Chapter Thirteen: Betrayed
The next morning when Tzipporah awoke, she sat up in bed, closed her eyes, and prayed. She prayed for her father, hidden in Vienna; for Rosa’s mother, imprisoned in Nurmengard; and especially for Millie, whose intolerant fury seemed to have been strengthened by Tzipporah’s new friendship with Edward. Adonai, keep us all safe, she thought. It feels as though nobody is safe anymore.
“Where were you after supper last night, Zippie?” Millie asked as she combed her fiery hair. “Clarice and I waited for you in the library for ages.”
Tzipporah stopped buttoning her jacket and tried to think of an excuse. I can’t tell Millie I spent the whole evening with Edward, she’s livid enough as it is. So what do I say?
“Zip? You alright?” Clarice looked curiously at her friend’s torn expression.
“I’m just hungry, is all.”
“Let’s go to breakfast, then,” Millie said, “I’m starved.” Glad to have avoided an interrogation, Tzipporah followed her friends down the spiral staircase and into the common room.
Almost immediately Tzipporah knew something was wrong. The common room, usually so loud late on a Saturday morning, was crowded but eerily quiet. The silence had that odd quality of a conversation quickly terminated when the person whom it is about enters the room. Tzipporah looked around at her fellow Gryffindors, dread weighing her down like a stone. None of them would meet her eyes.
Catching sight of Fonzie Jurgen sitting in a nearby armchair, Tzipporah hurried over.
“Fonzie, why’s everyone so quiet?” she asked in a whisper, not wanting to disturb the silence. To her dismay, Fonzie lurched away from her, scrambling to the edge of his seat and looking petrified.
“Keep away!” he screeched, his skin milk-white behind his freckles. “Don’t touch me! And don’t take out your horns!”
“My what?” Tzipporah gasped, incredulous. “Fonzie, what is going on?”
“Don’t you know, Jew?” said a brittle voice behind her.
Tzipporah spun around and found herself facing a pair of fourth-year boys with leering smiles. They were a good three heads taller than her, and had their wands pointing at Tzipporah’s head. She wasn’t surprised when one began to speak in German.
“So, little Jew, thought you’d just come to Hogwarts and hide what you are? Thought you’d blend right in with us good Christians, did you? Well now the secret’s out, scum, and I’m gonna teach you to keep to your place! Fodius!”
Pain cut down Tzipporah’s cheek as the Stinging Hex swiped across her face, leaving the skin blotchy and red. Anger boiled in the pit of her stomach, but beneath that stewed terror. How did everyone find out my secret?
The Gryffindors around the room began to move when they saw the hex hit Tzipporah full in the face, whether to help or harm her she didn’t know. Not waiting to find out, she drew her own wand and screamed “Stupefy!”
Her first attacker was blasted off his feet and fell in a heap by the fireplace. Before his mate or the Gryffindors had time to look back at her, Tzipporah had escaped through the portrait hole, Clarice and Millie right behind her.
“Who told them?” Tzipporah panted once she and her friends had found an empty classroom to hide in. “Who was it?”
Clarice and Millie exchanged anxious looks.
“Well you know it wasn’t us, Zippie,” Millie said loudly. “Even though you have been acting like a prat, hanging out with that Potter all month, I’d never be a traitor. I’d never tell your secret.”
I’d never tell your secret. I will never tell your secret.
“Edward,” Tzipporah breathed. “It was Edward.”
Millie stared at her friend, exasperated. “You told him? Even after I warned you? Oh, Zippie!”
Tzipporah shook her head, forcing back the tears that prickled underneath her eyelids. I can’t believe he would do something like that…but no one else knew.
“What do I do?” she asked helplessly. “Everyone will have heard by now.”
“Zippie, they can’t all react like that!” said Clarice, looking angry. “We didn’t! And I’ll bet most of the Gryffindors didn’t feel the same about you as those two fourth-years. More people will be on your side than you think.”
But Tzipporah shook her head. “Look at Fonzie. You both know how fond he was of me before, and then he heard what I am and…” She could not bear to reiterate the awful superstitions about Jews he had screeched at her. He really thought I had hidden horns? Foolish, idiot boy.
“Let’s go to Dumbledore,” advised Millie. “He’s the Deputy Headmaster, after all. He’ll know what to do.”
“He’d probably bring me to Headmaster Dippet, and I’ll get sent home,” said Tzipporah thoughtlessly, then she flinched as she remembered the letter she had received from her father the day before. I don’t even have a home to go back to.
“Zippie? What is it?” Clarice asked, watching as the misery on her friend's face deepened. “There can’t be…worse news?”
“My father’s in hiding now. The Nazis are in Vienna. So if I have to leave, I’ve got nowhere to go.”
“He will not make you leave Hogwarts!” Millie insisted. “Dumbledore won’t let him! Come on, Zippie, we’re going right now to figure things out. We can’t hide in this classroom forever.”
The truth of this statement prompted Tzipporah to follow her friends into the corridor and down a staircase to Dumbledore’s office. As they walked, Clarice and Millie shot anxious looks at Tzipporah’s pale face, but did not say a word. They knew it would do no good.
The three girls made their way down to the first floor, Millie leading the way while Clarice kept watch behind them. Tzipporah couldn’t help trembling as they passed the doors to the great hall. They must all know by now, she thought desperately, listening for the sound of her name over the chatter. Even if Dumbledore doesn’t care that I’m Jewish, they won’t want me around causing trouble. They’ll make me leave just to keep the peace.
“Dumbledore’s office is just around that corner,” Millie said, pointing down the long corridor. “Do you want us to come with you?”
“She’s not going anywhere.”
With a plunging of her heart Tzipporah turned slowly to face the speaker. Half a dozen students stood before her, their wands raised lazily, wide grins on their faces. The gang was comprised of three Ravenclaws, a Hufflepuff, and the two Gryffindor boys Tzipporah had fought in the common room less than an hour ago. Despite their different houses they had the appearance of a strongly bonded unit, which was further intensified by the fact that they all had blond hair, blue eyes, or both.
Tzipporah didn’t need to look for the swastikas tattooed on their arms or sewn onto their wristbands to know that these were Muggleborn German witches and wizards, trained by the Hitler Youth long before they had ever known about Hogwarts. Chin raised in futile defiance, Tzipporah made to reach for the cypress wand in her pocket.
“I don’t think so, little Jew!”
A Ravenclaw girl disarmed Tzipporah with a mad laugh, snatching her wand from the air the way a toad gulps a fly. Tzipporah felt Millie and Clarice move protectively to either side of her, clutching their own wands. Clarice was shaking very slightly, but Millie looked raring to go.
“Keep out of this, you two,” sneered the tall, broad-faced Hufflepuff boy. “You needn’t be hurt for the sake of this scum, if you’re good Christians.”
Millie spat at the boy’s boot; his sneer turning to a grimace, he shied away angrily.
“Have it your way, then. Crucio!”
Tzipporah closed her eyes, expecting the pain to come, but it never did. Instead, she heard a loud grunt and a rumbling thud as something hit the far wall, and felt the wooshing of a spell as it missed her curls by a wandswidth.
“Run!”
That voice was achingly familiar. Tzipporah opened her eyes.
Edward Potter was dueling the two Gryffindors at once, while Prescott Longbottom and Phyllis Morely battled the Hufflepuff. Farther down the corridor, Rosa and Annika had ganged up on the Ravenclaws, and a dozen other students Tzipporah didn’t know were sprinting down the corridor to join the battle. Eager to help, Tzipporah grabbed her wand from where it had fallen on the floor and aimed at one of the Gryffindor boys.
“Tzipporah, you have to run!”
Tzipporah turned in time to see Edward crash to the ground, hit by a jet of red light. A deep rage filled Tzipporah, blossoming out from the center of her chest, until she felt she would burn with the force of it. How dare they attack my friends? How dare they attack Edward?
“Wingardium leviosa!”
The force of Tzipporah’s spell sent both of the Gryffindor boys shooting into the air, where they cracked their heads on the ceiling and went limp. At almost the same time Millie, Clarice, and Prescott Longbottom managed to Stun the Ravenclaw girl. The rest of the Ravenclaws and the Hufflepuff, catching sight of their fallen comrades, spun on their heels and fled up the corridor, cursing in German as they ran.
Tzipporah got to her knees where Edward lay, feeling for a heartbeat. To her immense relief, she found that he was breathing normally, though he would not wake.
“I think he’s been Stunned,” said Prescott calmly, wiping blood from a cut on his cheek. “Don’t worry. Madam Pomfrey will sort him out.”
“Zip, you all right?” Millie asked; in spite of her torn robes and mussed hair, she could not have looked more pleased with herself. “We really showed those damn Nazis, didn’t we?”
“It would seem that you have.”
Dumbledore’s soft, solemn voice made them all jump. In the small portion of her mind not occupied by worries about Edward, Tzipporah wondered what was going to become of her now.
“Miss Stein, if I might see you in my office, please?” Dumbledore gestured to a door a few paces down the hallway. “Mr. Potter will be well taken care of, I can assure you. Come along.”
Not daring to look up into those piercing blue eyes, Tzipporah followed Dumbledore into his office, leaving her friends, rescuers, and the fallen behind her in the silent corridor.
Challah and Pumpkin Juice by Calico
Chapter Endnotes: Unfortunately, there are rediculous stereotypes out there about Jews having horns, etc., and they still exist today. I wish I could say I made it up for fictional purposes, but I didn't. Coming up next chapter is some, but not all, closure to this story. Then there'll be the epilogue, in which a lot of things I've been hinting at will become clear.