pertwk Chapter 25 The Know-It-All
Chapter 25 The Know-It-All
At noon, Daenerys rubbed her eyes and sat up in bed, her hair a mess, like old yarn just pulled from a broom. The light from outside had already crept onto the blankets; her brother wasn't there, he must have gone to class again. When she got out of bed, her toes darted out to touch the floor, taking a couple of tries before she could land properly.
She turned her head and saw lunch on the bedside table: bread cut into two triangles, butter spread evenly, and a small bowl of steaming pumpkin soup beside it. Fox was standing by the bowl, his head buried in the soup.
"Fox!"
The phoenix pulled its head out of the bowl, a drop of pumpkin juice clinging to its beak. It tilted its head at her, its expression self-righteous. "Let me taste it first to see if it's hot enough." Daenerys climbed off the bed, tiptoed, and reached out to grab it. Fawkes jumped back, its tail feathers brushing the rim of the bowl, nearly tipping it over.
She put her hands on her hips, her purple eyes wide open. "This was left for me by my brother, and you stole it."
Fox let out a very low, guilty grumble. Phoenix rolled her eyes halfway around, then lowered her head and used her beak to pick up a crumb of bread that had fallen onto the table, placing it back beside her bowl. Here you go.
Daenerys stared at the breadcrumb smeared with phoenix saliva, thought for a moment, then broke the bread in half, placing the larger piece back on the edge of the bowl. "Half for each of us."
She sat cross-legged on the floor and began to eat. Fox squatted beside her knees, pecking his half of bread into smaller pieces, eating even slower than she did. Sunlight streamed in through the high dungeon window, casting a long, slanted sliver of light on her robe. As she bit into her bread, her toes unconsciously curled and relaxed.
Three days ago, her brother knelt down in front of her and placed a brand-new picture book in her hands. The cover was hardcover, with a picture of a dragon spreading its wings. He said that books are for reading, while picture books are for drawing.
Daenerys said, "But your textbooks don't have any pictures; they're too empty."
The older brother paused for a moment, then said, "That won't work either."
He added, his tone as flat as before, but Daenerys sensed the difference. It wasn't a command; he was teaching her boundaries. She said, "Okay." Then she turned to the first page of the picture book and drew a crooked sun with yellow crayon. Her brother looked at it for a moment and said the sun was well drawn. Daenerys didn't look up; the corners of her mouth curved up, small but deep.
After finishing the last bite of bread, Daenerys tucked the picture book under her arm and stuffed the crayons into her robe pocket. Fawkes flew onto her shoulder, its tail feathers drooping down and gently brushing against her back. She pushed open the door to the common room; the torches in the corridor were burning at their brightest.
The first Slytherin girl intercepted her at the bottom of the stairs.
"You're not that, Merlin, you're a Targaryen's sister!" A fifth-grader with dark brown curly hair crouched down, the hem of her robe spreading across the stone like an open flower. "Is your hair really silver? May I touch it?"
Daenerys nodded. The curly-haired girl lightly touched her ponytail with her fingertips, then clutched her chest, letting out a muffled groan of being instantly overwhelmed by cuteness. "Wait a minute, I have something for you." She opened her bag, pulled out a handful of honeydew candy, and stuffed it into Daenerys's robe pocket without a word.
A second girl emerged from around the corner. "Wait, that little Targaryen? Pansy said her name is Daenerys," then a third, a fourth. They surged in from different directions, surrounding her, crouching down, and chattering all at once. "What do you eat to look like that?" "Does your brother have that same expression in the common room? You know, like, 'Say one more word and I'll use a dagger,'" "Your robes are ivory, not like your Slytherin uniform. Who picked them out for you?" "Her eyelashes are silver too!"
Someone shoved a bag of Chocolate Frogs into her hand, while someone else took the opportunity to pat her hair. Daenerys initially answered the questions seriously, saying things like, "She eats bread," "My brother has the same expression in the lounge," and "My brother bought the robe," but there were too many questions for her to answer. A girl gently pinched her cheek and said, "Her cheeks are soft," to which someone immediately retorted, "Of course they're soft, she's only three."
Her crayons tumbled out of her pocket and rolled on the floor. She bent down to pick them up, and just as her hand touched them, another hand reached out and patted her head. Fox shifted its paws restlessly on her shoulder, flapped its wings once, and its tail feathers brushed against the hat of the girl next to it, tilting the pom-pom to one side.
She held the picture book to her chest and was about to squeeze between the two girls when a hand reached out from the side and gently blocked her way, stopping the third-grade girl who was about to pat her head for the third time.
"Alright." Gemma Farley's voice wasn't loud, but everyone around her fell silent at the same time. "With so many of you surrounding her, she can't even walk."
She stood at the corner of the corridor, her long, dark brown hair neatly tied back, the prefect's badge gleaming silver on the collar of her robe. Her gaze swept over the girls still clutching candy bags and chocolate frog boxes; she didn't scold them, but simply raised her chin and gestured towards the stairwell, indicating they should disperse.
The girls awkwardly took a half-step back. The one who had pinched Daenerys's cheek muttered, "We just thought she was cute," but still stuffed the Chocolate Frog into her pocket and pulled her companion toward the dungeon.
Daenerys seized the opportunity to slip past Farley. After a few steps, she quickened her pace, then trotted, and finally disappeared into the shadows around the corner. Fawkes flapped his wings and followed, his tail feathers swaying at the corner like a small retreat flag.
The library door was ajar. She pushed the door open just wide enough for her to squeeze through, and then bumped right into someone coming out.
She tumbled backward onto the ground, landing squarely on Fawkes. Fawkes let out a whine, somewhere between "I'm not ready to take off" and "Why are you so heavy?" It flapped its wings a couple of times under her bottom, then pulled them out, its tail feathers bristling into a messy golden-red fan. It flew to Daenerys's head, ruffled its tail feathers with its wingtip, then looked down at her, its expression summed up in one sentence: Do you know how long it takes to groom these feathers?
Daenerys touched its paw. "...I'm sorry."
Fox turned his head to the side, not looking at her, but didn't fly away.
"Oh my god, are you alright?" Hermione scrambled to her feet, a patch of dust smudged on her robes at the knee. She bent down, supporting Daenerys's elbow with one hand and shielding the back of her head with the other, gently pulling her to her feet. "Where did you bump your head? Did you hit the back of your head? Let me see."
Daenerys brushed the dust off her robes and tilted her head back. Brown hair, front teeth, and a light in her eyes that resembled her brother's yet wasn't quite the same. She recognized the face.
"You are the one," Daenerys began, speaking slowly but clearly in Common, "Hermione."
Hermione blinked. "How do you know my name?"
"My brother mentioned her; she has brown, slightly messy hair and speaks quickly. She's a know-it-all."
Hermione paused, a faint blush rising to the tips of her ears. "...Ms. Know-It-All?"
"That's what my brother said." Then her little eyebrows furrowed, as if trying to recall a sentence she wasn't sure she should repeat. "When he spoke, his eyes were on the table, not with that 'this person is annoying' expression, but rather..."
She paused, her purple eyes fixed on Hermione, searching for a word she could understand.
"A slightly happy expression."
Hermione said, her voice a little softer than before. She crouched down to Daenerys's eye level. "What else did he say?"
Daenerys lowered her head, stretched out her finger, and turned to the first page of the picture book. The yellow sun was still crooked. "He said she didn't have to care about these things; she didn't leave."
Hermione didn't speak. She stared at the crooked sun on the page for a long time. Then she blinked, stood up, and adjusted her voice to normal. "So what are you doing at the library today?"
Daenerys held up the picture book and crayons. "Drawing. And," she tilted her head, her gaze sweeping over Hermione's shoulder and across the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, "there are dragon books. My brother said there are some here; I saw one last time, but I haven't finished it yet."
"He said he'd come find me in a little while." Daenerys turned to a new page in the picture book and picked up a red crayon.
Hermione paused for a moment. Her fingers stopped on the spine of the book, then she turned to look at Daenerys.
"I just found a few books on the shelf," she said, her voice sounding inviting, but with a hint of something Daenerys couldn't understand. "They're more comprehensive than the 'Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures,' and one of them has a whole chapter about dragon migration routes and egg-laying habits. Would you like to read them together?"
Daenerys's purple eyes lit up. "Okay!"
Hermione pulled her chair forward. She opened the book about dragons between them and turned to the chapter on dragons. Daenerys was drawing on the table, occasionally looking up to study the details of a dragon on a page, then looking down to add scales. Hermione read to her about the habits of dragons, and when she read, "The Welsh green dragons carry their unhatched eggs to the mountaintop on the night of the full moon," Daenerys looked up.
"Why move to the mountaintop?"
"Because the temperature of moonlight is not high enough to incubate the dragon eggs, but it can cause dew to condense on the surface of the eggshells. The dew seeps in and keeps the egg membrane moist, so the mother dragon does not need to leave the mountaintop to drink water."
Daenerys considered the answer for a moment, satisfied, and continued drawing. Hermione watched as she colored the dragon's scales one by one with different colors, without correcting her. The scales of the Welsh Green Dragon were green, but Daenerys had chosen red, so that was that.
“My brother hasn’t been sitting with me much lately,” Daenerys said, switching her red crayon to blue. “He used to read with me, but now he’s always busy.”
Hermione stopped turning the pages. "What are you doing?"
"I don't know. He told me to stay away from someone." Daenerys spread the blue paint with her finger without looking up. "That brother named Lester, and that teacher named Rocky, Rocky, Rocky. My brother said to stay away if I see them because there might be danger around them."
Hermione looked at her. Daenerys was still applying scales to the second dragon, unaware of how many alarm bells her words had set off in Hermione's mind.
Did he specify what the danger was?
Daenerys shook her head. "He just told me to go away."
Hermione's fingers pressed lightly against the edge of the book page, her knuckles turning slightly white.
"Did he say anything else?" she asked, her voice even softer than before, but her speech slower. "Did he mention anyone? Or any name?"
Daenerys paused, her purple eyes looking up, her brows furrowing slightly. "Name?"
"Hmm. A name."
Daenerys lowered her eyes and thought for a moment. Then she put down her crayons. "One night I needed to go to the bathroom. As I passed my brother's bed, he was talking. Not while he was awake, but while he was sleeping."
Hermione didn't ask, she just looked at her.
"...Voldemort," Daenerys said. "My brother said that name."
Hermione's expression changed. The focused look remained on her face, but her eyes no longer held the same intensity as when she was reading.
"Sister," Daenerys stared at her face, "do you know that name?"
Hermione didn't answer immediately. She knew the name; the roar of the dragon in Gringotts tunnels still lingered in her ears—those were the three words Viserys uttered before the dragon bit him. Of course she knew. Most people in the wizarding world dared not utter the name, and Daenerys's brother couldn't escape it even in his dreams, which meant he was being chased and wasn't telling her.
She took a deep breath, adjusted her voice to a steady tone, and looked into Daenerys's eyes. "I've heard that name before, and he is indeed a very bad person. But your brother is very powerful; no one in Gringotts could stop him, and he also has a dragon."
Daenerys looked at her, nodded her small chin, and picked up the crayons again.
Hermione turned to the next page, her finger still hovering over the edge. Her expression had returned to normal, but the fine line at the end of her eyebrow hadn't completely disappeared.
Just then, the library door opened, and Viserys stood in the doorway, Harry half a step behind him. The two had just come from the corridor. This was the place where they had agreed to exchange information.
His gaze first fell on Daenerys, who was running towards him with the picture book held high. Then he saw the open picture book, the crayons still tucked between the pages, and finally Hermione.
She was still beside Daenerys, hadn't left. The book about dragons beside her had been turned to a page she shouldn't have. She looked up at him, her expression offering no greeting.
Viserys' heart sank an inch.
She found out something.
Daenerys slid off her chair and ran to him, holding the picture book high. "Brother, look! I drew a dragon!" She held the page up to his eyes. "Hermione found me a book with a dragon."
"It's a good drawing," Viserys said, crouching down to her eye level. "You can look at it here for a while; I'm going to say a few words to Hermione."
He walked up to Hermione, and she stood up quickly, so quickly that he didn't even have time to speak.
"You're in danger again, and you don't tell me."