Corrupted Souls | remus lupin

meetings and lemon drops

Her reaction wasn't quite what he expected, and he watched the girl make a quick descent down the stairs. Neoma Nott had always been relatively quiet, keeping to herself and watching from the sidelines as her friends made half of the school's lives a living hell. In James's eyes, doing nothing was as bad as the deed itself, and so he had branded Neoma as "one of them" since their first year. 

A ten-second exchange in The Owlery wouldn't change his opinions of her, of course, but James was disappointed that she wasn't interested in some kind of confrontation. 

-- 

"Lemon drop?" Dumbledore questioned the girl across from him. Her letter, unraveled, sat on his desk, written in neat cursive lettering that some professors would be envious of. 

"No, thank you." Neoma's hands were clammy as she played with the hem of her skirt nervously. "...Thank you for agreeing to meet with me."

Dumbledore nodded slowly, peering at her over his half-moon spectacles, before standing up and grabbing something off of a shelf. It was a tiny thing, made of what appeared to be obsidian. As Dumbledore brought it closer to Neoma's line of vision, she realized that the obsidian was formed into the shape of a phoenix. It was highly detailed and smooth for such a small piece of material.

"A young Everleigh Goyle made this for me in her fourth year. It was some of the most skilled transfiguration I had ever seen from a student of that age. As I'm sure you know, it is extremely difficult to transfigure art. Something so abstract doesn't work well with a such a scientific branch of magic."

He handed it to the Slytherin girl, and smiled sadly as her eyes glanced up at him in shock. "I do believe she would be happy for you to have it, Miss Nott."

Neoma bit down on her lip, closing her fingers around the cold stone. "You know about my mother, then?"

"I know many things." Dumbledore stated, sitting back down at his desk. "Word gets around in certain circles. I do not know all of the details, but I know she passed away in your fifth year. I'm sorry, Miss Nott."

Neoma stared down at the rock, blinking back a waterfall of tears. "She was murdered - that's why it was kept hidden. They didn't want to have too much suspicion drawn to them."

Dumbledore had his theories about who "they" were, but he kept his musings to himself. "Is this why you requested to meet with me today?"

Neoma quickly remembered why she was there in the first place, and her nerves returned as she began to fidget with the obsidian phoenix. "Professor Dumbledore, I'm about to share with you some extremely dangerous information. I want to preface this by saying that my father is risking his life by having me come here today...but given his position, he knows his time is limited anyways, and he wants to leave a little bit of good in the world that he helped turn so dark." 

Neoma's words were pained, Dumbledore detected, but she seemed to have come to terms with her father's fate. 

"Voldemort is going to be ramping up his operations - fast. I'm sure you've heard of some of the disappearances going on ... they're all him. He has a following of roughly four-hundred wizards spanning Europe. Many of my classmates are poised to become Death Eaters over the winter holiday. He's planning an attack on -"

"Slow down." Dumbledore put his hands up, furrowing his brow. "Let's start from the very beginning. Your father is feeding you this information?"

"Yes. I haven't set foot near that vile creature since my mother was killed."

"And you trust that your father is not being influenced to provide you with false information?"

Dumbledore's accusation hung in the air for a long time, and Neoma felt her stomach twist at the Headmaster's pointed look. This was not the man from five minutes ago.