Disavowals

Chapter Nine - Tremolo

The atmosphere in the Slytherin common room could generally be cut with a knife in at least three places - a side effect of the colliding egos - but tonight it was positively deadly. The moment Theo entered, he could feel the tension. Draco and Pansy, revelling in their position as senior Prefects, were giving the first-years the "welcome to Slytherin" lecture. Theo felt heartily sorry for the first-years. At least the seventh-year Prefects when he'd been that age (hard as it was to remember) had lent some dignity to the whole cunning and ambition thing. Apart from family tradition, he'd come away from the orientation feeling pride in his House. There was pride in Malfoy's speech, but it was ill-concealed arrogance. Theo felt like shouting No, that's not what being a Slytherin is about, but instead he worked his way around the edge of the common room, avoiding Malfoy's baleful glare. He felt particularly sorry for a chubby dark-haired boy who had clearly not been expecting to end up in Slytherin, and looked much as if he wanted to run away.

Theo had spotted Crabbe and Goyle lurking behind Draco in the common room, so he was hopeful of a clear run to his dormitory. That was spoilt by the sight of Blaise leaning over Theo's (thankfully unopened) trunk. He decided to take the situation head-on.

"Just what do you think you're doing?" he purred viciously as he walked in.

Blaise straightened insolently. Theo had never been able to read him, never tried to, and was now wishing he'd tried harder.

"The question, Nott, is what you think you're doing."

"Going to bed," Theo replied icily.

"You'll be lucky to see Christmas, you know," the other boy told him. A contemptuous smile flickered. He had always been one for controlling his expressions, Blaise Zabini. "I always thought you weren't very bright."

"You think I care about what you think?" Theo shot back. Besides, it was a blatant lie. Blaise had asked for his help in Ancient Runes all last year.

"You don't seem to care what anybody thinks." For a moment, there was frank disbelief on the other boy's face. "How could you do that?"

Theo let his eyes drop to Blaise's left forearm, and up again. "I'm not the one who needs to be asked that question, Zabini."

"I'm not ye-" Blaise clamped his mouth shut. "I'm on the right side."

That seemed very funny, for some strange reason, and Theo found himself laughing so hard he had to sit down on his bed. The right side. Right. How were you supposed to tell?

Blaise snorted. "You've lost it, havent you? You're just as insane as Potter. You're dead. You're a bloody traitor, and you're dead, and all you're doing is laughing!"

Theo sobered. So, one of his dormmates wasn't a paid-up Death Eater. That was good news. Of a sort. He wasn't under any illusions as to Blaise Zabini's loyalties.

He gave Blaise a mirthless stare. "You sound very confused, Zabini. I'll make it easy. I do not want any part of the Dark Lord's policies. That's it. I'm quite happy to call a truce for this year."

Blaise didn't flicker a dark eyelash. "No truces with traitors. I don't make those decisions, but I know the score."

Theo shrugged. It had been a long shot. "Very well, then. Trot along after Malfoy."

"That's what you should be doing, Nott." Draco Malfoy was standing in the doorway, a sneer written, as always, on his rodent-like features. "I always knew you'd end in a bad way."

Theo felt the first stirrings of intimidation. It was the sheer bulk of Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, backing Draco up; Blaise's dark stare.

When did we all come to this? I can remember my very first night in here. Six years ago. We weren't close, Crabbe and Goyle were still idiots, Draco was still arrogant, Blaise was still impossible to know, but it wasn't like this.

How in Merlin's name did we drift into lethal hatred? No, hate's too strong. I don't hate any of them, I just don't care.

Indifference, then. It's a poisoned brew, whatever it is.

He met Draco's eyesindifferently. "Simply because people do not think you put the sun in the sky doesn't make them inferior beings, Malfoy. I don't agree with the things you believe in. Deal with it."

"You're a traitor, Nott, and you're going to get what's coming to you." There was vicious delight in the blond boy's voice.

Theo realised the word didn't matter any more. Ornot in Draco Malfoy's mouth. What his father thought; what Anne thought; things like that mattered. Nobody in here did. They were just the people he had to endure for one more year. They'd ignored him, for the most part; now they were after him.

"I'm terrified," he said sarcastically. "You lay one finger on me here, and everybody will know who did it and why. You can't touch me here, and I can't touch you. Shall we leave it at that?"

Crabbe and Goyle's faces looked like thunder. Perhaps Malfoy had promised them they could have a go at him. Thugs.

Malfoy scowled, and Theo tensed. It was pure, pure bluff, but there was just enough truth in it that -

"You just wait, Nott," Malfoy spat. "You just wait. You might have decided to throw in your lot with the Mudbloods and Muggle-lovers, but it's not going to be long now before all of you are going to learn exactly what you're up against." He rubbed his left arm, unconsciously. "We're claiming back what's ours. You can't stop us. Nobody can. Not Dumbledore, not Potter, not anybody."

"Does it make you feel better now you're standing behind the biggest bully in the playground, Malfoy?" Theo said. "Do you even have any idea what you're doing or why you're doing it? You've just thrown away any chance you had of independence or hope or a future because your precious Dark Lord offered you a few scrapings of power. There's nothing in it for you. The Dark Lord needs stupid young idiots, like all of you, all four of you, because otherwise he couldn't get any power. He's a half-blood. Did you know that? He's trying to get revenge on the world because his father abandoned him, and he's using people like you to do it, because you're so easy to manipulate. You've been trained up to it, havent you? Told again and again what the truth is. But damned if you've ever really thought about what it means. It just bolsters your ego, having someone you know isn't as good as you are. After all, they'd be a threat, otherwise. Geniuses like Granger, Quidditch players like Potter. You're willing to start a war on the basis of something you've never even thought about. Is that worth it?"

Not even a puzzled frown crossed any of their faces.

"They don't deserve to live," Malfoy sneered. "You've just fallen for their little line. They're worthless. They're stealing our power. That's all I need to know."

"Did it ever occur to you that the world is not a zero-sum game?" Theo snapped. "Ever?"

"Huh?"

"There is no rule saying somebody else has to lose for you to win!"

Blaise shrugged. "Someone has to be in power. Better if its us. That's just how the world works, Nott."

But it shouldn't b-

I sound like an idealist.

I sound like Potter.

Merlin help me.

"The world," Theo sighed, "just is. If you just concentrated on your own lives instead of trying to ruin other people's, it wouldn't fall to pieces."

"The Mudbloods would take over-"

"I know this is a new and unfamiliar concept," Theo said bitingly, "but the world is not, necessarily, out to get you." It's out to get me.

"I could almost feel sorry for you," Blaise told him. He glanced at Draco and his bodyguards. "You're on a hiding to nothing, Nott."

Theo allowed himself a smile. "Quite possibly. But nobody owns me."

Nobody owns me, either, he could see Blaise thinking, but the other boy didn't dare say it. Not in front of three Death Eaters.

Where did we all go wrong?

*

Anne had spent the entire feast artfully avoiding conversation with her dormmates. This was not particularly hard in normal circumstances, and could best be done by making up a random piece of gossip and asking Gabby if she thought it was true. The ensuing discussion would meander away from Anne quite successfully.

This evening it was more difficult. Ellie and Mai had clearly briefed Sarah and Gabby on the particulars of their train ride and all four were doing their best to point the conversation that way. Anne was reduced to playing the idiot, which was not much fun at all.

"So, Anne, how were your holidays?" Sarah would say.

"Pretty boring, really," Anne would reply in the most casual of tones. "I barely saw anyone, just stayed around home."

"Not making any new friends?"

Anne would frown. "Unless you count minding our new neighbours, I think not. They're only six and nine. What about you, how did your holidays go?"

So the conversation continued. Anne scored a good half-hour's break by turning around and starting up a long conversation about Arithmancy with Gabby's boyfriend Chris, who was sitting across from her. Gabby, acting on reflex, stepped in and took over. Since she was the most persistent of the four, it relieved the pressure somewhat.

By the time they went down to the dorms, Gabby was almost jumping up and down in sheer frustration. Anne wished, not for the first time, that her dormmates were morewell, less interested in knowing everything about each other. She liked them well enough, but none of them was the sort of person she would have ever picked to spend seven years with. Still, it could be worse.

She revised that opinion as soon as they had walked down the barrel-roofed corridor and into their dorm.

"Right," said Gabby the minute the door was shut, "Spill, Anne. Mai and Ellie told us everything."

"Well there's not that much for them to tell you, so I don't see what the fuss is all about," Anne hedged.

"Anne!" Mai exclaimed, horrified. "You spent the whole train ride here sitting next to Theodore Nott, and he's practically a Death Eater, and half of Hogwarts dropped in to say hi for some weird reason, and you act like it's all normal! What's going on?"

"Nothing is going on -" Anne began.

"- that hasn't been going on for quite some time?" Sarah completed her sentence, eyes narrowed. "None of us is stupid, Anne. You were always going off to DA meetings all last year, for one thing, and you never told any of us. Why not?"

"You never asked," Anne said simply, sitting down on her bed. She might as well be comfortable for this. "You never ask where I'm going, anymore."

It was true, and from their reactions, cutting. They had always assumed about her. Assumed she had nothing to hide and little to say. The second was truethe first, in a sense. Shed never had much to hide. But no reasons to tell them, either.

"So you know Nott from the DA?" Sarah pounced.

"Wellno," Anne admitted. "No, I knew him before that."

And I joined because he suggested it, but Ill keep what secrets I can where Theos concerned.

"Really," said Ellie. "Play the flute, does he?"

The other four giggled, and Anne struggled against a blush.

"The piano, actually," she replied with as much dignity as she could manage. Sarah leant back against a bedpost, folding her arms.

There was a pause. "Oh," said Gabby, sounding disappointed. "Thats all? You know him because he does music as well?"

"Thats all," Anne said quickly, seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. "I bumped into him a few times around the practice rooms."

"And he actually stopped to talk to you?" asked Mai, sounding amazed. "Why?"

"Boredom? Curiosity? I dont know." Anne did know, when she thought about it. The desire to distract himself from everything he didnt want to think of. "Hes really not that bad."

"Im sure you dont think so," Gabby smirked. "Not bad looking, is he?"

"I hadnt really thought about it," Anne lied through her teeth. "There are more important things than how someone looks."

Like how they look at you.

Like what Theo looks like when hes looking at you and thinks you havent noticed.

Shut UP!

"Ah-hah," said Mai. "You do like him. I knew it."

"Well of course she does," said Sarah, tilting her head thoughtfully. "The question is whether shes done anything about it."

"Well?"

Anne said rapidly, in a very small voice, "Yes he likes me and I know that Im not stupid and I like him, yes, and he knows that and he knows I know he likes me and I know he knows I like him so were all sorted out thank you very much and can we stop talking about this now?"

There was assorted snickering from out of her range of vision.

"So you and he -" That was Ellie, belabouring the point.

"Yes," said Anne, still blushing. "Its not really any of your business."

That had been a mistake, she knew as soon as it came out.

"Anne," said Mai soothingly "of course its our business. Especially if your boyfriend is in Slytherin."

"Some of us don't like our lives to be fodder for everyone's gossip," Anne said. "Okay? Yes, I'm friends with Theodore Nott, and yes, we - anyway, the thing is, I never mentioned it because he couldn't. He's not a Death Eater and he's not evil, he's just not -" -a gossip-mongering extroverted Hufflepuff, oh, I wish I could say that "- a very public person. And his family wouldn't have been very happy if - if they'd known he was even talking to a Muggle-born. That's all there is to it."

Sarah made as if to speak, frowning, then sighed. "We should really go to bed now, guys. It's classes tomorrow."

"Oh, stop being such a Prefect," Gabby muttered.

"She's right, though." Ellie shrugged. She gave Anne a beady stare. "But you still haven't explained why."

"Why what?"

"Why anything. Nott's cranky and arrogant and Slytherin. And you're so quiet and nice. Why do you like him at all?"

Anne busied herself with finding her pyjamas. "Because - he's not really - well, yes, he is like that, but you can't judge people on one train ride."

As well ask why a sensible boy like Chris goes out with Gabby who talks a hundred words a minute and could get a job as a gossip columnist.

"I'd be asking why he likes Anne," Mai said through her pyjama top. "You're too sweet for him."

"Sweet?" choked Anne.

"But you are," protested Sarah.

Anne shook her head. No. Nicola is sweet. Some of the first-years are sweet. I'm shy and quiet. There's a difference.

"I am not sweet. I get on with Theo because we're similar, not because we're different."

Well. We are, but not as much as I thought.

"You're not like him at all!" said Ellie indignantly.

Anne pulled back the sheets. "I'm introverted and I like my space and I love music and I like to think. I'm very much like him, in some ways."

Sarah leaned over to blow out her candle. "Good night, everyone."

Anne shot her a quick smile of gratitude as she settled into bed. "'Night."

Yeah, this is going to be fun.

I knew there was a reason I never told them about this.

*

"I think I'm getting ideals," Theo told Anne one evening in the library. She was feeling very exposed sitting across a table from her for anyone walking by to see, but then, she'd spent the whole week feeling like that. The concept of being able to address Theo in public was so new and strange that they barely had spoken, just exchanged hurried glances and smiles in the corridors. Then again, that might be more to do with their workloads; Anne was feeling the pressure every bit as much as she had last year, and even after one week Theo had declared that he should have "done a Weasley".

Anne raised an eyebrow. "Ideals? Oh dear. That does sound dangerous. Have you seen Madam Pomfrey?"

Theo's lips quirked. "No. I don't have ideals. That's the problem. I've been expecting other people to have them and it's very worrying."

"You know lots of idealistic people - "

"Would you say Draco Malfoy is one of them?"

"Nobody said ideals had to be sweetness and light. Hitler had ideals. Lots of them."

"He was the Muggle version of Grindlewald, wasn't he?"

Anne blinked. "I'm impressed. How did you know that?"

"Terry mentioned it. She was off on rant about your grandparents, or something. I lost her once she started talking about some Muggle war in the forties."

"That would be World War II." Anne grinned. Some war in the forties. Oh dear. "Only the biggest war anywhere, ever."

"Yes, well, Muggle history." Theo waved it away with a flick of his hand. "Muggle history is wars."

"Human history is wars. I read somewhere about how there's only fifty years in the last five thousand there hasn't been a war recorded somewhere. We define ourselves by wars."

"Yes, but wizarding wars aren't with other humans."

Anne just looked at him until he relented.

"Okay, okay, they're mostly not with other wizards. They're with other beings. History of Magic, and all that. Muggle wars are just about power."

Anne rolled her eyes. "Wars are about power. Period. No matter who's fighting them. If they weren't about power, there wouldn't be a war. Even the religious ones are about power really." She crossed out the last sentence she'd written. Professor Sinistra probably didn't want a moral essay in the middle of Europa. Talking and writing had never been a good idea.

"Religi- I don't want to know." Theo paused. "Ideals are stupid."

"Which is where this conversation began." Anne dipped her quill in the inkpot. "So who have you been weighing and finding wanting, then?"

There was a short silence, and she looked up. Theo was staring moodily at the bookshelf across from him, arms propped on the desk. "My dormmates."

"Ah." Anne frowned. "Why?"

"I don't know!" Theo snapped. "I found myself trying to tell them they were wrong being Death Eaters, which is true, but it's stupid bothering, because I know they're not going to listen. Three of them probably have orders to kill me and the other one will hold their cloaks while they do it and there am I trying to give them a big moral lecture about how the Dark Lord's just using them. It was true, but why bother?"

"Well, they're your dormmates. You know them pretty well. I'd try to talk my dormmates out of doing something stupid."

"Your dormmates aren't as stupid as mine - well, they're stupid about different things."

Anne's head jerked up. "I'm sorry?"

Theo shrugged. "You know what I mean."

"Really." Her quill point nearly went through the parchment. "I should tell them you said that."

"You won't," Theo said absently. "They're probably already on at you about your evil Slytherin boyfriend. I've been blackened enough in their eyes as it is."

Anne settled for muttering under her breath. Drat Theo. Her friends weren't stupid. Not really. But he was right, she wouldn't tell them. She was on the back foot enough about him as it was.

"Don't you have some Transfiguration research to do?" she asked him coolly, concentrating on her writing.

The pages of a book rustled.

"I suppose I do," Theo said. "Anne?"

"Yes?" She didn't look up.

"Sorry."

That did grab her attention. "What?"

"You heard me," Theo said stiffly, taking his turn at table-top examination.

"You're -" Anne stopped, hearing the echo of herself, eighteen months and a lifetime ago.

You're only saying that so I'll play the music.

Yes, I am, aren't I?

She sighed. "What am I going to do with you?"

"No idea whatsoever." He looked up and smiled. "Well, maybe one or two-"

Anne batted at him, but he was quick enough to catch her hand. They stayed that way in comfortable silence for a few seconds until Anne remembered that they were in the library and, unfortunately, she had an essay to finish.

"We should work," she said reluctantly.

"We should," Theo agreed after a moment, and let her hand go. "So much to do, so little time."

"It feels like a long time."

"It feels like not enough." Theo paused. "But then, I suppose, there's never been enough."

*

"Theo," Anne told him just before she left, "you know you do have ideals."

"No I don't. I strenuously avoid them. Ideals get you into trouble." He looked her in the eye soberly. "I know, all right? My family has ideals. They're dangerous."

"Why?"

"They make you say things. They make you try to make other people believe them, too, and then other people get upset, and it all goes to custard. I refuse to have ideals."

"What do you have, then?"

"Hopes."

"Same thing." Anne squinted at her parchment. Her spread hand was a fairly reliable eight inches, and by that she was still an inch short. She'd have to finish it in bed, or before breakfast tomorrow.

"Not the same thing at all." Theo was stacking his textbooks.

"What are they, then?"

"What are what?"

"Your hopes." Anne pushed her chair in, bending to check under the table for scraps of parchment. Madam Pince was a stickler about rubbish.

Theo paused. "That we'll survive to the end of the year, the Dark Lord will die painfully, and this stupid war will be over. That I won't have to watch my back every moment of the day. That sort of thing. "

"Are you going to be okay?"

"Of course." Theo shrugged. "None of them are going to murder me in the Library, for goodness' sake."

But he looked over his shoulder as he said it, and Anne knew that it wasn't all right.

This year's different.

Let it not be fatally.