Damsel in Distress

CHAPTER TEN

Damsel in Distress

By the time we arrived in the Great Hall, lunch was finished, and only one student was left, a girl at the end of the Slytherin table. There was something drearily familiar about seeing a girl sitting alone in the hall, so I approached cautiously. It was Tracey Davies, and she was fuming rather than weeping at her empty plate.

"Hullo, Tracey," I said. "Having a hard time?"

"The same hard time you're having, if you really want to know," she said resentfully.

I was used to unexplained resentments from Slytherins, and Zacharias did not even seem to notice. "How is your problem the same as our problem?" he asked. "And how were you knowing about ours?"

"Not yours," she said pointedly to Zacharias. "His." She jerked her head at me so that her chestnut curls bounced.

"Oh. So you aren't in trouble with Snape?"

"This has nothing to do with Snape!" cried Tracey shrilly. "This is far more serious! Tell him about our troubles, Corner."

"Our troubles? I'm afraid I don't..."

"Fine, then I'll break it to you. Corner, you've been jilted. You and Padma Patil have Broken Up."

"Oh, I've known that for two days. In fact, I probably ought to have worked it out twenty days ago. That's not news."

"So you also know for whom she's jilted you?"

"She didn't leave me for anyone, we just – "

"Then Padma Patil is a very fast worker. She has a new boyfriend now, all right. She's going to the Yule Ball with Blaise Zabini, the same boy who three days ago promised to take me!"

I felt sick. Padma. She should have had better sense. She didn't know about the bet, but she did know he was a Slytherin. She wouldn't go with me because I had asked her wrongly, but she'd go with Zabini because ... because he had eyelashes? If vanity had been a porcelain vase, mine would have just shattered into a thousand pieces.

Terry would have been able to dredge out the funny side of the situation, but I had no time to hunt for it.

I dragged my mind back to the immediate problem. Another girl jilted. I suppressed the unworthy thought, She's only a Slytherin, and tried to explain to her. "Tracey, I don't really believe that Padma will be going to the ball with Zabini. He's going to do to her exactly what he did to you – jilt her for someone else within hours. He didn't really make a serious offer to either of you."

"You don't know what you're talking about," she insisted. "Blaise did ask me – in the dungeon on Sunday. Ask Cecilia; she heard him. He s-said my face was sunshine and that snow would melt at my smile. Boys don't say that kind of thing to girls who are just friends. ... Do they?" she insisted when I maintained a diplomatic silence.

"Sounds cool." Zacharias was impressed.

But I was not. I had no interest in borrowing Zabini's pick-up lines. "I can only think of three reasons why a boy would use such over-the-top language," I tried to explain. "One, he's in love. Two, he's joking. Three, he's lying."

"Are you really suggesting," Tracey cut in furiously, "that I'm not the human face of Beauty? That my lightest glance doesn't inspire a volume of poetry? That my tornado of invitations to this ball won't drive me to Confundus?"

"No," I said at the same time as Zacharias began, "We-ell ... I'm sure some boy out there is liking you enough to invite you..."

Tracey shifted her gaze firmly to Zacharias, clearly liking him a great deal more than she was liking me.

Zacharias seized the moment and told her: "Zabini has a bet about how many girls he can persuade to accompany him to the ball. You've just won him a Galleon from Malfoy."

Tracey stared horror-struck for a second, her mouth wide open and wordless, then burst into fresh tears. "Liars!" she sobbed. "You're wrong! He did like me. This is all Padma's fault – Padma – she must have said – she's stolen – " The rest was too incoherent to hear.

Rumbling stomachs brought Zacharias and me back to business. We helped ourselves to what was left in the Slytherin fruit bowl, speaking to each other in low voices under Tracey's sobs.

"Funny how we've not heard more complaints," said Zacharias. "You'd think the girls would talk among themselves and work out they're being cheated. I'm supposing girls are just too mean-spirited to warn each other to stay away from Zabini."

"Not quite," I replied and explained about the Silencing Varnish – which, of course, Zacharias had touched on the day Zabini had bumped into him in the Entrance Hall.

Zacharias was impressed. "Goodness, that explains why I've not been able to say anything to the Hufflepuff girls! I stuttered so badly in front of Sophie that she fetched me a glass of water. Hannah and Susan changed the subject when I tried to warn them, and Megan just walked away. I did tell Sally-Anne, but I was too late – she'd already accepted him."

"Did Sally-Anne believe you?" I asked.

"Yes, she said she'd really been wanting to go with Terry Boot and she'd only accepted Zabini out of desperation. When I told her she'd been duped, she seemed not to mind – she said she ought to have known better than to accept a Slytherin and thank goodness she was well out of it."

Tracey looked up at us with a frown, as if she'd paid attention to that last remark. "Stop pretending to be friendly to me," she ordered sharply. "You're prejudiced against Slytherin House, just like the rest! If you think I'm useless, I don't want your insincere advice."

"Rubbish," said Zacharias. "Why would I be thinking you're useless before I even know you?"

"Just because I'm not an airy-fairy, loud-mouthed Ravenclaw – "

I clamped my mouth shut and controlled myself.

" – or a foolhardy, show-off Gryffindor or a stupid, boring Hufflepuff – "

"I say!" exclaimed Zacharias. "Just because we finish our homework on time – "

" – Just because I'm trying to get somewhere in life – just because I try to make the right friends – and learn spells that will be practical after I've left school – and bother to finish my homework – "

"See, there's something to be said for doing homework," said Zacharias.

"Talking of which," I said, "I'm off to revise my antidotes. Coming, Zacharias?"

"Nope, I'm going to stay here a bit longer."

As it happened, I nearly crashed into Zabini in the Entrance Hall. He had waylaid Lavender Brown from Gryffindor, who was saying:

"Yes, I'm quite sure I like him. I'm flattered that you've asked me twice, but I cannot go to the ball with you."

"I am distraught," replied Zabini. I was disconcerted to see something like a tear hanging from his long eyelashes. He obviously knew how to act the part; Lavender looked sorry for him. "That ball will be torture if I can't attend it with you. Perhaps I should forget it completely and spend Christmas with my parents."

Lavender hovered between sympathy and suspicion. "Perhaps that would be the best way to console yourself," she agreed.

"I shall have no consolation if I cannot at least see you across the crowded hall," he smoothly recanted. "You will not deny me, at least, the right to look at you?"

And I had thought Robert and Mandy had sounded like a Regency romance! I didn't hear what Lavender said next, but as I began climbing the stairs, I did notice Zabini slipping a black stone into his pocket.

Hooray! One girl who had some common sense!

The half-hour that I spent with my Potions notes was not very productive. It wasn't enough time to swot up twelve different formulae. Besides, watching Zabini's manoeuvres had reminded me very forcefully that I did not have a partner for the Yule Ball. Padma was looking for someone new. I must look for someone too. Cho Chang? Millicent Bulstrode? Morag? That Durmstrang girl who didn't yet know that Zabini had jilted her? But as soon as I told myself that I must consider someone who was a serious possibility, no-one sprang to mind. Yet I couldn't stop thinking about it until I entered the DADA classroom.

Obviously there was no room for frivolous thinking in Professor Moody's lessons. For the next ninety minutes, he kept our full attention on counter-curses. And as soon as he released us, there was more urgent business at hand.

"Listen, Terry, I've found out which girl wants to go to the ball with you ..."

It took quite a long time to convince him that I wasn't joking, that Zacharias was unlikely to have been mistaken (which was tricky because, of course, I found myself forgetting how to speak English when I tried to repeat any part of the dialogue that had involved Zabini) and that Sally-Anne had had absolutely no reason to lie to Zacharias. But finally Terry remembered to ask me:

"Did you hear that Padma's found herself a new dance partner already?"

"Yeah, I knew."

"She won't say who."

"I've found out who, and I'm not surprised she won't say. The boy's in – " I began to choke violently.

Terry thumped me on the back, exclaiming, "What, you're trying to say that her new partner's in Slytherin!"

I was able to nod before the choking began again.

"Surely you must be in dire distress about that," said Terry.

"Not as much as I thought I would be," I said honestly. "Life has been very quiet without Padma."

I wasn't ready to use words like "peaceful" or "relaxing" out loud, but already I was thinking them in my mind. Being optimistic about the situation now seemed much easier than it had been even yesterday.