And even though it was Slytherin House he was supposed to defend - Slytherin House which he and Harry had formed a pact to save - sometimes Draco couldn't help but think that it was just less wearisome when he was leading army practices. When he was working with students from the other three Houses that weren't Slytherin. Once you saw and named the problems, you couldn't stop seeing them, it just got more annoying every day.
"Mr. Malfoy?" said the voice of Gregory Goyle, from where he was lying on the floor beside Draco's desk, in the small but private bedroom; Gregory was doing his Transfiguration homework, on which he often needed help.
Any distraction was welcome at this point. "Yes?" said Draco.
"You weren't really plotting against Granger at all," said Gregory. "Were you?"
The sensation spreading through Draco's stomach felt just like Gregory's voice sounded, sickened and afraid.
"You actually were helping Granger, that day you picked her up off the floor," said Gregory. "And before, that time you kept her from falling off the roof. You helped a mudblood -"
"Yeah, right," said Draco sarcastically, without the slightest hesitation or delay, looking back down at his Astronomy homework like he wasn't the least bit nervous. It was all happening the way Draco had feared it would, but at least that meant he'd played this conversation in his head over and over, coming up with the right opening gambit. "Come on, Gregory, you've dueled General Granger, you know how strong her spells are. Like a real Muggle-spawn is going to be more powerful than you, more powerful than Theodore, more powerful than every single pureblood in our whole school year except me? Don't you actually believe in anything Father says? She's adopted. Her parents died in the war and someone stuck her with a couple of Muggles to hide her. No way is General Granger a real mudblood."
A slow pulse of silence through Draco's bedroom. Draco wanted to know, needed to know what look was on Gregory's face. But he couldn't look up from his desk, not yet, not until Gregory spoke first.
And then -
"Is that what Harry Potter said to you?" said Gregory.
The voice wavered, and broke. When Draco looked up from his homework, he saw that tears were leaking out of Gregory's eyes.
Apparently that hadn't worked.
"I don't know what to do," Gregory said in a whisper. "I don't know what to do now, Mr. Malfoy. Your father isn't - when he finds out - he's not going to like it, Mr. Malfoy!"
It's not your job to decide what Father will like, Goyle -
Draco could hear the words in his head; they sounded in Father's voice, with the same sternness. It was the sort of thing Father had told him to say, if Vincent or Gregory ever questioned him; and if that didn't work he was to hex them. They were not equal friends, Father had said, and he wasn't ever to forget it. Draco was in charge, they were his servants, and if Draco couldn't keep it that way then he wasn't fit to inherit House Malfoy...
"It's all right, Gregory," Draco said, as gently as he could. "All you've got to do is worry about protecting me. Nobody's going to blame you for following my orders, not my father, not yours." Putting all the warmth he could into his voice, like trying to cast a Patronus Charm. "And anyway, the next war isn't going to be the same as the last one. House Malfoy was around long before the Dark Lord, and not every Lord Malfoy does the same thing. Father knows that."
"Does he?" said Gregory in trembling voice. "Does he really?"
Draco nodded. "Professor Quirrell knows it too," said Draco. "That's what the armies are about. The Defense Professor's right, when the next war comes, Father won't be able to unite the whole country, they'll remember the last war. But anyone who's fought in Professor Quirrell's armies will remember who the strongest generals were, they'll know who's worthy to lead them. They'll proclaim Harry Potter their Lord, and I'll be his right hand, and House Malfoy will come out on top, like always. People might even turn to me, if Potter isn't there, so long as they think I'm trustworthy. That's what I'm setting up now. Father will understand."
Gregory reached up and wiped his eyes, looking down again at his Transfiguration homework. "Okay," Gregory said in a shaky voice. "If you say so, Mr. Malfoy."
Draco nodded again, ignoring the hollow feeling inside himself at the lies he'd just told his friend, and turned back to the stars.
Aftermath: Hermione Granger and -
Being invisible should've been more interesting than this, the corridors of Hogwarts should have been outlined in strange colors or something. But actually, Hermione thought, being under Harry's invisibility cloak was exactly like not being under an invisibility cloak, except for the cloak part. When you pulled the veil of soft black cloth down from the hood and over your face, you couldn't even see it stretching in front of you, and afterward it didn't seem to impede your breathing. And the world looked just the same, except that when you walked past things of metal, you didn't see any small reflections of yourself. Portraits never looked at you, only did whatever strange things they did when they were alone. Hermione hadn't tried walking past a mirror yet, she wasn't sure she wanted to. Most of all, there was no you anymore as you walked around, no hands, no feet, just a changing point of view. It was an unnerving feeling, not so much of being invisible as of not existing.
Harry hadn't questioned her at all, she'd just got out the word 'invisibility' and then Harry was drawing his invisibility cloak from his pouch. She hadn't even been given a chance to explain about her extremely secret meeting with Daphne and Millicent Bulstrode, or that she thought it would help protect the other girls, Harry had just handed over what was probably a Deathly Hallow. If you were fair, and she did try to be fair, she had to admit that sometimes Harry could be a very true, true friend.
The secret meeting itself had been a great big failure.
Millicent had claimed to be a seer.
Hermione had carefully explained to Millicent and Daphne at considerable length that this could not possibly be true.
She and Harry had looked up Divination early on in their research; Harry had insisted that they read everything they could find about prophecies that wasn't in the Restricted Section. As Harry had observed, it would save a lot of effort if they could just get a seer to prophesy everything they would figure out thirty-five years later. (Or to put it in Harry's terms, any means of obtaining information transmitted from the distant future was potentially an instant global victory condition.)
But, as Hermione had explained to Millicent, prophesying wasn't controllable, there was no way to ask for a prophecy about anything in particular. Instead (the books had said) there was a sort of pressure that built up in Time, when some huge event was trying to happen, or stop itself from happening. And seers were like weak points that let out the pressure, when the right listener was nearby. So prophecies were only about big, important things, because only that generated enough pressure; and you almost never got more than one seer saying the same thing, because afterward the pressure was gone. And, as Hermione had further explained to Millicent, the seers themselves didn't remember their prophecies, because the message wasn't for them. And the messages would come out in riddles, and only someone who heard the prophecy in the seer's original voice would hear all the meaning that was in the riddle. There was no possible way that Millicent could just give out a prophecy any time she wanted, about school bullies, and then remember it, and if she had it would've come out as 'the skeleton is the key' and not 'Susan Bones has to be there'.
Millicent had been looking rather frightened at this point, so Hermione had relaxed her fists where they'd been jammed on her hips, calmed herself down, and stated carefully that she was glad Millicent had helped them, but they had sometimes walked into traps following what Millicent said, and so Hermione really did want to know where the messages had actually come from.
And Millicent had said in a small voice:
But, but she told me that she was a seer...
Hermione had told Daphne not to press it, after Millicent had refused to give up her source. It wasn'
t just that Hermione had felt awful about the scared look on Millicent's face. It was that Hermione had a strong feeling that if they did find the person who'd been telling Millicent things, why, they would turn out to just be finding envelopes under their pillow in the morning.
She was getting that same despairing feeling she'd gotten in the battle before Christmas, looking at Zabini's charts with all the colored lines and boxes and... and she had only just now realized what it meant that Zabini had been the one showing her that chart.
Even for a Ravenclaw, she felt, there was such a thing as having your life get overly complicated.
Hermione began ascending a short spiral of yellow marble steps protruding from a central spine, a poorly-kept "secret" staircase that was actually one of the fastest ways up from the Slytherin dungeons to the Ravenclaw tower, but which only witches could traverse. (Why girls in particular needed a quick way to move from Ravenclaw to Slytherin and back was something Hermione found a bit puzzling.) At the top of the staircase, now that she was away from Slytherin places and back into the main parts of Hogwarts, Hermione stopped and took off Harry's invisibility cloak.
After her pouch had swallowed the cloak, Hermione turned right and started to walk down a short passageway, now automatically keeping an eye out in all directions without really thinking about it, and her constantly-scanning eyes glanced into a shadowy alcove -
(fleeting disorientation)
- and then a rush of shock and fear hit her like a Stunning Hex over her whole body, she found that without any thought or any conscious decision her wand had leaped into her hand and was already pointed at...
...a black cloak so wide and billowing that it was impossible to determine whether the figure beneath was male or female, and atop the cloak a broad-brimmed black hat; and a black mist seemed to gather beneath it and obscure the face of whoever or whatever might lie beneath.
"Hello again, Hermione," whispered a sibilant voice from beneath the black hat, from behind the black mist.
Hermione's heart was already pounding hugely inside her chest, her witch's robes felt already sweat-dampened against her skin, there was a taste of fear already in her mouth; she didn't know why she was so suddenly filled up with adrenaline but her hand gripped harder on her wand. "Who are you?" Hermione demanded.
The hat tilted slightly; the whispery voice, when it came forth from the black mist, sounded dry as dust. "The last ally," spoke the sibilant whisper. "The one who finally answers, when no other will answer you. I am perhaps the only true friend you have in all Hogwarts, Hermione. For you have now seen how the others stayed silent when you were in need -"
"What's your name?"
The black cloak rotated slightly, back and forth, it didn't look like shoulders shrugging, but it conveyed a shrug. "That is the riddle, young Ravenclaw. Until you solve it, you may call me whatever you wish."
She could feel her palm already sweaty and was thankful for the spiral grooves on her wand that helped her hand keep a steady grip on the wood. "Well, Mister Incredibly Suspicious Person," Hermione said, "what do you want with me?"
"That is the wrong question," came the whisper from black mist. "You should ask, rather, what I can offer you."
"No," the young girl said quite steadily, "I don't think I should be asking that, actually."
A high-pitched chuckle from behind the black mist. "Not power," whispered the voice, "not wealth, you care little for such things, do you, young Ravenclaw? Knowledge. That is what I possess. I know what is unfolding within this school, all the hidden plans and players, the answers of the riddle. I know the true reason for the coldness you see in Harry Potter's eyes. I know the true nature of Professor Quirrell's mysterious illness. I know who Dumbledore truly fears."
"Good for you," said Hermione Granger. "But do you know how many licks it takes to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?"
The black mist seemed to darken slightly, the voice sounded lower when it spoke, disappointed. "So you are not even curious, young Ravenclaw, about the truths behind the lies?"
"One hundred and eighty-seven," she said. "I tried it once and that's how many it came out to." Her hand was almost slipping on her wand, there was a sense of fatigue in her fingers like she'd been holding the wand for hours instead of minutes -
The voice hissed, "Professor Snape is a hidden Death Eater."
Hermione almost dropped her wand.
"Ah," the voice whispered in satisfaction. "I thought that might interest you. So, Hermione. Is there anything else you would like to know about your enemies, or those you call friends?"
She stared up at the black mist that topped the towering black cloak, frantically trying to order her thoughts. Professor Snape was a Death Eater? Who would tell her something like that, why, what was going on? "That's -" Hermione said. Her voice was quavering. "That's extremely serious business, if it's really true. Why are you telling something like that to me, and not to Headmaster Dumbledore?"
"Dumbledore did nothing to stop Snape," the black mist whispered. "You saw it, Hermione. The rot at Hogwarts begins at the top. Everything that is wrong with this school, it all begins with the mad Headmaster. You alone dared to call him out for it - and therefore I speak to you."
"And have you also spoken to Harry Potter, then?" Hermoine said, keeping her voice as even as she could. If this was his helpful ghost -
The black mist darkened and lightened, like a shake of the head. "I am frightened of Harry Potter," it whispered. "Of the coldness in his eyes, of the darkness that grows behind them. Harry Potter is a killer, and anyone who is an obstacle to him will die. Even you, Hermione Granger, if you dare truly oppose him, the darkness behind his eyes will reach out and destroy you. This I know."
"Then you don't know half of what you pretend to know," Hermione said, her voice a little firmer. "I'm scared of Harry too. But not because of what he might ever do to me. I'm scared of what he might do to protect me -"
"Wrong." The whisper was flat, and hard, as if to brook no possibility of denial. "Harry Potter will turn against you in time, Hermione, when the darkness takes him fully. He will not shed a tear, he will not even notice, on the day his footsteps finally crush you underneath."
"Double wrong!" she said back in a rising voice, even though there were chills going down her spine. One of Harry's phrases came to her. "Just what do you think you know, and how do you think you know it, anyway?"
"Time -" The voice seemed to catch itself. "Time enough for that later. For now, for today, indeed Harry Potter is not your enemy. And yet you are in gravest danger."
"I can believe that," said Hermione Granger. She desperately wanted to shift her wand to her other hand, she felt like she needed to grab her right arm just to keep it up, her head ached like she'd been staring at the black mist for days; she didn't know why she'd gotten tired so quickly.
"Lucius Malfoy has taken notice of you, Hermione." The whisper had risen, departed from its tonelessness, taken on a note of audible concern. "You have humiliated Slytherin House, you have defeated his son in battle. Even before then you were an embarrassment to all who stand with the Death Eaters; for you are a Muggleborn and yet you possess a power of wizardry greater than any pureblood. And now you are becoming known, the eyes of the world on you. Lucius Malfoy seeks to crush you, Hermione, to hurt you and perhaps even kill you, and he has the means to do it!" The whisper had grown urgent.
There was a pause.
"Is that all?" Hermione said. If she was ex-Colonel Zabini or Harry Potter, she'd probably be asking clever questions to gather more information; but her mind felt slow and fatigued. She really needed to get out of here and go lie down for a while.
"You don't believe me," the whisper said, softer and sadder now. "Why not, Hermione? I am trying to help you."
Hermione took a step backward, away from the shadowy alcove.
"Why not, Hermione?" demanded the voice, rising to a hiss. "You owe me that much! Tell me, and then -" The voice caught, and came
back quieter. "And then you can go, I suppose. Only tell me - why -"
Maybe she shouldn't've answered; maybe she should've just turned and fled, or better yet, cast a Prismatic Wall first and then screamed at the top of her lungs as she ran; but it was the note of real pain in the voice that caught her, and so she answered.
"Because you look incredibly dark and scary and suspicious," Hermione said, keeping her voice polite, as her wand stayed level on the towering black cloak and the faceless black mist.
"That's all?" whispered the voice incredulously. Sadness seemed to infuse it. "I hoped for better from you, Hermione. Surely such a Ravenclaw as you, the most intelligent Ravenclaw to grace Hogwarts in a generation, knows that appearances can be misleading."
"Oh, I know it," said Hermione. She took another step back, her tired fingers tightening on the wand. "But the thing that people forget sometimes, is that even though appearances can be misleading, they're usually not."
There was a pause.
"You are the clever one," said the voice, and the black mist evaporated away, no longer obscuring; she saw the face beneath, and recognition sent a jolt of terrified adrenaline bursting through her -
(fleeting disorientation)
- and then a rush of shock and fear hit her like a Stunning Hex over her whole body, she found that without any thought or any conscious decision her wand had leaped into her hand and was already pointed at...
...a shining lady, her long white dress billowing about her as though in invisible winds; neither her hands nor her feet were visible, her face hidden beneath a white veil; and she was glowing all over, not like a ghost, not transparent, just surrounded by soft white light.
Hermione stared open-mouthed at the gentle sight, wondering why her heart was already hammering, and why she felt so scared.
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality Page 127
