Chimaera of Judgement



CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: Flagratattooing

Silence settled on the castle for a moment as Albus Potter's wary mind went to the ghosts; would he find Nearly-Headless Nick around some corner, throwing another student out the window? Then he heard it again - a high-pitched cry of pain. Instantly, he could tell it was coming from a door to his right; three quick steps brought him to the threshold, where he listened before acting rashly.

"The teacher's pet! Always striving for better marks, aren't you? We'll give you better marks!"

Another scream cut through his bones and into his spine. What were they doing in there? He grasped for the doorknob, but it had moved upward several inches; he'd forgotten this classroom held this particular bewitchment, it had been so long since he'd tried to get inside it. As he tried to catch the doorknob again, he heard another voice speaking inside.

"Pleased as punch up there, now, are we?" That had to be a Slytherin and a female, but he still couldn't be sure of whom in particular. "Forgotten all about your roots! Well, we may as well pull those out one by one, then - someone grab her hair!"

Abandoning his scrabbling as a whimpering shout rent the air around him, he leapt backward and whispered, "Alohomora!" He was satisfied to see the door swing open, but began to wish it hadn't.

Several cloaked figures were squeezed into the tiny room, crowded around a lone figure wearing the usual school robes; the head was pulled back so far by one of the figures' hands that he couldn't identify it properly. As he stared into their hoods, trying to make out any of their features, he watched them gaze out into the hall.

"What's going on out there?" one of them hissed quietly. "There's... nobody's opened the door!"

"Forget it, let's just get out of here!"

"What? But we've got her by the-"

"I said forget it! Move!"

Panic seized him as he flung himself away from the door, pushing flat against the opposite wall as five or six cloaks whipped by on their way to opposite ends of the hallway. At the very moment of passing him, one of the hoods fell back and he recognised the sharp jaw and morose eyes of Tristessa Gulch before she was able to replace it and dash out of sight.

Dread slowly returned to him as he stalked toward the nearly-empty room and the sobbing figure on the floor. Though he had known from the instant he heard the voices in the room speak, hope tried vainly to manifest itself even now. Mightn't someone else be in there? Couldn't it be another student, any other student, just this once?

Of course, it wasn't any other student; it was Jezabel, it was always Jezabel. And when he had finally entered the room, stowed his cloak and shut the door behind him, Albus half-wished he hadn't decided he was hungry.

The sleeves of her robes were completely shredded from shoulder to cuff, and a few slashes on her upper chest and stomach were apparent from his vantage point. Her tatty old brown shoes, something Albus thought might stay with the girl throughout her entire life, had been removed and apparently melted into an abomination of their former shape, dripping bizarrely in the corner. Both hands were covering her sobbing face, and there was a sickening stench of roasting flesh hanging in the air. He clutched at his own scalp when he saw a clump of hair lying nearby.

"J-Jezabel," he whispered as quietly as possible; she still convulsed as if a gun had gone off. "What- who was- my God, I'm so, so sorry, I can't believe-"

"Nngh!" she screamed wildly. "No, not you, go away, leave me alone!"

His heart sank. Even in the face of this horrible situation, she held onto her mistrust. "But... but you need to get to the hospital wing, you're badly-"

"Go aw- no, please, I- Albus, how can you be here, why can't you keep your nose out?!"

"That is enough!" he growled, surprising both of them equally. "Dammit, this is unbelievable! I'm sorry things have been so messed up, and I'm to blame for all of it, and- and you can hate me all you want, but I am not about to leave you like this no matter what you say! You're- blimey, you're bleeding all over the- wait."

It was then he saw the lines. Up and down her arms, all over her hands and elbows and stringy biceps. They were red and raw, bubbling, and tiny ribbons of flames were burning low along them. It made no sense, he wasn't sure what he was seeing - and he was especially mystified that he hadn't noticed she was on fire before now.

"What the bloody hell is this about?" he said in dark amazement, bending down to touch one of them.

"NO!" With a mighty jerk, she moved out of his reach, but only just. "Don't touch me, nobody touch me, I- I don't want to be here, I want to be alone!"

"But what did they do?! How can you be burning like that, what's-"

"FLAGRATE!" she shrieked at him, the one eye he could make out through gaps in her fingers wide with fear, agony and fury. "It's all over, and- get out of it, you fool, I mean it!"

"Finite Incantatem!"

Instantly, a magical wind swept over Jezabel's body and the flames went out, though the smell of burnt flesh remained thick on the air. As the smouldering skin began to cool, he bent low, gorge rising as he examined the horrible burns along her arms. All at once, the patterns coalesced within his mind.

"'Freak'," he whispered. "'Traitor', 'Mudblood', they- words, all over, they're-"

"Shut UP!" This time he involuntarily threw his hands over his ears, her volume was so painful. "No, stop, don't look at them! Why on earth won't you get out of here and MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS?!"

"Jezab-"

"GO!"

His hands curled into fists as his eyes stung with hot tears. "No, I won't!"

"Get out! Leave me alone!"

"NO!"

It was as if he'd been robbed of free will; he knew he shouldn't do it, knew it would neither solve anything nor make either of them feel better, but his hands had already clamped around her wasted wrists and forced them away from her face.

It was bloodied, to be sure, and bruises were already apparent. A couple of her teeth were missing, and though he knew Dorika's had been regrown easily enough, it was no less painful to look at. A few minor cuts continued to bleed, and if he wasn't mistaken (a small mercy he would have traded his life savings for at that moment), her nose was also broken. Tears streaked through the blood and into her matted hair.

"Why do you keep coming?" she sobbed, still struggling weakly against him. "Like a stray cat, I... I fed you once, and now you think you live on my doorstep. I... I want you out of my life, I wish I'd never met you - any of you!"

"Yeah, well, friends are exactly like pets that way, aren't they? Stubborn. Now come on, let's get you down to Madam Pomfrey, maybe she can-"

"No, I don't want to go! You can't make me!"

"The hell I can't!"

Unwilling to hesitate another moment, he scooped her up in his arms, nearly overbalancing because it was much easier than he'd been expecting. Her knees fit comfortably into the crook of one arm, and once he'd found her armpit with the other hand her insubstantial weight was easy to bear. Taking care to stow his wand, he jogged from the room.

"I hate you," she screamed into his shoulder, muffling her voice as she snaked an arm around his neck for support. "I hate how you won't listen!"

"You're just going to have to hate me, then. Stop struggling, I'm about to head down the staircase."

They passed two more floors in relative silence, Jezabel only screaming unintelligibly into his robes from the pain. As they neared the doors to the hospital wing, her screams quieted and she blubbered, "I'm sorry."

"What?"

"For all the- for shouting at you, and getting your robes bloody. I apologise for putting you through this, I'm such a useless lump."

"Balderdash. I'm only sorry I showed up as late as I did." Unsure how else to approach this unique situation, he kicked rhythmically at the door, nearly toppling both of them in the process. Jezabel laughed wetly.

"Not had enough practise knocking on doors while carrying people, apparently."

"Guess not," he said with a pained smile. "I'll have to work on that." Before he could say another word, the doors were flung open, and Madam Pomfrey gasped at the sight.

"Good heavens!"

"She needs cleaning up," he said quickly, rushing inside. "And I hope you can do something about these burns, I- I've never seen-"

"Yes, yes, obviously!" she snapped distractedly, drawing her wand and Summoning several flasks of murky liquid from a cabinet across the room as Albus laid Jezabel on the nearest bed. "Now out, out, I can't work with distractions!"

"But I- no! I want to help, you have to let-"

"Absolutely not! I'll have to cut away her clothing, and progressive though this school may be-"

"Okay, okay!" he said hurriedly. "Just..." Not knowing what else to do, he rushed over to her side and grasped one of her burning hands, hoping he didn't inflame it too badly. "Jezabel, I- I'll be back to check on you in the morning, okay? You're going to be all right, you're safe, now!"

"I know," she whispered. She was shaking, and a cold sweat had broken out on her forehead, but she must have caught the look on his face because she flashed him a bleary, puffy smile. "You go and get some sleep. Thank you for finding me, Albus."

"Anytime."

But as he tore himself away from her bed, as he stumbled down the corridor and up the stairs, he couldn't help feeling he was making a huge mistake. Shouldn't he be alerting a professor, or standing guard outside? But he'd been told to leave, and for valid reasons - not to mention that now the worst had passed, every muscle in his body felt weak and fatigued. As he scarcely made it to his bed in time to collapse from exhaustion, Albus promised himself he'd check on her before his first class, just to make sure everything was tickety-boo.

o o o

Everything was not tickety-boo.

"What do you mean, she's gone?!"

"Skipped out during the night," Madam Pomfrey blustered at him as she turned down one of the beds. "I regrew her teeth simply enough, healed up the cuts and smoothed over the burns; tended her black eye and the other bruising, did what I could for her broken nose. That bump on the bridge, however-"

"Please, ma'am," he said urgently. "She... she left, you don't know where she went?"

"Yes, and it's a fine thank you, isn't it?!" she snapped. "I've given up much needed sleep to tend her wounds, and she can't even stick around for a final check-up! She might have been concussed, or developed an infection, or-"

"No... where could she have gone?"

"I haven't the foggiest! Now, if you would be so kind as to allow me to get back to work, young man?"

He nodded vaguely as he left her to organising her bottles of herbs and medicines. It took him a long time to reach Gryffindor Tower with his mind so heavily weighed upon by scattered thoughts, but when he did, he found just the person he was looking for, already deeply engrossed in Quidditch Through The Ages.

"Olivia! Oi, Olivia!"

His captain nodded at him as he approached, yawning widely. "Morning, Potter. What's up? Got a strategy for Ravenclaw? Five weeks of training left, and I hear Moran is working himself night and-"

"Have you seen Jezabel this morning?"

"Eh?" she blinked. "Jezabel... Skirrow? No, why?"

"Was she in bed when you got up?"

"No, she wasn't." Her eyebrows contracted together. "Er... hmm. You know, I didn't see her last night, either. That's odd."

"Could you... well, I don't mean to put you out, but if you could check for me?"

"Check? Potter, what's all this about?"

"Please?"

In the scant minutes it took Olivia Wood to climb the staircase to her floor of the girls' dormitory, his sense of doom only increased. It reached a fever pitch when she rushed back downstairs.

"Either those house-elves work fast," she panted, "or she never came up last night; her sheets are neat as you please."

"Merlin's beard, no, she can't have run away, it's not- not- I have to go!"

"What? But- Potter!"

As Albus flung himself through the portrait hole, disregarding the Fat Lady's offended gasp, he wondered where Professor Longbottom might be at this hour. In his office? In the Great Hall? Then, just as he was rounding another corner, something leapt out of the recesses of his mind.

Both hands plunged into his robes, one producing his wand, the other the Marauder's Map. Activating it quickly as he could, he tapped his foot impatiently as the ink spread over its surface, tracing the outline of Hogwarts's layout. Leaning against the nearest wall, he combed every inch of the parchment - twice. There was no dot labelled "Jezabel Skirrow".

"How can she not be here?" he breathed to himself, setting off for Professor Longbottom's office at a run - at least he had located one dot that may help him. "Where could she go, how could she get out? I... I can't believe this!"

For the first time since he had arrived by boat before his Sorting, he was acutely aware of how large and sprawling the castle was. It felt bigger with every aching moment it took for him to reach his Head of House's quarters, and by the time he was knocking on the door, he wished it had instead been one of those cozy one-room schoolhouses of centuries past.

"Yes, what - Albus, what's the matter?!"

"Jezabel's gone!"

It took nearly twenty minutes for Albus to not only relate the searching he'd undergone to find Jezabel that morning (omitting details pertaining to his father's map and cloak), but also the horrific, savage treatment he'd witnessed the night previous. Though he was sure the Professor saw through his explanation of having "fancied a bit of a walk" that night, he raised no question, only prompting for more information as to the attack and Olivia's search of their dormitory.

"Then obviously Madam Pomfrey can confirm all of those injuries," he muttered at last, the hand holding his teacup shaking slightly. "That's neither here nor there, however. Excuse me. Winky!"

With a deafening CRACK!, another figure joined them in the room. Albus nearly leapt from his seat when he realised a house-elf was standing inches from his chair, bowing low to the ground. The squat being had a round, bulbous nose and rather sad eyes.

"Yes sir, what does Master Longbottom need, sir?"

"Enough posturing," he said dismissively. "I wonder if you could do us a favour?"

"Anything, sir!" it said earnestly; Albus wondered if it might have been female, for its features were less sharp than that of Kreacher's, and its voice higher and more melodic. He hadn't frequently encountered any other house-elves.

"Ask a few of your fellows to help search the castle for a young lady named Jezabel Skirrow; might you already know who that is?"

"But of course, sir," she whispered sadly. "She is the one who changed Houses, sir! They is always doing terribly awful things to her, sir, awfully terrible!"

"Really?" he asked sharply, scarred brow furrowing. "You've... you've witnessed this kind of behaviour before? Why did you never report it to any of the staff?"

The look she cast up at him was plainly puzzled. "No one is asking us, sir."

Longbottom sighed impatiently. "Well, that's not important just now - if any of you find her, I want you to report directly to myself or the Headmistress, is that clear?"

"Yessir!" And with a salute, she snapped her fingers and disappeared with another CRACK!

"That's that. Now..." The look he gave Albus now was so penetrating he shrank back instinctively. "Are you absolutely, unquestionably sure you saw Miss Gulch among this lynch mob?"

"I am, sir," Albus responded, not troubling to keep the anger out of his tone. "It was her, all right. Just wish I knew who else-"

"Very well." Before he knew what was happening, the professor had thrown a pinch of Floo Powder into the fireplace behind him, turning the flames green. "Dryden, I need to speak with you, now!"

They had but to wait a few seconds before the Potions Master spun out of the fireplace. "What is it, Neville? I've a bundle of essays to grade, and all before- Potter?" His cold, piercing eyes narrowed. "What are you doing here?"

"Young Albus here has just told me an interesting story," Longbottom said, fighting to keep his voice even. "Apparently, he happened upon several students in the act of a revival of old Muggle tortures. They were practising them on our Miss Skirrow, you know."

"What?" He frowned in concentration. "Muggle tortures, you- you don't mean they were bouncing her about in the air, twisting her up like a clown with a balloon?"

"Flagratattooing," he growled. Dryden's lip curled in disgust. "Yes, a pleasant image, isn't it?"

"Good lord, I'd thought that one lost to time. Is she... that is, has she survived?"

"That's the hitch - we're not sure. The last was seen of her, Madam Pomfrey had mended all her wounds, but now no one can seem to find her."

"What?! A student's gone missing? Longbottom, we have to-"

"I already have a few elves searching the castle," he assured the now-frantic Potions Master. "In the meantime, there is the small matter of the identity of one of her attackers. There were others, but Mr Potter here has at least positively identified your Tristessa Gulch."

"No," he breathed. To his credit, Dryden appeared to be truly taken unawares by this news - at least, from where Albus was sitting. "You mean to... I don't believe it, that's not possible."

"I'd wager a phial of Veritaserum is in order, wouldn't you say?"

"I... yes, all right, you're absolutely right. Give me a moment, then."

As the Head of Slytherin stalked back into the still-green flames, Longbottom turned to Albus, placing a shaking hand on his shoulder. "Now, listen to me; I wouldn't worry if I were you. Even if Miss Skirrow has left the school, there's every chance she went home, or will turn up in Diagon Alley or some such place. We're going to get to the bottom of this if we can, but you ought to get on with your classes."

"Go to class?" Albus was temporarily dumbfounded; he'd felt certain the Veritaserum was meant for him, to make sure he wasn't spinning wild tales. Either way, the very thought of trying to learn anything after all this... "But there's- no, I- I can't possibly-"

"You must," he said urgently. "I'll let you know personally what's going on once we've cleared it all up, but for now, get yourself to... Defence, isn't it? Run along, there's a good lad."

Albus wanted to shout up at his Herbology teacher, to inform him that he would be taking a seat in the middle of his office until everyone who'd laid a hand on Jezabel had been punished and she was back at school, but he knew it would only land him in trouble. Nodding, he said, "Yes, sir."

o o o

"Come on, Albus, speak to me!"

He sat down heavily at their House table, staring into the bowls and platters without really seeing them. After a moment, Rose slid in next to him, leaning into his personal space to get a good look at his eyes. "You haven't said a word all morning. What's wrong with you?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"But-"

"May I have your attention, please?"

They both turned to look at the High Table, where Headmistress Sprout was rising to her feet, motioning for everyone to be silent. Her voice was magically magnified, and Albus was sure everyone within the Hogwarts grounds could hear her words. He'd never seen her normally-cheerful face so grim and severe.

"Thank you. The staff and I must address something of grave importance; this shall be brief, but I expect your undivided attention.

"Last night, an injustice was meted out by a handful of our own students. Here at Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft And Wizardry, we haven't made common practise of announcing to the school at large who has received detentions or other punishments, but in this case, I hope this serves as a warning to any of you who may have to decide whether or not to repeat such an abominable action. I am speaking of Muggle tortures."

At this, all four tables began whispering frantically, especially the Slytherin table. Albus peered over to see several of them sporting terrified expressions, looking from the Headmistress to each other. Scorpius Malfoy's face was in his palm, head shaking from side to side in a slow manner. Tristessa Gulch, however, was staring straight ahead, stunned and silent.

"The pranks in this castle, as we all know, have been unusually high in number this year, and we have been tolerant thus far. However, when it comes to bruising, slashing... scarification... broken noses and knocking out teeth... well, those aren't pranks in my book, and won't be given the usual punishments befitting pranksters. Six students, whom I would never have believed capable of actions this gruesome, have been identified as the perpetrators. Of these, Ursula Marrow and Zacharias Travers apparently led the others in their torturing, and having been punished before for similar actions, will not be allowed to continue on at Hogwarts."

"NO!" came a shout from the Slytherin table. Now the gasps were more pronounced, and the chattering recommenced; a few other students stood, demanding through the din to know what happened and who else had been sent home.

"Silence!" Longbottom thundered angrily. Sprout, however, motioned for him to regain his seat, and he did so.

"The remaining four students will be serving weekly detentions for the rest of the school year, and have also lost their House a round hundred points." More cries of outrage, which Sprout ignored. "As the entire reason behind their atrocity was related to the House Cup, the latter punishment seems especially fitting. Tristessa Gulch, Atticus Malkin, Genevieve Nott, and Timothy Goyle have brought shame upon Slytherin House, and would do well to learn from this... lest they continue down this crooked path into their adult years. Thank you, that is all."

Ironically, now that they could, no one spoke. While everyone at the other three tables were looking at them in a disgusted sort of awe, the stares from the rest of the Slytherins were lethal. Regardless of how they felt about the torturing or the tortured, none of them could excuse doing something so heinous to cast the cloud of suspicion over all of them, not to mention it would certainly lose them the House Cup. Scorpius edged away from Genevieve, refusing to spare her even the briefest glance.

END Chapter Thirty-One