Chapter 54: 37
Year 4, Chapter 2
When Calista went to Tutor Orientation for Charms, she was surprised by how few students there actually were who had volunteered. She had thought there would be a variety of students from each year, like she knew there was for McGonagall's class, but she was wrong.
She and Penelope had both been invited by Professor Flitwick to begin tutoring, and they were the youngest students in the Charms classroom on the Wednesday evening that Professor Flitwick had called them there to meet.
There was a sixth-year Ravenclaw girl, a Prefect whom Penny seemed to be marginally friendly with, and a fifth-year Ravenclaw boy who introduced himself as Gerald Boot, and who was a Prefect as well.
Calista recalled Marcus saying that someone she thought had been called Gerald had teased him in class, and she decided instantly to dislike him, even though he had approached her with a friendly enough greeting.
Jane Ridley, the Gryffindor girl that Tonks had rued losing Charlie Weasley to, was there as well, and one sixth year Hufflepuff boy - both of whom, Calista noticed, were also Prefects. In fact, every single tutor in the room, aside from Calista and Penny, who were both too young, were Prefects.
She nudged Penny. "Hey,' she said quietly, "They're all Prefects - I wonder if doing tutoring like this helps you become one."
"Well, of course it does," Penny said, narrowing her eyes slightly. "Isn't that why you signed up?"
"Erm, no," Calista said, "I just… I just thought it would be neat."
She kept waiting for more students to arrive, but none did. Was this really it?
"Professor Flitwick does the tutor thing differently than everyone else," Gerald Boot told her, as if he had heard her unspoken question. "Most of the other professors just have a list of students approved to help those that are struggling, and they're supposed to find their own time to meet with them. Flitwick wants you to show up at the same time every week, and help whoever needs it. It's more work, but it's worth it, his word carries a lot of weight if you can get a recommendation from him. Besides, nearly everyone who does it winds up being tapped for Prefect duties, if that's what you're after."
He displayed the badge on his chest, proudly. "I'm sure that's how I got it," he said. "I had so many detentions my first few years…"
"How interesting," Calista said dryly, because even though Gerald did seem friendly, she was nearly positive he was the same one that had given Marcus trouble a few years ago.
"I guess your dad doesn't use tutors, though?" Gerald asked.
"No," Calista said, "He says detentions work better." By now, she was used to other students, especially ones her age and older, knowing who she was without being introduced.
"Yeah," Gerald said, nodding. "He would say that, wouldn't he?"
Professor Flitwick stood up on his desk then, and cleared his throat. All of the students immediately stopped talking, and turned to face him attentively; evidently, peer tutors were a much more conscientious lot than the general student population, because Calista knew this process could have taken five or ten minutes on a normal day in class.
"Welcome!" Flitwick said, "Thank you all for coming, first of all. We've had a few of our group graduate, so it's our first order of business to welcome their replacements - Miss Clearwater and Miss Snape, of Ravenclaw and Slytherin, respectively. I know they'll both be wonderful additions, and I trust that you older students who've done this before will offer your support if they need it."
He beamed around at all of them, and Calista thought it felt a bit as if she had joined some kind of club, rather than volunteered for peer tutoring. She hadn't known, until Gerald Boot told her, that Flitwick didn't run his tutoring program the same as Professor McGonagall did. She knew there were a lot more than six students available for Transfiguration tutoring, she'd seen a glimpse of McGonagall's list.
"A quick reminder of what's expected of you all," Flitwick continued. "I have a timetable that shows all of the times this classroom is empty, which I'll pass around. If each of you could just mark down two hours a week - consecutive or in two one-hour slots, it doesn't matter - where you can commit to making yourself available here as a tutor. More than one of you can be here at one time, but please do make sure you've got a good variety of time slots marked down, or I might have to redistribute you."
He summoned a sheet of parchment towards himself, from a side table next to his desk, and then he passed it to Jane, who was closest to him, and also the only seventh-year. "Here you are, Miss Ridley… if you could just fill in your time, and then pass it along, we'll get this settled right now."
He glanced around at each of them in turn; Calista thought he smiled at her, but then, he smiled a lot, so it could have been a coincidence.
"So - as long as you're here, any students that need a little extra practise can stop in, and you'll help them out. Sounds easy enough, yes? And I should be in my office, so if there's anything you need, don't hesitate to ask."
By then, the sign-up sheet had come around to Calista. She saw that Penny had put in for late Friday afternoons; she briefly considered signing up for the same time slot as Penny, but she knew that the Slytherin Quidditch team usually had their practises on Friday afternoons. She had not gone very often before, but now that she was dating Marcus… well, she almost felt like she was supposed to.
She scrawled her name in for Monday afternoons instead, for both of her hours, since she had nothing in between Transfiguration in the morning, and Astronomy at midnight, except for her own tutoring session with Percy, right after lunch.
It looked like everyone else had filled in their names already, so Calista handed the parchment back to Professor Flitwick. This time, he definitely did smile at her. Perhaps it was because of the essay she'd turned in yesterday, her first draft of her idea with the runes and Colloportus. She'd been working on it over the summer.
"Ah, excellent," Flitwick said, looking over the revised timetable. "It looks like we'll have good coverage, then - don't forget, I'll be right in my office more often than not, so please, feel free to speak to me if you get a tricky question you can't answer - or if you have a tricky question of your own!"
He stepped down from the top of his desk, then, and dismissed them, although he remained in the classroom, and started talking to Jane Ridley. Some of the other started talking to each other; when Calista looked back at Penny, she was engaged in conversation with Gerald Boot.
Calista didn't much feel like trying to talk to anyone besides Penny, so she ducked her head and slipped out of the classroom, back towards the Slytherin Dungeon. So, tutoring on Mondays - well, there went her free afternoon - but still, this seemed like it might actually be fun, even though she didn't think she would ever be offered a Prefect position because of it. Not that she wanted one… did she?
(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)
Calista began dreading her weekly Occlumency lessons; not because of the increasing difficulty, or the sacrifice of her Saturday mornings - a sacrifice she was used to by now anyway - but because of Severus' persistent suspicious needling, and the fact that it made it quite challenging to successfully push down her thoughts about Marcus.
Somehow, he knew that there was something she wasn't telling him, and his pointed questions were inserted here and there into their regular conversations, as if he thought he could startle her into a response; but if there was one thing Calista was exceptionally good at, it was keeping secrets, and he wouldn't quite resort to forcing them out of her, although Calista had a feeling he was tempted.
Marcus was still convinced that he already knew, but Calista knew that couldn't possibly be the case, or he would be doing a lot more than suspiciously inquiring about how she was spending her time between classes, and whether there was anything she wanted to tell him. Rather, Calista felt that he probably suspected that Marcus and Calista fancied each other; but as long as he didn't know that they were actually seeing each other, kissing in secret in the Owlery and on the train, there was little he could do. He couldn't tell her she wasn't allowed to fancy Marcus, but she had a feeling that he would tell her she wasn't allowed to act on her feelings - which is why she would just as soon keep him from finding out.
She wished he'd just stop asking; she was never going to tell him, no matter how often Narcissa strongly urged her to, and no matter how much Marcus wanted their relationship to be out in the open. Normally, Calista loved spending time with her father, but lately, she felt like she had to be on guard constantly, and it drained the joy out of seeing him.
Still, occasionally, they still had pleasant conversations. One Saturday, as their lesson was nearing its end, Severus asked her about her tutoring.
"How are you liking being a peer tutor?" he asked, as he tested the strength of her barriers, again.
"I like it," she said, "So far I've only had to tutor one person, a Hufflepuff first year, she was pronouncing her incantation wrong, for the Levitation Charm, but it's nice to be the one showing someone how to do something, instead of being the idiot that can't transfigure a mouse."
"Yes," Severus said, "You turn in a dozen extra Charms essays a year, you're at least two years ahead of curriculum in Potions, and you're possibly the youngest Occlumens in the world. You're such an idiot."
She couldn't help it; she lit up, glad for his praise - and from Severus, it was indeed praise, and she knew it.
"Actually," Severus said, withdrawing from her mind and lowering his wand, signalling the end of their lesson. "I thought perhaps you might want to begin private Potions lessons again, now that your schedule is a bit lighter."
"Yeah," she said, warming to him since he hadn't asked her any annoying questions all morning, "I miss that. When were you thinking?"
"My last class finishes at four o'clock on Fridays. Perhaps then?"
"Oh," Calista said, shifting uncomfortably. "I… uhm, the Quidditch team practises then… I was planning on going to watch."
"Which Quidditch team?" he asked.
Calista rolled her eyes, suddenly defensive. "Does it matter? Why do you even care?"
He raised his eyebrows. "I merely thought to suggest that I might join you, if you were going to watch the Slytherin team. I know you watch the Gryffindor practises sometimes as well - which is why I asked for the clarification, but now I wonder if it is a different sort of clarification altogether that I should be seeking -"
"Seriously? You're going to start this again? I told you, I have nothing to hide!"
"You're making a very compelling case for the opposite."
"You're making a very compelling case for being annoying," she quipped moodily.
"That doesn't even make sense," Severus pointed out dryly, "Come on, now, I expect much better than that from you."
"Okay," Calista said, rising from her seat in one of the armchairs in his study, "Fine. You're making a very compelling case for me leaving, now, and not coming back until I have another stupid Occlumency lesson."
Severus stood as well. "How much longer are you going to be a moody teenager?" he snarled. "I am finding I don't care for it at all."
"Maybe I wouldn't be so moody if you weren't so nosy."
"Perhaps I would not be so nosy if you were not so secretive," he replied, plaintively.
"Yes, you would. You always are."
"Ah," he said, "But you're always secretive."
She rolled her eyes, again. "I wonder why?" she pretended to muse. "No one else's father teaches at Hogwarts, you already know more about what I do than anyone else's parents do, and then you're always badgering me to find out even more."
"I do not badger," he said, "I inquire."
"You badger!" she insisted, "Badger, badger, badger! I'm so tired of it!"
"Oh, just go away," he said, because suddenly he was afraid he might laugh, and he didn't want to undermine himself by doing so. "I'm certain you can find some porridge to sulk into about how unfair I am."
(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)
The following Friday, Calista tried resolutely to push the lingering feeling of guilt she harbored deep into the recesses of her mind. Still, even as she watched Marcus zip around the pitch on his broom during practise, she couldn't help but think of her father, of the private potions lesson she had rejected for this. Couldn't he have suggested a different time? But then, perhaps Slytherin Quidditch practise was precisely why he hadn't.
Marcus only spent about half the practise trying out manoeuvers of his own; the rest of the time, he flitted between the other players on the team, offering instructions or criticisms of the way they were flying. Evidently, he took his duties as Captain quite seriously.
As she watched the team, all of them largish, well-built males, weave in and out of each other with evident flying skill, it occurred to Calista how absurd it had been for Marcus to press her to try out for the team at all. She wasn't a very good flyer, and even the Seeker, Terence Higgs, was a good deal larger than most of the players on any of the other school teams. She noticed that Marcus had not put any girls on the team, either, but then, maybe none had auditioned; she didn't know.
Marcus was definitely the best flyer on the team, in Calista's opinion. She thought he was the best-looking, too, but of course she was biased. When practise was finishing, and the team was walking off the field, Marcus caught her eye almost immediately, and Calista stepped out of the stands to meet him; she remembered, suddenly, the way that she had seen Jane Ridley walk right up to Charlie Weasley at the end of the Gryffindor practise last year and kiss him, and she had been envious of the way that Jane could do that so casually.
She wished she could too, and by the look that Marcus gave her, the way that he stepped up to her, quite close, and brought his arm around her waist, she thought that he wished that, too; but Olivia and Portia were watching the practise as well, and Olivia was only metres away, hanging onto Terence's arm and fluttering her eyelashes again.
Calista pulled back from Marcus, narrowing her eyes at Olivia. "Is there a single boy in this school that she isn't obsessed with?" Calista wondered, darkly.
Marcus shrugged, and slid his arm around her waist again. "Dunno," he said, "Who cares about her, anyway?"
He brought his face close to hers, and Calista wanted to kiss him, she really did; but even though Olivia was occupied, Portia was still watching them with narrowed eyes, and really, how did she know for certain that her father wasn't going to decide to turn up after all?
She pulled back, again. "Marcus, there's people around…" she protested. He scowled, and stuffed his hands into his pockets.
"I'm sorry," she said, "It's just… I just don't want my dad to say I'm not allowed to see you."
"It feels like he's already said that," Marcus said.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Marcus sighed. "Nothing, forget it. D'you… d'you at least want to come flying with me for a bit?"
She glanced around; Portia, for some inexplicable reason, was still leaning against the stands a little ways behind her, with her arms folded and her eyes narrowed in Calista's direction - or, perhaps, in Olivia's. It was difficult to tell for certain.
"I… I don't know..."
She looked back at Marcus, and she would have had to be blind to miss the hurt in his eyes. She felt horrible, and reached for his hand.
"I want to, Marcus, you know I do. I just…" she frowned. "Can I… can I see you in the Owlery, later?"
"I have a strategy meeting with the team," he said.
"Okay," she said, "Tomorrow, then?"
"All right," he agreed. "After dinner tomorrow."
Calista tried to pretend that she couldn't see that he was still unhappy. She tried, also, not to think about how quickly it seemed that she was managing to ruin this.
(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)
Saturday morning, Calista conceded, and ate breakfast with Marcus. She still felt bad for hurting his feelings the day before, and besides, her father usually ate much earlier than she did on Saturdays, so he wasn't likely to be in the Great Hall. She was relieved to see that she'd predicted correctly, and he was not at the High Table.
The owls flew in, dropping mail onto plates and laps. Calista got another letter from Narcissa, which she slipped into her pocket to read later. She knew it was likely to be yet another page of her aunt urging her to to tell her father about Marcus. But how could she? Maybe Narcissa had been allowed to have a boyfriend, when she was Calista's age, and that was why she thought it would be so easy.
Olivia had a letter, too; Calista didn't notice or care, until she heard sobbing at the far end of the table. When she looked for the source, she saw Olivia, her usually-pretty face blotchy and red and entirely unattractive; tears streamed from her eyes, and she was sobbing into one hand while holding a letter open in her other. She was shaking so hard, Calista wondered how she could even read the letter.
Olivia looked up, and for a fraction of an instant, her eyes locked with Calista's; there was pure venom, suddenly, in Olivia's gaze, and then she stood up, quickly, and ran out of the Great Hall, holding her letter.
Portia got up quickly to follow after her, and, after a brief hesitation, so did Emily. A couple of Olivia's third-year cronies dashed after them, too.
"What's wrong with her?" someone asked. It was Derek, and he looked uncertain as to whether he, too, should get up and follow her.
"She's probably having a bad hair day," Calista said, even though she thought she might know better. Had her Uncle Lucius spoken to Olivia's parents? But then, what could he possibly have said that would reach Olivia in a form that made her cry like that? Calista didn't think she had ever seen Olivia cry; she was always the one making others do the crying.
Calista finished eating, said goodbye to Marcus, and went to her Occlumency lesson, trying not to feel uneasy about what had just happened.
Later on, when the time had finally come to go to the owlery, Calista was eager to see Marcus for more reason than one. She'd gotten vicious looks from Portia every time they'd made eye contact that day, and she hadn't seen Olivia at all, except as a lump under the covers of her bed when Calista went in to feed her cat.
She didn't quite know what had happened, but it seemed a safe bet that the time remaining where she could keep her mother's identity secret was quickly dwindling. After all, what was stopping Olivia from telling everyone? Sheer dumb luck, that was all. She couldn't possibly know how anyone would react to the news, but she knew she had better start telling the people that were most important to her, before Olivia did.
When she arrived at the Owlery, Marcus was already there.
"Hey," she said, cautiously, as she peered around the room to be sure they were alone.
"No one's here," Marcus said, and there was still a trace of mingled hurt and irritation in his voice.
"Okay," she said, drawing close to him. "Good."
She put her hands on his shoulders, and pushed herself up onto her tiptoes to kiss him. She had gotten taller over the summer, but so had he, and by a lot more.
At first, Marcus was still a little miffed from their interaction the day before on the Quidditch pitch, and the fact that they'd been pretending, in between, not to be as involved with each other as they really were; but after only a few seconds, he wrapped his arms around her, and began returning her kisses.
"Okay," Marcus said, breathlessly, after a few minutes. "I'm not cross anymore."
She laughed, nervously. "I guess… I guess I'm not that bad at this, then."
"Huh?" Marcus said, and he brought one hand to the side of her neck, still keeping one wrapped around her middle. "No… definitely not. I hope I'm doing it right…"
"Yeah," she said, and she could hear that her own voice sounded a little breathy. "Yeah, I think you are."
"I just wish," Marcus said, "That this didn't have to be a big secret. I mean, I told some people… but, you know… I just really like you, and I don't like pretending I don't, just because other people are around."
"I know…"
"Anyway, it's confusing," he said. "Maybe not for you, but for me. You're so good at pretending… sometimes when we're at dinner, or in the common room, or something… I can't even tell if you still like me."
"Of course I still like you," she said. "I don't… I don't think that's going to change anytime soon… I liked you since the first time you took me flying."
"Yeah?" he smiled, a bit sheepishly. "I liked you way longer than that."
"Well, I mean," she said, "Liked you, liked you, you know?"
"Yeah," he said, "So do I."
She could feel herself blushing, but when she looked at him, he was going a bit red himself.
"How… how long?" she wondered.
"Erm…" he screwed up his face, thinking. His thumb rubbed lightly along her jaw, absently. "I think… I mean, I always thought you were really cool, for a girl," he said, "Especially when you hexed Portia, that time - that was funny."
They both chuckled a little at the memory of that.
"Yeah," Calista said, "She deserved it, but I had the worst detention - sorting eyeballs, can you imagine?"
"Oh yeah," Marcus said, "I've had that one, before. Not my favourite, but not as bad as the lizard guts -"
"Had that one, too," Calista said ruefully.
Marcus was watching her thoughtfully now; he still had his hand near her jaw, a fact that she was trying hard not to concentrate on, so that her cheeks might return to a normal colour.
"I think that was it," Marcus said.
"Huh? What was it?"
"That day, when we were in the library… it was after Colin Greengrass was acting all weird, and you and Olivia were fighting. I thought you were fighting over him, maybe you were, I dunno -"
"We weren't."
"Well, anyway, I thought you were, and it made me real cross for some reason, I couldn't figure out why - and then that mouse landed on you, and you were so normal about it, you didn't freak out or anything. I dunno, it was a regular day, but for some reason I kept thinking about it, the whole thing. It took me awhile to realise why I was so relieved when you said you didn't fancy him. Once I figured out that I didn't want anyone else to go out with you, I guess I knew I wanted to."
"I didn't fancy anyone two years ago," she told him.
"Yeah, well, I figured that out, too," he said, "And I just thought, well, I liked hanging around you anyway, so I'd just keep on doing it, and hopefully when you did decide to like someone, it'd be me. And -"
He grinned, and Calista's heart fluttered again.
"It worked," he said, and he went to kiss her again; she'd been about to say something, so he missed, landing his mouth on her chin. They both laughed, nervously, and tried again. This time, they got it right.
"Sorry," Marcus said, "What were you going to say?"
"Well, I can't remember now," she said, and he grinned again.
"So," he said, "I'm curious. What were you and Olivia fighting over, if it wasn't Colin? It seems like you two were never friends again after that."
"Oh," Calista said, "She tricked me into making Amortentia for her, and then she dosed Colin with it. She… she told me it was for her parents."
He furrowed his brow. "Hang on," he said, "Wasn't that in like, your second year?"
"Yeah."
He shook his head, with a disbelieving smile.
"Man," he said, "You're just… something else."
"Is that… is that a good thing, or a bad thing? It sounds like it might be a bad thing," she said, suspiciously.
"Duh, it's a good thing," Marcus said, leaning his forehead against hers. "S'why I like you."
Calista allowed herself to savour the moment before she said what she knew she had to; she nearly made herself blush again, by thinking about how much she liked being like this, close to him, just talking and joking - and all right, yes, kissing. And then, she pulled back slightly, looked up into his face.
She wondered if that would be a mistake - looking at him while she told him this. Would she see what he thought in his eyes, again? Would he look at her with anger? Fear? Revulsion? Was there a tiny chance that he would react like Tonks, sympathetically? Well, she was about to find out…
"I have to tell you something," she said, and it seemed to her as if even the sound of her words was heavy. "It's about… it's about my mother…"
He let go of her, but stayed close, responding to the tension in her voice.
"Okay."
He looked unconcerned; well, she knew that was about to change.
"She's…" she exhaled. "My mother is… is Bellatrix Lestrange."
Marcus furrowed his brow; amazingly, he didn't look disturbed or fearful at all. If anything, maybe he looked a little confused.
"Yeah," Marcus said, finally. "I knew that."
She felt her eyes widen; she thought her jaw might have dropped, for an instant.
"What? You can't - how did you know?"
He still looked confused. "I didn't know I wasn't supposed to know," he said. "I guess… I dunno, I guess I never really thought about it, until you wrote me over the summer, something about your cousin Draco. My dad knows your uncle - Lucius, right? I mean, there aren't that many kids named Draco, are there?"
"No one knows," Calista said, "I mean, only my family, really."
"Well, I knew you didn't talk about her much," Marcus said, "But once I realised, you know, I just thought, of course, you're probably sad about… about her being in Azkaban. So I never brought it up."
"I'm not sad about her being in Azkaban," she said, before she quite realised she had decided to, "She deserves to be there."
"So…" Marcus said, "She… she really did all that stuff they said, then?"
Calista let out a short, bitter sound that was meant to be a laugh but fell short. "Yeah. Yeah, she did, and a bunch of stuff she never got caught for, too."
He frowned. "That's… she didn't… she didn't ever, you know, hurt you, did she?"
"Yeah," Calista said, careful to keep her voice completely emotionless, so she wouldn't do something horribly embarrassing, like burst into tears. She'd done that once already, with Narcissa, and that was precisely one too many times. "Yeah, she did."
"Well," Marcus said, stoutly. "If she ever gets out, then… well, she better leave you alone. I don't want to hex a girl, but I will if I have to."
"Marcus," Calista started, hardly believing what she'd heard. "That's…"
"I mean it," he said, "Sorry, I know I'm… I'm probably not supposed to say that about someone's mum, but it makes me mad to think of anyone hurting you."
He paused to consider, while Calista tried to catch up in her own mind to what had just happened.
"Actually," Marcus amended, "I'm definitely not supposed to say that about someone's mum, but I don't care. I'd do it - or I'd break her arm, if she was trying to curse you." He reflected, and then: "I hope you're not cross with me, now."
"No," Calista said, and she ignored the way that her throat was flexing and tightening, suddenly. "I'm not cross. That's… You're amazing, Marcus, you know that?"
She put her hand behind his neck, reached up, and kissed him firmly.
Marcus chuckled, putting his arms around her again. "I'll hex whoever you want, if you keep doing that," he said, in between kisses.
"Or," he amended, "You're probably better at it than I am, so you hex them and I'll just break arms."
"Have you ever broken anyone's arm before?" she wondered.
"Well, no," he said, and then: "Actually, yeah, my own, I fell off my broom when I was ten. But, you know, I bet I could, if I had to."
"Well," Calista admitted, "I've never hexed anyone either, except Portia that one time."
"But I bet you probably could, if you had to."
Calista snorted. "Are you joking? Of course I could."
He grinned. "I really like you, you know."
(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)
Calista wasn't even thinking about Portia or Olivia at all anymore by the time she went back to her dormitory room, which in retrospect seemed like a huge mistake.
She paused, a few steps inside her room; the lights were on, and Olivia was sitting up in bed, with Portia and Emily on either side of her, comforting her. Her hair was a mess, there was some sort of dark streaky stuff on her face; it took Calista a few seconds to realise that it was makeup - she thought at first that it might be some kind of bruise.
"Er…" Calista said, backing up a step. "I'll just… go."
Portia nodded emphatically, but Olivia narrowed her eyes, and hissed a command: "No. You stay."
"Ehm," Calista said again, "No thanks…"
Portia was up then, quicker than Calista had ever seen her move; she ran towards where Calista was, and Calista winced in expectation of some sort of blow, thrusting her hand into her pocket and curling her fingers around her wand.
She needn't have bothered, though; Portia simply pressed herself against the door, blocking Calista's exit.
"Okay," Calista said, trying to sound calm, even though she wasn't sure if she felt it any longer. "If you're planning some kind of… some kind of ambush, don't. I'm a better duelist than any of you are, I'll…"
She trailed off, remembering that she wasn't allowed to tell anyone at school any of the new curses she was learning.
"You'll what?" Olivia hissed, again, "Run and cry to your wealthy uncle?"
Oh. Apparently, Lucius had spoken to Olivia's parents.
"I thought so," Olivia said, snidely, as she wiped the streaked makeup and tears with newfound determination. "I just want to know, Calista… how did you find out my mother wanted me to be friends with you? Did you read my letters?"
"Yeah," Calista said, "I did. And don't pretend like you wouldn't have done the same thing, you know you would."
"You're right," Olivia said, matter-of-factly. "I would. I've tried, loads of times, but you don't seem to keep any of your letters here in our room… or you didn't used to. Real interesting stuff in your Arithmancy book this year, though."
Calista felt the colour drain from her face. Her letters from Marcus were in her Arithmancy book…
"We've had a grand time, the three of us, reading all your pathetic little letters. You really should find a better hiding spot," Olivia said, "Although, I guess it doesn't do much good anyway, when you have backstabbing roommates who go through all your things, does it?"
"No," Calista said stonily, "I guess not." She fought to keep her expression neutral, not to let Olivia see how much she was bothered by her having read her letters… if Olivia realised that her father still didn't know about her and Marcus…
"Why did you do it?" Olivia asked her, harshly. "Why did you have to bring your whole family into it?"
"That's what you wanted, isn't it?" Calista sneered. "My family?"
"No," Olivia said, her voice approaching a hiss. "That's what my mother wanted. I hate you. I've hated you for a long time."
"Well, good," Calista said, "For once we agree on something."
"We've had our differences," Olivia said, "But I've never gone and dragged adults into them."
Calista laughed loudly, obnoxiously. "Ha! Right, okay, I must have imagined you telling McGonagall I cheated in Transfiguration, then."
Olivia flushed. Evidently, she hadn't expected Calista to recall that, and bring it up.
"Well, I never dragged my family into it," Olivia amended.
"No, you settled for dragging mine into it," Calista said.
"You did that, Calista! You could have asked me about that letter, or better yet, kept your nasty little hands to yourself and stayed out of my things!"
"Maybe I was tired of you constantly holding things over me," Calista said, "Maybe I thought I had to have something to counter it, for once."
"Holding things over you?" Olivia shrieked, her voice rising quickly. "How could I ever hold anything over you? You have everything, Calista! The darling of half the professors at this school, including your father, who won't let anyone give his precious daughter a hard time, friends from every bloody House at Hogwarts, wealthy pureblood relatives who buy you fancy new robes and jewelry - yes, I saw it all when I was going through your things, all right? - and now you have a popular boyfriend who just adores spending time with you, it's all so sickening -"
Calista's eyes had gotten rounder and rounder while Olivia went on her rant; it was actually true? All this time, Olivia had somehow been jealous of her, just like Narcissa had said?
"Come on," Calista said, her voice trembling a little. She had no idea how to even begin to respond to what Olivia had said. "Like you haven't been holding the truth about my mother over me, reminding me that you know who she is, that you could just… just tell everyone, whenever you felt like it."
"Tell everyone?" Olivia yelled, and in that moment, she looked like some kind of wild creature, "Tell everyone?! Why in the hell would I ever do that?"
"To… to try and make my friends hate me, of course," Calista said, rolling her eyes. "Don't tell me that wasn't the plan - but I've already told them, and they don't care."
Well, it wasn't entirely true, but she'd realised a second too late that if that hadn't been Olivia's plan, it was going to be now.
Olivia laughed harshly; it came out more like a bark or a howl than anything else, inhuman.
"You little idiot!" she said, derisively. "I would never tell anyone you're related to the Blacks and the Malfoys, that would only make all the Slytherins like you more, and they're the only ones I care about! I don't give a damn about what your little Mudblood friends think, they don't even matter!"
"Stop calling them that!"
"And the worst part," Olivia added, in a snarl, oblivious to Calista's words, "Is I don't even know how you get it all! I ask myself all the time - how does anyone like you? You're… you're not even pretty!"
"Yeah, you're not," Portia piped up from behind her. Arguably, Portia wasn't either, but that didn't seem to stop her from voicing her opinion.
Emily just sat, very still, next to Olivia. Her face looked drawn, eyes wide and hollow, like she wasn't certain how she had found herself in the present situation.
"No, I guess I'm not," Calista agreed. "You've always made sure I knew that."
"You're not supposed to have any of the things you do," Olivia said, insistently, as if her saying so would make everything she'd listed disappear from Calista's life. "Not a nasty, ugly, big-nosed freak like you."
But Calista found that she didn't have it in her, in that moment, to be angry at Olivia anymore. Instead, she felt a queer, thick heaviness in the pit of her stomach, one that made her feel sick.
Was pretty really everything to Olivia? Calista had always wished she looked more like Olivia, but not if this was what it cost. It struck her that this philosophy, the one Olivia evidently clung to, was the most pathetic way to go through life that she could imagine.
"You know who was really pretty, Olivia?" Calista said, her voice quiet, but strong in the sudden silence of the room. "My mother was. And she's in Azkaban. Maybe you should reconsider what's important."
A/N: Yes, that other thing really happened. Severus did tell her to go cry into her Cheerios. Also, bonus points for anyone that automatically thought 'mushroom! mushroom!' during the badger piece.
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