Chapter 14) Revenge
Selected Listening: San Dimas High School Rules- The Ataris
In the Snow Queen, the little girl finally remembered her friend. She escaped the garden and set off to look for him once again. Anastasia closed the book she had been reading while waiting on her friends to return from the D.A. meeting and moved to place it back in her trunk. Her fingers brushed against something cold.
Anastasia took the tiny stone stoat from the bottom of her trunk and examined it again. Its tiny blue eyes glinted in the firelight of the dormitory torches. She thought back to all the encounters she had with Draco in the previous week. The way he pulled her close. The way he held her arm so gently when he wrapped it. The way he stared at her so intensely only moments ago…
You know that would never work.
It almost made her wish it could…but she couldn't think that way.
Anastasia heard footsteps on the stairs and shoved the stone ferret into the nightstand.
"We missed you. We got a lot of work done on stunning spells." Hermione commented as she came. The headstrong bookworm pulled her pajamas out of her trunk and paused. "Are you ever coming back?"
Anastasia sat on her bed, folded her arms, and looked away.
"I'll think about it."
"You need practice," Hermione urged. "How's occlumency club going?"
Anastasia grimaced.
"Not well."
She hated admitting she was so terrible at a skill she needed when she had been able to learn every other impossible thing.
Hermione came to sit beside her on the bed and pulled on her sleeve.
"Anastasia, please. Come Back. You need something for defense. You need to work on stunning. I'm sorry about the name…but it was so perfect, and I thought you raised your hand, I really did."
"I'll try," she said.
"Thank you," Hermione emphasized. "People notice you. It's important you're involved."
Anastasia thought about this. She hadn't felt all that important since she broke up with Draco, only an accessory to her father's unofficial empire of followers, a damsel to rescue occasionally. The ultimate liability. It wasn't until Justin spoke up at the Hog's Head that she had put much thought into how her decisions influenced others.
"Were you able to get much studying done in the headmaster's suite the other night?" Hermione asked.
Anastasia faltered.
"The other night?"
"Saturday, at the Halloween feast? You said you needed to stay in your room to work on homework," Hermione asked sympathetically.
"Oh, um, right. I-I did," she scrambled, looking away.
She still hadn't told her friends about St. Mungo's or the botched lifeline removal spell, and she didn't intend to. She thought it was going to work, and it didn't.
Hermione squeezed her hand, and leaned forward to try and look her in the eye.
"I know you're worried about everything with Professor Dumbledore. I'm already helping Harry and Ron with studying. If you need help, just ask."
She took a deep breath and nodded.
"Right," she said. "Fine, I will."
The two girls wrapped each other in a bone-crushing hug.
Anastasia wished she could tell her best friend what was happening, what she was trying to do, what she was afraid of, but for the first time in her life it felt like her troubles were too big to share with the person in front of her. Not Fudge's vendetta against her father, nor Umbridge's reign of terror, nor her cursed entanglement with Draco could be solved with a book or a trip to the library…they were only things that could be solved with wisdom and time.
Anastasia thought it to be too cruel to eat a fever fudge on game day.
That was until she spotted the Slytherin team in the Great Hall, all wearing golden crown badges to bash Ron.
Anastasia sat down nervously with the rest of the team and tried to eat her French toast.
Fred and George simultaneously offered the candy. She shook her head.
"I have to be ready in case one of you is injured." Anastasia said. There was always a chance Harry would get into a freak accident on the field. It happened every year on the first quidditch game of the year, first Quirrell, then Dobby, then the dementors…
"That's what the cure end is for," George pushed. "If you need a quick in."
Anastasia sighed and put the candy in her pocket, but didn't eat it.
Soon, the Lovegood girl skipped in with an enormous lion head perched on her own, held still by a strap around her chin. Hermione and Ginny ogled. Luna pulled a string, and the lion's roar echoed around the Great Hall.
"That's quite impressive," Anastasia commented. "Supporting Gryffindor today?"
"Thank you," Luna smiled. "Better than the alternative."
"You can say that again," Anastasia said glancing over to the Slytherin table as they seemed to be chanting in unison. "Will you be looking for nargles today as well?"
Luna giggled.
"Oh, you're funny. Nargles never go near quidditch pitches…" the blonde stared out into space without explaining and walked away to her house table.
Things only worsened as they reached the cold, frosted field. They could hear the chorus of the Slytherins, not only bashing Ron, but the whole Weasley family.
WEASLEY WAS BORN IN A BIN
HE ALWAYS LETS THE QUAFFLE IN.
Anastasia turned over the candy in her pocket.
The twins stared at her.
"I'm not going to sink to their level yet," she said.
She grabbed her broom from the locker room and took her seat on the bench at the side of the field. The Slytherin team emerged, now sporting Crabbe and Goyle as beaters. Draco led the team to the center line. He caught her eye and flashed his badge in her direction.
Anastasia held his gaze, removed the candy from her pocket, and bit off the fever-half.
Draco seethed.
In seconds, the players took off, Anastasia felt a wave of heat come through her cheeks and she slumped over her knees with the cure-half, ready to jump in if needed.
The Slytherins were playing rough. Crabbe and Goyle bashed Angelina, Katie, and Alicia multiple times without being seen or fouled by Hooch. Fred and George were doing all they could to keep everyone from being injured.
But Anastasia's move had done the trick. Draco slowed on his broom, a pink in his cheeks, and when Harry spotted the snitch and dove for it, it took Draco crucial seconds to realize what was happening.
Harry caught the snitch. The crowd wailed.
Anastasia downed the other half of the fever fudge and ran to join her teammates, jumping and screaming in victory.
But Draco, not too far from the pitch, also recovered.
And he began singing once more about the Weasleys.
WEASLEY WAS BORN IN A BIN
Anastasia's blood boiled.
HE ALWAYS LETS THE QUAFFLE IN.
The Gryffindor boys lunged.
"No!" She and Angelina grabbed George and Harry by their hoods, while Katie and Alicia held Fred back by his arms.
Draco kept taunting.
"It's bullshit. Don't listen," she tried to tell them.
Then Malfoy insulted their mothers.
On his last word, he felt the hems of George and Harry's hoods slip from her fingers.
The pain rushed to Anastasia's face in an instant. She heard each slam as their fists hit. She reoriented, turned, and sprinted for the Gryffindor changing rooms.
Beneath the bleachers, Anastasia curled into a ball, holding her head in her knees, trying to breathe evenly. She jerked as a sharp pain went straight to her ribs, her breathing shortened, her vision closed off. She heard the pounding of her classmates feet above her.
She couldn't believe she let herself think for even a second that Draco Malfoy might come around.
"Anastasia," a familiar voice gasped. Her vision and breathing returned as the pain seemed to stop. She peaked out of the gap between her arms to see Fred, holding their brooms, staring at her in horror.
Fred placed their brooms down and ran to her side.
"Are you alright? What can I do?" he began searching his pockets for the right prank candy that could heal her, but nothing the twins had made so far had a counter for physical injuries.
"Stop, stop, it's fine," she mumbled through the pain in her jaw as she uncurled herself and placed a calming hand on his arm. Her left eye swelled slightly so that she couldn't open it all the way. He ogled.
"It's not fine, they... I almost—" Fred looked disgusted with himself. He managed to hold himself back at the last second. He chased after her instead.
"He deserved it, Fred," Anastasia said sadly.
"But you didn't," he said pointedly. "You didn't deserve any of this. I can't believe—"
"Can't believe what?" she asked.
Fred then, very seriously, took both her hands in his.
"You can't marry Malfoy, Anastasia. Please tell me you'll break off the engagement. He's awful. He'll…who knows what he'll do."
Anastasia couldn't help herself. She let out a laugh, and then another and then another. Through the pain of another bruise in her ribs she laughed herself silly until she could barely breathe and her vision went a bit funny and little tears squeezed out the corners of her eyes.
"It's not…what are you laughing at? Stasia, you can't—"
"I'm not marrying Draco!" she cackled. "Is that what you thought all this time?"
"Mum and Sirius said—"
She continued laughing even harder. He started to smile as she finally caught her breath.
"They said I was practically engaged, not that I was!"
"Oh…" Fred drifted, raised his eyebrows and thought, a wavering smile stretched across his face. "Makes a lot more sense why he's been snogging Parkinson then," he admitted, and then started laughing too.
But Anastasia felt stomach sick.
Fred scooted closer to her and leaned back on his hands. A thin aura of heat radiated off the sweat on his skin. Anastasia briefly thought about getting even more revenge on Malfoy…but she couldn't bring herself to hurt Fred for her own selfishness.
Fred lifted a finger and gently brushed a strand out of her face.
"All this time, I was pulling away thinking that you were in some obscure arranged marriage. If that's not true, why have you been avoiding me?" Fred asked honestly.
Anastasia took a deep breath.
"Ginny told me how bad off you were over the summer, and she said I didn't have a right to make you feel that way when there was someone else in my life."
Fred snapped.
"Ginny? Are you joking? I'll—"
"She's right, Fred! Just because I'm not marrying him doesn't mean I…"
Fred waited for the answer, already bracing for impact. Anastasia softened the meaning of the words before unleashing them.
"He does mean something to me, Fred…and I hate it…"
She wiped her eyes but found them dry, even though she wanted to sob as hard as she laughed.
Fred nodded, processing the fact that Anastasia could witness all Malfoy's wrongs and still love the prat. He took a deep breath to keep his tone even.
"Don't push me away again…please. And I promise, next time I overhear a conversation on an extendable ear I'll ask you directly about it."
She nodded and leaned into an awkward hug. He held her for two seconds before letting go.
"Now, let's come up with an excuse for why your face looks like that on the way back."