"…And the only circumstance in which you are permitted to use your wand in front of muggles is if your life is in immediate danger or you need to summon the obliviator squads…"
Maybe if she kept her wand under her table she could secretly keep trying to change her pencil into something else?
"…There are currently 114 active seats on the Wizengamot, each one held by a lord of one of the noble families…"
No, probably not a good idea. Getting caught would be horrific.
"…These ancient and noble houses hold a special place in our world and you will treat them with the respect and deference they deserve…"
Clare focused back on the teacher and tried not to snort. Respect? Bullshit. Fear, yes. People like the last lord who owned her debt — people like Mister Volf, who still haunted her nightmares — she could barely keep herself shaking in their presences. Straight after class, Clare found herself flagged down by Rebecca from that morning, who invited her out onto the grounds to 'hang out' with her friends.
Rebecca's friends were a pretty homogeneous lot. Four girls, one guy — four white, one obviously Hispanic — two muggleborns, three half-bloods. They all sat down around a large tree in the grounds and Clare got her first outside look at the school.
It was called The Shoe, but it more resembled a giant boot. Deep brown leather, tall, with huge laces that hung down to the ground. The double doors they'd exited from were in the heel.
"The dorms are up there," Rebecca said, pointing to the tall bit where the world's biggest giant would put his shins. She turned to her. "So, how come you're only just now going to school?"
Clare shuffled on the ground. Looked like her story hadn't come this far. "I… was a muggleborn whose parents refused to send me."
The girls let out a collective sympathetic groan. "Oh, that sucks," said Rebecca.
"I can not imagine what that must have been like," chipped in one of Rebecca's friends. "But you got in eventually. Good old Shoe."
"I was actually accepted to Hogwarts."
The groan that both the girls and the male friend gave now was quite a bit louder than the first one.
"You got into Hogwarts and your parents refused to send you?!" Rebecca threw her hands up in the air. "That's like saying, 'Oh, no Eton for me please, I'll just go to the local comprehensive!'"
Clare smiled weakly. "Yeah."
"So why are you here then?" asked the male friend.
"Hogwarts doesn't take adult students, not those in my situation, anyway."
The girls all nodded in understanding.
"So, how are you paying for this? I assume your parents still aren't? Part time job?" Clare shuffled some more. "Something like that."
Rebecca grinned. "Shop assistant?" "I work for Lord Slytherin."
The group stilled and stared at her.
"No, you don't," said one of the girls.
"Err, yes, yes I do."
"The Lord Slytherin?" asked Rebecca, eyes wide.
"Well, I don't know if he's worthy of having his article italicised, but yes, Lord Slytherin."
"How did you score a sweet gig like that?!"
And so Clare spent the next twenty minutes answering or deflecting question after question. They ooed and ahhed over every little titbit that she felt safe or comfortable to hand them, and when they learned that she'd had dinner with him, twice, the giggling reached ridiculous levels. Rebecca even asked if she could set up a meeting for her with him, blushing cherry red all the while. Of course she couldn't, but that didn't stop the requests.
Really, what was so great about a guy in a damn mask?
By the time Clare got back to the Grangers she felt thoroughly fed up. She marched up to her new bedroom, dumped her bag on the bed, and marched back downstairs, all the way to the ritual garage, heard a slap and a yelp, opened the door without thinking, and walked in on a sight that made her stop dead.
Lord Slytherin had Emma over his knee with her robes bunched up around her waist and had clearly just finished spanking her. "Clare!" Slytherin(?) reached for his mask.
"I…I…" she stuttered.
The mask came off and the suddenly revealed Daniel Granger hastily pulled his wife's robes back over her glowing red behind.
Emma got to her feet, blushing madly, and rushed over to her, "Please, Clare," her eyes watered, "Please, please, please, don't tell Slytherin about this."
"Um, yeah, sure, don't worry." Clare got a hold of herself and smiled. "I mean, it's not like I don't understand, right? I've seen the whole range of interests, and this is pretty tame by comparison."
Dan smiled sheepishly at her. Emma collapsed thankfully into a nearby chair, although not without a gasp and a wince.
Clare took a moment to take in the room. The milling machine was now fully operational and she'd seen the results of their test runs, although nothing that screamed 'magic!' at her.
"So, when are you going to have something interesting to show from that massive monster of a machine?" She asked.
Emma beamed up from her chair, all embarrassment apparently forgotten. "Now! We'd just finished our first item."
Clare gingerly picked up the mask that had fallen on the floor. While the front had been painted green and black, the back was still shiny aluminium. "Not the very first item, I see."
Emma blushed again.
Soon, up in the secret fidelius room, Clare watched Dan set up an aluminium tile with a perfectly milled sphere of solid aluminium resting in the centre. Tiny, geometrically perfect runes covered both the tile and the sphere.
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