Paragraph 4 - 51 : The Boy Who Lived Comfortably

The following day, Ann's green threads made their way to the back of the three others' ties :

I think it would be interesting to get Oliver's version. There are unanswered questions, for example, does he know what is the missing link between the fifth-year potion ingredients on Mr. Stunherd's brochure and this whole Evan story ?

At first, the three others were reluctant, and Ann argued that they had an edge over Oliver now, since they knew he had been involved in a string of wrongdoings while he had no idea that they had gone on a forbidden midnight stroll to learn almost the full story regarding his plan. This didn't persuade the three others, either, who considered the Evan incident had been already painful and risky enough. Ann finally struck success when she added :

He stole something. As long as we don't threaten him or do anything harmful to him, we can convince him to give back the Secreti to Hugh Lankan

They had once more to find a place where Oliver Perrusi could talk in private to them. Eleanor, who was also in Ravenclaw, one year above Oliver, knew that he spent a lot of time in the library. Ann had another, more forceful plan in mind : Eleanor would see Oliver in Ravenclaw's Common Room, and ask him politely to join the three others somewhere in the park, where the temperatures were now close to the freezing point. Eleanor didn't object to this course of action, and two days later, she was walking through the castle's entrance, towards the grounds, where the three others were waiting, Oliver in front of her. He was a tall young wizard with black hair and blue eyes. When they reached Ann, Judith, and Sigismond, Oliver spoke :

You are the patrol in charge of bringing me to Azkaban ? I expected it to be more impressive. Let me see : my punishment will be to get transfigured into a Chocofrog

Judith asked Eleanor :

What did you tell him to persuade him to go ?

Eleanor replied, smiling as ever :

That we were curious to learn more about the circumstances in which he laid his hands on the Secreti

She then directed her gaze at Oliver, and addressed him :

We would be happy to know what exactly happened, from the beginning of the school-year, to Mr. Stunherd's lecture

Ann, who was already resenting Oliver's behaviour in spite of the fact she was the one who had insisted on getting him to talk, told him :

Yeah, how did you fall victim to the evil trap of the powerful master of dark arts Evan Malken ?

Oliver sneered, and began his own narration :

From almost day one, I was after the Secreti. I didn't know much about its background, but there was apparently just one available at Hogwarts, so it had to be an object that brought rare magical knowledge inside. And then, Evan came to me, with a silly unimportant request, while I was busy spying on the right people who could lead me to the Secreti. He was asking me if he could borrow from me some book he claimed was very expensive. Apparently he had asked a lot of people, and when he saw me, this cretin clearly thought : 'Perrusi is rich, he will lend me the book, let's go talk to him.' Lending or not the book wasn't a question at the time, since I was busy. So I told him to gluffing beep off with his filthy uniform. To locate the Secreti, I had a very solid plan. I talked to Houstack, compiled thanks to the foolish chatterbox the list of couples. There were probably bogus ones in the lot, thus I had to be a bit careful, but with a bit of curiosity, I was able to determine which pairings were most likely real, and which ones were fantasies. The rationale was, this Secreti object would be hugely interesting to exchange inflamed correspondence, therefore, by learning who was dating, I would end up discovering who was using the box - remember, at the time, it was nothing more than the so-called 'black box'. I proceeded to spy on couples of different Houses. And then, with a Hufflepuff one, I got as close to a hit as I could hope while having no access to three of the four Common Rooms : one of the dating Hufflepuff boys was in an area surrounded by other Hufflepuffs belonging to all seven years, so I supposed their Common Room was not far, and he had a tiny parchment in hand. He went to a girl close to the one for whom his heart was beating, and gave her the paper. From this moment on, I focused on the Hufflepuff couples. And I noticed they would often have parchments, which were always little, as if the box wouldn't let bigger ones fit in. I needed to impersonate a Hufflepuff, but I had not made any choice at the time. As a Hufflepuff, I would be able to enter the Common Room, borrow the black box, then get out. I certainly needed to assume the appearance of someone who was in love, but who hadn't used the box, and who would be able to ask who in Hufflepuff had the box without arising suspicion. I bought the ingredients for the Polyjuice, and I organised Mr. Chrawn's intervention. At this time, I had made my choice. It would be Roger Hillpenny. According to various more or less trustworthy sources, he was fond of Margreth Lasquer, but hadn't had yet the guts to perform some decisive action. He was loving from afar, therefore I thought he had never used the box, and never asked who had it. He was the perfect target. Having followed a lot of students of all four Houses, I knew where I could find each corresponding Common Room. I selected a day and a time when all the Hufflepuff years would be in their Common Room while Roger's year would be in some classroom, hoping that the person who owned the Secreti wasn't also in Roger's year, drank the Polyjuice, hurried to the Hufflepuff Common Room. There, I said I wanted to use the box to let my feelings known to Margreth, and some witch pointed at Hugh Lankan, whom I persuaded to lend me the box, before exiting the Common Room with it in my pocker. That is the moment when Evan performed Immobulus on me, which was very brave, since I had my back on him. Ten minutes later, I was face to face with Margreth. I tried to play the part as long as possible. I had a bit studied Roger's voice and moving style, and I was pretty satisfied of the outcome. I had used in the Hufflepuff Common Room the pretense according to which I wanted the box to share Roger's adoration for Margreth, I had to continue the sham, and it worked on that oaf. I asked Margreth out for Roger, and he thought of nothing smarter than to give me freedom again. And I escaped to the nearest bathroom. Now, I had the box, but you see, I am not in Ravenclaw for nothing. I was curious about it. Nevertheless, I couldn't attract attention on me and request the lecture personally. I mean, there was already some anonymous fifth-year Ravenclaw who had hired Mr. Chrawn, if word came out that once more a fifth-year Ravenclaw whose name wasn't disclosed had asked for a lecture, it would be suspicious, first to the few students who had brains, but also to the staff, who would have seen me twice making unorthodox demands, and would have connected the dots. I had to find an involuntary middle-man, smart enough to understand my underlying will, but naive enough for them not to come to the conclusion that something was up. What you also need to know is that, when making the Yearbook, I had had the list of every student's parents' jobs in front of my eyes. I retrieved the list, took the first occurrence among the parents of a wizard or witch who would be knowledgeable about the kind of stuff I wanted to learn more about, and that was Mr. Stunherd, who was the father of a second-year Slytherin. So I considered the story would be more believable if another Slytherin asked for the lecture. They would have met micro-Stunherd, and would have thought, 'hey this is so great to have an expert of magical objects in your family, since we are all talking about an object we don't even know the name of.' I picked a third-year Slytherin witch, Amedea Valkyre, poured in her drink a beverage that was a very clever derivative of mine of a love potion. Instead of being infatuated with a person, she would become crazy about the magical object. I had to dip the Secreti in the potion to make it work. And I planted in her belongings the infamous brochure, on which Mr. Stunherd advertised his skills as rare objects hunter and lecturer. I must acknowledge she put two and two together very quickly, and went to the administration asking for the exposé almost straight away. She even volunteered to pay up Mr. Stunherd's fee. That was already much less clever. And after the performance was over, I dropped the antidote in Valkyre's next pumpkin juice, and she completely stopped worrying about Secretis and what on earth could have led her to involve herself in the lecture. End of the story. Now, if you don't mind, I feel like going back to my warm dormitory, although I must confess I have always been disappointed with the Hogwarts experience : why should I share a room with others ? Why can't I pay my way out of this embarrassing pre-historical cohabitation ? You girls can't imagine how much guys stink, especially after Quidditch

Ann was quick to direct his attention to another element of the immanent and crude reality :

You have stolen an object. What's the point of being affluent if you can't even stop yourself from being a kleptomaniac ? I don't live with a fortune at hand, yet I don't take what belongs to others

Oliver Perrusi retorted :

You have had the story, which was already generous from me. You can't have it both ways, it would be grossly unfair

Sigismond attempted brokering a deal through diplomacy :

Evan has renounced to expose you. It wouldn't have come to his mind to take revenge on you by reporting you. You could consider that we are acting on his behalf, requesting you to do the right thing in exchange for Evan's fair play

Oliver retaliated :

Why would I do something that would imply that a pesky retard should be praised ?

Judith had something on her mind :

Why would you do nothing, and let us think that Evan is a much better person than you are ? Perhaps because you are accustomed to a situation in which even your Ravenclaw classmates feel you are one of the most dreadful individuals in the castle ?

Oliver Perrusi scoffed :

This is normal, from people with low income, to be jealous of members of successful families. You say they consider me as dreadful, but actually, deep in their hearts, it's envy that drives their contempt, not a fair judgment

Eleanor giggled :

What is great when one listens to people, it's that one can learn a lot of things. Not just irrelevant gossip, but also very real knowledge. This time, however, I will only need gossip to disprove your claim : there are a number of students whose families are richer than yours, and they also consider you a lost cause. I try to see the best in people, but with you, this is pretty difficult

Oliver concluded :

It's not because four fools have the same opinion it's a valid one

And he walked away briskly. Judith said :

Now, things are clearing up at least. The reason why there were fifth-year's classes potion ingredients on the brochure was that Oliver had been the person who had collected it. And Mr. Stunherd being picked over Sigismond's mother had nothing to do with skills. In the Yearbook, second-years are before fourth-years. Therefore I guess that the list with the parents' jobs mirrored that order. The job of the parent of every second-year was far above that of Sigismond's mother, and Oliver opted for the first one