Come the Revolution
Having got myself one of these livejournal thingies I suppose I should actually write something in it from time to time. That’s the trouble with it all. You start reading something. You laugh at other people’s comments. You think of something witty you’d like to contribute. Bingo!! Next thing you know you’re creating an account just so that you can make your own. After that it’s downhill all the way. It’s what my other half has always called my anorak tendency, conveniently ignoring his own predilection for activities such as re-reading all Jasper Fforde’s novels back to back for the fifth time. And he’s a carp fisherman, for God’s sake. How much more anorak-like can you get?
I've started a new fanfic. Chapter one seems as good a way to christen my infant LJ as any.
Well, here we go.
Summary
Davis, Tracey (1980 - ) Instigator of the so-called “Mudblood Revolt” (see Muggle Rights Movement) …
Encyclopaedia Britannica (Wizarding Edition, 2010)
Tracey Davis - Slytherin, Muggleborn and Essex girl. This is her story, and the story of a revolution in the making.
...
Disclaimer: J K Rowling owns this universe. I'm just playing in it.
Rating: R
1. The Summer of Her Discontent
"Revolution begins with the self."
Toni Cade Bambara
The summer of 1996 was disappointing, anyone will tell you that. Ask them why and most people will look confused. Point out that records show the summer of 1996 was fairly normal as these things go, and they’ll glaze over. The more strong-minded will probably comment that it only seemed that way because the two previous summers were exceptional. Talk about average sunshine and rainfall figures and even they will change the subject. By then you’ll most likely have a pounding headache. A couple of aspirin and a long lie down in a darkened room will suddenly seem very inviting. Don’t even contemplate trying to get to the bottom of it all, as the only people who really know aren’t telling - ever.
Be that as it may, the universal conviction that the weather that year was more than usually unreliable had led to Davis Brothers’ annual staff party being held indoors - just in case. As a result, on one of the hottest days of the year, all the doors and windows of the hall hired for the occasion were flung wide open, and a good proportion of the party had spilled out into the car park. Shrieks of laughter and general babble competed with the strains of Come on Eileen played at maximum volume by an over-enthusiastic DJ, much to the annoyance of the neighbours.
Inside, the hall was like a furnace. Coloured lights played over the sweating bodies of the small band of diehards who had decided that “party” and “dancing” just had to go together, despite the heat. Others sat at the tables clustered round the dance-floor attempting to make desultory conversation over the racket. Pete and George Davis, the firm’s founders and joint owners, wandered from table to table trying to make sure they “had a few words” with everybody. It was getting more difficult each year. What had started in the mid-70s with Pete, George and a clapped-out white van was now a medium-sized builders employing fifty people with more work than it could handle.
A slightly-built teenage girl with black hair cut into a neat pageboy wormed her way through the crowd round the trestle table that served as an improvised bar and snaked out a hand to grab a can of larger from the crate behind it. The barman, a stocky dark-haired man in his early twenties wearing a T-shirt in a lurid shade of yellow, emblazoned with the legend Windsurfers Do It Standing Up, wasn’t having any of that.
“Put it down, Trace. Your Mum’ll nail my goolies to the floor if she catches you drinking.”
The girl batted her eyelashes at him and pouted. “Aww, Gary, don’t be like that. I’ll make sure she doesn’t see. Honest.” For a heartbeat the barman stood firm but there is only so much doe-eyed pleading one man can take. After all, Tracey was his favourite cousin.
“Go on, then.” He turned to answer a shout from the other end of the bar. “Alright mate! Coming! Now bugger off before I change my mind.”
The girl flashed him a wide smile. “Thanks, Gazza, you’re a star.” She seized her prize, and vanished before he could answer.
Mission accomplished, Tracey looked round cautiously and breathed a sigh of relief as she realised her parents were safely occupied. Pete was talking fishing with Colm Riordan, the firm’s Quantity Surveyor, judging by their animated expressions. Her mother, Janet, was dutifully trying to make conversation with Colm’s elderly mother, who was ninety if she was a day and as deaf as a post to boot. Nevertheless, Tracey judged it wise to make sure she and her can of lager were as far away from Mum as possible. She headed for the main door.
Aunt Tanya’s raucous smoke-roughened laugh cut through the noise. As usual her aunt was the centre of a lively group. As she passed them she could see Tanya was in the middle of one of her stories, punctuating it with gestures that made the smoke from her cigarette billow. George, sitting next to her, flung his head back and laughed as hard as the rest of them at its climax. He’d probably heard them all a million times before but he still seemed to find them funny. Tracey sighed. If only Mum were more like Aunt Tanya. Aunt Tanya wouldn’t get her knickers in a twist about one can of lager.
As she emerged into the open air, Tracey spotted her elder brother, Darren, showing off his new toy to an admiring group of younger men and boys. The gleaming silver Suzuki motorbike had been a combined eighteenth birthday/getting-into-Uni present from Mum and Dad, and he rode it everywhere - even to the corner shop to get a pint of milk. Prat - what does he think he looks like? Not that she was envious, of course not. Not in the slightest.
Gripped by a sudden wave of desolation, she looked down at the can in her hand. What use was contraband booze if there was no one to share it with? Her thoughts went automatically to Daphne Greengrass, her best friend. As if Daph would be caught dead drinking anything so Muggle a snide little voice commented. Assuming she even knew what it was in the first place. Don’t knock it, Tracey told herself bitterly. In Daphne’s case, ignorance was bliss. At least she felt she belonged. Tracey, by contrast, inhabited two worlds and felt at home in neither. It was all beginning to get to her.
Tracey Davis was a witch, something which had come as an unwelcome surprise to her mother, and no surprise at all to her Dad. When the owl arrived bearing its mysterious letter three weeks after her eleventh birthday it was as if he’d been expecting it all along. Mum had tried to pass it off as some kind of nasty practical joke but he’d shaken his head.
“Ma always said something like this might happen, Jan.” Lurking in the hall, as close as she possibly dared to the not-quite-closed-kitchen door, Tracey could almost see the look on her mother’s face.
“Oh Pete, really. You don’t believe all that stuff, do you?” Mum sounded like she was addressing a recalcitrant five year old in her reception class at the local primary. It was clear from the tone of her father’s reply that he thought so, too, and resented it.
“My Ma was no liar, if that’s what you mean.” Tracey winced. Conversations about Grandma Kathleen always seemed to end up turning into full-blown rows.
Mum, obviously realising she was on dodgy ground, backed down slightly. “I never said she was, Pete. But even you have to admit she was a bit confused towards the end.”
Her father’s voice was sharp. “She had lung cancer, not a brain tumour. She was as lucid as you or me.” Her mother started to say something but he cut in firmly, “The letter says their Deputy Headmistress is coming here tomorrow to explain everything. We’ll hear her out, and then its up to Tracey.”
“Are you mad?” her mother snapped. “If it’s true, and, no, I’m not saying I believe that, but if it is true this will affect her whole life. She’s only eleven, for goodness’ sake! You can’t possibly let an eleven-year-old child -“ Tracey decided it was time she intervened before things got out of hand. She flung open the door.
“Mum, Dad!! Am I really a witch??” They turned to look at her, Dad with that mask of forced calm he always wore when trouble was brewing, and Mum tight-lipped and flushed. They exchanged a look, and Tracey could sense her father had the upper hand for the moment. He smiled.
“We don’t know, sweetheart. We’ll find out tomorrow when -“ he glanced down at the letter lying on the table between them, “- Professor McGonagall gets here. Go and put this somewhere safe, then we’d better be getting you to school.” He handed her the letter, and she hurried off to her room but not before registering the look on her mother’s face that said very clearly she would do her level best to make sure Tracey never set foot inside this Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Unfortunately for Mum she was fighting a losing battle from the moment Professor McGonagall transfigured her best willow-pattern teapot into a rather confused tabby cat with a leisurely flick of her wand.
Tracey, who had been watching, wide-eyed, demanded, “Could I do that, too?”
The angular Scottish witch eyed her severely over the top of her black-rimmed spectacles. “If you pay attention to your studies and practice hard, yes, Miss Davis, eventually you may be able to, as you put it, do that, too.”
Tracey’s mother opened her mouth but her attention was diverted to the cat, which had flown off the table, scattering the tea-things in its wake, and hidden behind the sofa. By the time order was restored, courtesy of Professor McGonagall, and teapot, tea-things and the rest of the Davis living room restored to its usual pristine state, it seemed somehow to have been agreed that Tracey would be starting at Hogwarts on the first of September. In the five years since there had been times when she’d almost wished that Mum had fought a little harder to keep her in what she still insisted on calling the “real” world.
Tracey came back to the present with a start as a burst of laughter from a group of girls to her left broke her reverie. Gary’s sister Michelle was holding court in the midst of a group of other Spice-Girl wannabees that included her younger sister, Dawn. Assuming a casual air, Tracey sauntered over to them, and addressed her elder cousin.
“’Lo ‘Shell.” The lively conversation immediately stopped dead, and the rest of the group turned to Michelle expectantly. Out of the corner of her eye Tracey spotted Dawn sniggering.
“Hi Trace.” Michelle’s tone was distinctly lukewarm. Pretending not to notice, Tracey ploughed on.
“Good holiday?”
“Yeah, OK.”
“Where’d you go?”
“Turkey.” A nasty smile crept over Michelle’s face. “Sunned ourselves all day, partied all night, didn’t we Dor?” Her sister nodded eagerly. Their group of sycophants waited breathlessly for the other shoe to drop. “Pays to be dim, sometimes, Trace.” She addressed the group, gesturing to Tracey as she spoke. “Tracey here’s the brains of the family. Goes to some posh boarding school in the wilds of Scotland, studies all term, then works all though the holidays. Such a high flyer that she’s got no life. Now me,” she continued with a cruel but accurate imitation of Tracey’s Mum, “not really the academic type, am I, Trace? But I get to enjoy my holidays and snog lots of fit Turkish blokes while the only thing miss no-mates here has a meaningful relationship with is her books.”
That’s because I’m not an utter slag who’ll shag anything that moves, Tracey thought, furious but she forced herself to smile and say, “Yeah, well, maybe I want something better than a job stacking shelves in Tesco. Plenty of time for meaningful relationships later.” She turned and walked away before her cousin had a chance to think of a comeback. Behind her she heard Michelle say something in a derisive tone, and the whole group burst out laughing.
Silly bitch, Tracey chided herself as she slipped in through the side door of the hall into the dark and deserted kitchen, what else did you expect? Torn between bursting into tears and hexing the lot of them into next Wednesday, she relieved her feelings by slamming the door, tearing open the can of lager and taking an almighty swig. Hoisting herself onto the kitchen counter, she settled down to brood in peace.
She couldn’t really blame Michelle. She got on alright with Uncle George and Gary but even though she and Michelle were the same age they’d never exactly been close. Tanya and Janet made that impossible. Tanya thought Janet a “stuck up cow with too much of a good opinion of herself” and Janet, in turn, regarded Tanya as “common as muck”. Tracey going off to Hogwarts had just put the tin lid on it.
Supposing we’d told them the truth? Tracey found herself giggling hysterically at the thought. Look, ‘Shell, the reason I have to spend all the holidays studying is ‘cos I’m a witch and my school doesn’t teach the same stuff as yours, and Mum tries to teach me at home ‘cos she insists that I need a “proper” education and she says Transfiguration and Charms and Potions and all the stuff I do isn’t going to be a lot of use to me in the “real” world and she’s worried about what will happen to me if I don’t pass my OWLs and NEWTs and can’t get a job in the Wizarding World -“
Oh, yeah, I can just see that happening. She knew that some of Hogwarts’ muggleborn students had said bugger the International Statute of Secrecy and told their whole extended family. She just couldn’t see herself doing it. For a start Mum would have a fit, and it didn’t take a lot of imagination to guess her cousin’s likely reaction, either.
It wouldn’t really matter if she felt welcome in the Wizarding World. Other muggleborns at Hogwarts seemed to have made the transition quite easily. Some of them spent more time with the families of their wizard-born friends than they did with their own. Look at Hermione Granger. Did that girl ever go home? From snippets Tracey had picked up in Arithmancy Granger seemed to practically live with the Weasleys these days. But Granger wasn’t in Slytherin. Granger was a Gryffindor, and that made it so much easier for her.
For the umpteenth time Tracey directed a litany of curses at the bloody Sorting Hat for having seen fit to place her, a muggleborn, in the bastion of pureblood supremacy that was Slytherin house. Not that she’d known that at the time, of course.
“Hmm,” the little voice in her head had said thoughtfully as the hat settled on her head, “interesting - determination, ambition, and a dash of cunning. No doubt at all about where I should put you, I’m afraid.” Before Tracey had time to ask why it sounded so regretful, the rip in its brim opened wide and the hat roared, “SLYTHERIN!”
As Tracey walked nervously towards the Slytherin table she couldn’t help noticing that the cheers that greeted the announcement of her sorting into Slytherin were half-hearted. Others such as “Greengrass, Daphne” and “Zabini, Blaise” got far more cheers than she had. She didn’t have to wonder why for long. Enlightenment came soon enough in the shape of Draco-Bloody-Purest-of-the-Pure-Malfoy.
Struggling through the press of bodies following the fifth-year Slytherin prefects out of the Great Hall, she was only dimly aware of treading on someone’s foot.
“Watch where you’re going!” A slim, effete-looking blonde boy of her age had stopped short, glaring at her.
“I’m sorry, I just didn’t see you there.” She didn’t much like his tone of voice but good manners cost nothing, as her mother was fond of saying. His expression morphed from angry hauteur to an unpleasant sneer at the sound of her accent.
“Merlin! So they’re putting mudbloods in Salazar’s own house these days. My father was right, this place has definitely gone to the dogs.” The last remark was addressed to his companions, a pair of hulking bruisers who ought to have been wearing T-shirts with Mindless Thug written on them judging by their identical vacant expressions. There was a beat as their tiny brains processed the blonde boy’s words, then they snickered in unison. Tracey had no idea what mudblood meant but she could recognise an insult when she heard one.
“There’s no need to get nasty about it. I said I was sorry, didn’t I?”
The blonde boy’s answer was a malevolent smirk. “Oh, really? Well, I don’t think you’re quite sorry enough, Mudblood.” He must have made some signal she couldn’t see to the two heavies, who were on her with a speed that belied their bulk. One of them grabbed her arm, and twisted it painfully behind her back, while the other, grinning, aimed a punch at the side of her head.
If they’d used magic she would have been lost, but fisticuffs were something she understood only too well, courtesy of her older brother and his mates. She jabbed the one holding her in the stomach with the elbow of her free arm and simultaneously kneed the other in the groin. They both went down howling with pain. Livid, she flew towards the blonde boy, nails ready to cause some serious damage to his face. She had his measure now. He was a bully, and no Davis worth their salt had ever let a bully get away with it.
Judging by his reaction, he was also a coward. “Don’t you dare touch me, you filthy creature!” Backing away from her, voice now high with fear, he pulled out a wand and pointed it at her.
“Expelliarmus!” His wand shot out of his hand, and past Tracey, nearly taking her eye out in the process. She turned, to find a girl she vaguely recognised as another of the first-years holding the boy’s wand, her own pointed at him in a manner that announced she meant business.
“Are you alright?” the other girl enquired.
Tracey nodded trying to seem matter-of-fact. “Yeah, fine.” Her arm hurt like crazy but she wasn’t going to let the little shit and his gorillas know that. Show weakness now, and they’d never leave her alone.
The newcomer turned her attention to the blonde boy. “Really, Malfoy. These two,“ she gestured to the two bruisers picking themselves up off the floor, “might be several ingredients short of a potion but you ought to know better.”
Malfoy had recovered his composure and the sneer was back. “Just making sure the mudblood knows her place; not that it’s any of your business, Greengrass.”
The girl raised her eyes to heaven. “Oh, honestly. She has as much right as we do to be here. My father -”
“Don’t start quoting your muggle-loving blood-traitor father at me,” Malfoy spat. “It’s people like him, encouraging them to marry into good families, giving them jobs that should go to our kind -“
“My father doesn’t have anything to be ashamed of.” Flushed with anger, the girl took a step towards him until their noses were almost touching. “Unlike the fathers of some people I could name who had to buy their way out of Azkaban.”
Malfoy’s voice was shrill. “Give me my wand back and say that again.” The girl thrust it at him.
“Go on, try it.” She took a step back, wand at the ready.
For a heartbeat the little group was poised on the edge of violence. Malfoy stood, wand in hand, torn between cowardice and anger while his opponent waited for his first move, the light of battle in her eyes. The Mindless Thugs readied themselves, looking to Malfoy for a lead. Tracey felt sick with fear. Things were about to get very nasty and there was nothing she could do to help.
“What’s going on here?” A sharp voice cut into the moment like a knife. One of the prefects was striding back down the corridor towards them.
Malfoy opened his mouth, then shut it again as his adversary replied, smoothly, “Malfoy dropped his wand. I was just giving it back to him.” She looked up at the older boy with an expression of wide-eyed innocence.
The prefect gave Malfoy a knowing smile. “Careless of you. Look after it in future.” Tracey chuckled inwardly. It was obvious that Malfoy was livid but he couldn’t contradict the Greengrass girl without incriminating himself. Tracey guessed that magical schools took as dim a view of fighting in the corridors as Muggle ones.
“Yes, sir.”
The prefect nodded. “Go on, get a move on. I don’t want to have to take all night getting you lot settled.” He watched while Malfoy stalked off down the corridor with his henchmen trailing after him, then followed, glancing back over his shoulder at the two girls. “Come on, you two.” Tracey and the other girl stopped for a moment, sizing each other up. Tracey’s rescuer stuck out her hand.
“Hello. Daphne Greengrass.” She was a couple of inches taller than Tracey, who was small for her age, with light blonde hair gathered into a thick plait reaching to the small of her back and slightly protuberant pale-blue eyes.
Tracey grasped the outstretched hand. “Tracey Davis. Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. Glad to help.” They fell into step with each other, hurrying to catch up with the rest of the group.
Tracey’s mind was awash with a myriad questions. Okay, so Malfoy was an aspiring school bully looking for a victim to start him on his chosen career but there was more to it than that. What was it he had called her? “Look, can I ask you something?” Daphne nodded. Encouraged by the other girl’s friendly demeanour, Tracey carried on. “Why did Malfoy call me a mudblood? What does it mean?”
Daphne looked embarrassed. “It’s a nasty way of referring to someone whose parents are muggles.” Noticing Tracey’s confused expression, she added, “That’s the term we use for non-magical people. Malfoy and his sort regard people with non magical parents as having “dirty blood”, which is rubbish, of course.”
Tracey was assaulted by a vivid memory of an Asian kid at her primary school cowering in the midst of a group of older white boys all chanting, “Paki! Paki! Dirty Paki!” The terrified little girl’s ordeal had lasted until one of the teachers finally noticed what was going on and broke it up. That hadn’t been the last of it, though, and her parents had eventually moved her to another school.
“Do a lot of people think like Malfoy?”
“Not really. It’s mostly people from the older wizarding families. Unfortunately, Slytherin tends to attract them because Salazar Slytherin was opposed to letting muggleborns into our world and wanted to exclude them from Hogwarts.”
Oh brilliant. “But you don’t think that way.”
“Of course not!” Daphne looked indignant. “Daddy says all that blood purity stuff is complete and utter rot. Most of the people who work for him are muggleborn or half-blood. He says that most purebloods don’t know what a fair day’s work is, and if he had to run his business with an all-pureblood workforce he’d have gone bankrupt years ago.” Tracey nodded, only half-listening. Her mind kept coming back to that moment of complete helplessness in the corridor as Daphne and Malfoy squared off. Malfoy didn’t strike her as stupid. Next time he’d use magic.
“That stuff you did with Malfoy’s wand. Expe - Expe -“
“Expelliarmus,” Daphne supplied, helpfully.
“Yeah, that. Where did you learn to do it?”
“Daddy taught me.“
“Could I do it?”
“Don’t you -“ Daphne stopped, and went rather pink. “Oh, of course, you wouldn’t, would you? Would you like me to show you?”
“Please.” Tracey breathed an inward sigh of relief. With Daphne’s help she’d be able to take Malfoy if he tried anything.
Daphne was obviously relishing her position as instructor. “There are several other good defensive spells I can show you as well. We’ll start tomorrow.”
By now they’d reached the door of the Slytherin common room, and stood in a huddle with the other first-years, waiting. The prefects briefed them each separately on the password and watched as one by one they successfully passed through the stone door into the dungeons. Tracey and Daphne were the last to go through. On entering, they found the others had split into two distinct groups congregating at opposite ends of the enormous fireplace. At the centre of the group to the left Malfoy and a girl with blonde curly hair and a pug nose were whispering together. They paused, shooting Tracey and Daphne unpleasant looks. The two girls exchanged a glance, and made towards the group on the right.
It was a relief to Tracey to find out that she wasn’t the only muggleborn in Slytherin. Their group contained two others, both boys, and several muggleborn second and third years sidled up to introduce themselves during the evening. The rest of the first year group were half-bloods, a couple of whom Daphne already knew; a hulking girl called Millicent Bulstrode, and a boy named Moon. By bedtime Tracey was feeling happier. She, Daphne and Millicent were heading down the corridor in the direction of what they had been reliably informed were the girls’ dormitories, when the pug-nosed blonde emerged from a room on the right hand side of the corridor and planted herself in front of them, arms crossed.
“Bulstrode,” she jerked her head in the direction of the room behind her. “You’re with us. Greengrass, you and your mudblood, friend are over there.” She pointed to the half-open door opposite. Out of the corner of her eye Tracey could see three four-poster beds. She turned to Millicent.
“There’s room with us if you prefer. Isn’t there Daph?”
Wincing slightly at this unaccustomed mangling of her name, Daphne smiled at Millicent. “Of course there is.”
“Your choice, Bulstrode,” Pug-Nose sneered. “If you really want to cozy up to the blood-traitors and filthy mudbloods go right ahead.”
“Oh grow up, Parkinson.” Daphne matched Pug-Nose sneer for sneer. “Milly?”
Without meeting their eyes, Millicent Bulstrode shouldered past them and disappeared behind Parkinson who shut the door in their faces with a triumphant smirk. For a second a look of surprised misery flitted across Daphne’s face before it was replaced with an expression of determined cheerfulness.
“Let’s go and take a look at our dorm, shall we?”
Despite the inauspicious beginning, or perhaps because of it, the friendship between the two girls had flourished and developed over the years into an edifice of mutual support. They studied together, practiced defence, traded secrets and shared jokes in the privacy of their dorm room after lights out. By the end of the first year the muggleborn protégé had caught up with her pureblood mentor and was correcting her Transfiguration essays. By the time year two drew to a close they were neck and neck. As year three finished Tracey was ahead of Daphne in some subjects. The other girl, generous by nature, did not appear to resent this at all.
The hostility of Malfoy and his tight-knit clique had only served to strengthen their bond. After a failed attempt at ambush had left him with a very fetching pair of rabbit ears Malfoy confined himself mainly to verbal harassment. This should have come as something of a relief but unfortunately he was both vicious and inventive. Tracey and Daphne became wearily familiar with running the gauntlet of his group while turning a deaf ear to their insults. It was no consolation that they were not the only targets. Harry Potter and his sidekicks could retire to the Gryffindor Tower whenever they fancied a break. They had nowhere to run to.
Their respective families might have provided a holiday-time respite from all the tension but proved to be part of the problem instead. Tracey winced as she recalled her first visit to Daphne’s home.
“And what exactly does your father do, Tracey?” Mrs Greengrass enquired with a gracious smile, pointing her wand at the teapot, which promptly rose and poured itself. Tracey shifted uncomfortably in the spindly-legged gilt-framed chair. She’d known this one was coming, and she wasn’t at all sure her hostess was going to like the answer. She reached out warily and grabbed the fragile porcelain cup and saucer now hovering in front of her.
“He’s a builder, Mrs Greengrass.” She realised, cringing, that she sounded exactly like her mother when she was on the phone to one of Dad’s snottier customers. To cover her embarrassment she took a sip of tea, and winced as the scalding-hot liquid burned the inside of her mouth.
“Really?” Daphne’s mother’s smile didn’t so much freeze as congeal slowly on her face. “How - interesting.” The sideways glance she gave Daphne spoke volumes. Daphne, colouring, looked at the floor, while Tracey groped desperately for something, anything, to say to break the awkward silence. The cavalry, in the rotund, bespectacled shape of Daphne’s father, arrived just in the nick of time.
“Sorry I’m late, dear,” he boomed, breezing through the door and tossing his cloak at the house-elf scuttering along behind him. He stopped in front of Tracey, beaming, and stuck out his hand. “So this is Tracey, eh? Delighted to make your acquaintance my dear, delighted.” With an overwhelming sense of relief, Tracey grasped the outstretched hand and did her best to echo his sentiments. Here was an ally in the enemy camp. The feeling was short-lived. In his own way, Daphne’s father was every bit as bad as her mother. It didn’t take long to realise that what interested him was having a bona-fide muggleborn around to demonstrate his liberal credentials on social occasions. By the end of the week she could recite his opening gambit in her sleep.
“Come and meet my daughter’s friend. Smashing girl.” Lowering his voice slightly, “Muggleborn, you know but sharp as a whip. Just goes to show that I’m quite right about all this blood purity rot.“ By the end of her fortnight’s stay, Tracey began to prefer his wife’s straightforward hostility to Mr Greengrass’s patronising friendliness. Every subsequent visit was the same - Daphne’s father effusive and Daphne’s mother distantly polite, or sometimes simply distant.
She had to hand it to them, though, at least Daphne’s parents tried. Her mother refused to have anything at all to do with the world that made up such a big part of her daughter’s life. Tracey’s request that they reciprocate Daphne’s invitation at Christmas was met with a flat refusal.
“Christmas is for family, Tracey. We see little enough of you as it is. I’m sure Daphne’s parents feel the same way.” Tracey’s father met her pleading look with an almost infinitesimal shake of the head. Later, as they sat together on the patio waiting for Janet to call them in for Sunday lunch, Tracey couldn’t resist trying once more to enlist his help in persuading her mother to change her mind. Her father ruffled her hair ruefully.
“Cheer up, Muppet; it’s not the end of the world. Your Mum misses you, and it’s only natural she should want you all to herself at Christmas. If Daphne’s any kind of friend she’ll understand.” So that was that.
Daphne reacted with the same strained cheerfulness with which she’d handled Millicent Bulstrode’s defection. She cut off Tracey’s stammered explanation with the hasty assurance that of course she quite understood and it didn’t matter at all. The topic was quickly dropped and never referred to again. From time to time Tracey found herself feeling relieved it had turned out that way. Daphne might claim to be a champion of muggleborn rights but she didn’t seem to have anything good at all to say about actual muggles. Tracey found the thought of exposing Pete and Janet to Daphne’s patronising attitude in their own home a bit too much to take.
Besides, events were conspiring to push the two halves of her divided life further apart each year. Hogwarts might be the safest place in the Wizarding World but that wasn’t saying much. First year hadn’t been too bad, except for the troll in the girls’ toilets. Second year was much, much worse. As the unseen Heir of Slytherin stalked the halls and all the muggleborn in the place looked nervously over their shoulders, Tracey, terrified an indignant Janet would somehow descend on the school and whisk her home, took to censoring her letters. Throughout that terrible year she concocted soothing lies for her mother while trying not to notice that her best friend was subtly watching her back for her. The memory of Daphne’s insistence on upping their defence practices to twice a week and her ever more creative excuses for going everywhere with Tracey evoked a mixture of irritation and gratitude. Compared to that, third year had been almost peaceful, if you didn’t count Sirius Black’s attempt to murder Harry Potter, of course.
Tracey sighed. Bloody Potter. The boy was a magnet for trouble with the survival instincts of a lemming. From all that malarkey with the Philosopher’s Stone to somehow managing to get himself in the Triwizard Tournament despite being under age, he was always in the thick of it. Still, what else could you expect from someone who had allegedly defeated the greatest dark wizard of recent times while just a toddler? He was merely living up to his PR. Which was not exactly fun for anyone with the bad luck to be at school with him. Getting caught in the crossfire was an occupational hazard.
Fourth year had been quite a lot of fun to begin with. The excitement surrounding the Triwizard Tournament had provided a welcome break from school routine. The Yule Ball had been a high point as Tracey had, much to her delight, been asked to go by a handsome Ravenclaw she’d fancied for ages. Even Malfoy was too busy baiting Potter to spare much time for harassing Tracey and Daphne. Then Potter had blown the Wizarding World’s fragile peace wide open by disappearing at the end of the third task, only to return with the lifeless body of Cedric Diggory claiming that He Who Must Not Be Named was back. It didn’t matter if you believed him or not. Nothing was ever going to be the same again.
That became abundantly clear to Tracey a few weeks after the Triwizard debacle when she made her annual visit to the Greengrasses. Daphne’s father was a lot less effusive, and Daphne’s mother positively glacial. On the last evening she’d had enough of the dinner-party conversations hastily broken off as she approached and the meaningful glances that passed over her head. Pleading a headache, she left the table as soon as she decently could and escaped into the garden. With her unerring ability for being in exactly the wrong place at the wrong time she found herself eavesdropping on a conversation which she was sure neither of the parties involved would have been happy to have her overhear.
The crunch of footsteps on the gravel path and the sound of voices alerted her to their approach as she sat on a bench at one end of the covered walk that ran round the formal garden. She recognised one of then immediately; Mr Greengrass. Swearing inwardly she slipped behind a particularly hideous specimen of ornamental topiary, and concealed herself in its shadow. The last thing she needed right now was an encounter with Daphne’s father. As they came within earshot it was obvious the two men were in the middle of a heated argument.
“Dammit Archie, you promised me a board position!” Memory supplied a name to go with the voice. Tonks - Ted Tonks. Medium height, balding, northern accent. One of the small number of tonight’s guests who hadn’t looked at her as if she’d just crawled out from under a stone.
“I did my best for you Ted, old man, but the board felt we needed fresh blood; someone who would take a different perspective on things.” This was Mr Greengrass at his most unctuous, positively dripping with insincere regret.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Look it’s a temporary setback, that’s all. Merryweather’s due to retire in a few months, and perhaps -“
“I’ve been hearing the same thing for the past ten years,” Tonks interrupted, voice edged with controlled anger. “You’re not going to get round me with that one this time.”
“Ted, as your friend, I give you my word -“
“When you offered me this job you gave me your word I was two to three years away from a directorship. Now, as my friend, you can tell me what’s really going on. Never mind all that bollocks about fresh perspectives.”
There was a stony pause. When he finally spoke, the tone of Mr Greengrass’s voice said all either of his hearers needed to know. “Well, we - that is, the board, or rather, certain members - Ted, in the time you’ve been with us you’ve not exactly endeared yourself to the more - ah - conservative elements, you have to admit that.”
“I did what I had to.”
“Quite, and you had my full support but in the current climate it was felt by some that promoting you to the board might be seen as, well, provocative by certain people with connections in the Ministry.”
“Like my dear brother-in-law.” Tonks’ tone had gone from red hot to ice cold in seconds.
“Malfoy does have a lot of influence and the Ministry is one of our biggest customers.”
“Malfoy,” Tonks hissed, “has been investigated by the Ministry more times than I’ve had hot dinners but somehow always seems to get away with it. Malfoy is a slippery bastard with good connections, and some of those connections just happen to sit on our board, right?”
“I wouldn’t exactly put it like that.”
“No, you wouldn’t. What happened to Slytherin solidarity, eh? All Slytherins are equal but some are more equal than others, is that it? When push comes to shove you sodding purebloods always stick together.”
“Ted, be reasonable. Now is not the time to antagonise someone as powerful as Malfoy.” Mr Greengrass lowered his voice, and Tracey just barely caught the next words. “If the rumours are true and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named really is back - ”
“You bloody hypocrite. We’ve just secured the biggest contract this company’s ever handled in the face of stiff competition because of the work my people put in but still I’m the only General Manager without a seat on the board, and my staff, muggleborns to a man, are paid a fraction of what they’re worth. My resignation will be on your desk first thing tomorrow. Goodnight.” As the sound of his footsteps receded, Daphne’s father sat down heavily on the bench and let loose a flood of invective which would have given Daphne’s mother a fit of the vapours had she been there to hear it.
That conversation returned to haunt Tracey at intervals throughout her fifth year. Whenever she thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse, they did. As she trudged from class to class in an Umbridge-dominated Malfoy-ridden school she frequently wondered why she bothered, as all OWLs and NEWTS were likely to earn her was a lifetime of exploitation. When the Weasley twins left Hogwarts in a blaze of glory she wished she could go too. What stopped her were the frequent dark dreams in which Janet, Pete and Darren lay lifeless at her feet while the Dark Mark burned in the night sky.
The Ministry of Magic might deny it but as soon as she read the article in the Quibbler Tracey had known instinctively that Potter was telling the truth. Judging by the gossip flying round the school a lot of other people thought the same way. Several who had previously been reasonably friendly, including the Ravenclaw who’d taken her to the Yule Ball, started giving her the cold shoulder. In the Slytherin common room Malfoy and his cronies no longer bothered to keep up the pretence of innocent respectability. Loud conversations about what would happen to the mudbloods and blood-traitors when the Dark Lord took over were the least of it. Tracey hung on grimly, only too well aware that, given Malfoy’s capacity to hold a grudge, she and her family were probably close to the top of his hit list. When the brown stuff hit the cooling device that bunch of bumbling incompetents running the Ministry would be no bloody help. It was down to her to keep her family safe, and to do that she needed advanced defensive magic.
Tracey let out a bitter laugh. What advanced defensive magic? Thanks to her early lessons with Daphne, innate ability and continual practice she was near the top of her year in Defence. Bloody good thing, too, as that cow Umbridge had made sure they got no practical training whatsoever this year. Come to think of it, the only halfway decent Defence teacher they’d had in the past five years was Lupin, and he turned out to be a werewolf. That wasn’t the point, though. At least at Hogwarts she could get access to books and try and teach herself what she needed to know.
Even the welcome news that Umbridge had been sacked and Malfoy’s father was on his way to Azkaban had failed to lift her depression. And all thanks to Potter - why am I not surprised? As rumours of prophecy and midnight duels in the Ministry of Magic itself raced round the school, she focussed on just one thing. Potter had been running a clandestine Defence club. Potter was top of the year in Defence. Potter had escaped the Dark Lord five times in his short life. Potter had knowledge she needed. If she weren’t in bloody Slytherin she could have been part of the DA. Her whole life since the age of eleven had been cursed. She had almost reached her lowest ebb.
The coup de grace came from the last quarter she would have expected. She had been dimly aware that Daphne had become rather withdrawn and distant of late but, preoccupied with her own fears, she had put it down to the pressure of their forthcoming OWLs. They were relaxing by the lake the day after their final exam when the blow fell. Tracey stretched, luxuriating in the feeling of having nothing to do and nowhere to go for once.
“Bloody hell, I’m glad that’s over. When we get our results we’ll talk your Dad into taking us to Diagon Alley and you can treat me one of Fortescue’s triple-decker Dragon’s Blood Chocolate Specials, OK?” She felt suddenly light-hearted at the thought of lingering in the late summer sun together over an ice cream before checking out the latest fashions in Madam Malkin’s just like last year and the year before. They always took it in turns to buy and she expected Daphne to remind her, laughing, that it was her turn this time. It was a game they’d played since first year. There was an awkward silence and Daphne looked away.
“I don’t - that is - We’re probably going abroad this year.”
The sunlight in Tracey’s heart vanished without trace. She knew instantly what was going on. She’d become a liability and she was being shunted aside with the cool polite ruthlessness that all these pureblood tossers were so bloody good at. Well, she was buggered if she was going to let them see it hurt.
She shrugged, and replied with false brightness. “Shame. Well, there’s always Hogsmeade next term.”
“I’ll write.” Daphne’s voice was a choked whisper.
Something deep inside Tracey snapped. “You do that. I might even write back - if I’m not too busy.” To forestall any further conversation she stood abruptly, and marched off, ignoring Daphne’s attempts to call her back. She had avoided Daphne as much as she could, and kept up a barrier of frozen silence when she couldn’t, until term ended and she could retreat home to lick her wounds.
The DJ had bought down the pace with a medley of slow numbers, and the party was obviously winding up. Tracey checked her watch. It was nearly eleven and they had to be packed up and out by twelve. She slid off the counter, tossed the empty can in the rubbish bin and prepared to face the world. Tomorrow she would receive her OWL results. Tomorrow, she had decided, she would tell her parents that she wasn’t going back to Hogwarts. Mum ought to be pleased - when she’d come to terms with the fact that her only daughter had been systematically lying to her for the last four years, that was. Tracey felt like hell. She hated the idea of living without magic and she felt like a fish out of water in the Muggle world but it had to be better than what she’d put up with for the past five years - or so she kept telling herself.
She had it all worked out. Much of her summer had been spent checking the relevant legislation and she was sure she was on safe ground. All she had to do to earn her permanent passport into the Wizarding World was take her OWLs - as far as she could tell, she didn’t even actually have to pass any. There was nothing that said she had to go back for NEWTs, as long as her parents gave her formal permission to leave school. Once she reached seventeen she was free and clear, an adult by wizarding law and nobody could deprive her of her wand. She hoped it would be out of sight and out of mind for Malfoy and his little crew of Death-Eaters-in-Training but if it wasn’t at least she wouldn’t be an obliviated sitting duck.
That left her with the problem of deciding what to do with the rest of her life. Despite her brave words to Michelle it looked as if she’d be lucky to be taken on as a Tesco shelf-stacker. She’d have a lot of catching up to do in the educational stakes before she had any chance of a decent Muggle job. That should take care of the next five years, then. As Tracey slipped out of the kitchen the music came to an end and the DJ bid farewell to the assembled company. Her mother spotted her, and bustled over, tearing a handful of black sacks from a roll in her hand as she did so.
“There you are! I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Come on love, let’s get on with it. We haven’t got much time.” She thrust the handful of rubbish sacks at Tracey and rushed off to accost another member of her volunteer clean up crew. The house lights flickered on and the sorry business of clearing up began. Resignedly, Tracey began to collect rubbish from the tables. One of the downsides of being the boss’s daughter was an automatic sign up to this unwelcome task. If you were the boss’s son, on the other hand, things were quite different. Darren always seemed to have some excuse for getting out of these things and her mother always accepted them without question.
One by one Janet’s band of conscripts seized the opportunity to slip away when her back was turned, to that by the time the chairs had been stacked, glasses washed, floors swept and rubbish put out only the members of the Davis family remained. George, who had given up any pretence of helping fairly early on, had grabbed Tanya round the waist and was hauling her round the room in circles, to the accompaniment of a tuneless rendition of The Lady in Red with half the words missing. Tanya, roaring with laughter, beat his chest ineffectually with her fists.
“Gerroff you stupid lump. You’re pissed out of your tiny little mind!” Their daughters shared a look and mimed sticking fingers down throat at each other, while Gary rolling his eyes, held out his hand.
“Give us the keys, Dad. You’re in no state to drive.”
George let go of Tanya and, staggering slightly, turned his attention to his son. “Bollocks. Sober as a judge I am. It’s only ten minutes.”
“You’re not driving in that state, Georgie boy,” his wife said firmly, nimbly extracting a bunch of keys from his pocket and throwing them to Gary, who caught them one-handed, “and I’m over the limit. Ta, love.”
George scowled at his son. “That,” he said enunciating carefully and waving his arm in the general direction of the car park, “is a brand new Beemer. One scratch, just one scratch -“
“Yeah, yeah,” Gary replied with an exaggerated sigh, pocketing the keys, and turning to his uncle. “Can you take the van for me, Uncle Pete?”
Before Tracey’s Dad could reply her Mum had interrupted sharply. “It’s not still outside in the car park at this time of night? I thought you were going to drop it back at the yard after you’d got the drinks?”
Gary shrugged apologetically. “Mum needed the car this morning, so by the time we got to the cash and carry it was heaving. When we finally got out of there it was too late to take the van back like we’d planned.”
Janet heaved an exasperated sigh. “I told you to go early. It’s Bank Holiday. Let’s just hope nothing’s happened to it. This area isn’t exactly safe, you know.”
“Leave the boy alone, Jan,” Tanya put in. “It’s only a bloody van for God’s sake. It’s insured, isn’t it?” Her mother bristled. It looked as if they were in for another bout of Tanya vs Janet, and Tracey wished she could sink into the floor. Her father put up his hand.
“That’s enough. We’re all tired.” He held out his hand to Gary, who wordlessly passed him the keys.
Struggling to lock the hall door with an ill fitting key, Janet pretended not to notice her brother-in-law waving at her as the BMW sped out of the car park.
“Why they always have to get three sheets to the wind at these dos I will never understand. It’s embarrassing.”
“Come on, Jan,” her father said soothingly. “It’s just a bit of harmless fun.”
“Oh, yes, you would say that but just look at the results. A brand new work’s van left sitting in the car park for the local yobs to have a go at whenever they please, and me left with the thankless task of taking the key back to Mrs Wilson when Tanya said she was going to do it.”
“Why didn’t you say something? I’m sure Gary would’ve taken it if you’d asked.”
“It’s not up to me to ask. She offered.” Tracey could feel the irritation coming off her Dad in waves. Why did Mum always have to whine like that? It got on her nerves, too.
“I’ll do it. You go home and put your feet up. Tracey, go with Mum.”
All the way home Tracey was treated to one of Mum’s full on rants in which the phrases totally lacking in consideration, no help at all and common as muck occurred more than once. Huddled in the passenger seat, Tracey did her best to screen it all out while contemplating her forthcoming task with dread. If Mum got like this about a couple of little things what the hell was she going to be like when Tracey owned up presenting a totally false picture of life at Hogwarts? It didn’t bear thinking about.
They had just sat down in front of the late movie with a cup of tea when the rattle of a diesel engine announced the arrival of Tracey’s Dad. She heard him clattering about in the kitchen, and pretty shortly he came to join them, sinking down on the sofa beside Janet, and putting an arm round her.
“You know, since I’ve got the van, I might as well have a day’s fishing, if it’s alright with you, love.”
Tracey’s Mum leaned her head on his shoulder, and smiled. “Go on, why not. You don’t often get the chance these days. Just try not to wake me, will you? I’m dead beat and I want to have a lie-in for once.” It struck Tracey that her Mum really did look tired out. She always seemed to end up with the lion’s share of the work associated with the party. Tracey experienced a pang of guilt. She’d been too busy with her own affairs to even think of offering to help. Hot on the heels of this thought came a flash of inspiration. Perhaps here lay the solution to her problem.
“Dad, can I come with you?” Her father looked taken aback. When she was a kid she’d sometimes accompanied her father on his fishing trips but adolescent allergy to early mornings had put paid to that around the time she started Hogwarts.
“If you want love. It’ll be early, mind.” Tracey groaned inwardly but the chance was too good to miss. She could explain everything to Dad. He was always much more understanding. Together they could tackle Mum, and then everything would be alright.
As she made her way upstairs her heart felt lighter. She had a plan, and having a plan always made her feel better. Had she paid more attention to Janet’s lessons on English Literature the words of a certain poet might possibly have come to mind.
The best laid plans …
Chapter 2
I've started a new fanfic. Chapter one seems as good a way to christen my infant LJ as any.
Well, here we go.
Summary
Davis, Tracey (1980 - ) Instigator of the so-called “Mudblood Revolt” (see Muggle Rights Movement) …
Encyclopaedia Britannica (Wizarding Edition, 2010)
Tracey Davis - Slytherin, Muggleborn and Essex girl. This is her story, and the story of a revolution in the making.
...
Disclaimer: J K Rowling owns this universe. I'm just playing in it.
Rating: R
1. The Summer of Her Discontent
"Revolution begins with the self."
Toni Cade Bambara
The summer of 1996 was disappointing, anyone will tell you that. Ask them why and most people will look confused. Point out that records show the summer of 1996 was fairly normal as these things go, and they’ll glaze over. The more strong-minded will probably comment that it only seemed that way because the two previous summers were exceptional. Talk about average sunshine and rainfall figures and even they will change the subject. By then you’ll most likely have a pounding headache. A couple of aspirin and a long lie down in a darkened room will suddenly seem very inviting. Don’t even contemplate trying to get to the bottom of it all, as the only people who really know aren’t telling - ever.
Be that as it may, the universal conviction that the weather that year was more than usually unreliable had led to Davis Brothers’ annual staff party being held indoors - just in case. As a result, on one of the hottest days of the year, all the doors and windows of the hall hired for the occasion were flung wide open, and a good proportion of the party had spilled out into the car park. Shrieks of laughter and general babble competed with the strains of Come on Eileen played at maximum volume by an over-enthusiastic DJ, much to the annoyance of the neighbours.
Inside, the hall was like a furnace. Coloured lights played over the sweating bodies of the small band of diehards who had decided that “party” and “dancing” just had to go together, despite the heat. Others sat at the tables clustered round the dance-floor attempting to make desultory conversation over the racket. Pete and George Davis, the firm’s founders and joint owners, wandered from table to table trying to make sure they “had a few words” with everybody. It was getting more difficult each year. What had started in the mid-70s with Pete, George and a clapped-out white van was now a medium-sized builders employing fifty people with more work than it could handle.
A slightly-built teenage girl with black hair cut into a neat pageboy wormed her way through the crowd round the trestle table that served as an improvised bar and snaked out a hand to grab a can of larger from the crate behind it. The barman, a stocky dark-haired man in his early twenties wearing a T-shirt in a lurid shade of yellow, emblazoned with the legend Windsurfers Do It Standing Up, wasn’t having any of that.
“Put it down, Trace. Your Mum’ll nail my goolies to the floor if she catches you drinking.”
The girl batted her eyelashes at him and pouted. “Aww, Gary, don’t be like that. I’ll make sure she doesn’t see. Honest.” For a heartbeat the barman stood firm but there is only so much doe-eyed pleading one man can take. After all, Tracey was his favourite cousin.
“Go on, then.” He turned to answer a shout from the other end of the bar. “Alright mate! Coming! Now bugger off before I change my mind.”
The girl flashed him a wide smile. “Thanks, Gazza, you’re a star.” She seized her prize, and vanished before he could answer.
Mission accomplished, Tracey looked round cautiously and breathed a sigh of relief as she realised her parents were safely occupied. Pete was talking fishing with Colm Riordan, the firm’s Quantity Surveyor, judging by their animated expressions. Her mother, Janet, was dutifully trying to make conversation with Colm’s elderly mother, who was ninety if she was a day and as deaf as a post to boot. Nevertheless, Tracey judged it wise to make sure she and her can of lager were as far away from Mum as possible. She headed for the main door.
Aunt Tanya’s raucous smoke-roughened laugh cut through the noise. As usual her aunt was the centre of a lively group. As she passed them she could see Tanya was in the middle of one of her stories, punctuating it with gestures that made the smoke from her cigarette billow. George, sitting next to her, flung his head back and laughed as hard as the rest of them at its climax. He’d probably heard them all a million times before but he still seemed to find them funny. Tracey sighed. If only Mum were more like Aunt Tanya. Aunt Tanya wouldn’t get her knickers in a twist about one can of lager.
As she emerged into the open air, Tracey spotted her elder brother, Darren, showing off his new toy to an admiring group of younger men and boys. The gleaming silver Suzuki motorbike had been a combined eighteenth birthday/getting-into-Uni present from Mum and Dad, and he rode it everywhere - even to the corner shop to get a pint of milk. Prat - what does he think he looks like? Not that she was envious, of course not. Not in the slightest.
Gripped by a sudden wave of desolation, she looked down at the can in her hand. What use was contraband booze if there was no one to share it with? Her thoughts went automatically to Daphne Greengrass, her best friend. As if Daph would be caught dead drinking anything so Muggle a snide little voice commented. Assuming she even knew what it was in the first place. Don’t knock it, Tracey told herself bitterly. In Daphne’s case, ignorance was bliss. At least she felt she belonged. Tracey, by contrast, inhabited two worlds and felt at home in neither. It was all beginning to get to her.
Tracey Davis was a witch, something which had come as an unwelcome surprise to her mother, and no surprise at all to her Dad. When the owl arrived bearing its mysterious letter three weeks after her eleventh birthday it was as if he’d been expecting it all along. Mum had tried to pass it off as some kind of nasty practical joke but he’d shaken his head.
“Ma always said something like this might happen, Jan.” Lurking in the hall, as close as she possibly dared to the not-quite-closed-kitchen door, Tracey could almost see the look on her mother’s face.
“Oh Pete, really. You don’t believe all that stuff, do you?” Mum sounded like she was addressing a recalcitrant five year old in her reception class at the local primary. It was clear from the tone of her father’s reply that he thought so, too, and resented it.
“My Ma was no liar, if that’s what you mean.” Tracey winced. Conversations about Grandma Kathleen always seemed to end up turning into full-blown rows.
Mum, obviously realising she was on dodgy ground, backed down slightly. “I never said she was, Pete. But even you have to admit she was a bit confused towards the end.”
Her father’s voice was sharp. “She had lung cancer, not a brain tumour. She was as lucid as you or me.” Her mother started to say something but he cut in firmly, “The letter says their Deputy Headmistress is coming here tomorrow to explain everything. We’ll hear her out, and then its up to Tracey.”
“Are you mad?” her mother snapped. “If it’s true, and, no, I’m not saying I believe that, but if it is true this will affect her whole life. She’s only eleven, for goodness’ sake! You can’t possibly let an eleven-year-old child -“ Tracey decided it was time she intervened before things got out of hand. She flung open the door.
“Mum, Dad!! Am I really a witch??” They turned to look at her, Dad with that mask of forced calm he always wore when trouble was brewing, and Mum tight-lipped and flushed. They exchanged a look, and Tracey could sense her father had the upper hand for the moment. He smiled.
“We don’t know, sweetheart. We’ll find out tomorrow when -“ he glanced down at the letter lying on the table between them, “- Professor McGonagall gets here. Go and put this somewhere safe, then we’d better be getting you to school.” He handed her the letter, and she hurried off to her room but not before registering the look on her mother’s face that said very clearly she would do her level best to make sure Tracey never set foot inside this Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Unfortunately for Mum she was fighting a losing battle from the moment Professor McGonagall transfigured her best willow-pattern teapot into a rather confused tabby cat with a leisurely flick of her wand.
Tracey, who had been watching, wide-eyed, demanded, “Could I do that, too?”
The angular Scottish witch eyed her severely over the top of her black-rimmed spectacles. “If you pay attention to your studies and practice hard, yes, Miss Davis, eventually you may be able to, as you put it, do that, too.”
Tracey’s mother opened her mouth but her attention was diverted to the cat, which had flown off the table, scattering the tea-things in its wake, and hidden behind the sofa. By the time order was restored, courtesy of Professor McGonagall, and teapot, tea-things and the rest of the Davis living room restored to its usual pristine state, it seemed somehow to have been agreed that Tracey would be starting at Hogwarts on the first of September. In the five years since there had been times when she’d almost wished that Mum had fought a little harder to keep her in what she still insisted on calling the “real” world.
Tracey came back to the present with a start as a burst of laughter from a group of girls to her left broke her reverie. Gary’s sister Michelle was holding court in the midst of a group of other Spice-Girl wannabees that included her younger sister, Dawn. Assuming a casual air, Tracey sauntered over to them, and addressed her elder cousin.
“’Lo ‘Shell.” The lively conversation immediately stopped dead, and the rest of the group turned to Michelle expectantly. Out of the corner of her eye Tracey spotted Dawn sniggering.
“Hi Trace.” Michelle’s tone was distinctly lukewarm. Pretending not to notice, Tracey ploughed on.
“Good holiday?”
“Yeah, OK.”
“Where’d you go?”
“Turkey.” A nasty smile crept over Michelle’s face. “Sunned ourselves all day, partied all night, didn’t we Dor?” Her sister nodded eagerly. Their group of sycophants waited breathlessly for the other shoe to drop. “Pays to be dim, sometimes, Trace.” She addressed the group, gesturing to Tracey as she spoke. “Tracey here’s the brains of the family. Goes to some posh boarding school in the wilds of Scotland, studies all term, then works all though the holidays. Such a high flyer that she’s got no life. Now me,” she continued with a cruel but accurate imitation of Tracey’s Mum, “not really the academic type, am I, Trace? But I get to enjoy my holidays and snog lots of fit Turkish blokes while the only thing miss no-mates here has a meaningful relationship with is her books.”
That’s because I’m not an utter slag who’ll shag anything that moves, Tracey thought, furious but she forced herself to smile and say, “Yeah, well, maybe I want something better than a job stacking shelves in Tesco. Plenty of time for meaningful relationships later.” She turned and walked away before her cousin had a chance to think of a comeback. Behind her she heard Michelle say something in a derisive tone, and the whole group burst out laughing.
Silly bitch, Tracey chided herself as she slipped in through the side door of the hall into the dark and deserted kitchen, what else did you expect? Torn between bursting into tears and hexing the lot of them into next Wednesday, she relieved her feelings by slamming the door, tearing open the can of lager and taking an almighty swig. Hoisting herself onto the kitchen counter, she settled down to brood in peace.
She couldn’t really blame Michelle. She got on alright with Uncle George and Gary but even though she and Michelle were the same age they’d never exactly been close. Tanya and Janet made that impossible. Tanya thought Janet a “stuck up cow with too much of a good opinion of herself” and Janet, in turn, regarded Tanya as “common as muck”. Tracey going off to Hogwarts had just put the tin lid on it.
Supposing we’d told them the truth? Tracey found herself giggling hysterically at the thought. Look, ‘Shell, the reason I have to spend all the holidays studying is ‘cos I’m a witch and my school doesn’t teach the same stuff as yours, and Mum tries to teach me at home ‘cos she insists that I need a “proper” education and she says Transfiguration and Charms and Potions and all the stuff I do isn’t going to be a lot of use to me in the “real” world and she’s worried about what will happen to me if I don’t pass my OWLs and NEWTs and can’t get a job in the Wizarding World -“
Oh, yeah, I can just see that happening. She knew that some of Hogwarts’ muggleborn students had said bugger the International Statute of Secrecy and told their whole extended family. She just couldn’t see herself doing it. For a start Mum would have a fit, and it didn’t take a lot of imagination to guess her cousin’s likely reaction, either.
It wouldn’t really matter if she felt welcome in the Wizarding World. Other muggleborns at Hogwarts seemed to have made the transition quite easily. Some of them spent more time with the families of their wizard-born friends than they did with their own. Look at Hermione Granger. Did that girl ever go home? From snippets Tracey had picked up in Arithmancy Granger seemed to practically live with the Weasleys these days. But Granger wasn’t in Slytherin. Granger was a Gryffindor, and that made it so much easier for her.
For the umpteenth time Tracey directed a litany of curses at the bloody Sorting Hat for having seen fit to place her, a muggleborn, in the bastion of pureblood supremacy that was Slytherin house. Not that she’d known that at the time, of course.
“Hmm,” the little voice in her head had said thoughtfully as the hat settled on her head, “interesting - determination, ambition, and a dash of cunning. No doubt at all about where I should put you, I’m afraid.” Before Tracey had time to ask why it sounded so regretful, the rip in its brim opened wide and the hat roared, “SLYTHERIN!”
As Tracey walked nervously towards the Slytherin table she couldn’t help noticing that the cheers that greeted the announcement of her sorting into Slytherin were half-hearted. Others such as “Greengrass, Daphne” and “Zabini, Blaise” got far more cheers than she had. She didn’t have to wonder why for long. Enlightenment came soon enough in the shape of Draco-Bloody-Purest-of-the-Pure-Malfoy.
Struggling through the press of bodies following the fifth-year Slytherin prefects out of the Great Hall, she was only dimly aware of treading on someone’s foot.
“Watch where you’re going!” A slim, effete-looking blonde boy of her age had stopped short, glaring at her.
“I’m sorry, I just didn’t see you there.” She didn’t much like his tone of voice but good manners cost nothing, as her mother was fond of saying. His expression morphed from angry hauteur to an unpleasant sneer at the sound of her accent.
“Merlin! So they’re putting mudbloods in Salazar’s own house these days. My father was right, this place has definitely gone to the dogs.” The last remark was addressed to his companions, a pair of hulking bruisers who ought to have been wearing T-shirts with Mindless Thug written on them judging by their identical vacant expressions. There was a beat as their tiny brains processed the blonde boy’s words, then they snickered in unison. Tracey had no idea what mudblood meant but she could recognise an insult when she heard one.
“There’s no need to get nasty about it. I said I was sorry, didn’t I?”
The blonde boy’s answer was a malevolent smirk. “Oh, really? Well, I don’t think you’re quite sorry enough, Mudblood.” He must have made some signal she couldn’t see to the two heavies, who were on her with a speed that belied their bulk. One of them grabbed her arm, and twisted it painfully behind her back, while the other, grinning, aimed a punch at the side of her head.
If they’d used magic she would have been lost, but fisticuffs were something she understood only too well, courtesy of her older brother and his mates. She jabbed the one holding her in the stomach with the elbow of her free arm and simultaneously kneed the other in the groin. They both went down howling with pain. Livid, she flew towards the blonde boy, nails ready to cause some serious damage to his face. She had his measure now. He was a bully, and no Davis worth their salt had ever let a bully get away with it.
Judging by his reaction, he was also a coward. “Don’t you dare touch me, you filthy creature!” Backing away from her, voice now high with fear, he pulled out a wand and pointed it at her.
“Expelliarmus!” His wand shot out of his hand, and past Tracey, nearly taking her eye out in the process. She turned, to find a girl she vaguely recognised as another of the first-years holding the boy’s wand, her own pointed at him in a manner that announced she meant business.
“Are you alright?” the other girl enquired.
Tracey nodded trying to seem matter-of-fact. “Yeah, fine.” Her arm hurt like crazy but she wasn’t going to let the little shit and his gorillas know that. Show weakness now, and they’d never leave her alone.
The newcomer turned her attention to the blonde boy. “Really, Malfoy. These two,“ she gestured to the two bruisers picking themselves up off the floor, “might be several ingredients short of a potion but you ought to know better.”
Malfoy had recovered his composure and the sneer was back. “Just making sure the mudblood knows her place; not that it’s any of your business, Greengrass.”
The girl raised her eyes to heaven. “Oh, honestly. She has as much right as we do to be here. My father -”
“Don’t start quoting your muggle-loving blood-traitor father at me,” Malfoy spat. “It’s people like him, encouraging them to marry into good families, giving them jobs that should go to our kind -“
“My father doesn’t have anything to be ashamed of.” Flushed with anger, the girl took a step towards him until their noses were almost touching. “Unlike the fathers of some people I could name who had to buy their way out of Azkaban.”
Malfoy’s voice was shrill. “Give me my wand back and say that again.” The girl thrust it at him.
“Go on, try it.” She took a step back, wand at the ready.
For a heartbeat the little group was poised on the edge of violence. Malfoy stood, wand in hand, torn between cowardice and anger while his opponent waited for his first move, the light of battle in her eyes. The Mindless Thugs readied themselves, looking to Malfoy for a lead. Tracey felt sick with fear. Things were about to get very nasty and there was nothing she could do to help.
“What’s going on here?” A sharp voice cut into the moment like a knife. One of the prefects was striding back down the corridor towards them.
Malfoy opened his mouth, then shut it again as his adversary replied, smoothly, “Malfoy dropped his wand. I was just giving it back to him.” She looked up at the older boy with an expression of wide-eyed innocence.
The prefect gave Malfoy a knowing smile. “Careless of you. Look after it in future.” Tracey chuckled inwardly. It was obvious that Malfoy was livid but he couldn’t contradict the Greengrass girl without incriminating himself. Tracey guessed that magical schools took as dim a view of fighting in the corridors as Muggle ones.
“Yes, sir.”
The prefect nodded. “Go on, get a move on. I don’t want to have to take all night getting you lot settled.” He watched while Malfoy stalked off down the corridor with his henchmen trailing after him, then followed, glancing back over his shoulder at the two girls. “Come on, you two.” Tracey and the other girl stopped for a moment, sizing each other up. Tracey’s rescuer stuck out her hand.
“Hello. Daphne Greengrass.” She was a couple of inches taller than Tracey, who was small for her age, with light blonde hair gathered into a thick plait reaching to the small of her back and slightly protuberant pale-blue eyes.
Tracey grasped the outstretched hand. “Tracey Davis. Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. Glad to help.” They fell into step with each other, hurrying to catch up with the rest of the group.
Tracey’s mind was awash with a myriad questions. Okay, so Malfoy was an aspiring school bully looking for a victim to start him on his chosen career but there was more to it than that. What was it he had called her? “Look, can I ask you something?” Daphne nodded. Encouraged by the other girl’s friendly demeanour, Tracey carried on. “Why did Malfoy call me a mudblood? What does it mean?”
Daphne looked embarrassed. “It’s a nasty way of referring to someone whose parents are muggles.” Noticing Tracey’s confused expression, she added, “That’s the term we use for non-magical people. Malfoy and his sort regard people with non magical parents as having “dirty blood”, which is rubbish, of course.”
Tracey was assaulted by a vivid memory of an Asian kid at her primary school cowering in the midst of a group of older white boys all chanting, “Paki! Paki! Dirty Paki!” The terrified little girl’s ordeal had lasted until one of the teachers finally noticed what was going on and broke it up. That hadn’t been the last of it, though, and her parents had eventually moved her to another school.
“Do a lot of people think like Malfoy?”
“Not really. It’s mostly people from the older wizarding families. Unfortunately, Slytherin tends to attract them because Salazar Slytherin was opposed to letting muggleborns into our world and wanted to exclude them from Hogwarts.”
Oh brilliant. “But you don’t think that way.”
“Of course not!” Daphne looked indignant. “Daddy says all that blood purity stuff is complete and utter rot. Most of the people who work for him are muggleborn or half-blood. He says that most purebloods don’t know what a fair day’s work is, and if he had to run his business with an all-pureblood workforce he’d have gone bankrupt years ago.” Tracey nodded, only half-listening. Her mind kept coming back to that moment of complete helplessness in the corridor as Daphne and Malfoy squared off. Malfoy didn’t strike her as stupid. Next time he’d use magic.
“That stuff you did with Malfoy’s wand. Expe - Expe -“
“Expelliarmus,” Daphne supplied, helpfully.
“Yeah, that. Where did you learn to do it?”
“Daddy taught me.“
“Could I do it?”
“Don’t you -“ Daphne stopped, and went rather pink. “Oh, of course, you wouldn’t, would you? Would you like me to show you?”
“Please.” Tracey breathed an inward sigh of relief. With Daphne’s help she’d be able to take Malfoy if he tried anything.
Daphne was obviously relishing her position as instructor. “There are several other good defensive spells I can show you as well. We’ll start tomorrow.”
By now they’d reached the door of the Slytherin common room, and stood in a huddle with the other first-years, waiting. The prefects briefed them each separately on the password and watched as one by one they successfully passed through the stone door into the dungeons. Tracey and Daphne were the last to go through. On entering, they found the others had split into two distinct groups congregating at opposite ends of the enormous fireplace. At the centre of the group to the left Malfoy and a girl with blonde curly hair and a pug nose were whispering together. They paused, shooting Tracey and Daphne unpleasant looks. The two girls exchanged a glance, and made towards the group on the right.
It was a relief to Tracey to find out that she wasn’t the only muggleborn in Slytherin. Their group contained two others, both boys, and several muggleborn second and third years sidled up to introduce themselves during the evening. The rest of the first year group were half-bloods, a couple of whom Daphne already knew; a hulking girl called Millicent Bulstrode, and a boy named Moon. By bedtime Tracey was feeling happier. She, Daphne and Millicent were heading down the corridor in the direction of what they had been reliably informed were the girls’ dormitories, when the pug-nosed blonde emerged from a room on the right hand side of the corridor and planted herself in front of them, arms crossed.
“Bulstrode,” she jerked her head in the direction of the room behind her. “You’re with us. Greengrass, you and your mudblood, friend are over there.” She pointed to the half-open door opposite. Out of the corner of her eye Tracey could see three four-poster beds. She turned to Millicent.
“There’s room with us if you prefer. Isn’t there Daph?”
Wincing slightly at this unaccustomed mangling of her name, Daphne smiled at Millicent. “Of course there is.”
“Your choice, Bulstrode,” Pug-Nose sneered. “If you really want to cozy up to the blood-traitors and filthy mudbloods go right ahead.”
“Oh grow up, Parkinson.” Daphne matched Pug-Nose sneer for sneer. “Milly?”
Without meeting their eyes, Millicent Bulstrode shouldered past them and disappeared behind Parkinson who shut the door in their faces with a triumphant smirk. For a second a look of surprised misery flitted across Daphne’s face before it was replaced with an expression of determined cheerfulness.
“Let’s go and take a look at our dorm, shall we?”
Despite the inauspicious beginning, or perhaps because of it, the friendship between the two girls had flourished and developed over the years into an edifice of mutual support. They studied together, practiced defence, traded secrets and shared jokes in the privacy of their dorm room after lights out. By the end of the first year the muggleborn protégé had caught up with her pureblood mentor and was correcting her Transfiguration essays. By the time year two drew to a close they were neck and neck. As year three finished Tracey was ahead of Daphne in some subjects. The other girl, generous by nature, did not appear to resent this at all.
The hostility of Malfoy and his tight-knit clique had only served to strengthen their bond. After a failed attempt at ambush had left him with a very fetching pair of rabbit ears Malfoy confined himself mainly to verbal harassment. This should have come as something of a relief but unfortunately he was both vicious and inventive. Tracey and Daphne became wearily familiar with running the gauntlet of his group while turning a deaf ear to their insults. It was no consolation that they were not the only targets. Harry Potter and his sidekicks could retire to the Gryffindor Tower whenever they fancied a break. They had nowhere to run to.
Their respective families might have provided a holiday-time respite from all the tension but proved to be part of the problem instead. Tracey winced as she recalled her first visit to Daphne’s home.
“And what exactly does your father do, Tracey?” Mrs Greengrass enquired with a gracious smile, pointing her wand at the teapot, which promptly rose and poured itself. Tracey shifted uncomfortably in the spindly-legged gilt-framed chair. She’d known this one was coming, and she wasn’t at all sure her hostess was going to like the answer. She reached out warily and grabbed the fragile porcelain cup and saucer now hovering in front of her.
“He’s a builder, Mrs Greengrass.” She realised, cringing, that she sounded exactly like her mother when she was on the phone to one of Dad’s snottier customers. To cover her embarrassment she took a sip of tea, and winced as the scalding-hot liquid burned the inside of her mouth.
“Really?” Daphne’s mother’s smile didn’t so much freeze as congeal slowly on her face. “How - interesting.” The sideways glance she gave Daphne spoke volumes. Daphne, colouring, looked at the floor, while Tracey groped desperately for something, anything, to say to break the awkward silence. The cavalry, in the rotund, bespectacled shape of Daphne’s father, arrived just in the nick of time.
“Sorry I’m late, dear,” he boomed, breezing through the door and tossing his cloak at the house-elf scuttering along behind him. He stopped in front of Tracey, beaming, and stuck out his hand. “So this is Tracey, eh? Delighted to make your acquaintance my dear, delighted.” With an overwhelming sense of relief, Tracey grasped the outstretched hand and did her best to echo his sentiments. Here was an ally in the enemy camp. The feeling was short-lived. In his own way, Daphne’s father was every bit as bad as her mother. It didn’t take long to realise that what interested him was having a bona-fide muggleborn around to demonstrate his liberal credentials on social occasions. By the end of the week she could recite his opening gambit in her sleep.
“Come and meet my daughter’s friend. Smashing girl.” Lowering his voice slightly, “Muggleborn, you know but sharp as a whip. Just goes to show that I’m quite right about all this blood purity rot.“ By the end of her fortnight’s stay, Tracey began to prefer his wife’s straightforward hostility to Mr Greengrass’s patronising friendliness. Every subsequent visit was the same - Daphne’s father effusive and Daphne’s mother distantly polite, or sometimes simply distant.
She had to hand it to them, though, at least Daphne’s parents tried. Her mother refused to have anything at all to do with the world that made up such a big part of her daughter’s life. Tracey’s request that they reciprocate Daphne’s invitation at Christmas was met with a flat refusal.
“Christmas is for family, Tracey. We see little enough of you as it is. I’m sure Daphne’s parents feel the same way.” Tracey’s father met her pleading look with an almost infinitesimal shake of the head. Later, as they sat together on the patio waiting for Janet to call them in for Sunday lunch, Tracey couldn’t resist trying once more to enlist his help in persuading her mother to change her mind. Her father ruffled her hair ruefully.
“Cheer up, Muppet; it’s not the end of the world. Your Mum misses you, and it’s only natural she should want you all to herself at Christmas. If Daphne’s any kind of friend she’ll understand.” So that was that.
Daphne reacted with the same strained cheerfulness with which she’d handled Millicent Bulstrode’s defection. She cut off Tracey’s stammered explanation with the hasty assurance that of course she quite understood and it didn’t matter at all. The topic was quickly dropped and never referred to again. From time to time Tracey found herself feeling relieved it had turned out that way. Daphne might claim to be a champion of muggleborn rights but she didn’t seem to have anything good at all to say about actual muggles. Tracey found the thought of exposing Pete and Janet to Daphne’s patronising attitude in their own home a bit too much to take.
Besides, events were conspiring to push the two halves of her divided life further apart each year. Hogwarts might be the safest place in the Wizarding World but that wasn’t saying much. First year hadn’t been too bad, except for the troll in the girls’ toilets. Second year was much, much worse. As the unseen Heir of Slytherin stalked the halls and all the muggleborn in the place looked nervously over their shoulders, Tracey, terrified an indignant Janet would somehow descend on the school and whisk her home, took to censoring her letters. Throughout that terrible year she concocted soothing lies for her mother while trying not to notice that her best friend was subtly watching her back for her. The memory of Daphne’s insistence on upping their defence practices to twice a week and her ever more creative excuses for going everywhere with Tracey evoked a mixture of irritation and gratitude. Compared to that, third year had been almost peaceful, if you didn’t count Sirius Black’s attempt to murder Harry Potter, of course.
Tracey sighed. Bloody Potter. The boy was a magnet for trouble with the survival instincts of a lemming. From all that malarkey with the Philosopher’s Stone to somehow managing to get himself in the Triwizard Tournament despite being under age, he was always in the thick of it. Still, what else could you expect from someone who had allegedly defeated the greatest dark wizard of recent times while just a toddler? He was merely living up to his PR. Which was not exactly fun for anyone with the bad luck to be at school with him. Getting caught in the crossfire was an occupational hazard.
Fourth year had been quite a lot of fun to begin with. The excitement surrounding the Triwizard Tournament had provided a welcome break from school routine. The Yule Ball had been a high point as Tracey had, much to her delight, been asked to go by a handsome Ravenclaw she’d fancied for ages. Even Malfoy was too busy baiting Potter to spare much time for harassing Tracey and Daphne. Then Potter had blown the Wizarding World’s fragile peace wide open by disappearing at the end of the third task, only to return with the lifeless body of Cedric Diggory claiming that He Who Must Not Be Named was back. It didn’t matter if you believed him or not. Nothing was ever going to be the same again.
That became abundantly clear to Tracey a few weeks after the Triwizard debacle when she made her annual visit to the Greengrasses. Daphne’s father was a lot less effusive, and Daphne’s mother positively glacial. On the last evening she’d had enough of the dinner-party conversations hastily broken off as she approached and the meaningful glances that passed over her head. Pleading a headache, she left the table as soon as she decently could and escaped into the garden. With her unerring ability for being in exactly the wrong place at the wrong time she found herself eavesdropping on a conversation which she was sure neither of the parties involved would have been happy to have her overhear.
The crunch of footsteps on the gravel path and the sound of voices alerted her to their approach as she sat on a bench at one end of the covered walk that ran round the formal garden. She recognised one of then immediately; Mr Greengrass. Swearing inwardly she slipped behind a particularly hideous specimen of ornamental topiary, and concealed herself in its shadow. The last thing she needed right now was an encounter with Daphne’s father. As they came within earshot it was obvious the two men were in the middle of a heated argument.
“Dammit Archie, you promised me a board position!” Memory supplied a name to go with the voice. Tonks - Ted Tonks. Medium height, balding, northern accent. One of the small number of tonight’s guests who hadn’t looked at her as if she’d just crawled out from under a stone.
“I did my best for you Ted, old man, but the board felt we needed fresh blood; someone who would take a different perspective on things.” This was Mr Greengrass at his most unctuous, positively dripping with insincere regret.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Look it’s a temporary setback, that’s all. Merryweather’s due to retire in a few months, and perhaps -“
“I’ve been hearing the same thing for the past ten years,” Tonks interrupted, voice edged with controlled anger. “You’re not going to get round me with that one this time.”
“Ted, as your friend, I give you my word -“
“When you offered me this job you gave me your word I was two to three years away from a directorship. Now, as my friend, you can tell me what’s really going on. Never mind all that bollocks about fresh perspectives.”
There was a stony pause. When he finally spoke, the tone of Mr Greengrass’s voice said all either of his hearers needed to know. “Well, we - that is, the board, or rather, certain members - Ted, in the time you’ve been with us you’ve not exactly endeared yourself to the more - ah - conservative elements, you have to admit that.”
“I did what I had to.”
“Quite, and you had my full support but in the current climate it was felt by some that promoting you to the board might be seen as, well, provocative by certain people with connections in the Ministry.”
“Like my dear brother-in-law.” Tonks’ tone had gone from red hot to ice cold in seconds.
“Malfoy does have a lot of influence and the Ministry is one of our biggest customers.”
“Malfoy,” Tonks hissed, “has been investigated by the Ministry more times than I’ve had hot dinners but somehow always seems to get away with it. Malfoy is a slippery bastard with good connections, and some of those connections just happen to sit on our board, right?”
“I wouldn’t exactly put it like that.”
“No, you wouldn’t. What happened to Slytherin solidarity, eh? All Slytherins are equal but some are more equal than others, is that it? When push comes to shove you sodding purebloods always stick together.”
“Ted, be reasonable. Now is not the time to antagonise someone as powerful as Malfoy.” Mr Greengrass lowered his voice, and Tracey just barely caught the next words. “If the rumours are true and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named really is back - ”
“You bloody hypocrite. We’ve just secured the biggest contract this company’s ever handled in the face of stiff competition because of the work my people put in but still I’m the only General Manager without a seat on the board, and my staff, muggleborns to a man, are paid a fraction of what they’re worth. My resignation will be on your desk first thing tomorrow. Goodnight.” As the sound of his footsteps receded, Daphne’s father sat down heavily on the bench and let loose a flood of invective which would have given Daphne’s mother a fit of the vapours had she been there to hear it.
That conversation returned to haunt Tracey at intervals throughout her fifth year. Whenever she thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse, they did. As she trudged from class to class in an Umbridge-dominated Malfoy-ridden school she frequently wondered why she bothered, as all OWLs and NEWTS were likely to earn her was a lifetime of exploitation. When the Weasley twins left Hogwarts in a blaze of glory she wished she could go too. What stopped her were the frequent dark dreams in which Janet, Pete and Darren lay lifeless at her feet while the Dark Mark burned in the night sky.
The Ministry of Magic might deny it but as soon as she read the article in the Quibbler Tracey had known instinctively that Potter was telling the truth. Judging by the gossip flying round the school a lot of other people thought the same way. Several who had previously been reasonably friendly, including the Ravenclaw who’d taken her to the Yule Ball, started giving her the cold shoulder. In the Slytherin common room Malfoy and his cronies no longer bothered to keep up the pretence of innocent respectability. Loud conversations about what would happen to the mudbloods and blood-traitors when the Dark Lord took over were the least of it. Tracey hung on grimly, only too well aware that, given Malfoy’s capacity to hold a grudge, she and her family were probably close to the top of his hit list. When the brown stuff hit the cooling device that bunch of bumbling incompetents running the Ministry would be no bloody help. It was down to her to keep her family safe, and to do that she needed advanced defensive magic.
Tracey let out a bitter laugh. What advanced defensive magic? Thanks to her early lessons with Daphne, innate ability and continual practice she was near the top of her year in Defence. Bloody good thing, too, as that cow Umbridge had made sure they got no practical training whatsoever this year. Come to think of it, the only halfway decent Defence teacher they’d had in the past five years was Lupin, and he turned out to be a werewolf. That wasn’t the point, though. At least at Hogwarts she could get access to books and try and teach herself what she needed to know.
Even the welcome news that Umbridge had been sacked and Malfoy’s father was on his way to Azkaban had failed to lift her depression. And all thanks to Potter - why am I not surprised? As rumours of prophecy and midnight duels in the Ministry of Magic itself raced round the school, she focussed on just one thing. Potter had been running a clandestine Defence club. Potter was top of the year in Defence. Potter had escaped the Dark Lord five times in his short life. Potter had knowledge she needed. If she weren’t in bloody Slytherin she could have been part of the DA. Her whole life since the age of eleven had been cursed. She had almost reached her lowest ebb.
The coup de grace came from the last quarter she would have expected. She had been dimly aware that Daphne had become rather withdrawn and distant of late but, preoccupied with her own fears, she had put it down to the pressure of their forthcoming OWLs. They were relaxing by the lake the day after their final exam when the blow fell. Tracey stretched, luxuriating in the feeling of having nothing to do and nowhere to go for once.
“Bloody hell, I’m glad that’s over. When we get our results we’ll talk your Dad into taking us to Diagon Alley and you can treat me one of Fortescue’s triple-decker Dragon’s Blood Chocolate Specials, OK?” She felt suddenly light-hearted at the thought of lingering in the late summer sun together over an ice cream before checking out the latest fashions in Madam Malkin’s just like last year and the year before. They always took it in turns to buy and she expected Daphne to remind her, laughing, that it was her turn this time. It was a game they’d played since first year. There was an awkward silence and Daphne looked away.
“I don’t - that is - We’re probably going abroad this year.”
The sunlight in Tracey’s heart vanished without trace. She knew instantly what was going on. She’d become a liability and she was being shunted aside with the cool polite ruthlessness that all these pureblood tossers were so bloody good at. Well, she was buggered if she was going to let them see it hurt.
She shrugged, and replied with false brightness. “Shame. Well, there’s always Hogsmeade next term.”
“I’ll write.” Daphne’s voice was a choked whisper.
Something deep inside Tracey snapped. “You do that. I might even write back - if I’m not too busy.” To forestall any further conversation she stood abruptly, and marched off, ignoring Daphne’s attempts to call her back. She had avoided Daphne as much as she could, and kept up a barrier of frozen silence when she couldn’t, until term ended and she could retreat home to lick her wounds.
The DJ had bought down the pace with a medley of slow numbers, and the party was obviously winding up. Tracey checked her watch. It was nearly eleven and they had to be packed up and out by twelve. She slid off the counter, tossed the empty can in the rubbish bin and prepared to face the world. Tomorrow she would receive her OWL results. Tomorrow, she had decided, she would tell her parents that she wasn’t going back to Hogwarts. Mum ought to be pleased - when she’d come to terms with the fact that her only daughter had been systematically lying to her for the last four years, that was. Tracey felt like hell. She hated the idea of living without magic and she felt like a fish out of water in the Muggle world but it had to be better than what she’d put up with for the past five years - or so she kept telling herself.
She had it all worked out. Much of her summer had been spent checking the relevant legislation and she was sure she was on safe ground. All she had to do to earn her permanent passport into the Wizarding World was take her OWLs - as far as she could tell, she didn’t even actually have to pass any. There was nothing that said she had to go back for NEWTs, as long as her parents gave her formal permission to leave school. Once she reached seventeen she was free and clear, an adult by wizarding law and nobody could deprive her of her wand. She hoped it would be out of sight and out of mind for Malfoy and his little crew of Death-Eaters-in-Training but if it wasn’t at least she wouldn’t be an obliviated sitting duck.
That left her with the problem of deciding what to do with the rest of her life. Despite her brave words to Michelle it looked as if she’d be lucky to be taken on as a Tesco shelf-stacker. She’d have a lot of catching up to do in the educational stakes before she had any chance of a decent Muggle job. That should take care of the next five years, then. As Tracey slipped out of the kitchen the music came to an end and the DJ bid farewell to the assembled company. Her mother spotted her, and bustled over, tearing a handful of black sacks from a roll in her hand as she did so.
“There you are! I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Come on love, let’s get on with it. We haven’t got much time.” She thrust the handful of rubbish sacks at Tracey and rushed off to accost another member of her volunteer clean up crew. The house lights flickered on and the sorry business of clearing up began. Resignedly, Tracey began to collect rubbish from the tables. One of the downsides of being the boss’s daughter was an automatic sign up to this unwelcome task. If you were the boss’s son, on the other hand, things were quite different. Darren always seemed to have some excuse for getting out of these things and her mother always accepted them without question.
One by one Janet’s band of conscripts seized the opportunity to slip away when her back was turned, to that by the time the chairs had been stacked, glasses washed, floors swept and rubbish put out only the members of the Davis family remained. George, who had given up any pretence of helping fairly early on, had grabbed Tanya round the waist and was hauling her round the room in circles, to the accompaniment of a tuneless rendition of The Lady in Red with half the words missing. Tanya, roaring with laughter, beat his chest ineffectually with her fists.
“Gerroff you stupid lump. You’re pissed out of your tiny little mind!” Their daughters shared a look and mimed sticking fingers down throat at each other, while Gary rolling his eyes, held out his hand.
“Give us the keys, Dad. You’re in no state to drive.”
George let go of Tanya and, staggering slightly, turned his attention to his son. “Bollocks. Sober as a judge I am. It’s only ten minutes.”
“You’re not driving in that state, Georgie boy,” his wife said firmly, nimbly extracting a bunch of keys from his pocket and throwing them to Gary, who caught them one-handed, “and I’m over the limit. Ta, love.”
George scowled at his son. “That,” he said enunciating carefully and waving his arm in the general direction of the car park, “is a brand new Beemer. One scratch, just one scratch -“
“Yeah, yeah,” Gary replied with an exaggerated sigh, pocketing the keys, and turning to his uncle. “Can you take the van for me, Uncle Pete?”
Before Tracey’s Dad could reply her Mum had interrupted sharply. “It’s not still outside in the car park at this time of night? I thought you were going to drop it back at the yard after you’d got the drinks?”
Gary shrugged apologetically. “Mum needed the car this morning, so by the time we got to the cash and carry it was heaving. When we finally got out of there it was too late to take the van back like we’d planned.”
Janet heaved an exasperated sigh. “I told you to go early. It’s Bank Holiday. Let’s just hope nothing’s happened to it. This area isn’t exactly safe, you know.”
“Leave the boy alone, Jan,” Tanya put in. “It’s only a bloody van for God’s sake. It’s insured, isn’t it?” Her mother bristled. It looked as if they were in for another bout of Tanya vs Janet, and Tracey wished she could sink into the floor. Her father put up his hand.
“That’s enough. We’re all tired.” He held out his hand to Gary, who wordlessly passed him the keys.
Struggling to lock the hall door with an ill fitting key, Janet pretended not to notice her brother-in-law waving at her as the BMW sped out of the car park.
“Why they always have to get three sheets to the wind at these dos I will never understand. It’s embarrassing.”
“Come on, Jan,” her father said soothingly. “It’s just a bit of harmless fun.”
“Oh, yes, you would say that but just look at the results. A brand new work’s van left sitting in the car park for the local yobs to have a go at whenever they please, and me left with the thankless task of taking the key back to Mrs Wilson when Tanya said she was going to do it.”
“Why didn’t you say something? I’m sure Gary would’ve taken it if you’d asked.”
“It’s not up to me to ask. She offered.” Tracey could feel the irritation coming off her Dad in waves. Why did Mum always have to whine like that? It got on her nerves, too.
“I’ll do it. You go home and put your feet up. Tracey, go with Mum.”
All the way home Tracey was treated to one of Mum’s full on rants in which the phrases totally lacking in consideration, no help at all and common as muck occurred more than once. Huddled in the passenger seat, Tracey did her best to screen it all out while contemplating her forthcoming task with dread. If Mum got like this about a couple of little things what the hell was she going to be like when Tracey owned up presenting a totally false picture of life at Hogwarts? It didn’t bear thinking about.
They had just sat down in front of the late movie with a cup of tea when the rattle of a diesel engine announced the arrival of Tracey’s Dad. She heard him clattering about in the kitchen, and pretty shortly he came to join them, sinking down on the sofa beside Janet, and putting an arm round her.
“You know, since I’ve got the van, I might as well have a day’s fishing, if it’s alright with you, love.”
Tracey’s Mum leaned her head on his shoulder, and smiled. “Go on, why not. You don’t often get the chance these days. Just try not to wake me, will you? I’m dead beat and I want to have a lie-in for once.” It struck Tracey that her Mum really did look tired out. She always seemed to end up with the lion’s share of the work associated with the party. Tracey experienced a pang of guilt. She’d been too busy with her own affairs to even think of offering to help. Hot on the heels of this thought came a flash of inspiration. Perhaps here lay the solution to her problem.
“Dad, can I come with you?” Her father looked taken aback. When she was a kid she’d sometimes accompanied her father on his fishing trips but adolescent allergy to early mornings had put paid to that around the time she started Hogwarts.
“If you want love. It’ll be early, mind.” Tracey groaned inwardly but the chance was too good to miss. She could explain everything to Dad. He was always much more understanding. Together they could tackle Mum, and then everything would be alright.
As she made her way upstairs her heart felt lighter. She had a plan, and having a plan always made her feel better. Had she paid more attention to Janet’s lessons on English Literature the words of a certain poet might possibly have come to mind.
The best laid plans …
Chapter 2