Paper Confines

xix. Resignation

PAPER CONFINES.
19. / Resignation

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Nadya's mother used to tell her to choose her battles wisely. It seemed a more appropriate message from her father, after the first outset of world war when a naval ship new in his name was armed in Bombay—that he had been chosen and tasked but chose for himself, too: which battles to fight and which to lay down arms. It had been those choices that saved countless men from what their fleet admiral would have allowed to become a bloodbath. That had earned him a degree of respect and wealth not so easily won, especially in England. But Nadya's mother, with an eye for subtlety and a penchant for turning the impossible in her favour, knew how to win a battle without her opponent knowing she was in the fight at all. Her sword and armour was charm, discretion, guile like a lioness in the coat of a house cat. Nadya possessed such grace but mostly lacked the patience for it. She still tried to internalize the message. She liked the message. But sometimes the battles she knew she'd lose demanded to be fought for exactly that reason—to not give up what so many had told her didn't belong to her: hope.

It had been two weeks since the Knights stole the book.

She knew it was habit and not reason that made her distance herself. Plotting violent ends in a self-made shell like an hermit sans religion was Nadya's habitual way, and she couldn't stand to see Colette pulling at strings and skipping class and looking... looking like Nadya; desperate for solution, tiptoeing around reality, haplessly seeking justice where there was none. There was a tinge of sought revenge on her face that Nadya recognized as it grew because it was like looking in a damn mirror. It didn't suit her. It fit uneven, like a right shoe on a left foot. But Nadya wondered if maybe Colette thought exactly the same thing whenever she looked at her. She said it best after their attempt at poisoning Dolohov with canelés: it doesn't matter how many times you think you are ahead, they will always win.

But Nadya was nothing if not persistent.

If she was going to lose, the Knight of Walpurgis were going to lose with her. If she was going to die trying, she was going to die bloody enough that they'd never clean the stain.

Colette would riot if she knew that, so Nadya made sure that she didn't.

With the way she had been dodging her—instead spending her days stalking two corridors behind any follower of Tom Riddle at any given time, tracking their routines, stocking vials of less-than-ethical potion ingredients with a key to the student's storage he had no business knowing she had—it was a shock Colette hadn't cornered her and shook the truth out like a sickle from a coat pocket. It wasn't that she was clueless; Colette kept her weary gaze on Nadya in the classes they shared and the few times she stopped by Claude's dormitory, twirling her quill between her teeth, passing her notes with ideas scrawled in pretty cursive. They'd spoken, too, but it felt like before Banks' disappearance, when there was nothing forcing them together and every conversation faded away in a cloud instead of ending with purpose. Nadya hated it. Nadya missed her. She hadn't realized how badly she'd been missing her the last year until she had her and gave her up again and there was something whole where it had long been empty.

"Miss Sidhu!" Slughorn exclaimed, taking a strong whiff of her cauldron. She met his impressed pat on the back with exactly the meek smile he wanted to see. "A mighty fine brew, this batch. Much better than your last—you do know how to keep me on my toes! I can never tell what to expect at your table."

Nadya gave the smallest bow of her head. Because gifted as she was, she wasn't supposed to think she was worthy of his praise, or dare she admit better than her peers—Nadya was supposed to be honoured she'd even been looked at twice. It was her duty to the only professor who actually liked her to play the coy, gracious role well if she wanted him as a reference after graduating. "Thank you, sir. Your notes helped."