The Lies

Chapter Seven...The Lies

Belladonna: In Italian, a beautiful woman; in English, a deadly poison.

Neville was exhausted both mentally and physically when he arrived back in. His robes were dripping steadily, so he hung them up outside his locker and cast a drying charm on them.

"Days like this, I'm really glad it's you and not me who's good at plants," said Richard, laughing, having just arrived in the locker room and taken in the robes now steaming quietly and Neville's energetic towelling of his hair.

"Saves me watering them, though," mumbled Neville, looking around for his boots. "How's your day been? Did you manage to find out what he was suffering from, that guy with the... the..."

"Boils, for lack of better word? Dragonpox."

"Yeah? How'd he get that, then?"

"Girlfriend's a dragonrider. We've sent owls to the sanctuary; they should be checking all their employees by now. Don't want it spreading, do we? What do you think of this?"

Neville looked at the necklace Richard was holding up. It was a thin wire with a large daisy attached.

"Not your usual style," he said.

"Ha, kidder." Richard laughed again and stowed the necklace back into its case. "For Saida, of course. She just got herself a pair of daisy earrings...adorable...and I thought I'd..."

"Oh, bugger." Neville dropped the towel. "Birthday!"

"Don't tell me you forgot?" Richard laughed harder than ever. "And you always remember everything!"

"Tomorrow, right?" Neville was pulling on his casual robes, trying to check his watch at the same time and entangling himself in the sleeves. "Eight?"

"Steady, mate. Shops are closed now anyway, aren't they?"

"Not food stores...I need eggs and caster sugar..."

"Cake, is it?" Richard grinned. "She likes chocolate."

"Oh... great... thanks. Bugger." In his haste he had snapped one of the laces on his boots. "I really need new boots... see you."

He left the uniform robes drying, stuffed the gardening case and still-wet towel into his locker and grabbed his bag, hastening out the door.

Five minutes later he was back again. Swearing under his breath, he pulled out his gardening case again and rummaged around until he found a heavy gold coin, stuck it in his pocket and dashed out, ignoring Richard's "Hard up for money, mate?" as he slammed the door shut behind him.

"Neville!" Saida's eyes were shining. "You horrible boy. You realise how inferior you make me feel here?"

"I'll take that as a thank you." Neville smiled and bent to kiss her cheek. "Happy Birthday."

"Thank you! Oh, it looks really delicious." She placed the cake on a table and went off to find something to cut it with, telling the people she passed on the way that it was time for coffee and sweets.

Neville melted into the background as guests started milling into the room, many expressing their admiration over the cake. He fingered the DA coin in his pocket, thinking about Luna. How was she doing? How was she feeling? Was she perhaps sleeping now...and if she was, was it a natural healing slumber or just a potion-induced oblivion?

He wondered if she remembered how to work the coin.

"Heard about the thefts?" said a voice to his right, and he jumped. He turned his head to see a woman he didn't recognise talking with Carly. She had her back to him, and was talking in a low tone apparently meant for Carly's ears only. However, her voice carried well, and Neville caught her words perfectly.

"Thefts?"

"From the lab, apparently. Don't know if there's any truth in it, but I saw a memo from Imp to the master."

"Will you stop reading her mail! She'll find out one day, you know."

"It's a secretarial privilege to read the masters' mail. No, more than a privilege...I'd say a duty. Anyway, he said that he was concerned about the stock of potions diminishing to a critical point, and he was now certain that he was indeed right in suspecting...," she began, then someone jogged her elbow, and she turned to glare at them. As she did so she looked towards Neville, and for a second she seemed to falter.

"Yeah? Who?" asked Carly impatiently, and the other woman started and turned back towards her.

"Someone... someone on the Healer staff," she finished weakly. Carly snorted derisively.

"Go, Imp. Anyone could have guessed that much."

Neville missed the rest of their conversation, as Saida came up behind him and flourished a cake plate beneath his nose.

"And it tastes just as good as it looks," she said. "You're an angel, have I told you before? Are you having some?"

"Ate my fill while I made it." Neville grinned. "It was supposed to be twice as large."

He laughed with her and stood chatting for a while, but he soon made his excuses and went on his way homewards.

Thinking back on the week that had passed, he remembered how he'd hardly ever been alone in the ingredients cupboard, Imp having recalled that he needed something as well every time Neville had business there, and how the master Healer had been down no less than three times to check on their progress. Was he merely paranoid? Or did they really, truly suspect him now?

The following three days were unpleasant and frightening. He read suspicion in Imp's every glance, distaste in every word. The non-committal grunts that were his preferred method of communication and had before seemed so harmless and amusing were now obviously a screen and a way for Imp to hide his real feelings. And the older man's habit of conjuring plastic gloves for himself while handling ingredients perhaps was not only due to a touch of bacteriophobia...perhaps that was because he did not want to leave his own fingerprints on jars that would later be examined for Neville's?

Neville was thinking wildly and irrationally, he knew, but he also knew that every time he walked towards the ingredients cupboard Imp craned his head to look.

He didn't see Luna during those days, either. He would have liked so much to talk with her, though, because he was certain that if anyone would be able to understand the feeling of going slowly mad, it would be her.

Things were finally brought to a head one day when he had just finished work. He was in the locker room getting changed when James walked in.

"Imp sent word from the lab," he said, raising his eyebrows speculatively. "Said the master Healer is down there with him now and would like a word if you could come down immediately. What've you done now, then?"

Neville laughed, unconvincingly. "Beats me," he said and put his working robes back on with a sinking feeling in his stomach. So was this it? A hard stare, suspicious words, and a suggestion of a holiday? Or a straight question, yes or no, thief or innocent...

The walk down towards the lab was longer than it had ever been.

He was almost at the final stair when he felt his pocket grow hot and stuck his hand in to find a coin, heated from the Protean Charm.

He hesitated, but only for a second.

The tableau that met his eyes when he opened the door to the mental ward was quite frightening. Saida was standing over Luna and screaming at her, holding on to the short stubble that was her hair, and Luna was clawing at her hands, wailing. Both stopped short when Neville entered, and the silence dropped like a lead weight.

"Neville!" said Saida finally, awkwardly. "Oh, I'm glad you showed up...was just about to call for security...quite demented, as you can see...jumped me when she was due for medication...lost case, clearly..."

Luna remained silent during Saida's garbled explanation, looking at the floor, but as the other woman's words petered out she looked up at her old school mate.

"You knew where to come, then."

"I knew from the start," said Neville, because he had.

"Neville!" Saida exclaimed. He looked at her, sadly.

"Let her go. Please. I don't care what she's done. Please just leave her for a moment."

"She was threatening to kill me...her medication..."

"Neville," said Luna, and her voice seemed strangely calm and clear, and steadier than it had for a long time, "I'm really sorry."

"You have nothing to be sorry for..." he began, but she interrupted.

"No; I really am so sorry." She stood up suddenly, wincing as Saida's fingers, still locked in her hair, pulled her head back for a moment. "Because I'm going to have to ask you to testify that this woman is wearing my earrings."

"What?" Neville stared, feeling as if he had just completely lost his bearings. "Luna, I... what?"

"Look." Without much effort Luna shook Saida off and pulled a wand out of her pocket. Saida gasped.

"How did you..."

"Impedimenta."

Saida froze, her hand halfway to her own wand. "Neville!" she screeched. "Call security! She's not allowed to have a wand...I don't know how..."

"Look," said Luna again, and pulled Saida's hair away from her ears. "I would like you to say if you recognise these."

There were two daisies in Saida's ears. Neville frowned, completely confused.

"I don't..."

"Neville! Call security! Now!"

"Please do," said Luna calmly. "And then tell me if you remember these better?" She stuck her hand into Saida's pocket and brought out another pair of earrings...two mismatched, heavily lashed eyes. Neville stared.

"Saida?" he said at last, looking at her.

Saida spat then, and her mouth twisted angrily. "You little bitch," she hissed, just as the sound of quickly running footsteps was heard outside, and the door was flung open once again by a security witch, closely followed by her fellows.

"I'm arresting you," said Luna, kneeling down in front of the frozen Saida to gaze into her face, "on suspicion of theft, sabotage and assault."

Quote in this chapter by Ambrose Bierce.

AmyLouise keeps catching those faulty commas for me, thanks for that!