The British Ministry of Magic claims that magical blood is dwindling in Pureblood families. This puts some students in awkward positions. Kris Averbach finds himself being dangled like a piece of meat in front of eligible Pureblood young ladies, but...
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Breese was deliberately assigning him detention tasks to humiliate him, Kris thought as he scrubbed the castle entrance hall after the students departed cheerily for their Hogsmeade weekend. The floor could be cleaned in a trice by the house elves, but here he was, with a mop and bucket of water that turned gray so fast he had done three water changes before he was even halfway finished. It didn't help that Peeves showed up not long after he started and dumped a pail of something green and putrid on the only section Kris had already completed. He had yelled himself hoarse, and then Breese had come and told him off for making a racket. When he showed her what Peeves had done, she simply shrugged and told him to get another bucket.
He put all of his anger into scrubbing the floors until they shone, and he was about to put away the mop and bucket, his shoulders aching, when one of the castle doors flew open and someone came rushing in, tracking in muddy water behind them. Kris nearly threw the mop across the room. "Oh, for Merlin's sake, I just washed that!" As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them. A soaking wet Calliope stood there, apologizing while her lower lip trembled, looking even more miserable than she had when Montague bullied her during Dueling Club. If he hadn't known for a fact that Kelton was downstairs bottling some foul specimens for Volkov, he would have assumed his dorm mate had been pestering her again.
"Ope? Are you all right?" he asked.
The petite Ravenclaw nodded, shook her head, then began to cry and ran for the stairs. Instinct took over, and Kris dropped the mop and bucket—which clanged against the stone and spilled the dirty water all over the washed floor—and darted out to grab her as she passed by. He held her close, not caring that she was sopping wet and his own shirt was quickly soaked. She stiffened at first and he thought she would pull away, but then she pressed against him, her hands clenching the front of his shirt, and he thought she must feel the way his heart began beating like a stampeding Erumpent. But she didn't say anything, and to his surprise, she allowed him to hold her.
And so, even though he had missed the Hogsmeade trip, even though he had spent the day mopping and scrubbing, he was in considerable good spirits. Surely this meant he was making progress. Now he only had to find out from Kit and the others if their plan to create a distraction for Nik had worked.
That afternoon, after his last detention had ended with clearing out the old and putting down fresh straw in the owlery, and then taking the soiled straw to Professor Folia to put in her compost, Kris was finally set free by Professor Breese. The first thing he did was take a shower. Then he made his way down to the History of Magic classroom for Ancient Studies. He was cutting it extremely close, but he just managed to make it on time. To his disappointment, Calliope was not sitting at the table with Lavinia. Kris made his way over to her, ignoring Nik entirely, and she looked up as he sat down.
"Where's Calliope?" he whispered to her.
"Quidditch practice," she whispered back as McNeill cleared his throat in the front of the room.
