The Queen of Vipers || Fred Weasley

I.IX

Electra had a plan. But it required some help, and Electra hated asking for help.

The three-headed dog Patronus had been a hot topic all week and wild assumptions as to whose it was spread like wildfire around the school. The most acknowledged theory was that it was simply Dumbledore's Patronus.

In another circumstance perhaps she would have been fine with the blame falling on someone else's head, but this one made her sick to her stomach. People believed her Patronus was the famous Albus Dumbledore's; the most powerful wizard of their time. She tried not to think about it often.

Instead she focused on her plan to keep the Patronus's true caster a secret. That, and dodging questions about her meeting with Dumbledore with her best friend.

"He just wanted to go over some safety things," she'd lied. "You know 'cause of the Dementors. And 'cause my dad's the escapee mass murder they're looking for. And he already entered the castle once," —how, no one had the faintest clue, and the speculations were not helping ease anyones minds—, "something like that."

"Funny," Cedric replied dryly.

With a bit more interrogating and a lot more fibbing, Cedric seemed satisfied enough and dropped the topic entirely, much to Electra's relief.

But Electra's relief ended there. She'd spent every free moment she could looking up anything she could find about Clairvoyants, but there was nothing. Not even a mention of a Clairvoyant in any book she flipped through. It was infuriating.

You see, the list of things nagging Electra were quickly piling up.

First two on the list were pretty common for a witch her age; 1. Studying for her O.W.L.s and 2. her new (and pretty hindering) Prefect duties. A pain in the ass, but not unexpected. The next was also not so unexpected; 3. The wicked sisters (a.k.a. Octavia, Drusilla and Araminta).

Now the rest of her list she had accumulated throughout the term... which was an issue as it was only November.

Her little stunt she pulled during the Quidditch match was number four on her list. Shocking, but she had a plan to fix that one. 5. Professor Lupin. There's plenty to unpack here, but he knows something and she was determined to find out what it was. 6. Dumbledore. The old headmaster knew more than he was letting on about her. Now, Dumbledore was going to be much harder to get to spill his guts, but Electra was no less determined to get what she wants out of him than she is with Lupin. 7. Learning she was a Clairvoyant, whatever that meant.

Last but not at all least, number eight came in the form of Sirius Black, a.k.a. daddy-dearest. This, somehow, took a backseat in her mind. Why? Morgana knows, maybe she just has a death wish. But that changed one night while she and Cedric walked the dark halls on Prefect Patrol.

"Are you sure you're not ill?" Cedric had inquired for the hundredth time after her wand-lighting charm sparked and exploded like a firecracker. He pressed the back of his hand to Electra's forehead.

"I'm not sick," she'd insisted impatiently, smacking his hand away. "My mind's just been all over the place."

Cedric then took a thoughtful pause and frowned. "I can't imagine what you're going through," he'd said softly.

"What do you mean?" she'd asked, looking up at him with a raised brow.

They exchanged a brief glance, worry clearly written on her best friend's face. "I don't know how you're not scared out of your mind with him on the loose," Cedric confessed. "I would be out of my mind thinking he was around every corner ready to finish what You-Know-Who started when you were a baby..."