Natsu Dragneel and the Order of the Phoenix

Career Advice

"But why haven't you got Occlumency lessons anymore?" said Lucy, frowning.

"I've told you," Natsu muttered. "Redfox reckons I can carry on by myself now I've got the basics."

"So you've stopped having funny dreams?" said Lucy skeptically.

"Pretty much," said Natsu, not looking at her.

"Well, I don't think Redfox should stop until you're absolutely sure you can control them!" said Lucy indignantly. "Natsu, I think you should go back to him and ask -"

"No," said Natsu forcefully. "Just drop it, Luce, okay?"

It was the first day of the Easter holidays and Lucy, as was her custom, had spent a large part of the day drawing up study schedule for the three of them. Natsu and Gray had let her do it; it was easier than arguing with her and, in any case, they might come in useful. Ron had been startled to discover there were only six weeks left until their exams.

"How can that come as a shock?" Lucy demanded, as she tapped each little square on Gray's schedule with her wand so that it flashed a different colour according to its subject.

"I dunno," said Gray, "there's been a lot going on. "

"Well, there you are," she said, handing him his timetable, "if you follow that you should do fine."

Grat looked down it gloomily, but then brightened.

"You've given me an evening off every week!"

"That's for Quidditch practice," said Lucy.

The smile faded from Gray's face.

"What's the point?" he said dully. "We've got about as much chance of winning the Quidditch Cup this year as Mom's got of becoming Minister for Magic."

Lucy said nothing; she was looking at Natsu, who was staring blankly at the opposite wall of the common room while Plue pawed at his hand, trying to get his ears scratched.

"What's wrong, Natsu?"

"What?" he said quickly. "Nothing."

He seized his copy of Defensive Magical Theory and pretended to be looking something up in the index. Plue gave him up as a bad job and slunk away under Lucy's chair.

"I saw Lisanna earlier," said Lucy tentatively. "She looked really miserable, too... have you two had a row again?"

"Wha — oh, yeah, we have," said Natsu, seizing gratefully on the excuse.

"What about?"

"That sneak friend of hers, Jenny," said Natsu.

"Yeah, well, I don't blame you!" said Gray angrily, setting down his revision timetable. "If it hadn't been for her..."

Gray went into a rant about Jenny Realight, which Natsu found helpful; all he had to do was look angry, nod and say "Yeah" and "That's right" whenever Gray drew breath, leaving his mind free to dwell, ever more miserably, on what he had seen in the Pensieve. He felt as though the memory of it was eating him from inside. He had been so sure his parents were wonderful people that he had never had the slightest difficulty in disbelieving the aspersions Redfox cast on his father's character.

Hadn't people like Gildarts and Weiss told Natsu how wonderful his father had been? (Yeah, well, look what Weiss was like himself, said a nagging voice inside Natsu's head... he was even worse, wasn't he?)

Yes, he had once overheard Porlyusica saying that his father and Weiss had been troublemakers at school, but she had described them as forerunners of ErzaJane, and Natsu could not imagine Erza and Mira dangling someone upside-down for the fun of it... not unless they really loathed them... perhaps Minerva, or somebody who really deserved it...Natsu tried to make a case for Redfox having deserved what he had suffered at Weiss' hands: but hadn't Grandenney asked, "What's he done to you?" And hadn't Weiss replied, "It's more the fact that he exists, if you know what I mean." Hadn't God Serena started it all simply because Weiss had said he was bored? Natsu remembered Cheney saying back in Grimmauld Place that Master Makarov had made him prefect in the hope that he would be able to exercise some control over Igneel and Weiss... but in the Pensieve, she had sat there and let it all happen...