Chapter 27: Hallowe'en
It turned out I had spent rather a long time in the Room of Requirement, and from there I went straight to the Great Hall, where the celebratory feast was just about to begin. Everyone around me was laughing, chattering, and gesturing excitedly, and only Daphne and I were quiet islands in all the noise.
Once everyone had settled at the tables, Dumbledore rose from his seat and delivered a speech...
The speech had no particular substance beyond congratulating us all on the occasion and announcing that the feast could now begin. I looked around and satisfied myself that things would be perfectly calm this year: Hermione was at the table, and she had friends around her, and even though one redheaded idiot had apparently tried to get under her skin earlier today, it had come to nothing.
I ate slowly, in a highly aristocratic fashion...
That is a lie. I ate as I liked, without following most of the table etiquette expected of the nobility, though even so I probably appeared rather aristocratic to anyone watching. Daphne, sitting beside me, made sure my plate always had whatever I wanted to try. Penny Clearwater, who had taken the seat opposite for once, was not shy about making use of Daphne's help either, though Daphne cast mildly irritated glances at her now and then.
Despite the irritation, she did not refuse to help, and Penny Clearwater was careful not to overstep, so Daphne did not make an issue of being my attendant rather than Penny Clearwater's servant.
Hermione had somehow been drawn into an argument with Tracy...
I listened for a moment, then closed my eyes briefly, because the subject of this apparently riveting debate was some entirely girlish nonsense, specifically whether it was better to color one's hair with potions or with spells.
"Padma?"
"What's the matter?"
"I can't see my sister at the Gryffindor table. I want to go and look for her."
"Shall I come with you?"
"No..."
She gave me a small smile. It was obvious she wanted to say yes: wandering through the enormous castle alone was not something she particularly relished, but she did not want to spoil my evening.
"...don't, really. Enjoy yourself. You work harder than any of us and you need this rest more than anyone. Go on, have a good time."
I gave a nod, accepting what she had said, and then stood up anyway.
"Draco..."
"Carry on. I can hardly leave our friend to manage this on her own."
"I'm coming."
Daphne rose from the table as well, and after her, Tracy and Penny Clearwater did the same.
"What?"
"Hermione, do keep up. Padma's sister hasn't come to the feast for some reason, so we're going to look for her."
"Oh. Right then..."
Hermione's interest in the matter was clearly nonexistent, and she made no move to leave the table. Harry was equally content to sit with his potatoes and a salad.
"I... why are you all..."
Padma looked at us with mild bewilderment.
"Isn't that what friends are for?"
I shrugged, and we all walked out of the Great Hall together.
"Children, where are you going? The feast has only just started..."
Dumbledore had noticed us, and I answered for everyone.
"Parvati is absent from her House table and her sister is very worried. We decided to help look for her. She may need assistance..."
"Or perhaps she simply wants to be alone?"
Dumbledore's half-moon spectacles caught the light.
"Possibly, and if she tells us as much, I think we shall all respect that. But for the moment we do not know."
"I can come with you."
Flitwick said this while looking directly at me, and there was resolve in his expression. He really was an excellent professor, willing to go to considerable lengths for his students, even those from other Houses. No wonder the whole school was fond of him.
"Thank you, Professor, but I think we can manage."
I was, if I'm honest, mildly surprised that McGonagall had not offered to help, given that she was Parvati's Head of House and directly responsible for her. Surely a girl failing to appear at the celebratory feast ought to have concerned her. But no. She sat and ate. Though I suppose Hogwarts was called the safest place in Britain, and one could understand her reasoning.
We left the Great Hall and made for the staircases. This was the one crossroads that could not be avoided unless you used the secret passages, and we decided to begin there all the same.
"Right, we start by asking the portraits near the entrances to each floor. One of them may have seen Parvati."
"The girls nodded, and we set to work."
On the first floor, I questioned several portraits. All said they hadn't seen any girl resembling Padma.
The second floor was the same. But on the third floor, we had better luck: one of the portraits thought it had seen a girl who looked like Padma dash past, following another girl, some hours ago.
"All right, let's check. The floor isn't that large, so we should be able to search it in fifteen minutes. If we don't find anyone, we head up."
"All right."
The girls answered in something close to unison, and we entered the corridor and split up to check every room where the girls might conceivably have gone.
Near one of the classrooms, I heard crying, and a voice pleading with someone to stop. I frowned. I couldn't make out any other voices, and I didn't recognize the one I could hear. It could well have been the girl Parvati had followed.
I tried the door...
"Locked."
"Help! I'm in here!"
A panicked cry came from behind the door, followed immediately by the sound of a slap. I cast an unlocking charm at the door at once, but it did no good. The girls had gathered behind me. I turned, took a step back, and cast Bombarda at the door, then kicked in what was left of it and went through.
"Bloody hell..."
"Ha ha ha ha ha! Got you, got you! Little Drakie looking for girls? Ha ha ha! Peeves fooled you all! Peeves is clever, he is, and also," Peeves produced something from beneath the desk he'd been rolling on in hysterics and hurled it at us.
"Protego."
The thing hit the shield and exploded, and an appalling smell hit me. A few quick household charms removed it from the air and our robes.
"You know, Peeves, I really am going to learn the Banishing Charm one of these days..."
I shook my head. The poltergeist only laughed harder. I paid him no further attention, and we left the classroom together, repairing the door and pulling it shut behind us.
"Bloody hell..."
I shook my head again.
"Draco, did I just hear that..."
Penny looked at me with an amused expression.
"...you're swearing?"
"I generally try not to, but in this particular situation I simply have no other words. I am expressing my strongly felt emotions with the vocabulary available to me."
I shrugged, as if to say this was entirely beyond my control. No one reproached me. I got a pat on the shoulder instead, and we carried on along the floor. We did not find the girls, even after checking every room.
Well, I had a fairly strong suspicion where they were, but my companions refused to let me into Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, and declined to go in themselves, on the grounds that it would be a pointless waste of time.
"Right, so we've checked the floor. Well, more or less..."
"Not this again."
Penny looked at me with a trace of exasperation.
"Penny, think about it. If someone was upset, or if someone played a nasty trick on them, the most logical place to go is Myrtle's bathroom. Nobody's going to follow them in there..."
"Oh, fine, fine!"
She threw her hands up in irritation.
"We'll go and check Myrtle's bathroom right now, and afterwards I'm going to look at you and that smug face of yours and ask, repeatedly: didn't I say it would be a waste of time?"
"I'm prepared to accept those terms, but if I turn out to be right, you won't just greet me with a kiss on the cheek every day. You'll also..."
I thought for a moment.
"...you'll meow after every sentence."
"I beg your pardon?"
Penny stared at me in shock.
"I said, you'll end every sentence with a meow for the rest of the year."
"Are you serious?"
"Only slightly joking. And don't worry, I'm not asking you to do it in lessons or when speaking to professors and other students. Just with me."
I smiled.
"Fine, but in that case... in that case... in that case, if they're not there, you have to meow too!"
"Agreed."
I gave a calm nod, then studied Penny's expression at length.
"What?"
She frowned at me.
"Nothing in particular. I'm just thinking that cat ears would suit you. False ones, obviously."
"You..."
She frowned and shook her head sharply.
"No. We already agreed on meowing."
"Well..."
I gave a slightly wounded shrug, doing my best to convey how deeply her refusal to raise the stakes had affected me. She did not take the bait, just gave a derisive snort.
"...if you insist on meowing, meowing it shall be. The ears can be for the next argument."
"So you've already decided you've won?"
"Well, we're about to find out..."
I shrugged, and we walked to Myrtle's bathroom. Penny looked inside, and from the way her expression changed I knew at once that I was right.
"You were right..."
She looked at me and my grinning face.
"They are in fact here. Why didn't I remember that you won the last argument too?"
"Penny?"
Parvati's voice came from inside, slightly uncertain. She clearly had no idea what was happening.
"Sorry, girls. We were worried about you. We went looking, but we didn't expect to find you here specifically. And I made a bet with Draco that I would end every sentence with a meow if you turned out to be in this particular bathroom."
"There are more of you?"
Parvati peered out from the bathroom. She looked perfectly fine. I had half expected to find her in tears, but she seemed all right.
"Draco? Daphne? Tracy? You all came? For us?"
Her question was really a plea for confirmation.
"Yes... Padma noticed you weren't at the feast, and then we realized you weren't the only one missing, so we came to see what had happened."
That we had only noticed the second absence while questioning portraits on the third floor was really beside the point.
"Well... Lavender was just a little upset..."
"A little?"
"Weasley... he was unkind to her. After the Transfiguration lesson that afternoon, she offered to help him with the material, and he swore at her. He said a lot of horrible things, and..."
"That number six..."
I shook my head.
"...right, girls, go back in and help Lavender pull herself together, and then we'll all go to the feast together. Lavender and Parvati are welcome to sit at our table."
"Thank you."
Parvati smiled at me and disappeared back inside with the girls. I leaned against the wall and focused on how to find the diadem. Waiting until next year really didn't appeal, and so...
Boom... boom... boom... boom... scrrrrrrrr...
I turned toward the sound and realized I couldn't see the source yet, only hear heavy footsteps and a scraping, dragging noise. That offered a faint, not entirely reassuring hope.
"Girls, quickly now... I think we may have a problem."
Penny peered out of the bathroom.
"And why are you trying to spook us..."
The words died in her throat as she realized I wasn't doing anything, and that the sounds were genuinely rolling down the far end of the corridor.
"...ahem..."
She swallowed, her throat rather dry.
"Could it be Peeves?"
"Do you want to go check?"
"No..."
Penny shook her head and slipped back into the bathroom, from which came the sound of the girls hurriedly pulling Lavender out.
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