Thinking For Herself

When she got off the Hogwarts' Express, Mr Bulstrode was waiting for Millicent on platform Nine and Three Quarters. He looked disgruntled for some reason, but brightened up when Millicent rushed out of the train and flung herself at him, nearly knocking him over and thwacking Puss' carrier into his kidneys simultaneously. He didn't mind, and hugged her back, although Puss protested loudly.

"No time for chat, we've got to go," he said cheerily to the mothers around him. He and Millicent left the platform before half the pupils had even alighted.

"What's the rush?" Millicent asked, as they lugged her trunk through the Muggle part of the station. Back when her mother had been alive, on the rare occasions her father took the day off work to drop off or pick up his daughter from the train he'd enjoyed chatting to other parents.

Her father relaxed once they were safely surrounded by Muggles, and smoothed down his hair, which looked as though he'd ruffled it up in anxiety. "Have you any idea how many single witches there are around my age? Or even younger ones?"

"Those women weren't single," Millicent replied.

"No, but every one of them knows an eligible female who is, apparently, just wasting away from pangs of longing - longing for the name of Bulstrode." Mr Bulstrode shuddered at the thought of some of the women the mothers had mentioned.

Millicent was scandalised. "That's disgusting! I mean, I had a witch try to befriend me at mother's funeral, and Narcissa Malfoy warned me off because she said I was now eligible, but..." An unpleasant thought struck her and she said no more until they'd left the station. As they loaded her trunk into the car, she said casually, "You're still young enough to have pureblood children, you know. People would like that."

Her father frowned. "I have one daughter who's good enough for anyone, and my wife was irreplaceable."

Millicent punched her father playfully on the arm, and was relieved that he didn't wince with pain. Her father was the best, and she loved him. "I didn't say you could replace her. Just me. I suppose you're pretty hot stuff now. There seem to be plenty of unmarried witches about."

Her father nodded. "A lot of men my age died when You-Know-Who was at his height. Plenty of women too, but more men."

Millicent nodded, and watched the streets of Muggle London through the window of the car. The start of her fifth year was the only time she'd travelled to school alone, and even then her father had arranged for her to have a driver to take her from their house in Salisbury to London. It occurred to Millicent that driving purebloods around - which she was in upbringing, if not in fact - must be a rather profitable enterprise.

"There weren't many of your friends on the train," Mr Bulstrode commented.

"No, just me and Pansy. A lot of them have stayed at Hogwarts to study for their OWLs, although Crabbe and Goyle stayed because their parents would probably force them to study at home, whereas they can slack off at school. I thought I'd do better at home. It's more peaceful, and I can always ask you for help." I want to make sure that you are eating properly, and that the cleaner I employed is looking after our house, Millicent thought.

Her father laughed, "As long as it's not Transfiguration. I was always rubbish at that... I could never see the point of it. If you want a needle, buy a needle. Don't turn a match into a needle."

Millicent smiled. Her father looked more tired than he used to, but not as bad as he had at her mother's funeral. Every so often he'd say something and look sorrowful, but she knew she probably did the same thing.

All through the holidays Millicent revised diligently. She'd drawn herself up a schedule and stuck to it rigidly. Millicent loved systems, and hers worked a treat. One Sunday afternoon her father came up to her bedroom and said, "Fancy a trip to Diagon Alley, Moose? I thought as it's a nice day we could go for an ice cream."

Millicent looked at her well-planned schedule and shook her head. "I've got Charms revision to do this afternoon." Her father's face fell, and she felt awful. He must be so terribly lonely, she thought, always alone in this big old house with only the memories of mother and some waving photographs. "Um, unless you can teach me Charms while we eat, that is?"

One of the advantages of being so tall was that people often thought Millicent was a couple of years older than she was, and she could get away with performing small pieces of magic in magical places without arousing anyone's suspicion. That afternoon Millicent's revision consisted of giggling madly while she and her father made the cherries off their knickerbocker glories dance, Summoned spare spoons and turned the napkins all the colours of the rainbow or levitated them. Other diners looked at them, some impressed with this fine display of magic, others tut-tutted about the behaviour of people nowadays. The Bulstrodes didn't care. They were having fun on a lovely spring day.

Towards the end of the holiday, Millicent and her father went to St Mungo's to see the new beds they'd raised money for. Neither of them had ever had any cause to go to the ward for patients with Long-Term Spell Damage before. Despite the best efforts of the Healers to cheer the place up, and the personal objects all the patients were allowed, Millicent found it a depressing place. She'd been rather startled to find Professor Lockhart there, and did her best to talk soothingly to him. She'd been rather inspired by his stories of encounters with magical creatures when he'd been her teacher, and had dreamed of performing similar exploits. She thought it was a terrible pity to see him in this state, but Millicent supposed someone as brave as Gilderoy Lockhart would have shrugged off the risks of whatever dangerous exploit landed him in hospital. I wonder what did this to him? Millicent wondered.

The Healer showing them around the ward proudly showed them the magical window at the end, which appeared to show a lovely garden. Whatever the season, the garden always looked beautiful, whether crisp with snow in winter, blossoming in spring and summer or filled with fruit and rich colours in autumn. Millicent said, "Hello," politely to the wispy-haired patient gazing out on the grass. The woman, worn and faded-looking, said nothing.

"Alice likes to see the garden," the Healer explained. "You love the spring flowers, don't you, Alice?"

Alice stared vacantly at them for a few seconds, then returned her gaze to the lawn 'below'. "You could have some real flowers on the ward," Millicent suggested. "Then she could smell them too."

The Healer shook his head. "No plants on the ward, I'm afraid. We used to have them, but then there was an accident... That's when the window was put in." He seemed reluctant to say any more.

They discussed other things the patients might like, such as more colourful blankets or some new pictures, until it was time for the patients to have their lunch and the Bulstrodes to leave. Mr Bulstrode shook the Healer's hand. "Thank you for showing us around," he said.

"Thank you for contributing," the Healer said. "The hospital is going to miss Mrs Bulstrode terribly. She was a great friend to us - and to all wizards and witches."

Outside the ward, Millicent heaved a sigh of relief. Yes, the new beds had made the ward a little nicer for the patients, but she couldn't help wishing she could do more for them. "Those poor people! How terrible for Professor Lockhart. He was so nice," she said as they made their way out of the building. "How long does it take before they get better?"

"Some get better in a few years. Some don't ever get better. Alice Longbottom's been there well over a decade."

"Alice? Alice Longbottom?" Was the frail lady gazing out of the fake window related to Neville? She had to be his mother.

Her father looked down at her. "She and her husband were great Aurors. You know the story?"

"From Pansy, and Neville's in my year at school. So that's what the Cruciatus curse does to a person... Would mother have been like that if she hadn't had her medicine? Is the pain the same?"

"We'd have used a Sleeping draught on your mother if the painkilling potion stopped working," Mr Bulstrode replied. "People can stand a short burst of the Cruciatus curse. Some can cope with two or three in succession, depending on the vindictiveness of the caster. The Longbottoms... well, it's a wonder they're not dead, to be honest. It takes skill to torture someone so completely and not kill them, but then Bellatrix Lestrange was a talented witch."

"Draco's aunt? You knew her?"

"Everyone in the pureblood set knew her. Beautiful, rich, powerful - she was quite the star. When you're young, you don't always see what the people around you are capable of. Bellatrix was a raging snob, like most of her family, and was notoriously temperamental, but no one ever thought she could torture anyone."

"There were no signs at all?"

Her father shrugged. "Lots of people held similar attitudes to her, but wouldn't sink to murder. Let's face it, how many Muggleborns have ever set foot in our house? None. It was hardly remarkable that Bellatrix had no Muggleborn friends, and as there was never any reason for her to mix with Muggleborns, we never saw how she reacted to them. The Longbottoms were a fairly traditional family, too - not at all what you'd call blood traitors. Augusta, the old lady, is as much a witch as any of her generation. No one could have predicted what Bellatrix did to Frank and Alice."

"Some people in other houses say my friends are bad," Millicent told him, as they waited in the queue for the fireplace. "That they could be Death Eaters one day."

He looked seriously at her. "What do you think?"

"I don't believe they could do what Bellatrix did." Millicent nodded to herself. No, she thought, they couldn't. Pansy hates Hermione Granger with a passion, and Draco loathes Harry Potter, but I don't believe they could torture them.

**

Millicent returned to Hogwarts with a keen determination to do the right thing. Being on the Inquisitorial Squad would eat into her revision time, but her father had shown her that it was possible to learn while doing other things. While on the Hogwarts Express, she made up little rhymes that matched her steps as she walked, so she could recite important dates and events from history as she patrolled. Pansy laughed at her for it, but Millicent found listening to Pansy mockingly reading out the rhymes in a babyish singsong voice helped her remember them, so she didn't care.

As it turned out, Millicent didn't get much time to recite her rhymes. The term got off to a literal bang as the Weasley twins made their dramatic exit, and things didn't improve much from there. No one thought cleaning charms were likely to come up in their exams, but after being hit by Dungbombs three times in one day Millicent became adept at casting Scourgify. At least she wasn't a target for the worst spells. She guessed it was because she didn't like docking house points or dragging pupils off to Umbridge if she could give a different on-the-spot punishment. She dished out so many lines, she thought parchment and ink manufacturers ought to start paying her commission.

Other members of the Inquisitorial Squad took far more abuse from the other pupils. Pansy, who appeared to be on a mission to empty Gryffindor's hourglass, sprouted antlers, ('I bet it was that hag Granger; she was there when it happened and she's clever enough') and Warrington ended up with a skin condition that made Eloise's acne look like a flawless complexion. Only Marietta Edgcombe's hex-generated spots were worse than anything inflicted on the Inquisitorial Squad.

Given these incidents, and the fact that Montague was still not quite right after disappearing and turning up in a toilet, Draco decided everyone should go patrolling in pairs. Millicent wasn't too pleased to be sent out with Vincent Crabbe, but it was preferable to teaming up with Gregory Goyle. She and Adrian still weren't speaking much, and she noticed him glare at her as she and Crabbe left the Common Room for evening patrol, which made her pace the corridors feeling frustrated and sad. She'd missed him during the holidays in a way she'd never missed seeing Blaise. Millicent always took the later patrol slot if she could; it gave time for her dinner to go down and for her to feed the cats.

Crabbe had been on tenterhooks ever since Draco told him to go out and check the corridors with Millicent. Draco gave the order mainly to shut Pansy up - the girl seemed determined to push Vincent and Millicent at one another - and also because Crabbe and Goyle were just too dim to patrol together. Crabbe didn't know this. All he knew was that he finally had Millicent to himself. He clenched and unclenched his hands as he walked. He didn't usually pay much attention to anything, being content to drift along in a sort of fog, but tonight he noticed every one of Millicent's footsteps, and when she tucked her hair behind her ears and it tumbled straight back down her chest again, he thought the memory would be engraved on the inside of his skull.

"Are you all right?" Millicent asked. "You're awfully quiet tonight."

Crabbe nodded vigorously.

"I mean, if you'd rather we split up and each take a floor I'm sure we'll be fine. It's pretty quiet tonight."

Crabbe was alarmed. This wasn't going the way he'd hoped. He wanted them to be together, not patrolling separately. "Millie," Crabbe ventured. "Have you ever thought about what you'd do after school - I mean, who you'll be with?"

A wave of surprise engulfed Millicent. Crabbe never seemed to focus on anything more long-term than his next meal. "Milli-cent! Um, I'm not exactly fighting off suitors," she pointed out.

"That's because other boys are stupid." Crabbe took her large hand in his own massive paw and kissed it clumsily. His other hand moved towards her waist, and she grabbed it hastily before he could reach his goal.

"Vincent Crabbe, are you going to ask me to go out with you? Don't tell me you're copying Pansy and planning your wedding already." Oh, poor Vincent, she thought. How can I let him down gently?

He looked taken aback. "Well, no. I mean, we could, but I should wait to see if there's a pureblood girl who'll have me, really. Draco says we'll make a great couple and can have some fun before we have to split up."

Millicent glared at him, dismissing all thoughts of tactfully telling Crabbe she didn't fancy him. "So, I'm just a bit of fun am I?"

"I was hoping for a whole lot of fun," he sputtered, trying to pull her towards him. Millicent was hefty enough to stand her ground.

"No one suggests having a bit of fun with Daphne. Draco and Pansy are all but engaged and he knows exactly when to stop. What makes you think I'm any different?"

He didn't have to say anything. Vincent couldn't lie; you could see him desperately thinking and trying to make up fibs. "Um..."

"Don't say anything," Millicent warned him. Her face felt hot, and she knew she was blushing with embarrassment. "We both know why. Pansy and Daphne are pure and can be ruined. I'm already dirty."

"Well, yes. I mean, don't say it like that. I'd definitely propose if you were pureblood, but as you're not, I'd just like to... be with you. You're just fantastic, Millie - Millicent - and there's not a day when I don't think of-"

Crabbe leaned towards Millicent and tried to kiss her on the mouth, but stopped short when she kneed him in the groin and let go of his hands. "Big mistake!" She stamped off down the corridor, hoping he wouldn't follow her. She was absolutely furious, and felt like going back to him so she could punch him in the stomach too, even though she knew letting her temper get the better of her never led to anything good. She'd thought they were friends. She'd thought that he, of all people, didn't care what her parentage was. But no, Vincent Crabbe looked at her and saw an inferior. She could wear the green-and-silver scarf and the little silver I on her robes, but she'd never, ever belong.

Even six months ago she'd have agreed that Vincent was saying the right thing, and she'd have considered herself honoured to be treated like a pureblood's plaything, even if she didn't fancy him. Now she thought of her parents and rebelled against the thought. Her mother had been as talented a witch as any, and certainly respectable enough to marry a Bulstrode. Her father said she was good enough for anyone. She believed it now, so why did it hurt so much when an idiot like Crabbe told her otherwise? Why could it still affect her, even when she'd finally learned how stupid it all was?

She was crying with frustration and hurt, and rubbed the tears from her face angrily. How dare Crabbe treat me like that? It's not as though I was serious. I'm far too young to get married. He'd clearly been thinking about it, though - of being married to me! The thought made her feel a little better.

Being generally practical, Millicent sat down not far from Hufflepuff's doors with the carved badgers dancing across them and took stock of the situation. The cold from the stone floor seeped into her legs, but she ignored the discomfort. I can't go patrolling with Vincent again, she decided. That's the first thing that's got to change. I don't fancy going with Draco, and besides, Pansy always goes with him... I don't like Goyle...

A noise distracted her. Who could it be? Is that Vincent? Millicent thought. No one apart from the Inquisitorial Squad is supposed to be wandering around the building at this time of night.

With a clink of goblets, Justin Finch-Fletchley and Eloise Midgen rounded a corner. They were both wearing pyjamas and dressing gowns, and were carrying trays laden with goblets full of hot chocolate. Millicent stood up, her wand in her hand but down by her side. She made her presence known, calling, "Out after bed time? Taking food from the kitchens?"

Justin swallowed nervously. As a Hufflepuff and a Muggleborn, he was doubly wary of the hefty Slytherin girl. Eloise, on the other hand, knew Millicent better than most people. "Oh come on, Millicent," she pleaded. "It's only hot chocolate."

"It's still against the rules," Millicent said stubbornly. She was going to have to punish someone she liked. Not many people had been as nice to her as Eloise, and Hufflepuff was running low on house points, so Millicent was reluctant to dock any more. Strictly speaking, both of them should be taken to see the Headmistress immediately, but she didn't want to have to haul two silly Hufflepuffs up in front of Umbridge over a goblet of chocolate. Where was the conspiracy in cocoa?

Eloise took a few steps forward. "It's harmless. You know, we've got extra. Why don't you have one? The castle gets cold at night... Hey, you've been crying. Is everything okay?"

"Oh, go back to your common room, and don't let me catch you out of it at night again," Millicent snapped, turning her face away so they couldn't see her reddened eyes. "Next time, I'll dock points and send you to Professor Umbridge."

As Eloise and Justin scuttled gratefully back to Hufflepuff, thanks to the acoustics of the corridor Millicent heard Justin hiss, "You know, that was awfully decent of her. Malfoy would've emptied the hourglass."

"She's nicer than people realise," Eloise muttered in reply. "You should give her a chance."

These comments, more than anything else, made Millicent cry again. People did like her; she was more than a broken bloodline. She rubbed the silver I on her robes. It should be a U, for unjust. Millicent had always been so sure that laws were there to protect people. The Magical Secrecy laws kept people safe, for example, as did the regulations on the thickness of cauldron bottoms. Many of Umbridge's rules were foolish, and almost all of her punishments seemed too severe.

I am making Eloise and Justin abide by the rules, she thought. I didn't give them the full punishment or report them, but I've stopped them breaking curfew again. As long as they stick to the rules from now on, surely it doesn't matter if they haven't had a proper punishment. She looked again at her Inquisitor Squad badge. I shouldn't be wearing this, she decided. I don't believe Umbridge's rules are right. In fact, I believe some of them should be broken. The rules themselves are wrong. I can't go on patrol with Vincent. I can't carry on like this.

I'm going to resign from the Inquisitorial Squad.