Armelle loved Saturday morning breakfast. She could sleep in until whenever she pleased and still amble up to the Great Hall and pile her plate with eggs and kippers without having to worry about being late for class. This deliciously relaxed portion of the day made even the busiest of weeks seem like days long past.
But unlike most Saturdays, today she had something that she needed to do. Her first ever tutoring session with Ruby was that night and she needed to be prepared. After browsing through all her Care of Magical Creatures text books, she had decided that their first lesson should be hands on. Kane was meeting her at the edge of the forest in half an hour to help look for a fairy nest.
Swallowing her last bit of scrambled eggs, she looked up to see Riddle and Avery enter the Great Hall. Quickly, she finished her orange juice, picked up her bag, and left.
She was not afraid of Tom, exactly. She was, after all, a fellow Slytherin, and had known him for six years. She just wanted to avoid another encounter; she was not scared now, but she was nervous to refuse him again.
On her way across the Entrance Hall, Armelle saw her eldest sister, Cordelia, and her brother, Bran, at the foot of the staircase. She crossed the hall to meet them.
“Where are you two headed off to?” she asked suspiciously.
Cordelia’s arms were laden with parchment and Armelle could see the obvious, lumpy signs of filched food stuffed down the front of Bran’s robes.
“Bran, Shaula and I are meeting up to write matching letters to mum,” Cordelia explained.
Armelle gave her a confused look.
“So one of us doesn’t let something bad slip and make her go mad with nerves,” Cordelia clarified.
Armelle nodded. “Makes sense.”
“Care to join us?” Bran asked, shifting under the bulk of his concealed snacks.
“Can’t,” she said, shaking her head. “I have some very important and admirable business to attend to.”
“I’m sure,” Bran snorted, as if he could not believe anything she would be doing could be important or admirable.
Armelle was slightly hurt by this reaction, but she did her best not to show it. “I do! I am a prefect, remember?” She tapped the badge pinned to her chest.
“Oh!” Cordelia realized aloud. “You’re starting your tutoring tonight.” She took a moment to rummage in her bag and produced a large, glossy book. She handed it to Armelle.
Armelle looked at the cover. “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them?”
Cordelia smiled. “The newest addition. You should borrow it for your first session.”
“Wow, thanks! I’ll bring it back when I’m done.”
“Just don’t dog-ear the pages,” Cordelia said sternly, always a Ravenclaw.
“We’ve got to go and meet Shaula,” Bran interrupted. “Sure you don’t want to come?”
She shook her head. “And that food better not be stolen from the kitchens!” she called after them halfheartedly as she set off towards the doors.
Armelle did not see her brother or sisters very often during the school year. They were all younger than her and in separate houses. During the summer holidays they got along as well as siblings could be expected to, but while at Hogwarts… she could feel the eyes of her sister’s friends linger on her for too long while they spoke, as if they didn’t feel she should be there. How had she gotten such a bad reputation just for being in Slytherin? She was a tutor and a prefect (though getting paid to be one and slacking off on her duties for the other)!
The chilly fall wind buffeted her cloak with searching fingers, hoping for a way in. She pulled her cloak around her as she made her way towards the forest. It was a nice enough day, and the trees would provide some shelter from the wind.
Once under the shadow of the forest, she unpacked a small birdcage that she had borrowed from Shaula and her wand and waited for Kane. After a couple of minutes she could see his slouched outline bobbing towards her from across the grounds. Years of being told off by her mother for not sitting up straight had instilled an irritation over bad posture within her.
“Hurry up!” she called to him. “It’s cold out here.”
“What’s the matter, Armelle?” he asked as he arrived at the forest’s edge. “Too scared to wait here by yourself?”
She shot him a dirty look as they advanced into the forest, holding their wands aloft to spot any nests. As Kane knew, she did not particularly like the forest with all its mysterious stories and nighttime noises, and it made her uncomfortable to even be at the edge of it.
She stared up into the branches of a tall fir tree. “I think I see one up there,” she said, tucking the cage under her arm. “Give me a leg up.”
Kane raised his eyebrows at her. “You’re going to climb it?”
“Well I’m certainly not going to let you climb it. You’d only fall out and break something, and I’m not going to be the one to carry you all the way up to the hospital wing.”
He shrugged. “I’m sure the branches will cushion your fall.” He smirked, but hoisted her up onto the lower branches nevertheless. She would have to climb further up to see if there was really a nest there.
“Armelle?”
“Yeah?” she grunted, pulling herself onto a higher branch.
“Have you, um, been talking to Riddle lately?” His muffled voice floated up to her through the branches, sounding a little anxious.
She abruptly stopped inching along the branch at the mention of Riddle’s name. “Ah, not really,” she managed slowly. “Why?” She had not told him about the incident in the library.
“Oh, no reason, really.”
Although she knew that was not exactly true, it helped her relax long enough to identify the nest as a bird’s and climb back down.
Armelle hopped down from the last branch, landing in front of Kane. “You wouldn’t ask me that for no reason, Kane,” she said, wiping the sap from her hands.
He led the way to the next tree. “Well, he was asking me about you this morning is all.”
Again, Armelle stopped. “What about me?” she asked sharply.
Kane shrugged, not noticing the nervous look on her face. “Your family, how long we’d been friends…” He was obviously confused about the nature of these questions, but Armelle suspected that his friendship and admiration of Tom prevented him from any kind of serious suspicion.
Her family? Why would he want to know about that? “Well, what did you say?”
“I told him your family’s strictly pure-blood, that your mam’s a librarian and your da’s a Ministry big wig. Nothing anybody doesn’t already know.”
Armelle was confused. “Oh.”
Kane stuck her with an inquisitive look. “Why would Riddle want to know about any of that, Armelle? It’s not like he fancies you or anything.”
Slowly, she told him about Tom’s request.
Now she was worried.
--
Armelle stood at the foot of the marble staircase in the warmly lit Entrance Hall, waiting. The covered bird cage, now containing several disgruntled fairies, was tucked under her arm and there was a squirmy feeling in her stomach. She was actually a little nervous about this.
She had never actually been able to offer academic help to anyone before; Kane was too bright to need assistance with any of his schoolwork, and even if he did, she probably wouldn’t be able to help. What if she was rubbish at teaching?
Ruby appeared through a wide passage on the left of the hall, looking much more nervous than Armelle felt. This helped put Armelle at ease; one of them, at least, had to be confident, and since she was positive Ruby would not be stepping up to the challenge, it was her job to make it seem like she knew what she was doing.
“Hallo, Ruby,” she greeted, perhaps a little too confidently. Ruby looked startled.
“Hi, Armelle...” Ruby eyed the cage warily. “Um, what’s in there?”
“You’ll see in a minute,” Armelle said with a smile. “Professor Mei said we could use his classroom.”
They set off up the staircase towards the second floor. Armelle cast around for a safe conversation subject to put Ruby at ease.
“So, you like Arithmancy?” She hoped this didn’t sound too forced or awkward.
Ruby’s small face broke into a wide smile. “Oh, it’s my favorite subject by far. Professor Boone told me I could even have a career in it after Hogwarts!”
“Lucky you,” Armelle chuckled, encouraged by Ruby’s obvious enthusiasm. “I got so frustrated with it last year that I threw my book in the fire.”
Ruby’s eyes widened like saucers. “Really?”
Armelle nodded solemnly; it had not been one of her finer moments. “Once I calmed down a bit I got it out with a pair of tongs. It was hardly even burnt.”
As they turned down the corridor, Armelle continued to ask Ruby about her favorite aspects of the class. This seemed to keep her significantly less nervous than she usually would be around Armelle, and Armelle was beginning to get the feeling that she and Ruby would get along very well.
They stopped outside the open door to the Charm’s classroom. Armelle, noticing that her shoelace was trailing on the floor, handed the cage to Ruby and bent down to tie it.
The sound of footsteps hitting the stone floor echoed down the corridor towards them. Armelle looked up from her shoelace to see two people walking towards them, deep in conversation. They were Tom Riddle and Professor Dippet.
Riddle smiled at her in a very disconcerting way when he saw her looking, as he continued down the corridor with the Headmaster. When they had passed out of sight, Armelle ushered Ruby into the classroom and shut the door firmly, resisting the urge to lock it.