Chapter 285 - 285
I walked Daphne to her common room — we agreed to meet there in an hour, dressed inconspicuously. Except the only thing I owned that was "inconspicuous," really, was my school uniform and a light jacket cut like an elongated blazer. And some semi-casual clothes. Damn it… Yet again I notice I'm drawn to a more formal style of dress than anything light, modern or youthful.
And this shows through both in the remnants of the personality I consider my foundation — or want to consider as such — and in the shards of the elf or the dwarf, where, of course, they didn't wear blazers and tailcoats, but the point lies in the logical chains, not the specific design. And so it turns out that I now try to bring elements of a formal or business style, as the local society understands it, into every element of clothing. Even something like the choice between jeans, trousers, or some army-cut slacks. What would I choose? If no acrobatics or messing about in mud were planned, then trousers, and jeans of a strict cut at worst.
Well, there I go again, thinking about clothes. Though I wouldn't wear the school uniform on this outing, even though I'd wear trousers, a thin black polo-neck, a jacket and a thin scarf. Simple and reasonably strict, yet loose, with a pretence at style, but without overdoing it. All the same, the elf shard simply won't allow dressing too freely — elven society pays altogether too much attention to various aspects and details of appearance, gestures, expressions, and their combination.
After the allotted time, I stood at the entrance to the Slytherin common room. Right on the second, the passage opened, and out came Daphne in a dress just below the knee and a light bluish coat, with a blue scarf and a beret.
"I had a thought about wearing a hat," she said, smiling slightly, "but they were all too out of place."
"You look wonderful," I couldn't help but note the obvious fact, offering my arm.
Right behind Daphne, Parkinson and Bulstrode came out of the common room too, but judging by their clothes, they weren't planning to leave the castle.
"A bit stingy on the compliment, isn't it?" Pansy suppressed a smirk, as ever.
"The main thing," Daphne took my arm, turning to her friend, "is sincerity. Unnecessary gallantry can be left to lovestruck girls with romance instead of brains."
"Harsh," Millicent nodded, "but fair."
We walked together through the dungeons, though I expect we'd part ways at the entrance to the castle's entrance hall.
"Personally," Millicent continued the thought, "I have quite reasonable doubts about the sanity of anyone who starts pouring sweet verbal treacle in my direction."
"So maybe you'll do something about your, hm," Pansy pretended to search for words, "about your proportions?"
"No," Millicent waved it off, seeming perfectly comfortable being somewhat more than moderately plump. "Maybe at eighteen or twenty. Besides, being attractive is far too much trouble."
"Not really," Pansy demonstratively tilted her nose up a touch, as if to say, "Well, I'm gorgeous, and it's no trouble at all."
"I mean the society side of it. I honestly can't imagine putting up with constant greasy stares and all sorts of pseudo-gallant nonsense from randy lads."
Daphne and Pansy both wrinkled their noses almost imperceptibly, only very slightly, but expressed their attitude to that quite clearly all the same.
"There are girls and women who like it," Pansy waved her own words away like a fly. "What's more, if my cousin's stories are to be believed — she's much older than us and has seen plenty — there are those who seek out that sort of attention deliberately. For quite specific purposes, at that."
"Girls of reduced social responsibility, you mean?" I smirked.
"Who knows what's in their heads?" Pansy shrugged. "I mean, I understand it a little, but to the point of 'ooh, he's not bad,' grab him and off to some corner… Then again, not everyone is such a genius of mental faculties and strength of mind as you and Daphne."
"Too right," Millicent snorted.
"Tell me, ladies," a faint smirk appeared on my face of its own accord, "why is it you sometimes find such… unusual and embarrassing topics to discuss?"
We came out of the dungeons and walked along the far more crowded corridors towards the entrance hall, occasionally nodding to acquaintances or answering the same nods.
"Embarrassing? Really?" Pansy drew level with Daphne and me, eyeing our faces suspiciously. "Doesn't look like it, though that's rather the effect we were going for."
"Just because we don't show something doesn't mean we don't feel it," Daphne answered her friend, pressing a touch closer against me as she did.
"Oh, here we go," Pansy spread her hands. "We don't like that, we don't do this. How can the two of you be so different, yet so alike at the same time?"
Exchanging a glance with Daphne for a second, we simply answered together, smiling:
"It's magic."
Pansy made such a comical face, so many contradictory emotions on it at once, that even Daphne's and my composure gave out, and we laughed. Not loudly, no — quietly, but genuinely.
Pansy fell back a step, drawing level with Millicent, who was walking a little behind, and she promptly took up the thread of the conversation:
"There's another reason, too. Look how many lads around here fall in love, or start dating, break up a month later and get together with someone else almost at once. Some, if the rumours and their own boasting are to be believed, in fifth or sixth year even… let's say, weren't shy about it. Though the past couple of years there haven't been any fans of such loose relationships."
"Either that, or they hide it well," Pansy added.
"Or that."
"Milly, you're awfully chatty about this."
"Forgot my snacks in my room."
"Speaking of which, you mentioned looseness," Pansy drawled thoughtfully, as we turned from the corridor into the gallery with its row of huge, wide windows, down whose panes countless large raindrops streamed. "I don't understand all this pointless licentiousness and chasing after pleasure. I've heard that among Muggles it's very strongly condemned."
"Well, if we're talking about a girl — yes. But they prefer to turn a blind eye to a lad's exploits."
"Even so? Although we have something similar too, but only if the witch is weak. Or has a reputation for incompetence. Or illiteracy. Or something else."
"Yes, even so," I nodded, though I couldn't see Pansy, who was walking behind and a little to the left. "Broadly speaking, if you set aside individual cases and talk on average… the common opinion tends to be this: if a lad conquers one girl after another, dragging them off to bed, he's a charmer, but if a girl conquers lads, she's a slag."
"Pff," Pansy scoffed. "Try saying that to some powerful witch. Blood would flow like a river — you wouldn't be able to bail it out."
"Too right," Milly grumbled, while Daphne shook her head very slightly, reproachfully.
"I suppose…" I began laying out my thoughts on the matter, as our group started a second circuit of the gallery around the inner courtyard, under the noise of rain drumming on the windows, and the sound of footsteps, conversation and the occasional laugh from stray students. "Among ordinary people there are reasons for it. An age-old patriarchal society, various religions shaped by that same patriarchal society, assorted cultural currents and so forth, and the plain factor of strength. And human nature too, for a human is, after all, an animal, albeit a very advanced one."
"Religion," Pansy wrinkled her nose, judging by her tone, in distaste at the notion. "I'm a hundred percent certain the original benevolent ideas of every religion have been thoroughly mangled by people, the church, or whatever institutions there are, and by translations. Sometimes deliberately corrected for the translators' benefit, no doubt. And the Kabbalah, they say, isn't even meant to be taken literally at all. Fine, that much is clear, but what's this about nature?"
"It's simply how it's turned out in nature that most animals are patriarchal. Not all, no. For some species matriarchy is more advantageous and effective from a survival standpoint — and survival is the only thing that matters in nature. Of course patriarchy is shaped by all sorts of factors, including the animal's diet — herbivore, predator or omnivore. The most obvious one — the male has a shorter period of vulnerability…"
"Meaning?" Pansy, now together with Milly, had drawn level with Daphne and me.
"The male doesn't get pregnant, or doesn't sit on a clutch of eggs, or whatever the case may be. The male doesn't tend the offspring, and that's just the obvious part. Often, though again not always, the male is physically stronger, always ready to defend the group — if it's a herd animal — and the territory — if, say, they're predators or omnivores, they're very territorially attached. Males often entirely lack the maternal instinct, and if the whole group's survival requires sacrifices… well, a female generally can't do that. But that's about patriarchy. What I actually wanted to steer towards is a somewhat different matter — competition."
Professor Hunt came walking towards us, gave a small snort of amusement, we greeted each other and went our separate ways. Amusingly, at her appearance three seventh-years, who'd been chatting idly and cheerfully on the windowsills until then, jumped down, gave a polite bow, almost like soldiers, and once she'd passed, let out a breath of relief.
"Competition, was it?" Pansy reminded me of the topic.
"Yes. Regardless of whether a group is patriarchal or matriarchal, males engage in direct competition for the chance to mate with a female. And there's no need to blush — you started this conversation yourselves."
"Sounds far too crude," Pansy grumbled, somewhat reddened, while Daphne glanced at her with a smirk, pressing a touch closer to me, if only for a moment.
"Right, so. This is the point where deeper biology, biochemistry, comes into play. The strongest male, having earned the right to mate with a female, doesn't simply throw himself at the first one he sees, as one might think. Either he already knows exactly who he wants — he hasn't lived in the group for one day, after all — or he searches. And appearance, aside from a few anatomical details, plays no role — the essence is in scent."
This turn in the conversation embarrassed the girls even further, except for Daphne, though from what I could sense, even she was a touch flustered.
"Yes, indeed, scent. Because everyone's scent is absolutely unique, and no two are exactly alike. Scent conveys an enormous amount of information about an individual, and on a level of pure instinct an animal understands who is the best possible partner for producing the healthiest and strongest offspring — that's the only thing that matters in nature. What's more, many animals feel no pleasure whatsoever from the act of reproduction — they simply lack the concept, just as they lack developed thought. There's just the organism's chemistry and reflexes, and what we perceive as pleasure — I mean the climax, not the process — is simply an indicator that the deed is done."
The ladies were thoroughly flustered by now.
"Darling," Daphne looked at me with a smirk, though not addressed to me, "you've thoroughly embarrassed the girls. I take it that's precisely your aim? So they'll be too shy to bring the topic up?"
"In a sense," I smiled back at Daphne, getting a measure of pleasure along the way from the simple fact of our understanding one another so easily.
"Well, no, you won't get rid of us that easily," protested a reddened Pansy. "Carry on with the thought."
"Very well. So, once the female chosen by the male has fallen pregnant, further mating with her serves no natural purpose. If the social structure of the group is such that it allows the male to compete for another female ready to mate, even one less suitable than the first, the male will see to it. But there are animals whose groups form pairs once and for all — though there aren't many such animals, since it's often not advantageous for the group."
"Hm… I'm not even sure which groups those would be, though I know quite a lot about animals," said a thoughtful Millicent, folding her hands behind her back pensively — she was far less embarrassed than Pansy, preferring to think the information through straight away.
"It all depends on the habitat and on the organisms themselves, there are a great many factors. For instance, in a fairly closed but reasonably numerous group of animals, monogamy might be the more advantageous solution under one set of natural conditions, and polygamy under another."
"Closed groups?"
"Yes, Pansy…"
"Wait," Daphne interrupted my speech. "Wizards of different countries could be considered a 'closed group,' couldn't they. Newcomers who settle here are rare guests. Pregnancy from casual liaisons and flings would be a case of phenomenal carelessness, stupidity and irresponsibility."
"My dear Daphne, you're stepping onto thin ice," I smiled. "Would you like me to give you an interesting example to think over, ladies?"
"Do we have a choice?" Millicent gave a rhetorical question in answer to an equally rhetorical one.
"Some hereditary wizarding families love to boast that there's never been a drop of Muggle blood in their family, not once. The particularly ancient families number… accounting for the odd surname change due to a break in the male line… thirty-one generations. A bit of maths. A person has two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents. Following the progression? The number of ancestors alive simultaneously at a given point, at thirty-one generations back, is two billion. Say we start counting from the seventh century — or, if everyone bore children young, the eleventh. That means there were at least twice as many ancestors as the entire population of the planet at the time — and in a bad case, three times as many."
"Some… frightening figures," even Daphne paused to think, while the others simply stared blankly into space, walking forward through the gallery, already on a third circuit out of sheer momentum.
"Precisely," I nodded, agreeing with Daphne. "Given that wizards are an order of magnitude fewer than ordinary people, a natural question arises — or rather, two. How many ordinary people are really hiding in your 'pure' family trees, and if not that many, then just how closely related are all wizards, across every generation without exception, to one another — sometimes very closely indeed?"
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