Ianthe Pritchard (notforfree) wrote in lightning_war, @ 2008-08-20 17:28:00 |
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Current mood: | gossipy |
Monday evening, 14 September 1942, in the Slytherin-Ravenclaw girls' dormitory at Hogwarts Castle...
“Ianthe?”
Ianthe Pritchard answered her door; it was Arianwen Rosier. “How are you? Is Chattox really going to let Cynthia sub until Charis gets back?”
Ianthe rolled her eyes. “Appears so,” she replied. “Your cousin Patty and my sister will be pleased, at any rate.”
“Ugh,” said Arianwen with feeling. “So I’m going to tell you about this, because Cynthia and Flint would have a field day and I think you won’t.” She closed the door behind her and slid in. “Is this a bad time? Are you going to duelling?”
“Eventually,” said Ianthe. She wanted to see what she could pick up of fighting without having to duel herself. “But the first hour or so will all be van Rensselaer trying to set things up so that no firstie takes off their own foot.”
Arianwen relaxed a little, and laughed. “I’m glad. I’d probably have to put it back.”
Ianthe grimaced. “They probably learn faster if you leave it for a while. In any case…” she began, and turned her chair around to face the bed and gestured for Arianwen to sit there. “If this is about saving Olive from another switching, I am not your woman anymore.”
Arianwen laughed and sat down on the bed. “No. No, nothing like that, I promise. She can have stripes if she wants them.”
“Well, recall what happened the last time you wanted to have a word,” said Ianthe. She caught herself and shrugged. Arianwen wasn’t usually inclined to waste people’s time. “All right, sorry, what’s up?”
“Myrtle got out of the infirmary today,” said Arianwen. “She’ll need to be watched. Pomfrey thinks she’s ‘fine, just fine’. Pomfrey is not a trauma specialist and she thinks fifteen-year-olds should keep their pretty little mouths shut.”
Ianthe raised her eyebrows. “I thought she was ‘under the weather’,” she said. “That’s usually a euphemism for ‘taste of her own medicine’, when it comes to Dolloway.”
“No,” said Arianwen. “Come on, Ianthe. I’m not allowed to tell you what happened but you’re on the Squad, you can figure it out. You know what kind of person she is, and what incubi do…”
“Huh,” said Ianthe. “I guess that does make sense. I don’t pay much attention to her, that’s dumb of me in this case.” In fact, Ianthe felt quite angry with herself. She didn’t care about Myrtle at all, but knowing what was going on was important to her. She’d been so worried about Aurélien, but the demon had chosen mostly girls, and friendless ones at that, as prey; she hadn’t expected anyone, even demons, to pay attention to Myrtle, but of course that was just what the demon had wanted.
Arianwen sighed. “None of us pay much attention to her. I wouldn’t have figured it out if she hadn’t told me the most incredibly bat-shite story I’d ever heard—she thought she’d had sex with someone who is up at the Manor and has been since Thursday! But I promised her I would keep it from becoming common knowledge, because no-one deserves what people would say.”
“That is certainly true,” Ianthe agreed. “There’s plenty she deserves and I’m happy to let her have it, don’t get me wrong, but…yes. So. But this is Myrtle, how are you going to keep her from bringing it on herself? She makes the worst possible choices, in every situation.” Myrtle hadn’t chosen to be raped, but Myrtle was stupid enough to let people know, if not tell them outright.
“I didn’t promise to keep people from learning whatever she tells them herself,” said Arianwen. “Mostly I just want some help unobtrusively watching her, so she doesn’t wander off somewhere and hang herself. As people have been known to, no matter how many cheering charms and happy drugs you give them. Which is still better than an Obliviate. Which is what Pomfrey’d have done if I hadn’t shut up.”
“Everyone should get a chance to have the truth,” Ianthe said firmly. She paused for a moment, not wanting to say more in that vein to Arianwen. “That I can do,” she said. “And she’ll never know that I know, because she’d only hate me for it. She’ll hate you for it, I hope you know that.”
“I do,” said Arianwen wearily. “But Pomfrey already hates me so she can just get in line.” She rubbed her face with her hands. “Oh God, I’m so tired. Thank you.”
“Good to know you’re human,” Ianthe said dryly. The girl worked herself to the bone. “Have you slept since Saturday?”
“A little,” said Arianwen, smiling.
Ianthe lit a cigarette, and offered Arianwen one; she didn’t have many, but Arianwen didn’t smoke.
“No, thanks. They make me cough like Mulciber.” Arianwen laughed. “But he smokes more than you do; odd. I spent the morning writing letters, because I got one from the Manor and Goyle had that sent to me, and then I slept through both breakfast and History after I posted them.”
Ianthe raised an eyebrow appreciatively, figuring that the letter had to be from Yvon Malfoy. “You haven’t slept enough to remember that History is off though,” she reminded her. “Until the new Binns shows up, which will be a sad day for all of us who were relying on van Rensselaer’s roving eye to pass Potions,” she added, knowing perfectly well she’d be able to do fine in OWL classes without that advantage.
Arianwen laughed. “Well. Yes.” She raised her own eyebrow. “And yes, the letter was from him; I know, everyone’s talking about it, but…he’s engaged, and not to me, so hopefully soon everyone will shut up. I really did impress him with my work, first.”
“The best way,” Ianthe said. “Or so I hear. I stick to impressing them with lipstick and reputation, probably more ingenuity would be required in that case.”
Arianwen grinned at her. “You’re not as stupid as you like to let on,” she said thoughtfully. “But I won’t tell. I tried to tell Patty once, but that was before I’d figured out why, and she didn’t believe me anyway. I suppose Patty is going to be the sort of girl who’d have married the idiot when he asked her to, just for his title, never mind the fact that he’s really in love with a man and has been since about the time we were born.”
“Part of the advantage of people like Patty is that they’re good cover,” Ianthe said. “I am intending to always let people get to know Maeve first, then they’ll believe anything of me.”
“Brill,” said Arianwen. “I don’t have the patience to work that hard at my image. I’m a very bad Slytherin, I suppose.”
“Well, Miss Lovegood is setting a new standard for us all, isn’t she?” Ianthe said. “I wrote to my brother today, he’s posted at the Manor for some reason, of course he can’t say. And she tells me it can go in her packet, because not only is she writing to your cousin Lucius but also to, I quote, ‘the new Malfoy Major.’“
Arianwen burst out into giggles. “Oh, lord, Kat Lovegood, Luce adores her. What on earth is she writing to Yvon about?”
“I thought breaking the wards was probably a bad idea,” Ianthe told her. “Although someone needs to teach her some better ones. It wasn’t very long. She sent him some chocolate frogs via Lucius, that I do know, because I set the preservation charm.”
“Lucius must have told her how ill he was,” said Arianwen after a moment. “He nearly died.”
“She’s good at figuring out what secrets to keep,” Ianthe said. “I guessed something of the kind, but she was trying very hard not to let me. He’s all right? She must think so, she didn’t look nearly as frightened as yesterday.”
“He’s fine now,” said Arianwen, “but I don’t know how he got that way—he didn’t say. It’s why Aunt Dracaena kept all of them home, or that’s what she said. But she’s not sent them back yet. Dimity was the one who told me about it, and she didn’t know who cursed him, but he broke up one of the weddings; I suppose it could have been something related to that. Marco and Meli got married, but Alessio’s marrying him.”
“There’s all kinds of reasons someone might want to curse someone,” Ianthe said seriously. “And all kinds of reasons not to want to be here now. You surely heard all the fuss about the Farrylls? They’ve all gone too. Kyteler is being really odd about it, everything anyone says about it, you’d think they were talking about Adele or Fiammetta or Susie.”
“Hadrian’s a friend of hers,” said Arianwen. “I think. As much as Estrid Farryll has friends. He’s taken up the cause of the Oldest since Aunt Dracaena helped Endymion.” She frowned thoughtfully. “It probably isn’t about the wedding, you’re right. The girl wasn’t even broken up about it, she was practically screwing Nat—I mean your brother—on the dance floor. Dimity was very amused by it all.”
Ianthe snorted. “Discretion is not his thing,” she said, which was in part a lie. “I can’t even guess what it was about. It would be good for you to know, though, depending on what whoever it was was after.”
Arianwen nodded. “I’ll try and find out. Maybe Yvon knows. Or Aunt Dracaena.”
“I’m no help there,” Ianthe said. “Nat would be too good to tell me, and if he did I probably couldn’t tell you. But it’s your family, you don’t need that. Good luck, I guess.”
Arianwen nodded. “They are my family. I wanted to go, but my mother made trouble. I’d be there, now, if she hadn’t. I suppose it’s just as well, they needed me here…”
“They did,” Ianthe said. “Not that any of the silly fools really deserved it, but who gets what they deserve? Sorry for sounding like a Gryffindor for a moment there, I can promise you that that’s rare. But I didn’t think it was possible to think much less of Olive than I did before.”
Arianwen’s face was red. “I can’t even be angry you said that, it’s perfectly true. I told Yvon…” She sighed. “I told Yvon I don’t have many friends here any more. Or maybe I didn’t ever. There are people I get along with well, but they’re not my friends.”
“I don’t worry about that,” Ianthe said. “Better not to have friends, unless they’re worth it.”
“You’re like a cat,” said Arianwen. “I was telling Bella that Olive and Colette and she are all set, they know who they’re going to marry and everything, and who knew what you’d do, but you’d certainly land on your feet?” She smiled. “It’s a good thing. Bella’s engaged to Macmillan and Colette’s engaged to Rookwood and Olive’s engaged to Lestrange. I don’t even think that I want to get married. I like my job too much.”
“I don’t think I want to get married,” Ianthe said. “I like myself too much.” She smiled. “Cats don’t marry I guess, but you’d have to check with Miss McGonagall to be sure.”
“But Endymion Dashwood’s a cat,” said Arianwen. “A big, fluffy one with a bad temper that has to be petted just so. And he’s going to get married. He’d do it next week if he could.”
“A pet cat,” Ianthe said. “I know he’s smarter than you and me and Kyteler put together, but nevertheless. And I’m pretty sure that’s not what you meant about me. But in any event, I don’t think I will ever be Mrs anyone. And certainly not Lady. You never know though. Zsuzsanna Zitek seems like she’s doing well for herself, she’s a cousin of the Karkaroffs or something, and she’s married twice over.”
Arianwen chuckled. “I’d marry if I could have a wife, not be one. And I don’t mean I want to marry a girl. I mean I want someone to fold my clothes and bring me supper and ask me how my day went at work, and if there are ever to be children, he can deal with the nappies and snot.” She shrugged. “I see enough of that at work.”
“Me, I think I’ll be a mistress,” Ianthe said thoughtfully. “And not the kind who lets them complain about their wives to me either.”
“Good for you,” said Arianwen. “They choose their wives after all, more often than the wives choose them.”
“Quite,” Ianthe said. She shook her head so that several loose strands fell down and she turned to her mirror and began to pin them all back up. She thought that they’d been chatting long enough, and although she hadn’t told Arianwen anything that someone intelligent couldn’t work out simply by watching her, the conversation was a bit confessional for her taste. “You aren’t coming down to the duelling? I suppose Wood and Stebbins were enough excitement for at least a week. I can understand that anyway.”
“I suppose I could,” said Arianwen. “But honestly I think I should probably sleep. I hear it’s quite restorative if you do it regularly.”
“It’s how I maintain my youthful good looks,” Ianthe said. “And that’s what I intend to tell everyone until the day I die.”
Arianwen laughed. “As well you should,” she said. “Good night, and have a good time at the duels. If anyone falls over? Call Marlie this time.”
“Will do,” said Ianthe.
mighthurtabit and notforfree