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"I have an idea"
"A good one?"
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves"
Fred and George, at some point, definitely.
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Betelgeuse had not had an actual conversation with her cousin in some time, and, quite frankly, she missed him. She would never admit it, but the quick-wittedness and cunningness of the Malfoy amused her greatly.
At dinner, she walked calmly towards the Slytherin table, leaving the Gryffindors gaping at her.
She stopped before an equally surprised Draco; she smiled subtly, "May I?" It took a few seconds for him to register what she had said, then Draco nodded vigorously and pointed with his long, tapered hand the seat in front of him. "How are you, dear cousin?"
Before Draco could reply, Betelgeuse diverted her grey eyes to the prying scrutinises of the Slytherins on each side of Draco, "Get lost."
Draco would have laughed at the speed Crabbe and Goyle scrambled to their feet and moved various seats away from the Pureblood pair. She studied his cousin. The sole Heir of House Black was the embodiment of a perfect bred Pureblood, dignified and standoffish with an air of haughtiness that could pass for arrogance. He taught that he had never seen a more ethereal beauty before, aside from his mother, but that was expected. Narcissa Malfoy was a Black before marrying his father, and the Blacks were known for their aristocratic elegance and good looks. What struck Draco the most were her eyes; they were of an intense grey, eerily serene, but vindictive and cold like the fog on a sinuous road when she was aggravated. They were so unique, so different from his mother's clear blue eyes or his own clear grey ones.
"If it was not for your tie's colours, you would pass for a flawless Slytherin," Draco stated, dodging her question.
Betelgeuse hummed, then smirked, "Draco, dear, you are talented at evading direct interrogations, but it does not work with me. How have you been?"
Draco sighed, "Alright, I guess. Father is vexing me about my academic achievements 'not up to the standards of the Malfoy Family', whatever," the boy complained, making Betelgeuse smile. "My mother is worried sick about our deranged escapee of a cousin. She even suggested to withdraw me from Hogwarts! Can you imagine?"
Betelgeuse paused, "She is concerned about her son, Draco."
Draco shrugged, then glanced at the Gryffindor table, "Now that I think of it, what is that I heard about Perfect Potter insulting you?"
Betelgeuse waved her hand dismissively as the opulent food appeared before her on the Slytherin table. "Nothing to fret about, Draco. He was angry and did not comprehend to not cross me."
Draco felt himself fuel with fury at her dismissal manners, "Just to be clear, I am not allowed to hex him?" Betelgeuse only laughed, a carefree laugh that she had not yet granted Draco with. "Bel, he blatantly attacked you, and you are going to let it slide? You? A Black?"
Betelgeuse sighed, putting her fork down, "Draco, he disrespected me precisely because I am a Black. He did attack me, but I set him straight, and I do not need you to hex the boy." Draco witnessed a devious smirk make its way on her rosy lips, "But I must admit it would be a pleasant occurrence to behold."
Her cousin mirrored her shrewd smirk, then his eyes lit up, "Oh, I nearly forgot! Mother wishes to meet you." Betelgeuse nearly chocked on her pumpkin juice.
"What?"
"Yes, after all the letters I wrote home about finding my lost cousin, she started nagging me about meeting you. I finally caved." Betelgeuse nodded. "Maybe you could spend the Yule evening at Malfoy Manor?" Betelgeuse detected a hopeful tone in Draco's voice and beheld a crestfallen look darken his fair visage when she shook her head. "I have a previous engagement on Yule eventide, but I could visit on New Year's Day."
Draco could not contain his happiness; finally, someone his age could stay with him during the Christmas holidays, and that someone was even a relative. He was elated. "I will inform Mother then."
Betelgeuse nodded, then with a solemn face, she added, " I am pleased your mother is delighted to meet me, as long as she does not start planning our wedding."
Draco spluttered the drink in his mouth from surprise, drenching a boy on the left of Betelgeuse. "Bloody —"
"Shut up, Blaise! — Salazar, never, and I mean NEVER, suggest a thing like that ever again, Bel," Draco grumbled, drying the water that had poured on his clothes with a silken handkerchief. Betelgeuse laughed at his flustered state. "It's not bloody funny."
"Sure, it is not, Draco."
"How is your tryst with the Weasel boy?" Draco casually asked, suppressing a grin. Betelgeuse's eyes widened slightly, but she quickly regained her usual aloof composure, Draco internally groaned. "I did not remember so many twattle-baskets at Hogwarts. I guess Hilliard is not the only one."
Draco frowned, "Who?"
"A Ravenclaw prefect Humungous Bighead paired me with."
Draco looked even more confused, "Who?!"
Betelgeuse dismissed his question with a blasé wave of her dainty hand.
"Draco," an approaching hight-pitched petulant voice interrupted the cousins' conversation. Betelgeuse saw Draco roll his pretty grey eyes at a short girl with black eyes and a black bowl haircut.
Ah, yes, Pansy Parkinson.
Pansy's dull black eyes ran over Betelgeuse's form; if Betelgeuse did not know any better, she would have assumed that Pansy Parkinson had a crush on her considering she was so clearly checking her out. "Black really isn't your colour," the girl stated with confidence, then with a much more subsided tone added, "Black."
Betelgeuse was indeed dressed in all black; she raised an eyebrow at her statement. Draco put his head in his hands and groaned.
This girl is truly an imbecile.
"I would wish to ignore your presence, but since you have imposed yourself so rudely on us, I desire to do you a favour and overlook the complete idiocy you just spoke. Furthermore, my black attire is more symbolic than a fashion statement." Betelgeuse stated nonchalantly.
"Oh?" Pansy stupidly asked.
Betelgeuse turned to the younger girl, smiling pleasantly. "The reason I wear black so much is to remind people like you, Parkinson, not to make me mad or annoyed because I am already dressed for their requiem, cretin." She finished with a sharp edge of her voice, and without sparing a last glance to the girl, turned to face her cousin.
"A failed Slytherin," he commented, smiling.
☆☆☆
"Sirius Black is an Animagus, and I met him."
"What?"
Betelgeuse had finally arrived at home for the Christmas Holidays, and she was currently enjoying a game of Wizard's chess with the other human occupant of Grimmauld Place.
"Pawn to g6," Betelgeuse stated firmly. Her white pawn moved forward, making a two-step advance from its starting position. The black opponent's pawn on the square next to the destination square was captured en passant.
The black-haired man opposite her hummed with a contemplative expression on his noble visage, "Well played, Meus Stella. Bishop to f3."
Betelgeuse diverted her attention from the chessboard to the crackling fire in the monumental marble fireplace. "I noticed a large black dog staring at Harry Potter in Diagon Alley at the end of August."
"Why did it capture your interest?" The man inquired, leaning back on the comfortable green velvet armchair.
"The dog had an unusual behaviour; he was so fascinated by Potter that he completely missed a cat lounging under the sun nearby. Peculiar, do not you agree?"
"Granted, we are not specialists in the behaviour of canines, but it could be a feline-friendly dog," he logically mused, stroking his chin deep in thoughts.
"The dog had shaggy black fur and grey anthropomorphic eyes," Betelgeuse stated, meeting the surprised look of the man. "When I attempted to reach its mind, it seemed the dog sensed my mental touch, and he ran away. You do know animals do not react thus."
"No, indeed, they do not."
"He was at the Quidditch match, the one I wrote to you about, seated on the topmost, empty row of seats. He was closely following the match and fled when the Dementors appeared. These cannot be mere coincidences."
"Maybe not. I wonder why Sirius desires to seek the boy at Hogwarts, now that it is so heavily guarded. There must be something or someone other than Harry Potter who drove him to hazard getting captured."
A sudden thought stroke Betelgeuse like lightening, she whispered, "the rat." She saw the man furrowed his black eyebrows, then his eyes widened, "Another Animagus?"
"Peter Pettigrew," Betelgeuse whispered.
"How?" The man asked, losing his composed exterior for a moment.
"He is the horrid rat Ron Weasley has as a pet. It has been with the Weasley Family for twelve years, and he misses a toe. 'All they could find left of Pettigrew was his —'"
"— Finger," the man breathed out. He suddenly raised to his feet and began to pace around the spacious sitting room. "Betelgeuse, if Pettigrew is indeed inside the Castle, you need to stay alert. Do not disclose anything of importance when in the vicinity of Ron Weasley or Harry Potter. The boy is in grave danger; you all are." He stopped and turned around, crouching before the seated girl. "Promise me you will be careful. Promise me you will not engage with Pettigrew and you will not take part in your uncle's plan of revenge. Promise me."
Betelgeuse had never seen such desperation in the gorgeous deep eyes of the man. She nodded, noticing his shoulders lose some of the tension they had had previously held.
Why did I not see the traitor's name on the Map?
"Do not entrust Albus Dumbledore with what we now know. There is more than one aspect concerning that man, and the one he has not shown yet is the one I fear the most."
Betelgeuse nodded again, "I will not. Besides, I do not trust him. He sought to enter my mind after my Sorting."
The fair visage of the man darkened at once. "Let us concern ourselves with something more joyful, Meus Stella."
And so, the pair immersed themselves in an articulated discussion about Quidditch, one of the many passions they shared. They were quickly engrossed in a dispute about the most effective and gruesome foul a player could commit. The man took as an example the final of the 1473 Quidditch World Cup, contested between Transylvania and Flanders. It had gone down in history as the most violent match of all time; all seven-hundred fouls listed in the Department of Magical Games and Sports records were known to have occurred during the final. The black-haired man explained that many of the fouls then recorded had never been seen before. Betelgeuse and her interlocutor agreed that attacking an opponent with an axe or attempting the decapitation of a keeper with a broadsword would be the most effective of them all, but the release from under the robes of the Transylvanian Captain of a hundred blood-sucking vampire bats was the most theatrical and climactic.
Betelgeuse narrated a hilarious event that occurred during one of the matches against Slytherin last year. She had performed the Transylvanian Tackle on Flint, the Slytherin Captain. The move was a feint of a punch to the nose to distract or confuse an opposing player. As long as contact was not made, the play was not illegal, but it was challenging to pull off on speeding broomsticks. Flint had been so startled and enraged that he had begun to argue with his team, receiving a real punch in the face from one of his teammates.
☆☆☆
Betelgeuse woke up on Christmas morning to the soft sound of classical music coming from two floors below. She sat up, smiling at the content hoot that Castor gifted her with.
The magnificent owl flapped its wings, surprised by the sudden appearance of a slender black cat where Betelgeuse had been the moment before. Betelgeuse had discovered a new passion, jumping from one furniture to another and running at full speed on the antique carpets in the house. When she arrived in the kitchen, she paused under the threshold, observing the scene before her.
The tall man that always carried himself with an air of arrogance and nobility was currently wearing an embroidered apron that would have made even Molly Weasley envious. Beside him stood an exasperated Kreacher, "If only Master could let Kreacher summon —"
"No, no, Kreacher. I already told you, I fancy to surprise Betelgeuse. Besides, I am fairly positive that this is the proper method."
"I doubt it," Betelgeuse heard Kreacher mumbled.
"Good morning," the girl suddenly said, making the man and Kreacher let out uncharacteristic equal squeals.
"Oh, good morning! Belated Yule, Meus Stella," the handsome man replied, embracing the girl. "Belated Yule to you too, to you Kreacher as well."
Kreacher bowed deep, "The little Miss is too kind, as always."
Betelgeuse grinned at the man, "Nice apron."
The man rolled his eyes, "Go open your presents."
The black-haired girl headed towards the sitting room, where there was a pile of presents near the fireplace. Opening the first one, she unfolded a soft forest green jumper with a B on it.
Fred is right; his mother has totally forgotten I am a Gryffindor.
She immediately pulled it on, smiling. She had gotten all kind of sweets from Angelina, Alicia, Lee, and Katie. The twins had sent her a box full of pumpkin pastries; she mentally thanked them. They were her favourite sweets.
Andromeda had sent her an envelope containing a letter of Christmas greeting from her family and a moving picture of infant Betelgeuse in the arms of a grinning young Andromeda.
How sweet.
She even received a short letter from Draco wishing her a pleasant Christmas break.
Betelgeuse frowned; before her eyes, two additional presents remained. There were not any cards or notes. She did not know who had sent them. She gingerly took the small packages and went back to the kitchen. "There are these two gifts, but I do not know who sent them."
The man smiled, "This one is from me." He indicated the bigger one. The package contained a dainty gold ring with an oval yellow diamond. "It was your mother's. I gave her this ring on her seventeenth birthday." Betelgeuse smiled, embracing the man tightly.
Turning her attention on the last box, she carefully pulled it on her lap and opened it. Her frown deepened. In the small package, there was a set of keys attached to a worn-out leather keychain. With the present, there was a piece of parchment, and she folded it open.
These are the key to one of my most beloved possession. It served me wonderfully on many occasions, like while being chased by Muggle policemen. But that is a story for another time. I hope we will meet one day.
PS. For summoning your gift, say out loud 'My only love'.
Snuffles.
Betelgeuse stared at the parchment until her grey eyes met the astounded ones of the man beside her. "Snuffles?" She inhaled deeply, then she called, "My only love."
At once, a sleek black motorbike appeared in the middle of the sitting room. It had a black shiny petrol tank and a long leather seat. It was a marvellous object.
Betelgeuse heard a snort from her left, "I know who this Snuffles is. Only your uncle could have charmed a Muggle death contraption and called it 'my only love'".
☆☆☆
Betelgeuse had ventured to Muggle London in search of a manual about motorbikes because neither she nor the man she lived with knew a thing about them. Her time with the Weasleys had been chaotic fun as usual, but the most peculiar event was her visit to Malfoy Manor. After having endured an hour of endless recommendations to be vigilant and attentive and not to trust Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy, finally, Betelgeuse had found herself before the gates of the grand abode.
Draco had written in one of his last letters that these gates permitted select individuals to pass through them, and so she had walked through the iron bars as if they were made of smoke. Betelgeuse had been slightly surprised at the sight of albino peacocks roving along the top of the yew hedges.
The handsome manor house grew out of the darkness at the end of the straight drive she had walked, lights glinting in the diamond-paned downstairs windows.
The monumental front doors had swung inward at her approach without anyone visibly opening them. She had found herself in a large, dimly lit, and sumptuously decorated hallway, with a magnificent carpet covering most of the stone floor. A frail old house-elf that had not once met her grey eyes had led her to a drawing-room. It was a widely proportioned room, with dark purple walls and high ceilings, two chandeliers, and a pipe organ at one end. Betelgeuse had noticed a handsome, ornate marble mantelpiece with a gilded mirror that had an intricately scrolled frame on top. In that precise room, she had been greeted by an uncharacteristically smiling Draco and by Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy.
Narcissa had been nothing but the perfect Pureblood hostess and courteous with Betelgeuse, making small talk about socially acceptable topics.
Now that Betelgeuse was back at Hogwarts, and she reminisced about her meeting with her first cousin once removed, all she could hold against Narcissa was her debatable taste in choosing her husband. But, perhaps, in the end, Narcissa had not had a choice.
Betelgeuse was sitting with the Quidditch team in the Gryffindor Tower when Wood appeared beside her. "Had a good Christmas?" he asked, and then, without waiting for an answer, he sat down, lowered his voice, and said to Harry, "I've been, doing some thinking over Christmas, Harry. After the last match, you know. If the Dementors come to the next one — I mean — we can't afford you to — well —" Wood broke off, looking awkward.
"I'm working on it," Harry replied quickly. "Professor Lupin said he'd train me to ward off the Dementors. We should be starting this week. He said he'd have time after Christmas."
"Ah," Wood said, his expression clearing. "Well, in that case — I really didn't want to lose you as Seeker, Harry. And have you ordered a new broom yet?"
"No."
"What! You'd better get a move on, you know — you can't ride that Shooting Star against Ravenclaw!"
"He got a Firebolt for Christmas," Ron spoke.
"A Firebolt? No! Seriously? A — a real Firebolt?"
"Don't get excited, Oliver," Harry stated gloomily. "I haven't got it anymore. It was confiscated."
Betelgeuse closely listened as Potter explained all about how the Firebolt was now being checked for jinxes.
"Jinxed? How could it be jinxed?"
"Sirius Black," Harry said, wearily gazing at the Black near him. "He's supposed to be after me. So, McGonagall reckons he might have sent it."
Betelgeuse deemed that Minnie was right, and the strange gift could explain various unsolved matters.
Waving aside the information that a famous murderer was after his Seeker, Wood replied, "But Black couldn't have bought a Firebolt! He's on the run! The whole country's on the lookout for him! How could he just walk into Quality Quidditch Supplies and buy a broomstick?"
"I know," Harry said, "but McGonagall still wants to strip it down —"
Wood went pale. "I'll go and talk to her, Harry," he promised. "I'll make her see reason — A Firebolt — a real Firebolt, on our team — She wants Gryffindor to win as much as we do — I'll make her see sense. A Firebolt —"
Ravenclaw played Slytherin a week after the start of term. Slytherin won, though narrowly. According to Wood, this was good news for Gryffindor, who would take second place if they beat Ravenclaw too. He, therefore, increased the number of team practices to five a week. This meant with all the assignments for their O.W.L.s. Betelgeuse only had one day a week to be able to study and to any of said schoolwork.
Every night, without fail, Betelgeuse was to be seen sitting in the Common Room with books, Arithmancy charts, rune dictionaries, diagrams of Potions ingredients, and file upon file of extensive notes.
On one of those fateful Sundays, Betelgeuse threw her quill aside and fall backwards on the fourth bed she had unexpectedly found in the boys' dorm. "I am done." She morphed in her feline form and jumped on Fred's bed.
At that moment, Lee entered the dorm, looking around, "Where's Bel?"
George glanced up at her secretly from his journal he shared with Fred. It had been Betelgeuse's Christmas present for the twins. It was now filled with their new inventions and Betelgeuse's notes for improvements. He mischievously grinned as Fred raised the slender black cat in the air, "Here she is!"
Lee looked confused, then annoyed, "Sod off, Fred. I don't even want to know where you found that poor cat. Work up the nerve and ask her out. Then I can get my gallons."
George saw an equal look of bewilderment appeared on his furry best friend and brother, and he roared with laughter. "Who? The cat?" He asked in between waves of laughter.
Fred flushed a bright red colour, "What are you talking about?" He tried to play it cool and remembered he did not share with Lee the news of his first kiss.
Lee scoffed, "Merlin's beard, you're so oblivious. It's only been since our first year. Fred, you fancy her! George and I have a bet going, so if you could really hurry it up and confess by the next year, that'd be great. Man, even Betelgeuse fancies you!"
Betelgeuse was grateful for being able to disguise herself at that moment.
This is getting painfully uncomfortable.
"What?" Fred exhaled, looking briefly at the beautiful black cat sitting on his knees. "You're mental. I care for Bel, a lot, but we are just friends. The best of friends, Lee."
"Yeah, and I'm going to pass my Potions O.W.L.s. with an O."
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