Chimaera of Judgement



CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: Exposure

"JEZABEL!"

There had never been a time when Albus had felt true fear - not with the gravity he did as he ran to Jezabel's side, as he rolled her out of the water and onto her back, as he slapped her mud-caked face - as he realised she was not breathing. "W-wake up, Jezabel! Come on, wake up!"

"Here-" Rose bent and placed two fingers on the side of her neck. "Merlin, it's faint, but there's a pulse. Hang on, I can- damn, how did it go? Oh, right, then - Anapneo!"

Jezabel sat bolt upright, choking and gagging as she clutched at her throat. Then, as suddenly as she'd done so, she lay back down, breathing rhythmically as if she had been asleep all along.

"Might've been a reflex," Rose sighed, sitting back on her haunches and wiping her brow. "That- wow, I- that was close!"

"We have to do something, she's unconscious, Rose!"

"Oh, that's easy enough to fix, but... but maybe we should let her rest a minute, yeah?"

"No!" he shouted. "We have to get her up, get her away from those, those - rotters! I don't know what they did to her, but I guarantee they're going to get it back a thousandfold!"

"Y-yeah," sputtered Rose, looking at him intently. "We'll see to that straight away. But I guess you're right, let's try and-"

"Hey, what's all this?"

Instantly, both of them were standing on either side of Jezabel, wands drawn. Caspian Lewis backed up, hands and wand raised in surrender.

"Oi, just asking a simple question! You'd think a person would be grateful for the assistance!"

"Thanks," Albus sighed, lowering his wand. "But we've got this."

An eyebrow hiked into his neatly-combed hair. "Didn't look like it a moment ago; sorry if my Shield Charm did more harm than good, is anyone seriously hurt?"

"Shield Charm? You cast- uh-oh..." Rose's face slackened. "I... I think Jezabel may have been hit by my Stunner. Crap, I'm sorry, I was aiming for Pucey!"

"Yeah, well, my 'Smith Jinx' didn't find Malfoy, either," said Albus glumly, raising the cuff of his trousers to inspect his left leg, which now closely resembled a tree limb. "Hope Madam Pomfrey can put this right, I don't know the counter-jinx..."

Rose's head cocked to one side as she surveyed the scene. "Where is Pucey?"

"Transfigured," said Caspian, bending down to pick up a faded velvet tailcoat. "Not sure why Malfoy was trying to turn any of you into outerwear, though..."

Albus shrugged. "Search me."

"Come to that, what happened here? I saw you were trying to situate yourself between the Slytherins and that Skirrow girl - were they tormenting her again?"

"Again? You mean, you've noticed them doing this sort of thing before?"

His perfectly-proportioned shoulders shrugged. "Not as if I could do anything about it; I didn't get made prefect, you did." The slight edge of bitterness was unmistakable, but he was valiantly striving to keep it from overtaking his words.

"But you could've hexed them!" Rose said angrily. "Or- or told a prefect. Okay, maybe none of those would've made much difference."

"No, you're right; I should have tried to stop it regardless. Sorry."

"Let's just worry about getting Jezabel up to the hospital wing," Albus grunted as he pulled her arm around his shoulders.

"We probably should try and wake her, now," Rose said. "There's a spell, but I never practised it - only came across it once..."

Caspian nodded. "Right, that - Rennervate!"

Large, dark doe-eyes fluttered open, staring blankly around through her oily strands at the three faces turned down toward hers. Then, with a start, she sat up, scooting away and making small squeaks.

"Jezabel, wait, it's okay!" Albus slowly walked toward her. "The fight's over, we-"

"Wh-what are- what happened? Did you- Scorpius, Genevieve, what did they-"

"Nothing happened; Lewis here broke it all up. Well, my leg's made of wood, but that's probably not permanent, so we should get going to-"

"This was all m-my fault!" she wailed. "They were only after me, if I hadn't been here-"

"None of that," he said firmly. "They're all idiots, they would curse a thimble if they thought it were looking at them wrongly. Anyway... can you stand?"

"Y- y- I'm not sure, let me- oop!"

She stumbled forward into Albus's expectant arms; if he'd been bowled over by an errant Stunner, he might have trouble standing, as well. He pulled her up to her feet, her muck-caked face inches from his as he said, "No more Hogsmeade for us, eh?"

When she only stared open-mouthed at him, perhaps dazed that he wasn't more visibly shaken than he was, he motioned for Rose to help him. Nodding resignedly, his cousin took their Housemate's other arm and together they climbed back up the path to the school, Caspian acting as a rear guard until they reached the safety of the hospital wing, where he bade them luck.

Madam Pomfrey was furious with all three of them, though hardly surprised; she'd treated so many maladies of varying horror that little surprised her these days. Jezabel was pronounced fit as a fiddle, and a few charms restored Albus's leg to flesh-and-bone, so the three of them left her to sort out the moth-eaten tailcoat and headed off toward the baths to clean the mud off themselves - something Jezabel needed worst of all.

"B-but I don't want to," she whispered. "I- I can't, there's-"

"It's just a bath," Rose laughed. "You have had one before, haven't you?"

"You don't understand, I'm- I'm-" When she noticed they were both watching her expectantly, she frowned at the floor as they walked.

"Come on, out with it," said Albus. "You can trust us." Jezabel regarded him for a moment before drawing a deep breath.

"IvebeenafraidofwatersinceIwaseightandAdoraheldmeunderatthepublicpoolfornearlyfortysecondsandIthoughtIwasgoingtodieandIknowitsratherdisgustingbutIhaventbathedsinceonlywashedupinthebasinsoifitsallrightwithyouIllskipthe-"

"Whoa, slow down, there!" Rose was aghast; she shot Albus a look, but he didn't know what to say, either, so she continued. "D'you mean to tell us you... you actually haven't taken a proper bath in EIGHT YEARS?!"

"I... I can't, I'm sorry!" she wailed, vibrating again. "I'm so afraid, the water, there's so much, anything could hap-"

"Oh, for Peverell's sake!" Gritting her teeth, Rose grabbed her arm and said, "It's straight off to the prefects' bath right now for you, and I don't want to hear another word about it!"

"NO!" she screamed, more terrified than Albus could remember seeing her. "I- there's no- I'll die! I'll drown, I know it, I've already nearly drowned once today and I'd prefer not to push my-!"

"Then I'll bathe with you," Rose insisted. "You need a lifeguard? I was top of the class in Pollywogs, so I reckon I can rescue you from the bathtub!" Her ears took on a dim glow at the mention of her swimming lessons.

"A-Albus, help me, please!"

He wanted to laugh, he wanted to tell Rose to cut it out, but neither of those seemed wise. Instead, he patted Jezabel's shoulder and whispered, so quiet that only she could hear, "Rose saved me from drowning in a river once; if anybody can keep you alive, it's her, trust me. You may get sick or something if you leave that mud on, so... try it, maybe?"

She continued to grow increasingly dismayed as Rose dragged her along the corridor, whimpering slightly and gaping at him as if he'd run her through with a bayonet. Albus watched after them for a long moment before his thoughts were interrupted by a voice.

"What's their problem?"

He spun to find himself nose-to-nose with Wendelyne Moore, whose expression told that she thought this all a relatively mundane happening at Hogwarts. "Oh, er- hi- that is- they're off to clean up."

"Ah, I see." She looked him up and down; suddenly he remembered that he was covered in mud splatters, and wished he'd followed the others on their way to the baths. "You lot have fun down in Hogsmeade, then?"

"Er, not so much - Slytherins, you know."

"Oh? Get into a row?"

"Bit of one; old Pucey got Transfigured into a manky tailcoat."

"What, really?!" But she'd let slip how interested she truly was in what he'd been up to, and she hastily recomposed her features into a look of detached curiosity. "I mean, er, hmm, that's interesting."

"Yyyeah," he said slowly. "Look, I-" He hadn't really known what he would say next, and mentally kicked his stupid mouth for galloping ahead of him, but then the right words came to him, and he said them before he had opportunity to talk himself out of it. "Walk me back to the common room?"

Wendelyne literally staggered back. "C-come again?"

"Bugger, don't put me through it again, it's a sticky enough question the first run."

A reluctant snort. "Fair enough."

They'd reached the fifth floor before either of them could work up the courage to speak; how did you move along from the Shack and the kiss on the pitch? Where does one go from there? Finally, Wendelyne made the first attempt.

"How are things working out?"

"Things? What things?"

"You and Jezabel," she said quietly, staring at the flagstones beneath their feet as they trudged slowly toward their supposed destination. "I- well, it's been ages since we really talked, so I was wonderi-"

"Me and- and Jezabel? No, wait, you can't be-" And he couldn't help but chuckle. "But that's not how it is at all!"

"Don't sugar-coat it for me," she sighed. "It was one kiss, it's not like we ever really... er..."

"I swear, we're only pals, Wendelyne!" He was beginning to feel desperate; 'People can't have a break-up conversation if they never really went out, can they?' he thought. "I mean, perhaps I was a little over-zealous sticking up for her, but if you'd heard some of the stories-"

"Dammit, Albus, that's not the point!" He stepped back as she stopped not far from the Fat Lady and swung around to shout at him. "You didn't care about me at all, did you? You thought maybe a bit of fun down in the village, a butterbeer and a snog or two, but have I even crossed your mind once since our last Quidditch game?"

"Of course! You don't know how hard it is to think of a non-ridiculous way of talking to you, especially with Rose sticking her nose in, always making mad suggestions involving chocolates or-"

She was blinking, eyebrows knitted as her stony countenance began to soften. "Y-you were trying to-"

"What on earth is going on out here?"

Out of the entire student body, there was a fairly short list of people Albus would have done almost anything to prevent them walking in on this particular discourse, and near the top was Aqua Rankin. An eye began twitching as he turned and asked, "Why, are we bothering you?"

"Not really," she asked keenly. "Only, well, you're starting to rival the noise levels in here, which is saying something."

It was at that moment Albus and Wendelyne both caught faint shoutings coming from behind her. Glancing at each other, they both ran forward and followed Aqua inside, catching the first snippets of a heated argument.

"Miss Vane, please, keep your hands to yourself or I shall have to alert Professor Longbottom! Honestly, this is such a display of dreadful-"

"We've got a right to know, don't we? She's always lurking around, it's dead creepy, and nobody's bothered to tell us why-"

"That is beside the point! Harassment of this sort is not permitted, and you'd do well to-"

Their voices blended together as they vied for control of the situation, and Albus sensed rather than knew what was going on. Drawing his wand, he took the last few steps into the common room proper fast as his legs could carry him.

There stood Brunhilda Vane, hands on hips and expression livid, shouting up at the considerably-taller Barty, who was obviously aghast at being forced to argue his point. Fuse already lit, Albus waited to see what this was about, and was shortly satisfied.

"Ten points from Gryffindor!" Barty shouted. "And if you don't watch your tone in the future, you may find yourself with detentions, young lady!"

"Don't call me 'young lady' like I'm so much younger than you! And you can dock points from your own House all you want, because I'm not about to back off this issue until I receive some answers! The students have a right to know how she did it, don't they?!"

Some of the gathered crowd nodded fervently, while others had frowned and squirmed when she gave Barty permission to lose them yet more points. Albus, however, had listened long enough.

"Not learned from our past mistakes, have we?"

"You!" she gasped, eyes bulging as she took in his appearance. "I'll bet you had something to do with this, didn't you? You got her moved into our House, you, you- miscreant sympathiser!"

"Ooh, fancy words for a snotty, unbalanced-"

"Stop!" Barty shouted. "That's enough to be getting on with for one evening, I should think! Now, let's all remain calm and discuss this like-"

"He got that filthy, dodgy thing in here, I just know he did! What if they're the ones setting the ghosts on the students, eh? Will you be proud to have them here then?!"

Everyone turned to look at Albus in stunned silence, eyes narrowing and hands moving to mouths. How could they believe these rantings? Couldn't they see the girl was mad? Luckily for him, they had very little time to invest in the subject, as a few seconds later footsteps were sounding on the stairs.

"This is all I could find," said Belinda Toussant in her squeaky voice, her arms full of assorted items. "I- are you sure we should be- that is, it seems a bit Machiavellian to go through her things when Jezabel's not even here to defend-"

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Brunhilda glance sideways at him for the briefest moment as Belinda dumped her armload on a nearby table; she hadn't expected him to be there to witness her underhanded tactics. He smiled a sinister smile at her, and she gulped.

"Come on, then." This came out in a deadly whisper he was not used to hearing come from his own throat. "Let's see what wondrous treasures you've unearthed, eh? Oh my, look, here's a Dark artifact if ever there were one - Chocolate Frog cards! Merlin, how ever could we have been blind to such an evil in our midst?"

"That's- she's- that's not all there is, she could still have-"

"And here we have Grimm's Faerie Tales - that hag! Can't believe she's been sneaking this into our school right under our noses!"

"What about this, eh?" she rasped, picking up a rather large bottle of yellow liquid. "Murtlap Essence? What's she been doing to need to have this so readily on hand?"

"Being picked on by horrid fourth-years comes to mind." Though he said this in an offhand manner, his words rang true; that probably was the reason behind her owning that bottle, and his stomach went a little colder as he tried not to think about it.

"Her O.W.L. results - all O's, with an E in Potions!" she continued, thrusting a sheet of parchment into his face. "Did she worm her way out of Slytherin because she got a poor grade in her Head of House's own class, is that her motivation to undermine the Sorting process?!"

"For your information," he began heatedly, wanting with all his being to shove his wand somewhere she would find rude, "the Sorting Hat did put her here, so what d'you have to say to that?!"

For the second time since he'd entered the common room, not a breath was to be heard, not a shoe shuffled the rug. With an inward cringe and the knowledge that he would only regret it more with the passing minutes, it became clear that he had just blown wide open one of the two biggest mysteries of the school year, and that within hours the entire school would know how it had happened and who had done it. Perhaps he could take Jezabel's modest Chocolate Frog card collection and build himself a private dormitory with them...

"Um, er... what's... what does this mean?"

All eyes turned to Martin Finnigan, who was holding up several sheafs of parchment, apparently quite disturbed at their contents. Not waiting for anyone else to react first, he raised his wand and whispered, "Accio Parchment!", and the entire stack zoomed from Martin's hands to his own. His eyes moved quickly down the first sheet, and the next sheet, and the next, but he soon realised this to be tedious and pointless because they all contained a single sentence, written in small, cramped handwriting over and over.

"'Permission is not mine until I have received it'," he breathed, unaware he was reading aloud.

"There's hundreds more up there," said Belinda quietly, "but... well, they all say the same thing, so I figured there was no point bringing the rest."

Albus had thought it to be a diary, or perhaps secret etchings or poems or something, but this was almost worse than any of that, even though he didn't know what it meant, either. He didn't have to be a psychoanalyst to see this cast a very bad light on Jezabel, one that coloured her as a complete lunatic.

"Well, she certainly didn't get permission from us to invade our lives," Brunhilda said nastily. "Why couldn't she stay where she belongs instead of stirring the cauldron the wrong w-"

"MICHINA PENNAE!"

His willpower had been gradually sapped by this entire confrontation, and when he found he'd reached his breaking point, a curse his mother had once used on his father because he nearly wrecked his old motorbike when James had been with him floated to the surface of his memories. Enormous pale flapping things burst from Brunhilda's nostrils and began pelting her about the face.

"AAGH! No, call them off, what are they, get 'em off me!"

"Apologise for what you said about Jezabel!"

"Belinda, Wendelyne, help me, you- stop him, he's siding with the enemy!"

Another chill ran down his spine; after their ill-fated date in Hogsmeade, he'd disregarded the fact that Wendelyne and Brunhilda were friends, and yet again had forgotten she was there. Watching his flaxen-haired teammate carefully, he waited as she stared between the two of them, a depressed and weary semblance about her.

"Oh, grow up, Brunhilda."

But she did not stick around to aid either of them further, ascending the staircase to her chambers and slamming the door. He was still staring after her when he heard another voice shout, "AL!"

The room as a whole turned to the portrait hole where Rose was entering, jaw nearly on the floor at the sight of him hexing Brunhilda; he lowered his wand, and the flying things dissipated into the ether, leaving his target swatting at thin air comically.

"Oh, h-hi, Rose," he mumbled, feeling a fool for attacking without thinking again.

"Hi, I suppose." As he more carefully took in his cousin's freshly-cleaned face, her eyes seemed bloodshot, and the skin around them rather pale. "What's going on in here?"

"Nothing," both he and Brunhilda said at once, which caused them to glare at each other.

"Scandalous flouting of the prefect system, that's what!" blustered Barty, rediscovering his voice at last. "Such a violent discussion, and a serious intrusion into Miss Skirrow's personal belongings! Atop that, neither your cousin nor Miss Vane have yielded to- to- bless my soul."

A thin, trembling figure had emerged from behind Rose at the mention of her name, but it was hard to believe she belonged to it. That thick flowing mane was nearly a foot shorter, and appeared soft and floaty without the years of weight and grime. Though Albus didn't think her face to be drastically different than before, it occurred to him that this was the longest and most complete look he'd had of it - and that everyone else in the room had likely not seen more than her nose and hair before this moment. Then he noticed the two baby-blue barrettes at either temple, holding her usual camouflage out of her fetching, dark eyes, which may or may not have been given a touch of eyeshadow. Her thin lips were also glossier than usual, which was harder to notice at first because she was biting the lower one.

"Jezabel," he breathed, lost for words. Why did these differences feel so... familiar?

"What's wrong with you nutters?" demanded Rose; her tone quavered a bit, as if this were somehow a hard thing to say. She stole a glance back at Jezabel before glowering around at the crowd. "Honestly, you'd think nobody'd ever seen a brunette witch before!"

An immediate prickling of shame ran through him when he saw Jezabel's eyes had locked onto the sheets of parchment in his other hand. Swallowing hard, he held them out to her.

"J-just trying to get you your stuff back," he said, bending the truth slightly. Now he wasn't in the moment, it seemed that in the process of trying to defend her honour he'd actually exposed more of her private life than might have been done if he'd kept his wand stowed and his mouth shut.

It was more than he could bear. Albus found himself desperately hoping she would start shouting, demanding that they explain themselves and stop going through her things. Of course, he knew this would not be her reaction, but it would be less painful to watch than the thick, glistening tears that welled at the corners of her eyes, the way her trembling only became more pronounced. Then, as if ordered by an unheard command, she walked forward and took the parchment, gathered up everything else from the table, and made her way silently up the stairs after Wendelyne. Not once had she met his eyes.

END Chapter Twenty-Seven