Chimaera of Judgement



CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: Inadvertent Heroism

The month of April opened on Hogwarts by way of constant, torrential rains, soaking everything through and sending a penetrating breeze through its windows and battlements. Many of the upper classmen had taken to carrying jars of bluebell flames around with them to keep from freezing to death, and the younger students could be heard begging them for the incantation at every spare moment. Their elders just laughed.

"Gits," Martin Finnigan spat at Aiden McLaggen's back as he strolled away. "Won't tell us just cos we haven't got our precious O.W.L.s back yet!"

Rose smirked at him. "Actually, mightn't it be that you made the entire House team sound like a load of duffers in your last stint as commentator?"

"Never gonna let that go, are we?" he gusted.

In light of their recent reconciliation, Rose had been abnormally helpful with Albus's homework, even going so far as to do his Astronomy essay for him one evening. He'd since inferred that it was what she'd seen in the prefects' bath that had caused her to completely forget Albus couldn't automatically understand, and told her over and over that it wasn't necessary to make it up to him, but she insisted.

"Why shouldn't I? A cousin of mine once went so far as to give me an Invisibility Cloak to make peace, so I'm confused as to-"

"Oh, shut it," he mumbled, resigned at last. "But if you get me poor marks, I'm forbidding you from doing it anymore."

"Deal."

The very next day, Albus finally had to endure the class period he'd been dreading since the day he'd first begun taking Care Of Magical Creatures. If there had been some painless way of removing the Slytherins from their midst, he might have been able to at least feel he was among friends; alas, as it were...

"Oi, Pottybrain!" Malfoy shouted. It was obscenely plain that Father Christmas had brought him a belated gift in Albus's misery. "Your favourite flying friends will be joining us today, did you know?"

"Bugger off," he said unenthusiastically; there was really no point, but he felt he should at least make his preference known.

"Hope you're ready for a bit of fun," said Malkin, echoing his Housemate's bile as Genevieve Nott giggled. "I've heard they snap up blokes with mould-green eyes for tea!"

"Want me to shove his hat down his throat?" Rose muttered in his ear. Albus only sighed.

"Thestrals terday!" Hagrid called happily as they reached his hut on the edge of the wood. "Yep, they migh' come up in yer O.W.L.s, an' surely in yer N.E.W.T.s if any o' yeh continue on, so I figger yeh ought ter have a bit o' contact with 'em. Everybody's here, yeah? Righ' - inter the Forest!"

The afternoon was the worst of the millennium, as far as Albus was concerned. Perhaps for the students that could already see them - Macmillan, Rose and Malfoy notably among the privileged - it was a decent, fascinating lesson, but for him and the majority of the class, they were presented with a series of unnerving sights, including meat appearing to dissolve in thin air and other students riding around through the trees on invisible steeds. Add to that the Slytherins' constant jeerings and the fact that Hagrid wasn't too sensitive to his misgivings, and he would rather a ghost attacked him. He felt if he never so much as heard the word "thestral" for the rest of his days, it would still not make up for being put through this torture.

He was stomping through the castle with his hands deep in his pockets, surly about it all, when he finally became aware of a voice floating to him from several metres behind. When he stopped and strained he recognised it as his name... more or less.

"Albie!"

When he turned, he was immensely displeased to find himself facing an out-of-breath Ryan Macmillan. "Oh, of course, this is what I needed; you're the very thing."

"The world agrees," he laughed wearily. "Bet you wish you could say the same, eh?"

"Yeah, of course. And what can I do for you today?"

"Not a thing," he gasped. "Got a minute?"

"No."

"Hang on a tick, there, mate," Ryan said, landing deftly in his path of retreat. "I was thinking we ought to have a... er, a talk - y'know, man to man."

"Well, go find another man, then."

"Nah, you'll do in a pinch." He sighed, running his hand over his sweaty brow and through his straw-coloured hair. "Gar, that's just it, though, that right there - it's become far too easy."

"Easy? You call it easy that I'd rather Transfigure your head into a toilet seat than hear it speak?"

"Yes - no - will you shut it? What I mean is, it doesn't feel challenging anymore. Or it might be, but... now it's kind of unpleasant."

"It's never been pleasant, you prat!"

"For you, maybe." He frowned, leaning against a stone pillar. "Merlin, this is weird, but I'm on a roll now; seems a shame to stop the momentum."

Albus's eye twitched. "Why not let it roll you right over the cliff and into the lake?"

"Alfie, listen - it's as I told you back in the Forest, when we were hunting the Angry One. I felt trading barbs with you kept our wits sharp, like we had an understanding - only you didn't understand as much as I thought you did. You thought I was trying to be cruel!"

"How ever could I have got that impression?" he said drily.

"Not how you mean, no," Ryan insisted. "See, here I was, thinking we were getting on great by letting off steam at each other - an essential thing here at Hogwarts, mind you, especially in O.W.L. year - when all along you've had every reason to want my head on a pike."

The plot of their conversation, moments ago nothing but a bunch of double-talk, suddenly came into sharper focus. "Okay, so... what exactly are you trying to say, here?"

Ryan shrugged. "Sorry, I suppose."

It was the closest to sincerity Albus was ever going to get from his classmate, and for some reason, in spite of his overwhelming desire to take out his poor temper on the nearest breathing body, he was not as inclined to turn the apology down flat as he normally would have been.

"I must be out of my head, but... yeah, whatever."

"Ace."

"But don't expect a trophy or anything - I still don't like you."

Another laugh. "Doesn't surprise me at all."

Albus flashed him a thin, pained smile, then set about putting as much distance between the pair of them as possible before Ryan decided to ask him around for brunch over the Summer.

o o o

"Are we talking about the same Ryan Macmillan?"

"I'm almost positive," said Albus as they marched downstairs with their broomsticks, grudgingly ready to submit themselves to Olivia Wood's slave-driving. "I guess he could have modified my memory, or maybe it was an actual nice person with a mouthful of Polyjuice Potion..."

"But this is progress, Al," she hissed as they passed a knot of first-years, all of whom were staring at them in sheer terror. Out of equal parts annoyance and wicked humour, Rose looked back at them sharply, and they scarpered in all directions. "Jumpy little things. Anyway, what was I saying?"

"Progress."

"Right, progress. Ryan's actually willing to apologise for - well, anything, and without being prompted by outside parties! This is a front-page story, mate!"

"Maybe for the Quibbler, but I'm still not sure about his sincerity. How can I be?"

She shook her flaming-orange head. "Don't blame you in the slightest. Still, if he's not having you on..."

"Would be a relief on many levels, yeah." They were nearly to the oaken doors by now, and after a brief deliberation, Albus grabbed her hand and pulled her into the small antechamber he'd brought her to when he made the grievous error of showing her the map without explaining it first.

"Al, what-"

"Why now?" he demanded as she glanced at the door anxiously. "Why is he suddenly trying to reestablish the lines of communication?"

"You git, we've got to get down to the pitch or Olivia'll-"

"She can't start without us and she knows it," he said, half trying to convince himself. "But Ryan... what's he got to gain by burying the hatchet now?"

Her eyebrows kept creeping higher and higher. "How should I know? I'm not his secret confidant."

Still watching her carefully, he ran a hand over his hair and gritted his teeth. "I know, I... it's just been bothering me, you know? It doesn't make any sense, this one-eighty."

"No, it doesn't." She shrugged, eyeing her escape route again. "But maybe if he keeps going this way, he'll tell you himself, yeah?"

"Why the hell do you keep staring at the door like that? Do my problems bore you?"

An exasperated tutting escaped her lips. "Don't tell me you've already forgotten all about practise! Merlin, Olivia's going to ream-"

"Some things are actually more important than Quidditch, you know!"

They stared each other down for a long, long while before Rose told him in a flat voice, "You sound like my mother."

Though he couldn't be entirely sure what she'd meant to accomplish by saying that, it did, in fact, spur him out the door and toward their appointment with hours of passing exercises. "I'm not sure I can forgive you for saying that."

"Well, you did; she's always goading Dad for betting on matches, spending hours finagling tickets to Cannons games... thinks he's 'wasting precious time and gold', like he should be bringing about world peace, to hear her talk."

"Don't twist my words around! I'm only saying people matter more than a stupid game, you know?"

She turned wide blue eyes on him. "How many times are you going to blaspheme in one evening?!"

"Oh, nevermind!"

o o o

It had taken her the length of their practise session to forgive him for his anti-Quidditch sentimentality, but Rose did come around - only after Olivia screamed at them about proper attitude and "keeping one's head in the game" for twenty minutes solid because Wendelyne had beaned her with a misaimed Quaffle. This seemed to erode her faith in the sport's sanctity enough to tell him he had a valid point.

The two of them were presented with yet another reason to fire theories back and forth about the ghost attacks when Professor Dryden was not present for Potions next morning. It appeared the staff had not been anticipating his absence, either, because their Headmistress oversaw the class period.

"What's he up to?" Rose mused over supper. "Could have at least left enough notice for them to get a proper substitute; old Sprout knew all there was to know about the plants we used, sure, but kept mixing up methods of stirring, or else forgetting which animal bile we needed. Seemed flustered the whole time."

"You don't think he did a runner, do you? Cut his losses?"

"Maybe... but then that's weird. Why wait a week? If Dryden were that worried about his ghostly plans being discovered, he'd steal away the same night, wouldn't he?"

"Not if he had to book passage or something. What if he needs to go into hiding, and maybe he was trying to find an old friend to do the Fidelius or-"

"I guess," she replied skeptically, but he noticed she wasn't really paying attention anymore. Following her unfocused gaze, he spotted the reason.

Jezabel was sitting low in her seat, hastily sopping up the last of her stew with a hunk of bread. As she took a too-large bite and began to gag on it, trying desperately to make no sound while doing so, she noticed the two of them watching and stopped dead with one thin hand at her pale throat. Then, just when Albus was sure she'd pitch forward and become sick on the table, she stood, picked up her schoolbag and hurried on by them, not troubling to acknowledge their presence further.

"Did you just feel the temperature drop?" breathed Rose.

"She really hates me. Or us, or whatever. She thinks we were trying to hurt her on purpose."

Though she frowned at this possible explanation, she said, "We can't know that - not until we talk to her again."

"Which will happen before or after we've left Hogwarts?"

She nodded her understanding, but switched gears. "The girl's hair's already offensive again. Knew she wouldn't take another bath without me wrestling her into it, but I guess I was holding out hope, anyway."

"We all were," said a voice behind them; Albus spun to glare up at his brother's smirking face. "I mean, she wasn't half bad once you scraped all the grease off, y'know?"

"Get out of it," said Albus automatically. "What do you care about her?"

"Apparently not as much as you. Talk around the courtyard is that you and she have had a midnight tryst or two; any truth in it?"

The hex that exploded on the floor between his feet told James that he'd been misinformed.

"Ever wish you weren't related to a berk like that?" asked Rose as they watched him stalking out of the Great Hall. "No offense, but he must've crawled out the shallow end of your gene pool."

"No offense taken." He stared after James for a moment. "Maybe there's a 'sibling exchange' somewhere, and I could trade him in for you; might have to chip in a few Galleons to even it out, though."

Even as she laughed, he could see her ears grow the slightest bit redder. Before she could comment, however, a shout erupted from the Entrance Hall, and both cousins glanced at each other.

"That was Lily, wasn't it?" Rose breathed.

Albus didn't bother to reply, fully focused on drawing his wand again as he stumbled away from their House table and toward the exit. Once he'd pushed his way through a cluster of Ravenclaw fourth-years, he followed the up-turned gazes of nearly a hundred students and saw what had caused his sister to scream.

Peeves the poltergeist was bobbing around at least thirty feet over the gathered crowd, cackling gleefully as if he were about to drop eggs on their heads - except he wasn't holding any eggs. Instead, he had Timothy Goyle by the back of his trousers, long arms windmilling and face stretched as taught as his unqualified terror could stretch it. No one seemed to be willing to help, as this (slightly) abberrant behaviour from the poltergeist had frozen them all, some students in mid-movement.

"What the-" James was muttering from a spot very near where Albus had halted.

"Great gormless Goyle!" Peeves was giggling loud enough to carry several floors up. "Gargantuan git gulping gravy and getting ghastly gas!"

"Peeves!"

It was Professor Weasley who had shouted this at him, having just arrived on the scene. The poltergeist squinted his mean little eyes down at Barty's mother, but only smiled yet wider. "Ickle Clearwater says my name as if it were a curse! Said it that way when I caught her and Percy having a private moment, too! Five times, five times, but now to end my fun she mimes!"

"Stop that!" the professor shouted, who was indeed waving frantically at the spirit even as she tried not to look flustered. "If you don't want me to summon the Bloody Baron, you'd better put him down this instant!"

An involuntary shudder passed through Peeves, and Goyle swung dangerously through the air to the renewed gasps of the onlookers. Then, with a sinister smile that Albus had never seen on his face, he barked, "As you wish!"

It was an odd sensation, watching a body plummet directly toward you from a height that great, almost certain to hit someone, and absolutely guaranteed not to survive the fall. It took but a few long, surreal seconds for Albus to realise he was going to be the someone the Slytherin boy landed on, and had scarcely enough time to raise his wand before he heard a desperate voice shriek, "LEVICORPUS!"

Timothy Goyle's thickset frame changed directions and moved through the air in a graceful arc, the bristles on his forehead just brushing Albus's as he swung to and fro, his ankle suspended by an invisible rope. Once his eyes unclamped and he realised he was not splattered all over the flagstones, he began struggling to regain ground, glancing up at his ankle as if to make sure Peeves hadn't caught him up again. Apparently, though, Peeves had fled the scene.

Albus slowly took in the crowd surrounding he and Goyle. Most faces were watching them, both still afraid they would crash into each other and stunned that it hadn't happened yet. However, several faces were turned in another direction altogether. One of such faces was Professor Weasley's, whose wand was drawn and lips paused in mid-incantation, amazed that another student had reacted first. Finally, Albus found the focus of the stares, and felt his own eyebrows raise.

"L-Liberacorpus," whispered Jezabel, and Goyle landed atop Albus with a THUMP!

In the minute or so it took him to disentangle himself from Goyle's gorilla-like limbs, he tried to process what had just happened. Peeves, his first suspect in the ghostly attacks, back to old tricks? Or was this his first trick? And then there was the fact that he could have died if Goyle had hit him full-force from the ceiling, which he tried not to think about just now as it made him feel queasy. Lastly, though the professor had been readying to cast a spell of some sort to try and save both he and the falling Slytherin, she'd been beaten to the punch.

Though a few students had begun whispering frantically about what happened, Albus heard a strange sound from somewhere off to his right. A moment's searching found Tranquilius Thomas, clapping as he stared at Jezabel with nothing short of admiration.

It caught on quickly: first when Rose and Caspian Lewis joined him, and then the same Ravenclaws Albus had barrelled through moments ago. Albus could scarcely believe what he saw, and wasn't sure it was the best thing to happen for the castle's most reclusive tenant, but the entire student body seemed to be applauding her, and it wasn't long before Professor Weasley joined them.

"Well done, young lady!" she cried as she arrived at Jezabel's side, beaming. "Such quick thinking, and a very brave thing to do, I must say! I'm not sure how to- there has to be- fifty points to Gryffindor!"

Jezabel only nodded weakly, trying in vain to make herself insignificant in the midst of a throng that was focused entirely on her and her recent good deed. She looked rather faint.

When Albus's mind emerged from the fog, he found he was also next to her, both hands on her shoulders. He only paused a moment to marvel at this before instinct kicked in again, and then they were hurrying up the first floor corridor toward a tapestry that disguised one of his favourite shortcuts.

"Whew!" he panted, collapsing onto a step. "That... that was..."

"I- I didn't- they-" She was looking at him desperately, hands clutching at the wall for support. "You have to go back, tell them!"

"Tell them what? That they're right? Goyle's fat head was going to smash into a greasy spot, and you stopped it - you're an honest-to-God heroine!"

"They've misunderstood, I wasn't trying to... I c-couldn't let you be-"

But then a hard, glazed look came over her as the confusion began to drain away, leaving her to realise where she was and with whom. Unwillingly, Albus admitted to himself that the expression on her face might just be a bitter form of anger.

"Jezabel-"

"I... I'm glad you aren't hurt. Goodbye."

"Wait!" His hand caught her thin forearm instinctively as he stood, and he blinked when he found his fingers closed around it with ease. Her eyes grew wide and fearful behind a few loose strands of hair.

"I- okay, I'll- please, I won't go-"

He let go immediately, a sick feeling washing over him. "No, you're- I'm not forcing you to stay, but... can't you, just for a moment?"

"But..." The bitterness returned, now mixing with the fear into a tincture of uncertainty. "All right."

"You're... you're cross with me. Everything that happened a couple weeks ago, it's your right, and totally understandable. But please, you have to know I w-"

"I thought I could tr-" Her words caught in her throat, and she took a few quick breaths to steady herself. "It's a new one on me, I admit, but... you got me to believe you were my friend, to trust you. This is my fault, I made the mistake, I forgot the rules and didn't wait, and you had to reteach me."

Shards of ice trickled down his back as her words began to catch up with him. "What are you talking about? I was trying to- and we couldn't have known- and- dammit, you're twisting it all about!"

"No, no I'm not." Her eyes were leaking tears, but she was more in control of the rest of herself than he'd ever seen her. "You think I'm blaming you, but I'm not; I know I was the careless one. I don't want you thinking I don't know that, okay?"

"How were you careless?!" He stepped toward her, ignoring her automatic flinch. "It's mostly my fault our last Hogsmeade trip was ruined! Meanwhile, you just saved my bleeding life, and- and now you think I'm trying to yell at you for being mad at me?"

"You want to pretend again." The hollow smile only made him more frustrated. "No, I- I do understand, you're not to blame here. And you want to pretend you don't blame me, which is okay; I'll remember, and I'll be more aware from now on. You don't have to worry."

Albus could feel his mind becoming unhinged from the sheer magnitude of her misinterpretation. Gathering himself for one last effort, he pinned her to the wall, looking directly into her deep, enveloping brown eyes and forcing himself to again disregard the way she shrank from him. "I am your friend, Jezabel, you can trust me! The bath - I'm sorry if it upset you, but I didn't want you to get sick! And Belinda Toussant ransacked your room, I was trying to get your stuff back!"

Though she continued to tremble, an eyebrow raised. "Why are you lying? I can tell, I've watched you enough to tell. You were going through my things with them - why don't you want to admit it?"

"Because I feel like an idiot!" He backed off, sinking back down onto the steps. "I... Merlin, I thought I was doing the right thing, trying to prove you weren't a threat to stupid Brunhilda, but... I made everything worse, and I feel like a complete idiot!"

"Did you see my... m-my cards?"

He blinked up at her. "What?"

But he only got a shake of her head before she started backing up the stairwell. "Listen, Albus, it's very late, now, so... we should all get some rest. Yes, a nap is in order, yes. See you around, then?"

"Jezabel! Hey, Jezabel, wait, come back!"

For all the good it did him to shout, he may as well have asked his ears to switch places. Nearly a minute had passed before a painting on the wall to his right grumbled, "But it's not yet eight o'clock... my, my, that young woman sets herself an early curfew."

END Chapter Twenty-Nine