Chapter 21: An Ordinary Day
The week ended splendidly. Every professor had passed me with an Acceptable or Acceptable-plus, which was quite pleasing. It meant I would have considerably more free time going forward. Yes, one might argue that I had simply traded one burden for another, swapping homework for teaching, but in the first place, Flitwick flatly refused to have me grade homework. It was a matter of principle for him. In the second place, teaching six to twelve lessons a week with a teaching plan provided by Flitwick was far simpler than sitting through ten periods a day, attending Flying lessons one to three times a week after lunch, going up to Astronomy twice a week at night, and on top of all of that, completing homework for every subject.
Even knowing the material, I would have spent a minimum of thirty minutes on each assignment, and they would not have made any exceptions for me, regardless of what I knew. But now that I had taken all the examinations...
The possibilities opening up before me were rather wonderful.
"Penny, have you forgotten something?"
I looked at our prefect, who had announced on Friday that her official duties were finished. More precisely, a prefect is only permitted to be late to lessons and leave them slightly early during the first week, for the purpose of escorting first-years around the castle. After that, we were expected to find our own way.
And today she had attempted to slip out of the common room as though she had not noticed me.
"Hmm? Draco? I didn't see you there..."
She tucked a curl behind her ear with a slightly flustered air.
"Yes, yes. I believe you entirely. But that does not release you from the terms of our arrangement. Especially given that I chose to ignore those terms myself until I had taken all my examinations."
"Well... yes..."
She gave a nod, walked over to me, bent down quickly and kissed me on the cheek, then stepped back with a faint flush.
"Is that everything?"
"No..."
I gave her a mischievous smile.
"What? But surely..."
"What about good morning, Draco?"
The girl's eyes went wide for a moment, and then she smiled and gave a nod.
"Good morning, Draco."
"Good morning, Penny. Would you care to tell me what prompted you to attempt to neglect our agreement?"
"Well... I..."
She dropped her gaze to the floor.
"Penny, I don't bite..."
"Well, you're a boy... a young boy... I thought you might want to turn your head and kiss me on the lips, and then... I don't know..."
"Good heavens..."
I let out a long, heavy sigh and shook my head. That single gesture said everything about where her imagination had gone.
"Really... she invents the scenario herself... works herself up over it... gets indignant... and then decides to avoid the whole thing..."
I shook my head again. From my words, my manner, and my tone, Penny looked like she wanted the floor to swallow her.
"Penny, you are a good person, and I will even say that I do find older girls interesting. So you may well find yourself within range of my attention... in about two years. Only you ought to understand."
"I do understand..."
She lowered her head, and I caught the hurt in her voice.
"Right. And exactly what have you understood that has made you take offense?"
"I haven't taken offense..."
"Penny..."
I cut her off before she could finish. The force of her denial made it perfectly clear that she had done exactly that. My voice and expression conveyed exactly what I thought of that lie.
"...please don't lie to me. We have been getting on perfectly well, and now you are trying to ruin it with this."
"I..."
She closed her eyes and took a couple of slow, deliberate breaths. Then, as though throwing herself off a cliff, she continued.
"I am half-blood, and you are pure-blood, a future Lord. The gap between our positions speaks for itself, and that is what you meant. That between us there could only ever be a brief affair, and the most I could ever hope for is to be your mistress."
"Stop!"
I rose partway from the armchair, took two steps toward Penny, and lifted her chin so that our eyes met. I held her gaze, making it clear she was going to listen.
"Penny, you have gone and invented something again that has no bearing on reality whatsoever. Or rather, it does bear on reality, but not in my case. So let us work through this step by step. To begin with, no one will be placing restrictions on who I choose to be with, if only because there are far too few pure-blood families left in Britain whose bloodlines would actually benefit my children. If you are familiar with Muggle science..."
I looked at her inquiringly, and she gave a small shake of her head to indicate she was not.
Never mind, I'll explain it myself. Non-magical people have already established that excessively close inbreeding accumulates errors in DNA, or, in our terms, in the bloodline, which in our world means curses and defects. In short, marrying within the same bloodlines leads to degeneration. The old families ought to know this, but they appear to have simply stopped heeding their own ancestors' writings. So here in Britain, there are only a handful of families where a match wouldn't weaken or damage my children. To be precise, the only families that fully meet my requirements are the Greengrasses: a match with one of them would actually strengthen my children.
"But surely, I will not be his wife..."
Daphne, who had apparently come down from the girls' dormitory while we were talking and quietly composed herself, answered Penny Clearwater's unasked question.
"...and neither will Astoria. Our father brought this situation entirely upon himself, and he'll never acknowledge it. So the Greengrasses are not an option. As for me, I am a loyal attendant, and if my lord ever takes me to his bed, my children may found a cadet branch of the House of Black, but they could never lay claim to the title of Lord Black."
"Precisely..."
I nodded.
"And that is... acceptable to you?"
"There's a great deal you don't know, so you can't see the full picture. It concerns only me, the Blacks, and the Greengrasses, so just accept that I'm content with it."
"All right..."
Penny Clearwater nodded, looking lost.
"Continuing then, there are a small number of families here where a match might keep the Blacks at roughly their current level, or cause a slight decline. But then my children would have no room to maneuver whatsoever, and from that I draw my conclusion... I must either seek my future on the Continent, but as you no doubt know, they're not overly fond of us Britons over there..."
This time Penny Clearwater's nod was one of agreement, thoughtful, even.
"Precisely. Or I may choose a half-blood or even a Muggle-born girl here. A single such match will do my House no harm; it will, in fact, help, because my children will afterward have a vastly wider field of choice. And if I choose well, meaning she's also a witch of genuine strength, the House gains power as well."
Penny Clearwater listened carefully and nodded, though her expression still held a trace of disbelief. She'd evidently grown accustomed to hearing rather different things from pure-blood wizards.
"And with that settled, the question of whether your blood status puts anything out of reach for you also becomes irrelevant. The only reason you can't count on anything right now is that I prefer older girls, and also because nothing's quite working yet on my end when it comes to pursuing girls I actually like."
"Draco!"
She looked at me with genuine indignation.
"Not very gallant..."
I acknowledged this with a nod.
"But it's true." Now, clear all that nonsense out of your head. And when I said you ought to understand, all I meant was that in the two years you would need to wait before becoming someone I might actually be interested in, a great deal may change for you. You might meet someone you want to spend the rest of your life with. Moreover, I cannot rule out that in two years my own tastes may shift somewhat and I may begin paying more attention to girls who are roughly your age.
"And for that reason it would be contemptible of me to kiss you on the lips, to give you something to hope for, only to tell you in a couple of years, 'Forgive me, I was wrong, let us simply be friends.' That is all I meant."
I looked at Penny Clearwater carefully.
"I... I'm sorry..."
She gave me a guilty smile.
"I'm being an idiot, aren't I?"
"No, you simply invented a problem that does not actually exist. Now, I hope you will join me, Daphne, and Tracy for breakfast."
"Gladly."
Penny gave a nod, and we set off for the Great Hall. On the way, Potter and Hermione caught up with us, both mildly put out that we had not waited, though they were sensible enough not to make too much of it.
We walked at an easy pace, the conversation carried mostly by Penny Clearwater, Daphne, and me, while the others listened. After breakfast we went our separate ways. I headed to Flitwick's classroom, as I had my first session with the third-years.
"Mr. Black..."
Flitwick greeted me in his office with a warm smile and a nod.
"Glad to see you. Come over here..."
He beckoned me over and handed me the lesson plan, which I sat down to study.
Two lessons later.
"Well, Mr. Black, I am very pleased with you. Your knowledge is more than sufficient for teaching third-year students. If you continue to perform as well this year, I may simply leave you in charge of all years from first to third, but for the moment..."
Flitwick looked at me with a satisfied smile.
"Let us talk about something that should be considerably more interesting to you than running lessons. The art of dueling. Do you want me to teach you?"
"Yes, Professor."
I gave a brief nod, and Flitwick's smile sharpened, as though his goblin blood had stirred at that moment.
"It will not be easy..."
"I am not afraid of difficulty. Overcoming it only adds to the pleasure."
"Very well. We shall meet every day after supper, from eight until ten in the evening. Does that suit you?"
"Of course, Professor."
A satisfied smile flickered across my face.
"And one more thing. I can see your interest in Charms, so..."
He gave me a careful look, then levitated a rather substantial stack of books onto the desk.
"...if by the end of this calendar year you have worked through all of these, I will consider teaching you not only dueling but Charms as well."
I closed my eyes.
"Professor, forgive me, but on that particular matter I must consult with my mothers first. I have no hesitation about the dueling training, since they prepared me for that themselves, but immersing myself so deeply in Charms..."
I shook my head.
"Ha. If you had agreed at once, I would have been disappointed. I am glad you are choosing to consult more experienced wizards. However, if my calculations are correct, your mothers will have no objection at all, especially once I explain that my emphasis will be on the creation of charms."
Those words caught my full attention. Charms. Understanding how they are created means understanding how curses are constructed. And understanding how curses are constructed means being able to identify and destroy them far more swiftly and cleanly. My mothers would be more than pleased...
I went over to the stack and quickly scanned the titles.
"Professor, reading the books you've suggested will do me no harm regardless of what my mothers decide about the apprenticeship itself, so if you will permit me..."
He gave me an open, benevolent nod.
"Well, these two..."
I pulled two volumes from the pile.
"...I have already studied. The rest I shall be glad to work through."
"Then you are free for today, Mr. Black. I shall expect you tomorrow."
"Thank you."
I gave a nod, took the books, and made my way to the common room, where I settled back into theory, though I would need to begin the practical work shortly.
Er...
I glanced up to find Hermione hovering, shifting her weight uncertainly from foot to foot.
"Yes?"
"Look, I've read those books. The ones about house-elves. And there are a few things I'd like to ask about... could you answer them?"
"Hmm..."
I looked thoughtfully at my own book, then at Hermione, and she clearly deflated somewhat.
"Give me ten minutes? I want to finish this chapter, and then we can talk a little."
"Of course..."
She nodded very quickly, and I understood that the Granger crisis had apparently passed: the girl was going to find her way into the wizarding world after all. If only Potter could manage the same, everything would be coming along rather nicely...
//=================//
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