgingly and nodded at Fred behind her.
"Such a sucker, Weasley," Murton taunted, watching smugly as Tori lowered her own wand with a frustrated growl. The three Slytherins took a step toward each other in an attempt to deter any further attacks from the four Gryffindors in front of them. "Perhaps I should tell my Head of House that the three of you are deranged and dangerous. To prevent this kind of ambush in the future, of course."
George and Tori tensed on either side of her, but Fred released a satisfied laugh that surprised them all so much that they turned to stare at him.
"I'm in the mood for a little experiment," he said with a grin that was not at all friendly. Truth be told, it was predatory enough that it made Nessa feel like they were all one step away from being murdered in the middle of the corridor. "I wonder how your Head of House will feel when he finds out that you tried to kill his favorite student."
Nessa tensed and opened her mouth to protest, but George and Tori grinned and shot forward with Fred to grab the three Slytherins by their robes and started dragging them down the corridor and around the corner to where Snape's office was located.
Nessa ran after them.
"Fred, don't," she said when they came to a stop outside Snape's office. "She isn't worth the effort —"
"No, but you are," he said fiercely. Nessa was so shocked by this admission that she stared at him as he banged on Snape's door so hard that it sounded like an explosion going off in the corridor.
Snape opened the door a moment later, looking murderous at the violent interruption to whatever work he'd been doing. His eyes roamed over the group before him, lip curling into a sneer at the sight of Tori and remaining that way as he looked over the twins, before the expression softened minutely when it landed on a clearly anxious Nessa.
"Mr. Weasleys, Miss Hastings," he said silkily. "Under what circumstances do you have the right to manhandle the students in my house?"
"They attacked us, Professor!" Murton said immediately.
Nessa had to give her props for managing to look so distressed, despite the fact that it was clearly a lie. Tori, who was the one holding her, pushed her forward so roughly that she stumbled.
"Like father, like daughter, I see," Snape said coldly. The four of them froze in shock at the expression and Nessa stared at him in surprise at the hatred he'd laced within the sentiment. Did he know her father personally? "You've always possessed the same qualities, so you'll excuse me if I'm not entirely surprised —"
"Don't," Nessa said, shocking herself entirely by the vehemence she'd put behind the word.
Snape had never liked Tori — that had never been a secret. She got more detentions than anyone in their year and only half of them were deserved if they were given to her by Snape. He seemed perpetually disgusted by her presence in classes and snarled at her relentlessly if she had difficulty with the subject. It was part of the reason Tori spent so much time complaining in the class about how her potions were never of the same caliber as Vanessa's.
She'd never really given it much thought before, considering the way he treated most of her peers, but looking at him now, she wondered if Snape's reasoning was because of something to do with Sirius Black. He hadn't liked her father either — he'd never made that a secret when he'd insulted him in front of Harry — and they'd been friends, after all. Perhaps he'd known them both personally.
"Excuse me?"
Nessa tried not to back down from the silkiness in his tone. She'd never been particularly afraid of Snape, never really found him anything but passionate and a little misguided. She wasn't going to start now.
"Don't talk to her about her father," she said firmly, refusing to back down from the malicious glitter in his eyes. "She has nothing to do with him, and it isn't her job to pay for his mistakes."
"Her father is the reason —"
"I know perfectly well who he is and what he's done," she snapped before he could finish that particular train of thought. Murton, Pickens, and Sinclair were looking entirely too intrigued by the conversation and she would be damned if Snape's personal vendetta caused problems for Tori. The twins and Tori were watching the exchange in the same manner she'd have watched a tennis match, looking torn somewhere between respect and horror at her brazenness. "My answer is still the same, Professor."
They stared at each other, malicious black clashing with fiery emerald, for several long moments. The others looked between the two of them anxiously, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop. Snape spoke next without looking away from her.
"Murton, explain."
Nessa had to work extremely hard to refrain from rolling her eyes as Adelaide pretended to be weepy and insisted that the twins and Tori had ambushed them from behind, trapping them in the corridor at wandpoint. Her irritation only grew when she pretended to weep harder when she explained how Tori had threatened to kill her. Snape's face at this point had looked gleeful, but Tori, having grown sick of Murton's dramatics, shoved her forward again with a growl.
"Tell him what you did to Vanessa, Murton, and cut the dramatics," she snapped fiercely.
Snape's eyes, which had been trained on Nessa's throughout the entirety of Murton's performance, flicked away from her to look at Tori, his malicious glee being replaced with a blank expression as he stared at her.
"What stories are you telling now, Hastings?"
"She isn't telling stories!" George said indignantly. "We found Vanessa locked in a trunk outside the library before Christmas break —"
"These three," Fred said harshly with an unnecessary tug on Pickens' robes to reinforce his point. "Forced her in there and left her there to die."
Nessa had never seen such stillness come over the Potions master before, his face shuttering completely as he looked between the three notorious troublemakers as though he were trying to decide if he should bother believing the story. Nessa held her breath when his gaze slid to lock with her own again and tried to keep her eyes from tearing at the reminder of the incident.
"Her fingernails are still probably stuck in the lid of the trunk if you don't believe us, Professor," Tori snapped, making it very clear that she had no respect for his title at the moment. Nessa hardly had the presence of mind enough to flinch at the reminder or feel horrified by Tori's clear disrespect of a teacher. "We're happy to show you."
Snape looked like he might snarl at her in reprimand, but whatever expression he'd seen flit across Vanessa's face made his expression switch from blank to cool rage. Nessa nearly shrank back at the intensity of it.
"The four of you will serve detention with me every day this week for attacking fellow students in the corridors," he said silkily. Tori and the twins made outraged noises, but Nessa could tell by the expression on his face that he was not finished. The grins Murton and her friends had at this response faltered immediately at his next words. "The seven of you will take a seat in my office now, and you will refrain from speaking to each other until I get back. As your Head of House, it is my decision how I should punish you," he said coolly to the Slytherin fourth-years in disgust. "But I will need to speak with the Headmaster and Professor McGonagall, as she is Head of Gryffindor House and you endangered the life of one of her students." He stepped aside, so that they could pass. "I sincerely hope, for your sakes, that you have come up with a suitable reason to have done so, or I suspect this will be your last day at Hogwarts."
He was gone with a swish of his robes before any of them could respond.
-o0o-
The silence within Snape's office was oppressive as they waited for him to return.
Frankly, Nessa was surprised, given the heated glares and tense body language, that any of them managed not to hex each other in the time it took for him to return. Or perhaps not, considering how nervous Murton and her friends were looking, as Fred's gamble had been correct. Nessa could have told them it would have been herself, but she was too busy trying not to work herself into a panic attack.
She paced restlessly behind Snape's desk, ignoring Tori completely when she'd remarked that Snape likely wouldn't appreciate her being back there — she'd been behind his desk on numerous occasions when she'd been helping him with brewing after classes, and he'd never cared before. She didn't imagine that this time would be any different. And if it was, well, she couldn't find it within herself to care.
She was going to have to explain everything. To Snape, to McGonagall, to Dumbledore. She'd have to put voice to what haunted her nightmares and relive the entire traumatic thing in order to get out of the situation. She didn't know how to do that. She certainly didn't want to do that. But her friends had forced her into this position and it was now the only way she could get them out of trouble — because Tori had threatened to kill Murton and Nessa was almost entirely certain that words of that nature could result in expulsion alone unless there were extenuating circumstances, which Nessa conceded that this likely was.
There was some relief in knowing that Snape was not going to force her to go back into that corridor and look at that trunk again because she was almost entirely certain that it would have broken her into a million pieces.
The door opened what felt like hours later, and Nessa's anxiety ratcheted up so high that she was certain she would vomit. Snape entered the room in a wave of billowing robes, followed closely by an extremely grave looking Dumbledore and McGonagall, who looked for all the world like she might just expel them all on principle.
"I should have known it would be you three," McGonagall said in irritation when her eyes landed on the twins and Tori.
"Always a pleasure, Minnie," Fred said with a bow and a grin that did not quite meet his eyes.
"We're always happy to keep you on your toes," George said with an identical bow and half-hearted grin.
McGonagall pursed her lips at them and Nessa highly suspected that she'd be having a word with the two of them later for their complete disregard for propriety and respect. She'd have thought this amusing, except Snape had taken a seat behind his desk and was looking at her blankly. She was going to throw up.
"What have they done this time, Severus?" McGonagall said in a long-suffering voice. "I highly doubt it warrants expulsion if their past misconduct is anything to go by."
"Mr. Weasley, Mr. Weasley, and Miss Hastings cornered Miss Perkins, Miss Sinclair, and Miss Murton in the corridor just outside this room and made threats on their lives," said Snape silkily with a barely perceptible glance in the Gryffindors' directions.
"What on Earth would possess you to do something like that?" McGonagall said, whirling on the three of them angrily. "Explain yourselves immediately!"
The three of them opened their mouths, but Snape spoke over them.
"They will receive detentions with me for the rest of the week," he said as though there had been no interruption. McGonagall looked like she was going to argue for harsher punishment until Snape continued. "It is my understanding from the three of them that they were…defending Miss Potter after a much more serious offense was committed by the students within my own House. Although, I daresay that they are toeing the line within this castle on every other occasion."
McGonagall was gaping at him and looked between the typically prejudiced Potions master and her troublesome band of Gryffindors. On the third pass of the room, her eyes settled on Vanessa, who had backed as far into the corner as possible, attempting to make herself as small and inconspicuous as possible and wrapping her arms around herself in a poor attempt at comfort.
"Miss Potter," she said, clearly surprised by her presence.
Nessa couldn't particularly blame her — she'd had detentions before, normally for defending younger students in the halls by hexing older students in the corridors, but she'd never been brought before McGonagall. Certainly never as some sort of scheme that had been cooked up by the twins and Tori.
"Professor," she said in acknowledgement, her voice so soft that she wasn't entirely sure she could even hear her.
"And the offense against Miss Potter, Severus?" Dumbledore said, eyeing Vanessa with kind eyes over his spectacles. She squirmed under the intensity of his stare and tried to shake the feeling that he was reading her mind.
"I have yet to hear all of the details myself," he said casually, as though he cared very little about the reason they were all in his office. "Miss Potter, if you would."
Nessa opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She tried to breathe slowly through her nose and ignore the pounding of her heart in her chest, opening her mouth again, but only a croak came out. Tori made a pained noise from across the room and took pity on her.
"They locked her in a trunk outside the library," she said hastily. "We —- I mean to say, Fred, George, and I — we found her after she didn't come back to the common room after curfew. She was — she was —"
The reminder of her appearance after the ordeal seemed to upset Tori too much to speak further and she choked on a sob. Fred took over the explanation.
"She was inconsolable," he said calmly. Nessa thought that that was a very nice word to describe how incredibly irate and out of control she'd been once they'd let her out. "She was covered in bruises from trying to get out. She'd lost some of her fingernails clawing at the lid. Murton broke her hand when she shoved the lid onto it when she was trying to fight back."
McGonagall looked as though they'd struck her, her skin so pale that Nessa worried that her heart may have stopped beating blood throughout her body.
"Miss Potter," she said breathlessly, a hand over her heart as if she were afraid it would beat right out of her chest. "Tell me — Explain — Is this the truth?"
Nessa could feel her hands shaking again as they all turned to look at her for confirmation. Murton and her friends were looking at her, looking like they were going to plead for her to tell them all that it had all been some form of sick joke. She hated that those expressions had any power to make her hesitate even longer. They didn't deserve her pity or guilt, but she felt it anyway because confirming that it had happened could very well lead to them being expelled and unable to practice magic.
"Vanessa."
She startled and jerked her head to meet George's eyes from where he stood next to her, although he was careful to maintain distance enough that he wasn't behind Snape's desk. Despite his earlier rage, he was calm now. Sturdy in the way she'd come to expect from him and totally patient with her mental spiral. She hadn't realized she was crying until then. She hadn't noticed how far into the corner she'd retreated, her shoulders digging painfully into the corner of the wall behind her as she attempted to force herself back into the wall, despite the fact that it was physically impossible.
She stared at him for a moment, her heart still pounding, but holding his gaze and trying to pretend like she was merely speaking to him — her friend, her rock — and not anyone else in the room.
"I — I threatened Murton at the beginning of the year," she said slowly, the words coming out in a stilted fashion, as if she'd forgotten how to speak entirely. "She'd been going around telling everyone that Tori had had a breakdown on the train about the dementors," Even with how hard she was staring at George, she could see Tori flinch from the corner of her eye. "I — I got upset. I didn't — I lost my temper a little. Told Murton that she should keep her mouth shut or I'd make her regret it. I shouldn't have…done that. I shouldn't have done that —"
"You're alright, love," George said gently, speaking to her as though he didn't notice anyone else in the room with them either. She took a breath and tried to control the racing in her heart and the burning in her throat from suppressing her tears, nodding at him as if she'd needed the words to confirm that she was not to blame. "What happened next?"
"I don't know — I guess Murton — she was watching me in the library with Cedric —"
"Diggory?" Dumbledore interrupted gently.
Nessa nodded dumbly, refusing to look away from George still.
"Yes, I — he needed help with Potions and I've been tutoring him," she said. "We stayed too late that night and I was going to be late for curfew. I was — I threw my wand into my bag in a rush and didn't realize that she and her friends were following me until I got to the end of the corridor. She — they — they cornered me next to that trunk that sits in the corner of the hall and —" Her breath was coming faster now, her heart pounding so loudly that it was roaring in her ears, her head shaking frantically back and forth as if she could ward off the feelings completely. "I — I can't —"
"You can," said George firmly, his voice still calm and gentle, despite her obvious panic. "You have to tell them what happened, sweetheart."
"No, I —"
"Deep breath, Vanessa." She nodded then because she could do that at least, even if the rest of it seemed too much for her. "Again."
Her head cleared a little and she tried to speak again.
"Murton said that she'd overheard me and George on Halloween — I told him — I said I was claustrophobic and couldn't use my sleeping bag." she said slowly. How long had she been talking now? It felt like hours. She wanted this to be over. "She said that she didn't think that that information would come in handy, but that she — that it was lucky for her that they'd caught me when they had. They — Pickens and Sinclair, I mean — they tried to shove me into the — they tried to shove me in there. I — I really did try to fight back, you know, but without my wand, I just — Murton got angry when I kept fighting and pushed me back until I fell into it and then the three of them, they — they shut me in there. They locked the trunk and left me in there…"
There was a resounding silence in the room outside of Nessa's own rasping breaths as she attempted to regain control over her emotions. She hated herself — it had been months ago now. She didn't want to feel like she couldn't control her reaction to the event anymore. Didn't want to feel so out of control, so afraid, so…weak. It felt like letting Murton win. It felt like losing a part of herself that she couldn't get back. It felt debilitating.
Murton and her friends refused to look at the headmaster or their professors. McGonagall looked as close to tears as Nessa had ever seen her. Snape and Dumbledore looked severely angry, a fact that startled her a little because she'd never seen Albus Dumbledore angry before. Or at least she didn't think she had. But maybe she just couldn't remember now because the panic was taking away her cognitive function.
"And you did not tell anyone this until now," said Dumbledore as gently as he was able. Nessa flinched at the thought that he was angry with her for not having said something sooner. "Why? How did you heal your injuries?"
Tori spoke again.
"She didn't want to say anything to anyone — she made us promise not to," she said brokenly. "She didn't want to give them the satisfaction of knowing they'd upset her. We healed her injuries ourselves so she wouldn't have to see Madam Pomfrey. But we — I mean, I couldn't — She hasn't been sleeping," Nessa's gaze shot to hers in surprise and Tori gave her an apologetic look, her eyes rimmed with tears. "She was fine over the holiday, but since we got back, she's been — she wakes up at night sometimes and has to use her wand as a light. And Adelaide kept — she keeps making snide remarks in Potions about it. I already got detention for throwing my cauldron of Ageing Potion at her and she just — she wouldn't stop, you know, and I couldn't just watch her get away with it."
"So you cornered them in the corridor and threatened to kill her?" Snape said coldly.
"We didn't hurt them," Fred snapped angrily. "And we weren't going to. The conversation got a little heated, but we didn't even hex them, and frankly, they would have deserved it if we had."
McGonagall made an exasperated noise, although she still looked pale as death.
"Murton refused to apologize," George said with a glare in the girl's direction. "Asked Vanessa if she still remembered what it was like to be in that trunk. Told her that she knew she couldn't walk past it since that night."
There was another resounding silence in the room as the teachers looked at the girls in the chairs and Nessa refused to meet the eyes of any of her professors. Snape gave her an assessing look and waved his wand.
Nessa could not control the violent reaction that she had when the trunk from that hallway appeared in the middle of the room. She gasped and shot backwards into the corner again, the panic creeping in again and the edges of her vision becoming blurry. George ignored whatever decorum he'd been trying to maintain for Snape's sake and was at her side immediately. He ignored the look of reproach he received from the Potions master, and pulled her into him, resting his forehead against hers.
"Breathe, Vanessa," he said calmly, rubbing soothing circles in her back with one of his hands. "You're okay — just keep breathing, that's it. This is the last time you'll have to see it, I promise you, okay?" She nodded against him, trying to maintain some sort of mental faculty other than her unending panic. She swayed a little, her head feeling too light and her limbs going numb. She might actually pass out, she thought in mortification. George sensed it. "What color are my eyes?"
"I — what?" she gasped deliriously.
"My eyes," he said patiently. "What color are they?"
"Blue," she said, head spinning.
"Give me more. What do they look like, Vanessa?"
She felt delirious now. Were there still people in here with them? They couldn't have left or she wouldn't be stuck here in this corner, fighting for some semblance of control, and having George Weasley ask her something as ridiculous as his eye color as if he wasn't perfectly aware what color his eyes were.
God, she was never going to live this down. She was never going to be able to look at McGonagall or Snape or Dumbledore again without being mortified that she had lost it so completely in front of them. Never be able to look at Murton and her stupid friends and be able to pretend like what they'd done hadn't left her completely raw and broken.
"Mr. Weasley, let us take her to Madam Pomfrey," McGonagall was saying firmly. "She can give her a Calming Draught. She's been through quite enough —"
"No," George said succinctly. "She deserves a say in whether she wants to take a potion to help her with this," Nessa would have been grateful for him having said so because she was well aware of the way wizards treated anxiety disorders and she'd never particularly put much thought into whether or not she truly wanted to go that route. She'd said as much to Fred and George when they'd discussed running as a means of controlling the overwhelming feelings. As it was, she was too busy trying to remember how to breathe properly. Her hand shot up to grip one of George's wrists, hard, in an attempt to ground herself. He startled a little but did not ask her to loosen her grip. "What color are my eyes, Vanessa?"
"Blue," she gasped again, fighting the panic and staring at him so intensely in order to fight it off that she was fairly certain she had to have gone cross-eyed. "They — d-darker around the edges, like a – a – a sapphire." She scrambled for the words to describe them in such detail — she knew what he was doing. It was a grounding technique. She'd used it with Tori when she'd fallen into a panic attack about her father at the Burrow over break. She remembered thinking then that she had no idea how it even helped, that it was odd how well it had worked, but now that she was in the throes of her own panic, it made much more sense. It grounded her more in reality, brought her away from the brink, gave her something to focus on that wasn't the thoughts running rampant in her own head. "The middle — it's lighter. Like — like the sky, maybe. Or — or the ocean," George made a humming noise as if he agreed, and she took another shaky breath. "The — the part around the iris is — it's a darker blue too, but there's — you've got brown spots there, or maybe they're gold. It's c-close enough to gold, but I think it's brown."
"Deep breath," he repeated again when she'd finished. She nodded slowly and took a deep breath as she continued to come down from her high. "There she is," he said, so gently her eyes watered. He ran a finger down her cheek and she took another shuddering breath. "You're okay, love. They don't need you for anything else. They just want to look at the trunk as proof. But you don't have to stay for that — she doesn't, does she?"
The question was posed politely, but it seemed very clear to Vanessa that he was going to take her out of the room regardless of whether they needed her or not. She took another breath when McGonagall cleared her throat.
"No, she's free to leave, if she wishes, Mr. Weasley," she said and Nessa thought that her voice sounded a little thicker than normal, as if she were trying to control her own emotions at having seen her lose control right in front of them all. "If we need anything else, we'll come to her."
Dumbledore, who seemed to be in the vicinity of the trunk that Snape had conjured and was politely trying to focus his attention elsewhere in what she suspected was a way to help her feel less exposed after her panic attack, murmured his agreement. Snape was with him and appeared to be trying very hard to pretend like he wasn't concerned about her well-being, despite the fact that he kept shooting her and George assessing glances.
"A day or two away from classes, and some hot chocolate, I think," said Dumbledore kindly, his eyes flicking up to her in concern. "For all four of you."
George pulled away from her slowly and made to pull her with him across the office, but she squeezed his wrists and refused to budge. He raised an eyebrow in question.
"Can I — can I make a request, Professors?" she said hoarsely.
"Certainly, dear," said Dumbledore, straightening from where he had been inspecting the trunk with a grave expression. He stepped in front of it in order to keep her gaze away from the offending piece of decor.
"Don't expel them."
There was an uproar from Tori and the twins immediately.
"Are you mad?" said Fred hotly.
"Nessa, I could kill her myself for what she did to you," said Tori angrily, ignoring McGonagall's disapproving noise at these words. "Expulsion is the nicest thing they deserve."
Nessa held Dumbledore's gaze without wavering.
"Don't expel them," she repeated, more firmly this time. "I don't care what you do to them otherwise."
"You don't believe they deserve to be expelled?" Dumbledore asked curiously.
"I do," she said honestly. "But I attacked her first —"
"Oh, come on, Nessa —" Tori started angrily.
She quieted immediately when Dumbledore raised a hand to request silence.
"And you believe that a hex in the corridors warrants the sort of treatment that they gave you?"
"No, sir," she said. "I don't think there is any excuse for what they did to me. And I sincerely hope that they never make the same mistake again. With anyone else. But I — I'm not innocent in all of this, either. Even if I wouldn't have done the same thing to them. But I don't want to be the reason that they never practice magic again. There are few things that I can imagine that are worse than that."
Dumbledore eyed her seriously again, the characteristic twinkle gone completely from his gaze. She tried not to shift under his attention.
"What they did to you is very serious, Vanessa —"
"I know," she said firmly. "And I'll respect whatever decision you make, even if it's not what I want. But we all deserve a second chance to be better than we were the day before, and if you're giving me the opportunity to do that, then they should be given one as well."
Tori and the twins gaped at her.
"You are a far better person than I will ever be," Tori muttered in exasperation with a shake of her head.
Dumbledore stared at her a moment longer before inclining his head to her in dismissal.
"We will consider your opinion when we make our decision, Miss Potter," he said sincerely.
Nessa nodded, taking the dismissal for what it was, and let George lead her out of the room, carefully blocking her view of the trunk entirely.
Despite Dumbledore's assurance, she wasn't able to tell if she'd spared the group of Slytherins from expulsion or not. They didn't deserve it — she knew that — but she hoped the professors would take her words into consideration anyway, if only to spare her any further guilt.