Chimaera of Judgement



CHAPTER FOUR: Jezabel Skirrow

Even four years after he had first started at Hogwarts, Albus winced as he passed through the seemingly-solid barrier between platforms nine and ten, and - instead of bloodying his nose - emerged on Platform Nine-And-Three-Quarters, where the gleaming crimson Hogwarts Express sat, billowing steam and awaiting its passengers with eager anticipation. As he stood admiring it, he felt a sharp pain in the small of his back.

"Ouch!"

"Get a move on, will you, Albie?" Lily grunted, having rammed into the back of him; Dobby was hooting indignantly from atop his trunk. "You're holding everything up!"

Grumbling, he pushed his trolley toward the back of the carriages, looking around for Rose, when a messy, dirty-blonde mop of hair came bobbing toward him. Eventually, when it had drawn closer, he could distinguish a person underneath it.

"Albus," the boy said, caramel complexion glowing in the mist. "How've you been?"

"Not bad, Tranky," he replied. "Heard you and the folks came 'round our place a few days ago."

"We did. You were grounded, weren't you?"

"I was." Albus glanced around. "Seen Rose anywhere?"

"Oh yes. She was headed toward the prefects' carriage. I'm heading there myself in a few moments; I've been tapped for Ravenclaw."

With a start, Albus realised he'd plum forgotten he would not be riding with the other students now he had been given the honourary "P". He laughed and replied, "But I'm going there, too!"

"Oh, how lovely! Well, we've only fifteen minutes - perhaps we should join your cousin."

When they reached the very front of the normal passenger cars, they met Rose coming toward them. Something was different about her, but he couldn't put his finger on it exactly. Nodding in greeting, she jabbed her thumb over her shoulder and said, "I'll say this for them - that car looks a sight better than the rest of the Express."

"All posh, is it?" Albus asked.

"Sickeningly so." Her eyes moved to the face beside his. "All right, Thomas?"

"Of course, of course," he replied. "I'll be joining you two with the other prefects."

"Who two? You..." Rose looked sharply at Albus. "Hang on a tick - why are you up this end of the train?"

Albus suppressed a laugh; her tone was a bit accusatory. "Well, as it turns out, I've been handed the 'P' as well."

"Really?" She frowned at him, still acting somewhat hurt. "But - but why didn't you tell me before?"

"Didn't know." Suddenly feeling quite embarrassed about it now, he lowered his voice and said, "Er, I didn't notice the badge was in with my letter until yesterday."

After a moment of staring at him in disbelief, she laughed, and loudly. "Blimey, Al, maybe they should revoke your prefectship straightaway! Didn't even notice you were one 'til it was almost too late!"

"Oh, shut up," he mumbled, glancing around and hoping nobody else had overheard. "Hey, hang on a second... that's it!"

She blinked. "What?"

Chuckling, he reached over and brushed a lone forelock that had fallen in front of her right eye. "Is there a reason this bit here is yellow?"

Frowning, she swatted his hand away. "Mum did it for me - thought it might lend me a touch of interest. Don't you like it?"

"Sure, if you're looking to join a colony of canaries."

"Perhaps we should be putting our luggage away," Tranky said serenely, cutting off Rose's undoubtedly-scathing retort. "It's nearly time."

When they had stowed their things, the three new prefects hopped off to bid their parents goodbye. The Thomases had always seemed a strange match to Albus; the mother's long, scraggly dirty-blonde hair and protuberant eyes made her come off as ever-so-slightly mad, like she spent all her time reading tabloids or pretending to hear music. Meanwhile, the father's healthy brown skin and cheerful, hearty demeanor was reminiscent of an old friend you'd hail in a pub, laughing and slapping each other on the back. Still, he could not say their son had suffered from this unlikely union in the slightest. On the contrary - the Thomases were so interesting that his mother usually had to remind him not to gawk at the three of them whenever they visited.

Finally, the whistle blew, and they were leaping back onto the train, Albus's mother calling after Lily, "You did pack your Hogsmeade permission form, didn't you?"

"Yes, Mum," Lily sighed for the twelfth time.

Just before he could get on, Albus's father grabbed his shoulder and whispered, "Do you still remember it?"

Feeling vaguely annoyed, he recited, "'I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.' Got it."

His father beamed, hugged his son, and said more loudly, "See you in December, then. Stay out of trouble, will you?"

"Tell James that!" he called back as the door shut behind him. He could see his father was laughing, though he couldn't hear it over another whistle as the train began to glide away from the platform. He stood for a while, watching his parents wave to him, Harry's arm around Ginny's shoulders. Before they were out of sight, he felt a tap on his shoulder, and turned to see a gleaming "HB" in his line of vision.

"You'd better head on in, Albus - I'm about to give instructions to the other prefects."

It was another of his Weasley relations; he hadn't seen him at all over the Summer, though he had been told this was due to a massive bout of over-studying. "Oh - thanks, Barty."

"By the way, congratulations," he said in a low voice, as if he was afraid the other prefects would think he was showing favouritism toward his cousin. "Of course, with your academic performance, I had a suspicion you might end up with the badge. I shouldn't need explain why I was pleasantly surprised our dear cousin Rose received one as well; love her though I do, her behaviour has always been- well, let's say she has been known to skirt the rules from time to time. Still, perhaps this dose of responsibility will help to curb those nasty tendencies."

"Er, right." As usual, Barty was feeling long-winded; Albus sunk quickly into a seat Rose had been saving for him, very keen to end this conversation. As his eyes roved over the compartment, taking in the velvet hangings and beverage cupboard in the corner, his feeling of mounting excitement experienced a misstep when he spotted the white-blonde head of Scorpius a few seats in front of him; how had a miscreant like him become prefect?

The instructions turned out to be far more boring than Albus had predicted, especially when reeled off by Bartemius Weasley. Several heads began nodding, Rose was snoring loudly, and only Tranky Thomas was actually listening actively, though his expression communicated that he seemed to be idly wondering why Barty was still talking. Eventually, as his bloviation came to a close, he clapped his hands excitedly, which woke everyone with a start.

"So! Let's the lot of you begin patrolling the corridors to head off any early mischief-makers. What say we do things simply - prefects of the same age and house are to partner up. Don't forget, you'll need come back up here when we're about half an hour out of Hogsmeade, as we'll need to organise before helping direct the students from the Express. Off you go, then!"

"Bloody hell, that was awful," Rose grumbled as they passed door after door, glancing in idly to make sure nobody was being hexed. "I knew Barty was a snooze, but I guess I hadn't realised he could be one for so long."

"At least you fell asleep," said Albus. "You missed him gushing about how being made prefect is going to make us better people, and all twenty-four of us will somehow become Minister for Magic because of it."

"Barmy git. It'll serve him right if he never even becomes so much as a maintenance wiz-"

Bang.

Albus and Rose whirled, wands out, searching out the source of the ungodly racket; now that they had heard the sound of a spell being fired, they could also hear muffled voices. When they saw movement in a window a door behind and on their left, they paced forward and flung it open.

"Give it back, it's Brunhilda's!"

"You have it, I know you do, I felt you take it!"

"You'd better hand it back right now or-"

"OI!"

The "oi" had belonged to Rose, who was glowering at the knot of girls standing in the compartment, all of their faces now turned toward them, each equally livid.

"What in Knockturn Alley is going on here?" Albus demanded.

"She took my Remembrall!" a fourth-year with long black hair, prominent chin and a rather wide build shouted. "I was just looking up and down the corridor, hoping to spot the sweet trolley, and she came hurrying past and bumped into me, and it was a gift from my mum, and she took it!"

"Just like old Scurvy to do something like this, too," another fourth-year with short, flaxen hair spat, not bothering to hide her contempt.

"We heard a hex go off," said Rose loudly to cut off their second-year friend's words. "What happened?"

The flaxen-haired girl suddenly came over disdainful. "And who the hell are you, exactly?"

"We're prefects!" Rose boomed, taking the badge out of her pocket and nearly shoving it up the girl's nose. "Now start talking or we'll be off to see the Head Boy about you lot!"

At these words, the three of them had gone deadly silent. They glanced at each other uncomfortably, glanced at Albus and Rose, then glanced back at the lone figure cowering in the rear of the compartment.

Albus had never seen anything more pitiful in his life. As he shoved his way through the other girls and skidded to a halt beside the window, he guessed she had to have been fifteen or sixteen, but all he could see was her hair, arms and feet, as she was curled into a tight ball and sobbing - quietly, as if trying to make sure they couldn't hear. That hair was extraordinarily long, matted and unkempt, and her arms looked rather dirty as well. Her shoes may once have been made of very fine leather, but they were now worn, faded and frayed, and the sole was coming apart from one of them.

"Hey," he said softly, crouching down to try to see part of her face. "What happened here?"

The ringleader cut in, "Like I said, she took-"

"Quiet!" Rose shot at her. "Haven't you done enough?"

Albus stretched a hand toward one of her grubby forearms but the girl jerked away immediately, sobs sounding even more frightened than before. "It's all right, I'm not going to hurt you. What did they do to you?"

Her head raised the barest amount - her matted hair almost completely hid her face, but there was gap enough for him to see a nose that might have been shapely if not for a bump on the bridge. He could also see a trickle of blood coming from one nostril.

"That's it," he barked. "Out, all of you."

The youngest girl finally spoke up. "What? But-"

"Hey, what's this?"

Albus glanced up to see Rose's hand withdrawing from the shiny-haired one's pocket, and in it was a small, clear sphere; the insides held a tinge of fading pink clouds. The girl made a mad clutch at it, but Rose batted her hand away. "Well, will you look at that - nobody's taken Brunhilda's Remembrall after all! And it was already filled with red smoke, which means you probably forgot you had it in your pocket and just accused the nearest person!"

Brunhilda sputtered, her cheeks flushing. "That- that doesn't- she would've done-"

Albus suddenly felt very, very angry. "You lot had better get out of here, or I really will report this to Barty Weasley - who is both our cousin, if you'd like to know."

He could tell the eldest two wanted to say more, but their younger friend seemed to sense imminent danger and dragged them past Rose and into the corridor, slamming the door shut behind them.

"Hey, forget them," Rose soothed, sitting next to her and patting her arm tentatively; she did not resist, but continued sobbing hard as ever. "Those hags can't ever seem to stop leaping to conclusions - they're always gossiping in the Gryffindor common room like old biddies."

"Yeah," Albus continued for her. "Hey, don't cry. Here, look-"

He raised his wand, and her head began shaking warily as he waved it and muttered, "Episkey!" A moment later, her thin, shaking hand raised to her nose and discovered the flow had stopped, though she smeared the trail of blood in the process.

"There, see? We're not-"

A sudden knock at the door. Rose leapt to her feet, threw it open, and shouted, "Oi, we told you overlarge Doxies to-"

"Well, I never!"

It was the witch pushing the sweets trolley. Rose flushed, backed up a step and said, "Oh, I- I'm sorry, we, well, er, that is, thought you, er, were somebody else, and um, yeah."

As the witch patted her bosom, breathing heavily and attempting to regain her composure, Albus said, "While you're here, though... can we get a few Chocolate Frogs?"

Feeling guilty about Rose's outburst, Albus bought a round dozen, and once the witch and her cart had raced off at top speed he sat down, throwing one to Rose.

"Hey, you want one?" The girl remained still, but her crying had quieted; he took this as a good sign and pressed his advantage. "Go on, then, take it, I've got loads."

At long last, she dropped her knees very slowly, allowing her shoes to sink to the floor of the compartment. Though her gaze remained pointed downward, a shaking hand reached out and took the small package he was offering, shredding it open and popping the whole thing into her mouth. As they all ate, Albus noted that she was almost unhealthily thin, and her dirty blue t-shirt did not well match her frayed, green-and-red-striped, Christmassy floor-length skirt. He wasn't sure if she was woefully inexperienced at dressing as a Muggle, or if these clothes had been found in a dustbin. Perhaps both.

He glanced at his cousin, and saw she too had been taking in their rescuee's appearance; the deep sympathy he felt was reflected in her eyes before they returned their attention to chewing.

Finally, Albus couldn't take it anymore. "So... what's your name?"

Her face darted up, and though he still couldn't see her eyes, there were two thin, somewhat-pale lips that parted and mouthed worthlessly for a moment before she swallowed noisily and said in a timid voice, "You're... Albus Potter, aren't you?"

"Er..." He hadn't been expecting her to go from mime to reporter. "Well, yeah. Sorry, have we met?"

"Not really." Her gaze dropped again, and they were back to only being able to see her nose. Albus noted that her velvety, dulcet tones might have been enchanting if she didn't sound so scared and insane. "I- I've seen you around Hogwarts. I'm in my sixth year, we d-don't have any classes together."

"I'm Rose Weasley," Rose piped up, perhaps trying to draw the heat off Albus.

"I know," she said, nodding nervously. "Th-that is, pleasure to meet you. Your brother Hugo's in third year, right?"

Albus found himself confused, and a bit creeped out. Rose asked, "How do you know all that?"

"I... I don't have many friends. When I run out of homework to do, I watch people."

"Watch people... do what?"

Her head raised again, surprised. "Why, anything. Walking, talking, practising Quidditch... I've seen both of you visiting the gamekeeper a lot. He- he was a friend of your father's, wasn't he?"

"Who are you?" Albus repeated, slightly more forcefully than he'd meant to.

"Oh, I- I'm sorry," she whispered hurriedly, drawing her arms more tightly to her body. "How very impolite, I told myself I'd be more polite next time I introduced myself, I apologise, that was rude of me."

The two of them sat for a moment watching her; Rose glanced at Albus, raising her eyebrows, before coughing expectantly.

"Jezabel!" she squeaked. Then, clearing her throat again, she continued more steadily, "I'm Jezabel Skirrow. Sorry."

"Well, Jezabel," Albus said, offering her another Frog, which she took more readily than she had done before, "I'm sorry, too. Why don't we ever see you around?"

"You won't have except in the Great Hall, or between classes - I'm in Slytherin and a different year, you know, when else would you?"

The atmosphere shifted, and it was palpable. Albus had to fight the immediate urge to edge away from her, and Rose, not so successful, did. Here they were, being as friendly as they could manage, and for somebody from the Dark wizard house?

"Oh... oh, you don't like that, though," she whispered, her voice quavering. "You'll be leaving now, won't you? You've f-found out I'm not one of you, and you'll be leaving now. Always the same."

She had interpreted their silence correctly; Albus's thoughts had gone back to patrolling the corridor as a means of escape, and shame flooded through him. There were so many different things he wanted to say, and some of them contradicted each other, but before he could get any of them out the door slid open again. There, glaring down into the compartment, were Scorpius Malfoy and Genevieve Nott.

"Why does this not surprise me?" said Scorpius coldly, eyes moving between the three of them. "Almost Prefect and Long-Stem sitting with the Great Mistake."

"Sorry," said Rose, apparently glad of a ready way to hide her discomfort. "Were we supposed to be sitting with Scor-piss and Gingivitis?"

Both Slytherin prefects looked as if they wanted to draw their wands, but Scorpius forced his face into a pained grimace. "Anyway, you losers are supposed to go back up the front now. Best leave the Mistake to its own devices. Hurry along."

Glaring at him, they both slowly stood to follow; on a whim, Albus tumped his remaining Chocolate Frogs into Jezabel's lap. He'd thought the gesture had met with ill gratitude, but as he crossed the threshold he heard her whisper, "Thank you," and glanced behind him.

His stomach felt as though he'd missed a step. It was only a brief moment, being that Rose had waited to shut the door and did so quickly, but for that one instant their eyes locked; or rather, his two to her one, visible from that angle through her grimy tresses. The first description that came to mind was "fetching", for she had large, dark doe-eyes with thick lashes, and as she noticed him looking, it fluttered nervously. He had just enough time to register her hands twisting up a Chocolate Frog wrapper absentmindedly before the door was closed, and he was being herded along by Rose toward the prefects' car.

"Creepy, isn't she?" Rose whispered, catching the look on Albus's face; her brow was also wrinkled.

"Flighty, too... poor little thing." Checking all nearby doors to make sure they were closed, he whispered, "So, did she seem at all, I don't know... Dark to you?"

"Definitely," Rose breathed in relief. "I was hoping you'd say it first."

He ground to a halt. "That's lovely, except I'm not sure she is."

Her blue eyes blinked several times. "What? But she's in Slytherin, and she's so eerie! Like we were talking to Moaning Myrtle or something!"

"I know, I know, but- I mean, did she strike you as not so much evil as... lonely?"

Rose fidgeted as they reached the door to the prefects' carriage. "Maybe. Still, I'm glad to be shut of her."

Though part of Albus agreed wholeheartedly with Rose, that the encounter was more than a little unsettling, another part couldn't help but think back to how sad and alone she sounded - and to the eye. How could an eye that lovely have been staring at him from between those matted locks and bloody nose? Her face as a whole mustn't be entirely hideous, her nose and lips were pale but reasonably nice, and she sounded like a polite, well-read being - so why did Scorpius, her fellow housemate, refer to her as a "mistake"?

Eventually, the chaos of arriving at Hogsmeade Station pushed Jezabel Skirrow out of Albus's mind as he hurriedly changed into his school robes and got off the train first to help shunt the first-years toward the lake and the other students toward the carriages. As soon as he had disembarked, he heard the one thing other than seeing the sprawling castle itself that at last made him totally sure he was back.

"Firs' years! Firs' years, over this way!"

Without the decorum befitting their newfound status, he and Rose ran over and threw their arms around the humongous moleskin-encased bulk calling to the new students and exclaimed, "Hagrid!"

"Oof! Well, hullo there, you two! How yeh been?"

They pulled back to stare up into his beetle black eyes, barely visible through his wild, greying hair and bushy beard; only the creases at the corners gave away that he was smiling. "All right," said Albus, grinning himself. "You?"

"Oh, can' complain, can' complain. Been itchin' ter start lessons again, got some interestin' creatures in fer us ter study!"

He could see Rose twitch nervously, but all she said was, "That's great, Hagrid!"

"Heard the pair of yeh got made prefects!" he continued proudly, hand the size of a dustbin lid waving over their heads to the students now hopping off the train. "Migh'a known Rose'd get it, both her parents an' all, and o' course Albus bein' a model studen'!"

They both glowed at his praise, but then Barty was shouting angrily at them for abandoning their posts, and they left the half-giant gamekeeper to his job of herding the meek-looking first-years into the boats on the lake.

"Wonder how he's going to kill us this year?" Rose breathed as they moved toward the carriages themselves, having helped most of their younger peers avoid confusion.

"Oh, come on," Albus replied, glancing nervously at the apparently-empty hitch on the front; he knew there were invisible beasts there to pull the carriages, but especially since that fateful Quidditch tryout, he had been even less keen on them. "So the hippogriff concussed you, so what? You shouldn't have been dancing around its wingjoint like an-"

"Yeah, yeah. Just hope we don't end up with a manticore or some other ghastly thing."

"Talking about Care Of Magical Creatures?"

They looked up to see the carriage they were entering wasn't quite empty. "Oh, hey, Tranquilius," Rose said, startled. "Got room for two more?"

"Yes, it's only me in here," he said placidly, scooting over. They hopped in, and while waiting for the carriage to move off, he continued, "You were talking about Magical Creatures, right? Rose said something about a manticore."

"Oh, well, yeah," said Albus nervously. "But I don't think Hagrid would bring one of those in, she was only joking."

"The hell I was," said Rose under her breath.

"I've heard we're doing crups and knarls and clabberts this year," Tranky continued, crossing his legs. "But I'm most excited to start thestrals, my mother tells me lovely stories about them."

Albus gulped. "Th-thestrals?" Again, he glanced at the front of the carriage. "We're going to be studying them?"

"Oh yes," he continued, slightly overlarge eyes turning on him curiously. "They're invisible horses with huge-"

"We know what they are," Rose said hurriedly.

As if the fates were conspiring to make them feel twitchier and twitchier on their first day back at Hogwarts, at that moment a rather mousey boy with an excited expression climbed into their carriage. Quaking at the sight of them, he said, "All right, Albus? Rose?"

"Hello, Elliott," they chorused, resigned to their fate.

They spent the entire ride up the dirt lane and through the enormous statues of winged boars at the gates trying their best to pretend Elliott Creevey was not in their carriage, firing question after question at them, his enthusiasm refusing to deflate when they did not answer. At long last, they reached the steps in front of the castle, where they could flee his interrogation.

"Hope old Sprout's speech doesn't go overlong," Rose muttered as they climbed toward the large oak doors. "I skipped breakfast."

END Chapter Four