Chapter 43 - Mistrust
Iris still had no idea what to make of what happened. Lockhart had assured them that he had it well in hand, but Iris hadn't felt confident simply trusting in that, especially after what just happened. Also, they were getting close to the heir now, and the heir had just demonstrated that they weren't afraid to attack someone in the middle of the library, while surrounded by students, and had even somehow gone unnoticed. Things were getting dangerous, which was why she wanted Harry to be as far from it as possible. Therefore, she had made plans on her own to confront Lily once again, and try to get to the truth of what the hell had happened.
Also, there was still the possibility of it being Tracey. With all that had happened, Iris had been primed and ready to commit to the idea of it being Lily, but some things didn't add up still. Mainly, the fact that whatever was going on with her, had been going on even before Ginny had gotten rid of the artifact. So whatever it was wasn't caused by the artifact. Or at least not the same artifact. Either way, she really wasn't looking forward to this talk.
Iris took a breath, and opened the door to her room, and was immediately greeted by the beaming smile of her roommate.
"Hey Iris, what's up? I... is everything alright?" the girl began, but then trailed off as she noticed the expression on Iris' face.
"I... well I hope so," Iris began, unsure how to say this. "You know how Ginny told us about how she had an artifact, and how it might be related to the attacks?"
Tracey tilted her head. "Uh... not much? I just remember you telling me that she had the artifact that the Aurors were looking for. Why?"
Iris slowly made her way over to her bed, and sat down opposite Tracey, shooting her a worried look.
"Well the way she explained it, the artifact—she doesn't really know what it was or what it looked like—was somehow in contact with her. It tried to get her to open up to it emotionally—she thinks it was a him—and sometimes these talks about feelings and emotions would just spiral and she said that she didn't remember when they ended, just that she woke up in some other place, and after that... another attack had happened."
Tracey gave her a curious look. "Okay... I just got two questions."
"Shoot."
"Why did you keep that to yourself again? I thought we talked about this?"
Iris blushed and looked down, but she wasn't going to be deterred now. She had to know. And if she was right, she had been right not to tell Tracey about things, right? Well, actually, if Tracey had known about it, she might have recognized it herself...
"Really, Iris. Didn't we make it clear that you can trust us with stuff like this?" Tracey said sadly.
"Sorry," was all that Iris could manage.
"Hang on, more importantly, why are you telling me now, then?" Tracey suddenly asked with an expression of suspicion.
What on earth was she supposed to reply to that? That she didn't even trust her best friend? That wasn't even true! But, well, if she didn't even know herself what was happening...
But before she could even try to package this in anything that wouldn't come across like that, Tracey's eyes narrowed.
"You... you think- Do you actually think it's me?" the girl said with an unreadable expression.
Iris refused the unbearable urge to look away.
"You do, don't you? First Harry, and now..."
Tracey broke off, then looked back at Iris. "I'd have thought you'd know me better than that by now," she said flatly.
Iris immediately burst out "It's not like that! It's just... Well, you wouldn't know, right? If it was like with Ginny!"
Tracey gave her an angry look. "I think I'd pick up on something like that. I'm not stupid, you know?"
"Oh really?" Iris sniped back. "What were you doing then, just before you left the library just now?"
Tracey opened her mouth, and then hesitated. "Why should I tell you? You don't tell me anything either!"
"Tracey, this isn't the time! Ginny was attacked and petrified just now in the library, apparently just when you left! Do you see? Do you remember what you were doing then?"
Tracey began a reply, then Iris' words seemed to register. "Ginny? I... Well I-"
Her face seemed to be slowly turning red. "I'm not going to tell you that, okay? Just for once trust me when I tell you it's not me!"
"Tracey-"
"No. I'm done with this conversation," the brunette snapped, turned and left towards the bathroom.
Iris pondered for a moment whether to go after her, but then decided against it. Still. What the hell, Tracey? She knew she was right to be pissed at her, but couldn't she see how important this was? Iris wasn't sure why Tracey didn't want to tell her what she had been doing before she left, but she had given Tracey all the facts on what had happened to Ginny, and as she had said, Tracey wasn't stupid. If something similar was happening to her, she'd be able to recognize it. Now more than ever.
Still, she really wanted to make sure. But something stayed her hand. With her last outburst, Iris had for the first time felt a small fracture in their otherwise unbreakable friendship, and that scared her almost more than the thought of Tracey actually being the heir. She'd be damned if she allowed it to grow any further.
~V~
Unsure of how else to proceed, Iris had decided to focus on Lily for the time being. Sadly, however, the girl was as elusive as ever. Anytime she saw her on her own, and wanted to talk to her, the girl seemed to all but flee from her presence. Sometimes it felt like Lily was even trying to escape her without even knowing she was there.
But there was another opportunity coming up where she might be able to talk to the girl. If she could be partnered with Lily in the dueling club, she might be able to find out something more. Yeah, she had really wanted to go against someone else to improve her skills—like maybe Greengrass—but the issue of the heir came first.
Of course, the girl wouldn't want to partner with her, but it wasn't like she was going to give her a choice.
"Oh, Miss Moon, fabulous. I think we shall switch things around a bit, just to spice things up," proclaimed Lockhart cheerfully.
Luckily, the author turned teacher had happily agreed to leave that part of the investigation to her, apparently trusting her to further look into the strange matter of whatever was going on with Lily and Tracey on her own, which she was thankful for. She had raised an eyebrow at the fact that he apparently didn't seem too concerned at her taking this on by herself—or interested in taking part himself—but she wasn't going to look the gift horse in the mouth.
Lockhart guided Lily by her shoulder, the girl following reluctantly, but her expression morphed into dread the moment she noticed where he was leading her. Iris gave a warm smile, but that only seemed to set the girl even more on edge. What had she actually done to the girl to deserve the almost existential dread that Lily seemed to be directing at her? She hadn't even seen her do anything other than use her light...
The girl was shaking, as she slowly took her position on the other end of the dueling stage, and almost seemed to be on the verge of hyperventilating, and Iris couldn't help but think that this might have not been such a great idea. Then, Lily closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. When she opened them again, the tremors had stopped, and she was holding her wand in front of her warily, staring back at Iris, while she shifted her foot back.
Iris tried to smile back, but didn't manage to elicit any further reaction. Oh, well. It looked like they'd be dueling first. And if she wanted to get her to talk about anything, she should probably go easy on her. Iris drew her wand, aimed it at the girl, and in a slow and textbook motion began to cast. "Expelliarmus."
"Protego!"
Well, so far, so good. She stared across the podium into the girl's deep blue eyes and waited for her to counter.
"Petrificus Totalus!"
Iris raised an eyebrow. A bright blue spell came flying at her, and she recognized the incantation. After her duel with Malfoy, she had tried the spell for herself and had found that it used the aspects of Control, as well as Life. Either would do, but before she could further think about it, her reflexes had kicked in and produced a reflective shield comprised of a mix of yellow and green.
And the spell came closer, sailed right on through, and impacted her chest, tossing her back and off the dueling stage.
"Oh dear, I believe that is the match decided for Miss Moon," came Lockhart's voice from the side, as she blinked her mind back into focus. What on earth?
"Looks like that spell went awry, better luck next time?" commented Lockhart, as he helped her to his feet, which only served to increase Iris' frown.
Had he not seen what had just happened? Had he mistaken it for Lily's spell malfunctioning, or her shield malfunctioning, or something?
It had obviously been something else. She had cast the body-bind curse, but... No. She had said the words. But the wand motion had been different... almost like that of Depulso...
Iris got back to her feet and started looking for Lily, who had already left the dueling stage. She spotted the girl half-way across the room, shooting another fearful glance her way—what was up with that? —but before she could even get anywhere close to her, someone else stepped into her path.
"Potter."
Iris blinked at the taller girl. "Greengrass?"
"Duel me," was all the girl said.
"Sorry, what?" Iris must have lost the plot somewhere; she was unsure how she ended up with this as her current situation.
"You heard me. I'm done with Granger."
Why? Well, yeah, Iris had wanted to duel her the entire year, but why now, all of a sudden? She had almost thought she had been trying to avoid her—especially in light of what she had told her last year—, but now this?
She... well there was no way she was going to say no to that. But hang on, she had just been about to go and try to talk to Lily again, where did she-
Iris found the girl far across the room, apparently about to leave, and for just a fraction of a second, Iris could have sworn she had seen her mouth morph into an ear-splitting grin.
"I don't have all day, Potter."
Greengrass was already walking up to the podium, but she was- Well, but what if she reconsidered?
No, this was too good an opportunity to test her skills, skills that she would very much need. No matter what the girl's intentions actually were.
She made her way up to the podium, and took her stance across from the black haired Slytherin. The girl took a stance opposite her and her piercing blue gaze met her own.
Something about the way she stood seemed somehow familiar, but she couldn't quite pin it down. Greengrass seemed to be waiting for her to make a move, just standing ready, her wand held aloft.
Well, fine then. Deciding there was no reason to hold back this time, she swiped her wand through the familiar pattern, drew a wisp of blue from her necklace, and cast Depulso.
She really shouldn't have been surprised when the girl didn't even blink, but instead produced a blue reflective shield, sending the spell right back in her face. Oh, it was so on.
Iris sidestepped and forced her now orange glowing wand through the sharp edges of the raw elemental pattern with a shout of "Glacius!"
The pale blue bolt of icy magic frizzled from her wand, crossed the distance trailing tiny snowflakes through the air, and impacted the floor in front of Greengrass. The floor was flash-frozen, and shards of ice started to grow from the ground and towards her opponent. But the girl had not been idle. "Flectere Ignem!" A burst of flame erupted from her wand, already enclosing the growing ice before it even really had time to form, then continued growing, furiously blazing in front of her. Iris felt the heat on her skin, but she endured knowing that she couldn't actually use the flames against her directly, as that would violate the rules. At least, she hoped she wouldn't. With a rapid performance of the more complex controlled elemental pattern, she this time cast a different spell. Since all basic elemental spells shared the same pattern, it was that much harder to do them wordlessly. With a brightly glowing mix of Orange and Yellow, she shouted "Aqua Eructo!"
A shimmering orb of water erupted from her wand like from a cannon, barreled down the distance, impacted right in front of the flames, and exploded. The entire dueling stage was instantly drenched in a flood of water, which quickly drowned the flames, until it coalesced right back into a sphere. Iris smirked and pushed the sphere towards Greengrass, the massive orb of water rapidly gaining speed. Said girl narrowed her eyes, jabbed her wand and clearly intoned "Finite Incantatem."
Iris felt her control over the spell shatter, as the sphere burst apart—foiled by one of the spells she could never do—and drenched both of them in droplets of water. She barely noticed a red spell piercing through the explosion of wet, and threw herself out of the way, only narrowly avoiding the sizzling beam of energy as it passed an inch from her shoulder.
"Expelliarmus!" Greengrass cast another spell, shouting out the incantation this time.
Iris had just finished casting her reflective shield bearing both the Destruction and Control aspect, when she noticed that somehow, the spell seemed to be coming a lot slower than normal. In fact, she had already finished casting a second spell, which seemed to be rapidly closing in, and even overtaking the first spell. Her eyes widened. She had no idea which aspects the second spell would use! She moved to the side, trying to angle herself so that she might just avoid the second spell in case it passed her shield, but that would still leave her in the path of the first spell.
The pale white spell came racing towards her and impacted her shield. But instead of it either passing or being reflected something entirely different happened. The shield shattered like a sheet of glass, crumbling before her very eyes in a shower of red and yellow sparks. Iris gasped as she noticed the first spell approach through the crumbling remains of her shield, now heading straight for her, and in an act of desperation, she reached out with her left hand and pushed. The somewhat lethargic spell seemed to slow further, and slightly veered to the side, further and further, until at last, it missed her by an inch, and sizzled past her, the heat almost searing her skin.
Her eyes snapped back up and she growled. Iris was done playing around. If she didn't end this soon, she might actually lose this. In the cover of the afterglow of her fading shield, she drew the familiar pattern and cast Lapsus!
But before the spell had even left her wand, somehow, she heard a shout of "Corrumpo!", and her eyes widened as she watched the spell fail before it even had time to properly form. How?!
She desperately called her orb of iridescent light, tossed it towards the center of the stage, letting it float right between them, and then brightly pulsed her light, just as she drew another wisp of blue and cast Depulso!
Except that said pulse blinded her just as much as Greengrass, preventing her from seeing her own spell that had been returned right back at her before it was too late. Iris felt a mind-numbing force impact her chest, knocking the air out of her—and her body backwards—ending the duel eerily similar to the last one.
"Not so tough now, eh Potter?"
Iris blinked and her eyes found the speaker. Malfoy had approached her and was standing over her with a lazy smirk, his wand nowhere to be seen.
"Like the taste of dirt in your mouth? If not, you better get used to it," Malfoy added while shooting her another look that all but radiated malice, and without any further explanation, turned on his heel and stalked back over to Crabbe, who he had been forced to partner with for the rest of the year, as a condition of being allowed to return to the club at all.
Iris got up to look back at Greengrass. She could almost picture the completely disinterested expression—as if beating her had been nothing more than a slight annoyance. She really didn't need to-
Smirk.
Her eyes widened, then narrowed. Oh, now it was on. She wouldn't let the girl have the last laugh like that, ignoring her for all of two years, and then when it all culminated in a duel, finally look down upon her with a smirk like that.
There had to be a way to beat her, right? Iris wasn't really sure what the girl had done, how she had just blocked everything that she had thrown at her, but from what she had seen, she hadn't used any more advanced dueling spells than Malfoy had. Except the elemental spells, but she could do those as well. And that one spell, whatever it was that had somehow shattered her shield. Was that... the spell she had read about in the dueling book? Lacero? The general shield-breaker? She'd have to watch out for that. Sadly, that spell also seemed to use white magic, so using it for herself was not an option.
No, the problem wasn't her spells, it was how she used them. There had to be some sort of trick to it. Something she could maybe exploit.
Iris approached the infuriating girl again, squared herself opposite her on the dueling stage and raised her wand. On the count of three, round two commenced. And immediately, it started off entirely differently than the first one.
"Avis!"
A flock of black birds burst from Greengrass' wand, and came racing towards Iris with a collective screech, then one of them morphed and warped mid-air as the girl transfigured it into a Merlin-damned wolf. Fuck!
Thinking quickly, Iris drew up the aspects of Control and Destruction, and cast Diffindo at the main threat. The grey wolf's head slid cleanly off mid-air, as its body came flying at Iris, and she stepped out of the way as it came tumbling to the ground behind her. The flock of birds screeched and dove at her, and she quickly responded with a mix of Yellow and Orange.
Pulsare!
The black birds were knocked out of the air and away from her by the shockwave, and she had to quickly dodge to the other side as an unknown bright blue spell came racing at her. Now she was facing the same problem as Malfoy had. How was she supposed to tell which aspects to shield if the girl didn't use incantations for some spells? She had noticed that she seemed to switch between casting silently and speaking the incantations, so it was possible that she didn't have a lot of spells down wordlessly. Maybe she could narrow them down by paying attention to the wand pattern?
Iris narrowed her eyes and followed the girl's wand as it swiped through a circular pattern and a bright red spell burst from her wand again. Yes. This definitely had to be Expelliarmus, which meant-
Reiecto!
A bright Orange shield came into existence, and the spell was reflected right back, causing the girl's eyes to widen and quickly respond with her own shout of "Reiecto!"
Aha! Apparently, she wasn't able to do a multi-colored reflective shield. The spell struck the floating red disk, split into two incomplete halves, and Iris immediately capitalized on the opening.
Lapsus!
The girl's eyes widened as the wave of blue came her way, but this time she didn't have the time to cast another Corrumpo jinx.
Accio wand!
And... nothing. That figured.
"Finite!"
A flash of yellow and her window of opportunity left as fast as it had come. Iris still couldn't get through her shield, and even when she did, the girl would just cancel her spells. And that wasn't even getting into when she began using Transfiguration in their duel.
If only she could use her polarized Depulso spell... But she was a bit too attached to her current dorm to trade it for a cell in Azkaban, thank you very much.
A shout of "Trahere!" heralded the return-spell of the girl, causing Iris to abandon her attempt at a more complex charm, and instead flick her wand to send one of the remaining birds flying into the path of the spell through a quickly cast levitation charm.
The bright blue spell impacted the summoned bird, and exploded, or rather, imploded. Water, ice, birds, dust, everything was drawn inwards for a fraction of a second, and as quickly as it had started, it was over again.
Iris utilized the cover of the water and dust raining down everywhere to draw all the remaining Force aspect from her pendant into one single overpowered spell and cast Depulso!
Somehow, even amidst all the chaos, Greengrass managed to produce another reflective shield, except this time at an angle. The spell came blasting back, but it impacted the ground between them and cracked the wooden dueling stage, dislodging large chunks of wood. Iris narrowed her eyes, produced a mix of blue and yellow, swished and flicked and sent the mass of debris flying in all directions, until it coalesced around the black-haired girl, who was looking slightly out of breath.
"Depulso!"
Greengrass' mono-aspect spell overrode her levitation-charm, and tossed a group of debris in the center right back at her—seemingly exactly those pieces that would have otherwise hit her—leaving the rest of them to tumble to the ground around her. Unable to draw up a sufficient amount of force aspect for another Depulso fast enough, she settled on a different counter instead.
"Diffindo!"
The large wooden debris were cleaved in half right in front of her, causing them to narrowly miss her by an inch, and crash to the ground. Iris scrambled for a counterattack that wouldn't leave her open again, but just as she raised her wand, there was a loud Bang!
"Stop! STOP! Both of you! What in Merlin's name is going on here, Gilderoy?"
Iris blinked and turned to look to her side, to be met with a tiny furious wizard yelling at her Defense professor.
"Ah, Filius, you see, we were just having a friendly duel! Nothing to worry about!" replied Lockhart jovially.
"Nothing to worry about?!" Flitwick squeaked, then turned his glare onto Iris whose eyes widened, and then Greengrass, who had the audacity to look sheepish.
"Both of you have already violated the rules with several spells, as far as I can tell! You are damn lucky that no one was injured! I don't care what you were thinking, Gilderoy, but this ends now. And as for the two of you..." he shot them another sharp look. "You'll both have plenty of time to reflect on your actions in detention, I think. Report to your head of house tonight after dinner."
Iris looked around her at the destroyed dueling stage, partially scorched, drenched in water or covered in ice, wooden debris strewn all across it, and the decapitated bloody corpse of a transfigured wolf, covering the area behind her in a smear of red—she hadn't even noticed that.
Yep, there was no talking herself out of this one. So instead, she just nodded and meekly replied, "Yes, Professor... Sorry, Professor."
~V~
Lily had already left after that, and had—of course—again avoided her for the rest of the day. Not that she blamed her, after that display. She really hadn't been thinking at all, all she had cared about was that goddamn smirk. But then after their duel, Greengrass hadn't even gloated a little bit, she had just returned to how she had always acted. So what had that been all about?
One wild idea that she had considered was that it was somehow a setup, that she had been baited into dueling her for some reason. But what that reason could be still eluded her. She hadn't really achieved anything other than landing them both in detention...
Which had been the main thing on her mind. Detentions with Snape had been a mixed bag so far. But now that she was standing in front of his door, she remembered something else. Namely, what had happened when they had been searching their dorms. Snape had noticed something. She wasn't sure how much he could tell, whether she had been casting dark magic, or just that she had been near polarized magic, or something else, but one thing was sure. He wasn't about to forget.
And she wasn't even slightly reassured by the fact that she was having her detention together with Greengrass of all people. She didn't think the girl had ever gotten a single detention before. Iris exchanged a glance with the girl, and her visage was as unreadable as ever. Deciding to bite the bullet, she raised her hand, and knocked.
"Enter."
Iris pushed open the door and entered the familiar dimly-lit office of her head of house. The tall man was staring at them from across the room, his expression as unreadable as ever. His eyes wandering from Iris, over to Greengrass, and then back.
"The real world is... unforgiving. The magical world even more so than the muggle one."
Okay... That wasn't quite what she had expected. Where were the thinly veiled insults?
"Should you continue to act like brainless dunderheads in the real world... there will be... real consequences."
And there it was. Thank you.
"But no matter how much I... dislike the approach the headmaster takes to... many facets of life, Hogwarts..."
He swiped his wand, causing some ungraded tests on his desk to start piling up into a single stack.
"Hogwarts is a school, a place of learning. And the primary purpose of such an institution, is to... allow students to make mistakes. To allow them to... learn from their mistakes. To give them second chances."
Suddenly, his expression turned a lot more serious.
"And yet, there are transgressions... where not even the headmaster's boundless... forgiveness... will be able to shield you from... the consequences."
Iris felt like he was staring at her in particular. Was he talking about her shadows?
"Some lines, should you cross them, you will find... that no second chances await beyond their borders."
Iris swallowed.
"The world can be... much vaster and... stranger, than anything you will learn here in the castle. So it might be in your best... interest, to take the lessons it can teach you... to heart."
There was a long moment of silence, until suddenly, Greengrass spoke up. "I'm sorry, sir. We got carried away. It was never our intention to actually hurt each other, although I admit that we might have... strayed over the line where the dueling club rules are concerned. It happened in the heat of the moment, and I'm just as much to blame as her."
Well, that was about the last thing she had expected. Iris raised an eyebrow at the girl.
"Heat of the moment indeed..." Snape replied slowly. "Because if it was not, if there was some sort of... unresolved animosity... between the two of you..."
He gave them a meaningful look. "We would be having a... very different... conversation. I assume you both have enough... mental capacity... to remember the Slytherin house rules."
Iris looked to her left and her eyes met with Greengrass'. Absolutely no fighting within Slytherin house, conflicts would be resolved through dialog, prefects, or Snape himself. Or... the Slytherin dueling ring, if both parties agreed.
A meaningful look passed between the both of them. They didn't want to attack each other, they just wanted to duel. Well, at least Iris wanted, she still wasn't sure about her. Except... the rules of the dueling club had gotten in their way...
No words were exchanged, but it seemed the two of them were in agreement. No matter why the girl suddenly had changed her mind and wanted to duel her, the feeling was mutual. And they both wanted to finish what they had started.