The next morning in Double Potions, Lia got the results of her Mothflax essay back: a solid B. She was shocked, because she'd only had four hours in which to do it, and Snape was usually graded assignments very strictly. She didn't see Theodore Nott at all in class, and was quite glad of it, albeit surprised, because he seemed very studious and never missed class.
When lunch finally arrived, Lia set to work on her Transfiguration homework (she'd been too tired to finish it the night before, what with drawing and arguing) at the Hufflepuff table in the Great Hall.
BANG! HOOT! SCREEEEECH!
The high windows of the Great Hall flew open with as hundreds of owls came speeding in, screeching at the top of their voices. Lia stared, wondering what was going on, while everyone around her did much the same.
"What the-" said Ernie MacMillan, looking dumbfounded. "Why are they delivering letters now?"
When a huge grey owl dropped a thick copy of the Daily Prophet in front of Lia instead of a letter, and so did all the other owls in the vicinity, she knew something was not right. She placed a Knut in the owl's claws and peered at the front page of the paper. Her stomach flipped when she read the headline.
MASS BREAKOUT AT AZKABAN:
TEN DEATH EATERS ON THE LOOSE
"Eeeek!" squealed Hannah Abbott, dropping her spoon in her porridge.
"Blimey," breathed Justin Finch-Fletchley, staring at the headline in terror.
Lia couldn't believe it. The wizards' prison Azkaban was the single most heavily guarded place in all the world; how could ten people possibly escape it in one night? Now...now there are ten Death Eaters on the loose, she thought, her hands white. Everyone in the Great Hall was exclaiming and voicing the same questions Lia was thinking, while the teachers at the staff table were talking in hushed tones and looking tense.
The rest of that day was marked by hushed whispers in the halls, cancelled Care of Magical Creatures lessons, and a general feeling of unease throughout the school. Every student, teacher, portrait, and ghost had an expression of tension and fear on their face-except the Slytherins. Lia noticed, with slight disgust, that they seemed unusually cheerful and benevolent. Draco Malfoy hadn't even attempted to trip her or insult her in the halls that day.
"Hallo there, Moon," he'd snickered as he and his usual gang of Slytherins passed her in the corridors, "better keep an eye out for yourself, hadn't you?"
Lia had stared daggers at him, but kept silent, as she walked away, but not before seeing Nott walking a little behind Malfoy's gang, his nose buried in a book. Lia had sped up her pace to avoid him, but fortunately he hadn't seemed to notice her.
That evening, Lia had thought she'd felt the coin that Hermione had given all the members of the D.A. to alert them of future meetings, warm up in her cloak pocket, but she found that she was wrong. After dinner, she decided that she'd go down to the greenhouse and sketch for a bit before heading for bed. But then she remembered what had happened earlier that day-what if it wasn't safe to go outside? Care of Magical Creatures had been cancelled, after all...but then again, the professors hadn't said anything about not being able to go out for a bit... She decided that it would be safe, and at seven, she headed down the familiar path towards the vegetable patch, anxiously glancing around every so often. The sky was a dark, purplish-blue, and steadily getting darker as she walked. The biting January air caused her hands and ears to go numb, and she was glad to finally reach the door of Greenhouse #1. Taking out her wand, she opened the door...only to find that someone was already in there.
Sitting at the bench in the middle of the room, his head bent over a piece of parchment, was Theodore Nott. The room was brightly lit with a golden glow, and a fire was crackling in the hearth at the far end of the room.
Nott looked up when she entered, his usual scowl in place.
"How-why-what are you doing here?" she gasped. Her hand was still on the doorknob, the knuckles going cold. Her other hand was loosely at her side, holding her wand, with which she'd been planning to light the room.
Nott frowned, looking as if he'd just heard the stupidest question in the world. "What does it look like I'm doing? Sketching, of course." He turned back to his parchment.
Lia stood there, not knowing what to do, say, or think. The greenhouse had been completely dark when she'd been outside it; how could he have known the Illuminatus Spell? That was advanced Magic; she herself had found it by chance when doing research for Charms homework! On top of this, why was he even here? Their last conversation, like all their others, had ended on a very nasty note, and he obviously hated her very being.
"Well don't just stand there stupidly," he said, not looking up from whatever it was he was doing.
"Why are you here?" she finally managed to squeak.
He looked up, his eyes narrowed. "I don't have to tell you anything, Mudblood," he said quietly.
She looked down at her shoes, biting her lip with hurt. She was getting used to his insults, but the pain of each one always felt fresh.
"I wanted to sketch, and couldn't find a proper place, is all," he said more quietly, turning back to his parchment.
Lia couldn't possibly stay there and draw, what with him sitting there-but she'd been waiting to work on the mermaid picture for ages! And she couldn't leave, because that would show him that he'd won, that he'd chased her out of her secret place and proven that Purebloods ruled over Muggle-borns. Without quite knowing what she was doing, Lia marched over the far end of the bench, dropped her backpack onto the tabletop, and sat down. She then reached into her backpack, pulled out her sketchbook, the old painting of the mermaid, and charcoal pencils, and set to work.
It was hard to concentrate though, because Lia didn't normally even light the hearth when she drew in here, much less sit so close to it. The heat was starting to make her dizzy. She also felt uneasy, wondering what the Slytherin might be planning next. Would it be more insults? Or would he perhaps call Umbridge and turn Lia in for violating some new decree? She nervously pressed the charcoal over the smooth parchment, shading in the top of the mermaids long, flowing curls. The charcoal slipped and fell right out of her hands, onto the floor. She bent to pick it up, going a bit red. This was a right jolly way to draw.
"What did you expect? Smooth parchment never works as well as textured," came Nott's voice from the other end of the table.
Lia straightened up and glanced at him. He appeared to be sketching something, but she couldn't see what it was.
"I-I don't have textured parchment," said Lia. "I've always used paper, anyway."
Nott frowned, looking confused. "Paper? Like newsprint?"
Lia laughed nervously. "No, not newsprint...paper, y'know, like...like this," she picked up her sketchpad and held it up for him to see. "My parents got it for me over summer holidays."
He squinted and then made a disapproving sound. "Oh. Muggle parchment." He turned back to his sketchpad. So did Lia.
A moment later, something flew towards Lia and bumped into her wrist. Startled, she looked up and saw a blank, creme-colored piece of textured parchment.
"You'll want to try on that. It's probably easier than Mu-than paper," said Nott.
Lia tentatively picked up the parchment and glanced at Nott. He was still bent over his own parchment.
Well it's worth a go; maybe this'll hold charcoal better...
She placed her sketchbook on the seat beside her and started etching out the outline of the mermaid's crown and curls. It was very sturdy and seemed to absorb the charcoal rather than repel it, to Lia's delight.
"Thanks," she said. "It does make a difference. The shading seems more three-dimensional and realistic."
"Yeah, textured parchment works well with oil pastels, too," said Nott. "Do you use those often?"
Lia nodded. "Actually, this picture is going to be an oil-pastel; right now I'm just doing the preliminary sketch." She paused, amazed-they had just had a halfway decent exchange of words.
"Well, you're not going to get as good an outcome if you use that as inspiration," said Nott, waving his hand at the small painting in front of Lia.
"I have to use it; I'm not going and sitting outside by the lake, looking for mermaids when there are ten Death Eaters running around," said Lia, shuddering involuntarily.
Nott's unpleasantness returned abruptly. "Yeah, a Mudblood like you has to watch your back. Wouldn't want to get caught, would you?" he said, smirking.
Lia went red and looked down at her parchment.
"Everyone at this place is shivering in their boots about the Azkaban breakout, it's hilarious," he continued. "Oh dear! They're coming to get us!" he made his voice very high-pitched as he said this, and flailed his arms around madly.
Lia stared at him, anger rising up in her mind. "It's not something to joke about," she said, her voice tight. "What-what do you know about Death Eaters, anyway?"
Nott snorted. "You'd be surprised." He suddenly stopped smirking and quickly glanced around the room. "Well, I see that foul plant smell has gone," he sniffed the air delicately. "What's that new smell though?"
"It-it must be the fire. Professor Sprout received this hearth as a Christmas gift from Professor Trelawney a long time ago. It's bewitched to give off fragrant smoke."
"Interesting," said Nott, and returned to his drawing.
They sat like that for a good hour or so; Lia had now progressed to the initial coloring stage, and was mixing shades on a page in her sketchpad. Nott was bent over his mysterious work, every so often crumpling up a piece of parchment and tossing it across the room into the fire, muttering to himself.
"Erm, what are you drawing, anyway?" asked Lia gingerly.
"Nothing of importance," he said brusquely.
Lia sighed and glanced at her watch. With a jump, she realized it was ten till nine; she would have barely enough time to get back to the dormitories before curfew...
Nott seemed to realize this too, because he abruptly stood up from the bench and shoved his quills into his bag, stretching and yawning widely. Lia also stood up and carefully packed up her things, before turning to the fire in the hearth and taking out her wand, to cast an extinguishing spell.
"Hold on a minute," said Nott, striding over to the hearth. He reached into his bag, pulled out the latest piece of parchment he'd been working on, and unceremoniously tossed it into the crackling fire. Lia glanced up at him out of the corner of her eyes. He was a head taller than her and as weedy-looking as ever, his green-and-silver scarf draped haphazardly around his thin shoulders.
Before Lia had a chance to ask him why he was throwing all his work away, he turned on his heel and headed towards the door, wrapping his scarf around his neck.
"Make sure you don't forget to cast Caput Illuminatus," he muttered, as he walked out the greenhouse door.
He knows the counterspell, too? Lia thought, astonished. The past few hours had been some of the strangest she'd ever experienced...she suddenly realized that she'd been sitting with a haughty, snide, Muggle-hating Slytherin for the past three hours, merrily drawing away. Not only that, but they'd also been talking quite civilly for a bit. What had gotten into her? She quickly extinguished the fire, grabbed her belongings, and cast the counterspell, throwing the greenhouse into darkness. Then, shutting the door soundly behind her, she began to jog past the vegetable patch and up the grounds leading to the castle. The giant clock that stood on Ravenclaw Tower chimed once, twice...nine times, and, panicking, Lia quickened her pace. I can make it...I'm almost there...oh, Umbridge is going to catch me!
Suddenly, Lia stopped in her tracks, halfway up the huge hill. What was that sound? She'd thought she'd heard quiet footsteps behind her...
The headline on the Daily Prophet rang in her ears, the deranged pictures of the escapees swimming before her eyes. I shouldn't have gone out on the grounds at night, she thought, her heart sinking. Before she could think further, she broke into a run and didn't stop until she reached Hufflepuff Hall.