(16) The Goblin Fair

Giselle started to go with her Auntie and Roger to the Infirmary, but Auntie said, "Best that you enjoy the rest of your holiday here, Giselle."

Whenever Auntie called her 'Giselle' instead of 'Gee,' she could be sure that Auntie was of no mind to argue.

Giselle looked around at the rides and the crowds, and felt lonely. Her friends were all here, somewhere in the crush, having fun, but that seemed more like a dry fact than something to be happy about. She decided to go to the Common Room. It would be quiet there and she could catch up on her reading. And besides, maybe Pomfrey would tell Roger to take a bit of rest in his dorm.

She mosied around until Auntie and Roger were going up the porch steps to the castle's main entrance, then picked up her pace, crossing the east lawn where the flying lessons were given.

She stopped when she saw a group of Slytherins come out to the porch and start joking around. They would certainly tease her if she came by them. So she turned along the Old Wall, as it was called, and followed it to the archway into an inner courtyard. This would take her to a back entrance to the corridor that angled around to the Hall.

As she walked along the bricks between the flower gardens, her intuition said, 'Hide.'

She slowed, a hand to her chest. Hide? Why should she hide?

"Professor Frumlow," said Krimson, whom Giselle could see through the thin branches of a juniper sapling. The boy was standing in front of the professor, presumably, on the far side of a blossoming hedge, but she couldn't see Frumlow; only hear his voice.

"Eh? What is this about?" was spoken in a guilty tone. Giselle hid behind a buttress of the castle wall, below an enormous window. 'Stay put,' her intuition was warning her.

"Professor, I want to know how you can apparate from the school grounds. I know it's not supposed to be possible, but an alternative method... Mightn't there be one? If there is one, I feel certain you would know, Professor Frumlow."

"Were there one, I would hardly be disposed to telling it to a Slytherin undergraduate."

"I saw you apparate! At night, by the lake."

There was a pregnant silence.

"You, boy, are trying my patience."

"Then I'll try it even harder, Professor. I know you were afflicted by the Marvolo Curse when you were a student here, a Slytherin student, I may add."

"You, boy, are getting a little too big for your britches. You were fortunate not to have been expelled. Keep at it, and you won't be so lucky the next time. Off with you. This is my time for botany, not for listening to nonsense from a muggle-born."

Giselle could feel the anger rising in Krimson at the mention of his parentage.

"And your mother, sir, was a squib prostitute who didn't think your father was worth the trouble to marry."

Another horrible silence.

"HOW... DARE.. !"

"I'VE EVIDENCE!"

"SHUT your filthy mouth, boy! What evidence are you gibbering about? Is it the Curse? Is it? What evidence could you possibly have about a ridiculous pornographic fairy tale?"

"The diary of Isabel Channing, for starters, Professor! I found it in the Room of Requirement. And you can stop pretending you don't know about the room, sir, I can see well enough that you do."

In the silence that followed, such a wave of faintness came over Giselle that she put a hand on the buttress and the other on the ledge of the window sill to keep from falling.

Isabel Channing. Her mother's maiden name. But surely this could not have been her mum. It dawned on her then that it was her grandmother who was meant. Her mum had been named after her grandmother and called 'Bella' by the family. She had been in Gryffindor, and so had Grandmother. Giselle stood fixated on the silence, on the tension that was building.

She heard the squeak of springs, then a long sigh; picturing Professor Frumlow sitting down on one of the garden benches.

"Isabel was as dreamy-headed as all the other Gryffindors," he said, like a penitent confessing his sins. "I spent enough time among them to know of what I speak. Minerva was the only one I knew who didn't while away her free time in flights of heroic fantasy. She would chide Isabel for being so caught up in silly daydreams of conquest and valor."

"Isabel mentions her friendship with Minerva McGonagall, in her diary. Here's proof that I have the diary, sir.  She wrote about the time you accosted her behind the greenhouses. She wrote about the Curse, and what it had done to you."

Another silence. Giselle tried hard not to think of what her grandmother must have experienced in the untended growths, the shady tucked-away places behind the greenhouses.

"Do you want to hear more, Professor? Do you want to hear about Isabel's daughter? But how could Isabel have a child, when because of the Marvolo Curse you wrapped yourself around her like a snake, and--"

"No!"

"Don't deny it, sir. Isabel could not have children, not after what the Curse made you do to her. I'm not blaming you, Professor. You were a victim of the Curse. Isabel adopted a baby girl and not even her dolt of a husband knew about the adoption. He was too busy with the Grindelwald affair to pay much attention to his wife."

Giselle heard the springs creaking and the sound of stave-ends striking the brick walkway. "What proof of the Curse do you think you have, Mr Johan? I always believed the proof was in the inaction of Headmaster Dippet, in the fact that nothing was done to me. It was like no one knew about it! It was like Isabel herself knew nothing about it! What other proof could there be? You say she wrote about it? She never mentioned it to me, never!"

Giselle sensed someone else coming into the courtyard. She was in a funk over what she had heard about her mum being adopted. Was this tale really about her mum and grandmother? Could it be that it was just a coincidence of names? She wanted to run to her Auntie, but her intuition was screaming at her to stay hidden.

"Sir, I have proof, but I intend to provide it to one person only, and you, Professor Frumlow, are not that person."

A clinking, clanging of springs. "No, but I can guess who that person is, and guess without the help of 'Madame Moonbeam.' I know who you toady to, boy. It's Hardmore Womblatt!"

A quick tapping of footsteps. "What's this about Daddy? Krim, what are you blabbing about?"

"What are YOU doing here? We agreed to meet in the library."

"Something's... come up. I need to talk to you, in private."

A short silence was followed by creaking and a rapping of staves. "Remember what I said, Mr Johan, about fortunate circumstances," Frumlow warned as he wobbled away down the bricks. "A shut mouth will favor you with closed ears."

Giselle stiffened, pressing back against the crook of the buttress. Krimson and Elenore were coming in her direction.

"Pomfrey has given Roger another antidote," the girl said.

"It won't work any better than the first one. The Curse has seen to that."

Giselle watched them pass through the archway, her heart down around her ankles.