Eight. Sneak!

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                              For the next few weeks Circe remained impervious to Harry's attempts at reconciliation. In fact, she remained impervious to anything that wasn't rumination or smoking. Sometimes she'd indulge in them both at the same time.

          She met Mika in the Great Hall for breakfast at exactly the same moment as the post owls on Monday morning. Mika gave the delivery owl a Knut and unfolded the newspaper, eager for news of the escaped Death Eaters, while Circe helped herself to a cup of tea; as she had only received letters from her mother during the entire year she was sure, when three owls landed with a thud in front of her, that they had made a mistake.

          "Who died?" she asked it, languidly removing her mug from underneath its beak and leaning forward to see the recipient's name and address: Circe Black.

          Frowning, she made to take the letter from the owl, but before she could do so, two more owls had fluttered down beside it and were jockeying for position, treading in the butter, knocking over the salt, and each attempting to give her their letters first.

          "Is it your birthday?" Mika asked in amazement.

          "Do I really seem like a Pisces?"

          Karl fell onto the bench beside them, breathless. "Seen this?"

          He presented a tightly furled copy of March's edition of The Quibbler. Circe, skeptical, unrolled it to see Harry's face grinning sheepishly on the front cover. In large red letters across his picture was the headline: HARRY POTTER SPEAKS OUT AT LAST!

          Circe's eyes rapidly scanned the page as Mika peered over her shoulder. Rita Skeeter had interviewed Harry about the night when Voldemort had returned, and every little detail, no matter how awful, was there for all to read. Appearing alongside utter rubbish about Crumple-Horned Snorkacks, it would seem to most that Harry was completely out of his mind, but the breakout of Bellatrix Lestrange and her fellow Death Eaters ought to have made it more plausible. But Circe doubted the intelligence of the average witch or wizard. After all, they still believed her father killed all those Muggles. She didn't blame them, though; there was nothing left of Pettigrew apart from his finger. And Circe, herself, spent at least eleven years believing she was the daughter of a mass killer. She hated herself. She still hated herself.

          "Brilliant, isn't it?" said Karl, helping himself to four slices of toast. "Wonder what Umbridge thinks."

          "Not hard to guess." Circe took pleasure knowing that Umbridge was probably seething with rage. "Anyway ..." She turned to the assembled owls still scrabbling around on the table. "Let's see what I've done wrong this time."

          "Probably this."

          Karl flipped the pages of the Quibbler until he reached an article accompanied by a photograph of Circe, taken at the Quidditch World Cup the year previously. She was wearing a dress that belonged to Sara and it was slightly too big, making her look frailer than she was, underneath the headline: BLACK HEIR NEARS SEVENTEEN.

It marks almost twelve years to the day that Walburga Black named her eldest grandchild, Circe, heir to the seat at Grimmauld Place. In a move that shocked wizarding society, Walburga declared that the succession would follow the line of her eldest son, Sirius, and any children he had regardless of gender. All readers will be familiar with the fact that Sirius was disowned by the family after his imprisonment in Azkaban, however it appears that his daughter possesses all redeeming qualities required for a Pure-blood debutante. 

Circe Black has spent the past twelve years being moulded by her mother, Sara, into a now sixteen year-old model of piety. She carries herself with a certain grace and commands respect—her grandmother ought to be proud! Though gossip has been rife, suggesting that she may not be fit to bear the weight of the crown, this young witch carries all the necessary intelligence and confidence that the next matriarch needs. There has been worry that the arrest of her father would radicalise Circe, perhaps cause some disturbance, but she is surprisingly well adjusted. A sign, perhaps, of a strong leader to come? 

While Circe comes of age, the family has been led by Walburga's second son, Regulus, who is by no margin a saint. Regulus spent years being linked to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named until his disappearance from public life after the premature death of his wife, Leda—daughter of famed alchemist, Simon Augustine. Many had expected him to carry the family torch, however his wife's suicide seemed to make him retreat from power, preferring to raise his own daughter away from the public eye. Little is known, still, about Enyo, though sources at Hogwarts tell me that she was recently made Prefect and flourishes academically. She has been purposely kept out of the spotlight. Another sign? Both girls have arguably been denied a normal childhood, and we may never know what caused Walburga to skip over her preferred, younger son in favour of Sirius, but the choice has implied that Circe braved the storm. She emerged the stronger woman and Enyo, like her father, has backed away into the shadows. This has certainly set the Black family on a different course for the future. Should they be worried?

A source who wishes to remain anonymous has informed me that we, the people, may be underestimating Circe: "She's the most interesting person I know," they said. "After one conversation with her, your perception completely changes." As far as the future goes, they offered, "She doesn't buy into that You-Know-Who and blood purity nonsense like the rest of them ... she's a good person. She's going to do good things—"

          Circe scoffed. "I sound like a charity case."

          For some reason she peered down the Gryffindor table as she said this. She had the strangest feeling that Harry had been watching her a second before, but when she looked, he seemed to be absorbed in conversation with Luna.

          "Liebenswert," said Mika. "Do you mind if I—?"

          "Help yourself," said Circe, feeling slightly bewildered. Mika began to read the article, tracing her finger across her bottom lip.

          "This one's from your mother." Karl plucked one of the letters from between an owl's beak. "I recognise her handwriting."

          "She writes to you?"

          "Once a fortnight," he said matter-of-factly.

          "Do me a favour, then," she muttered, getting up, "see what she has to say. I have to go and do something."

          As Circe walked along the length of the Gryffindor table, she noticed almost every eye was drawn to her. If anything more was needed to complete her paranoia, it was Draco's reaction. She saw him whispering malevolently with Crabbe and Goyle, each of them cracking their knuckles. Though they probably had much larger fish to fry; Harry had named all of their fathers as Death Eaters.

          "This one says you've got her converted, and she now thinks you're a real hero—she's put in a photograph too—wow—"

          "What's going on?"

          Harry looked up with his hands full of envelopes. Circe was standing behind Fred and Luna, her copy of The Quibbler clutched to her chest. She was breathing hard, and deep circles of red burned high on her bright cheeks; in all his life Harry had never seen anyone so maddeningly beautiful as she was at that moment. He sat blinking stupidly at her, the blood pounding in his veins, and his carefully rehearsed plans for their next conversation forgotten.

          "Well?" she asked slowly. Behind her he saw many of the students watching them avidly. "Is this your handiwork?"

          "I tried to tell you—"

          He was cut off by Circe's magazine whacking him round the side of the head. The crowd around them burst into scandalised laughter.

          "You got her to write this?" she hissed.

          Harry hesitated; he wasn't keen on this conversation taking place in the centre of the Great Hall, but he didn't see how else he could possibly deescalate the situation. 

          "I wanted to help. On Valentine's Day—Rita was doing an interview with me about what happened last June." He lowered his voice to a murmur. "I asked you to meet so you could tell your side of the story."

          "My side?" repeated Circe, her voice thinner and higher than ever. "And this is my side of the story, is it?"

          Harry didn't know what to say. He was experiencing this quite a lot around Circe—a feeling of total helplessness. She could make him feel like an idiot better than anyone, even the Dursleys. But, for once, it was her who'd misunderstood the nature of his gesture. It was rose petals he wanted to throw, not a poison dart.

          George cleared his throat. "Our Harry did you a favour, Black. You've never come across quite so likeable."

          Circe looked up at him, incandescent with rage, the magazine shaking in her grasp.

          "I'm sorry," said Harry, dejected, "I tried to help."

          "Well, stop trying to help," she whispered. "You're making things worse!"

          Ron scolded, "All right, leave it out."

         She turned to him, furious. "Would you like it if the whole world knew your mum still reads you Babbity Rabbity before bed?"

          His cheeks flushed pink. "I-I don't ..."

          "Exactly. This was my business, not Rita Skeeter's, and most certainly not yours!" she added pointedly to Harry, who was still shirking under her gaze.

         Circe gave him one last forbidding look before stalking away, clutching The Quibbler to her chest, the eyes of many students following her. 

          By mid-morning enormous signs had been put up all over the school, not just on House notice boards, but in the corridors and classrooms too. All copies of the Quibbler were banned and Professor Umbridge was stalking the school, stopping students at random and demanding that they turn out their books and pockets, but they were several steps ahead of her. The pages carrying Harry's interview had been bewitched to resemble extracts from textbooks if anyone but themselves read it, or else wiped magically blank until they wanted to peruse it again. Soon it seemed that every single person in the school had read it. 

          Meanwhile, Circe continued to toy with the letters sent by her family. Her mother was disappointed and seemed to think the source was Circe herself, which proved one thing: Sara didn't know her daughter very well, because there was absolutely no chance she would sing her own praises in an interview. Regulus was unhappy to be brought into it, and sent her only three words. Et tu, Brutus? She would've rather the scolding.

          Circe, predictably, hadn't written back to either of them; she was struggling to communicate her guilt and frustration in a way that felt sincere. Words, ever unreliable, were no one's friend. And in that time her anger at Harry abated, but she couldn't bring herself to apologise for her reaction, nor could she even look at him without seeing a wounded deer. 

          By the time she managed to get Enyo alone, copies of The Quibbler could be found in every corner of the castle, and she was sure to have read both articles. They met, therefore, in the girls' bathroom on the second floor, with Circe blocking the door in case anyone were to burst in. Enyo was curling her eyelashes around her wand and examining the effect in the dirty mirror.

          "I just can't believe you went to that rag instead of Witch Weekly."

          "It wasn't me," said Circe robustly. 

          Enyo made a face. "Oh, really."

          "Really. While you were snogging Michael Tallis in Madam Puddifoots—" Enyo went to interject but Circe carried on, "Potter was arranging some sort of puff piece with Rita Skeeter."

          "Potter did this? Why?"

          "He cares, apparently."

           Enyo looked scornfully over her shoulder. "And you were meeting him on Valentine's Day?"

           She was waiting smugly for Circe to say something but nothing came. She stood there, cheeks pink, in an uncomfortable and eerie silence.

          "I wasn't snogging anyone, either," said Enyo lowly. "It was just talking."

          "Talking ..." murmured Circe, a hint of a smirk on her face, "with Michael Tallis ..."

          "He's nice."

          "A pet cat is nice. What happened to Karl, anyway?"

          Enyo span around, hastily responding, "I fancy them both, then. Is that what you wanted me to say? At least I can admit it. What about you and Potter?" she added. "Because all of a sudden the two of you are joined at the hip!"

         Circe scoffed at this. The only time she saw Harry, outside of the obvious classes and around the common room, was Dumbledore's Army sessions, and they were few and far between.

          "I don't fancy him, if that's what you're getting at. I've been meeting him in the Room of Requirement, yes, but to practice spells with a group. That's it. He wanted to do me a favour—he'd seen how upset I was—"

          "Upset about what?"

          She looked too fierce to argue with at that moment, so Circe didn't bother to try. She told her everything. Every little breath Sirius took, every inflection in tone, it was all there. Her voice shook, though she tried to remain as impartial as possible, and it was clear that Circe enjoyed saying this as little as Enyo enjoyed hearing it, because she couldn't look up from the floor.

          When she finished, Enyo sat in thought for a moment. Everything she wanted to say, she swallowed. And then, after a long minute of contemplation, said, "How long have you known?"

          "Christmas." Which was apparently the wrong thing to say.

          "And you didn't think to tell me?"

          "It wasn't for me to tell."

           It was hard to argue with Enyo because when she was upset she looked like a lily, drowned, underwater. Pale and mysterious. This was why Regulus preferred to turn away whenever they fought. 

          Circe took out a cigarette. Enyo continued to look disdainful.

          "My mother didn't die for this."

          "Then what did she die for?" asked Circe between harsh coughs. "Because you haven't done anything about it so far. You've always known it was supposed to be you, but I haven't heard one complaint. You resent me. You feel like I stole something from you. Do something about it, Enyo."

          Inside Enyo, something seethed. Some feral animal clawed at her ribcage. She thought it might be her father—the part she'd been suppressing. Nothing could stop her reaching out for Circe's cigarette, tossing it to the ground and squashing it beneath her loafer.

          Circe began to smile, as though she'd never seen anything so awe inspiring. "There you go," she said proudly.

          "My mother died for her sins," Enyo rambled on, "because she was told she failed. She didn't. From my father's blood ... I'm the only one ..."

          "Not necessarily."

          There was a little too much understanding in the look Circe gave her for Enyo's liking. But before either could speak, a pint sized first-year had pushed open the door a few inches before catching sight of Circe, then Enyo, and quickly scuttling away.

          "Don't suggest that you're a better candidate," she told Enyo once she was sure they were alone again. "Don't act like you're somehow purer than I am because Sirius actually had the guts to leave."

          Circe really hated it when they fought. She hated when things were bad between them in general, because Enyo was more like a sister than a cousin. They'd grown up in each other's pockets, aware of their depths and shallows, and behaved with the most tender affection. So when they hit out at one another, it cut Circe especially deep, because Enyo knew exactly how to twist the knife. One she'd been sharpening for years.

          "Four months ago, you were offering it to me. What changed for you to say these things about me? You admitted it—I'm just as capable, if not more capable!"

          "How many times? It wasn't me!"

          "I'm starting to consider you and Potter as a package deal," Enyo remarked, a nasty expression corrupting her angelic face. "What one does, the other follows. It wasn't so long ago that you thought he was lying about everything."

          "It also wasn't so long ago that your own father was kneeling before Voldemort."

          "Meaning?"

          "Meaning things change. People do, too, and their thoughts."

          Had it not been for the fact that she was required to take a mood-stabilising potion once a fortnight, Enyo would've presumed that her cousin had gone mad. Completely bonkers. She wanted everything back to the way it was. But there was no point to it, the wanting, for she couldn't be broken up into little pieces and start all over again. 

          "I'm going to pretend you aren't being serious. I'm going to pretend things are back to normal."

          Circe raised her chin haughtily. "We can't stuff it back in its box."

          To have spent her life holding her hands in tightly hidden fists. To try to understand what it would mean, now, to prise them open ... Enyo always felt ashamed at being witnessed in the act of wanting something she could not have, but now she was bearing her truth to Circe—perhaps the worst person of all, because it was her who held the thing Enyo desired most. 

          "You only want it to serve foreign interests!" she scorned. "It was mine all along, and you only have it because Grandmother was filled with hate when she died. She wanted to make an example of my father. Consider it made. It's over, now."

          Circe figured that Enyo'd had enough being pristine; the article was just a catalyst for something that'd been festering for a while. The wound of a daughter, left unattended, had turned into something else. Bloomed in her belly like an anti-child. She wanted to get her hands dirty.

          "Too late," Circe deadpanned. "I was chosen."

          "By an old bat."

          "You weren't chosen by anybody!" It took everything in Circe not to say it but it still wasn't enough. She looked stabbingly defiant as she added, "The only reason you think you're owed something is because Regulus had a dream, and it was wrong, wasn't it? Because you weren't born a leader, you're like Draco: just another body. That's why you're so angry at me for believing Harry, because you couldn't have an original thought even if one hexed you!"

          Enyo screwed up her face. "Potter's a weapon. And you—you just want an excuse to turn on us. It's like you're addicted to pain."

          "You sound like Draco, too."

          "I learned at his feet. All that time we've had together in Slytherin, while you swanned around with all the heroes."

          The cold, black eyes were boring into Circe's; she tried not to look into them. Enyo's irises were always disturbingly dark, even when she was a baby, and Regulus would make little jibes about her being the devil's daughter, which upset Leda (and likely pushed her over the edge, in hindsight). When Circe looked back at those years, she felt touched and almost pained by the simplicity of the life they were living, because they knew what they had to do, and they did it—that was all.

          "You're going to drive this family into the dirt," said Enyo, her voice deathly quiet, "just like your father."

          Circe took one small, but threatening, step towards her cousin.

          "Careful."

          "Do you know what Narcissa told me? She said, 'Circe is an immature little girl who, in time, will give up her struggles, give up her fight, and bend. As they all do. And when she bends, she will fit.'"

          "And if I don't bend," asked Circe, "what then?"

         "You'll break. And I hope when Potter's picking up the pieces, you both realise it wasn't nearly worth it. Your father probably realised the same thing in Azkaban—"

          SMACK! 

          She had slapped Enyo across the face with all the strength she could muster. Enyo staggered back and fell onto the dirty tile floor, her blonde hair splayed out behind her. A red, blotchy handprint was already visible on her cheek.

          Circe hovered over her. "Do you know what I think?" she said, scowling. "I think that you're scared. You know that everything's going to change once I'm of age, and every dream you've had  of being important is going to disappear. What do you think?"

          "I think you're stubborn." Enyo was breathing hard, the material of her school jumper rising and falling rapidly. "When everything doesn't go as you planned, and you're left on your own, you're going to wish you'd given it up."

          That was the last time they spoke. Until after O.W.Ls, anyway. 

          If it had not been for Mika and Karl's persistent company, Circe thought she would have tried to drown herself in the bath. She sometimes felt that she was living for hypothetical moment when all of this was over and she didn't have to fight anymore. The realisation that she was no longer at war with the world—that she was, rather, able to love it wholeheartedly.

         Before Easter, Karl managed to drag Circe out of her miserable pit and to the last D.A meeting of term. Harry was doing his very best not to look directly at her, as one does the sun, but found that his eyes were drifting over towards the back of her head, her shiny brown hair. They had finally started work on Patronuses, which everybody had been very keen to practice, though as Harry kept reminding them, producing a Patronus in the middle of a brightly lit classroom when they were not under threat was very different to producing it when confronted by something like a dementor. But Circe was still having trouble. Her face was screwed up in concentration, but only feeble wisps of silver smoke issued from her wand tip.

           "You've got to think of something happy," Hermione reminded her. She was begrudgingly Circe's partner this week.

           "I'm trying," she said miserably. "I can't think of anything."

           "What about your family?"

          One of her only happy childhood memories: It was Christmas day and she'd just opened her first present, which was a framed photograph of her parents just as Sara's pregnancy had begun to show. They seemed so happy, so full of adoration for their unborn child, and it marked what was likely the first time she'd felt a connection to her father. There was a silver spark, then a wavering light, and then, with great effort, the eagle burst from the end of her wand. It flew in a circle around her before soaring to the height of the ceiling.

          "A bald eagle. Did the Sorting Hat want to put you in Ravenclaw?" asked Hermione.

          Circe made a half-hearted hum in agreement. "I think so. My mother was in Ravenclaw, and her mother before her."

          It wasn't often that Hermione looked impressed, or realised that she'd horrendously misjudged a person, but both miracles took place in that moment. 

           The door of the Room of Requirement opened and closed. Next thing they knew, Dobby the house-elf was tugging at Harry's robes near the knee, peering up at him from beneath his usual eight woolly hats.

          "Hi, Dobby!" he said. "What are you—What's wrong?"

          The elf's eyes were wide with terror and he was shaking. The members of the D.A had fallen silent; everybody in the room was watching Dobby. The few Patronuses people had managed to conjure faded away into silver mist, leaving the room looking much darker than before.

          "Harry Potter, sir ..." squeaked the elf, trembling from head to foot, "Dobby has come to warn you ... but the house-elves have been warned not to tell ..."

          He ran head-first at the wall. Harry made to seize him, but Dobby merely bounced off the stone, cushioned by his eight hats.

          "What's happened, Dobby?" Harry asked, grabbing the elf's tiny arm and holding him away from anything with which he might seek to hurt himself.

          "Harry Potter ... she ... she ..."

          Dobby hit himself hard on the nose with his free fist. Harry seized that, too.

          "Who, Dobby? Umbridge? Dobby—she hasn't found out about this—about us—about the DA?"

          The answer was clear in the elf's stricken face. Dobby let out a howl, and began beating his bare feet hard on the floor. "Yes, Harry Potter, yes!"

          Harry straightened up and looked around at the motionless, terrified people gazing at the thrashing elf.

          "WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? RUN!"

          They all pelted towards the exit at once, forming a scrum at the door, then people burst through. Circe stood there, motionless in shock; the others were all moving so fast she caught only glimpses of flying heels before they vanished.

          "This way!" Harry had grabbed her hand and started to sprint into the corridor; there was an unused classroom up ahead, they could pretend they'd been in there all the time if they could just reach it—

          "OW!"

          Something caught Harry around the ankles and he fell spectacularly on his face, skidding along on his front for six feet before coming to a halt. Circe let go of him. Someone behind them started to laugh. She turned around and saw Draco concealed in a niche beneath an ugly dragon-shaped vase. His pale, pointed face was alight with malice.

         "Trip Jinx. What d'you think?"

         "You snake!" she hissed as he emerged from the shadows.

          "Snake?" He tongued at his cheek, as though for once he was holding back what nasty thing he wanted to say to her. "I'm giving you one chance to get out of here, Circe. I'd take it, if I were you."

          It felt like a betrayal to leave Harry sprawled on the floor, especially since he'd dragged her with him after all the harshness he'd suffered. And somehow, it felt like even more of one to deny this one small mercy that Draco was offering because there was little chance it would ever come again.

          "Hide," was all Harry said.

          She threw one stubborn look back at him, acknowledging that she was sorry for it rather than saying it, before running off to hide behind a nearby tapestry.

          "Hey, Professor—PROFESSOR!" came Draco's triumphant voice a second later. "I've got one!"

          Footsteps came bustling round the far corner.

          "It's him!" Umbridge said jubilantly. "Excellent, Draco, excellent, oh, very good—fifty points to Slytherin! I'll take him from here ... stand up, Potter!"

          There was a shuffling noise as Harry reluctantly got to his feet.

          "You hop along and see if you can round up any more of them, Draco," Umbridge said. "Tell the others to look in the library—anybody out of breath—check the bathrooms, Miss Parkinson can do the girls' ones—off you go—and you," she added in her softest, most dangerous voice, "you can come with me to the Headmaster's office, Potter."

          Umbridge and Harry's footsteps died away. Camille stood there, panting, shaking with rage, for a few seconds until the corridor was silent. Then the tapestry at the top of the staircase on which they stood was ripped open.

           Draco sneered at her. "You're welcome."

           Circe stepped out into the empty corridor, glaring at him. She felt a great rush of hatred beyond anything she'd ever experienced.

          "If I could, I would kill you right now."

          "What's stopping you? Not consequences, surely," he mused. "I didn't think you faced those anymore."

          "How did you find us? Tell me."

          "A little bird." Draco raised his eyebrows nonchalantly. "A songbird by the name of Enyo. She isn't very happy with you, you know. I sensed she wanted revenge, so naturally I obliged."

          She felt a bolt of something strike through her system.

          "They're just going to pitch up somewhere else," she spat. "So what, you shut down an after-school club? You haven't killed the idea."

          "The Dark Lord is building an army of hundreds, and what does Potter have? A few idiots holed up in a basement somewhere, Mudbloods, kooks, and—"

          "And me. He has me now."

          He laughed. "You don't think Potter's going to get rid of you the moment he gets his spot in the limelight?" he said once she started to look indignant. "You won't be a good look for the saviour of the Mudbloods, will you? If you weren't Potter's girlfriend, and if your parents hadn't been involved, do you honestly think that they'd have you?"

          "I'm not his─"

          He'd stepped closer to her, leaning down so that he could whisper into her ear, "I don't believe for a second you don't see through it all. You know how well they can lie."

          "Not bothering her, are you, Malfoy?"

           They both turned. Karl was casually sauntering down the corridor, hands deep in his pockets, as though it was a daily habit he undertook.

          "You have no authority here, Macauley," said Draco, twirling his wand around in his fingertips. "I'm a Prefect, in case you'd forgotten."

          Karl held up his hands in mock-surrender and remained at a slight distance. Satisfied, Draco looked back to Circe:

          "You're going to see that I'm right soon enough. And I'll be sorry for you when you do."

          "Well, I can't wait," she uttered sarcastically. "In the mean time, I'll just have to write to Regulus and tell him that you've been misbehaving—oh dear," she added, for Draco had looked stricken at the sound of the name. "Not scared, are you?"

          "You think you're above us all."

          Circe shook her head. "I don't think. I know. In fact, I have it in writing."

          "They're not going to care about a piece of paper when the time comes. The family has a sacred duty—"

          "I expect they do," interjected Karl.

          Furious at the interruption, Draco's hand flew towards his wand, but Karl was too quick for him; he had drawn his own wand before Draco's fingers had even entered the pocket of his robes.

          "Be a good boy and get lost, Malfoy, before I make you."

          Draco did not need telling twice; he stubbornly thrust his wand back inside his robes and headed straight for the front doors without another glance at either of them.

          Circe pressed her lips into a thin line. "Thank you," she said curtly.

          "No problem. Everything okay?"

          "Not really," she said, setting off down the corridor. "Umbridge got Harry ..."

          It was midnight by the time Harry left Umbridge's detention that night, his hand bleeding so severely that it was staining the Gryffindor scarf he had wrapped around it. Circe had sat up waiting for him in the otherwise empty common room, keeping herself awake by poring over her History of Magic O.W.L revision. He was surprised but pleased to see her, especially with an expression that, for once, displayed remorse rather than resentment.

          She greeted him by silently pushing a small bowl of strained and pickled Murtlap tentacles towards him. Harry placed his bleeding, aching hand into the bowl and let out a sigh of relief. Crookshanks, Hermione's orange cat, curled around his legs, purring loudly, then leapt into his lap and settled down.

          Circe didn't know what to say first: how sorry she was that she had told Enyo about the D.A. in the first place and caused all this trouble, or how terrible she felt about her reaction to Rita Skeeter's article? But Harry spoke before she could say another word. 

          "Just tell me it wasn't you."

          "I can't," she admitted. "I just wanted to say ... Harry, I never dreamed Enyo would tell ... She was angry at me but I never thought ..." 

          "Yeah, well," said Harry moodily. He rather hoped she'd have been clever enough to realise that Enyo was a Slytherin through and through.

          "She made a mistake—" 

          He suddenly got to his feet. The bowl of Murtlap essence fell to the floor and smashed.

          "Made a mistake? She sold us all out, including you!" 

          "It wasn't like that," said Circe pleadingly, tears beginning to well in her eyes. "You know, it hasn't been easy. Me being friends with you is like high treason to them."

          Friends. It was the first instance she'd acknowledged anything between them other than hate.

          He looked at her incredulously. "If it's so hard for you, then, don't be friends with me."

          She flushed. "That's not what—don't be like that—"

          "Don't start crying," said Harry warningly. Because if she did, he'd forgive her immediately. 

          "I wasn't going to!"

          The wind had let up for the first time in a few days, and for once, Gryffindor Tower wasn't drowned out by the howling sound of it; instead, it was quiet inside the common room, and Harry felt distinctly awkward as he sat back down in his chair, staring at her. Circe's skin was pale, and she was wearing one of Sirius' old Chudley Cannons shirts as she gazed into the dying fire. He felt a kind of detached satisfaction knowing that she was just as unhappy as he was. He hadn't had a proper conversation with her—just the two of them—since February, and the memory of their last encounter kept intruding; it rather heightened his sense of embarrassment.

          "It's so hard," murmured Circe, "being chosen, isn't it? There's so much expectation."

         Even by the dim light Harry could tell that her eyes had filled with tears once again; he himself felt suddenly warm around the ears and neck.

          "I wasn't chosen," he said. "Even if I was, I don't want to be."

          "Don't be stupid. You're the only one he can't seem to beat."

          "It sounds great when you say it like that, but all that stuff with Voldemort was luck—I didn't know what I was doing half the time, I didn't plan any of it, I just did whatever I could think of, and I nearly always had help—"

          Circe started to look amused.

          "Don't sit there grinning like you know better than I do, I was there, wasn't I?" he said heatedly. "I know what went on, all right? And I didn't get through any of that because I was brilliant at Defence Against the Dark Arts, I got through it all because—because help came at the right time, or because I guessed right—but I just blundered through it all, I didn't have a clue what I was doing—"

          She'd seized one of the pillows and chucked it, as hard as she could, across the room. It hit him in the stomach.

          "There's no need for humility in front of me, Harry," she told him. "I've always thought you were brave, even if I didn't like you. Think about what you've done."

          "You don't know what it's like! You've never had to face him, have you? You think it's just memorising a bunch of spells and throwing them at him, like you're in class or something? The whole time you're sure you know there's nothing between you and dying except your own—your own brain or guts or ... whatever—like you can think straight when you know you're about a nanosecond from being murdered, or tortured, or watching your friends die—they've never taught us that in their classes, what it's like to deal with things like that—and you sit there acting like I'm a clever little boy to be standing here, alive, like Diggory was stupid, like he messed up—you just don't get it, that could just as easily have been me, it would have been if Voldemort hadn't needed me—"

          "It wasn't you, though. You lived to fight another day."

          Harry was shivering, trying desperately to keep the anger at bay. The horror filling the whole of his chest like some monstrous, weighty parasite, now writhed and squirmed.

          "You say that like I should be grateful," he said, his voice shaking. "I've been fighting since I was small. I don't think I want to do it anymore."

          There was a small amount of pressure on his leg. Circe had crept across the room, perched on the couch and placed a hand on his kneecap. Harry felt the spot begin to burn.

          "I'm sorry for what's happened," she whispered. "And everything that's going to happen. I thought I had it terribly but I've never had to fight for my life, I've just been running from it. I bet I've come across as a real brat."

          She inhaled a deep breath, rib cage feeling more brittle than ever, almost concave.

          "I do like you, Harry ..."

          She broke off; she could hear footsteps coming down the staircase. Who had decided to go for a stroll at almost one o'clock in the morning?

          It was Ron. Dressed in his maroon paisley pyjamas, Ron stopped dead facing Circe across the room, and looked around. His curious eyes landed on Harry, on his rosy cheeks, on his messy hair. He audibly gulped and took a step backwards.

          Harry immediately said, "It's not what it looks like."

          "I just wondered where you—" Ron broke off. "Nothing. I'm going back to bed."

          "It's all right, Weasley, we're finished," Circe said, in a voice that was clearly as natural as she could make it. "Lovely pyjamas, by the way."

          Ron folded his arms across his chest, his face reddening with embarrassment.

          "Coming, Harry?" he asked hoarsely.

          "Yeah," said Harry. "In a minute. I'll just clear this up."

          He indicated the smashed bowl on the floor. Ron nodded and disappeared upstairs, leaving Harry and Circe in an uncomfortable silence which settled over the common room like an unwelcome layer of frost.

          Harry muttered, "Reparo," pointing his wand at the broken pieces of china. They flew back together, good as new, but there was no returning the Murtlap essence to the bowl.

          Circe was slowly edging towards the girls' dormitories. By the hem of her oversized top, Harry caught sight of her upper thigh and quickly forced himself to look away, feeling ashamed that he'd obliged that moment of weakness.

          "Hey, wait—"

          He hurried over and took her two hands in his. She was, he realised, great to hold hands with. When he held hands with Cho, her hand died on him, or else she thought she had to keep moving her hand all the time, as if she was afraid she'd bore him. Circe was different; he wasn't worried whether his hand was sweaty or not.

          "You keep saying I'm chosen," he noted. "What for?"

          She said honestly, "I think you're meant to save the world."

         "Help me, then."

📿 𝕹ote.

poor enyo, poor circe. the next chapter will be enyo-centric as this fic kind of follows circe's pov only and i think to understand a lot of what comes next we need to get inside enyo's head - mostly because her life is happening 'off screen' at the moment. her date with michael's especially important to her arc. circe's kind of an unreliable narrator in that way because we only see what she sees, but more on that later...