Chapter 71: Fireside
"Right then."
Penny broke a silence that had stretched somewhat past the point of comfort after we all gathered by the fire that evening. Most of the common room had gone quiet along with us, and those few students who were talking at all were doing so in whispers.
"Well."
I shrugged, at a loss for where to begin.
"The place to start is probably with the fact that Lockhart turned out to be an idiot with connections. He had managed to acquire a document certifying his garbage as a legitimate textbook. If I had been anyone else in that courtroom, or if I hadn't had a solicitor sitting beside me throughout, ready to intervene at any moment, the case could have been lost in the first minutes of the hearing."
"Never mind Lockhart, brother..."
Nymphadora fell silent as she caught the look I was giving her.
"Sister. Shall we wash that mouth out with soap?"
"Ahem. Sorry. I was rather worried."
"But why? I would understand the worry if the paper had come out the same day and I still hadn't come back. That would be reasonable."
I nodded, acknowledging that, in that scenario, concern would have been entirely justified.
"As it is, you can see that I am in one piece, alive, and came back without so much as a bruise. So sit down and enjoy the story."
And I told them how the hearing had gone, the hearing at which someone had attempted to kill me with the Killing Curse.
All things considered, there wasn't a great deal to tell, and within about fifteen minutes I fell silent and returned to quietly sipping my cocoa. The girls, meanwhile, were bubbling over with righteous fury, the general thrust of their indignation being that they wanted to get their hands on this villain and do something extremely unpleasant to him. That was the gist of it, at any rate.
"I really do appreciate that my wellbeing means enough to all of you that even knowing I'm perfectly fine, you're expressing yourselves with this much passion."
I looked around at the girls, and then at the boys, who were considerably more restrained about the whole thing. Understandably so, given that Lockhart was already in Azkaban and there was nothing left to be alarmed about. The expressive outrage was largely a female production.
"Could I ask a few questions for The Quibbler?"
Luna materialized in front of me, wand tucked behind her ear, radish earrings swaying, hair slightly disheveled, with that faraway look she carried everywhere. It immediately made one want to sit her down on one's knee and tidy her up. I had no particular objection to that impulse, so I simply caught the girl, settled her there, conjured a comb with my wand, and set about what turned out to be a rather meditative activity.
"If I think I can answer a question, I will."
I nodded. Luna, for her part, went completely still, apparently uncertain how to respond to finding herself in this situation.
"That's not fair."
Penny Clearwater shook her head.
I wanted a turn holding her and doing her hair.
A flicker of bewilderment crossed Luna's face, threaded through with something that looked rather like alarm.
"That's not happening in front of me."
Nympha shook her head, a spark of unmistakable Black-family lunacy glinting in her eyes.
"Right, both of you. Stop frightening the first-year."
I shook my head.
"Penny Clearwater, you can help with mornings. Nymphadora can take evenings."
"Hey! What about us?!"
Several other girls, not in my immediate circle but apparently just as observant, had clearly noticed what a lost little fledgling she was and were not at all satisfied with my having already allocated her care.
"And what about you? Aren't there enough first-year girls to go around? How many are there on our floor? Including Muggle-born girls, too, who could certainly use a hand settling in. Take one of them under your wing."
I gave a mildly perplexed shrug.
"And the boys could do something similar. Even just pointing out where everything is and explaining the basics would be helpful."
"Hmm."
The older students were now surveying the first-years with an enthusiasm I could only describe as faintly alarming. I realized I needed to take control of this before it escalated into open competition.
"Let's introduce a rule."
I smiled.
"I'm sure Penny Clearwater and Professor Flitwick will support me on this. If you'd like to take responsibility for a first-year, show them spells, and introduce them to the wizarding world, then you are required to maintain a strong academic standing."
A number of sighs rose from around the room.
"What are you sighing about? Did you think it would come free? No."
I shook my head.
"Applications to take on a first-year mentorship are open to any student from fourth year onward, submitted in any form. However, I would encourage you not to rush. I'll discuss the idea with Penny and the Dean first, and we'll draw up a proper set of rules and a list of responsibilities for mentors. I expect Professor Flitwick and I will also introduce a recognition system for mentors whose students perform well."
I looked around the common room.
"And naturally, no first-year can be assigned a mentor against their will."
"May I begin asking my questions now?"
Luna had composed herself at last.
"Of course."
I nodded, continuing to work through her hair.
"Do you believe Wrackspurts could have influenced Mr Lockhart's behavior and caused him to attack you?"
"Hmm. That is a complicated question."
I shook my head.
"From everything I know, Lockhart's behavior did not change in any observable way between his appointment at Hogwarts and the moment the hearing began, at least not in a way that would have attracted attention. And given his history, which I imagine will be covered in the coming editions of the paper..."
I shook my head again.
"The probability that Wrackspurts played any role is very small."
"I see."
A small notebook and a quill appeared in Luna's hands, and she began carefully writing down my answer. For a minute or two she was quiet.
"Do you think it would be possible to find circumstances that might influence Lockhart's sentencing and lead the judges to show greater leniency?"
"No."
"Are you certain?"
"Quite. I know his case well, and there is nothing that could reasonably be considered a mitigating factor."
"Understood."
She went back to her notes, writing carefully and adding her own annotations.
"Draco... are you serious?"
An older student approached, a boy looking at me with a slightly superior air, as though he was about to enlighten me on some terrible secret I had obviously missed.
"The Quibbler is something nobody reads. It's a magazine for eccentrics."
I looked at him with a touch of irritation.
"Simon, did I ask for your opinion?"
"Come on, I'm just doing you a favor, so you don't look foolish afterward."
"A favor. You think I require your favor?"
"Er..."
The boy faltered.
He was fully aware of every publication available in Britain. In fact, he subscribed to most of them, with the exception of single-sheet rubbish. The Prophet simply had a rather conspicuous delivery time, meaning everyone could see it arrive. But if you'd paid attention, he almost never read at breakfast. He read his papers when he was alone, The Quibbler included.
Daphne was looking at the boy with mild contempt.
"And for what it's worth, I find The Quibbler a very interesting publication. Certain articles do raise questions in my mind, but that can be said of any newspaper. The format itself, and the way they present information... in my opinion, other outlets would do well to study it."
"I'm not sure I can agree with that."
I shook my head.
"That particular style suits The Quibbler precisely because of what it prints. If the Prophet adopted it, it would lose readers."
"How do you think The Quibbler could be improved?"
Luna looked at me with tentative hope.
"I'd add a couple of crosswords and puzzles at the back of each issue, with the answers printed in the following one."
"That's interesting. We do publish crosswords occasionally, but we hadn't thought of making them a regular feature."
"A mistake."
I gently smoothed her hair.
"But a conversation about what to do with The Quibbler really belongs somewhere else, don't you think?"
"In bed?"
Luna looked at me with perfect, innocent gravity.
"Though I suppose I am rather young for that."
"Luna, I have no idea where you are picking up these ideas, but what I meant was that a conversation about a publication, its future, and professional matters in general ought to take place in a meeting room. Or a restaurant."
"I see."
"Luna."
Penny appeared beside me, lifted the girl, and began carrying her in the direction of the girls' dormitory.
"You and I need to have a serious talk."
"But I..."
"Draco isn't going anywhere. If you want to ask him more questions, you can do that later. But right now, you and I need to talk. Very much so."
I gave a quiet snort and rose from the armchair.
"Right, I'd better get back to work."
I slipped out of the common room and returned to my study.
Several days later.
The story of Lockhart, as told by Rita Skeeter's pen, stirred fresh waves of feeling throughout the school, primarily, it must be said, among the Muggle-born students. I found myself gathering my house in the common room again, though this time many of the Muggle-borns had brought friends from other houses.
"Right, everyone. What would you like to know?"
"Why did the paper say you didn't care that the professor had stolen other people's accomplishments?"
"Well."
I shrugged.
"That's my honest opinion. If he managed to take them, through cunning or through strength, then in a sense he earned that right. That is how things have always worked, everywhere. Even in the ordinary world, people buy degrees they haven't earned, and athletes take substances to outperform their rivals."
I looked entirely untroubled by this.
"As the saying goes, if you can do something and you're confident you won't be caught, the odds are you'll do it. Naturally, all manner of things hold people back from acting that way: different values, different priorities. But the problem here wasn't what he did. It was that he misjudged himself."
"Are you saying you would have done the same in his position?"
"No."
I shook my head, making it clear by my manner that it would simply never have occurred to me.
"But I don't have the need he apparently had. There was presumably something that drove him down that path. People like him have always existed, always will, just as there is a law that says Aurors must establish what such people have done and punish them accordingly."
"But if that's true, why didn't you report it to the Aurors yourself?"
"Probably because the relevant people already knew."
"I'm sorry. What?!"
The children were astonished.
"It's quite simple. Awards like the ones Lockhart held are not given out on the basis of a good story. The details are checked. Which means that everyone who needed to know already knew about the fraud and said nothing. It was a conspiracy. Had I simply filed a report, I would have acquired a string of minor inconveniences. Not life-threatening, and perfectly manageable, but pointless. Why would I want that?"
"I don't understand."
I sighed.
"It's difficult to understand if you didn't grow up in the wizarding world. But if you look around and talk to friends who did, you'll find that for us, family comes first. If we can spare our family even a small inconvenience, we do."
Many of the purebloods and half-bloods were nodding.
"We also value strength. Far more than people in the ordinary world do. And if someone managed to do what Lockhart did, our instinct is to judge him more harshly for being caught than for having done it in the first place. That doesn't mean we approve, and it doesn't mean we'll all start stealing other people's achievements. It simply means our priorities are ordered somewhat differently. That's all."
"That's... strange."
One of the girls shook her head.
"You'll come to understand it."
Hermione joined in.
"It was unfamiliar to me too, at first. But the more you learn about magic, the more spells you master, the more you find yourself genuinely respecting power."
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