Fortuna took a moment to assess the situation. The blond Slytherin was pressing the fingers of his left hand—his right arm was in a sling—to the nasty red mark rising on his forehead. She had a few seconds to think; he was too taken aback to act and his lackeys weren't proactive enough to do anything but stare at their stunned boss.
She looked ahead to the next five minutes. There was going to be a fight. A couple dozen spells would get cast, the noise and shouting would draw the attention of a professor, and everyone would get detention.
Including her.
That was unacceptable. She couldn't afford even one black mark on her record.
Hermione straightened up, but she'd missed Fortuna's attack and didn't know why Malfoy had shouted. "She's right, Malfoy," she said. "You
should shut up."
Malfoy lowered his hand, ignoring Hermione's words. "That was a mistake," he said. He drew his wand from his left pocket, awkwardly transferred it to his right hand, and pointed it at Fortuna. "What do you think you're doing?"
He'd meant his question to be rhetorical, but it was dumb enough to be given an answer. She made her decision and her power mapped out the way forward. "Leaving," she said. "Come on, Hermione."
Hermione didn't move. Her eyes darted between the three Slytherins as she assessed the situation, and her hand moved in the direction of the pocket of her robes.
"No!" Malfoy said. "You attacked me and I'm not about to let you get away with that."
"No she didn't," Hermione said indignantly. "Her wand's not even out!"
"Not with magic, of course, because she doesn't know any." He turned his attention back to Fortuna, looking down his nose at her. It was an unimpressive feat; she was short. "Muggleborn, are you?"
Fortuna shrugged. "Most likely."
"Muggleborn
and a bastard, then," he sneered. "Well,
I know who my father is and you ought to learn. I'll do you a favor and help you start your career at Hogwarts out right by teaching you a lesson about how our world works."
He continued in that vein for a while, and Fortuna considered the tone, inflection, and cadence of his voice while the professor she was relying on got closer and closer. He sounded like Candidus—or Flavia, she had to admit, especially when she was excited. Coming from Flavia, it sounded like a natural and unconscious self-assurance. Coming from Malfoy, it sounded like inbreeding.
"
Flipendo," Malfoy said, when at last he'd finished.
She'd already lowered her shoulder by the half-inch necessary to dodge the jinx.
"It's against the rules to use magic in the corridors, Malfoy," Hermione said, already working through spells in her own head. By now her hand was gripping her own wand, though she hadn't yet drawn it.
"Then don't use any, Granger." He shrugged his hand out of its sling and cast the spell again. "
Flipendo!"
Fortuna, having moved slightly while his attention had been on Hermione, simply wasn't where he'd aimed. The other two Slytherins decided to get on board with their leader's plan and started trying to hit Fortuna with knock-back jinxes of their own. Hermione
would have drawn then, but Fortuna stumbled into her wand arm as she avoided the spells with a series of unnecessarily showy dodges.
"
Tarantallegra!"
Fortuna had already recovered and started to leap back before he'd finished the word. The jinx hit a suit of armor and its legs began to jerk spasmodically. She nudged one of Hermione's books into one of the suit's sollerets, which redirected it into the path of the goons' next spells, where it conveniently shielded Hermione and flew to pieces.
The girls avoided being struck by the hail of spaulders, poleyns, and gauntlets because Fortuna had already tripped into Hermione, knocking her over. Half the floor must have heard the clatter, but the only one who mattered was the Professor of Ancient Runes. She stopped in her tracks, sighed, cursed her decision to become a teacher, and began power-walking towards them.
After a few more seconds of Fortuna evading the Slytherins' oncoming spells in just such a way that her overblown flailing knocked Hermione's assorted limbs clear of the attacks, the professor finally arrived.
"Mr. Malfoy!" The professor's shout reverberated throughout the hallway. "What do you think you are doing?"
Her voice echoed, and her question repeated itself in the silence that followed her arrival.
There was no good answer, either—no reason why an older boy was threatening two unarmed girls who were lying on the floor amidst a pile of books and a tumble of armor. Malfoy looked at the professor and then back to Hermione, before stuffing his wand into his robes.
"Professor—"
"Detention for using magic in the corridors, Mr. Malfoy. A week of detention for the three of you."
"Professor,
she started this," Draco said, pointing a finger right at Fortuna.
"A first year?" the professor said, a little sarcastically. She was far an impartial judge. Hermione was already shaping up to be the star pupil of her Ancient Runes class, and her interest in the professor's subject had earned a measure of goodwill that did not extend to Malfoy and his cronies. She turned to Fortuna, who was helping Hermione up, and gave her a hard look. "You are a first year, aren't you?"
Fortuna said she was. She broke eye contact and looked at her feet, like she was worried she had done something wrong by being a first year in front of a professor.
"Where's your wand?"
"In my back pocket, Professor."
"Did you attack Mr. Malfoy?"
"No, Professor. I did…" She broke off and let her voice waver a little. "I did tell him to shut up."
If Fortuna hadn't known to look for it, she would have missed the twitch of the professor's lips.
"They knocked my books all over, Professor Marchbourne," Hermione interjected. "Then they started insulting me. It's what started this."
"Thank you, Miss Granger. Do you need any help? Are you hurt?"
"No," Hermione said hotly, "And neither is
he. He's pretending his arm's been seriously injured by Buckbeak, but it isn't. He's
faking to get Hagrid in trouble."
"Liar," Malfoy spat. "And that girl threw something at me, a coin or something small like that. I had to defend myself, even though I'm injured."
Fortuna thought that if he'd thought to point at his own forehead, he might have had a more convincing case. She further thought that he was lucky she hadn't been given the option to pelt him in the face with a steel greave.
The professor sized her up again, and found nothing in her face or stance to indicate she was anything other than an innocent eleven year-old scared that she was going to get in trouble at her new school. "So you had to defend yourself against a wandless first year who's been at Hogwarts less than four days. Is that what you're saying, Mr. Malfoy?"
The boy turned pink and began to stammer.
"A likely story," the Professor said. "Show me the coin she threw at you, would you, Mr. Malfoy?"
The Slytherins eyed the ground like a flock of magpies, but aside from the scattered pieces of Arthurian armorment, there was nothing small that could have been used by a projectile, let alone a coin. The professor scoffed and led them off to discuss the particulars of their detention.
After the trio of boys had been pulled away, she began, once again, to help Hermione pick her things off the floor. "Thank you for coming to help me," the older girl said, "But I could have handled them myself."
Fortuna felt a brief spike of annoyance at the other girl's condescension, but she quashed it once she realized Hermione was simply concerned about a younger student involving herself in trouble. She schooled her features into an appropriately repentant look. "I'm sorry about all the fuss, but I wanted to ask you another question."
Hermione's forehead wrinkled. "Ask me another question?"
"Like we discussed in the library. Just now, before all this."
There was an awkward pause, then a look of comprehension flooded Hermione's face. "Oh, right. In the library, yes! Of course. Sorry, I have so much going on—everything's so confused—Malfoy made me forget—what were we talking about?"
"Memory Charms," Fortuna said slowly. She was seized by a sudden concern that her amnesia was contagious—but no, that was stupid. Something else was wrong with this picture, and she asked herself what it was.
"Right," Hermione said, scrabbling for mental purchase. Her brisk nod did not convince Fortuna she knew what was going on. "Right. Of course. Sorry, and what about them?"
Her power explained that her past was in Hermione's future. This Hermione was about to travel back into time in order to study—and two hours in her future, ten minutes in Fortuna's past, she would meet Fortuna. The Hermione
she had just spoken to had gone the opposite direction to the groundskeeper's cottage.
The phrase
time turner came to mind. Interesting, but not immediately useful for someone in her shoes. She needed answers about something that had happened considerably more than six hours in the past. It was a possibility to bear in mind, but it wasn't presently relevant.
"You gave me a good starting point, not to worry. I was wondering about something else—something about the history of magic. But we could talk about it later."
"Of course, but really I think Professor Binns would be more useful for you—to begin with, I mean. Have you had his class yet?"
Fortuna shook her head, and Hermione bustled off, leaving her standing in a pile of armor. The professor hadn't bothered putting it back together, so she did, using her power to identify and cast the spell. The knight's return to its dais revealed the errant knut lying on the ground, where it had been concealed from the professor's view by a handguard. She picked it up and considered it.
She would, of course, restore the money to its rightful owner. Hermione wouldn't notice the coin's absence, nor would she notice its return. In a few weeks, she would spend it on candy at Hogsmeade. A few days after that, it would find its way into the hands of a bartender, who would give it as change to a man called Fetters, who'd send it to his niece in Cheshire, who...
She cut herself off.
As a rule, she didn't interfere with money. She was young, and a child who suddenly acquired wealth would be noticed. Besides, other people needed it in a way she did not; she could get whatever she might want via other means.
And right now, what she wanted was to exact a little revenge for what Draco Malfoy had said about her family. It was true that she had baited him, that she had more or less chosen for him to say what he had—but her power wouldn't have given her that option if he hadn't really felt that way.
As she walked back to Gryffindor Tower, walking a little more slowly than usual so that she could conveniently arrive at the same time as someone else and thereby avoid having to say the password, Fortuna asked herself how the Malfoy family had acquired and retained their wealth.
Some balancing of the scales might be due.
✶✶✶
There were few things Fortuna hated more than History, and dealing with it was a task she'd delegated to her power within the first minute of the first time she'd been told to open her social studies textbook. She never asked her power to tell her what actually had or had not happened—she asked it to write the expected answers on her tests without bothering to consider any of the twaddle her hand might scrawl.
Of course there were reasons people
said history was relevant, but they were all bunk. She'd heard that those who did not remember the past were doomed to repeat it, but she knew that people did
not avoid mistakes even if they'd memorized a load of dates and "facts" that were not, her power assured her, usually facts at all. She knew what the actual facts were, to wit: that history class always was a complete waste of time, that history class always had been a waste of time, and that history class always would be a waste of time.
The student body at Hogwarts seemed to agree. When one of the first year boys said their first class that morning was History of Magic, the older Gryffindors said that having to deal with Professor Binns on a Monday morning was hard luck. As they took their seats, Flavia mentioned that neither of her sisters had anything positive to say about the class or their professor, whom they bemoaned as dull and oblivious. Fortuna suggested that, when it came to history classes, listening to a dead guy drone on and on was really just cutting out the middle-man.
Luckily for her, even dead professors still allowed the student body to harass them after class with questions. Professor Binns didn't get nearly so much of it—being a boring man who taught a boring subject boringly helped with that—so Fortuna had a clear shot at him before he could phase through a wall.
"Professor, if I could have a word with you."
He looked around, confused, and finally he noticed the girl in front of him. He adjusted his spectacles as he focused on her. "Can I help you, Miss...?"
"Floris, sir. I wanted to ask you a question about something not covered in the lecture material."
"Very well," Professor Binns said. He sounded disinterested and clearly wished he were elsewhere, as though he had anything to do besides haunt the staffroom.
"I wanted to ask some questions on the history of magic," Fortuna said. "Specifically where magic comes from. Are there any generally accepted theories on who created it or where they were from?"
The ghost scowled. "Miss—" He faltered as he'd already forgotten her name. "Young lady, I do not teach myths or legends in this class, only cold, hard facts. 'Atlantis' does not exist and never did, and our craft was certainly not
gifted to us by
extraterrestrials. If you wish to indulge in idle, baseless speculation, I suggest you take out a subscription to the Quibbler.
I will not countenance such prattle, if I see anything of that bent in your essays, I will mark you down.
If that is all."
Not waiting for a response, the ghost turned away and swept through the nearest wall. He didn't even glance back as he disappeared.
Whatever Fortuna had expected, it hadn't been
that. Apparently she'd touched a nerve. She consulted her power. Evidently the topic was a sore spot among historians. Nobody knew where magic had come from, and the handful of explanations presented were less theories and more fairy tales.
So much for mainstream history. Was there anything behind the theories that might be found in whatever the "Quibbler" was? No, not at all. It was a one-man tabloid run by someone who was completely barking.
Then she asked herself about "Atlantis." No fog there: it wasn't a real place and it hadn't ever been a real place. Nor were the legends about it founded in fact at all; it was a metaphor a Greek Muggle had created when he was talking about philosophy.
As for aliens granting special powers to humans? Absurd. What she'd seen had nothing to do with aliens; the monsters were twisted humans and the land she'd seen had been earth. And it seemed that if she wanted to know where that land and its people had gone, she would have to do her own work.
Standing around as the classroom filled up with the next period's students wasn't going to get her anywhere. Fortuna followed her professor's example and departed, fuming slightly, once she'd grabbed something that wouldn't be missed. The one time in her life she had a question that historians should be able to answer was the one time they couldn't. It seemed she would have to do their job for them, and she couldn't think of anything more annoying.
"Hey! Fortuna! Hey!"
Angelique. The voice had started from down the hall, but it was getting closer and closer with every word. Fortuna suppressed the temptation to increase her pace. Today was an important step in implementing her plan to stay unnoticed, and Angelique was a critical part of that. The key, even.
Angelique tried to grab her shoulder, but Fortuna dodged the overly familiar greeting by turning to face the smiling Hufflepuff encroachment.
"It looked like you were going to make a run for it. Didn't you hear me?"
Fortuna shook her head and smiled ruefully. "I was lost in thought."
"I know what you mean," Angelique said. "I think I might be dreaming. I know I fell asleep in class, but I don't know if I've woken up yet."
"You didn't fall asleep," Fortuna said. "You just wanted to."
Angelique burbled on without taking note of this interjection. "I've got a bunch of people meeting in the library in fifteen minutes. Can you bring Flavia?"
"She's already on the way to the library," said Fortuna. "I had to stay behind to ask a question."
The other girl beamed. "Already hard at work?" She continued without waiting for an answer, "Henry is going to help us kickstart our study group, but he can't start until next week."
She didn't identify Henry, so Fortuna got her power to do it for her. He was a fifth-year whose eagerness to help anyone and work ethic would counterbalance his only slightly above average grades. He was also vulnerable to candy; all Angelique had done to recruit him was drop one hint that chocolate frogs might be on the table, and his hand signed that metaphorical contract.
Meanwhile, Angelique was still talking. "I asked Jessica and Candidus at breakfast, so they should already be there."
They were, Fortuna knew, but she didn't say so. Instead, she let herself endure the small talk and introductions to two other Hufflepuffs, Zachary Bangbourne and Derek Oakthorn. They were both brown-haired, round, and eager, and Fortuna had difficulty telling them apart.
Not that she needed to. Her power would do it for her.
When she got to the library, she split off from the Hufflepuffs so she could go round up Flavia. Her partner in crime had seized a table in a corner remote enough that Fortuna wouldn't have been able to find her on her own.
Flavia did not want to join the study group and said so. She said she didn't think she would get any academic value out of it—her actual thought process was much blunter about her classmates' intellectual capabilities—and Fortuna knew full well that she was correct.
"I believe I could get good marks without help as well," Fortuna said. "But there are other considerations. Friendship, connections, simply enjoying school as such."
It was a weak argument, but it was only her first. She was going to persuade Flavia, but it wouldn't be through the logic of a specific argument; it would be through the way she said it, the way she would advance so many arguments so quickly. Flavia would pay less heed to the words and more to the fact Fortuna would brook no refusal. In the end, her friend would concede simply to make her happy.
"I doubt it would be any better than just studying on our own. Socializing might actually be a distraction."
"It would help the others," Fortuna continued. "A variety of different perspectives and strengths will provide insights and understanding impossible to achieve on their own."
Flavia seemed preoccupied with her ink bottle. "You could join on your own," she said. "I wouldn't be upset."
Not completely true, but she believed it was.
"But it just wouldn't be the same without you," Fortuna said. "I need help in potions as much as anyone who isn't you."
"I've been immune to flattery ever since our chef said I'd make nearly as good a cook as her one day," Flavia said grumpily. But her grumpiness didn't quite sound convincing.
"And do you
really think someone like Professor Snape should determine our classmates' entire experience with Potions? Do you think he
deserves that kind of influence?"
Flavia threw up her hands. "Pax," she said. "Stop. No more. I concede. I will join your study group." She began to pack up her things. "You really want to do this."
"I've read mysteries set in boarding schools." Fortuna shrugged. "Now that I'm actually here…There is a way things
should be, if you know what I mean. Ordinary students by day, rogue detectives by night."
Flavia chewed her lip in order to suppress a smile. "Rogue
potioneers. I suppose it could provide some cover."
"Precisely."
✶✶✶
Counting the two Gryffindor girls, Angelique had corralled seven first years into her study group. Candidus had come by himself because his efforts at making friends in his own house had thus far been fruitless for reasons known only to Fortuna and everyone he'd approached, while Jessica had brought the blonde girl Fortuna had noticed with her during flying class. She introduced herself as Astoria Greengrass and everyone took their seats.
"So," Angelique said, "What's everyone been up to?"
"I'd say a hair under five foot," Jessica said with a pointed glance at the Gryffindors.
"I'm surprised you can still see us from all the way up there," Flavia said coolly, though not as coolly as she'd intended, before turning her attention back to the Hufflepuff. "Nothing much. We've just been settling in."
"I don't know if I'd call annoying
Draco Malfoy 'nothing much,'" Astoria commented, looking at Fortuna. "That was you, wasn't it?"
It seemed the Slytherins were a little more gossipy than she would have preferred, and she was a little surprised to learn that Malfoy had shared anything. In his place, Fortuna would have found the experience humiliating and kept quiet about it. But no, her power confirmed; this scion of one of the proudest and most prominent families in his society possessed so little dignity that he'd spent the majority of the previous day stalking about the Slytherin common room and vowing revenge on the feral Mudblood who had assaulted him.
She put on a show of total bewilderment. "I don't think so," she said.
"He said a first-year Gryffindor girl attacked him, which gives us five possibilities." Astoria lifted her left hand, all five fingers outstretched to indicate said possibilities.
"Oh, that
definitely wasn't me," Fortuna said. She made herself sound relieved, as though the possibility of being in Draco Malfoy's bad books was very intimidating and she was glad to have ruled herself out. "I didn't attack anyone."
"Well, he said someone did." She lowered her pinky and ring finger. "Not de Luce and not Blackstone, he would have recognized them."
"Odd," Flavia remarked, in an uncharacteristically snooty voice that Fortuna recognized as an imitation of her oldest sister's. "
I wouldn't have recognized
him."
She was lying, and Astoria knew it, but she didn't try to argue. Instead, she refocused on Fortuna and lowered her middle finger as she continued talking. "He said it was someone with black hair, which puts Amica out—she could be mistaken for a Weasley."
Fortuna regarded Astoria, wondering where she was going with this. An opportunist, she judged. The Slytherin had come here to see what the fuss was about and to decide whether she'd try to gain standing with her peers by warning Fortuna, or to try to curry favor with her older housemates by reporting on Gryffindor antics to Malfoy.
"That leaves you and Romilda Vane. But he also said it was a M—Muggle-born and Romilda's a Pureblood." She raised her now solitary thumb for emphasis. "The person who attacked him must have been you."
Flavia snorted. "A logically compelling argument, if you accept your premises. But you've overlooked the obvious possibilities, which is that he was lying or wrong."
"I think he must be lying," Fortuna said slowly. "I did run into three Slytherin boys in the halls yesterday, but
they attacked
me. Tried to jinx me and a teacher stepped in before I could get hurt."
Astoria nodded sagely, as though she'd suspected that had been the case all along. It seemed that Draco's dramatic antics weren't confined to hallway standoffs, and Fortuna's account rang more true than Draco's tale. The scales tipped slightly in her favor; Astoria believed her and felt a little sympathy.
That sympathy wouldn't stop Astoria from trying to play both sides and she'd
definitely be reporting that Flavia de Luce had publicly thrown her support behind his attacker, but it was a start. He wouldn't forget his grudge, but he would be smarter—or at least quieter—about acting on it. For a while, anyway. When he thought the Head Girl wouldn't notice.
"Draco..." Jessica rubbed her chin. "That'd be the blond tosser always walking around the common room and talking about himself?"
Astoria was scandalized, both by Jessica's dismissal of a member of the ruling class and the fact she was sharing intrahouse drama with people outside of Slytherin. "
Draco Malfoy is the son of a very important man and it wouldn't be a good idea for you to be spreading rumors about him, or worse, insulting him."
"Fuck him," Jessica said.
Flavia hauled her potions textbook out of her bag. "I can't help but notice that
he is spreading rumors about and insulting
Fortuna."
"Fuck him," Jessica said again.
This was leading up to a fight that would be big enough to get them kicked out of the library and would drive Astoria out of the study group. Jessica wouldn't back down and Astoria would work herself up into a self-righteous rage about treating the older Slytherins with respect, particularly in public. The Hufflepuff boys and Candidus wouldn't be of any help, and Angelique was already wringing her hands over everyone not just getting along.
Fortuna nudged Flavia, who nodded a little and cut off the brewing battle by slamming her book on the table so hard it shook a little.
Jessica whistled. "You smashed that harder than I smashed your mum last night."
Everyone else looked baffled by this comment, which redirected some of the tension into confusion. The truth was that not even Jessica knew what the phrase she'd said meant, but Fortuna suddenly did, wished she didn't, and allowed some of her irritation to show. "
If we could focus on why we're here, we have a potions assignment due tomorrow. I believe that will be everyone's worst class."
The mood turned damp as a marsh and everyone was scowls and frowns as they opened their potions textbooks. All except for Flavia, who started drumming her fingers on her open textbook to release some of her excitement, and Astoria, who was casting baleful glances at the other members of the group. She felt as though her classmates' attitude was a condemnation of Snape—and she was right.
"So," Flavia said, once everyone had opened their books and gotten over their initial sulk. "Professor Snape couldn't teach Zygmunt Budge how to brew a cure for boils, so we're going to learn it ourselves."
"Professor Snape is competent," Astoria said defensively. "If you have any issues with him, you can bring them to him. He's very fair."
The Hufflepuff boys immediately started to grumble. "You were there," one of them, Bangbourne, said. "You saw him vanish half our house's potions and none of yours! And he took a point away from Derek for not knowing an answer and called it cheek!"
Angelique stayed quiet because it was her policy not to say anything at all if she couldn't say anything nice, but she nodded when Oakthorn added that Snape wasn't as harsh on the Slytherins.
"Numerous sources have informed me that Snape is predisposed to thinking better of his own students than others," Candidus announced. "I've heard about him, and his behavior last week does nothing to make me think the reports I've heard are wrong."
"He knows a lot more than you do, or you'd be teaching potions," Astoria snapped. "Being intimidating and no-nonsense doesn't mean he's
ignorant or
biased. Maybe he was hard on you because you were wrong and getting potions wrong is dangerous!"
Things started to heat up again, and Fortuna knocked over Candidus's gargantuan copy of
An Unabridged Compendium of Helpful Herbs. It fell to the table like a toppled building.
"That's my book," Candidus complained, annoyed at her touching it even though he could recite all of it from memory.
Madam Pince poked her vulture-like head around a corner and glared at them. The students settled down and were completely silent until she moved on.
"Candidus might be wrong," Flavia said. "But he's right that Snape was horrid about it. He'll ruin potions for everyone, and that's just
unjust. Page twelve?"
Flavia took them all through the assigned material with ease, with the Hufflepuffs interrupting frequently to ask questions. Jessica was scribbling down notes as fast as Flavia could talk and Candidus even managed to add something about a herb from time to time that made some sense.
Astoria alone was recalcitrant. "This doesn't make any sense," she said. "Stirring in that pattern isn't what the book says to do."
"The book teaches you how to make a potion that's good enough for a first year," Flavia responded. "But there are ways to refine it. Quills work better if they're turned clockwise, because going from east to west emulates the solar cycle."
"Professor Snape would have mentioned it if it was something we needed to know," Astoria argued. ''Otherwise, it's just a useless piece of knowledge to make yourself try and look smarter than you really are."
Flavia hauled a much older book out of her bag and shoved her it in front of Astoria, which showed a diagram of a man stirring porcupine quills in a silvery broth in a clockwise motion. "You'll look exactly as stupid as you are when your potion turns purple instead of indigo."
"You keep mouthing off and you're gonna be the one turning purple," Jessica said with a grin.
"Miss de Luce is right," Candidus said. "But my sources say Professor Snape would never accept an answer he didn't tell us, even if it is the correct answer."
"Sources?" Jessica chortled. "Where the blooming hell are you finding them? A bloody dealer by the loo? You don't have
sources, you don't even have friends."
"My
cousin," he pressed on, glaring at her, "informed me that it's better to leave something out than to be marked wrong for including a fact he didn't cover."
Astoria wanted to protest the unfair characterization of her head of house, but settled for silent grimacing. Flavia outwardly accepted his attempt at peacemaking, but Fortuna knew she was internally fantasizing about poisoning Astoria as revenge for calling her pretentious. Fortuna would have to thank her friend for helping everyone later in spite of the indignities.
Paper piled up as notes were taken and essays were hashed out, with some requiring a little more attention than others. After an hour, Jessica threw herself back in her chair and groaned.
"I had a better time at my grandpa's funeral," she announced. "I thought magic would be about fireballs, turning people into toads, the choice stuff. Can't we just skip to that? Let's blow something up."
"Would you like to be the one to tell Headmaster Dumbledore how his classes should be going?" Astoria asked. "At least we have Defense Against the Dark Arts later. That should be interesting."
Candidus took it upon himself to inform everybody that Defense Against the Dark Arts was completely unpredictable, due to the fact the teacher changed every year. It could be
positively stellar or it could be
shamefully atrocious, and who could say in advance? Nobody, he averred.
Fortuna could, but she didn't care. "It can't be as bad as History," she said, as she finished packing her things.
This was a point that stood uncontested.
"You're leaving?" Flavia asked, a little sharply. She didn't say "me with
these people?" but she didn't have to.
Fortuna smiled at her, acknowledging the unspoken half of the sentence. "I have something very important I need to do."
"And what's that?" Jessica asked.
"Nap," Fortuna said. Flavia would understand being abandoned for a few hours if she said she was going to sleep; they'd stayed up until three finishing setting up their potions lab in the Shrieking Shack.
"But it's lunchtime," Angelique said.
"It is," Fortuna said over her shoulder. Her brisk walk cleared four bookshelves before anyone could manage to get a word in and by that point she was free. No one was going to risk Madam Pince's wrath by yelling in the library.
Her exit had been abrupt, but she wasn't leaving just to slack off. She wanted to spend some time in the owlery without anyone noticing she'd gone, which meant she'd have to be done and asleep before Flavia finished lunch and got back to Gryffindor Tower.
Draco Malfoy was a problem—or, rather, he would become a problem if he were allowed to continue on his current path. He was wealthy, connected, and had an obsessive streak a mile wide. She'd drawn his attention by choosing to intervene on Hermione's behalf, a choice she couldn't bring herself to
wholly regret, and now she would have to expend time to dealing with the consequences. The sooner she acted, the less time managing him would require.
She could cut him off from his peers, beginning with the youngest, before he even realized he was losing them. Some of the groundwork had been laid with the study group; Astoria had stayed despite her discomfort and students from the other houses now had an impression of Malfoy as a liar.
There was another line of attack open to her, one that meshed with the thoughts she'd had about money the day before. Draco's power at school, petty as it was, existed because his father was an influential figure in wizarding politics. It followed that if his father were less influential, he would command less respect among his classmates.
She wrote three letters in three different styles of handwriting. One invited its recipient to tea on Thursday, one declared that the family wasn't interested in selling after all, and the last one simply said
"I'm watching." in red ink.
Satisfied, she dispatched them via different but equally unmemorable owls.
She would do nothing drastic, nothing overt. She could nudge things here and there without taking up too much time, engineer a series of coincidences—a bit of good luck for a rival, a member of his network distracted at a key time, an occasional petty quarrel—that would gradually and unnoticeably erode his power base. By the time his heir came of age, Malfoy's would be one name among many.
In the meantime, she could just use her power to evade any run-ins.
She concluded her business in the owlery by dispatching letters to each of the thirteen people her power had identified as having recovered their memories post-Obliviation. There was no reason for her to do everything herself on that front; as they replied one by one over the next two or three weeks, she'd put them in touch with each other so they could compare notes. Perhaps their discussion would produce something she could use.
While she was waiting for those results, she'd pursue another avenue. Once Fortuna had unpacked her bookbag back in her dorm room, she ran a hand across the cover of the leatherbound notebook she'd acquired from the oblivious Professor Binns.
Hermione had hinted that the dreams she was having might include memories. She evidently couldn't use her power to access them, but that didn't mean she was helpless. Memories or not, she was going to record the fragments she could remember every morning and piece together whatever might be kicking around in the recesses of her mind.
There was only one way she was getting some answers to her questions and that was to investigate.
