Chapter 40: Chapter 40
"You'll, ah, have to take that up with Professor Snape," Milo said. "I've got detention. Again."
McGonagall briefly covered her face with her hand.
"Very well. Come afterwards as soon as you can," she said, then left to go help Ron, who had only managed to transfigure his pumpkin into another pumpkin.
Milo then realized his mistake: there was still half an hour left to Transfiguration class, and it was going to be awkward without anything to do. Next time, he thought, if there ever is a next time, never admit defeat without an exit strategy.
Milo spent the time trying to figure out what to use as his Hallowe'en costume, but hadn't made any progress by the time the Professor dismissed them for lunch.
"So," Harry asked him expectantly as they walked towards the Great Hall, "Who did it?"
"Did what, convinced the capricious, adolescent, vengeful, petty being who runs the universe to make my life as difficult as possible? Me. It's my fault for trying to push Spontaneous Divination."
"You shouldn't talk like that," Hermione said. "You might offend someone."
"I think he's already pretty offended," Milo said. "That's sort of what I was getting at."
"What?" Hermione asked. "Wait, you think you offended God? Wait, you believe in God?"
"Wha?" Milo asked. "Gods? Sure, there's loads of 'em. Not believing in them is like not believing in magic. In fact, it's exactly like not believing in magic—ask a Cleric."
"Wait, no, I meant—" Hermione began as they entered the Great Hall, but Harry, uncharacteristically, cut her off.
"And I meant, who poisoned Neville?" Harry said. Milo waited to respond until they'd approached the person he was looking for. Milo crept up directly behind him
"Draco Malfoy," Milo said, simultaneously to answer Harry's question and get Malfoy's attention.
"Oh, it's you," said the blond Slytherin, jumping slightly. "What do you wa—"
"This morning Neville Longbottom was poisoned," Milo cut him off. "It was by someone attempting to get at me. Someone, probably, with access to Snape's storerooms, someone with an inexplicable grudge against me, someone with access to my food, and someone stupid enough not to watch me long enough to realize I never eat any food offered me."
"What are you blabbering on ab—" Malfoy began, but was cut off again.
"That would narrow it down to a limited list of suspects, but you even practically told me who did it. You arrogantly bragged something about the Quidditch game, frankly I wasn't really listening, but you seemed to think a victory for the Wrongton Wunderbars, or whatever, was a problem for me. So I thought, what made you think I care about Quidditch? And realized, nothing. You knew I don't care about Quidditch, no, you wanted the Great Hall empty this morning. So the ridiculously circuitous plot that your twisted brain invented was to somehow rig the Quidditch Midwestern Final Pseudo-Regionals so that all the students in Hogwarts would be so busy being flabbergasted about their beloved Cuddly Cannons losing that they'd skip breakfast. All the students except for me, that is – me and Neville, who came in from St. Mungo's. And so you poisoned my treacle tart where there would be no-one to help me. Draco Malfoy, you tried to poison me. And you would have gotten away with it, if it wasn't for my Everlasting Rations. And the fact that you came by to gloat in the middle of the assassination attempt. I mean, seriously."
"He had me up until 'Wrongton Wunderbars,'" Ron said quietly to Harry.
"It was the Pseudo-Regionals that got me," admitted the Harry.
"Cuddly Cannons," Hermione laughed. An uncharitable person would call the sound she made a giggle, because while it was still politically correct to have giggling girls in a piece of literature in 1991, this is no longer the case.
Malfoy stared at Milo completely disbelievingly for a moment, then laughed. His laugh was like a Wizard's power progression by level: it started slow and weak enough to lose a fair fight with a cat on occasion, worked its way up gradually to defeating, with some difficulty, Hobgoblins and Bugbears, then in the snap of a finger was suplexing the laws of physics and ruling the universe before breakfast.
"You seriously think I tried to poison you? Milo, if my family wanted you dead, you wouldn't still be standing here. And besides, that's not why I rigged the Quidditch game, and you know it."
"Wait, he actually—" said Ron, flabbergasted.
"This whole wild accusation is just to divert attention from the blow I struck to your real masters," Malfoy sneered, "and only serves to underscore your own defeat. Fool." With that, Draco spun on his heels, and started walking away. Then he paused, and turned around. "Actually, this is my table. Gryffindor's is back over there. You leave."
o—o—o—o
"Crap," Milo muttered when they got back to their table. "I was pretty sure, like, 70% at least, that it was Malfoy who did it."
"I dunno," Ron said. "I still think it could have been him."
"Nah," Milo said. "If it was, he either would have denied everything, or fessed up and challenged me to an honour duel or something. He admitted to being behind the Quidditch thing, so it can't have been him."
"So what was he trying to do? What did he mean by 'your real masters?'" Harry asked.
"Who knows? Who cares?" Milo shrugged. "Anybody want my treacle tart?"
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