CHAPTER VII.

Zelda had wanted to wear one of those Muggle fashions to the Christmas party, the dresses in magazines that American girls supposedly wore to something called prom — but she knew she couldn't. An image needed to be upheld, after all.

And so here she was, in a dress picked up for her by Pandora from Gladrags, draped in silvery blue fabric and itching all over.

At least Graham Carter thought she looked pretty. He'd said so himself, used the word breathtaking.

"Enjoying yourself?"

Zelda looked up. There was Graham, looking by all accounts just as lovely as he'd said she did, holding out a goblet of something that looked like firewhiskey.

She took it. "Thanks."

"Why'd you say yes to me, anyway?"

Looking up, Zelda met Grant's puzzled frown with a blink. "Er. . ."

"I just meant," Grant backtracked quickly, "that you're — you know — a Slytherin. A pureblood at that. I mean, I am too, so that's probably why. . ."

"Yes," Zelda murmured, taking a sip from her goblet and suppressing a shudder at the hot slip of firewhiskey down her throat. "Couldn't afford to be seen with anyone. . ." She curled her lip, hoping she looked every bit as disdainful as Pandora did at all times, and met Grant's eye. ". . .unsavoury."

"Right," Grant said, sounding rather nervous. Good, Zelda thought viciously, then instantly regretted it.

Was this who she was? Was this who the Sorting Hat had deemed her capable of becoming? Someone who was referred to by the Gryffindors as Bitchy Bancroft for her quiet demeanour that often came across as rude?

"I did agree for another reason, you know," she found herself saying, if only to quiet her conscience.

Grant looked up, and Zelda decided that while she could never possibly have feelings for him, she could at least pretend. It was what she was good at, anyway — pretending.

"Yeah?" he asked, sounding heartbreakingly hopeful, but before Zelda could reply, a hand on her elbow made her look up.

Pandora, wearing robes of midnight blue, smiled. She was accompanied by a boy with the same colour hair as her, but who was clearly not a Malfoy — he wore silver dress robes, his cloak embellished with stars, and his hair was somewhat disheveled. He looked, Zelda considered as she took in the glazed expression on his face, spaced out.

She never used Muggle expressions if she could help it; they were too telling. But in the privacy of her own head, it was the best possible description of Xenophilius Lovegood that Zelda could think of.

She cast Pandora a look that she hoped said what were you thinking? The flush that appeared on Pandora's pale cheeks told Zelda that she'd gotten the message, or at least some semblance of it.

"This is Xenophilius," Pandora said, and the boy in question seemed to immediately jump back into reality. "Xeno, this is my friend Zelda, and her date, Graham."

"A pleasure," Zelda said quietly.

"Yes, likewise," Xenophilius said, but his voice had something of a dreamy quality, like he was not completely present. He turned to survey Zelda with unsettlingly pale eyes. "Did you know that you appear to be standing underneath Nargle-infested mistletoe?"

Zelda jumped and looked up — there was indeed a sprig of mistletoe directly above her head. She took a step back, so that it was simply dangling above the empty space between their group of four.

"What?" she asked, when she remembered the rest of Xenophilius's sentence. "What are — ?"

"Nargles?" Xenophilius asked, clearly unaware of Pandora's mortified but strangely fond expression. "They inhabit magical plants, and make their properties stronger — but they're invisible, you know, very hard to spot, only leave a slight shimmering quality to the air around them. . ."

Zelda's attention to him quickly slipped from her grasp, and she found herself zoning out as Xenophilius continued to ramble. She swirled her cup, watching the fire-filled golden bubbles float to the top, then looked up, surveying the room. There was Lily Evans, chatting to the Ravenclaw boy who had asked Zelda to Hogsmeade back in fifth year, and beside her was Remus, looking infuriatingly pleasant; Severus Snape, sulking alone by the door; Regulus Black, a quiet and pale sixth year who looked every part his older brother but acted nothing like him; and Slughorn, chatting with —

Zelda's heart stuttered to a halt. Her breath suddenly felt painfully shallow. She must have been hallucinating, for there, standing next to a rosy-cheeked and tipsy Professor Slughorn, was Boris Bancroft, Head of the Department of International Magical Co-operation.

She had looked him up, of course, after Slughorn had mistakenly identified her as a relative of his. A lie needed to be kept up, she'd reasoned with herself whilst rifling through old editions of the Daily Prophet until she found a photo of him. Zelda remembered her satisfaction when she'd noticed the man's light hair and thin face in a black-and-white Wizarding photo in the Prophet's business column. He looked every bit as pureblood as Pandora's father, Abraxas Malfoy — maybe even more so.

In person, he was largely the same.

But Zelda didn't stop to consider this. She only swallowed, throat impossibly dry, and set down her goblet on a nearby table with shaking hands. Her hands were clenched into fists, seemingly of their own accord.

Pandora eyed her. "Zel? Are you quite alright?"

"Yes," Zelda breathed, hardly hearing her own words. "Yes, just — just feeling a bit faint. Give me a moment, would you?"

And she did the only thing she could: she ran.

The door to the dungeon where Slughorn held his parties slammed behind her. She heard Slughorn's voice calling out to her as she passed — "Miss Bancroft! Come, come, I believe there is a family reunion to be had here!" — and felt her panic solidify into a fist that gripped her heart. She felt her lie cleaving in two as she fled, racing down the corridor with her skirts bunched up in her hands, and all her fabrications seemed to trail behind her in a pathetic pile of dust, because she now knew with a horrible certainty that she could keep this up no longer.

"Zelda!" called a voice, and she only hesitated a moment before continuing to run. "Zelda — wait!"

A hand on her wrist made Zelda skid to a halt and spin around to meet Grant's wide, shocked blue eyes. He frowned at her, not letting go of her wrist, and said, "Are you alright?"

"Yes," Zelda snapped. She struggled weakly against his grip, but Grant didn't let go. "Just. . . I need a moment."

"That's Boris Bancroft, isn't it?" Graham asked. "The Ministry official. The one Slughorn thinks you're related to."

Zelda blinked. Something like panic settled in her chest, but it was strangely comforting. She slipped into her usual state: denial. "What are you. . ."

"I'm not just some stupid Hufflepuff," Graham said, his voice low. "I saw your face when you spotted him. You were afraid. It's clicked for me, you know" — he gestured to his head — "in here. You're a classic Slytherin, aren't you? Using people's assumptions about you to get to higher places." His frown deepened into a glare. "I always wondered why I'd never heard anything about your family, even though everyone insisted you were pureblood. You're hiding something, aren't you?"

Zelda swallowed. Her throat was dryer than sandpaper. "Where is this coming from, Graham?"

He shrugged. "Just an observation."

"I'm not hiding anything," Zelda said reflexively.

"Then why are you running?"

"For a Hufflepuff," Zelda sneered, only half-caring that she was buying into stereotypes, "you're awfully perceptive. Now let go of me."

He didn't. Graham didn't even seem to flinch at her thinly veiled insult. "Where are you going?"

"To my common room," Zelda huffed, face so hot with shame she felt almost feverish. Her heart was in her throat. "You can't follow me there, in case you didn't know. And will you please let go of me!"

She pushed him, then, not knowing where her anger was coming from — maybe it was at herself, she didn't know — and Graham's surprise contorted into fury. "Don't hit me, you little —"

Zelda laughed, so shrill it sounded like a mirthless shriek, and pushed him again. "Little what? What? Bitch? Mudblood? Is that what you want to call me? You and the rest of your elitist pureblood cronies?"

The words hung in the air between them, and Zelda's heart dropped to her feet as soon as she realized what she'd said. She pressed a shaking hand to her mouth. Before she could take it back, or even consider doing so, Graham's expression went slack with shock.

"Don't tell me you're. . ." He shook his head, then seemed to remember himself and grabbed her wrist again, brow contorting. "Don't tell me you're Muggle-born?"

Zelda just stared, unblinking, and tried to wrench her wrist from his grasp, but he didn't let go. "Let go."

Graham's grip tightened. "No! Tell me the truth You owe me that at least." He shook his head. "If you've been hiding something like this for this long, just because you're a Slytherin. . ."

She grit her teeth, choosing to ignore how the last comment hit her like a slap to the face. "We went on one date, Graham, if that, all you are is my date to a party — I owe you nothing —"

"Is everything alright?"

Zelda turned, and felt her heartbeat pick up its pace until it was at a gallop. Remus was standing across from her and Graham in the corridor, wearing dress robes that were slightly too small for him. His hands were in his pockets; he looked mildly interested, and Zelda felt a hot tendril of fury curl up in her stomach at his well-mannered expression.

"Yeah," Graham mumbled, drawing Zelda back into reality like a fish on a line. "Yeah — everything's fine." He turned to Zelda. "Can we talk. . . later?"

Zelda let out a breath that she hadn't realized she was holding. "Sure. Tomorrow."

Graham nodded, once, and turned on his heel, stalking moodily in the other direction. Zelda had a feeling he'd only left because Remus was a prefect, and he didn't want to get in trouble right before the Christmas holiday — but then, Zelda was a prefect too, and he'd had no problem manhandling her. So maybe he was just an arse.

"Is your wrist okay?" Remus asked, making Zelda look up.

She met his eyes, and all at once, the adrenaline faded, replacing itself with a searing pain in her wrist, both above the skin and under. Graham had grabbed the wrist on which Zelda wore her mother's bracelet, a delicate gold chain with five tiny emeralds set into it in the center. It had dug into her skin, making it red and raw, and the muscle underneath ached.

"Yeah," Zelda lied. "Fine." She gathered herself, and tried to push her shoulders back so she was at her full height (though it barely held a candle to Remus, who positively towered over her). "What did you hear?"

"Only that Boris Bancroft is retiring," Remus said pleasantly. "Apparently he's being replaced by the Deputy Head of his department, Crouch something-or-other."

"Not about him," Zelda hissed. "I meant, what did you hear Graham and I talking about?"

"Ask me no questions, and I shall tell you no lies," Remus said serenely, but he seemed to soon buckle under Zelda's glare, because he sighed. "Fine. I may have heard everything."

"Everything?" Zelda demanded, and Remus flinched. "Why didn't you step in sooner, then?"

"Oh, my deepest apologies," Remus said, once he seemed to have recovered from her scolding. "I wasn't aware you expected me to be your knight in shining armour."

Zelda scowled. "You should be glad you already know the truth about me, Lupin."

"What would you have done if I hadn't?" Remus asked, sounding morbidly curious.

Ignoring the trickle of sweat down her back, Zelda swallowed and said, "I. . . I don't know."
It was, strangely, a relief to be honest.

Remus looked doubtful. "Look," he said finally, expression somewhat nervous as he took a tentative step towards her, "I did hear what you both said. But I want you to know that I. . . I still won't tell anyone, even though someone else knows."

Zelda frowned. Remus was standing close enough to her that she could see the colour of his eyes: they were a leafy green, with a ring of honeylike brown in the middle and flecks of gold. Hazel, she thought with a pang of grief. That had been her mother's name.

"Why?" she finally choked out, hating out breathless she sounded.

Remus's brow furrowed. "I s'pose. . . because I get it."

"Why?" Zelda repeated. She eyed him suspiciously. "You haven't got a secret of your own, have you?"

Something like panic flickered across Remus's expression, and though it was gone faster than it appeared, Zelda felt a spark of satisfaction — she remembered, suddenly, the empty threat she'd imposed upon him and his friends weeks before. Yes, there was something strange about them, particularly Potter, who she'd seen in the Hospital Wing clearly covering up for something with a faked broken arm twice. . . and there was the fact that Pomfrey seemed to be in on whatever secret Potter was hiding. . . but Zelda had never gotten farther than that, and any hopes of having a mystery to uncover had been lost under the heaping pile of applying for training at St. Mungo's and studying for her N.E.W.T.s.

But still. Here was this strange look on Remus's face, like Zelda had caught onto something. She knew exactly how he felt, because she'd felt it dozens of times before, in the moments she'd  feared she was about to get caught.

It was the look of a trapped animal with no way to escape.

So yes, Zelda considered as she watched Remus expertly smooth his expression back to normal as though nothing had happened, he was definitely hiding something — and Zelda had a feeling his friends were in on it too. Privately, underneath the ebbing panic she felt at Graham having uncovered her secret (and by every fault of her own, too, she thought, cursing herself for blabbing like an idiot), Zelda decided to continue investigating.

She said nothing of this, of course, because Remus was already correcting his mistake: "I just meant — it can't be easy. Hiding something like that. I know it would probably make things worse for you if the people in your house knew."

Anger flared in her chest again, but Zelda pushed it down, hating the way her shoulders sagged, like she'd been defeated. "Yeah."

Remus seemed to consider this. "The Sorting Hat really asked you to hide it? Your. . ."

"Parentage?" Zelda scoffed. "Yes. By the time I'd had the sense to realize how hard it is to keep up a lie like that, first year was halfway gone, everyone thought I was a witch of 'respectable' birth, and I'd heard enough of my housemates' bullshit about blood purity to understand why that wretched Hat told me to hide who I am in the first place."

"And here you are," Remus replied. His hands were shoved in his pockets; it was sort of endearing, Zelda thought ruefully.

He was standing close enough that she could smell him. It wasn't bad — Remus smelled of whiskey. Not firewhiskey, with its sharp tang and spiced edges and too-hot aftertaste, but just regular Muggle whiskey, something warm like the American bourbon in her dad's liquor cabinet, perhaps. Zelda lingered on the scent, and caught a whiff of chocolate. This close up, she saw that he had scars — one down his cheek, accentuating the line of his cheekbone, and another two across the bridge of his nose.

They were silvery and strangely smooth. They were cursed wounds; of this, Zelda had no doubt, and she silently thanked all the healing textbooks she'd spent years poring over. She only had to wonder what had done this to him.

"Yes," she finally murmured. "Here we are."

The moment seemed to still, and she wondered dimly if she should be correcting herself for using we when Remus had clearly said you — and then a voice sounded from down the hall. Zelda craned her neck to see over Remus's shoulder, and when she saw who it was, she swore under her breath.

"Quick, in here," she said, hardly daring to think about what she was doing. She glanced around, then spotted a familiar tapestry — grabbing Remus's sleeve, she dragged him behind her into an alcove behind the woven image of twelfth-century goblins. It was barely the size of a broom cupboard; they were squished together, Zelda's elbows tucked into her ribs to keep from jostling Remus.

Eyes wide, Remus tugged his sleeve from Zelda's grasp. "What are you — ?"

He had no opportunity to finish his sentence, however, because Professor Slughorn's voice made him stop. Zelda and Remus both peeked through the gap between the tapestry and the wall at the same time; in the distance, Zelda could just make out two figures approaching the spot in the corridor where their tapestry-shaped shelter hid.

Slughorn's booming voice echoed, clearly audible, off the vaulted ceilings. "You know, I do wonder where Miss Bancroft had gone off to!" he exclaimed. Zelda squeezed her eyes shut as her face burned with shame. "She's such a promising student, you know, wants to be a Healer — would have been a lovely reunion, I'm sure you must be very proud of your neice —"

"Hm, I should have liked to see this. . . Miss Bancroft," said the man beside Slughorn, and Zelda realized with a start it was Boris Bancroft, the man she'd lied about being her uncle — the head of the Department of Internation Magical Co-operation. "Although, I don't remember ever having a niece, Horace. . ."

They walked off, past the earshot of the little alcove where Zelda and Remus hid. Thankfully, they seemed to have switched topics to something about Slughorn's newest ingredient in the greehouse six (". . .a non-tradeable substance, you see, so I've had to take great care not to let anything slip to Professor Sprout, but as you're retiring so soon, I'm sure you won't mention anything to your friends over at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, eh, good man?").

Zelda blew out a breath once they'd turned a corner, slumping against the wall of the alcove. Remus pulled back the tapestry and held out a hand as if inviting her to leave.

The cold breeze of the corridor — and reality — came rushing back to her in one swift breath. "Shit," Zelda muttered, pressing the heel of her palm to her forehead and screwing her eyes shut. "Shit, shit — what are you staring at me like that for?"

Remus appeared to simply be watching her, something like bemusement on his face. Zelda frowned up at him and followed him back into the corridor.

"My apologies," Remus offered.

"You're taking the mickey," Zelda accused.

"No," Remus countered. "Taking pity."

"I don't need your pity," Zelda snapped. "I need. . ." She blew out a breath, then glared up at Remus in what she hoped was a moderately intimidating fashion. "I need to not be here."

She turned on her heel and stormed off, resisting the temptation to turn around to see if Remus was still there, and hoped and against hope that Graham Carter and Remus Lupin were the only people in the castle who knew what Zelda truly was.

But of course, that was anything but likely.

The Hogwarts Rumour Mill churned and churned. Zelda rather thought it needed a new bit of gossip — she just hoped the subject wouldn't be her.