HA 11b: Deceit

HIM AGAIN: Chapter 11: Moving On - Deceit

Albus sagged against the stone wall outside the office and passed a hand over his eyes, trying to stop trembling. Every second in the office in front of Minerva had been like entering some sort of hellish underworld; first there had been the unpleasant jolt of discovering that he had absent-mindedly written the Transfiguration essay as if it was a theory paper for the Transfiguration Journal, then there had been the awful spectacle of Minerva’s anger - let alone the sheer pain of the her very presence! He had been torn between keeping the secret for the sake of the preserved happiness of others, blurting the truth out for his own happiness, and simply not wanting Minerva to think Brian was dishonest - the last resolution having failed miserably. There had been no easy excuse for the brilliance of the essay, no way of making Brian the apple of Minerva’s eye in defiance of what could only be seen as cheating. Now his old friend thought him an awful, deceitful pupil!

Albus had only ever been the subject of Minerva’s temper once or twice, and those few times had allowed him to be armed with some sort of defence. It was not her temper that had frightened him and had made Brian’s body shake so, but the misery of rejection and contempt from someone he cared about, someone whom the Sorting Hat felt he had to sort out his heart about. How he longed to just shout out the truth-!

The stones of the wall behind him dug coldly into his back. Harry’s reaction to a mere location had led to some sort of panic attack. Seventeen, nearly eighteen years had passed - how could his return be welcome, even to his old friends, when all his memory could arouse were thoughts of war and death? The widening gap of time between each Order reunion was testimony to the fact that people just wanted to move on. Harry and Ginny had deserved a real son, and deceit was necessary to maintain their joy in peace. Minerva also deserved peace; there was no unselfish reason to break it.

Anger made him thump a fist against the wall. Did he really value his happiness over Minerva’s? And how could he have been so stupid as to slip up so badly, to write a paper so far above First-Year level? Tricking Minerva required a greater attention to detail than with most people; he was quite certain the Headmistress had picked up on his badly suppressed urge to call her by her name. He had nearly ruined the lie of so many years just because of his blind enthusiasm for a subject and his inability to separate the past from the present. Look before you leap, old boy. One thing was certain: what he’d told Minerva was true; it really wouldn’t happen again.

“Brian? Mate, are you all right?”

Eric was walking towards him, staring at him worriedly.

“What happened? Did Professor Read shout at you or something? Why?”

Albus blinked and tried to calm himself down. “I got sent to the Headmistress’s office.”

Eric’s eyes widened. “Why? What happened?”

“They think I cheated on the essay. It was horrible; she shouted at me for an eternity and gave me detention on Saturday.”

The other boy gave a sympathetic groan, and then looked at him narrowly. “You didn’t, did you?”

“Of course not!”

“Don’t worry, I believe you,” said Eric, holding up his hands as if Albus had just pointed his wand at him. He beamed. “I bet it’s because you’re the cleverest student ever to come here and they just can’t believe their eyes.”

“Eric, it’s only been four days,” Albus laughed, determined to destroy the mistaken image of Brian-the-Boffin. “It could be downhill from here.” It will be, he thought, still furious at himself.

“I don’t think so. Come on - Herbology’s been cancelled, apparently Sprout has to do something to one of her plants today because it got damaged somehow. Let’s go back to the Common Room.”

Albus nodded and followed Eric back through the corridors and tapestries, calming himself down on the way. His situation couldn’t be helped; one could only hope that the deception held and that Minerva did not detest Brian as much as it had seemed. There was no point in reducing his persona to a quivering wreck in the meantime.

The Fat Lady grudgingly swung aside after demanding why they weren’t in lessons and the warmth of the Common Room engulfed them. The boys made their inconspicuous way over to the side of the room, away from where a group of Sixth-Years sat alternately studying and chatting in one of their frees. Albus was about to flop down as a realistically exhausted eleven-year-old having just ‘had his first blood’ in the Headmistress’s office, when one of the older boys yelled at him.

“Oi!” called Benjamin Stubbs, a tall and burly sixteen-year-old, from his seat near the fire. The Hogwarts Headmaster would probably have termed him to be a ‘well-grown lad;’ to young Brian he was a tower. “You there!”

“Me?” squeaked Eric.

“No, you! Squirt with the mad orange hair!”

“Benjamin!” scolded Abigail from her seat next to him.

“Well he is. Nearly Headless Nick wants a word with you-”

“Yes, he does,” agreed the ghost as he suddenly floated through the opposite wall, causing a gathering of painted inebriated wizards to cry out in disgust. Nick glided towards Albus whilst Eric leant forward in curiosity.

“Is it true that you’re Nearly Headless because-” he began.

“Later, later,” said Nick testily, eyeing Albus up and down. “The Bloody Baron’s looking for you,” he announced, raising one delicate ghostly eyebrow. “I have absolutely no idea why; he wouldn’t say. I hope you haven’t been getting into trouble, young Mr Potter - though it does run in the family, I must say. But you don’t look like your father - by Merlin, I swear you look like someone else, though whom I cannot say.”

Albus stiffened. The Gryffindor ghost had been an acquaintance of his true teenage self during his first time at Hogwarts; evidently some distant memory had been triggered. He was about to make some claim to the effect that Ginny had told him that he was a throwback to one of the old Prewetts on Molly’s side - an idea Nick would be unable to contradict as Molly’s brothers had been the first in their family to go to Hogwarts, when the ghost started and looked at him still more strangely.

“I say! I think I remember now! You look like a boy I used to know over a hundred years back! A funny madcap who kept on wearing a silly Muggle hat just because it wasn’t allowed. Got on the wrong side of the then Headmaster, I seem to recall. Goodness, I wish I could remember what his name was - I believe he turned out to be someone important-”

“What a bizarre coincidence,” Albus interrupted. “It’s strange how things happen like that.”

“Yeah,” said Eric helpfully. “Once, someone told me that I was identical down to the last freckle to their great-uncle as a boy, which is very strange because I’m not related to them at all!”

“Well, anyway… The Bloody Baron. I wouldn’t get mixed up with him if I were you. He said something about wanting to catch you before your lessons tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Albus replied. “So long as he’s reasonable about whatever it is.”

Nearly Headless Nick and Erin both looked at him with odd expressions. “You’re very confident for your age,” the ghost commented at last. “Don’t become rash now!”