Chimaera Of Judgement

15: Bitter Honey

Whether or not it was because Elizabeth Larkins's best friend, Catherine Orchard, had betrayed her trust, or because someone overheard them and started blabbing it to anyone with ears, Albus didn't know, but one way or the other it took no time at all for the news of Elizabeth's breakdown to spread throughout the castle, and for the other students to begin giving the girls' lavatory on the second floor a wide birth. Both Albus and Rose knew they hadn't been the ones to begin spreading rumours, so it must have been another student in their dormitory, which left only one person...

"Well, it wasn't me," Aqua Rankin protested when they asked her during Herbology class that afternoon. She and David Jones, a Hufflepuff prefect who also happened to play keeper for his House, had been assigned to the same station where they were Regerminating the Fanged Geraniums, for which using dragonhide gloves was a must. "I mean, sure, I heard about it, but... maybe it was Catherine, you know? Elizabeth tells her everything."

Rose rolled her eyes. "Come on, I wouldn't think Catherine'd blab. It must've been you."

"I'm offended!" Her icy-blue eyes were still glinting, her mouth twitching to reveal her alarmingly-pronounced canine teeth. Those, in addition to her wild, shock-white hair radiating from her head like a corona had always made Albus slightly jumpy around her, as if she might start devouring people at any moment. "Why should you think I'd do anything of the sort?"

"How about the rumour you spread last year about my being kin to a Dementor?"

"That was just-"

But Albus interrupted her. "Or that time you said the reason I had green eyes was because I'd eaten a load of Gurdyroots as a baby?"

Aqua half-sighed, half-laughed. "You can't still be-"

"Or," David spoke up unexpectedly, "that real jackanory you told in our third year about all the Peruvian Doxies, Professor Nott's manky handkerchief and a hidden vat of Felix Felicis under the-"

"All right, all right, give over, will you? Sweet Matilda's Moontrimmer, you'd think I'm, I'm... some sort of old fabulist or something! I've got a right to report the news, don't- OW!"

Evidently, the geranium she'd been standing over had decided her shouting was too loud and sank its tired teeth into her arm. She was less prone to shout at them from the hospital wing.

The thorough interrogation of Moaning Myrtle by the staff proved entirely fruitless due to the fact that she had either contracted amnesia (and as her head was not solid they couldn't say she bumped it), or simply did not wish to tell anyone what she'd said to Elizabeth. Given what Nearly Headless Nick had been telling everyone since Hallowe'en, Albus was sure she honestly did not remember having done anything of the sort. Incidentally, the second floor corridor came to be flooded soon after Myrtle was accused of the crime, as she'd pulled off every tap in her out-of-order toilet in protest.

At long last, they had come to the last schoolday of term before Christmas vacation, which nearly drove all thought of ectoplasmic oddities from Albus's head - excepting that Elizabeth continued to look pale when he passed her in the corridors. The students and ghosts became prone to bursting into Christmas carols without warning, and when the portraits and suits of armour did this many first years had been seen toppling over in fright. Yet stranger was the way Professor Dryden had been unusually kind to them that morning in Potions, and Albus himself was very stunned to be held after class.

"Y-you wanted to see me, sir?"

"Mm, yes, Potter." The Potions Master laid aside the quill he had been using to scribe a letter and folded his hands on the desk, dark-blue eyes piercing him. A quick glance at the heading seemed to indicate it was to a Potions committee of some sort. "I wanted to speak with you about your marks in this class."