"ᴘᴀʀʀʏ ᴛʜɪꜱ, ʏᴏᴜ ꜰɪʟᴛʜʏ ᴄᴀꜱᴜᴀʟ." ― ᴛʜᴇ ɪɴᴛᴇʀɴᴇᴛ
Chapter Eleven: Brewing Conflict
Look who's come crawling back again.
Tee honestly could not think of someone he'd least want standing in front of his door, except for Dumbledore (whom she was probably going to parrot everything back to, anyway). A Memory Charm to make her forget how to find his room was so tempting, but then again, that probably crossed a line in terms of the Unbreakable Vow, and in addition, she'd probably find him again.
Somehow.
It was just his luck.
Sighing deeply, he opened the door a little wider, and Ruby breezed into his room like she owned it, without a word, shoes clicking against the bare floorboards.
Honestly, he'd been expecting this. After Harry got cursed, it was only a matter of time before Ruby presented her ridiculous accusations.
"Well?" he asked of the witch glowering up at him.
"Well, what happened?" snapped Ruby.
What happened? How should he know? He'd been cooped up in the castle (mostly in this very room), or carrying out Dumbledore's orders like a good little wizard. Not to mention, if he was going to kill someone, it would be efficient and effective. Whoever had made an attempt on Harry Potter's life was sloppy and dramatic — this Dolohov Dumbledore had mentioned.
He supposed he ought to tell her. After all, she was still gazing at him expectantly, wand swishing back and forth impatiently, trailing orange sparks.
"Dumbledore mentioned someone called Antonin Dolohov designed the spell." Anticipating the next question, Tee said: "He was after my time."
Was he? Perhaps he just didn't remember. He'd never kept track of the younger Slytherins, despite being a prefect. They all blended into a de-individualized mass of annoying, shrill, spoilt brats.
"I saw his name in Harry's old newspapers, he's a Death Eater," said Ruby, turning to sit down in his chair — the only chair in the room. She rested her chin on her curled hand, looking pensive.
Tee shrugged. It had nothing to do with him.
"Did Dumbledore say anything about Draco Malfoy?"
Draco Malfoy. Tee remembered the boy at the Halloween feast who resembled Abraxas, the boy who'd looked at Narcissa Malfoy as if for reassurance.
He wanted nothing to do with that family — that was for certain. At least Abraxas was long dead, of Dragon Pox, they said, at a relatively young age. The only comfort was that it may have been due to foul play.
"What's he got to do with anything?"
"He knows something about the Snitch," said Ruby, now twirling a piece of hair around her finger.
Does he now? The Slash Curse had been a nasty bit of magic, but if you were really trying to kill Harry Potter during a Quidditch match, wouldn't you just knock him off his broom? Last time he checked, he was the only one who'd mastered unsupported flight.
That meant that there was some other priority. Just like last year with Mordred and the poisonings.
"Since when does Draco Malfoy rush to anyone's aid?" asked Ruby, taking his silence in stride. "Especially Harry's. They hate each other. And then, when I questioned him about it, he acted like…"
She trailed off, frowning, clearly remembering something — some sort of altercation, maybe.
"A sarcastic prick, dancing around your questions and insulting you?"
Ruby nodded.
Yes, that did sound like Abraxas. Like grandfather, like grandson, Tee supposed.
"Did Dumbledore—"
"—say anything about Draco Malfoy?" Tee finished irritably. "No."
"Well…" Ruby was fiddling with the piece of hair, now, with a strange, imploring look. "Would you — couldn't you use Legilimency on him?"
Tee gritted his teeth, bracing a hand against the bed behind him. There was little that could compel him to suffer the unpleasantness of looking into the mind of a Malfoy — much less an apparent Abraxas clone.
"Aren't you supposed to be a Seer?" he asked sharply. "What do you need me for?"
Her face had gone very pinched and furious; she shot up straight, trembling like a live wire. But this time, she did not deny it.
Tee knew what had happened in the dungeons last year, at least approximately. Mordred had pushed her too far in his greed, forced her to scry something and she'd been burnt by her own power. And even before she'd had a strange fear of it.
"Divination is a woolly subject," she said quietly. "You can't trust what you scry."
"But everything you've scryed has come true, hasn't it," Tee reparteed. "Me. Mordred."
"Two times is a coincidence," said Ruby, her voice whisper-light, her eyes wide and bright.
"And three would be a pattern."
The room was silent for a while, steeping in discomfort. Ruby jerked her gaze away from him — now she was picking at her nails; the anxiety leaching off her made his stomach turn. If only she'd tell someone what had happened in the dungeons, maybe they'd be able to actually accomplish something. Tee had a mind to look into her mind and find out for himself.
Just before he did, she turned to him, with that same over-bright gaze, trembling like a candle's flame.
"I—I'll do it. I need to know. I'll scry. I just need someone to stop me if I go too far." And then, came the expected words, so strangely satisfying. "I need your help, Tee."
"Fine."
What was it they'd used to scry in Divination — crystal balls, Tee remembered, but any reflective surface would do. He conjured a shallow bowl, and filled it with water with a quick Aguamenti.
"Actually," said Ruby sheepishly, glancing down at the bowl resting on the floorboards, "I prefer fire."
Of course you do, thought Tee, with great irritation. He Vanished the water, and replaced it with a handful of well-behaved Bluebell Flames, casting an eerie light in the green-wallpapered room. Ruby slid down to the floor, folding her legs under her, and her expression became strangely vacant. Tee sat, too, on the opposite side of the flames, studying her — not her as she was, in front of him, but her mind, growing rhythmical as she gazed into the fire, as if she were falling into a sleep or a trance.
Energy crackled through the air like a lightning storm, almost as it had when he, Dumbledore, and Bill had been decoding the Slash Curse placed on the Snitch. It made his skin prickle, the room grow humid — an unseen wind whipped through his hair and clothes, the fire gusting higher, burning redder and redder, changing from blue to green to yellow to scarlet. The magic dancing wildly around him, with the force and power of a solar wind, filled Tee with a deep, giddy excitement.
"—you're an idiot, Draco, letting Potter corner you like that."
Theodore Nott's face materialized in the fire, more of an optical illusion than a likeness. Tee felt a sharp tug — it was Ruby, drawing heavily on him, through their link — a strange meld of pyromancy and Legilimency. Strange shadows flickered in the room, voices echoing.
"Which one?" drawled a haughty voice. Tee's blood ran cold. He knew that voice.
The next face sent him reeling. It was Abraxas Malfoy — almost — an Abraxas that had been drawn by a more forgiving artist.
"Ruby, obviously," said Theodore. "You know she won't let it go. What was it she said?"
"I'm not scared of her. Besides, I had nothing to do with the Snitch."
There was no way to tell if he was lying, as Tee leaned closer to the heat of the fire. His voice, his posture, they seemed steady enough. But if he were anything like Abraxas, cold-blooded and slick, he took to lying like a fish to water, no tells.
"Yeah." Nott laughed. "Keep that up. When Potter comes back digging, make sure you flutter your eyelashes and hope for the best."
"Sounds like you're scared of Potter," said Malfoy coolly.
"Slytherins are supposed to have a sense of self-preservation, right? Every year, someone dies or nearly dies around those two — Vernon Dursley, Quirrell, Lockhart, Madam Pince, even your uncle Sirius only barely escaped with his life—"
"That last one was you, I heard," said Malfoy, his features dancing with malice. "Anyway, I had no idea that he was going to start bleeding out. She should be thanking me!"
"You were a real hero on that pitch for patching him up," said Theodore, voice oozing with sarcasm. "Montague might notice your newfound skill at teamwork and put you on the Quidditch team after all. Or Saint Potter might give you a kiss for your gallantry."
Ruby was trembling, the link between them shuddering and vibrating like a ship's rope in a storm. She was staring deep into the flames, reflections dancing in her blank, red-rimmed eyes.
"Or maybe both of them, at the same time," Theodore went on, clearly delighting in Malfoy's discomfort.
"Sounds like your fantasy, not mine."
Tee could feel everything through the link — her rage — her fear — her hunger to know more.
"Can't feel all guilty about it, Draco," said Theodore, patting his friend's — were they even friends — arm gently. "You've got to follow through. You should ask Ruby Potter to teach you. She definitely followed through with Vernon Dursley."
The link trembled; the fire grew hotter.
"What, I'm guilty because I didn't want Potter to bleed out like a pig?" Malfoy's voice teetered into a treble register, soaring with incredulity. "You sound like the one with a guilty conscience."
Now, the image was fading, naturally slipping away, but Ruby held fast, clinging desperately. So she was right. She didn't know when to stop anymore.
Enough. Tee reached through the link. Let go.
The fire snuffed out; the magic in the room calmed, from a storm to a gentle breeze. Ruby slumped forward, trembling, supporting herself on her hands, hair covering her face. The telltale headache of rendering something complicated pushed at Tee's skull.
What he wouldn't give for a dose of Wiggenweld right now. Tee shifted so his back was resting against the bed, and cracked his eyelids open. Almost mirroring his position, Ruby had sat back against the desk, running her hands over her crossed arms as if she had caught a chill, rocking herself back and forth slightly. Her eyes darted over the floorboards, still wide, but a glassy look of horror had come into them.
But what Tee always had on hand was Calming Draught — a substance he'd relied heavily upon in his fateful fifth year. He patted around under the bed, retrieved a stoppered vial containing a periwinkle-blue liquid, and downed half of it.
"Here," he said, extending the vial to Ruby. "It'll make you feel better."
She gave Tee a suspicious glance, but, assuming that it must be fine if he'd just drunk it, took the vial.
"Theodore Nott's involved, somehow," said Ruby. She had stopped shaking, the now-empty vial clutched in her hand. "That's… not good."
It wasn't, if last year was anything to go on, Tee had to agree. Theodore and Mordred had been colluding behind his back for months, using him as a shield to draw away all of Dumbledore's focus and ire.
"But that doesn't explain Malfoy. Blaise said he came to the match late, and he acted like he knew that Harry would get hurt. He has to know something."
Tee's head still hurt, even after the Calming Draught. "So what if he does?" said Tee irritably, massaging his temples.
"What do you mean, so what?" Ruby seethed, head snapping up. The vial dropped from her hands to roll on the floorboards. "Harry was nearly killed, but of course you don't care about that—"
Tee shrugged. It was blindingly simple. Painfully obvious. And she knew the answer, he knew she did. She just didn't like it.
"If you want Malfoy to stop messing with Harry, make sure he learns the consequences. Look at Nott. Dumbledore didn't punish him, so he thinks he's invincible."
As he expected, Ruby's face grew pinched and furious again. But Tee continued.
"I know you have it in you, and don't lie to me. We're more similar than we're different. I know you want to push the both of them to the edge and watch them squeal."
"If Dolohov's involved, this is deeper than them," said Ruby, almost as a deflection — but it was true. "I need information first before I do anything… rash."
"Well, then you'd better hurry," said Tee as he got to his feet. "It'll be December soon."
A drop of sweat rolled down Harry's face, settling uncomfortably into the bottom rim of his foggy glasses. There was a sweaty spot between his shoulder blades that itched, too. But he couldn't hesitate, couldn't take his eyes off his opponent.
On the other hand, Riddle was casual, arrogant, uncaring, almost as if he wasn't wielding a deadly weapon.
At least Dumbledore was supervising this time.
And Riddle's not even paying attention!
Harry might as well not have been flicking hex after hex at his head for the past few minutes, for all he seemed to care. The wall behind Riddle was dotted with black scorch marks, each one seeming to taunt Harry from a distance.
If I could just hit him once.
Besides, in a real fight, he'd be already dead.
"Come on, Harry," said Riddle, low and mocking. "You should have hit me at least once, by chance. That means you must be trying to miss."
Dumbledore shot Riddle a warning glance, but it went unaddressed.
He's getting in your head, he tried to remind himself. He's using Legilimency. You know your aim isn't bad. He just knows every move you'll make before you do it.
Always one step ahead.
That was how it always was, after all. Reacting, barely surviving, ever on the back foot.
And until Harry figured out how to stop being so easy to read, he was doomed to watch Riddle side-step (or very occasionally, lazily flick away) everything Harry threw at him. Every thought, every strategy was used against him.
Then stop thinking. Stop planning.
Just move.
Footwork, aim, wand patterns, he forgot it all. This wasn't academic or pedagogical anymore. He gave into instinct. He did exactly what he'd been told not to all through first year — wave his wand around unthinkingly.
When the red of a Stunning spell left his wand, it surprised him, and though Riddle blocked it, there seemed to be more effort, more haste in the curse that Riddle returned it with — and the flagstones in front of Harry flew up to form a shield, splintering on impact.
I'm doing it!
"See?" said Riddle, twirling his wand loosely in his hand. "At least once."
Despite his sense of renewed fortitude, the lesson was far from over. The flagstones under Harry's feet shuddered with a flick of Riddle's wand, threatening to—
Crack!
The ground rent under him, and it was only reflex that saved Harry from tumbling to the ground, launching himself to the left, landing hard on legs that felt like jelly. The spot where he'd been standing had been gouged out, leaving only a long, jagged crack. Harry felt sick to his stomach, his fingers slick around his wand as he glanced warily at Riddle.
"Careful, Tom," said Dumbledore, looking at him sharply; his voice had the same edge.
"With all due respect, Professor Dumbledore, he won't learn if I don't teach him," said Riddle haughtily, lifting his chin.
"I am not sure your method is quite sound."
But Dumbledore didn't move to intervene, just nodded encouragingly at Harry to continue. It was a cold comfort.
You're the one who asked Dumbledore for lessons — proper lessons, thought Harry grimly, turning to face Riddle again. It might not have been a real fight, but his nerves didn't know that. He didn't know if it was Riddle's Legilimency, but his thoughts were sluggish, too.
Riddle had paused, half-leaning against the wall, offering Harry the chance to take the offensive role. Not that it would do any good. He was losing, and exhausted in mind and body, barely staying on his feet.
"Stupefy!"
Foiled. Flicked away.
"Seems like that was just a fluke, then?" asked Riddle, and Harry's blood boiled. "You know, when you say spells out loud, that means I can hear them."
"You can hear them in my head, too, what's the difference?" asked Harry angrily. He half wanted to fling his wand on the floor, and storm out. What was the point of this exercise? To show Harry exactly how much skill he lacked? How much ground he'd never make up?
With a long, loud, low groan, flagstones loosed themselves from the ground, hovering ominously like flat, murderous birds. And then, Harry's stomach lurched, pure horror filling him as they zoomed towards him, closing in.
Instinct told him to cover his head and drop, but he fought it down.
Time to stand and fight.
He reached out — not with his hands, nor his wand, but his will. Dust rained down on the ground, the flagstones blasted to bits. As it cleared, he saw Riddle looking back at him, not quite approving, but interested.
Harry couldn't afford to make any mistakes now. Couldn't afford to overthink.
It was a strange thought to hold in his head. But he'd never, ever win if he kept trying. If Riddle wanted to treat this like a game, then so would he.
Something seared past him and Harry leapt out of the way. The second time, he stood his ground, conjured shield shuddering against the force of Riddle's curse, splintering into blinding starbursts.
I just need to get my strength back a bit, and then…
Before the next curse streaked towards him, violent red, Harry was on the move again.
I'm the Snitch, he told himself — unpredictable, fast, something that had to be reacted to. The flagstones cracked under Harry's feet for a second time; but he was no longer there, moving backwards, weaving through steps to a dance he didn't know.
Riddle finally seemed engaged, now, trying to work out the rhythm. But there was none.
Almost without thinking the hex left his wand, uncaring, unknowing where Riddle was at the moment. All he cared about was that it somehow found him.
Too busy relying on his sixth sense, Riddle hadn't anticipated the Severing Charm, turning just in time for blood to appear on his cheek, the evidence of the blow sliding down his face.
A short, tense, disbelieving laugh escaped Harry, strangely giddy all of a sudden. his head spinning. He hadn't believed it possible.
"Took you longer than I thought," said Riddle, as if it was no skin off his nose, but a strange light had come into his dark eyes.
Now, finish it before he gets too serious.
Spurred by Riddle's change in demeanour, Harry launched himself forward, but the spell missed its mark, joining its brothers as another black char on the wall.
The grass growing in the cracks between the flagstones rustled, a sound that brought Harry to a stop. Even Dumbledore seemed to be listening.
With a tremendous shudder, the grass shot skyward, transfiguring into green, undulating vines, creeping along the ground in a shifting, undulating spiderweb. Tendrils reached out, threatening to wrap around his ankles and pull him down.
Harry's heart sank. What now?
Don't think about it. Keep moving.
Playing keep-away with the tendrils — like a Snitch and a Seeker, avoiding Riddle's curses, Harry wove his way through the courtyard, occasionally letting off a Blasting Curse, or setting the vines ablaze — wasting Riddle's time and concentration with having to regrow them.
Finally, the thought came to him. "Herbivicus!"
It was a charm that Professor Sprout had taught them — a cheat for making flowering plants bloom instantly — and Harry couldn't believe his luck. Multicoloured flowers erupted all along the vines, tendrils shrivelling. He grinned stupidly, looking around at the vines, wilting under their overexuberant blooms.
"Very funny, Harry," said Riddle, tossing his black hair, glinting like polished stone in the sun. "Now, it's time to stop playing around."
The flowers simultaneously burst apart, spraying the courtyard with goldenrod-yellow pollen, swallowing them both in the mist. Not looking, just trusting, Harry flung an arm out.
"Expellarimus!"
The pollen cloud swallowed the red light for a second, and then, it cleared.
Wandless, a look of fury passed over Riddle's face, watching the length of wood roll amongst the flagstones.
I did it! Harry's heart gave a wild, furious leap of joy, almost revelling in Riddle's shock at being disarmed.
As if to remind Harry he was still dangerous without a wand, Riddle raised his hands, but mid-flick of a finger, Dumbledore cleared his throat.
"I think that should be quite enough for today," said Dumbledore. "It was a clever strategy, Harry."
"I was going easy," said Riddle, lowering his arms, with a light shrug, but there was the trace of a scowl under his pleasant expression. Dumbledore said nothing, focussed on repairing the damage.
Maybe he had been; but that didn't disrupt Harry's feeling of triumph. He felt himself break into a stupid grin, tucking his wand into his back pocket, with a little spring in his step as he left the courtyard.
As he did, he heard Dumbledore's voice fading down the corridor:
"It appears the Ministry has requested my presence. I must say I am intrigued… Will you accompany me, Tom?"
Surprisingly un-interested in eavesdropping (no point wasting a good mood with suffering Riddle's presence or his voice a moment longer), Harry continued down the corridor, picking up speed as he did.
It'll be December soon.
The words echoed in Ruby's head, a damming, mocking chorus. It had been almost three weeks now since the Snitch Incident, and she hadn't come up with a plan of attack.
She hated to say it, but Tee was right.
Ruby had told Harry about Draco Malfoy — their altercation in the common room, the conversation with Theodore Nott she'd overheard, but conveniently left out the method of eavesdropping (scrying with Tee).
To be honest, Ruby wasn't sure if it was because she was afraid Harry would be ashamed of her, or if she was ashamed of herself for running back to Tee for help every time. She'd certainly feel stupid having to explain it all now. Would it be like when it had all come out the night of the Siege? Ruby remembered standing in the hallway as the castle shuddered around them, the cold, livid disappointment on Harry's face.
"You'd do it all, would you — you'd go — go likehim?"
She remembered feeling stupid and furious and — just like now — utterly confused. And then there was that horrible, no-more-than-an-inch-but-still-definitely-there distance that had emerged between them ever since. Though the gap was vanishingly small, Ruby had no idea how to bridge it.
Now, Harry was staring straight out the open window at the grey, low sky, shoulders tense.
"I can't believe I'm saying this," said Harry, watching Hedwig soar on the updraft above the Owlery, "but maybe Dumbledore should handle this. What are they going to do, lie to him?"
It wasn't a bad idea, after all. Evading her questions was one thing — lying to Dumbledore's face, another entirely.
His knuckles were pale, grip clenching tighter on the window ledge. A gust of icy wind splashed into the stone room, and Ruby clutched her cloak tighter around her shoulders, shivering. She wrinkled her nose. Why did Harry like coming here between classes so much, anyway? It was cold, noisy, and smelled musty.
"How would I even get them up there?" Ruby resorted to the practical. "It's not like they'd go if I asked. Malfoy would just laugh in my face again, for one."
The altercation in the Slytherin common room crossed her mind again, and her face burnt with humiliation. She could still hear Goyle and Crabbe's guffawing laughter, Malfoy launching himself upright like the comic relief character in a sitcom, voice biting: "Oh, an accusation! What did I do, kill him with kindness?"
"Come on," said Harry. "We've got friends who are prefects, remember? They're bound to be able to get Malfoy and Nott on something stupid. And besides, you could ask Dumbledore for a favour, couldn't you?"
Ruby frowned at nothing in particular. The cold was making her miserable.
She'd asked Dumbledore for far more audacious favours before, and he'd acquiesced to the ones that sounded at least somewhat reasonable. But everything seemed to slide off Nott's back — if Narcissa would stop him from getting expelled after helping the Locket try to kill Harry, surely he'd wiggle out of this, too. And the same would probably be true for Malfoy. Whatever Dumbledore's opinion was on the matter — the Ministry wouldn't care. Ruby was certain of that.
But something has to be done. Tee is right. They can't just run amok committing assassination attempts.
"Okay," said Ruby, doing her best to tune out the sounds of wings flapping and owl calls. She tugged a hand through her hair, irritably combing out the knots with her fingers. "We get them in Dumbledore's office, what next? He's not supposed to use Legilimency on students!"
"And what's your solution?" asked Harry, whirling around, his face tight with anger. "You've been acting crazy ever since what happened in the dungeons last year, so, you know what, you'd better come out and just tell me instead of stomping around in a huff, snapping at Anthony and dragging me around Hogsmeade at night looking for Inferi! Even Lavender and Parvati are scared of you!"
Ruby's fingers stopped halfway through a knot, throat squeezing, vision darkening. The blood rushed in her ears, and she stepped back, suddenly dizzy. The cold draft was searing.
"At least I'm trying to do something!" she snapped back. "What do you think your duelling practice sessions with Riddle are even accomplishing?"
Harry almost seemed to have been lit on fire from the inside; shaking like a flame in the breeze, chin lifted, eyes burning. The room didn't feel cold anymore, and the owls were silent.
"Let's face it," Ruby choked out. "You're ashamed of me."
Tears. They were burning the back of her throat. She swallowed hard, forcing them down, turning into the wind.
Harry's silent gaze didn't leave her, not even when Hedwig flew back into the Owlery in a snow-white flutter, folding her powerful wings into her sides and regarding them both dolefully.
"I'm not ashamed of you," he said, posture slumping, glasses sliding further down his nose. "Look, that's not what's going on. You're scared, and Bill's right. If you don't figure out how to deal with it, something bad's going to happen. And you're not even trying!"
"How can I not be?" asked Ruby miserably, turning away from the window. "I'm trying to protect you and I'm scared that I can't!"
"Then stop trying!" Harry bellowed.
Hedwig shook out her wings, glaring reproachfully, and let out a shrill, furious shriek. Time seemed to slow down as Ruby struggled for a grip on reality, trying to understand the indictment, the words distorting her mind.
Stop trying?
Master your temper. Temper your fear.
How could she?
The tears were welling up again — ugly, messy sobs, freezing in the cold wind. There was a hand on her shoulder — both of them, actually — warm and solid.
"You have to stop trying to control everything," said Harry, softly, bending down slightly to be eye-level.
They had always been almost exactly the same height. When had he gotten taller?
It's like everything's been trying to drive a wedge between us since the day we got here. First the Sorting Hat, and then… everything else.
"What am I supposed to do, then?" asked Ruby, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "Sit around and do nothing, until next time?"
She knew it was true, that fear was rotting her from the inside, that she was holding on so tightly that victory would certainly slip through her clenched fingers. But she had no idea of how to release her grip.
"Look, I—" Harry glanced away, his voice heavy. "I know how you feel. I feel like I've made all the wrong choices, that if I was stronger, whatever happened in the dungeons wouldn't've."
That was a stupid thing to say, and Ruby nearly said so. Even Sirius and Remus couldn't handle Mordred. It was Dumbledore who'd had to deal with him in the end.
"But you know what, I have to make the best out of what we've got."
Ruby had no idea how to make the best out of this situation — the Ministry against them, people who'd tried to kill Harry running around the castle, a Second Sight that seemed to only predict inevitable disaster. She couldn't help but feel trapped in a nightmare.
Just then, the warning bell sounded, faint from up here, but it jolted Ruby back into the regular flow of time.
Five to one.
"One thing at a time," said Harry earnestly as he straightened up. "Let's get Malfoy and Nott in front of Dumbledore, and then we'll take it from there."
"Right," said Ruby, still reeling but grateful for something tangible to focus on. "I can get them in trouble during Potions."
And if they didn't hurry now, they'd be late, with only five minutes to get all the way to the dungeons from up here. Following Harry down the narrow staircase, Ruby felt her spirits lift, but only slightly. They emerged into the usual post-lunch crush, students moving slowly through the loud corridors, not paying them much mind as they weaved through the crowd. As they got closer to the dungeon, the halls darkened, the corridor growing empty.
"Almost late, Potters," said Snape, catching sight of Harry in the doorway as he tried to ease the heavy classroom door open unobtrusively. His dark eyes glittered maliciously, lingering on Ruby. "A few seconds later, and I'm afraid I would have had to assign detention."
Professor Snape did not seem 'afraid' at all of the prospect of putting them both in detention — moreso regretful that it was still only twelve-fifty-nine and that there was no choice but to let them shuffle to the remaining empty bench without incident. Ruby could not decide whether it was good or bad fortune that they found themselves directly behind Malfoy and Nott for Double Potions.
"Today, we will be mixing a potion that often comes up at Ordinary Wizarding Level," Snape began to drawl as Ruby rummaged in her bookbag. Neville Longbottom nearly upset his cauldron with his elbow, eliciting laughter from Malfoy and Nott.
"The Draught of Peace, a potion to calm anxiety and soothe agitation."
Ruby could certainly use some of that right now.
"But be warned: If you are too heavy-handed with the ingredients you will put the drinker into a heavy and sometimes irreversible sleep, so you will need to pay close attention to what you are doing," Snape instructed. With a flick of his wand, the blackboard behind him filled with instructions, and the door to the store cupboard creaked open. As usual, a small mob almost instantly formed in front of it, headed by Hermione, meticulously selecting vials and glancing quickly at the blackboard at regular intervals for verification. Malfoy and Nott strolled up as if they had all the time in the day to get there.
Moonstone, syrup of hellebore, porcupine quills, unicorn horn. Ruby muttered the ingredients under her breath as they stood waiting, trying to keep herself calm.
"Is it just me, or is Snape going overkill?" asked Parvati under her breath; she and Lavender had come up behind Harry and Ruby.
"It's O.W.L. year," Lavender reminded her with a giggle.
They soon found themselves at the front; Nott had already taken his ingredients and gone, but Malfoy was still lingering by the cupboard, peering leisurely at all the little labels.
"Budge over, Malfoy, and hurry up," snapped Harry, stepping up beside him.
"Getting antsy, Potter?" asked Malfoy, swivelling around with a look of glee, his scoop still sticking out of the jar of moonstone. "What's the matter? Feeling a little faintish?"
Ruby couldn't see Harry's face, but his hand tightened into a fist; and she, too, felt anger coiling, deep and cold.
"Oh, no," murmured Lavender. So it seemed Ruby wasn't the only one who could smell trouble brewing. In fact, the whole classroom, even those already beginning their potions, like Hermione, had stopped to watch.
Whatever you do, don't hit him. That's what he wants.
Malfoy reached for his scoop, and started to fill his beaker, only letting one stone trickle into the glass at a time.
She knew what this was. Bull-baiting. Waving the red flag.
Ruby itched to say something. He deserved an earful, but surely that would only make it worse. It didn't matter that she was a Slytherin; Snape would surely take Malfoy's side.
"Just hurry up and go, Malfoy," said Parvati, stepping past Ruby and Lavender to flank Malfoy's other side, flipping her plait over her shoulder. "You're holding the queue up."
And with that, she tipped the entire scoop into the beaker, snatched down a vial of syrup of hellebore, and glowered, as if challenging him to protest. But he had no choice but to go back to his bench, or risk making himself look like a fool (which he was).
By the time Harry and Ruby returned as well, Snape called out that fifteen minutes had already gone by, as if Malfoy hadn't been loitering for at least five minutes.
"This looks complicated," said Ruby, staring at the blackboard with a distinct sense of apprehension. Snape's neat cursive was even smaller than usual, and the instructions went all the way to the bottom, and every sequence of stirs and list of temperatures was underlined.
The soft ticking of the clock at the front of the classroom was just audible over the frantic sounds of grinding up ingredients, glass implements clinking together, and nervous whispers.
This potion isn't going to brew itself. Ruby steeled herself, dried her clammy hands on her robes, rolled up her sleeves and got to work. Just as she started powdering her moonstone, Snape walked past the bench, inspecting their work with a haughty look, but thankfully said nothing. As Ruby counted her stirs, she wondered if there was any way to snare Malfoy and Nott in something so damning they'd be sent to the Headmaster's office. A ruined potion would result in points taken, at most. There was nothing they could possibly get written up for past harming another student — and there was no way even they were stupid enough to do that right under a professor's nose.
"That's seven minutes of simmering," Harry muttered under his breath.
"Thanks."
The last thing she needed was Snape on her case for making mistakes in Potions again, after all. Ruby added her two drops of hellebore, then chanced a look around the classroom.
Beside her, Harry's potion looked alright, but Ron, at the bench with Hermione, nervously surveyed the contents of his cauldron, which was spitting green sparks. Hermione's was the exact purple as the textbook's, but her hair had erupted into a halo of frizz as she bent painstakingly over her work.
Just as she reached for some stewed mandrake, Malfoy cleared his throat.
"Still planning to make good on your threat, Potter? What was it you said?" He turned around halfway with a razor-sharp smile, eying her like a shark. "You'd be watching me?"
Ruby forced herself to say nothing, even as Harry stilled beside her, pausing mid-stir for a second.
Seven times clockwise seven times clockwise seven times clockwise.
She needed to focus on the potion. Not Malfoy's taunts, not Nott listening with his head cocked, wide-eyed with voyeuristic interest.
"Poor baby Potter," Malfoy went on, voice lilting as if he were singing a lullaby, leaning closer. "Nearly driven mad by her visions."
He made a grotesque face, tongue lolling out of his mouth, and eyes rolled back into his head so that all Ruby could see were the red-streaked whites. Nott hastily reached over to turn down the heat on Malfoy's unattended cauldron, and Ruby wished there was some way she could do the same to her simmering anger.
"Shut up," snapped Harry. "Leave her alone."
"What's wrong?" asked Malfoy, head tilted, all faux-concern. "Jumping at shadows?"
Nott's shoulders shook with amusement.
Everything screamed in her to launch herself at Malfoy, some deep, primal instinct. But to her surprise, Harry laughed, sifting unicorn horn powder into his cauldron.
"If you want to wind us up, Malfoy, you should try being subtle. Besides—" He gestured. "You might want to pay attention to your potion instead of us."
Great clouds of black, acrid smoke were belching from Malfoy's cauldron, despite Nott's best efforts to keep it under control. To their left, Daphne made a face as the horrible scent wafted over the entire classroom.
Ruby's anger sublimated, giving away to a giddy schadenfreude as Malfoy whipped around, yanking his cauldron off of the heat, Nott trying to help him calm the violently bubbling, belching potion, but it was all to no avail. The black, choking smoke only thickened, and fits of coughing spread through the classroom.
A set of slow, deliberate steps sounded out on the stone floor. Everyone looked up.
Snape stood just in front of Malfoy and Nott's bench, his sneer just visible through the thick haze.
"What," he began, in a venomous tone, "is this?"
Malfoy opened his mouth to respond, but no words came out. Several of the Gryffindors were looking over with great interest, for a Slytherin being chastised by Snape was a rare occurrence indeed.
"I—"
"Too busy chit-chatting?" Snape's eyes flickered over Ruby and Harry, but this time, with surprisingly little malice. "The Draught of Peace is technically simple," he said, this time turning to the rest of the class. "The complexity comes only from an inability to follow instructions, or, in Mr. Malfoy's case, neglect of the golden rule of potion-making, which is to?"
The class was silent. Hermione, looking around nervously, slowly raised her hand.
"Mr. Malfoy?" asked Snape, spearing him with a piercing glare.
"Never leave your cauldron unattended," said Malfoy quietly, hanging his head, eyes locked on the floor.
Said cauldron gurgled ominously, expelling another voluminous puff of black smoke, threatening to explode. Big, black globs of boiling liquid began dripping over the side.
"This mess is not only utterly worthless," said Snape, mouth curling in displeasure, "but also, dangerous."
It really couldn't be better than if they'd planned it; Malfoy finally stunned into silence, shuffling his feet, as Nott nervously stirred his own potion. Even Neville Longbottom, whose potion had turned the consistency of cement, was rubber-necking. Some students had started laughing, mostly Gryffindors, and beside her, Harry was struggling to keep his face neutral, though the corner of his lips was twitching into a just-suppressed smile.
"Ten points from Slytherin for your incompetence," said Snape in a clipped tone, and despite her usual annoyance at the loss of House points (and Daphne's groan), Ruby felt a rush of excitement.
"Evanesco."
The contents of Malfoy's cauldron vanished, and the black, acrid smoke with it. Ruby reflexively took a gulp of fresh air (well, as fresh as it could be down in the dungeons).
"Careful, Draco," Ruby heard Snape whisper, too quietly for anyone but Nott, her, and Harry to hear. "Wouldn't want to end up in the Headmaster's office, would we?"
Inexplicably, Malfoy stiffened even as Snape stepped away. Ruby and Harry exchanged a look.
Guilt. It was plain as day. Narcissa Malfoy couldn't intervene in discipline as humane as a chat with Dumbledore without looking guilty herself, too.
But how to make good on Snape's insinuation? What was it Blaise had said?
"Wind him up and watch him go," murmured Ruby, counting her stirs.
"Malfoy — clean up your mess. The rest of you have ten minutes to fill one flagon with a sample of your potion, label it clearly with your name, and bring it up to my desk for testing."
The class slowly resumed paying sole attention to their potions as Snape swept back to his desk. Above stirring and whispering, the loudest sound in the classroom was Malfoy's bench scraper hitting against the drying black sludge. Beside him, Theodore was adding porcupine quills to his potion hurriedly, trying in vain to catch up to the rest of the class. Neville winced under Snape's shrewd gaze as he scooped his solidifying potion, far beyond saving, into a vial.
Ruby wiped the sweat off her forehead and tried to focus on her potion. Is that the sixth or the seventh time I need to add moonstone?
For a potion that was supposed to soothe agitation, it was definitely doing its best to stress her out. The class was silent — whether from despair or concentration, Ruby could not tell. Multicoloured steam filled the room as the clock's hand inched closer to the twelve position.
"Time," called Snape. There was a great rush to prepare samples; Seamus Finnegan nearly dashed his cauldron to the floor in his hurry, not that it mattered, because his potion was emitting a sulfurous miasma.
Stepping past Malfoy, who was clearing away his things and seething, Ruby couldn't help but glance over her shoulder, potion in hand.
Harry followed her gaze to Malfoy, who was shovelling the last dark glob of burnt potion into a vial with a murderous air.
"Well, anything's better than a zero, right?" asked Ruby airily, rolling her shoulders back. "Better luck next time, Malfoy."
Malfoy's jaw clenched, his face white with fury, but he said nothing. It was obvious he ached to retort, but with Snape just in front of him, he'd likely deemed it not worth it.
Which meant she'd probably have to pay for it later in the common room, but given the circumstances, Ruby would rather savour her victory than think about the foreboding near future.
"Funny," said Harry, just under his breath. "You'd think he'd have every potion mastered, the way he was carrying on about his superior education at Durmstrang."
Malfoy soon stormed past to deposit his vial full of potion ash on Snape's desk, eliciting a raised eyebrow and a sneer. Nott was next to stroll up, looking at them both curiously as he did.
"Never seen Malfoy that quiet," said Ron, appearing on the other side of Harry, just as Malfoy slung his bag over his shoulder and stomped out of the classroom, door banging shut behind him.
"Probably saving it for the common room," said Ruby as she deposited her potion on Snape's desk, and that revelation only slightly dulled the victory of Malfoy's humiliation.
Now, she just had to figure out how to maintain the edge.
A/N: Sorry about this being a bit late, I had a long week, and then decided I had to move a scene to the next chapter (you'll notice on AO3 I extended the expected length of 5th year from 17 to 20 chapters), wrote a whole new scene, and then the practice duel took forever since writing duels is apparently my #1 weakness, and by the time I was finished yesterday I thought it was probably best if I waited an extra day to edit, soooooo… Anyway, hope you enjoyed it!