She whispered

by Lucas Chesterton

  ‘Ah, no, that’d be too complex. I don’t feel like looking for a needle in a haystack. ��� Well, never mind, thanks anyway.’ She turned to walk away, having no wish to spend too much time with Draco Malfoy, but to her surprise he held her back.

  ‘What about tea or coffee?’

  She stared at him. An invitation was the least she had expected of him. Also, there was an uncertain smile playing around Draco’s mouth and it made her wonder about the suggestion even more.

  ‘No, thank you’, she replied coolly, ‘I just drank a whole pint of coffee, my heart’s racing.’

  ‘Cake then? A late breakfast?’

  ‘Full-up’, she said curtly, patting her tummy.

  ‘I just thought’, Draco started with a slight stammer, ‘since we have lessons together now and all that ���’

  It was getting more and more curious. Granted, the offer was probably meant kindly, but Elena had no intention of following it, not only because she didn’t think to highly of the young man, but chiefly because she had another port of call before going home.

  ‘As you say’, she said, ‘we have lessons together now, so we will see quite a lot of each other. Perhaps more than we both want to.’

  Draco’s eyes became wide. He was clearly not used to being brushed off. ‘You’re very direct’, he remarked.

  ‘I’m honest’, she replied evenly. ‘You should try it sometimes.’

  Elena couldn’t quite explain why she had said it, so she gave him a false smile, a girlish wave and took off, aware of Draco’s eyes staring holes into her back.

  The next few days Elena had set aside to start working on her thesis. She was in no mood to do it and had a hard time getting motivated. However, the sooner she got it out of the way, the sooner she would be able to wholly dedicate herself to her magical studies. Jack was at Hogwarts, so the news she had for him had to wait; although she could hardly wait to tell him, she didn’t want to put them in an owl, either.

  It took her a long time to get into the process, scan secondary reading, mark passages, work out an outline for her paper and hack it into her word processor, but gradually she recovered her old passion for literature and language; she’d been neglecting it over the past months. After a while, she didn’t notice the passing of time anymore and was surprised when she looked up and saw that dusk loomed before her bedroom window. She was even more surprised that while working, she had hardly thought about the hellhound scare anymore, let alone about gobstones and her unkindness towards Draco Malfoy, which ��� after the event ��� embarrassed her quite a bit. What had got into her? She wasn’t usually so stroppy and Draco had done nothing apart from being who he was! When she forced herself to do some soul-searching on her reaction towards him, she had to admit to herself that she was jealous, plain and simple. Jealous that Draco would from now on take away some of the valuable time that in her mind belonged exclusively to her and Jack. Jealous of the connection that the two wizards had, its root lying in a past that Elena knew only cold facts about but could not share. Also, in her mind Draco stood for the dark side of Jack, the Death Eater side, a world that smelt of toil and blood. It wasn’t that she wanted to ignore this side; it would have made no sense. That didn’t change the fact, however, that she found it daunting. In addition, she found it hard to forget one of the facts that she had learned at the Wizengamot hearing, namely that killing Albus Dumbledore had originally been Draco’s task which Jack had taken over because the boy had been too chicken-shit to do it. Well, to call it ‘chicken-shit’ was, of course, harsh; Elena could see this quite clearly. In fact, how cruel had it been of that imbecile Voldemort to put a young boy in charge of such an act! Yet no matter how often she told herself that, she still perceived Draco as one of the roots of Jack’ current problems; it was, in any case, enough to put her on edge whenever she thought of the young Malfoy. ��� All the same, she resolved to be a bit nicer to Draco the next time she met him, basically hoping that it wouldn’t be too soon.

  On her third day of working on her thesis, Elena was ripped out of concentration by an insistent ring of the doorbell. She checked the clock. Noon, her aunt would be resting, so she got up and hurried down the stairs to the front door where she was surprised to find Remus Lupin waiting.

  ‘Oh, hi there! I haven’t seen you in quite a while.’

  ‘I’m hardly seeing myself these days’, Remus replied, and in fact he seemed more tired and drawn than usual.

  ‘What’s going on? D’you want to come in?’

  ‘Actually I was hoping to whisk you away with me.’

  ‘Whisk me away?’ She grinned. ‘That sounds adventurous. Where to?’

  ‘To a very adventurous place.’

  Elena wanted to say that she had work to do and the words were already on the tip of her tongue. Then, however, she realized that she wouldn’t be able to work in peace until she knew what Lupin had in mind. ‘Alright’, she replied, ‘just let me get my wand.’

  She did, left a quick note for Anna and then met Remus outside the door to Disapparate with him.

  A short while later, she found herself in a side road with dustbins and stalking cats, and her intuition told her that this was London although she had no idea which corner. Remus appeared to be in a secretive mood because he only smiled at her without explaining and beckoned for her to follow him. They walked for a while and eventually arrived in a street lined by stately town houses. A street sign said ‘Grimmauld Place’. Remus stopped in front of number 11 and turned to Elena.

  ‘Notice something?’

  She did, but only after a while. ‘Number 12 is missing.’

  ‘Do you think it got lost?’ Remus asked with a grin.

  ‘From the way you’re asking, it’s most likely some magical shit or other.’

  ‘I see, you’re not so easily surprised anymore. But maybe this will do?’

  He spoke an incantation, and in the next moment the houses bearing numbers eleven and thirteen appeared to slide apart, but instead of a gap another house appeared, one that looked considerably older and more dilapidated than the others. The number twelve was clearly visible by the front door.

  Elena gasped. ‘Well, that’s ��� quite something!’

  ‘Number twelve Grimmauld Place, to be precise’, Remus said solemnly. ‘The old headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix.’

  ‘The Order of the Phoenix?’ Elena couldn’t help holding her breath for a bit. She had heard a lot about the Order, founded by Albus Dumbledore and an important force in the wizarding wars. ‘Why are you bringing me here?’

  Remus didn’t reply immediately. For a few seconds, he seemed thoughtful, as if deliberating what to say. When he finally spoke, he chose his words very carefully. ‘There is something that I would like you to do. Only if you agree, of course, but I hope that you will at least consider it. ��� However, I would like to talk to you about it alone, before the others arrive.’

  ‘The others?’

  ‘The other members of the Order.’

  From Elena’s point of view, Lupin’s reply comprised two riddles. She attempted to tackle them one by one. ‘I thought the Order was defunct?’

  ‘It was. Until today.’

  ‘And what do you mean, the ‘other members’?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I ���’

  ‘Obviously, I’m hoping for you to become a member.’

  She stared at Remus with wide eyes. ‘I should ��� are you serious?’

  A grave nod answered.

  ‘Remus, I’m afraid you’re ���’, she struggled for words, ‘don’t you know what a crappy witch I am?’

  ‘You don’t have to believe everything Jack tells you’, Remus said quietly. He took Elena’s arm and led her towards number twelve. ‘Quick now, before the house disappears again. ��� I’ll tell you more inside.’

  However, it took Elena a while to process ‘inside’. Alright, this was not the first wizardi
ng house she’d ever been to, although Daysen’s house hardly qualified as such, but there had been Abrasax Manor. However, the latter ��� although eerie in some aspects ��� had on the whole been spacious and elegant, a far cry from the dusty, cramped oppressiveness she found inside of number 12 Grimmauld Place. The first shock came after she had hardly crossed the threshold and a greyish bearded ghoul rose up from the floorboards to point at her accusingly. Lupin made short work of it and offered some vague explanation on how the ghost was to scare off ‘certain undesirables’, but didn’t offer any details. The next worrisome encounter for Elena was meeting an obviously very old house-elf who’d hesitatingly come into the hallway upon their arrival. Used to hapless Gilly, she greeted the creature kindly and was surprised to get an ill-tempered scowl in return.

  ‘Yet another Mudblood crowding this place ��� there’s just no end ���’

  ‘What the f��� ?’ Elena looked at Remus uncertainly.

  ‘This is Kreacher’, the wizard explained with a twitch around his mouth, ‘known and loved for his exceptional charms.’

  ‘Foul-mouthed Mudbloods, bummed-out werewolves ���’

  ‘Thank you, Kreacher, we feel quite put in our place’, Remus said coldly. ‘No go and make us tea, will you, or I’m going to feel obliged to talk to Harry Potter about it.’

  Kreacher’s ears dropped a little, but he didn’t look very embarrassed and slouched away instead.

  While they were settling down in the salon ��� it was stuffed with old furniture, dusty tapestries, colossal cobwebs and all kinds of magical artefacts ��� Lupin explained the history of the house, how it had once belonged to the Black family and had come into Harry’s possession via his godfather, Sirius Black. He showed Elena the tapestry that depicted the Black family tree, and she looked at it in disgust since to her it spelt incest and blood pride. She was not at all surprised to find the pointed face of Draco Malfoy on the tapestry. So this was the world he really came from, overloaded with fishy dark arts and inbreeding. She didn’t feel quite so bad about her unkindness anymore.

  Soon enough, Kreacher appeared with a tray and a new round of insults muttered under his breath. Remus and Elena paid no attention and settled back in threadbare armchairs close to the fireplace, waiting until the tea was poured and the house-elf had taken off.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ Elena asked, losing no time.

  Remus hesitated a little before he spoke. ‘I’ve been thinking long and hard about this. On the one hand, I don’t want to throw you into a potentially dangerous situation. On the other hand, however, I can think of no one you would do what needs to be done quite as well as you.’

  ‘You set a lot of trust in me’, Elena said with an amazed scoff. ‘But maybe you overestimate my magic?’

  ‘That’s exactly the point’, Remus said with a slight shake of the head, ‘you being a novice of magic.’

  Elena glared at him askance.

  ‘Look’, Remus started, ‘Jack has been keeping me informed. On your recent scare with those hellhounds for example, but more importantly on your encounter with Magrathea Crowley. ��� She invited you to that academy, didn’t she, the Crowley Academy?’

  ‘True’, Elena admitted, ‘but I brushed her off.’

  ‘You can always go back on it’, Remus said with a smile.

  ‘Why would I?’ Elena frowned.

  ‘Because that’s what I want you to do, or rather, need you to do. Apply at the Crowley Academy and become a student.’

  She wanted to protest, but thought twice. ‘You want me to check out the Academy? Work as a spy?’

  Remus nodded gravely. ‘Exactly. ��� This academy is a very closed-down affair, you see. I recently had one of my erstwhile co-workers at the Ministry ��� yes, I quit, but that’s a different story ��� well, I had him write an owl and ask for permission to visit. I would have done it myself, but it would have been too conspicuous. Anyway, they replied that the Crowley Academy was a private institution and in order to not disturb its student’s learning, outsiders could not be admitted. They weren’t even prepared to disclose where that blasted academy is! The location appears to be a well-kept secret. On top of that, they don’t appear to be interested in getting certified by the Ministry, claiming that they are working according to their own standards and methods, and Ministry approval means nothing to them.’

  ‘Isn’t that fishy in itself?’

  ‘Maybe. But then, education in the wizarding world is not as firmly regulated as I believe it is in the Muggle world. The academy is well within its rights when insisting on privacy and prohibiting outsiders. ��� And that means if we want to find out more about it, we need a student, preferably a believable one. Wouldn’t help if I sent Hermione Granger there ��� though no doubt she’d do it ��� because nobody’d believe that she’d need it. You, however ���’

  Elena shifted uncomfortably on her armchair. ‘Well, like I said, I already brushed that Crowley woman off and told her that I was very happy with my present teaching arrangement’, she explained. ‘Wouldn’t it look dodgy if I came crawling to her doorstep now?’

  Remus shrugged. ‘You’d need a good motive for changing your mind, of course.’

  ‘Such as?’

  For a few moments, Remus watched her calculatingly. ‘What if your present teaching arrangement for some reason fell through?’

  ‘You mean ���’

  ‘You could have a falling-out with Jack’, Remus suggested. ‘It wouldn’t even have to be explained. Most people’d swallow right away if you were to say that you couldn’t stand his temper anymore.’

  ‘But I can stand his temper!’ she objected a little too passionately.

  ‘It would just be for show’, Remus tried to put her at ease. ‘Of course, you’d also have to scrape a little, make an effort to get back into Magrathea Crowley’s good graces. Because ultimately I’d like you to find out as much as you can about that academy ��� who teaches there, how they are working and what happens behind closed doors.’

  ‘Do you have any idea what I might find?’

  ‘Not ideas, but suspicions. First and foremost, I believe that the Crowley Academy is merely a front for a clandestine operation. An organisation that does all kinds of things to undermine the present state of the wizarding world.’

  ‘What kinds of things?’ Elena asked, although she could imagine at least some of them.

  ‘Exerting influence on public opinion. Providing ways for Death Eaters in hiding to leave the country and provide new lives for them elsewhere. Conspiring to upset the present equilibrium of the wizarding world by causing problems, scares, and secretly covering all important bases of powers with their own people, the identities of who we know nothing about. ��� As you can see, there are all kinds of things that you might find out, should you agree.’

  Elena didn’t reply for a while, all kinds of thoughts chasing through her head. On the one hand, she was excited that Remus would ask this of her, that he thought she might be able to help, and for the Order of the Phoenix, too! His plan sounded straightforward enough and she was sure that it would probably work, that she would be able to get access to the academy. On the other hand, however ���

  ‘I know at least one person who won’t like this one bit’, she said. A person who was very sensitive of her going behind his back, to be precise, but Elena didn’t say that.

  Remus smiled crookedly. ‘That’s the reason why I wanted to talk to you first. I’m quite aware that Jack will try to put a stop to it. However, you’re an adult, Elena, and you can make your own decisions. Needless to say that you could always get out of it if things become dicey. I won’t put you into any more danger than necessary. ��� At the same time, you have to be aware that a certain degree of danger can never be quite eliminated, not in our world, anyway.’

  ‘I know that! I’ve had my little adventures, remember?’

  ‘Yes, a
nd you did well. That’s why I’m asking.’

  ‘I will’, Elena said with a fierce nod. It was quite an impulsive decision. ‘I will do what you say, try to get into the academy. Actually, I am pretty sure that it can be done.’

  Remus looked into her eyes for a while, then smiled. ‘I thought you would. Thank you, anyway. ��� So now we need to deal with your teacher ���’

  Elena sighed. ‘That’s alright, I will talk to him ���’

  ‘Not necessary’, Remus interrupted her and checked a large clock on the mantelpiece, one with baby arms for hands, ‘Jack will be here in about fifteen minutes. As will the others. First Order meeting since its reinstatement.’

  ‘So you want to present them all with a fait accompli?’

  ‘That was the idea.’

  ‘Well ��� I’m looking forward to that one’, Elena said gloomily. She raised the cup to her lips and sipped the tea, only to screw up her face. It had a funny stale taste. ‘How long have those tea leaves been there? Since 1935?’

  ‘I wouldn’t put anything past Kreacher’, Remus said evenly. ‘Give it to the pot plant then, it looks dried out.’ He set an example by doing just that, and the pot plant standing near the windows stretched its branches gratefully, and when Elena followed, it gave off a happy sigh.

  From the hallway, a commotion could be heard. A few moments later, a lot of red-haired people crowded the room; Elena had hardly ever seen so many of them in one small space. She hadn’t had a chance to properly meet the Weasleys yet except for Ginny ��� who greeted her with an affectionate hug ��� but that small obstacle was quickly overcome by Remus taking over introductions. Molly Weasley specifically welcomed Elena very kindly, a little bit as if she were the mistress of the house ��� and she probably was by default ��� ensuring her that she’d wanted to meet her in person ‘for ages’ and ‘not just when you’re under an Invisiblity Cloak’. Her husband Arthur, too, was very kind, but not quite as blatantly curious. And while Ronald Weasley still eyed her a little sceptically, his brother George did nothing to hide his grin and stare. Elena realized that they had all heard about her and probably made jokes about her connection to Jack Daysen, just as much as all of Eddie’s and Cassie’s friends knew about ‘that poor girl who had the greasy old git for a private tutor’. Elena was glad that soon after Hermione Granger arrived directly from Hogwarts, so that she had someone to chat to. And before long, the black-clad figure of Jack Daysen himself loomed in the hallway where he was accosted by the dust ghost right away.