Chapter 80 - Changes — Face to Face

"What's this?"

Polaris reached out, curious, and touched it.

At first she thought it was one of Hermione's S.P.E.W. badges, strange, she thought, that Slytherins would be wearing something like that.

But when she leaned in for a closer look, she made out the words: Support Cedric Diggory, the True Hogwarts Champion!

Beneath the line was Diggory's handsome face.

"You're a Diggory fan?" Polaris asked Pansy, surprised.

Pansy let out two delighted laughs. "No, Draco made them. That bad boy." She giggled.

She pressed the badge. The words vanished, replaced by a new line: Potter Stinks.

Below it, a little figure with a lightning-bolt forehead ran around inside the badge, on closer inspection, it was being chased by a dog.

dogs really do eat shit.

Polaris couldn't help it. The creativity got a laugh out of her. She reined it in quickly. "That's terribly rude."

"He's been on a creative tear lately." Pansy shrugged, indifferent. "Seems you don't want this one. I'll just wear two."

She pinned both badges to her left chest, one playing Cedric's handsome face on loop, the other playing Potter being chased by a dog.

By the time they reached the classroom, Polaris realized every single Slytherin had one pinned on.

"Polaris! You're not wearing the badge I made!"

Draco's sharp eyes caught it immediately. He announced it loudly.

Pansy pointed at her own chest. "Prae's badge is with me!"

Draco looked ready to say more, but then he spotted Potter already at the classroom door.

He dropped his voice. "Watch. I'll settle this score myself."

The moment Potter walked in, the Slytherins burst out laughing and pressed their badges.

"Oh, how amusing." Hermione's face was etched with sarcasm. "Truly hilarious."

Draco raised his badge toward her. "Didn't expect you to be so interested. Seems you want one too, Granger? Though I wouldn't dare let you touch my hand — I've only just washed them, after all, right —"

His back was to them. Polaris didn't catch the last thing he said, he probably just mouthed it.

Even the most brainless person in the room would know it wasn't anything pleasant.

Potter's face flushed red. Visibly.

His expression dark, he drew his wand on instinct and aimed it at Draco.

Hermione called out "Harry!", hoping, it seemed, to calm him down.

"Alright! Bring it on!" Draco's voice was pure delight. "Huh? Potter! I'd have thought, you only dared defend your friends when Moody was around!"

A few seconds later, Harry bellowed: "Furnunculus!"

Draco said nothing. He simply extended his left hand and tossed something spherical.

The small ball collided with Harry's beam of light. The beam veered off toward Goyle. The ball smashed into Hermione's face and vanished.

A large, ugly boil erupted on Goyle's face. He cried out. On the other side, Hermione frantically covered her mouth.

For a moment, chaos.

Then Professor Snape's grim voice cut through: "Class is in session! What is all this racket!"

The Slytherins rushed to defend Draco, talking over each other.

The professor merely pointed at him. "You. Speak."

Draco spoke unhurriedly. "Sir, there is no question, Potter attacked me —"

Harry protested loudly: "No! We were dueling!"

Draco let out a scoff. "Sir, I wasn't even holding my wand. How exactly could I attack anyone? Potter, on the other hand, just look at poor Goyle."

Only then did everyone notice: Draco's wand had been put away at some point. Right after he threw the small ball, it seemed.

Professor Snape's gaze swept over Goyle. He spoke calmly. "Off to the hospital wing, Goyle."

Ron finally broke in, urgent: "No, no, no, Malfoy hit Hermione with a little ball!"

He tugged at Hermione, trying to make Snape see her condition. Hermione resisted, but her hands couldn't conceal her front teeth, which were growing longer and longer.

Pansy couldn't help laughing out loud. She said to Polaris: "He's really something."

Snape's voice was cold. "I see no difference. As for you, Mr. Weasley, where exactly is this little ball?"

Hermione ran out of the classroom in tears. Ron looked everywhere. He couldn't find the "little ball" Draco had used.

In the end, Gryffindor lost fifty points. Potter and Weasley each received a detention.

The students dispersed to their seats.

Polaris had just set her bag down when someone sat beside her, Draco.

Still not satisfied, he turned his back to the professor, pressed the badge on his chest, and grinned smugly.

Having gotten his dig in at Potter, he nudged her, seeking credit. "Well?"

"Well what?" Polaris said, utterly uninterested.

Draco wasn't about to accept a non-reaction. "How did I do, Professor Polaris? Not a single fingerprint."

She remembered now, the words she'd used to lecture him before leaving the hospital wing:

Even if a certain thing really was done by Malfoy, it wouldn't leave behind a single fingerprint.

Polaris had felt a bit uncomfortable about Hermione getting caught in the crossfire.

Now her attention had been successfully diverted. Draco had genuinely impressed her this time. He'd actually learned from the last lesson and avenged himself on Potter perfectly.

The right place. The right time. The right accomplices. And not a single flaw left behind.

Still, Draco didn't get to torment Potter for long. The agitated Potter was liberated halfway through class by his identity as a "champion."

Mr. Bagman required the champions to take photographs and give interviews. Professor Snape was extremely reluctant, but he still told Potter to get lost.

Once class ended, Draco launched into a nonstop introduction of his genius creation.

A magic ball he'd crafted by hand: a spell wrapped in a unique material that could preserve it for a short time. The moment it struck human skin, the spell released in a single second. After discharge, not a trace remained.

It had major flaws, of course.

First: it sometimes released before it was even used. Second: it couldn't preserve overly powerful magic. Third: it had to contact human skin, even fabric wouldn't work. Fourth: it was ruinously expensive to produce.

Draco himself considered that last one no flaw at all.

The moment he'd invented it, he couldn't wait to use it on Potter, only for Hermione Granger to suffer the consequences.

It was heartless to say so, but Polaris felt Draco had finally found a balance between screwing Potter over and improving himself.

Potter was no longer a stumbling block hindering his growth. He was a rival spurring it.

On the other side, Harry was nearly driven mad by that fabricating woman Skeeter. Fortunately, Dumbledore showed up in time to rescue him.

He had practically just escaped the tiger's den, Potions, only to walk straight into the wolf's lair, Skeeter.

The one thing that cheered him up: Sirius had actually come to see him.

"Sirius! What are you doing here?" Harry said, uneasy. "I'm fine, really, look!"

He stepped back 2 paces to let Sirius look at him. "Did I hold up your search for Wormtail?"

Sirius didn't look any better than he had a few months ago. His face still carried a shadow of melancholy; the gloom the Dementors had cast over him for more than 10 years had never truly lifted.

He shook his head. "No, Harry. Pettigrew is a worm. Sooner or later I'll use his life to atone to James and Lily. How could the importance of a dead man walking compare to yours?"

"Oh," Harry lowered his head, a little embarrassed.

Rita Skeeter watched this godfather-and-godson interaction from a distance, her expression turning thoughtful. Beside her, the green quill scribbled away rapidly.

Sirius's arrival lifted Harry's spirits considerably. In a corner, he clung to Sirius and chattered nonstop about everything lately: how he hadn't entered his name in the Triwizard Tournament, how Skeeter had just been wildly fabricating things about him with that quill, how Ron had actually, actually not believed him...

When he got to Ron, Harry's expression turned sorrowful.

"Harry, even between the best of brothers, there are bound to be quarrels sometimes." Sirius ruffled Harry's hair, the gesture very much like petting a cat. "Once, your father gave me a good, hard beating."

"Why!" Harry asked, astonished.

"Ha! I'd done something truly terrible, nearly got myself expelled from Hogwarts. James stopped me just in time." Sirius was reminiscing now. "He was furious, so the two of us had a fight. And just like that, we made up. Though afterward, he said I'd done a brilliant thing."

Sirius wrapped one arm around Harry and freely dished out terrible advice. "Don't worry. You've been through so much together, don't you know what kind of person the other is by now? If it really comes down to it, just have a fight! Make Ron say what he means!"

When he spoke of James and him having a fight, the gloom on Sirius's face lightened a little, replaced by something deeper, nostalgia.

Harry listened with earnest attention. He loved hearing Sirius tell those stories of the past, especially the ones about his father.

From Sirius's words, he could almost glimpse those bygone days between his godfather and his father: they got into trouble just like Harry and his friends did, they had moments of worrying about each other, but no matter what happened, they were always the very best of friends.

This gave Harry some measure of confidence. It made him believe Ron didn't distrust him, he just needed some time.

Er. Or maybe what they needed was a fight...?

Polaris said goodbye to Draco. She still had plenty to do and wasn't keen on having a fully automatic one-sided conversation machine by her side.

At first he'd been talking about the magic ball. Before long he was grumbling about Miles, subtly running him down.

Even though Miles was his Quidditch teammate too...

"Polaris?"

Speak of Miles, and Miles appears.

"Are you studying?" he said. "Mind if I join you?"

The classroom didn't belong exclusively to Polaris, so of course she wouldn't refuse. "Not at all."

The moment he sat down, Miles confessed. "It's a little embarrassing to say, but I was hoping to soak up a bit of your brilliance. Marcus was on the verge of not graduating, and he still managed it with your help. Stella prepared for her O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s studying with you, and she passed with top marks."

"Honestly, I'm not too confident about next year's N.E.W.T.s. I'm hoping the genius Miss Polaris might bless me with a smooth pass!"

He closed his eyes and made a praying gesture, but secretly opened one eye to peek at her. When Polaris caught him, he grinned mischievously.

Polaris was tickled. "That's because they worked hard themselves. It's hardly my credit."

"Ah, so you're unwilling to give me a blessing?" Miles drawled, disappointed.

Polaris hurriedly said: "Of course not — ahem — may Miles pass his N.E.W.T.s smoothly!"

Miles immediately straightened his back and struck a fighting pose. "Then I'd better work hard! So that if I earn lots of N.E.W.T. certificates, part of the credit will definitely belong to our Miss Polaris!"

Polaris covered her mouth and laughed, waving her hands. "Study, Miles. Otherwise, if you don't pass, part of the responsibility will be mine too."

How had she never noticed before? Miles was actually rather amusing.

There was no denying it: his lively cheerfulness brought Polaris some good spirits. In the gloomy underground, no one could resist a little sun that willingly drew close.

And aside from that initial confession, Miles had never again brought up hoping Polaris would "give him a try." It really did seem, as he'd said, that he was willing just to be friends with her for now.

The Slytherin dormitory.

Draco sat on the windowsill, whistling rhythmically as he polished his violin with a cloth.

A bottle of violin oil sat beside him.

Theodore ambled over and sat down across from him. "Heh. Still polishing your violin? Someone's about to pluck your flower."

Draco's gaze shifted from the violin to Theodore's face. He raised an eyebrow. "Hm?"

"Fine, let me put it another way." Theodore pointed toward Draco's bedside. "Someone's stealing your Felix Felicis."

Draco straightened up, lifted his violin, and stood.

The words slipped out before he could stop himself. "Don't use things to refer to her. She is herself. She doesn't belong to me, and she doesn't belong to anyone."

After saying this, Draco himself was startled.

He couldn't believe he'd actually said something like that, it was completely unlike him. Had he ever, in his entire life, respected a person this much?

Theodore was equally astonished, wearing a seen-a-ghost expression.

"Fine. Mouth harder than diamond." Theodore let out a scoff. "Some people are already sitting shoulder to shoulder with a certain someone, studying together..."

The moment those words landed, Draco turned to look for his violin case.

Theodore intoned like an opera singer: "O man, thy name is fickleness,"

➤ Next: Slander-as-News — Words Unspoken