‘What if your husband comes home?’ moaned Gannon, gasping with pleasure as she teased his cock with her tongue.
‘Don’t speak about Milton,’ Lilith whispered. ‘He doesn’t matter, you and I are what matter now…’
‘But won’t he be cross?’
‘He wouldn’t dare. He doesn’t own me.’ Before Gannon could say anything more, she engulfed his entire cock in her hot, wet mouth and rubbed the tip against the back of her throat, gagging on his tremendous girth but noticing nothing except the fresh cry of pleasure that he gave, his strong hands grasping her skull in a dizzyingly powerful grip, and the deliciously salty drops of his pleasure sliding down the back of her throat–
There was a faint ‘pop’ in the hallway, and Delilah shoved the book guiltily into the pocket of her coat as a polite voice said ‘Hello?’
‘Hello,’ she said, springing to her feet as a man entered the room. She flushed as she recognised him as one of the wizards who had needlessly materialised in the hallway a few weeks earlier. He was young and very attractive, but he looked exhausted, with smudges under his eyes and flecks of grey hair showing through at his temples; for a moment in the doorway his expression was haunted and weary, but it immediately relaxed into a warm smile when he saw her.
‘I’m Remus,’ he said, approaching and extending a hand. ‘We met once, but you were so small, you won’t remember. You were just beginning to speak in a fantastic mix of English and French, and clung on to a little stuffed rabbit.’
‘You’re Remus Lupin? Dad’s told me all about you,’ she said, smiling, relieved that he was pretending the earlier incident hadn’t happened. ‘The rabbit was Lapsie. I still have him, actually.’
‘I was so terribly sorry to hear about your father. He was a dear friend, I was enormously fond of him.’
‘Thanks,’ Delilah said, hurriedly adding, ‘how are we doing for time?’ in order to change the subject.
‘Very handsomely,’ Remus said, taking the hint and glancing at his wristwatch. ‘I’m a bit earlier than I said I’d be, so I’m glad to see you’re all packed up and ready. I was worried I’d interrupt you.’
‘No, I’ve been ready for ages actually.’
Delilah, confronted for the first time with the problematic absence of her alarm clock, had been so afraid of oversleeping that she’d woken fretfully every hour or so throughout the night, and eventually given up and slumped down to the kitchen at the crack of dawn. Her cases had been packed the day before, and she’d only left out her travelling clothes. She didn’t know whether it was The Done Thing to wear her Hogwarts robes on the train, so she’d stowed those in her rucksack, thinking she could them on at the station if it looked like everyone else was already in uniform.
She’d wandered around the house, waiting for her chaperone to arrive, with a curious mixture of emotions. On the one hand, she wouldn’t be sorry if she never again had to see the rooms in which she’d been so abruptly installed, in which she’d sobbed her heart out fairly constantly for a fortnight and almost daily since; in which she’d hurled things violently at the walls, screamed at the top of her voice with wordless fury; longed for human company, and cursed the existence of every other human on earth … But on the other hand, she was strangely saddened to be leaving. She hated many things about the house: she was too frightened to venture into some of the rooms, and had often lain awake listening with unease to the conspiratorial whisperings of the portraits in the hallways, which she was certain were discussing her (although they archly ignored her during daylight hours). The fact remained, though, that Grimmauld Place had been a much-needed sanctuary, and as the prospect of returning to school life with a hoard of unfamiliar people loomed, she fervently wished she could remain in solitude.
‘Looking forward to going to Hogwarts?’ Remus asked, as though reading her mind.
‘Um… yes,’ she said unconvincingly.
‘I expect you’re a bit nervous,’ he said kindly, grimacing as he hefted up her suitcase by its strap.
‘A little bit. Here, you can pull it along with this,’ she said, taking the case from him, sliding out the extendable handle and propping the case on its wheels.
‘Gosh!’ Remus exclaimed admiringly, ‘what a clever invention! Nice to see Mrs Black’s in a peaceful mood,’ he added as they made their way into the hallway.
‘…Mrs Black?’ Delilah repeatedly blankly.
‘That horrible old portrait who screams her lungs out night and day is Mrs Black,’ Remus explained, ‘of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.’
‘I haven’t heard any screaming. The portraits are bloody bizarre and there’s a pompous old git who looks down at his nose at me every time I pass, but no screams.’
Remus gave her an appraising look.
‘That really is strange. Your mother is a Muggle, isn’t she?’
‘Erm, yes,’ Delilah said, perplexed by the question.
‘Only, Mrs Black tends to shriek her head off whenever a Muggle-born or half-blood witch or wizard sets foot in here. Curious that she’s left you alone.’
‘HALF-HUMAN MONSTERS DEFILING MY FLOORS, DARKENING MY DOORS!’ the portrait roared at earl-splitting volume, as though in response to Remus’ remark. ‘SUCH INDIGNITY SHALL NOT BE TOLERATED IN THIS MOST NOBLE ABODE OF MAGICAL PRESTIGE…’
‘Case in point,’ Remus said loudly, pulling the door open to admit a blast of early Autumn sunshine and brandishing his wand over his shoulder so that the portrait was silenced by a pair of curtains snapping shut over it.
‘Maybe Dumbledore made her leave me alone?’ Delilah suggested, heaving her trunk along the hallway. Remus laughed genially, bumping the suitcase carefully down the front steps.
‘Even Albus doesn’t have that kind of power,’ he said. ‘Mrs Black is a force of nature. She must have found some reason to overcome her natural antipathy.’
Delilah remembered Dumbledore’s words on the night of her abduction. Some of what you are about to learn has been kept from even the most senior members of the Order of the Phoenix… But not, she realised, from the ever-listening, ever-watching portraits. Having grown up in a Muggle house and a magical cottage with nothing more than a handful of family photographs on mantelpieces, she now wished she had paid more heed to the silent audience that lined the hallways of Grimmauld Place. She remembered with a twinge of discomfort the number of times she’d clambered out of the bath tub and wandered back up to her bedroom using her towel to rub the ends of her hair dry, dripping bathwater all over the carpet.
‘Kingsley’s managed to swing us special dispensation to use a Ministry car,’ Remus said from the pavement, wheeling the case towards a vintage-looking vehicle with round, raised headlights and a square canopy. ‘It isn’t far, but we thought it’d be a bit nicer than the alternatives, what with all the luggage.’ He stood behind the car and stared hopefully at the boot, as though expecting it to spring open of its own accord. After a moment, a man in a sharp suit relieved him by stepping smartly out of the driver’s seat, pressing the boot open and lifting the case in.
‘Now, got everything?’ Remus said, turning back towards the house. Delilah nodded, put on her sunglasses and slammed the door. The driver took the trunk from her at the foot of the steps, discreetly tapped it with a wand-tip that peeked out from the end of his sleeve, and then swung it into the boot of the car as though it were no heavier than a jiffy bag.
‘Well, you must at least be glad to see the back of this creepy old house,’ Remus said as he climbed into the backseat beside her. ‘I get the heebie-jeebies just setting foot in the place. And I have the impression you’ve had hardly any company for the past few weeks except Severus.’
Delilah was watching the front door vanish from view as the car pulled away.
‘He couldn’t really be called company,’ she said without thinking, and Remus snorted with laughter.
‘Sorry,’ she said, turning to face him as the car swung out of Grimmauld Place. ‘He’s your friend, isn’t he?’
‘I wouldn’t say that,’ Remus chuckled, wiping the corner of his eye. ‘Once a schoolmate, once a colleague, now an ally, but somehow never a friend.’
‘You were at school together?’ she said, surprised. ‘You seem… younger than him, maybe. Different, anyway.’
‘We’re just a few months apart in age. We were Sorted together.’
‘And you worked with him too?’
‘At Hogwarts. I was only there for a year.’
‘Why did you leave?’
‘There was an enormous uproar when the Daily Prophet ran their article on me, so I had to resign.’
‘…article?’ Delilah repeated, mystified.
‘Ah, I thought Ormond might have told you,’ Remus said with careful equanimity. ‘I’m a werewolf.’
Delilah did a double take.
‘You’re kidding?’ she exclaimed.
‘No,’ Remus said. ‘You’re perfectly safe,’ he added, seeing her alarmed face. ‘I’m a tame wolf nowadays, since the invention of the Wolfsbane Potion, which has quite literally transformed the lives of the Bitten. But the condition still carries a dreadful taboo, and at school, before the Potion was developed, I was a phenomenally dangerous person to know, so I avoided making friends as far as I could. It was a constant struggle to keep my condition a secret.’
‘How did you keep it a secret?’
‘Well, I didn’t for long,’ Remus said with a trace of bitterness, ‘thanks to Snape.’
‘He found out?’
‘He wasn’t the only one, to be fair. As I said, it’s a difficult thing to cover up.’
‘But he told everyone?’
‘When we were at school he was made not to. But my later employment at Hogwarts was cut short by his indiscretion.’
‘He went to the papers?’ Delilah said indignantly. ‘He really is a nasty bastard.’
‘This is dreadfully unprofessional of me,’ Remus said with abrupt formality. ‘Severus is your Professor, and I shouldn’t be unburying old hatchets to you. I do, quite seriously, have immense respect for him.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Delilah said. ‘You’re not really telling me anything I didn’t already know. I’d already worked out that he’s just an overgrown playground bully.’
‘He is very much more than that,’ Remus said. ‘Before losing me my job, Severus spent several hours of his own time each month brewing the Wolfsbane potion for me, which is a devilishly tricky task that only the most skilled potioneers can master. It’s far beyond my own ability level, and he could quite reasonably have refused. Since leaving the school I have generally been able to get by with marketplace sources, but the supply is unreliable, and I have more than once had to call upon him for help, sometimes at desperately short notice, which he has always given without complaint. More to the point, without his selfless dedication, the Order of the Phoenix would be seriously handicapped. And incidentally,’ he added lightly, ‘at school, he was quite the reverse of a playground bully.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning he was far more often the butt of the joke than the originator.’
Delilah leaned back against the leather of the car seat and directed her gaze again out of the window, contemplating Remus’ words. In the adjacent car a young woman looked with unfocused eyes out of the window, lost in thought. She drew level, then surged forward almost out of view, before being dragged slowly back into centre stage as though an advantage were being overcome in an invisible tug of war. Then the Ministry car then leapt forward with a jolt, leaving the young woman hopelessly behind, and the spires of St Pancras rose upon the horizon.
In the station forecourt, the driver loaded Delilah’s trunk and suitcase onto a luggage trolley, solemnly shook Remus’ hand and, surprisingly, gave a short bow to Delilah, before vanishing into the crowd. Remus strode confidently through the throng of travellers with the trolley, Delilah in tow.
‘You probably haven’t done this before, have you?’ he said as they approached the platform barrier. ‘Would you like to do it together?’
Delilah had heard from Ormond all about the charmed entrance to Platform 9¾, but had been feeling surprisingly apprehensive about it as the moment approached. She was sure she’d apply too much force and skitter out onto the platform on the other side, possibly losing her footing and splaying onto the floor; or that she’d approach too cautiously and bounce back, with the same result.
‘Do you mind?’ she said gratefully.
‘Not at all. Take hold of the trolley here, and we’ll go on my count. We’ll take it at a bit of a jog, but not a sprint or we’ll send your trunk onto the tracks. OK?’
Delilah nodded and grasped the handle, and together they pushed, picked up speed, and jogged towards the barrier between the platforms, through thin air and onto a crowded platform obscured by puffs of steam, through which she could see the shining exterior of a scarlet train.
‘I didn’t realise The Hogwarts Express was a steam engine,’ she said.
‘A what?’ Remus said.
‘It’s a type of Muggle train that hasn’t been used for about a hundred years. They’re all motor-powered now.’
‘Oh well, the Express is even older than that,’ Remus said. ‘It was controversial enough for the school to use a Muggle invention in the first place, not to mention the incredible amount of work it took to get it built. The Ministry won’t bother to upgrade the thing until its wheels fall off so badly they can’t be magicked back on.’
Remus pushed the trolley along the platform. Nobody was wearing their Hogwarts robes yet, and Delilah was glad she had kept hers in her rucksack.
‘Ravenclaws tend to occupy the front carriages,’ he said. ‘You’ll want to be there to meet your new housemates.’
‘Ravenclaws?’
‘Aren’t you a Ravenclaw?’ Remus said, turning to her with surprise. ‘I’m sure Dumbledore said that’s where the Sorting Hat had put you?’
She opened her mouth to say she had no idea what he was talking about, but instead said ‘oh yes,’ realising she was in danger of betraying one of Dumbledore’s schemes. ‘Sorry, I’m still getting used to it all.’
‘Not to worry,’ Remus said. ‘You’ll be a native in no time. Here, we’d better get your cases on.’
Delilah lugged the suitcase up the carriage steps whilst Remus followed with her trunk. The first compartment they found was empty, so Remus heaved first her trunk and then her case onto the luggage rack above the seats.
‘I suppose I shall leave you here then,’ he said.
Delilah nodded. She was feeling vulnerable and sick, and more than anything she wanted Remus, whom she’d known for barely forty minutes, to put his arm around her so she could cling to him like a child. She felt a pathetic urge to bury herself under his cloak and hide there until she arrived at Hogwarts.
‘I got you a little something for the train,’ he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a large, colourfully-wrapped bar of chocolate. ‘I hope you like it, it’s my favourite.’
She took the chocolate and stared down at it. To her dismay, she felt a lump obscuring her throat, and her eyes swam with tears.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered. She ducked her head to hide her tears, and Remus put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, peering at her with melting sympathy.
‘Come on Delilah du Lac,’ he said gently. ‘Courage.’ He pulled her into his chest, and although she was easily as tall as him, she felt tiny and protected, and sank into the warm crook of his neck. He rested his chin on the top of her head so that the stubble on his jaw scratched with comforting familiarity against her forehead. She closed her eyes and, after a few hiccupping sobs, felt the lump in her throat dissolve.
They stepped apart.
‘You’re going to be an absolute credit to the House of Ravenclaw,’ Remus said. ‘As was your father.’
‘Thanks’ she said. ‘Thanks for everything.’
The train rumbled to life and gave a shrill whistle as he hopped off the carriage steps, and as it began to chug falteringly out of the station she watched his figure through the window, hands in pockets, smiling after her amid a blizzard of fluttering handkerchiefs, and it seemed to Delilah that his lone figure was visible long after the platform had been engulfed in diaphanous plumes of steam.
*
‘Who is that?’
Nobody had, thus far, joined Delilah in her lonely compartment at the very front of the train, so she had tried to look absorbed in Liilith’s Lovers, making sure to keep the cover concealed from view. She wished she’d had the foresight to keep a more salubrious book to hand. At the sound of a piercing voice directly outside the door, she sank the book into her lap and pretended not to hear.
‘Who cares?’ said a drawling voice. ‘Let’s go back.’
‘I’ve never seen her before, and she’s not a first-year.’
Delilah felt her apprehension rise as the compartment door slid open. She looked up nervously.
‘Who are you?’ demanded a pug-faced girl.
‘I’m Delilah,’ Delilah said evenly. ‘Who are you?’
‘Where’d you come from?’ the girl asked aggressively.
‘I’ve transferred from Beauxbatons.’
‘Typical,’ the girl thundered, turning to the pale boy behind her. ‘Rejecting perfectly good English girls like Dandy, but they’re lapping up foreigners.’
‘Yep,’ the boy said with a smirk. ‘That’s old Dumby. Equal oppor-fucking-tunities.’
‘How did you swing a place?’ the girl demanded, rounding again on Delilah.
‘Er, my father and Dumbledore-’ she began cautiously.
‘Nepotism,’ the girl hissed. ‘It’s disgusting. My sister Dandelion didn’t get a place this year but you did. What does that tell you? Hogwarts is supposed to be for British students.’
‘Well, I am half British,’ Delilah said.
‘Only half,’ the girl countered bullishly.
‘Well, yes,’ Delilah said, her temper rising. ‘So exactly as much as I am French. That’s how halves work.’
The girl’s face contorted with loathing.
‘Why don’t you go back to where you came from?’ she snarled.
‘What’s going on?’ came another voice from the corridor. ‘What are you doing here, Malfoy?’
He was not yet in sight, but Delilah’s stomach swooped so violently, she almost doubled over.
‘Nothing,’ the pale boy said. ‘We’re leaving.’
‘You’d better be,’ Terry said warningly, the tip of his shoulder inching into view, at the same level as Malfoy’s chin. ‘If you’re causing trouble, I’ll make sure they find out about it at school. You’re supposed to be a prefect.’
‘That’s right, I am: meaning I’m the one with the power to get you into trouble at school,’ the boy returned, but he didn’t sound convinced by his own rejoinder. ‘Come on, Pansy.’ He tugged on the girl’s sleeve and she allowed herself to be led off, shooting a venomous look at Delilah over her shoulder.
‘Are you OK?’ Terry said, stepping into the compartment. ‘I don’t think we’ve met, I’m Terry.’ He leaned forward to extend a hand.
‘Yes, I’m fine’ she said, springing from her seat, hand outstretched, staring at him. A jolt went through her as he enclosed her hand briefly in his. ‘I’m Delilah.’
Snatches of his letters flashed through her mind, and in his polite, hospitable smile, she felt the heat of his breath on her neck, the tremulous pressure of his fingertips on her thigh…
‘I haven’t seen you before – are you new?’
‘Er, yes. I’ve transferred from Beauxbatons,’ she said, feeling as though she had slipped into a bizarre dream.
‘Oh!’ he enthused. ‘That’s so cool! I really hope you’re in Ravenclaw. The best house, and don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.’
‘I am,’ she said, remembering Lupin’s earlier comment. ‘I’ve already been Sorted.’
‘Fantastic,’ he grinned. ‘You’re going to have an amazing time.’
‘I hope so,’ Delilah said ruefully, throwing a glance in the direction that Malfoy and Pansy had gone.
‘Those two are a pair of arseholes of the highest order. Were they giving you a hard time?’
‘The girl was. Apparently her sister didn’t get into Hogwarts, and it’s somehow my fault.’
Terry snorted.
‘Dandy Parkinson’s a squib. Couldn’t cast a spell to save her life. Everyone knows it, but the family are in absolute denial. It would be hilarious to watch if it weren’t so sad. Over the summer they dragged the poor thing to Ollivander’s and tried to get her a wand. Apparently he told them straight up that none of them would work for her but they stamped their feet until he gave in, and they made her wave wands for hours and hours, until she burst into tears. Then they stormed off shouting about how he was a charlatan and they’d have him shut down.’
‘I was in Diagon Alley a couple of weeks ago and he has shut down, was that them?’
‘No,’ Terry smiled wryly. ‘The Parkinsons have this bizarre delusion of themselves as some kind of ancient seat of power, but they actually have no influence whatsoever. The whole lot of them are reprobates. Apparently their aunt was caught luring Muggle men into her house a few weeks ago, slipping potions into their pints, then performing all sorts of unsavoury charms on them. Their father Herb goes around telling everyone he’s a senior Ministry official, when he’s actually a quill pusher in Magical Maintenance. Most power he’s seen was the day everyone else was off sick with Squintlock and he got to pick the weather display for the windows.’
‘Pansy and Dandy, though,’ Delilah sniggered. ‘They sound like a comic strip.’
‘They do, don’t they,’ Terry grinned. ‘The Adventures of Pansy and Dandy. Poor Dandy. What are you reading, by the way?’ he said, gesturing the book which she’d thrown face-down on the seat beside her.
‘Oh, some French thing,’ she said, blushing. ‘Do you want some chocolate? I’ve just been given this whacking great bar, but I haven’t opened it yet.’
‘Love to, but I’ve been roped into helping my friend Anthony patrol the corridors – he’s on prefect duty.’ He rolled his eyes apologetically. ‘Want to come and meet some more Ravenclaws though? Seems a shame you sitting in here on your own. We’re a friendly lot, I promise.’
‘Oh no, really, it’s fine,’ Delilah said quickly. ‘I’ll just… get on with some reading.’
‘OK. Come and find me if you change your mind.’
He made for the door and turned to give her a smile, head tilted slightly, in exactly the way she remembered.
‘See you soon then,’ he said, and was gone.
She sank back into her seat and closed her eyes, her heart thumping at a dangerous speed.
*
The train hissed and clattered into a tiny station platform with a wooden sign declaring “Hogsmeade”. Delilah hovered anxiously in her compartment in her new Hogwarts robes until she saw other students disembarking, and then did the same.
‘Firs’-years, this way!’ came a rumbling voice, and Delilah recognised the enormous figure of the gamekeeper shepherding a hoard of terrified-looking eleven-year-olds into a group at the end of the platform. She felt a twinge of envy as she watched them: her nerves were mirrored on their little faces, but at least they had each other, and the excuse of being brand new to it all. Delilah was expected to know what to do. She followed all the other students towards a fleet of ancient carriages, deciding to hang back until the crowd had thinned and try and get one to herself.
‘Delilah!’ Terry called from the steps of one of the carriages, waving her over. ‘Come on, room for one more!’ She smiled and jogged over to him. He held the little door open as she clambered awkwardly in, and slammed it behind her.
‘New friend, guys,’ he announced to the carriage at large. ‘This is Delilah…’ he trailed off with an enquiring look.
‘Du Lac,’ she supplied.
‘Delilah du Lac, everybody. She’s come over from Beauxbatons and been Sorted into Ravenclaw!’
‘Bravo!’ said a friendly voice, and Delilah recognised Michael Corner sitting between two girls, one blonde-haired with square glasses, the other with a dark bob and large hooped earrings.
‘I recognise you,’ the blonde girl said with a smile. ‘You were one of the Triwizard lot, weren’t you?’
‘Yes, I was,’ Delilah said in surprise. It seemed uncanny to have this complete stranger recognise her whilst Terry treated her with such impersonal courtesy.
‘This is Lisa Turpin, Michael Corner, and Ariadne Hornby. We’re all Ravenclaws too. Which year are you?’
‘Seventh.’
‘Ah. Well, Michael, Lisa and I are all starting sixth, but Ariadne’s a seventh too.’
‘How come you’ve moved now?’ Ariadne said. ‘Halfway through your N.E.W.T.s?’
‘We don’t do N.E.W.T.s in France, we do C.H.A.T.s – you only do them in your final year.’
‘What’s C.H.A.T?’
‘Collège Haute Aptitude Test.’
‘But what are you going to do now? Everybody else is already halfway through their N.E.W.T.s, how will they assess you?’
Delilah felt a new knot of anxiety sprout out of the existing one that seemed to be filling her stomach.
‘Oh, Dumbledore and Madame Maxime have it all figured out,’ she said vaguely.
‘Oh,’ Ariadne said with some scepticism, and then turned her attention to Lisa, who resumed an account of her summer holiday in Delphi.
The carriage rocked as it turned a sharp corner, and Delilah felt the skin prickle on along her vertebrae as the lighted windows of the castle swung into view.
‘Home, Sweet Home,’ Terry declared as they pulled up. ‘Glad to be back?’
Delilah nodded, but, gazing up at the castle, found herself unable to reply. A familiar surge of excitement was charging through her as it occurred to her, somehow for the first time, that what she’d long since dreamed about was actually coming true.
They all climbed out of the carriage and made their way across the grass and up the front steps, assembling in the Entrance Hall.
‘They’ll call us through in a few minutes, once everyone’s here,’ Terry explained, ‘and then there’ll be the Sorting Ceremony, and then the feast.’
‘I can’t wait,’ I’m starving,’ Delilah said, and realised with some surprise that it was true: after weeks pecking at plates of toast and biscuits, she was actually looking forward to a really good meal.
‘Delilah du Lac?’ came a high-pitched voice from the main staircase. Delilah turned to see a tiny, elderly man with explosively unruly eyebrows, pushing his spectacles up his nose to peer through the crowd. ‘Delilah du Lac?’
She approached him.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I’m Delilah.’
‘Oh!’ he beamed at her. ‘Welcome, welcome indeed! I’m Professor Flitwick. I understand you’ll be joining the ranks of Ravenclaw House?’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘I thought perhaps, since you’ve already been Sorted, we could have a bit of a tête-à-tête, as it were, whilst the Ceremony’s going on?’
‘Yes, OK,’ Delilah said, and followed him up two fights of stairs and into an office on the second floor landing.
‘I just thought we should have a little chat,’ Flitwick said, climbing a small pile of books which he’d arranged into a short flight of stairs up to his chair, which was heaped with four or five purple cushions that he balanced himself on the top of, ‘to get everything straight before term begins. Professor Dumbledore has told me that he wanted to spare you the indignity of being Sorted amongst the first years, so the Sorting Hat had a jaunt to London and unhesitatingly placed you in my house. I am the Head of the House of Ravenclaw, and would like to be the first to say how delighted we all are to have you.’
‘Thank you,’ Delilah said. ‘I’m delighted to be here.’
‘I must warn you, we’ll be expecting great things of you,’ Flitwick said with a crinkly smile from beneath his extraordinary eyebrows. ‘Your father was a favourite of mine: a talented Charmsman and the top of his year in Defence Against the Dark Arts.’
He pulled a pale blue file, which was lying on the desk, towards him and flipped it open.
‘Now,’ he said. ‘Madame Maxime has kindly sent me your academic record so we can work out how best to manage your timetable.’ He peered at a slip of paper from the file. ‘I see your Potions grade is around the average mark.’
‘I’m rubbish at Potions,’ she said.
‘We all have our strengths,’ Flitwick said kindly. ‘Unfortunately, my experience has been that Beauxbatons teaches Potions rather differently, and that exchange students find themselves needing a little… boosting to meet our standards. Meanwhile, however, your Charms grade is exemplary, and as a Charms professor myself, I revere the work of your teacher, Madame Monceau. Could we perhaps have a little demonstration of your skills?’
‘Erm, OK,’ Delilah said, drawing out her wand.
Professor Flitwick produced an ordinary wine glass and placed it before Delilah.
‘Let’s start with this. Could you try filling this with wine?’
She pointed her wand at the glass.
‘Vinumenti.’
A pale, golden-green fluid rose to the rim.
‘White wine!’ Flitwick exclaimed. ‘Significantly harder to master than red.’
‘I don’t really like red wine.’
He raised the glass to his lips and took a small sip. ‘And beautifully dry, too. Now could you please conceal the glass?’
‘Celaverimus.’
The glass vanished from view.
‘Excellent!’ Flitwick squeaked, waving his wand so the glass reappeared. ‘And, let’s see… Could you hide it from all view except mine?’
Delilah blinked.
‘I think so…’ she said thoughtfully, fingering her wand. She fixed Flitwick with a long, penetrating look, and then closed her eyes and sat perfectly still for a second, wand aloft. She opened her eyes.
‘Celaverimus Rebus.’
The wine glass vanished. Flitwick peered at the table and then reached out with exaggerated caution, like a mime artist, and raised it to his lips. She heard the wine plash in his throat and saw his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed.
‘And with no detriment to the quality,’ he said admiringly, waving his wand again so the glass flickered back into view. ‘I didn’t expect you to manage that one at all. You are easily a N.E.W.T.-standard Charms student, and would have no trouble at all in my seventh year class, but for everything else we shall have to put you in sixth year classes so that you can follow the exam curriculum with success. With that in mind, unless you have very strong objections, I wonder if it wouldn’t be simpler if you stayed in the same year group for all of your subjects.’
‘I suppose so,’ Delilah said glumly. ‘I guess I’ll have to resign myself to an extra year of education either way.’
‘It won’t be so bad,’ Flitwick said consolingly. ‘As a July birthday you’re one of the youngest in your year, and nobody need know you’re repeating a year if you don’t like to tell them.’ Delilah thought grumpily that this advice would have been useful half an hour ago. ‘Now, without any grounding in our specialist subjects you shall have to stick to the transferrable subjects of Charms, Potions, Herbology, Transfiguration and History of Magic. How does that sound?’
‘What about defensive magic?’
‘Well,’ Flitwick said, again picking up the blue folder and peering over the tops of his spectacles at it, ‘that is certainly more of a viable prospect than your taking up, say, Athrimancy at this stage, but…’
‘But?’
‘Well, Beauxbatons’ teaching of defensive magic tends to take a slightly different approach to that which we favour at Hogwarts. By N.E.W.T level we’d be expecting students to demonstrate practical defensive abilities, and I wonder if it would be responsible to…’
‘I know,’ Delilah interjected. ‘My father felt the same way, he was always sniggering at the duel training we used to do. He said it would be like Muggles training for armed combat by learning fencing.’
‘Did he indeed,’ Flitwick chuckled.
‘Yes, so he trained me himself.’
Professor Flitwick paused for a moment.
‘Ormond… trained you?’
‘His job was dangerous. He was a war correspondent. He told me that several of his colleagues were killed, wounded or captured, and Alastor Moody tried to recruit him for the Auror office when he retired from photojournalism.’
‘There’s no doubt that Ormond’s work was dangerous, but–’
‘And you’ve just said he was top of his year in – what do you call it? – Defence Against the Dark Arts. I’d much rather do that than Potions, or History of Magic, both of which I hate and am awful at.’
Flitwick looked unconvinced.
‘We’re at war, professor,’ she pleaded passionately. ‘It’s so important. At least give me a chance.’
He seemed to consider this.
‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said at length. ‘For the Autumn term, let’s sign you up for all six subjects. It will be extra work for you, but after Christmas, if I receive a favourable report from Professor Snape, I will allow you to drop one of the other subjects. Is that a fair compromise?’
‘Oh yes,’ she said happily, ‘thank you, I promise you won’t – hang on, Snape? What’s he got to do with it?’
‘Professor Snape is taking over the post of Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. The announcement will be made this evening.’
‘Oh.’
Fucking perfect, she thought.
‘Now, shall we rejoin the feast?’ Flitwick said, hopping on to the staircase of books. ‘I’m afraid we’ll have missed the Sorting Ceremony, but I hope you’ve worked up an appetite.’
Together they made their way back down to the now deserted Entrance Hall, and into the Great Hall, festively lit with its flaming brackets and hundreds of floating candles, just as Yaxley, Aaron was sorted into Gryffindor.
*
Delilah had hoped to sit next to Terry at the feast, but when she and Flitwick crept in among the applause for the end of the Sorting, Lisa Turpin beckoned her over, and she was touched to see she had saved her a seat, into which she sank gratefully, slightly relived to see that Ariadne Hornby, to whom she hadn’t much warmed, was engrossed in conversation at the other end of the table.
‘Everything OK with Flitwick?’ Lisa asked, but before she could answer, the feast materialised before them. Delilah’s mouth watered instantly at the sight of a lasagne topped with golden bubbling cheese; a side of salmon with juicy, succulent skin; bowls of buttered spinach; a huge pot of rich, claret-coloured stew, and a dish piled high with crispy roast potatoes; several flaky pastry tarts with curls of crisped ham, rings of creamy goat’s cheese and sliced asparagus; a tureen of heavenly-smelling ham hock soup with a heavy ladle resting on the lip; slices of lavishly-buttered bread arranged in a pyramid; and much more besides. Everyone was distracted by loading their plates, Delilah taking care not to overload hers with too much of any one dish, so that she might try all of it.
‘This is Delilah, everybody,’ Lisa said to her friends. ‘She’s transferred from Beauxbatons. This is Padma, and this is Cho and Marietta, they’re both seventh years too.’
The three girls smiled politely but quickly resumed their conversation with Lisa. Delilah was relieved to be spared the awkward subject of her switching year groups, but had to, by turns, try and look interested in a conversation which she wasn’t really following, and try to look too engrossed in her meal to mind that nobody was talking to her. She snuck a few glances over at Terry, but he was gulping from his goblet and laughing at a story that Michael was telling him. She amused herself by looking around the hall, and spotted Malfoy and Pansy sitting together at the Slytherin table, heads bowed conspiratorially together, and Harry Potter across the room between a ginger-haired boy and an intense-looking curly-haired girl. Her eyes roamed over the top table where Flitwick was talking to Dumbledore. On his other side sat Snape, sprawled low in his chair, not eating, but contemplating his goblet, whose stem he fingered with his right hand. He suddenly flicked his gaze up directly into Delilah’s, and she jumped and turned her attention hurriedly back to her plate.
‘So, what’s Beauxbatons like?’ Lisa asked, as if remembering Delilah was there.
‘It’s OK,’ Delilah said, putting her fork down. ‘It’s a good school in its way, but I didn’t really fit in.’
‘We found them all really stuck up when they were here for the Triwizard tournament,’ Marietta said.
‘Marietta,’ Cho hissed chastisingly.
‘Delilah was here for the tournament,’ Lisa said.
‘Oh. Sorry,’ Marietta said, not sounding in the least apologetic.
‘It’s OK,’ Delilah said. ‘They are a bit. I’m not so bad though, when you get to know me.’
Lisa laughed.
‘I’m sure they were just all a bit shy,’ Cho said. ‘It must be hard going to another school for a year. The Durmstrang lot were no better.’
‘It was partly that,’ Delilah said as the depleted dinner dishes faded, to be replaced with just as much again for pudding. She helped herself to a chocolate brownie and two globes of strawberry ice cream, wondering if she’d have room after it to try the sticky toffee pudding. ‘There’s a sort of taught snobbery as well though. Not against anyone so much, just a general kind of… archness. ’
‘Because they’re French,’ Marietta said, more as a statement than a question, earning her another hard look from Cho.
‘Not really,’ Delilah said evenly. ‘It’s more the philosophy of the school. Like I said, it isn’t a bad school – it’s a great school in its way – but it has a bit of a reputation for prizing elegance over skill. Families from all over the world send their children there, even some old English families, and lots of Chinese and Russian ones too. There’s an emphasis on fancy wandwork, and it’s all about precision-precision-precision, but for instance – what’s that subject you guys have where you learn about magical animals?’
‘Care of Magical Creatures?’
‘Yes, that – that’s seen as a bit undignified, almost like farm work. The sort of thing you don’t need to go to an elite academy to learn, so they just don’t really do it. Same with Herbology – we call it Botanique and it’s really all about pruning rare orchids and cultivating lovely gardens, and it’s not until you get to an advanced level that you learn about proper dirt-under-the-fingernails stuff and really dangerous plants.’
‘What’s the use of that?’ Marietta said. ‘It sounds like a finishing school.’
‘Well, yes’ Delilah said. ‘Partly why I’ve transferred here.’
‘Do you have any subjects that we don’t learn here?’ Lisa asked.
Delilah chewed on her brownie thoughtfully.
‘Well, we learn a lot of music, which I don’t think you guys do as part of the curriculum. There’s an orchestra which is really admired, and the choir’s world-class. They go on tour all around the world over the summer and Christmas, and do things like the Minister’s birthday party, and diplomat balls.’
‘Were you in the choir?’
Delilah made a face.
‘Not fucking likely,’ she said. ‘I sing like a banshee.’ That made Lisa, Cho and Padma laugh, so Delilah went on, ‘There’s also a salon which people can train in.’
‘A salon?’ Padma said, leaning forward.
‘A beauty salon. You can learn about hair potions and nail-enamel charms and skincare and all sorts of guff. It’s an extra-curricular thing, but they go mad for it.’
‘Did you ever do it?’
‘Do I look like the type?’ Delilah grinned, which made them laugh again. ‘I used to get marched there about once a term though, by our Head of House, Mademoiselle Revanche. She used to put a scarf on my head and then, when they were all seated, put me on a little stool up at the front and whip it off dramatically, holding up a hank of my hair, and they’d all gasp in horreur.’
‘No!’ Lisa exclaimed, giggling.
‘Zis girl eez een dire need of your ‘elp,’ Delilah said in cartoon imitation. ‘She ‘as… let ‘erself go!’
‘That’s dreadful!’ Cho laughed, wiping at her eye with her sleeve.
‘Then they’d all cluck around me, snipping with microscopic precision at my split ends with so much care you’d think they were handling a unicorn tail. Afterwards they’d stand around admiring their handiwork, looking as chuffed with themselves as if they’d cured me of Spattergroit, not given me a bit of a trim.’
This made Lisa splutter on a mouthful of brownie so that she reached for her goblet and upset it with a shriek. Terry turned at the noise and, seeing that Delilah was the source of the laughter, gave her an appreciative smile, which shuddered through her so powerfully that her chest and throat seemed to seize up, and she had to abandon her pudding. She was pleased when the chatter died down as everyone’s attention turned to the top table, where Dumbledore was saying ‘The very best of evenings to you!’, and she could gaze and gaze at Terry’s profile, disguising her longing as attention to Dumbledore’s speech, of which she didn’t hear a word.
‘I am absolutely beat,’ Lisa announced as a general scraping of chairs and flurry of activity announced the end of Dumbledore’s speech. Delilah blinked as though coming out of a dream.
‘Me too,’ she said, and again, she found to her surprise that it was true. All her days in Grimmauld Place had been so sedentary and uneventful, she’d almost forgotten what it was like to feel really tired. She followed Lisa out of the Great Hall, up the stairs and along the corridor past the picture gallery, retracing the path she’d taken the day she first met Terry, to the winding steps of the Ravenclaw Tower. The top of the stairway was blocked by a clump of anxious-looking first-years, headed by an authoritative looking boy.
‘In order to get into the common room, you have to answer the door’s question,’ he was saying. ‘If you can’t come up with something, we’ll kick you out of Ravenclaw, and if none of the other houses will have you, you’ll be on the first train home.’
One of the first-year girls made a noise like she was going to be sick, and a titter of laughter ran down the staircase.
‘Don’t tease them, Goldstein!’ said an amused voice, and Delilah realised that somehow, although she’d looked out for him the whole way there, Terry had crept up and was standing right behind her.
‘Don’t worry,’ Goldstein said, eyes twinkling, ‘if you don’t get through, Hufflepuff will probably let you in. They’ll take anybody.’ The Ravenclaws cheered and whooped.
‘Bastard,’ Terry laughed.
Goldstein held his hand up for silence and rapped the brass knocker, shaped like an eagle’s head.
‘What becomes of that which is forgotten?’ the knocker asked.
Goldstein looked expectantly at the first-years, all of who froze comically, and looked like they wanted the ground to swallow them up. He smiled kindly and turned his gaze to the rest of the staircase.
‘Anyone else?’ he offered.
‘Delilah should have a go!’ Terry called. ‘She’s new as well.’
Delilah’s cheeks flushed as everybody turned to look at her.
‘What becomes of that which is forgotten?’ the knocker repeated.
Delilah could feel Terry’s eyes on her.
‘Nothing of true value is ever forgotten,’ she said quietly. ‘If it can be forgotten, it never really mattered, which is to say, it never really existed.’
There was a short silence.
‘Nicely put,’ the door said, and swung open. There was a smattering of applause and the crowd surged into the common room.
‘It’s this way to our dorm,’ Lisa said, leading Delilah towards the statue of a beautiful, serene witch, who seemed to oversee the room with a sternly maternal gaze.
Rowena Ravenclaw, Delilah thought. My great-great-great-something Grandmother.
What a weird thought.
Beside the statue was a small door which led to a staircase spiralling both up and down, and she spied Terry disappearing through an identical door at the other end of the room. Lisa led her to the left and down the stairs.
‘We really lucked out in our year group,’ she explained. ‘We had an unusually high Ravenclaw intake, so they clubbed us in with the seventh years and we got the gallery dorm instead of the little ones in the tower.’
This statement didn’t make sense to Delilah until they reached the bottom of the stairs and pushed open a door leading into a long, high-ceilinged room that seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see. This, Delilah quickly realised, was an illusion borne of the curious, stepped design of the gallery: the floor was made of wide, pale flagstones which, every ten feet or so, stepped down to another level, curving subtly out of sight to give an impression of endless length, with the ceiling remaining the same height throughout so the lower sections had an almost cathedral quality. Each platform had a four-poster bed hung with blue drapes, and a wardrobe, arranged on alternating sides so that each student had a step of their own.
‘Yours will probably be right at the bottom, I’m afraid,’ Lisa said. ‘Nobody wants the spot furthest from the door.’ As they went down the widely-spaced steps the gallery thinned a little and curved more sharply, so that the platform at the very end was like a tiny little room of its own, almost entirely concealed from the one adjacent. Delilah’s trunk was stowed neatly at the end of the bed, and her suitcase, presumably unpacked, on top of the wardrobe. There was a fireplace with a large mirror above its mantelpiece, and a window at the foot of the bed, at least twelve feet high, sending in a moonbeam which lay gently on the sheets.
‘A bit poky,’ Lisa said apologetically. ‘And a bit lonely. I hope it’s OK.’
‘It’s perfect,’ Delilah said. ‘It’s completely perfect.’
