Albus Potter and the Curse of the Deceiver

Durmstrang's New Student

—CHAPTER 7—

Durmstrang’s New Student

Rumours and speculation flew around Hogwarts for the next few weeks. Joseph walked around the castle smugly...apart from the times when Alanna was around. Albus could see how pleased he was with Max’s injury and rage was fueled in him like never before. He wanted to slam Joseph against one of the stone walls and rearrange his face but most of the DA prevented Albus from doing the quick job. James’s words stopped Albus most of all. ‘Al,’ the older Potter said. ‘If you hurt Joseph too much, he’ll find a way to either get very ugly revenge or to get you expelled. How are you planning to help Jess from Durmstrang, huh?’

Grimly and reluctantly, Albus agreed with his brother. To keep his mind off things, he, Scorpius and Dimitri looked into Alanna’s history and reasons for being at Hogwarts. It turned out that her parents had recently passed away. They had both been able with magic, involved in the Order of the Phoenix and in their wills had stated they wished for Alanna to go to Hogwarts and then be taken under the wing of someone at Hogwarts who was willing. Unfortunately for the group, Albus soon found out that the information about Alanna’s new home was classified and under high security. Until it was sorted, Alanna wasn’t officially a student at Hogwarts but was living there nonetheless. She was living in the teachers quarters, seeing as she wasn’t sorted into a house. Albus, Dimitri and Scorpius decided to let it slide. She seemed trustworthy.

Thanks to James’s convincing, they had managed to persuade Alanna that the DA hadn’t meant to hurt her, they just wanted to get away and she had started speaking to them again. They’d started to open up to her a little bit about what had happened in their past years and slowly admitting the problems that were piling up this year. She had a couple of ideas on how to keep Jess out of their tight circle while she was being possessed. Albus could now see why James had liked her.

He was sitting with Avery and Rose in the Gryffindor common room, studying for his Transfiguration test when Jessica stormed in (very much herself), hurling her bag down onto the ground. ‘That selfish, cheating, Slytherin scum!’ she spat, throwing herself onto the couch, folding her arms huffily. Avery shut his text book with a soft thud. ‘I didn’t do anything, though,’ he said jokingly. His humorous air disappeared at Jessica’s look. ‘Max,’ she growled. ‘Cannot play Quidditch. Ever. Again. He is in crutches. He has to learn to walk again. And he tried to get his revenge on Joseph and made up his mind to leave Hogwarts.’

‘What?’ Rose gasped, dropping her pen onto the floor. It rolled over to the fire and the plastic started to melt. Jessica nodded, wiping a single tear from her eye. ‘He says noone can change his mind. If he can’t play the game he’s committed too, then he doesn’t want to be in the place that stopped him.’

Albus stood up straight, his chair falling to the ground. He let his quill drop and he snatched his bag into his hand, swinging it over his shoulder as he rushed out of the Gryffindor portrait hole. He had to stop Max from leaving. The now crippled boy had been in the DA for two years...if he left, he was in danger. Lockwood was still out there and Max knew too much.

*

Albus found Max in the Room of Requirement with Dimitri. Teddy was preoccupied (now the code-word for “snogging Victoire”) while everyone else was trying to convince Max to stay, Dimitri more than ever. ‘Come on, man. I mean, Quidditch isn’t everything...’

‘Yes it is,’ Max interrupted. ‘And now I can’t play anymore. Hogwarts is the place that stopped me and Joseph was the one who did it. I don’t want to be walking down the halls every day, passing Joseph with his little grin on his face, reminded of what he did to me.’

There was a small silence as Max collected his things from his DA locker.

‘Max,’ Albus said softly. Max glanced back over his shoulder and sighed. ‘Not you too.’

‘I’ve got a different reason for you to stay,’ Albus said, pushing past DA members to get to Max. ‘Lockwood is still out there. We all think he’s possessing your sister. Through her, he’s been able to see what we do, how much we know. He knows that you’re involved. You’re in danger away from Hogwarts. Lockwood will try and get to you. Once one of us leaves this place, he will hunt us down. You know too much, Max.’

A strange look crossed Max’s face, as if he’d never considered this before. Albus crossed his fingers in his pockets but Max shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter. Durmstrang is almost as safe as Hogwarts so I’ll be fine.’ Catching Albus’s face, Max continued. ‘Al, I hate it here now that I can’t play. I’ll feel better at Durmstrang.’  He turned his back on the others and continued packing his things into a suitcase. Sighing heavily, Albus nodded and handed his friend a letter with the Potter seal on the envelope. ‘Good luck, then.’

Albus lay on his bed, hours later, staring at the ceiling. He glanced over to his bedside table where the recently crumpled piece of paper was flattened underneath two books. He rolled onto his side and shifted the books slightly to retrieve the paper. He read over it and sighed in exasperation. It was completely in Latin. He’d been taking Latin for a while and could recognise a few words, that and a few English words like his name, Jessica’s, his father’s and Voldemort’s. The first word was Note and the last was well. However, even Rose had failed to decipher the entire contents of the page. Albus had figured out for a while ago that he needed somebody extremely smart to translate this and he couldn’t bring this up to the teachers. Even Harry would be over-suspicious. Albus swung his legs out of bed, pocketing the piece of paper and grabbing his robe. His arms were filled with pins and needles and his feet felt numb. Albus grimaced, shaking his arms as hard as he could. ‘Rose!’ he called, hurrying down the stairway. ‘Who is the smartest student you know?’

From the couch, Rose blinked in surprise. ‘Well...I think probably in our year, Ciel Evermore. She’s in Ravenclaw.’

Albus nodded a thanks and broke into a run, clambering out of the portrait hole. ‘Alan!’ he shouted, hurrying up to a sixth year Ravenclaw. ‘Hey...um, do you know a girl named Ciel? Evermore?’

Alan nodded. ‘Yes, she’s in your year. Probably she’s in the library, studying.’

Albus smiled gratefully, leaving Alan standing alone in the doorway as he left abruptly. He scooted through the halls to the library. Once he arrived, he glanced up at the heavy, stone door.

QUIET PLEASE was engraved in the middle of the door. With a grunt, Albus heaved the door open and stepped inside. There was a strange silence in the enormous room and Albus swallowed. The library wasn’t exactly a familiar place for him. Ignoring his unease, he made his way to the counter. ‘Excuse me,’ he said in a quiet voice. ‘Do you know where Ciel Evermore is?’

The student librarian, looking terribly bored, sighed. ‘Third isle, looking for information on vervain.’

As Albus wove his way through the sea of students that swarmed past him, he managed to stop himself at the third isle. ‘Ciel Evermore?’ he whispered. A girl looked up at him. ‘Yes?’

Albus almost laughed in the relief of finding her. Pulling himself together, he handed her the piece of paper. ‘This is entirely in Latin. I take Latin but I’m not very good. My cousin Rose said that you were the smartest person she knew in our year. Would you be able to translate this?’

Ciel furrowed her eyebrows, scanning the sheet. She bit her lip and then nodded. ‘Yeah, I think I can handle it. When do you want it back?’

Albus shrugged. ‘As soon as possible. Just one thing. Give it to me. Don’t give it to any of my friends...this is...’

‘Your secret?’ Ciel guessed with a smile. ‘Yeah, I figured. I should be able to finish it by the end of the day. Meet me in front of the library at eight tonight.’

‘Beyond curfew?’ Albus said in surprise. Ciel snorted. ‘You think just because I’m smart, I’m a goody good suck-up? I’m star-gazing tonight in the astronomy tower. I’ll be out anyway.’

Albus, taken aback by her short speech, nodded wordlessly. ‘Um...sure, I guess I’ll meet you there.’