She whispered

by Lucas Chesterton

  Speaking of patience ��� as he had frequently done in the past days, he wondered what might come off Lupin’s plan to get Elena into the Academy. As far as he knew, she hadn’t got any reply. Jack didn’t quite know whether to be glad or disappointed about this. As much as he wanted to protect Elena, he also wanted to solve the riddles that had presented themselves lately, and he was getting restless.

  Thinking about protecting Elena made him remember his short conversation with Draco the day before. Daysen glanced at the Hogwarts clock tower. It was half past four o’clock, and if everything had gone as planned, Draco would be with her now. Practicing Occlumency, ostensibly, but really preparing the ground for something else.

  When imaging her reaction, Daysen smiled tersely to himself. Poor Draco. He would have to take the brunt of her outrage. By the time she would come to him about it, her anger would already have cooled down a bit, making her open to reasonable argument. Which was, in short, exactly the reason why Jack had acted as he did; at the same time, of course, he knew that he was being a bit of a cad. However, he didn’t mind all that much.

  When Elena entered the flat, she couldn’t help whistling. Draco turned around to her with a genuinely pleased smile and made a sweeping gesture.

  ‘Swell, isn’t it?’

  ‘Nice! I mean ��� really! I hadn’t expected this.’

  ‘What did you expect?’

  ‘I don’t know’, Elena shrugged, ‘skeletons in the corners? Giant cobwebs? Ghosts?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about getting a ghost’, Draco explained in all seriousness. ‘It’s a little sad not to have one; a proper ghost makes a home, don’t you think? However, I’ve been thinking that it might scare the Muggle girls.’

  Elena bit her lip. Draco was talking like someone who wanted a cat, but didn’t get one because his girlfriend was allergic to feline hair. In this very moment, she found the young wizard strangely endearing. ‘That’s very considerate of you’, she said kindly.

  ‘One has to adapt’, Draco said philosophically, ‘I’ve learned that. ��� Make yourself at home, will you?’

  ‘Hey, is that a Barcelona chair?’ With a delighted sigh, Elena fell into a very stylish-looking leather armchair. It was cosy, too.

  ‘Don’t know. My neighbour helped me get it.’

  ‘Your Muggle neighbour? You’re consorting with Muggles?’ Elena was giggling with glee now.

  Draco sat down opposite of her. ‘I guess I do ��� I mean, things are changing so fast these days ���’ He frowned and looked genuinely confused. ‘It’s like my values are constantly getting blown over ���’

  Elena leant forward and looked at him attentively. ‘I hate principles’, she intimated to him, ‘I mean, everybody always tells you that you’ve got to have principles, but I think that they are nothing more than a grossly generalized approach to what should be decided on a case-to-case basis.’

  Draco thought about this and a range of moods crossed his face. Then he jolted himself out of it and asked Elena whether she wanted anything. She didn’t, and so they went into practicing right away.

  It was very different from doing Occlumency with Jack. If truth be told, practicing with Draco was more interesting because she stood a better chance against him. While Daysen’s intrusions into her mind were as smooth and flexible as a winding snake, Draco’s were more like a stubborn lance that could be felt right away and ��� if treated correctly ��� snapped in half. At first, Elena wasn’t too comfortable. Practicing Occlumency with someone always meant that they got the occasional peek into your psychological landscape. However, whatever Draco saw, he never commented on it; in fact, he didn’t even appear to set too much by it. Elena realized that the well-practiced Occlumens was used to the occasional stupidity of what people carried around ‘inside’ and couldn’t be bothered to even ridicule such banality. She began to understand how Occlumency had the power to make you wise ��� because it helped you to understand people’s mental patterns, their egotisms, their hang-ups ��� but it also made you very resigned, to the point of disillusionment.

  They practiced for about two hours until Elena claimed mental exhaustion.

  ‘This was good, though’, she said ��� keeping in mind that she wanted to be kind to Draco ��� ‘I have a feeling that I’m slowly getting the hang of it.’

  ‘You’re very good at blocking’, Draco agreed, ‘I like how you put a kind of signal noise over your thoughts, like with that song ���’

  ‘I have music on my mind all the time’, she explained, a little proud of herself, ‘so I thought I might as well use it.’

  ‘Yes, but you keep forgetting to cover up the deeper thoughts.’

  ‘Are you trying to tell me that I’m superficial?’ Her grin was good-natured.

  ‘We all are’, said Draco, dead-serious now. ‘We protect the obvious and forget what we haven’t looked at for a while. It’s difficult to cover all the fronts. However, I have a few tricks my aunt Bella taught me ���’

  And he went on to explain, while Elena listened with rapt attention. From what she had heard, his ‘aunt Bella’ had been a formidable bitch; but no doubt she’d known a thing or two about Occlumency. While they were talking, the sky outside of the windows slowly became darker until the spacious sitting room was so gloomy that Draco lighted a couple of candles with a moody wave of his wand. The soft glow smoothened the atmosphere, made it almost intimate, and their voices dropped to whispers. It was the kind of mood that allowed confessions and Elena found it a little disturbing to be in this situation with a guy she didn’t find all that congenial. But, if she was honest with herself, he hadn’t really bothered her the last few hours.

  ‘Would you like to eat?’ Draco asked after a fashion. ‘We could ��� order pizza. That’s what you Muggles do, don’t you? ��� Sorry, I mean Muggle-borns ���’

  ‘You can call me a Muggle, I don’t find it offensive’, Elena said with a slight sneer, ‘and I prefer sushi. ��� Not now, though.’

  ‘Fine.’ Draco leant back against the rest of the sofa and stared at the ceiling for a few seconds. When he looked at Elena again, his eyes were dancing. ‘So’, he started with visible pleasure, ‘how long have you been in love with the Professor?’

  Elena stared at him. ‘How do you ���?’

  ‘Please! ��� Didn’t I just tell you that you have to improve your cover for your deeper thoughts?’

  She blushed.

  Draco, however, grinned. ‘Occlumency sucks in that way. You can’t practice it without giving up stuff.’ To Elena’s surprise, it didn’t sound in the least condescending. ‘Does he know?’

  For a few moments, Elena didn’t react, but then she nodded.

  ‘Saw it, I suppose’, Draco guessed.

  ‘No. I told him.’

  There was a flash in the grey eyes conveying wonder and amusement. ‘You did? That’s ���’ He issued a noise between a scoff and a chuckle. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Not much. ��� Didn’t bite my head off, either.’

  ‘Did you ��� I mean, did something ��� happen ���?’

  However, Elena gave him a cold gaze that told Draco that her Occlumentic shields were up. It was an answer of sorts, one that spelt ‘None of your bloody business’. He didn’t pursue it any further because he already knew what he wanted to know and bit down hard on a grin.

  For a moment, there was silence.

  ‘How long have you known him?’ Elena asked after a while.

  ‘Since I was a little kid’, Draco replied. ‘He was friends with my dad and came by Malfoy Manor every now and then.’

  Elena smiled a little ruefully. ‘Were you afraid of him? I mean, little kids probably are ���’

  ‘No, I wasn’t. Actually, I always thought he was cool.’

  ‘Really?’ She couldn’t help smiling, because she had inwardly prepared herself for another episode of ‘Da
ysen the bully’; however, she now began to realize that Draco had a completely different image of the man.

  ‘To me, he was a kind of godfather’, Draco went on to explain, ‘since my real godfather ��� my uncle Rodolphus ��� was in Azkaban. Still is.’ He cast an uncertain side glance at Elena, but she showed no reaction. ‘Anyway, he taught me a few tricks. And he’d always laugh when I made my peas dance at dinner table.’

  ‘What kind of tricks did he teach you?’

  ‘Levitating house elves, for example’, Draco said roguishly.

  ‘Gosh, the poor things ���’

  ‘Or lifting girl’s skirts with a jerk of my little finger ���’

  ‘He taught you that?’ Elena shrieked with pleasure. It was a whole new aspect of Daysen.

  ‘He was much younger then’, Draco said reasonably. ‘Of course, he was always a serious person. Not so much, though, when he was with us at the Manor. I guess he felt safe there, relaxed.’

  ‘Everyone else is always telling me what a bully he used to be ���’

  ‘He can be a bully’, Draco confirmed. ‘He doesn’t suffer fools easily, you see.’

  ‘You like him.’

  ‘Yes. He did a lot for me and my family.’

  Again, silence ensued and Draco appeared to be deep in thought. When he finally spoke, Elena got the distinct feeling that he wanted to say much more than his words conveyed. ‘I think it’s difficult for him to feel affection for most people. But if he does, he will do anything to protect them.’

  ‘I know.’ She eyed Draco curiously.

  ‘He’d do anything to protect you’, the wizard said and it sounded meaningful.

  ‘What are you saying?’

  Draco sat up abruptly. His cool grey eyes sought hers and Elena knew instantly that he was about to say something important. ‘I spoke to him yesterday. Stopped by at Hogwarts.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘He had an idea. I didn’t like it much at first, but thinking about it I have to admit that it’s quite ��� good.’

  She frowned, sensing that she wouldn’t like what was coming. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Daysen told me about you going to spy in that academy.’

  ‘If I get accepted. Doesn’t look like it right now.’

  ‘If you get accepted, however, it might be better if you didn’t go into it all by yourself.’

  Elena rolled her eyes. ‘That again! He doesn’t trust me to manage on my own!’

  ‘He trusts you alright. ��� However, wouldn’t you feel better if you had someone who was in it with you?’

  ‘Maybe. But how?’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Wait a minute, did he suggest that you should come with me?’

  Very slowly and with his eyes still on her face, Draco nodded.

  ‘Come on, that’s ridiculous!’ Elena flared. ‘You’re a full-blown wizard! What reason would you have to become a student at the academy?’

  ‘That’s not the approach Daysen suggested. ��� You see, those Crowley people, they like to cosy up to purebloods. If I managed to get them interested in me ��� through you ��� they might want to further the connection to my family. And that might give me an ‘in’.’

  ‘What do you mean, through me?’

  ‘If I were, let’s say, a very close friend of yours ���’

  Elena stared at him. She was beginning to see where he was headed, and the scheme behind it started to unravel. ‘He wants you to play ���’, she swallowed, ‘��� my boyfriend?’

  Her words sounded so incredulous that Draco started to fidget in his spot. ‘At first I, too, thought that it was daft. However, if you think about it ��� If we could make the people at the academy believe that we were close ��� and if I could convince my parents to show some ��� benevolence towards the academy ��� fund it, perhaps ���’

  For a few moments, Elena was quite speechless. She felt anger swelling in her guts because Jack had sent Draco to inform her on his scheme instead of telling her himself. At the same time, she couldn’t help realizing that it was a brilliant plan. It would give her added protection. It would involve Draco in the Order of the Phoenix, and she knew well how much Jack wanted this. And what was more, she and Draco faking a relationship would provide sufficient reason for an alleged discord between her and Daysen. ��� However, seeing the brilliance of the idea didn’t make her like it any better.

  ‘It’s preposterous!’ she cried. ‘You’re much younger than I am! I don’t go for puppies!’

  ‘Well, you’re not exactly my type, either!’ Draco looked a bit miffed. ‘It’s just for show! ��� And the fact is that older women like me. It happens all the time.’

  Elena remembered his flirtation with Sue. Yes, he had something of the toy boy about him. Older women might turn to him to make them feel good about themselves.

  ‘You don’t have to be afraid that I’m going to grab you or anything’, Draco continued with a sneer around his mouth. ‘It’s just about ��� you know ��� getting seen in public, acting confidentially, maybe holding hands every now and then, but that’d be it; witches and wizards are not so demonstrative in that way.’

  Yet, she was mystified. ‘I can’t believe Jack suggested this!’

  ‘I think it’s remarkable. So get over it. ��� And just for the record, it’s not an ideal situation for me, either. There’s a girl, you know ��� I mustn’t even imagine what she’ll be thinking ���’

  Elena remembered the black-curled girl she had seen in his mind that other day at Daysen’s. Looking at Draco now, she could detect his discomfort, and in spite of herself she felt for him. ‘You must tell her the truth. Tell her in confidence that it’s just a fake, whatever she might hear. If she’s fond of you, she’ll understand and she’ll appreciate your honesty ���’ She stopped herself. What was she doing? She was talking as if the plan had already been put into action, as if she had accepted it ���

  ‘You think?’ Draco said hopefully.

  ‘Yes, I’m certain. ��� If we were to do this, of course ���’

  ‘I’d like to’, said Draco. ‘Not because of that ��� but ��� to help. To give back.’

  She felt herself softening inside. Only now did she fully understand how loyal Draco was to Jack, that he would probably do anything and the young wizard rose in her estimation by several inches. ‘What will your parents say if you go about with a Muggle-born?’ she asked ironically.

  ‘I’d love to see the look on my father’s face!’ Draco replied with unexpected passion. ‘Maybe it’ll jolt him out of his apathy. ��� And my mom’s cool. She can be trusted.’

  So that was that. With a sigh of frustration, Elena saw even now that there would probably be no way out of it. Jack’ idea was simply too good, one stone killing a whole flock of birds. True, it rankled; however, that was just petty pride and resentment of the fact that Daysen used her like a figurine in a game of chess. But probably, that was what clandestine spy work was all about. However, she’d have words with him, that much was certain.

  ‘I’ll think about it’, she said, struggling for dignity. ‘As things look now, it won’t be necessary anyway. I guess Magrathea Crowley has not forgiven me for brushing her off.’

  Draco gave her a funny little look. It was obvious to her that he had a different take on that. However, he didn’t elaborate.

  ‘You’re right’, he said, ‘let’s cross the bridge when we get there ���’

  As it was, Elena came to the bridge much sooner than she had expected or would have wanted. When she arrived at home, her aunt Anna came out of the sitting room, looking flustered and informing her that a ‘strange bird’ had been sitting on her bedroom-window sill for the past two hours. Of course, the ‘strange bird’ was an owl, and it carried a formal-looking parchment with a grand sigil sporting the letters AMC. As soon as she saw it, Elena felt her stomach plunge. She took the parchment, broke the
seal and read.

  Dear Ms Horwath,

  Thank you very much for your application and the interest you have shown in the Crowley Academy. We would be pleased to consider you for our teaching institution, and kindly ask you to prepare yourself for an assessment on Thursday, next week. The exact time and location of the assessment will be communicated to you shortly before the event.

  We would like to point out that the assessment is a mandatory procedure for all students seeking admission to the Crowley Academy. It serves to evaluate your magical propensities and will form a basis for the focal points of your education. Your admission to the academy will depend on the result of the assessment, which is why it can by no means be circumvented or postponed, regardless of any magical certificates you may be able to provide.

  Trusting that these terms will be acceptable to you and looking forward to meeting you in person, we remain

  Respectfully,

  (illegible squiggle)

  Elena stared at the parchment for two full minutes. She had to jolt herself into action, ignore the ill feeling in her guts. She found a piece of paper, scribbled a short note and wrapped the parchment up in it. She used her own owl ��� that had already gone to sleep and protested a little when she got it out of its cage ��� to send it on its way to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

  Then she sat down on the edge of her bed, waited. Her fingers were shaking. Suddenly, she didn’t feel too confident about all this anymore. She had been tired upon her arrival at home, but now she felt wide awake. Going to bed was out of the question. She would stay up and wait for his reply ���