A lunar eclipse delayed their plan to re-infiltrate Hogsmeade. Polyjuice potion required fluxweed picked by the light of the full moon, but Flavia wanted to pick the limited amount of fluxweed available in the greenhouse by the darkness of a total eclipse for experimentation rather than mischief.
The full moon being out and about during the day had another, more immediate consequence than being forced to put off the implementation of their scheme until the following term: Professor Lupin was indisposed. So while a substitute teacher's presence in their Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom came as no surprise to Fortuna, she did wish it were anybody but Professor Snape.
Impotent rage had inspired the greasy-haired man to make his ordinary levels of nastiness look like the antics of a man who had dedicated his life to spreading sunshine and happiness. The professors had naturally been unable to prove that the Weasley twins had poisoned Draco, so in the eyes of the Slytherins, Gryffindor had humiliated them and gotten off scot-free. Pettiness from their head of house was their only recourse, and he gladly rose—or descended to—the occasion.
He glowered at every Gryffindor as they entered, and glared at Jessica and Astoria for walking with her and Flavia. A thought roughly a quarter as unpleasant as the Potions professor himself crossed her mind. Would he retaliate against the Slytherins in her study group simply for associating with Gryffindors? The answer was yes—partially. He would leave Astoria alone, she was too well-connected, but Jessica would be fair game for subtler retaliation.
The door slammed dramatically behind them and audibly locked. "Nine points from Gryffindor," he said. "One for each of you not seated by the time class began."
There were six Slytherins also standing up. Those who noticed this did not voice their observation.
"Nine," Flavia muttered. "Where's ten?"
"Three points from Gryffindor for talking out of turn, Miss de Luce."
Fortuna nudged Flavia's ankle to smother her hot retort, and the two sat down.
A timid knock sounded at the door a few seconds later. Snape growled and opened the door with a wordless wave of his wand. Becket Holt, another Gryffindor Muggleborn, slunk in.
"Ten points from Gryffindor for tardiness," Snape said.
Then he launched into a furious monologue about the decrepit state of Defense Against the Dark Arts education at Hogwarts. The curriculum was well out of sorts, he opined (even though he knew Headmaster Dumbledore believed the position was cursed) and he would put it back in order in exactly one day by telling them about werewolves.
Fortuna almost preferred the Boggart lesson to this. At least that had been informative. Werewolves were not supposed to be covered until their third year, but he was foisting this charade of a lesson onto every single class he had the pleasure of teaching that day. This was an obvious ploy to maximize the chances someone would deduce Professor Lupin's secret and get him fired.
Then, without actually lecturing, he began to stalk about the room quizzing them. Child by child, the professor grilled his pupils on what they had all failed to read, awarding Slytherins points for the "bountiful effort" they put into their blind guesses, and removing points from Gryffindors for the "sheer buffoonery" they displayed.
On the plus side, their professor's antics had completely erased even the slimmest chance that any of their housemates would care about the points she and Flavia had lost. Resentment festered like a rash, and the savage pleasure at the trick Snape was attempting to obliterate grew along with that resentment.
The professor was not only a bully, but short-sighted. Every petty injustice he doled out only increased their classmates' appreciation of and amusement derived from the prank on Draco Malfoy, and the incident was fast becoming a legend that would follow him his remaining years at Hogwarts.
Professor Snape continued on in this manner for the rest of the hour, and it was with great relief that everyone left him behind to continue his tantrum alone, oblivious to the long-term damage he was wreaking on his own agenda.
Once they had been released to go to their study group meeting, Astoria had the decency to look ashamed.
"Professor Snape has been dissatisfied with how affairs have been handled," she said. She spoke with a self-conscious formality, imitating the diction she had overheard from adults. "He has expressed that dissatisfaction… gracelessly."
"It's a load of shite," Jessica translated.
"I can sympathize with the general grievance," Astoria said. Her older sister, after all, had been a prop. "It was unjust to let the Weasley twins off."
"But there was no proof they did it," Flavia said, bridling. In truth, she was bridling at having received no credit for the prank, but the Slytherins took it as a reflexive defense of Fred and George.
Fortuna cut off the budding conflict with a change of subject that stacked with her agenda for the study group. "Is it all right for you to be seen with us? By other Slytherins?"
Jessica and Astoria exchanged glances rather than immediately responding. They had already thought of the implications of the growing feud with Gryffindor and discussed them together. Specifically, they had discussed them after Jessica had broken the nose of a second-year Slytherin boy.
"We'll be okay," Jessica said. "But the third years are frothing to do
something. You should watch your back in the halls."
Flavia waved a hand airily. "Not to worry, we use Romilda and Romilda's friend as decoys."
"Do they know that?" Astoria asked.
"To the extent they can be said to know anything," Flavia said.
Astoria pursed her lips in simultaneous disapproval and appreciation, and Jessica turned the conversation to her intention to include practical methods of defense in their study group's activities. Fortuna privately approved of the idea and let Jessica adopt it as a plan.
Everyone else had already arrived by the time they reached their club's headquarters—Snape had kept their class late to remind them that werewolves dealt with being werewolves every full moon, just like the one they had today—and they had to figure out how to integrate themselves into the existing conversation.
Derek and Zachary stood by the chalkboard talking excitedly about Draco. Angelique fluttered nervously around them trying to figure out how to draw the conversation away from something as mean-spirited as gossip. Candidus was cycling between disapproving silence and describing his nearly front-seat view of the event.
Jessica, surveying the room, noticed her discomfort and headed towards the smallest boy with a grin on her face. "How are you doing?" She asked, giving a hearty slap on the back, nearly throwing him face first into the front row of desks.
He would have recovered himself, but the other two Hufflepuffs dove to help him. The confusion sent them all stumbling into each other, ending up collapsed in a heap before Fortuna could get close enough to prevent the disaster.
Jessica grinned at them. Even without the pile of eleven years olds, her height seemed to act as an anchor for the group. "Reflexes and coordination," she said. "Looks like you need to practice your footwork before we begin dueling proper."
"Dueling?" Angelique squeaked.
Jessica extended a hand. "Sure," she said. "A bit of real life practice."
"Candidus," Astoria said, pitching her voice to carry over Jessica's, "have you finished that essay for Herbology yet?"
Fortuna, who had seated herself and was pulling her version of the essay in question out now, reflected on how the Slytherins had naturally come to lead the group. There would have been more conflict had Flavia been invested enough in the group to assert herself or had Jessica and Astoria not been willing to act as partners. This was working out perfectly.
No surprise there.
Candidus caught Fortuna's smile and thought she was laughing at him. "I'm secure in the knowledge that
my paper is exemplary," he said, trying for dignity but ending up looking and sounding stuffed. "As was to be expected. It would behoove you all if you turned yours over to me for corrections."
They settled down and did so with varying degrees of meekness. Fortuna ended up with a similar stack of Transfiguration essays, Flavia with Potions, Jessica with Defense Against the Dark Arts, Astoria with Astronomy, and the Hufflepuff collective with Charms. They'd split the dreaded History of Magic evenly.
They each worked through their stack in silence. Unfortunately, the Hufflepuffs finished first, leaving them free to meander over to Fortuna.
"I was hoping we could talk some more about Transfiguration, if Tuna was willing," Angelique informed the other two.
Fortuna was not amused. "You will find your homework much more difficult if you refuse to call me by my name."
Angelique clasped her hands together and kneeled down before her desk. Fortuna noticed with some annoyance the Hufflepuff wasn't that much shorter than she currently was.
"Please, Fortuna of the Most Esteemed Line of Florises, I don't know what I'm doing wrong with our rat to thimble spell. It's so complicated and I don't want to hurt a little baby—"
"Let me finish these," Fortuna growled.
Angelique rose. She and the Zacharies and/or Dereks beamed down at her.
"Hullo. Can—" Flavia hesitated, wondering which one was the correct Hufflepuff boy. "You come over here to look at this?"
Neither leapt to obey the summons—not because they knew about the confusion over their names—but because they were reluctant to engage with Potions. Snape had assigned them a pair of incredibly complex potions right before Christmas holidays, with additional homework due immediately on their return. Only he was so deliberately cruel; the other professors had assigned minimal homework in the knowledge that it wouldn't be done until the train ride back.
At least that was true for most students. Fortuna would be doing hers at the start of winter vacation, clearing the rest of her free time for...what?
"Here," she said to Angelique once she'd finished. "Where's your thimble?"
Even with the assistance of her power, it took her more than a quarter hour to coach Angelique through the transfiguration. By the time they were done, the rest of the essays had been passed back, for later revision.
"Are you going to stay at Hogwarts?" Flavia asked.
Fortuna nodded. "Hogwarts will throw a better party," she said. She left out that the Simmonses would be confused and annoyed if she showed up. "And someone has to take care of Alexander."
There were other things to do as well. Likely more reading, or perhaps more nighttime exploring. That way she could devise a legitimate excuse to tell Flavia that she'd "discovered" more secret passages or, perhaps, the room where she'd found the diadem.
"King George requires servitors who will respect his title," Flavia said with mock solemnity. Abruptly, she switched to persuasion mode and leaned forward, eyes blazing. "You should come with me back to Buckshaw. I know you'd love it. I wouldn't want to impede if there's a reason you're intending to stay, but I know you'd love to meet Dogger. Ophelia and Daphne will be a bother as usual, but you shouldn't worry about that. Oh, but then we could work a revenge on Daffy far away from prying eyes. You'd love the view, and I could show you around Bishop's Lacey, and—"
Flavia had regaled her with tales of her exploits at Buckshaw. The people, the town, even the grisly murders. It was always a reminder that Flavia had lived a full life before even meeting her, and she found that she wanted to see it.
"Yes," she affirmed, "there is nothing I'd like more."
Flavia smiled back at her. "Then, perhaps we should reconvene after our study session to discuss the finer details, Miss Floris."
"I would love to, Miss de Luce."
Jessica banged a fist on her desk. "I would love it if you two would do our history essay before Binns fails us!"
The two looked at each other, expressing an entire dialogue in a glance, but hurried their way over regardless.
*
The final days of school whisked by in a flurry of ink and paper. The students who boarded the Hogwarts express on a cold and snowy Saturday morning weren't exactly free, but most of them would only bother with the homework on the ride back in January.
Their compartment on the train was practically identical to the beginning of the year with the sole addition of Flavia.
Fortuna's side of the room was reminiscent of a tin of kippers, with Flavia packed in between her and Angelique. Harbinger was sleeping on her lap as the gentle pitching of the train rocked him like a baby in a cradle. With the addition of luggage and assorted games, there was barely space left to breathe.
Not that that stopped Angelique or Jessica—or Candidus—from holding hours-long raucous conversation about their plans for the next fortnight.
"My mother always hosts a ball every year for my father's company," Angelique said. "Everyone will be there, and—oh, no.
Everyone will be there."
"What's wrong with that?" Candidus asked.
"All my friends," Angelique said. "They'll want to know what I've been doing the past several months and I'll have to lie because I can't tell them about magic, and…"
She trailed off and twisted her hands in distress.
"Tell them you went on an immersion tour in Kamchatka," Fortuna said.
"Be serious," Candidus said. "The girl is clearly fretting."
Fortuna shrugged, jostling Flavia and Harbinger alike. "'The girl' is eight months older than you are, and my suggestion would work. Are
you going to any balls, Candidus?"
His eyebrows climbed. "Why—no."
Jessica elbowed him in the ribs. "Couldn't get an invitation for that swanky thing Malfoy is holding?"
Candidus wheezed and rubbed his side by way of response.
"What about you?" Jessica asked Flavia. "Did you get one? Or did your sister?"
"For your information, my family has no intention of going to anything held by Lucius Malfoy," Flavia said. "My father would never even consider it. We will be going to church."
"Church?" Jessica's nose wrinkled. "On
Christmas?"
"My father is friends with the vicar. We always attend services."
Jessica shook her head in horror. "Singing the First Nowell till Christ comes home?
My family throws a blowout for the holidays. All my cousins and aunts and uncles come round. Adults get bladdered, we start fighting. Dad'll squat five kids. Queen's speech on the telly. Mint."
"Muggle customs are so strange," Candidus commented and then quickly revised at the glare he received within socking distance. "Wizards normally give gifts and have food, but nothing like speeches or church—no rigamarole."
Everyone looked expectantly at Fortuna, but she deflected the implied question by challenging Candidus to a chess tournament.
She did not let him win even once.
When the Hogwarts Express finally pulled into London, the group separated, saying their goodbyes and exchanging final well-wishes for Christmas. She and Flavia's good mood evaporated entirely at the sight of Flavia's sisters, waiting for them by the entrance.
For a few uncomfortable moments they stood in silence, the older girls unsure how to respond to the addition of a fourth person in their group. It became apparent that Flavia hadn't told anyone that she'd invited Fortuna.
Ophelia decided to accept the situation, but shot an angry look at Flavia.
Flavia walked in between them like a prisoner off to be hanged until getting to the road. As soon as Fortuna had stowed Harbinger and caught up, Ophelia raised her wand and the Knight Bus came with a snap. They boarded, the driver giving a tip of his hat to each of them, and they were off to Gloucestershire.
Now that the novelty of magic had worn off, Fortuna found she did not care for the Knight Bus. Aesthetic was the only reason not to bolt seats down, and that aesthetic was worse than bizarre; it was disruptive to the comfort of her cat.
While
she was able to keep her mug of cocoa under control, Daphne's sloshed out of her cup and landed in Fortuna's lap—or, more precisely, on Harbinger's back.
She might as well have struck a match to a bottle rocket. Harbinger was off her lap, yowling and rushing between legs and under benches. Fortuna flung the book she'd been holding aside, making sure it would land undamaged behind her and scurried after her feline companion through the agitated masses of wizards heading home for Christmas.
By the time she had retrieved him and soothed his dignity enough he would deign to return to their place, Fortuna had fully devised a plan to put the Knight Bus out of business by the expedient of engaging proxies to create a magical transportation company that offered the exact same service, except with furniture that didn't move. She would start that evening, in fact, once Flavia was in bed and she had a level surface to write on.
"I'm glad to see you've finally found a friend your size," Daphne observed, neither apologizing nor lifting her eyes from
Middlemarch. "It's a pity she matches your diminutive moral stature as well."
"She's
short-sighted, too," added Ophelia. "Permitting an untrained, ill-natured animal to cavort about on public transportation."
"Feely," Flavia said, "does not wear glasses because she thinks they diminish the radiant shine of her ethereal beauty. The truth is she loses that radiant beauty once she can clearly see her reflection."
She said this casually, but she was looking out the corner of her eye at Fortuna's cat, wary of his owner's reaction. He was furiously licking the remnants of the offending liquid off his back in an effort to restore his equanimity and poise. Fortuna kept her face steady as she reflected that any guilt she might have felt about participating in Flavia's pranks against her sisters had been preemptively quashed.
"I wonder," Fortuna said, fixing an unfriendly frown on Daphne, "how you would react if someone spilled scalding hot cocoa on
you."
"There's no need for wondering," Flavia said. "Empiricism is my watchword, the scientific method is my creed. We will dash the liquid across her back while she sleeps—not tonight, obviously, because expectation of observation would contaminate the results-- but when she thinks she's safe."
Fortuna nodded along to this. "An excellent method of arriving at the truth. I accept your proposal, though I would suggest repeating the experiment under similar conditions to guarantee replicability."
"The implication I would act otherwise wounds me, Miss Floris," Flavia said.
Fortuna bowed to the extent it was possible while sitting with an indignant cat on a seat that was sliding around. "I apologize, Miss de Luce. I was merely thinking of experimental rigor, and I meant no such slight on your integrity."
"Oh!" Ophelia exclaimed with disgust. "
Two of you!"
"Indeed," Daphne said. She'd abandoned all pretence at reading. "And why is that, Tweedledee? Can't you cause trouble at your own house?"
"No," Fortuna said.
Ophelia, who suddenly saw where this line of conversation was headed as clearly as Fortuna did, winced. She reached out to lay a warning hand on Daphne's knee, but her chair was suddenly whisked away by the bus taking a sharp turn.
"If even your own family doesn't want you around, why are you bothering us instead of staying at Hogwarts? We already have one barnacle stuck to us, and you aren't as charming as Anne Shirley."
"I watched my parents die," Fortuna said, conversationally. "Home invasion. Messy. I can't remember anything before that. Traumatic amnesia took everything but that moment away from me."
That shut Daphne up as effectively as a knife to the throat would have, but she decided to twist it.
"Why would you use that as a basis to insult anyone, let alone your own sister's guest?"
With that rhetorical question, Fortuna reached into her bookbag—taking care not to disturb Harbinger—and grabbed
The Murder at the Vicarage. She decided to ignore the older de Luces. She could feel Flavia seething beside her and it didn't take long before she got up and swayed like a sailor down the aisle to the driver, with whom she spoke in a hushed tone.
It was only a few moments before she headed back, gripping poles and people for stability.
"We are not going to go with
them," Flavia announced as soon as she sat back down. "We'll be stopping by Inspector Hewitt's home before we go to Buckshaw. They can explain our absence to Father themselves."
It wasn't true, Fortuna reflected. The only one planning on meeting them was the man called Dogger; Mr. de Luce wouldn't emerge from his rooms until the following day. The comment still stung Daphne, who pretended to return to her book in an attempt to cover her mortification.
Fortuna found the antics of Leonard and Griselda Clement progressively less gripping as time passed, and she eventually let her book close so she could look out the window. They'd left London behind quite some time ago, and now they were careening through parts of the country she'd never seen—and, considering the Knight Bus's antics, she still wasn't seeing them except for when they stopped to let off or take on another passenger.
She considered making her alternate bus company more leisurely, but found the speed was part of the appeal for most passengers, many of whom couldn't apparate. Perhaps a side line in tours? If her venture earned enough, she could outright buy the Knight Bus and simply retire it. She planned and refined her attack until at last Flavia poked her in the arm.
Fortuna and Flavia left their baggage with her chagrined sisters and hopped off at the end of a walkway leading up to the door of a limestone cottage. It boasted two chimneys, several gables topped by a steep-pitched stone slate roof, and a well-tended—magically tended—garden, though the season ensured there were no flowers. Harbinger twisted out of her arms and jumped over the low wall that surrounded the lot. Fortuna understood his need to see everything. This place was perfect and anyone who lived here was worth knowing; they could let her inside.
"I can't wait to introduce you," Flavia said, unknowingly echoing her thoughts. She'd regained her footing now that her sisters were out of sight. "Inspector Hewitt is a good colleague of mine—though he won't admit it—and his wife, Antigone, is the only other Witch in Bishop's Lacey."
She ushered her through the gate and up the path, nearly skipping as she made her way to a wood door. She gave three hard knocks and waited on her tiptoes, trying to peer through the peephole. It wasn't long before she perked up, hearing the sound of footsteps inside, and stepped back. The door swung open and a woman stood in the entrance.
She wore Muggle clothing, jeans and a blue-green sweater that matched her eyes exactly, and both were set off by her olive skin and the black hair that cascaded down her back.
Flavia stood enraptured, vibrating beside her, and Fortuna wounded if she needed to swat her just to have her calm down. "Mrs. Hewitt!" she exploded at last. "I'm back!"
"So I see," Mrs. Hewitt said with a smile. "It's good to see you again, Flavia. I wasn't expecting you for a few more days. Happy Christmas."
"Happy Christmas! This is my friend, Fortuna Floris. She's going to stay with us at Buckshaw. Fortuna, this is Antigone Hewitt."
Fortuna offered the best handshake she could muster, which was the best of all possible handshakes. "Pleased to meet you," she said.
"And you," Antigone replied. Fortuna suspected her of inwardly laughing at them both for the formality, but forebore from asking herself. "I was about to have tea. Would you care to join me?"
Flavia, who had been expecting and desiring exactly this, burbled about how they couldn't possibly intrude even as she was stepping forward to cross the threshold.
There was a crash from down the hallway. Antigone had drawn her wand and thrust both of them behind her in the time it took for Fortuna to identify the sound as shattering glass.
"Stay here," she said very quietly, and set off in the direction of the room where the noise had originated.
Naturally, they did not stay there. They followed immediately, Fortuna with her knife and Flavia with her wand. They took their cue from Antigone, who was moving slowly and silently instead of barrelling into trouble.
But when they got to the room in question—a den or library—they saw there was no danger. There was only a man, unarmed, grasping the back of an armchair for support. He half-lifted one of his hands when he saw Antigone, but aborted the gesture to grasp his throat.
He opened his mouth—to explain himself, to beg for help, simply to scream—but no sound emerged. Instead from his mouth bloomed a single poinsettia, red as blood.
***
Author's Note: I was hoping to get this chapter out much sooner, but sadly Christmas time certainly made writing difficult. Hopefully a little holiday cheer in January won't feel too out of place. I would like to thank BreezyWheeze and others for supporting me on my
patreon! It certainly helped with the gifts this year. I hope you all have a happy holidays and lovely New Year.
