Turning the Corner

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

You'll Bawl for Me

The scene that followed was extremely wet. Morag and Lavender had the presence of mind to pull the Patils into the corridor to the left before the stampeding Slytherins noticed anything amiss. Fortunately the Slytherins were too preoccupied with the idea of taunting or comforting Flavia Spinks to recognise that Padma had escaped them, and they merged with the crowd that was charging right into the Great Hall. I told Terry to herd the other Ravenclaws after them, while I checked that Padma was really all right.

"I don't suppose she is all right," Terry commented. "Why do you still feel responsible for her?" But he didn't wait for an answer.

The four girls were all weeping in the first classroom off the corridor. Lavender frowned at me when I entered, but Morag shook her head at Lavender, and after that they both ignored me. I put a locking charm on the door (it wasn't strong enough to resist Alohamora, but it would give the hint to sensitive people that we wanted privacy) and a silencing charm on the classroom walls. Padma was sitting on a desk with her head on Parvati's shoulder, and Parvati had her head against Padma's hair - that midnight blue-black hair that I had once thought so beautiful. Morag was standing with her arm around Padma, and Lavender was patting Parvati's arm. Through some very incoherent sobs, the girls managed to ask one another what "he" had done.

"He's going with someone else!" wept Parvati and Padma.

"Are you sure?" asked Lavender.

"Of course I'm sure!" said Parvati. "He came to me at break today and said he had something serious to tell me. And then he said he only liked me as a friend. And I was quite surprised and said, of course, that was all I'd expected. And then he said he'd met someone else whom he really fancied."

Silence. Padma prompted, "And?"

"And then he just waited for me to say something. So in the end I said, 'Do you mean you don't want to take me to the ball any more?' And he said, 'No, I'm still going to take you to the ball.' Then I said, 'So why are you telling me this?' And he said, 'Well, do you want to go to the ball with a bloke who'd rather be taking someone else?'"

I sat down in the far corner uncomfortably. I might have known that Zacharias Smith would botch this kind of conversation - and probably tell Parvati to blame me for bad advice, too.

Parvati sobbed again for a while, then continued: "So I said - I had to say - I mean, he was expecting me to say - 'Are you hoping that I'll be the one to jilt you?' And he said, 'Yes. Because if you don't I'll take you to the ball. But I'm sure you don't want me to do that. So why don't you do the sensible thing?' I was never so humiliated. All I could say was, 'Fine, I release you. I don't want to go to the ball with you. Find someone else. Will that do as a jilting?' And he said, 'Yes, that was perfect,' and walked away. Can you imagine the cheek?"

After Parvati had sobbed some more, she remembered her manners, and asked Padma, "So what happened to you? Who was taking you anyway? I thought you'd broken up with Michael?"

"Oh, I had. This was someone else. He asked me the day before yesterday, after Michael and I were well and truly finished."

"Who was it?" Parvati repeated.

Padma looked very confused, made a few inarticulate sounds, and covered her mouth with her hands. "Oh, never mind who. A scum bag of an apology for a man."

Lavender suddenly looked enlightened. She crept over and whispered in Padma's ear.

Padma's eyes widened, and she nodded. "I can't believe I fell for his lines," she said. "B-but he was really very clever. He chatted me up several times. He didn't ask me to be his partner until our third or fourth conversation. And he went to town on how much prejudice there was against his House - "

"Oh!" exclaimed Morag. "So the boy was in Slytherin!"

" - and how his family had no Death Eater connections, unlike - " Padma seemed to choke again.

"You mean that all four of the other Slytherin boys do have Death Eater connections?" asked Lavender with interest. "If I'd known that, I wouldn't have felt so guilty about disliking them so much."

"Well, he might not have been strictly truthful if his purpose was engaging Padma," Morag pointed out reasonably. "So when did Mr Treacherous tell you he'd changed his mind?"

"Never," said Padma. "That's what I'm trying to tell you. He didn't say anything. He just asked another girl to be his partner, and left me to find out when she mentioned it to her friends."

Morag made a connection. "You mean the other girl was a Slytherin? Is that what all the fuss in Herbology was about? I thought it was just Tracey Davies insulting your dress sense. Tracey's the girl in question, I suppose."

"No," said Padma, but Parvati, still not thinking very clearly, wept, "Yes! I'm sure it's Tracey! I saw him talking to her at dinner yesterday. That means he actually asked her before he dumped me - I mean, asked me to dump him."

I thought this was a rather long leap of logic, but all the girls seized on it at once.

"The cheat!"

"The sneak!"

"The two-timer!"

"If Tracey had said no," sobbed Parvati, "Zacharias wouldn't have bothered telling me anything, he'd have just taken me to the ball as if he'd never considered taking anyone else. Michael Corner, stop staring at us! Do you think this is the right way for boys to behave?"

"No," I said. That seemed inadequate, so I added: "I - I suppose you were pretty keen on Zacharias."

"Not really," wailed Parvati, as if this were unimportant. "I just wanted to go to the ball."

"Well, what's wrong with going alone?" I asked. "I, among many, will be going only for the food."

Parvati and Lavender instantly dissolved into more tears, but Padma raised her head and looked at me sharply.

"Michael!" she exclaimed. "You don't have a partner. And I don't have a partner."

"Er - so it would appear." I hadn't cottoned on.

"Well, we can go together! Just as friends, I mean. You and I. Going as friends is fine. So that neither of us has to go alone. That would work!"

"NO." I didn't feel I'd said that, the word just threw itself out of my mouth. "That would NOT work."

"Why not?"

"Because we've only just broken up. It would not be cool to go to the Yule Ball together, and have everyone think we'd reconciled, when really it would only be an arrangement of convenience. No, no, and no!"

Padma stared at me disdainfully. "You don't have to sound quite so rejecting. I heard you the first time, thank you very much."

During the rather dreadful pause that followed, it hit me very forcefully that I had not wanted to go to the ball with Padma. The opportunity had been there, and I had rejected it out of hand. And I found myself grinning from ear to ear.

"Michael, the rest of us aren't quite in the mood for a joke," said Morag, far more gently than I would have expected.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to be - well, anything, really. I was just thinking about the difference between wanting a particular partner and wanting any partner. It's not at all the same kind of misery."

"Well, we're not likely to get any partners now, are we?" said Parvati. "Pretty well everyone is paired up."

"Oh, I'm sure there must be available boys," protested Lavender unconvincingly. "Michael, don't you know some available boys?"

"Yes, loads," I said. "For example - " But I faltered. Although I trusted Robert's statistics, nobody wants to dance with a statistic. When it came to real people, I couldn't think of anyone except myself who was still out of luck.

Lavender had a sudden inspiration. "We can read our cards!" she said. "Parvati, do you have a deck in your bag? Surely they'll lead us in the right direction."

Parvati's eyes flowed again. "I read mine on Sunday afternoon," she said. "I couldn't find Professor Trelawney, so I had to do it myself. And the cards said - they said - it was so clear! - that I must keep an open mind, because a man was about to make a proposal, and he would be my true love."

"Oh, no," sobbed Padma. "And the next man was Zacharias Smith!"

"Actually Zacharias was the second," confessed Parvati. "The first man to invite me to the ball - practically the minute I'd put the cards away - was Gregory Goyle. I wasn't desperate enough to accept him. But Goyle, Zacharias, what difference does it make? Zacharias has changed his mind, and Goyle - well, he can't be my true love ... can he?"

She seemed so uncertain that I nearly laughed again. So much for trusting the tarot cards!

Morag, who was refusing to meet my eye, managed to say it more tactfully. "The cards aren't magical objects, you know, Parvati. They only absorb the psychic energies of the Seer."

Parvati frowned, not following.

"Well, it's pretty well established that the cards never work for Muggles, isn't it? And the real prophets - the ones who truly understand Divination - claim they don't work for ordinary witches either. You have to be a particular kind of Seer to be able to channel the future vibes into a pack of cards. Perhaps Professor Trelawney is one of those. But you, Parvati - "

"Professor Trelawney always said I was a true Seer!" Parvati protested.

"But that was because you're good at the crystal," Lavender reminded her. "It doesn't follow that you're necessarily the card-reading type as well."

"I should say not," said Morag, with unusual firmness. "If the cards are telling you to marry Gregory Goyle, I would take that as positive proof that the cards are wrong this time."

"Goyle probably only asked you because you were smiling at him," said Padma. "The good news on the cards must have made you look happy."

"I believe," I agreed, "that if you look cheerful and friendly, there would be a couple of boys out there who'd invite the two of you as friends. Otherwise, of course, you can always go to the ball only for the food."

None of the girls thought that was funny, but the bell for afternoon classes was ringing, so we un-charmed the classroom and drooped off to History of Magic.