Mad North

--"I am but mad north by northwest--when the wind blows southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw"

--William Shakespeare, Hamlet

Chapter 5

Draco started awake at a loud thump. He looked about his bed, but saw only the dark upon dark that enveloped the dungeon after the torches were put out. He heard someone rustle the bedcovers Crabbe must have woken me up, he mused.

A gasp from one of the other beds made him sit up straight and grab his wand. "God, Solt," someone said, "You've still got your shoes on!"

Draco flung open the curtains to his bed, "Lumos!" the tip of his wand began to glow a pale green. He saw Tristan's bed curtains rustling, yanked them open, and glared down at the bed.

Tristan was in his bedclothes, under the covers, covering his eyes with his hand. His sister, still in her school uniform and robe, was sitting on the opposite side of the bed, taking off her shoes. She turned around and looked at Draco. For a moment, he felt the blood drain from his face and he took a step back. In the pale light she reminded him a demon, her eyes seemed to glow green like an animal's in the torchlight. She mouth was twisted into sneer that infected her entire face and seeped down into her slumped shoulders. He could make out the white of her eyeteeth, as if she were growling at him like a dog. His heart missed a beat in his chest. He blinked, and shook his head slightly, and reclaimed his step. "You can't be in here," he hissed.

She didn't squint in the light of his wand, and the feral look on her face didn't fade. "Why not?" she asked. He could barely hear her, she spoke so softly. Her eyes bored in to him, so that he felt at any moment holes would erupt where she looked and begin spouting his lifeblood onto the dungeon floor. "Because it's the boys dorm?"

"So?" she replied, "do you want me in yours instead?"

Draco shook his head again, the thought of that demonic face lying next to him making his shiver. "No," he growled, "you pervert."

"Ai, Malfoy," Blaise Zabini's voice came from his bed, "shut up, it's one o'clock in the bleeding morning."

"Tristan has his sister in his bed," Draco called behind him.

"So?" Blaise's face peeked out from his curtains. "You want her in yours?"

The comment knocked the wind out of Draco's sails for a moment. He stared at Blaise's head, seeming disembodied as the bed curtains hid the rest of him.

"Stop waving that in my face," Isolte swatted the tip of Draco's wand. He whipped around, felt the swish of his silky platinum hair against his neck and pointed his wand at her to cast a spell. Before he knew what had happened, Isolte stretched over her brother's prostrate form and physically knocked Draco's wand out of his hand. "I said stop waving that in my face."

Draco's wand flew through the air, above his own bed, to Crabbe's on the other side. "Eh!" he heard the boy say, probably from a sharp poke from the length of flying wood. "Whatcha throwing stuff at me for?" He opened his bed curtains, and saw Isolte half kneeling over Tristan, her eyes locked with Draco's.

Draco raised his hand, and Isolte smiled, a vicious thing that reminded Draco of the Cheshire Cat in Alice In Wonderland. "Go ahead," she whispered throatily. "I dare you."

He realized what he was doing, and lowered his open hand. "I don't hit girls," he said, "I'm not that kind of man."

Isolte snorted, "You're not a man at all," she turned, jumping off of the bed, and grabbing her satchel. She walked around to where Draco was standing and stood next to him She was a good few 7 cm taller than he. "Or haven't you looked in the mirror lately, little boy?"

Draco heard Blaise snigger at the opposite end of the room, but he kept his stormy gray eyes on Isolte, giving her his best 'if looks could kill you'd be a puddle of blood and bones on the floor right now' look.

"I came her to sleep," she broke eye contact with Draco, and looked about the room. "But its obvious I'm not going to get it here." She turned and walked out of the room.

The door closed gently, so that it almost blended in with Isolte's footsteps as she left. For a long moment, the only sound was Goyle's snoring.

Draco tore his gaze away from the door, and looked at Crabbe. He'd cralwed out of his bed, and was holding Draco's wand out to him. The light had gone out, of course, when Isolte had knocked it out of his hand. Where's the light coming from? he wondered vaguely.

He turned to Tristan, so see he'd crawled out of his bed, his fingers and toes glowing with a pinkish light. He had no experssion on his face, except for maybe sleep. Draco wanted to bend over and throttle him, wrap his hands around the boy's neck and shake him until his brains fell out on the bedcovers. Don't you know anything?! Don't you know she's a Gryffindor? Don't you know she doesn't come in here?

Tristan matched his gaze and finally said, "She wasn't causing any harm."

Draco took a deep breath. He could feel his cheeks burning. Keep cool, he told himself, you've already lost it once tonight. Don't do it again. He felt a wave of shame wash over him. He wanted to go back into his bed, close the curtains, and pretend this hadn't happened. "Why did you let her in here?" he demanded.

"She wasn't causing any harm," Tristan said again. "You don't have to be afraid of her."

"I'm not afraid of her!" Draco said, too loudly for his own taste. Goyle snorted in his sleep. He and Tristan broke eye contact and glanced at the boy's bed. When the snoring began again, they turned back to each other. "She's not supposed to be in here."

"Yeah," Crabbe said, "she's a girl."

Blaise sniggered again from the back of the room. "Like girls haven't been in the room before." He looked highly amused.

"She's a Gryffindor," Draco spat out the last word like a curse. "What don't you understand?"

Tristan sighed and shifted his position, the shadows on he walls moving as he moved his glowing fingers and toes. "She's my sister," he said slowly, as if explaining to a small child.

"You don't sleep with your sister," Draco felt his stomach lurch.

"Do you have a sister?" Tristan asked.

"No," Draco said.

"Do you have a twin?" Tristan asked.

"No," Draco said.

"Then how would you know?" Draco didn't answer. "Not everyone's mind is in the bog like yours," Tristan said, again very slowly.

"Stop being a pervert, Malfoy," Blaise said, "and go to bed."

Draco shot him a look, but he'd already closed his bed curtains. He turned back to Tristan, fingers still glowing and his face still impassive. "She's a Gryffindor," Draco hissed. "Slytherin and Gryffindor don't go together."

Tristan shrugged. "Then the Hat put her in the wrong house," he said. "She should have been in the same house as me." He muttered something, and the light emitting from his fingers and toes went out, leaving the room in darkness.

Draco heard him close the curtains to his bed, and decided to drop the argument for now. He turned back to his own bed. "Draco?" he heard Crabbe call.

"Go back to sleep Crabbe," he snapped, crawling into bed. He put his wand under his pillow and laid back down. He wasn't sleepy at all now, his face still burned from his confrontation with the Gryffindor girl. She shouldn't be in the room, it wasn't because she was a girl. It was because she was a Gryffindor. The Gryffindor will cut off their noses to spite their faces, and then cut off yours to spite you. They spouted nobility and loyalty and goodness and light, but they were traitors--all of them. Look at Wormtail. Even though he'd never met him, he'd heard his father talking to Crabbe's about him. He'd been a Gryffindor. And he had betrayed his friends. His father had never betrayed his friends. He had never betrayed his friends. He would betray someone he didn't care for in a heartbeat if it suited him. Of course he would. But a Gryffindor, they'd talk sweet honeyed goodness to you, and then spit bitters at you a moment later. They were deceitful. With the Slytherin, what you saw was what you got.

Malfoy remembered that first night of the term, and the smile Stands-Rike had flashed him. It had made his blood run cold. It reminded him of something...he still could place what. No, he thought, that wasn't a Gryffindor smile.

Was there such a thing? It sounded silly, now that he thought about it, but it fit somehow. There was something creepy about that smile, something not-quite-right about it.

When he opened them again, it was time to get ready for the day. He headed toward the showers, which were already full, stripped, and turn on the tap. The hot water hit his face and ran down his body in little rivulets at first, until the rivulets became streams, and then streams engulfed him in warm water. Steam rose around him, and he was enveloped in a little fog. He turned around, letting the water hit his back. The sounds of the other boys in the shower room broke through the fog of his shower as he reached for his bar of soap and began to lather his chest.

He knew that, he just didn't like to be reminded of it.

He ran his hands over his soapy chest, thin and scrawny, hairless and white. His stomach was flat, with his hand he could feel the muscles beneath, but the transulent skin hid them from view. He had no washboard, like some of the other boys. His thighs were thin and like his stomach, muscled underneath, but hidden from view. Fine Seeker legs, he told himself, lathering up his calves, the curly hair catching slightly on the bar of soap. His hand went in between his legs, washing his "unmentionables." It had the expected result, as it did with every boy in the shower room. Except for the little ones, maybe.

He glanced around quickly, there were a few First and Second Years in the room, their own bodies misty through the steam. But one could see they were just boys. Their balls, like their voices, hadn't dropped yet, and they hadn't developed the undeniable urge to greet themselves with a hardy handshake every morning in the shower.

He glanced over at Stands-Rike as he dried off. Tristan wasn't little. He was the same height as his sister and while thin, unlike Draco his skin allowed his muscles to peek through. His arms were etched with lines of one who is used to picking up heavy loads, his stomach was carved with a canyon down the middle and disappeared at the brown curls in between his thighs.

He had been so startled to find Isolte in the room last night. It didn't seem right, that a brother and sister should sleep in the same bed. Blaise hadn't seen anything wrong with it, and he doubted Crabbe would see something wrong if it came up and bit him the arse. He would have to ask his mother about it, she had siblings.

That morning Tristan sat with his sister, as always. Draco watched them from the Slytherin table, Isolte's voice still in his head, Little boy... It was like a curse.

It was like she had seen through him, looked into his eyes in the green light of his wand, and seen something. He felt the urge to smack her, his palm ached to feel the slap of skin underneath it. He almost felt the sting of contact, saw tears in her eyes and her mouth pucker from the pain. The red spot on her cheek...

He took a sip of his tea. He was annoyed with himself, he hadn't figured out what would be coming to her yet.

Isolte wasn't paying the least bit attention to the Slytherin table as she ate breakfast. She choked down a cup of tea, she'd put too much sugar in it, and now it felt like the syrup she used to help her mother make for the natives. She glanced behind her to the Gryffindor table, but none of them paid her any attention. She blushed, and turned back to her tea.

"Where were you last night?" Parvati had asked her when they had all gotten up in the morning. "Your bed was empty when we came back from class."

Isolte felt the blood drain from her face. How did they know she wasn't there?

Parvati, Lavendar and Hermione stood in their nightgowns, staring at her. Her breath caught in her throat. What was she going to tell them?

"I got lost," she said. Oh, how lame, Isolte, how lame!

Parvati nodded and Lavendar shook her head. Hermione sucked her teeth loudly and sighed, "Next time you need to wait for us so you know where you're going." All three of them had turned away from her, and nothing else was said.

It had taken her several seconds to gather herself. But she finally took a breath in, and then got ready for the day.

Tristan had met her at the door, not mentioning the night before. He had sat down, eaten his breakfast, and asked her if she slept well.

"No," she croaked.

"No need to take it out on me," he muttered.

That morning she had Transfiguration. Any thoughts she may have entertained of Professor McGonagall being the Gryffindor equivalent of Professor Snape fled within the first five minutes of class. She was strict, almost to the point of being mean. She took five points away each from Parvati and Lavendar for talking, and tapped Neville on the head in frustration with the butt end of her wand when, after his sixth time, he couldn't transfigure the tea cup in front of him into a toad. However, his own toad leapt out of the tea cup later in the class, causing Professor McGonagall to clutch her chest and gasp with surprise. "You're going to be the death of me, Longbottom," she said in her thick, Scottish brogue. Neville hadn't seemed particularly worried about McGonagall's imminent death.

Lunch had passed quickly, and Isolte had followed all the other Fourth Years to their Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. She had not been immune to the buzz of excitement that flew through the Gryffindor Common Room at Professor Moody's class. In fact, everyone was queued up in front of the room. Hermione came running up right before the bell rang, her arms full of books.

The professor clanked into the room, surveyed it's occupants, and then proceeded ask the students which curses were most heavily punished by wizarding law.

Several hands rose tentatively into the air. Moody pointed at Ron, though his magical eye was fixed on Lavender, whom he had just corrected for talking to Parvati.

Isolte had never thought about that question before. She had simply figured that one didn't use curses on people, it wasn't a good thing to do.

Isolte focused on Ron's answer. "Er," he said, "my dad told me about one...Is it called the Imperius Curse or something?"

"Ah yes," said Moody appreciatively. Isolte had never heard of the Imperius Curse, perhaps it was called something different in South Africa.

Moody took a spider out of a glass jar. He pointed his wand at it as it skittered across his hand and said, "Imperio!"

The spider leapt from Moody's hand on a fine thread of silk and began to swing backward and forward as though on a trapeze. It stretched out its legs rigidly, then did a back flip, breaking the thread and landing on the desk, where it began to cartwheel in circles. Moody jerked his wand, and the spider rose onto two of its hind legs and went into what was unmistakably a tap dance.

Everyone was laughing--everyone except Moody.

"Think it's funny do you?" he growled. "You'd like it, would you, if I did it you?"

The laughed died away almost instantly.

"Total control," said Moody quietly as the spider balled itself up and began to roll over and over. "The Imperius Curse can be fought," he said, "an I'll be teaching you how. But it takes real strength of character, and not everyone's got it. Better avoid being hit with it if you can. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" he barked.

Isolte jumped so high at the sudden change in the volume of the old man's voice that her thighs hit the bottom of her desk.

"Any one else know one?" he asked. He called on Neville, "yes?"

"There's one--" said Neville in a small voice, "the Cruciatus Curse."

Isolte felt her breath catch in her throat again. She folded her arms around herself, and kept her eyes on Neville, refusing to turn back to Professor Moody to watch spell performed. "Crucio!" she heard the professor's voice mutter, barely above a whisper.

The color drained out of Neville's face. Everything around him faded from Isolte's vision, so that he was all she saw. She knew something was going on just outside her vision, she knew something terrible, but she couldn't bring herself to move her head. She saw Neville's hands go white, trying to grip finger holds in the wood of his desk. She saw his brown eyes go wide, and his mouth drop open slightly. She saw horror spread over his face like a blush. She tried to open her mouth to say something, but nothing came out.

She wrenched her eyes away from Neville toward the teacher's desk. She saw the spider, writhing it's swelled limbs in the air, but superimposed on it was the face of a boy. The brown of the wooden teacher desk became the golden savannah, and the smooth black of the spider's body became the smooth black skin of Zuani.

Zuani was tall and handsome, the crush of every girl in school. He was in her dance class after school. Even Isolte had fallen for him. His smile was perfectly straight, and it framed bright white teeth. His skin was like dark chocolate, ready to be licked up in the African sun. His limbs were long and graceful. He was often her dancing partner in ballet. He understood about magic. Even though he had none, his grandmother was a powerful witch. She was a native, she had learned "the old ways," but Zuani knew about it.

And Isolte had dropped her guard. She had been nice to him, gave him her condolences on his grandmother's death.

"How did you know my grandmother dead?" he asked. "I haven't told anyone."

"I saw it," she told him.

"What do you mean?" his voice had an edge to it, his accent was a little too thick.

"In the well at the edge of the village," she said.

As soon as she said it, she wished she hadn't. Zuani took a step back, one of his long, graceful legs, almost a jump. Isolte felt her face contort to a wince, and she took a step forward, holding her hands out to him. He wasn't her friend. He was her rival, it was a game with them, who would get the better parts in a ballet, who would get the dance teacher's praise. She had thrown back the curtain of her dislike for him, thought of his handsome features twisted in sadness, and given him her condolences.

"Josie!" he hissed at her. "Devil! You cursed her, didn't you? She was fine, before she got the breathing sickness."

Isolte wasn't sure she heard him correctly. "She'd been sick for a long time, Zuani, she--"

"Josie!" he screamed.

"I'm not a devil," Isolte heard her voice crack.

"You cursed her. You used the well to bring her the breathing sickness."

She couldn't believe what she was hearing. Here was a well educated, modern boy. He had been to a good school, he was intelligent, he was surrounded by modern people. And he was speaking like a superstitious native. How could he say that? She had known him all of her life. His grandmother had taught her spells. His grandmother had taught her potions. He had seen her at his grandmother's knee as the old woman wove the fine grasses into baskets talking about pneumonia. How could he say that?

"I did no such thing!" Isolte screeched back at him.

"You cursed her!" Zuani shrieked.

"I did not," Isolte shouted, "you want a curse?" She had whipped out her wand and pointed it at him, right there in the back of the school yard, with the few students who were left after dance practice watching. "Crucio!" she screeched.

Zuani and dropped to the ground and screamed. His body writhed, and spittle flecked from his mouth.

"Stop it!" someone had yelled.

"Stop it!" it was Hermione.

Isolte gasped, and turned to face her, but she wasn't looking at her. She was looking at Neville. He was still white faced and terror stricken.

"Pain," said Moody softly, "you don't need thumbscrews or knives to torture someone if you can perform the Cruciatus Curse."

Isolte turned back to Moody, and watched numbly as he took the last spider out of the jar and extinguished its life with the Killing Curse. It was as if she were watching a movie, as if she weren't really there in the room with the teacher and spiders. She had never heard of Avada Kedavra before, and she was glad of it.

She took out a quill and paper with the rest of the class and took notes on the Unforgivable Curses. She kept drifting to Zuani, the look on his face when she had lifted her wand, the spit all over his chin, the look of horror on the students' faces around her, the fear in her heart that her life was now over, she had done something that could never be forgiven. Moody himself said it was an automatic life sentence in Azkaban.

But nothing had happened to her. No one mentioned it ever again. Zuani walked on eggshells around her during dance class, smiling his brilliant smile. It was as if it never happened.

She walked out of the room still swimming in her own thoughts, the drone of the students voices was just background noise. It opened the halls up again, and again the school saw everything, saw the unforgivable, saw that she had nothing to redeem herself with, not even here, half the world away.

She bumped into a Ravenclaw as she sat down for dinner. The older girl scowled at her. "What's the matter with you? Watch where you're going."

"Sorry," Isolte muttered.

"Why don't you sit at your own table?" she asked.

"Leave her alone, Sara," Isolte heard Phillip's voice from behind her, "she can sit where she wants."

Isolte felt the Great Hall open up even wider, the enchanted ceiling became the outside, there was no distinction between them. The wall sucked at her, stretched her out like silly putty, making all of her imperfections elongated.

"Go sit your arse down at the Gryffindor table where it belongs," Sara said.

What did it matter? The school could see everything anyway. This place, that was supposed to be a haven, that was supposed to save her, it was the same as everywhere else. Why bother?

"Why don't you sit your ass down and shut up before I stuff your wand so far up your nose, it'll be sticking out your ears?" The venom in Isolte's voice hit home, Sara blinked in surprise and took a step back.

She recovered quickly, however. "Ass?" she said, "can't you even speak proper English?"

Isolte took a step forward, traversing the space between she and Sara in one long, graceful stride. She drew her hand back, made a fist, and brought it to bare on Sara's cheek just as the ball of her foot hit the floor. Like a dance step, a voice in the back of her said, keep in time, one two three, one two three.

Sara went sprawling backwards, ramming into several Hufflepuffs as they sat unawares on the bench to their table. Isolte followed, taking out her wand, and throwing her hand back. "Expell--"

"Miss Stands-Rike!" Someone caught hold of her wrist before she finished the spell and breathed out her name in undisguised shock. She turned to see Professor McGonagall, her dark hair piled on her head, her tartan witch's hat askew. "What in the world are you doing?"

Isolte looked into her eyes, and said nothing.

"Drop the wand, Miss Stands-Rike," Professor McGonagall said.

Isolte didn't move.

Professor McGonagall's lips pinched into a thin line, and the pressure on Isolte's wrist got tighter. She's stronger than she looks, Isolte noted, still staring into the teacher's eyes.

"Put it down," she said again, her hand tightening more on Isolte's wrist.

Isolte knew she couldn't hold the wand in her hand much longer, the pressure of Professor McGonagall's fingers were beginning to hurt her.

"Put the wand down, Isolte." She heard Professor Dumbledore's voice from her left. It was soft, and not at all angry, and she thought for a moment she had imagined it. She turned from McGonagall to stare into the Headmaster's bright blue eyes. They were framed with white eyelashes, and they sparkled like light off of the Caribbean water. "There isn't any need for that, Isolte," he said softly, "everything is quite all right."

Isolte let her fingers uncurl around her wand. She heard it clatter on the floor and felt her wrist being jerked. "You come with me, young lady," Professor McGonagall's voice was strained. She walked quickly to the door of the Great Hall, dragging Isolte behind her.