The Final Triwizard Tournament

XXVIII

I idled the rest of my month away dutifully going to classes, taking breakfast and supper in the Great Hall, then returning to Ravenclaw Tower to do homework in seclusion. Rinse. Repeat. It was now the latter half of March, my brother still comatose, and I pretended the future I once envisioned for myself and Thomas wasn't slipping through my fingers, because if I didn't think about it, then maybe it wasn't true.

No headway had been made in further identifying his attacker, not that anyone besides me thought he'd been attacked at all. "He lost his footing on the stairs and fell backwards over the railing," they said, blind to the sheer level of coincidence that would need to be involved, blind to the height of the banister and the comparative height of my brother.

I needed to try harder. No excuses. I no longer had any task-related clues to work through. All there was left to do was wait for the third task, come what may, but at least it gave me a brief respite to turn my attention on uncovering any links between my (or potentially Frey's?) poisoning and Thomas's incident. Although I intended to investigate every angle, I would be lying if I claimed I wasn't positive it was Mr Malfoy's doing.

Still, there were other things to worry about, too.

"How's Damon doing?" I asked, glancing at Lyra sidelong while stirring our shared cauldron in careful thrice clockwise, twice counterclockwise strokes.

She didn't lift her dark brown eyes from chopping our pickled bat spleen to answer. "Why don't you ask him yourself?"

I sighed. "I know I haven't been around to see him. I've been—"

"Busy?" Now she did look up, sharply. "Too busy for us still? I was giving you a pass because you had the second task to prepare for, but you've overextended that excuse. The task was ages ago and you still take no action to reach out when Damon's mom died?" Her words came out in a low hiss, meant only for me and masked beneath the bubbling cauldrons and distracted chatter of our fellow classmates. "I love you, Alice, some part of me always will, but tell me the truth: are we even your friends at this point?"

When she didn't continue, I knew the question wasn't rhetorical and she actually expected a response.

"Of course we're friends! What type of question is that?" My stirring turned haphazard, the direction to spin in alternating cycles completely abandoned. "But it sounds like you really don't want to be."

"I don't want to be?" He chopping similarly took an aggressive edge, and was not at all even. "I'm not the one who barely hangs around anymore. If it weren't for classes, I don't think I would have seen you at all lately, and you only sleep a few minutes walk away from where I do! You aren't putting any effort into our friendship — ANY of our friendships — and you know what? You haven't been for long before Damon's mom passed."

Our voices were no longer hushed, and I was too caught up in our own little world to notice the hush that descended everywhere else.

"Have you been poisoned recently, Lyra? Is your brother comatose with no signs of waking up? Have you ever been put in an arena with a cockatrice and seen your life flash before your eyes, or had your deepest fears played out for hundreds of people to judge? Have you ever been faced with the reality that you are magically obligated to continue putting yourself in situations where you might die for no good reason?" I was so incensed that my filter utterly dissolved, and I couldn't stop to think what facts I had been keeping from her and what she already knew. "Have you lived amongst muggles who would hang you if they discover exactly what you are, but still be persecuted by your own government if you get caught defending yourself? Have you ever worried that your blood-purist family wants to purge the bloodline of any mixed blood by shedding your blood? No, you wouldn't have, because you're pureblood, and you have parents, ones that actually care, surrounded by centuries of luxury, so you never have to worry about your future or safety." I stood up, breathless, the harsh screech of my bench dragging across the stone floor slicing through the shocked silence following my brutal dressing down. Then, I smiled without my eyes. "But no, tell me exactly how I am a bad friend. Obviously, my priorities need adjusting to suit you, of all people. Obviously, your entitlement to my time is more important than any of my own issues."