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“Willoughby.”
Alex looked up from his shepherd’s pie. It was two weeks after the ultimate finale of the Triwizard Tournament, and while he himself did not think their victory was particularly impressive, the rest of the school seemed to differ in opinion. Hogwarts had won—the Rigel Black scandal proving a sombre complication, but they had won.
“Rookwood,” he acknowledged.
“Would you mind…?” Rookwood sighed, looking more tired than Alex would have thought. NEWT preparations would be exhausting, if one gave a damn about them, but Alex had always had the impression that Rookwood was fairly intelligent and had no need to worry.
He raised an eyebrow, tilting his head for Rookwood to go on.
“Would you mind speaking to Aldina?” Rookwood finished. “She’s not—well, she’s not herself. Not since the Rigel Black escape. She hasn’t been eating, and she’s been far more isolated and reserved than is normal for her.”
Alex leaned back in his chair, mildly surprised. He and Aldina were friends, even good friends, but he wouldn’t have called them close. “Why me? Aldina has many friends.”
Rookwood shook his head. “Fewer than you would think. Aldina is friendly, but she has few friends.”
“And you?”
“Aldina and I…” Rookwood hesitated. “We have not been close in many years. Since her cousin Alice and I were engaged last year… we barely speak. But I worry—Alice worries, too. Would you mind?”
Alex thought about it for moment, but ultimately he nodded. “I’ll speak to her. The password to your common room?”
Alex let himself into the study room that the other Slytherins had pointed out to him, the smallest one in the row. Aldina sat at the small table, loose black waves framing her face, tiredly twirling around a quill as she stared at a textbook. Ward Construction, Alex realized from one look at the diagrams.
Why was she studying Ward Construction? After the Tournament, Alex knew as well as anyone else in the team that Aldina could construct more complex wards than anything that could possibly come up in the NEWT exam.
He shut the door behind him with a soft click.
“Door,” she said automatically, looking up—so she was aware he had walked in.
Alex snorted, leaning against the door, which he also secured with the flimsy lock. Nearly three years of friendship, and Aldina was still so careful about her precious noble propriety. “I don’t touch unwilling women, Aldina. Secrecy wards?”
Aldina blinked, and Alex noted that she wasn’t wearing her usual eyeliner. Without her makeup, she looked younger than she normally did. Softer, less sardonic and sarcastic than her usual. “It’s more that—well, what would people think?”
“That you have excellent taste in men, if they think anything at all. Wards?”
“Your reputation precedes you, Alex.” Aldina shook her head, pulling out her wand and flicking runes at each of the walls of the room. “I’ve heard the rumours.”
“In that case, half the school has had us in bed for the last three years.” Alex shrugged, uncaring. The door open rule was really an ineffective one, not least because both he and Aldina could have easily constructed an illusion of them studying through an open door had they really wanted to do anything that she would have termed inappropriate. “And they haven’t, so what does it matter?”
“It might not matter to you, but...” She fell silent, looking away. “Well. Perhaps it doesn’t matter. Why are you here, Alex?”
“Rookwood is worried about you.”
Aldina snorted softly, her finely manicured eyebrows narrowing. “Is he?”
“Yes.” Alex walked over and dropped into the seat across from her, examining her. She really had not taken the care with her appearance that she normally did—her hair was, now that he considered it, flatter than it normally was, and there was the lack of makeup. Her nails, too, were not as meticulously trimmed as usual. “Rookwood says you haven’t been eating, that you haven’t been as social as you normally are—not since the Harriett Potter escape. He’s right. Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.”
Alex paused, raising an eyebrow at her blunt refusal. That wasn’t particularly like her, either—normally Aldina deflected instead of refusing. “I think you need to talk about it. If not to anyone else, perhaps to another halfblood.”
Aldina blinked at him, surprised. It was a gamble—as far as Alex knew, no one had guessed Aldina Rosier’s most likely blood status. But the gift of Truth famously required wild magic, which was found only in Muggleborns and halfbloods, so it was a likely answer.
“Though, my situation is not precisely the same.” Alex smiled, reflective. “My mother, Madeline Willoughby, is a witch—my father dhampir, which is, legally speaking, a non-wizard part-human. Whether that counts for the purposes of making me a pureblood was never really decided, but most consider me a halfblood.”
Aldina looked away, her black waves swinging. “I’m a bastard,” she murmured, her voice uncommonly shy. “My father, and a Muggleborn witch at the Rosier Investment Trust.”
“I had guessed something of the sort. You carry too many of the Rosier traits to be anything else, if you are a Truth-Speaker. I assume that Harriett Potter’s identity was what you were concealing?”
It took a moment for Aldina to nod.
“And you got through the blood oath because Rigel Black and Harriett Potter are the same person, and our new resident terrorist was targeting Rigel Black as Harriett Potter, and not as Arcturus Rigel Black,” Alex reasoned, a small smile flickering across his face. “That took guts.”
“Would you really have killed me, Alex?” Aldina laughed, caustic instead of melodious. It didn’t sound like her.
“I’d really rather not think on that.” Alex shook his head. “Dhampiri codes of honour are… strict. Implacable. I love them and have pledged my life to them, but they are demanding.”
There was a flicker of interest in her golden-orange eyes. “What are the codes? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“I don’t mind.” Alex paused for a moment, remembering the words as they ran through his mind. “In honour of the gifts given me, in honour of those who passed before me, in honour of those who sacrificed for me, I, Aleksandr Willoughby Dragić, swear that I will protect those weaker than me, to live in a way that honours my people and my gods. I will not ignore a cry for help, whether it be from the wealthy, the poor, the young, the old, men, women, the magical or the mundane. Evil will call me, but I will not answer. I will be bound by my honour and my word, and I will act in such a way that when it comes time for my ultimate sacrifice, I will not be afraid but will walk into the jaws of death with a light heart, knowing that I have lived well.”
There was a moment of silence, as Aldina seemed to be processing his words. “It sounds very much like an old knight-oath. Chivalrous. I’m envious.”
“Envious?”
“At least…” Aldina sighed, looking away. “There’s a path forward for you, I suppose.”
Alex tilted his head. “Isn’t there one for you? It may not be an easy one, and dhampir paths are not easy ones—we are heavily hunted by our vampire forebears, and we all die in battle—but there is always a path forward.”
“Not for me.” Aldina’s face scrunched up, a rare public display of upset. “I’m not powerful, Alex. I’m not brave. I’m a woman, and more than that I’m a noblewoman from a conservative and traditional family. I don’t—well.”
“What does your gender have to do with anything?” Alex frowned. “Harriett Potter is a woman too. A noblewoman, even, and look at what she did.”
“Yes, but she’s gifted with a powerful core, and she’s a Potions prodigy.” Aldina looked away. “I’m not her, Alex. I admired her, I wanted to be her, but—I’m not her. I can’t be her.”
“You don’t need to be her to do something remarkable, Aldina.” Alex leaned back, watching her carefully. “Dhampir culture is maybe more egalitarian than most; our women fight alongside our men, because we are all hunted together. I've served under women, and I expect to do so again. We also work extensively with Stormwings, trained warmages, and as many of them are women as are men.”
“I’m not a fighter, either.” Aldina laughed again, and this time the noise was smaller and sadder than before. “Not like Harriett, not like your dhampir or your warmages. My Defence marks—I barely scraped through the OWL. I’m not a warrior.”
“I didn’t say you needed to be.” Alex smiled a little wider. What he would say next was only a guess, but there was no one else who could have broken Harriett Potter out—not without being caught in the act. “Do you think just anyone could have broken Harriett out without being caught? The twins could have managed it together, but they would have been found out on Priori Incantatem. Her own friends in fourth-year wouldn’t have had the knowledge or skill. I can’t think of anyone else who would have even dared to try. What do you want to do, Aldina? Whatever it is, I believe in you. You will be able find a way.”
Aldina’s golden-orange eyes widened and she seemed taken aback for a moment. It took her a few minutes to find her words, but when she did, they tumbled out in a rough, heady, inelegant stream. “But what if—what if what I want isn’t possible? What if, for what I want, I would need to turn the world upside down? What if what I want would turn most of the people I’ve ever known against me?”
Alex thought for a moment. “In Serbia, we have a saying: it’s better to die on your feet than it is to live on your knees. The corollary is that it’s also better to live on your feet than it is to die on your knees, though I’ve never worked out how the two are any different.”
Aldina stared, but Alex could tell that she wasn’t staring at him. She was lost in her own thoughts, her own world, her quick mind already dreaming of the future that she wanted. Alex didn’t precisely know what she wanted, but he could imagine—something where she would be free, where she wouldn’t be tied by her own Truth-Speaking gift, where she wouldn’t worry about the discovery of her blood status or its consequences on her future. Most likely, a future where the spectre of a husband finding out that she wasn’t pure wouldn’t be a haunting worry.
“I—” Aldina swallowed, and then she smiled. It wasn’t the usual smile that Alex saw her wearing around school. Not polite or pretty, but something positively predatory. “Thank you, Alex.”
Alex smiled in return. Somehow, Aldina looked right. She was a beautiful woman, always well put together with perfect hair and makeup, but with her hair slightly lank and uncurled, her face untouched, and a predatory smile on her face, she looked like—well, like herself. A true self that wasn’t hidden behind a polite, lying smile and a mask to the public; a true self that was ruthless and willing to burn the world down around her for a chance at the future she wanted.
He could respect that.
“It’s nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all.”