It wasn't a matter of conscious thought. Loony Luna walked by on her way to the Ravenclaw table, and Millicent automatically stuck her leg out. Of course Loony never saw it, wasn't ready for it, even though Millicent tripped her at least once a week, at lunch or better yet at supper. Her books -- not schoolbooks, Millicent noted, but thin paperbacks with lurid covers -- flew out of her hands and landed on the floor.
"How'd you ever make it into Ravenclaw, Lovegood? You've got less brains than a flobberworm."
Luna, who had dropped to her knees and was scrabbling her books back into her arms, stopped and looked Millicent straight in the eyes. "How'd you ever make it into Slytherin, Bulstrode?" Her tone was an uncanny reproduction of Millicent's own voice, although nearly an octave higher. "You've got less subtlety than a mountain troll."
"She's right," said Pansy sweetly, from across the table. The other Slytherins laughed. "But you smell slightly better."
"Fuck off," growled Millicent. She made a rude gesture toward Pansy, sitting like a princess with her fucking court around her, the sixth and seventh-year boys all hanging on her like she was some kind of prize. When she turned back toward Luna she had already recovered her things and was back on her feet, staring with those protruding eyes at Millicent.
"Maybe you should have been a Ravenclaw," she said, tilting her head slightly. "Want to come sit with us?"
Millicent rolled her eyes. "Fuck off, Lovegood."
And she turned back to the table, resolutely ignoring Pansy's laughter.
On Sunday she was smoking a fag under the Quidditch stands, watching the team practice, when she sensed something behind her. Turning her head, she saw Luna, standing just behind her right shoulder, and how the hell had she got there so silently?
She wasn't even looking at her, or at the practice for that matter. She was looking at her hands, which cupped something that wavered and flew and glittered like a fairy, bright in the shadow beneath the stands. She was looking at her hands, and ignoring Millicent entirely, but she was there at her shoulder for absolutely no reason, and there had to be a reason.
Millicent could do that too. She turned back to study the game. "What d'ya want, Lovegood?"
"It's not fair that Malfoy won't let girls on the team. You'd be a better Beater than either of those boys."
"What makes you think I want to play Beater?" Not taking her eyes off the Quidditch players, she took another drag, the smoke warming her from the inside.
"You don't. You'd rather be Keeper." At that, Millicent did turn her head, because how the hell did Loony know?
"You'd be a brilliant Beater, though," Luna continued. Her scraggly dishwater hair was hanging in her face, and with the glow from whatever was in her hands lighting her face from below, it gave her the look of a street fortune-teller.
"Thank you so much for that insight." Millicent turned back to the game. "Now piss off."
"I have to give you your present first. Here," said Luna, shoving her hands at Millicent. Instinctively Millicent grabbed at the thing that dropped in front of her, a glass jar filled with sparkly things.
"What the fuck is this?"
Luna looked up at her solemnly. "You can observe a lot just by watching," she said, and walked away.
She was about to toss the jar into the bin by the changing rooms, but the sparkly things -- they were tiny insects, she realized, with iridescent wings -- were making funny buzzing noises, and she held it up to her ear first.
And almost dropped the jar, when she heard tinny voices, barely audible: "What makes you think I want to play Beater?" "It's not fair that Malfoy won't let girls on the team." "What the fuck is this?"
Over and over, in the whispers of wings, she heard fragments of their conversation. It didn't sound like either of them, but her words were buzzed in a lower register, Luna's with a high and fluttery sound, over and over. The order sounded random, at first, but after a while she could pick out the separate repeating threads, reconstruct the entire scene.
She put the jar in her dormitory, thrust it under the edge of her bed with her jumper and books before anyone could see it. She'd pull it out when Pansy and Queenie and Emily went down to the common room to flirt with the boys. "Hey, Bulstrode. Don't touch my things," Pansy tossed over her shoulder as she headed down. Then she turned to Emily, but Millicent knew the words were meant for her. "The last time Mummy sent chocolates that cow ate half the box."
"Fuck off," she muttered, as she slumped onto her bed. Stupid Pansy with her cute little nose and fancy robes and all the boys hanging on her every word. She hated Pansy more than she hated anybody else. The other sixth-year Slytherin girls followed her around, hoping to pick up her crumbs, and no matter what Pansy said they all jumped to agree with her. Millicent didn't have anything that Pansy wanted, so Pansy ignored her at best and treated her like dirt the rest of the time. Which was most of the time.
Whereas Pansy had everything. And even the things that she had that Millicent really didn't want somehow acquired the golden glow of desirability, just because Pansy had them and Millicent didn't. Draco Malfoy was just another arrogant shite, strutting around the field like he invented Quidditch, and she wouldn't even have wanted to talk to him except that he was Pansy's boyfriend and therefore he must be something special. Millicent didn't pay any notice to the robes she pulled on, but she felt a pang of envy when Pansy held up her new silvery-pink dress robe to show the other girls. Which was completely stupid, because she didn't even like Pansy. Why should it matter what she had?
When she was sure she was alone she took the jar out from under her bed and held it to her ear.
"Half the box. Fuck off, fuck off," she heard, in the tinny beats of wing-flutters, over and over again. Not a bit of her earlier conversation with Luna.
"Hello," she said, experimentally.
"Fuck off, fuck off. Don't touch my things."
She looked at the jar, eyes narrowed. She might be big and unpretty, but she wasn't stupid. It was dark under the bed. It had been dark under the stands. Her jumper would cover it completely…yes. Carefully she wrapped the jar and placed it on her bureau, then sat on the bed beside it.
"Pansy Parkinson," she said, "is a stupid cunt."
"Stupid cunt," buzzed the jar when she unwrapped it.
Thoughtfully she slid the jar back under her bed.
When Luna Lovegood walked by the Slytherin table at breakfast Millicent swung about for a moment, caught her eye briefly and nodded, then turned back to her toast and eggs. And to the greater problem that was occupying more of her thoughts than her assigned lessons, which was: how could she make use of this intriguing jar of listening insects? Because she was going to use it. That was absolutely certain. Lovegood had known it would be useful to her, else she wouldn't have given it to her in exchange for…well, she assumed it was in exchange for not tripping her in the Great Hall at mealtimes, and so she would be conscientious in living up to her end of the implied bargain.
Darkness. It was darkness that made those things record what they heard, to whisper them back in the light. So she had to hide the jar somewhere dark, somewhere that people talked about something that might be useful to her. The problem was in determining what would be useful, and where to hide it, and most importantly how to retrieve it without getting caught.
Millicent picked at ideas all through breakfast, and through History of Magic (not that Binns would ever notice) and through Herbology (which earned her a frown from Sprout when she accidentally knocked over the Barking Vine they were supposed to be training into the shape of a watchdog). But although by lunch-time she had almost settled on sneaking the jar into the Quidditch shed, she was quick to grasp the opportunity when Pansy marched into the common room with Ernie MacMillan in tow and announced that they had prefect business to talk about, and would everyone please clear out now, thank you very much.
"Sorry, my quill's under there," Millicent said, and it was a moment's work to palm one, then shove the jar beneath the overhanging slipcover on the settee that Pansy favoured as a lounging-spot. "Got it," she announced brightly.
"She's such a slob," Pansy said to Ernie, rolling her eyes. She pretended she didn't hear as she headed out to the Great Hall.
But after lunch she detoured to the common room on her way to class, and when she held the jar up to her ear she heard plenty.
Millicent knew how to wait. And so she waited, two days of nodding to Lovegood instead of tripping her, until Pansy decided she wanted the big slice of trifle that Millicent had already selected and had halfway to her own plate.
"Give it here, cow. You're already fat enough as it is."
Her hand did not waver as, meeting Pansy's eyes, she calmly placed the sweet on her plate and scooped out a big portion of it with her spoon. When it was nearly to her lips, she paused. "Does your so-called boyfriend know you wanked off Ernie MacMillan for doing your Arithmancy problems?"
Pansy laughed, shrill and high. "Whatever possessed you to invent something so ridiculous?" But she stole a quick glance over her shoulder toward Draco, sitting with his friends farther up the table, and she didn't make another move toward Millicent. Or her trifle.
"What's that about MacMillan?" said Queenie, on Pansy's left. Her eyes darted from one girl to the other, shrewd, assessing. She was a right little sneak, Millicent had always thought, and she'd change alliances in a heartbeat, if the price was right.
"Nothing important," Pansy declared. She frowned at Millicent. "Keep your flapping mouth shut."
Millicent smiled as sweetly as she could. Queenie would probably corner her later in the afternoon. She wouldn't give her knowledge away, but perhaps she could barter it. "I might," she said, taking another bite of trifle.
Luna was not in the library on Thursday after classes were finished, nor out by the Quidditch pitch; Millicent finally found her alone by the edge of the lake, sketching a picture of what might have been the Giant Squid, or possibly a large, mutant flower.
"Lovegood," she said, and Luna looked up. "Do they need food, or something?"
"You can't feed them. They don't live long. If they've started to fade you should make use of them soon."
"Already did." She wasn't about to go into details; the results had been perfectly satisfactory, maybe even more than that, but the shifting balance of power within Slytherin was no Ravenclaw's business. Still, Millicent felt a bit put out when Luna nodded and went back to her drawing.
She stood uncertainly for a moment, watching Luna's hands. Her quill-strokes were light and slow, the nib making thin lines like the tracery of veins under the skin. Each individual line was barely visible, yet from where Millicent stood she could see a clear picture emerging: not the Squid nor a flower, but the Whomping Willow. The thin lines resolved themselves into a pattern of bark and leaves, and each limb seemed almost to quiver on the page even though Luna hadn't yet spelled the image to move.
"It's the Willow," Millicent said, and immediately felt stupid for saying it. Of course it was.
But Luna's face lit up, her eyes all sparkly like the bug-things in the jar. "Isn't it a magnificent tree?"
She looked back and forth, from the real tree to Luna's sketch. "I guess."
"It is, though. It sits there quietly, and you can't tell it from any other tree."
"Until it picks you up and throws you into the lake."
"Exactly!" said Luna, beaming.
Pansy was walking on eggshells around her, thought Millicent; and Queenie and Emily followed her lead, none of them saying much to Millicent whether good or bad, and that was just fine with her. It wasn't as though she actually wanted to be friends with them. They were a bunch of silly bints anyway, not worth much other than their fine looks and their family connections.
And their connections within the school, of course, to the people who really mattered: the boys. Well, to Draco Malfoy, who was captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team this year now that Montague had left, as well as being Seeker. Although Millicent supposed that in some ways it would be even more of a coup to be in with Harry Potter, since he was so famous and everything, but he was always getting into trouble, which was a black mark for sure. Anyway, Luna Lovegood was one of his friends, and if he'd be friends with a strange bird like her, what was the advantage, anyway?
One day she asked Luna why she was part of Potter's crowd and Luna had just nodded mysteriously. "He's been touched by Greater Forces," she said in a hushed voice.
"That sounds like the rot Trelawney goes on about."
"You, my dear, are not attuned to the whispering of the spheres," said Luna in a perfect imitation of Trelawney's tremulous voice, and they both giggled. In her own voice she added, "But he's got important things to do, and he needs all the help he can get."
Typical Loony, to pick her friends by how you could help them, rather than the other way round. "Draco Malfoy doesn't seem to care for him much."
"Well, it's not as though he needs Malfoy's help, is it?"
Millicent shrugged and lit a fag. They were out by the lake again; it was too cold to sit out and draw, but Luna seemed to be out there often, walking the path between the lake and the gardens, and Millicent would sometimes join her if nobody else was about. It wouldn't do for anyone to see her with a fifth-year, especially one as odd as Luna.
"Although Malfoy could probably use some help himself," said Luna, looking thoughtful. Her face was almost hidden under the enormous furry hat she wore outside on cold days, which had a sort of tabby pattern that made it look as though she had a big cat perched on her head. She squinted off into the distance, as though sighting on something. "His father's about to be indicted by the Wizengamot for owning Class II Magical Restricted Property."
"How do you know that?" asked Millicent, sharply. Although the rest of Slytherin had closed ranks around him in sympathy when his father had been imprisoned briefly at the end of the previous year, it was only the briefness of that imprisonment that had kept the vultures away. Any sign of weakness would be pounced upon immediately - and this was a sign nobody knew about.
"The Quibbler's going to break it Monday."
"Oh, the Quibbler."
"Don't you sound so dismissive," said Luna, rounding on her with sudden fury. "My father has very high standards."
"I'm sure."
Luna stared at her a moment. Then the anger was gone, as quickly as it had come, and she returned her gaze to the distant whatever that had caught her attention. "Well, use it or not. I don't care." She turned back towards the school, walking slowly, as though she'd entirely forgotten Millicent's existence. Maybe she had. You never quite knew, with Luna.
Millicent took another draw on her cigarette and then put it out. It was almost suppertime. Malfoy was usually in the common room just before suppertime.
It hadn't gone exactly as she'd planned, but it had gone well enough. Not that she'd planned much. She'd hoped to catch Malfoy alone, but Pansy was in his lap and their heads were together, talking about something clearly private, and she wasn't about to disturb them. It wasn't until after the plates were cleared in the Great Hall and they were all on their way back to the dormitory that she'd had the chance.
"Sorry about your father."
He'd wheeled, grey eyes flashing. "What about my father, Bulstrode?" But his voice was pitched low, so that nobody else could hear them, and she knew she'd struck home.
She put the most guileless expression she could onto her face. Not very practiced, she knew. Pansy was better at it by far. "The trouble with the Ministry, of course. Terrible how they harass honest men, isn't it."
"Shut up," he'd whispered, his head whipping round to see who might be overhearing. He pulled her behind the statue of Imris the Insane. "What do you know?"
"What do you think?"
"Don't give me that," he said, jostling her roughly. "Come on."
She put one hand to each side of him and he flinched, his hand going to rest nervously on his wand. She was still taller than him, and outweighed him by at least two stone. "Don't try anything, Bulstrode."
"As if."
The statue giggled. "Shut your gob," she told it, and it did. She turned toward Malfoy. "Everyone's going to know come Monday."
His eyes widened. "Fuck." It was as good as a confession.
"It'll be in the papers."
"Bloody hell. Look, are you with me or against me?"
"Dunno. What's it worth?"
He'd regained his composure, and the crafty, calculating mask he usually wore. "What makes you think it's worth anything?"
"Save it," she told him companionably. "Nobody gives two Knuts what I think."
"But you know what's coming. That could be useful." He gave her an appraising look. "How much do you know?"
"Enough."
"How much can you find out?"
"More than you think," she said, setting her jaw. Let him make of that what he would.
"What do you know about Nott?" he asked, which took her entirely by surprise. Who knew anything about Nott? And more to the point, who the hell cared? He was a cipher, a skinny Slytherin in their year who didn't speak up much in class and tended to do things with the fifth-years, giving rise to rumours he was feeble-minded, rumours he didn't seem to care about one way or the other. She shrugged. It was better not to say anything, she'd learned, than say the wrong thing, and since she often found herself saying the wrong thing she usually just shut up and let others do the talking. "He's plotting something, isn't he."
"He's not on the Quidditch team," she pointed out. That was where the power was, at least in Slytherin.
"He's got other friends."
"None that count. Fifth-years," she said dismissively.
"All the fifth-years on the team, though. I hear he wants to be Seeker." The scorn was palpable.
She shrugged again. It didn't seem important to her, really. Who cared about a bunch of fifth-years and skinny Nott? Then again, if Draco Malfoy did… "I can find out." This time he waited. Finally, she grinned at him. "Nott's not the only one who wants on the team."
He looked at her with open scepticism. "I haven't seen you fly."
"I can fly. And I can block better than Allenby."
"Pansy can probably block better than Allenby. It's been a hash since Bletchley left."
"I used to play with my brothers and their friends. I'm not as good as Bletchley was, but I'm better than Allenby."
"Who happens to be a fifth-year," he said.
"That, too."
At the Quidditch practise on Saturday Millicent stood a little way apart from the stands rather than in her customary place below. The girls who came to watch looked at her dubiously; she was neither fish nor fowl, neither player nor supportive girlfriend, and while it was all right for her to be lurking with her cigarettes beneath the stands, it was almost offensive to them to see her out there in the sunlight, standing close by the team bench. No more than she was expecting, she thought as she leaned against a support beam, waiting.
"You're not playing," came Luna's voice from behind her. She sounded puzzled, as though she had expected to see Millicent out there. Which made no sense at all, because Millicent hadn't told her about the business with Malfoy. But maybe she was just good at guessing, at putting together the little bits of facts she knew and coming up with truth.
But Slytherins moved slower than Ravenclaws, she supposed. "Wait for it," she said, not turning around.
It didn't take long before Allenby dove left just as the Quaffle came in right, over his shoulder and through the goal, and Malfoy skidded down on his broom in front of him. "Are you blind?" he shouted. "That was an easy block. How could you miss that one?"
Allenby's face went red. "It looked like it was going left."
"You need eyeglasses if you thought it looked like it was going left. Merlin's balls, man! Even Bulstrode could do better than that." Behind her, Millicent heard Luna giggle.
"I was just -"
"Now that's a thought," said Malfoy, as though he'd just come up with it. He looked over toward the stands. "Hey, Bulstrode! Think you can show Allenby how to block a Quaffle?"
"Suppose I could," said Millicent, not moving from her place next to the bench. "Got a spare broom?"
"Oh, brilliant!" breathed Luna, stepping up next to Millicent and putting her hand on her shoulder. Millicent looked around in annoyance; this was to be her moment of glory, and Luna was just muddling things up by being there. Then Luna reached her other hand around to the back of Millicent's neck and drew her head close, and as Millicent stood there dumbfounded Luna kissed her, just a quick kiss, but on the lips, as though she were a boy or something, right on the lips before drawing back, her eyes shining. "For luck."
"For luck," Millicent echoed dumbly, staring at Luna's radiant face. What the hell were people going to think? Luna was a girl, and a bit odd, and a fifth-year…a fifth-year, she suddenly realized, who might know all about this supposed plot that Malfoy was so nervous about, and even if she didn't it wouldn't matter, because people would think she knew, and maybe that would be enough. Or maybe people would think she was in with Potter, because Luna was in with Potter. Or maybe this was payback for the way Millicent had treated Luna before they'd become whatever it was they'd become, friends or maybe not quite friends, and it was all just intended to build her up and then crash her down in front of all the people who mattered...
Luna smiled gently. "It's what you want, isn't it?"
And quite suddenly Millicent knew exactly what she wanted. "For luck," she repeated, more firmly, grabbing Luna and kissing her solidly, ignoring - no, not ignoring, savoring - the gasps from the stands where the Slytherin girls sat. "All right," she said, releasing Luna and striding toward the pitch. "Give me a broom and I'll show you how to block a fucking Quaffle."
Someone tossed a broom into her hand, and she was astride and flying, flying off into the blue and open sky.
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http://hieroglyfics.net/hp/players.htm | written February 2005 by Isis