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Chapter 61: Gossip


Wednesday, March 6. Evening.


". . . and then I hear her leave, and go back to her office, and so I peeked out through the curtain and she was carrying a huge stack of books — and she spends the whole day in there!"

"What, with his clothes off?"

"What were they doing?"

"And she still had no silencing charm up, the whole time?"

Alicia Spinnet had been hit in the head with a bludger during practice Sunday night, right as she was about to put a shot past Oliver. The bludger had hit her hard enough to knock her unconscious, and inertia took her on a collision course with Oliver, the hoop, and shortly thereafter, the ground, where she hit her head once again. Heads and spines are tricky things, so it was a type of injury that Madam Pomfrey took very seriously. Even with magic she insisted on a few days of observation, at least, with the patient wearing a neck brace and being repeatedly chided for moving too much.

Given the combination of magic, hundreds of Hogwarts-aged children, and an insanely dangerous intramural sport played at high speeds, in
the air, while two giant iron balls were whizzing around pretty much trying to give you a concussion, Madam Pomfrey saw serious head and neck injuries almost every week. It amazed her, she claimed, that it was that infrequent.

Alicia had been released just before dinner, after fifteen minutes of admonitions which she could no longer remember. She was trying to
keep her voice down, but Angelina and her other friends weren't quite as conscientious.

"Sssh!" she said, "I don't want to get in trouble, and everybody will know it was me."

"Oh, come on," said a seventh-year girl, "she could have cast one if she felt like it. She was telling him to get over himself, right? I think she 'forgot' on purpose!"

"What," asked Alicia, "so I could hear?"

"I bet she was just distracted," said another girl.

"'Distracted!'", repeated Angelina, snickering.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


"Look at this — Skeeter says they released Peter Pettigrew."

"That's the animagus who spent nine years watching that Weasley kid jerking off, right?"

"Sandra!"

"Well, it's true. Nobody's denied it. I think they let him go 'cause nobody wanted to think about it anymore, and the Weasleys were too embarrassed to talk in court."

"I guess—"

"—And he could have run away if he wanted to, you know, when he was living there," Sandra interrupted, "but he didn't."

"Maybe he was just really lazy?" suggested Rissa.

"That's a really long time to spend in a boy's bedroom. I'd get really bored and run away—"

"Right," added an older boy, "you'd run away to somebody else's bedroom, and then—"

"—shut up. Maybe I would. But something was keeping him there, and when you have an older guy making it so he can see a boy naked all the time, you wonder!"

"Yeah," said Rissa, "it sounds creepy when you put it that way, but who was it — Percy?"

"He's the one who isn't on the Quidditch team," said the boy.

"He's what, fourteen?" asked Becky.

"So you think he never wanks?"

"Sandra!"

"Several times a day, for what, three years?" Sandra counted on her fingers.

"If it were two a day and two years, that's still over a thousand times," said Angie, who had been mostly staying out of this.

"Right!" said Sandra. "You do the math. And he was a pet, so they would have noticed if he ever disappeared and came back."

"Maybe they put a cover on the cage?" asked Becky.

"Huh." Sandra looked thoughtful.

"They didn't have one in the Prophet photo, and that showed his water bottle and everything," observed Angie.

"I guess Rita was falling down on the job here," said Rissa, "since we know she knows how to make innuendo when she feels like it."

One of the older boys nearby snickered. "You want the Prophet to report it every time a Weasley wanks?"

"No," said Rissa, "I think she's just looking for a statistical summary."

"Maybe with a nice graph?" asked Angie.

"I'm trying to eat here, you know," objected Becky.

"Sorry," said Rissa, "but this article is so obviously inadequate that we were simply compelled to wonder out loud. If Rita had done her job, this never would have happened."

"Maybe the Weasleys wouldn't talk to her?" said Angie.

"She should have offered them a few sickles — I bet they'd talk then," said another boy. "Somebody should go try." He dug into his pocket. "I've got a few knuts. We could take up a collection."

"You mean pay someone to go ask him?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A minute or two later they tried to pass a message down the table — 'seven knuts to anyone who will go ask Percy Weasley how often he masturbates.' That was a little much for even Slytherin. It got almost nowhere before somebody balked, and arguing ensued.

Oren and his friends were about fifteen people up the table from the commotion.

"What's going on?" asked Bernard.

"You could go ask," suggested Oren.

Bernard pretended to look like he didn't care. It wasn't fair, Oren figured, to expect him to have the nerve to ask a bunch of older kids what they were talking about, so he let it drop until the words "come on, pass it down!" came through the noise.

"Sounds like they're trying to pass a message down," said Erwin.

Oren started to say something sarcastic, then stopped. "Let me go see," he said, standing up.

He came back about five minutes later.

"Were they doing it wrong?" asked Erwin.

"Pretty much. Seems like it's working now, though," he said, looking down the table, where people were passing along an envelope, looking variously amused and uncomfortable. Pretty soon it got to them, and Erwin and Bernard could see that the hastily-transfigured envelope had a message written on it in Oren's handwriting, explaining in detail that a collection was being taken up and how it should work logistically.

"The envelope lets them blame somebody else," he explained, making a show of pulling a knut out of his pocket, holding up the envelope, and dropping it in.

"You mean they'll blame you," said Bernard.

"Pretty much," said Oren, and passed along the envelope.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Something like thirty Slytherins went to visit Miles Bletchley in the Hospital Wing afterwards. Oren didn't bother; he had seen to it that the idea, however poorly conceived, had been executed correctly, and wasn't very interested in the actual outcome. Sandra tried to go, but Madam Pomfrey only let a few people in, and limited the visit to five of Miles' friends from his year. Sandra went back to wait in the common room with everyone else.

When Miles' friends returned and saw they had an audience, they all tried to tell the story at once. This led to a lot of noisy one-upmanship, attempts at mimicking voices, and presumably an awful lot of embellishments.

As best as Sandra could gather, Miles had sauntered up behind Percy. All the nearby Gryffindors had turned to look at him, so Percy did too.

"Hey Weasley," he asked.

"What do you want?"

"So . . . we saw in the paper that they let your pet go. Do you miss him?"

"Absolutely not."

"Sure? You must have liked him some if you kept him around for nine years."

"Get it over with, Bletchley," said one of Percy's classmates.

"Yeah," said another, "we all saw that rat — it looked like a totally normal rat. None of us knew."

"What, you had it here?" asked Miles, who hadn't bothered to read the actual article, or any of the ones that preceded it, or really ever to look in the Prophet at all.

"Yeah — the cage sat by his bunk."

The gears in Miles head turned, slowly.

Miles snorted. "So he got a good look at all of you, too?"

"And if that Death Eater scum comes anywhere near us," said Percy's classmate, "we'll make him wish he stayed in Azkaban."

"Yeah. So. We were all wondering why they let him off, you know. With what he'd testify about." Miles smirked.

"Go away," said Percy.

"Can't," said Miles, jingling the envelope in his pocket. "Got paid to ask you something."

Percy looked horrified, but stayed silent. The other Gryffindors did not.

"Just get it over with and get out of here — we get that it's going to be some stupid insult. Whatever."

Miles was crass and foolhardy, but not enough to just talk casually about masturbation in front of thirty or so angry Gryffindors, at least not without working up to it. "See, um, I'm supposed to ask, you know, how much, I mean, how often . . . oh, this'll count too. When you were all there together and Pettigrew was watching, how often did you all wank each other?"

Miles didn't actually remember anything after that.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


It was agreed that Miles earned the contents of the envelope, and that everyone who contributed had gotten excellent value for their money.

As to what the "answer" must have been, there was a consensus that since Percy looked uncomfortable before everyone else did, clearly he
knew what Miles was about to ask, so the Slytherins had in fact gotten their answer out of the affair. That of course was dwarfed by the
"discovery" that Peter Pettigrew had witnessed elaborate gay orgies in the Gryffindor boys' dorm and that the Ministry had let him go in
order to cover it up. Some people even said they felt sorry for Pettigrew, since being in Percy's dorm for all of that probably was
worse than Azkaban.

No one was sorry for Miles Bletchley.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Sunday, March 10, 1991


Jokes about what Pettigrew saw in Percy's dorm had kept the Slytherins' attention for a few days. At least, since the incident in the Great Hall, Tonks hadn't heard any of them mutter "badgers!" near her when they thought a teacher couldn't hear.

When she had first heard what Miles had done, Tonks had felt annoyed on Percy's behalf — the Slytherins were outright mean, both collectively and usually individually. Even for the few who weren't, they either had serious empathy deficits or just didn't care about anyone besides themselves (Tonks wasn't sure there was a distinction there).

People like Dermot Munro and Miles Bletchley and the other middle- to upper-year boys had a sort of cruel but limited creativity. She had helped keep the Hufflepuffs from reacting when the Slytherins went on about "what the badgers did down in their burrow." It never really went very far and anyway none of the Slytherins knew enough about badgers to do much with the joke even if they wanted to.

Orgies in the Gryffindor boys' dorm didn't require quite so much imagination, so the usual suspects were able to throw around some exceedingly nasty comments. She felt sick, and at several points just put up silencing spells at meals. But using magic at the table attracted attention, and she didn't want to deal with the professors coming in and making things worse.

By the time Tonks had given up silencing spells as unworkable, at least a few of the Slytherin girls had figured out that the same boys who had most enthusiastically asserted that all Gryffindors were queer— those boys were distinctly uncomfortable with talking about it explicitly. Now, the vast majority of the girls weren't comfortable talking about it either, but the remainder were merciless in trying to make their classmates squirm. This didn't end up being less awful to sit near.

By Saturday this had quieted down, although Tonks noticed Sandra and her friends had drawn a big diagram, and the other Slytherins were sitting fairly far away from them. Finally last night someone had sent a note over to the Gryffindors on a charmed paper airplane, saying Sandra Misselbrook would pay to watch the next time their boys got it on with each other. That resulted in a group of angry Gryffindors getting intercepted by Professor Snape, who confiscated the note, quickly located the true author, and excoriated him for not using an obfuscation charm to hide his identity.

Sandra then got wind of the note and sent over her own paper airplane. Snape spotted that one in mid-air and incinerated it, but Tonks imagined it probably read "Hey, that wasn't me, but if you're offering, how much?"



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Notes: Okay, there's another 2100 words or so that I'm not pointlessly sitting on any longer! The next update is likely to be a while, since I don't know what comes next and I'm writing things out of order (I have over 12k words of it written, though). Encouraging reviews, as always, would be encouraging. :P