Come the Revolution, Chapter Four, Part Three
Tracey Davis - Slytherin, Muggleborn and Essex girl. This is her story, and the story of a revolution in the making.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four, Part One
Chapter Four, Part Two
Part One
Part Two
Chapter 4 - Part Three
As her temper cooled slightly it became clear to Tracey that McGonagall had actually been quite lenient with her under the circumstances. After cheeking a teacher like that she was lucky she hadn’t been hauled up in front of the Headmaster and expelled on the spot. The Deputy Headmistress had also shrewdly left her a way out. All she had to do was say she had written to her mother and it would all be over. All through the week she wavered but in the end her resolve held firm. The whole chain of events, culminating in the argument with McGonagall, had left a deep impression on her. She was tired of trying to fit in and this was the only way she had of expressing her feelings. She went to her detention, said nothing, and was told to come back the following week at 9.00 am on the dot.
Guided by the soft light coming from her wand tip, Tracey crept down the passageway and pushed open the first door she came to. The familiar rank smell of the Quidditch changing rooms assaulted her nostrils and she grimaced. Not the ideal place to spend a Saturday night but it was the only place she could think of where she could be guaranteed solitude. Sitting down on one of the benches, she took the tiny bottle of Ogden’s from her pocket, enlarged it, conjured up a glass and poured a generous measure. She took a cautious sip, and gasped. That stuff is strong. Emboldened, she took a larger swig, and then another. Leaning back, she closed her eyes. It wasn’t the detention and everything associated with it that had finally driven her to drinking alone in the Quidditch changing rooms. It was something that had happened just hours before.
Finally released from detention, she had been making her weary way back to her dorm. She was tired, filthy and longing for a hot bath. McGonagall had turned her over to Filch for the day and the sadistic bastard had made her clean the boy’s toilets without magic. Tracey shuddered at the memory. As she descended the stairs to the Slytherin dungeons she spotted two familiar figures in the dim light of the corridor below. Daphne and Milicent, their backs to her, were too deep in conversation to notice her approach. They were standing just by the hidden door to the Slytherin common room. Tracey stopped half way down the steps. The sound of their voices was magnified by the vaulted stone and she could hear clearly what they were saying. A part of her wanted to turn and go back but curiosity kept her where she was.
“ - try talking to Tracey. She could help.” Millicent was saying.
“Milly, don’t be ridiculous. Tracey Davis is a social climber who dropped me like a hot potato the moment I stopped being of use to her. She didn’t even give me a chance to tell her what was really going on. My friendship meant nothing to her. All she wanted was the chance to make connections. I wouldn’t ask her for help if she was the last person on earth.”
“But -“ Millicent was a lot more assertive than Tracey had ever imagined. She wasn’t going to give up just yet.
“I don’t want to talk about it any more.” Daphne sounded extremely tired.
“Alright, but I still think you’re making a mistake.” Millicent was as stubborn as her friend. One of them whispered the password, the door swung open and they both disappeared through it, leaving Tracey standing stock still staring after them. She felt sick. Was that what Daphne thought of her? The tiny voice of conscience whispered that, despite her hurt at Daphne’s perceived rejection, her reaction had been somewhat over the top and there might actually be a grain of truth in Daphne’s view. There had been times when the thought had occurred to her that knowing people like the Greengasses might prove useful in the future.
But Daph was the one who dropped me. Or did she? If she’d waited just a few seconds, let Daphne talk, she might have found out what was really going on. And now - Oh, God. Tears stinging her eyes, Tracey turned sharply, ran up the stairs and hid herself in the seclusion of the girl’s toilets where she gave way to a storm of passionate weeping.
Tracey blinked as the changing-room door swung open and light spilled in from the corridor. The figure silhouetted in the doorway paused.
“Sorry. I didn’t -.”
“Lumos.” The light illuminated the face of the last person she expected to find sneaking into the Quidditch changing rooms after curfew. “Granger?” The Gryffindor looked awful. The bushy brown hair stuck up in all directions, her face was blotchy and her eyes red and swollen.
“I’ll just go.”
Here was someone who looked even more miserable than she felt and sod the Gryffindor/Slytherin divide. “You look like you could do with a drink.” She held up the bottle of firewhisky.
“I don’t -“ Granger began, then checked herself. She sat next to Tracey, who conjured up a glass, filled it, and held it out. Granger took it with a nod of thanks. She sipped cautiously, choked, then broke into a violent fit of coughing. Tracey thumped her hard on the back. “Phew!”
“It takes more than a half of shandy to drown your sorrows. Go on, get it down your neck.” Granger gave her a faint smile, took another sip, then another, and finally a hearty gulp. “What brings you here? Thought you’d be celebrating with the rest of them, seeing as your boyfriend’s the hero of the hour. You could hear them singing Weasley is our King clear to the Forbidden Forest.”
“He isn’t my boyfriend.”
“Had a row?”
Granger took another gulp of firewhisky. “We’re just friends.”
“I thought you’d asked him to Slughorn’s party?”
“Who said I had?” Granger snapped.
“Parkinson overheard Parvati Patil going on about it in Charms.” Granger looked sick.
“That means everyone knows by now.”
“’They don’t call her the Daily Prophet for nothing.”
“Oh God.” Granger drained her glass. Tracey obligingly filled it. “I want to kill him. Bastard.” It didn’t take NEWT standard Divination to predict that the expected finale of the Granger and Weasley saga would be ever so slightly postponed.
“What happened?”
“I’d rather not talk about it,” Granger replied, stiffly.
“Suit yourself.”
Granger eventually broke the awkward silence. “Yes, I did ask him to Slughorn’s party. I’ve been waiting for ages for him to pluck up the courage to - you know - and I thought if I broke the ice, one thing might lead to another. Then it all went wrong. He started being really mean to me for no reason, and tonight he was snogging Lavender Brown.”
“Cleansweep Seven?”
“What?”
With a mental roll of the eyes, Tracey explained. “Cleansweep Seven, like the school brooms because -“
“- anyone can ride her!” Granger finished. Her face crumpled, and Tracey braced herself for a flood of tears. Instead the Gryffindor dissolved into giggles, Tracey found herself joining in, and soon they were helpless with laughter.
Granger wiped her eyes. “Poor stupid Ron.”
“Don’t know what you see in him.”
Granger considered this with drunken gravitas. “Neither do I, really.”
“You’re the brightest witch in the school. While him - thick as two short planks.”
“And the emo - emotional range of a teaspoon,” Granger added with careful precision.
“That big?” This set them off again. As the laughter subsided, they clinked glasses and drained them. Refilling the glasses, Tracey commented, “You can do better.”
Granger snorted. “Davis, please.” The accompanying gesture encompassed the top of her bushy head to the tips of her sensible shoes.
“Bollocks! You just don’t try. Except sometimes. Yule Ball, fourth year.”
“Too much trouble. Ron likes me without all that messing about. Mind you, so did Victor.” Granger sounded as though the thought had only just struck her.
“See? You can do better than Weasley.”
“S’right. Fuck Ron Weasley.”
“No thanks!” That triggered more laughter. Pulling herself together, Tracey caught Granger studying her with one of those sudden flashes of clarity only achieved by the totally pissed.
“What about you?”
Now it was Tracey’s turn to say, I’d rather not talk about it thanks, but things had gone too far. “Fair question. Got a couple of hours?”
It may not have been a couple of hours but unburdening herself still took quite a long time. She kept losing the thread, having to skip back and fill in bits and getting the whole thing with Daphne mixed up with the knicker business. All the while the level in the bottle of firewhisky kept dropping. Both girls were slowing down by now and they’d passed from the manic stage to the deeply reflective where everything you say seems to have a really world shattering significance.
“Thing is,” Granger pronounced solemnly when Tracey had finally run out of steam. “Thing is, you’ve got two separate issues here. Have to deal with them one at a time.”
Tracey stared gloomily into the depths of her glass. “But how?”
Granger leaned forward. “OK, let’s take the knicker thing first. You’re right, s’ridiculous. You’re fed up with it, I’m fed up with it and I bet a lot of the other girls are fed up with it, too. We’ve got to get together and do something about it.” She was gesturing wildly to illustrate her point and firewhisky sloshed down the front of her robes but she appeared not to notice.
Tracey blinked owlishly, trying to focus. “You mean direct action? Like Twyford Down? Occupy the Headmaster’s office? Stage a sit-in in the Great Hall?”
“Well, maybe not quite like that but we could all make our feelings clear. Start a petition to change the school rules. Hold a demonstration.”
“You know, Granger, you might just have something there.” Tracey could feel her enthusiasm for the idea growing as she turned it over in her mind, only to feel deflated as another thought struck her. “Wouldn’t work. Nobody’d listen to me. M’a Slytherin. Bloody pariah.”
“Of course they would!” Granger was on fire now. “Everyone knows about how you stood up to Malfoy and beat him in a duel. They think you’re a heroine.”
“They do?” Tracey was flattered, despite herself.
“Yes. You’ve got to use that. Strike while the iron’s hot. I’ll help.”
Tracey’s natural caution asserted itself. “I’ll think about it, OK?” She sighed. “Right now I’m more bothered about Daphne.”
“Talk to her.”
“You going to talk to Weasley?”
Granger shook her head violently and drained the last of her firewhisky. “Not bloody likely.”
“Same here. I wouldn’t know what to say.” The faint sound of chiming bells outside caught her attention. “Bloody hell, it’s midnight, Granger. We’d better be getting back.”
Afterwards, Tracey never remembered how she got back to her dorm. She had vague disjointed flashes of trying several times to shrink the half-empty bottle of firewhisky and vanish the glasses before she finally succeeded, then supporting a staggering Granger as they weaved their way across the courtyard. The last thing she remembered was flinging herself on her own bed before a swirling darkness claimed her and she passed out.
***