The Cursed Ones

Chapter Eight: Swear not to Tell

It's dinner, and my eyes are set on one place as I enter the dining hall. Carefree chatter sets the atmosphere alight with good spirit. Peeves, the school poltergeist, is swinging from one of the chandeliers, but everyone has opted to ignore him. He can hardly be heard over the commotion, anyway.

Harry Potter and Ron Weasley are sitting at the very opposite end of the Gryffindor table as Darwin and his friends. I still don't know their names. Never cared to bother with it. Half the table swivels to look at me like a bunch of creepy, unsocialized cult members as I approach. I ignore them and sit down right next to Hermione Granger, directly across from Potter and Weasley.

I look at both of them hard. Granger had dropped her fork in surprise when she realized who was sitting next to her and is scrambling for it before it falls off the table. "Okay." I have to nearly yell because of how blasted loud Gryffindors are, as I'm just learning of in this very moment. "What was your angle?"

Potter looks unimpressed, but for once he isn't glaring me down. "Not everything has an angle," he says coldly as he levels with me, abandoning his food for now. "That's just Slytherins. There has to be a catch in everything for you lot, hasn't there?"

I disregard his jab. "Let me rephrase," I articulate. I am surprising myself with the amount of patience I have. "How did you know to go after his friends?" I blatantly point out the foul group of boys on the very opposite end, as they watch me avidly.

Potter rolls his eyes, though I realize it isn't directed at me; rather, it's directed at the boys. "We heard them talking the last few days. You know, in the common room. It's all they rattle on about."

I look at him blankly. "What, exactly?" I urge. "That's pretty vague, Potter."

He leans in. "That's because I don't want to repeat what they've said."

Ron helpfully takes over just then, and I shift my attention to him. He's chewing on a piece of ham busily as he discloses. "Talking about Draco's mum. Real raunchy stuff, you know?" He swallows his food and then leans over the table so that only I can hear him. "Talking about how they'd...do it." He shudders a bit. "Said they'd make sure Draco was watching. Make her-" He coughs a little, and I can tell he's trying to sum up the guts to say whatever words he's hard. "Make her scream with...pleasure," he hisses. "Make her forget her husband's name." He winces at the thought.

I zero in on him, my eyes chilly. "Ten galleons if you come with me and repeat every last word," I challenge. "I want to make sure I torture them for every. Single. Word. They. Said."

Ron doesn't even seem to remember his food exists as he trots off after me. Granger watches on, biting her lip with worry. Potter just shakes his head soberly before he shifts his attention back to his sweet potatoes.

Ron and I hide out in a back staircase that leads to an empty tower. True to what he's being paid for, he recites Darwin's conversations with his bastard buddies as if he remembers them word for word. I'm trying to keep my squeezing fists from shaking by curling them snugly into the front of my sweater. With each addition to the pile of shit the boys said, I grow a little more sick to my stomach and a lot more worried for Narcissa. Although I know she could hold her own even in a duel with all five of them, I still can't quell that cavernous hole of dread that's ripping into me as easily as paper.

Ron finishes finally, and his eyes are dead. His face has gone a bit pale from all of the recollections. He shakes his head, and he looks as sick as I feel. "I hate Malfoy, but that's his mum." He looks down darkly at the step beneath his feet and stomps at it a little bit. "If they said -"

He goes gray and stops before he can finish the thought, let alone the sentence out loud. For a moment I think he's going to be sick, and I subtly move out of the way, as I'm huddled on a stair a few down from his, and I'm not about to block the path of his bile. I get secondhand nausea. I know exactly what he was going to say. 'If they said that about my mum.' It echoes in my head as if he's said it aloud himself.