Six

As the days passed, Emma found herself with no time at all on her hands to do the things she was used to doing. Much of her time was taken up by the immense amounts of homework given by the professors, while any spare moment was spent with Lily, Marlene, and Dorcas. It was difficult for the four girls to meet because they were from two different houses, but they managed to find places where they could do their homework or talk about happenings in the school.

One evening in late September, the four of them were sitting in the Transfiguration classroom after practising the incantations Professor McGonagall had taught them earlier that day.

Dorcas waved her wand, attempting the spell for the umpteenth time. In front of her sat a matchstick which she was trying to turn into a needle. When nothing happened - the matchstick hadn't even become sharp at one end - she sat down in a huff.

"I don't get it," she complained. "Why can you three always get the spells to work?"

Marlene shrugged, looking up from a parchment. "Bad luck, maybe?"

"Don't worry," Lily said assuredly. "You'll get it with practice."

"Emma got it to work on her first try," Dorcas pointed out.

"That's because she's been working at it since Merlin knows when," Marlene explained. "I'm sure she can do some spells better than the seventh years."

"That's going a little too far," Emma said from the window. The light of the three-quarter moon illuminated the castle grounds. "I don't know that much, when you think about it."

Lily leaned over and whispered into Dorcas' ear: "But she's a Ravenclaw, she's supposed to know a lot."

"I heard that," Emma said, throwing an apple at them. Lily caught it with a laugh.

"What's going on here?" came a voice from the door. "Are we missing a party or something? It sounds like you ladies are having a lot of fun."

Lily's smiling face quickly turned into a scowl as James Potter and Sirius Black entered the room. Marlene didn't even look up from the note she was carefully re-writing and Dorcas sighed wistfully as the two boys entered the room.

"We're studying," Emma told them, but neither of the two boys seemed to notice her.

"Do you need any help with Transfiguration, Evans?" James asked, staring into Lily's eyes.

"No thank you, Potter," she replied crispily. "The four of us are doing quite fine on our own."

Emma noticed the quick look of defeat cross James' face, then disappear back into the goofy grin. Sirius was standing in the middle of the room, looking at nothing in particular, a frown on his finely-formed face and his arms crossed over his chest.

"Come on, James," he drawled. "Leave them alone. We might as well go back to the common room. Maybe we'll find something to do there."

James ran a hand through his already-messy hair and sighed. "Alright. Anything's better than studying, or watching people study. Sounds like something Remus would do."

Sirius turned to leave. "Yeah, and we might meet Snivelly on the way, you never know."

With a mock bow to the girls, James hurried to catch up with his friend.

Lily stood up, holding her wand, watching the boys leave with her eyes filled with rage.

"Emma, do you know any nice hexes we could send after them?" she asked, her voice filled with a dangerous calm.

Rising from the window ledge, Emma couldn't hide the mischievous smile growing on her lips. "Indeed I do."

Taking her wand from her robes, she joined Lily, who was hurrying towards the door.

"Do you think they've gone far?"

"Hopefully not," Emma replied.

To their luck, James and Sirius were nearing the end of the hallway, but were still well within range.

"What's the incantation?" Lily asked.

Emma whispered it to her, then Lily called out: "Oy! Potter! Black!"

When the two boys turned around, both Emma and Lily spoke the words of the spell out loud, their voices echoing down the corridor. A cry echoed down the hall as the two boys tried in vain to fight off the bats that had suddenly appeared from nowhere and landed on their faces. Behind Emma and Lily, Dorcas burst into giggles and even Marlene had to smile while the four of them watched James and Sirius jump around, flailing their arms, trying to rid their faces of a number of flapping bats.

"Now that is something you don't see everyday," Lily said conversationally, her green eyes dancing with amusement. "Should we spread this event around a bit?"

"But that will ruin their poor egos," Emma answered, matching her friend's tone.

Lily rolled her eyes. "Their egos won't be hurt. With the size they are, it'll take a lot more than just one hex to get them on their knees, begging for mercy."

Sirius yelled something out to them, but it was indistinguishable behind the flapping wings of the bat bogeys.

"You better watch where you walk, Black," Emma threatened, her voice, though not loud, sounding louder as it reverberated off the stone walls. "Because you might step on our heels! We'll always be a step in front of you. Don't forget that."

She thought of all the times since she arrived that Sirius and James had pulled pranks on unsuspecting students, especially Severus Snape, who they enjoyed terrorizing daily. She may not have liked Snape, but she hated bullies. They reminded her too much of her aunt Fulvia. Although many of the students seemed to not mind, or even care, when the two pranksters set their eyes on a victim, Emma could not stand watching it, and was therefore happy to see both of them get their comeuppance.

What bothered her much less was the fact that she remained mostly unnoticed by her classmates. If she was noticed at all, it was because she was "Lily's friend" or "that smart Ravenclaw girl", though for the latter she was unsure if they meant her or Marlene, who was very intense in her studies, more so than Emma ever was. It seemed as though no one noticed Emma except for Severus Snape, which annoyed her all the more. A small part of her wanted the attention that Sirius Black gave the Gryffindor girls, wanted someone - anyone - to look at her the way James Potter looked at Lily.

But that was a very small part.


"Now add the asphodel," Grimm told her. "Carefully, mind you."

Her eyes intently staring at the cauldron, Emma gently sprinkled the root powder into the bubbling purple mixture. Grimm stood beside her, watching the potion just as intently.

"The dangerous part is that, if you add too much of the root, this mild sleeping draught can become the Draught of the Living Death," he said. "Then the person who takes it will never wake up, though they will still be alive."

Emma looked up from the potion, a look of worry in her eyes. "Why would anyone want to do that? Surely it would be easiest simply to give them poison?"

Grimm sighed and took the wooden stir stick from Emma's hands. "You still have much to learn about the world, my child. There are some who would do evil for their own advancement. Innocence fades quickly in a word filled with guilt." His grey eyes were hard and distant while he spoke, as though he was remembering something unpleasant.

If there were one part of his life that Grimm was unhappy with, it was his teaching position. He was a specialist in potions, having been at the top of his NEWTS class and later becoming an expert in healing potions. It was he, not the Potions Master Horace Slughorn, who made all the potions for the school's hospital. Emma knew that Grimm preferred the anonymity of being a Hogwarts professor to working at an establishment such as St. Mungo's. Grimm did take pride in keeping his life private; there were many aspects of his personality that even someone as close to him as Emma could not grasp.

Being a Defence Against the Dark Arts professor did not stop Grimm from pursuing his love of potions making. He remained a teacher at Hogwarts with the hope that one day, Slughorn would retire, leaving the position open for Grimm. He despised Slughorn's teaching methods and favouritism of certain students over others. It was bad enough that the seventh year textbook was greatly flawed, but to see a perfectly good student fail because he or she was from an obscure family angered him beyond belief. Grimm made a point of ignoring Slughorn, which was not too difficult, seeing that the Potions Master spent more time away from his classroom than he spent in it.

For the present, the only person Grimm could pass on his knowledge of potions to was Emma, and he tutored her nearly every evening in the fine art of potions making. He saw a talent in her for the subject and he made great use of this talent frequently. At the moment, however, Tiberius Grimm was paying more attention to the potion boiling in the cauldron than to his young ward beside him.

Staring at her mentor and guardian, Emma suddenly wanted to ask him about her parents. Except for her Aunt Fulvia's jibes, she had never heard anything about either her mother or father. She did not know who they were, or what they did, only that her mother had died and her father had vanished soon after.

"Uncle, do you know what happened to my parents?" she blurted out.

Grimm was so surprised by her outburst that he dropped the stick into the cauldron, splattering droplets of the potion across his brown robes. Swearing under his breath, he grabbed an old rag off of the desk and tried to clean off the spreading purple stains.

Emma hurried to apologize. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to -"

Grimm raised his hand to quiet her. "You did nothing, only startled me a little." He did not look at her while he used his wand to clean the stain from his robes. "There is not much that I do know about your parents, so I would not know what to tell you. During your mother's funeral, I was here teaching, so all that I heard was rumour, and rumour cannot be trusted."

"Of course," Emma whispered, feeling slightly upset.

"I knew your mother slightly," Grimm said, still avoiding her eyes. "But not enough to form a true opinion of her. The girl I saw was happy and always laughing, much like your friend Miss Meadows. From what I heard of her death, I could not believe that she had changed so much."

"What do you mean?" Emma asked, her curiosity growing. What really happened to my parents? she wondered.

Grimm had turned to the cauldron and was testing the potion's readiness. He looked up at Emma's question, his cheeks flushing minutely.

"I will put it bluntly to you, Emma," he said, his voice hardening. "You cannot learn of your mother's death until you are old enough to not only understand, but to manage the truth of it. The events of that night are not ones that I know clearly, but all that I've heard of it was not at all positive. Please do not ask me again. Am I clear?"

Emma sighed and tried to hide her unhappiness by looking away. "Yes, Uncle."

"Now help me empty this cauldron."

The rest of the evening, Grimm had Emma assist him in bottling the sleeping draught and getting it ready to take upstairs to the hospital wing for Madam Pomfrey to use on her patients.

"I have a few more things to do down here," he told her when they had finished. "So could you possibly take this up on your way to Ravenclaw tower? It would save me the time of going up and coming back."

He handed her the pottery jug that held the light purple mixture, his question obviously not a question but more of an order. Emma took it, cradling the jug in her arms and praying that she would not drop it. She whispered a good night to Grimm, who was at the black board, writing meticulous calculations in the mysterious code he created 'so no one can steal my ideas', he'd said when she had asked him. It seemed as though he did not hear her leave, since he remained turned to the black board, his mind in another world.

With a heavy sigh, Emma left the potions classroom and trudged through the dungeons, hoping that a particular Slytherin would not appear to annoy her once again. With a careful step, she made it up to the main entrance hall, which was at this time empty. The pottery jug was getting heavy in her arms, but she still had two more flights of stairs to climb.

Halfway up to the first floor, she heard footsteps behind her. Although she kept to the shadows with little fear of being seen, her whole body tensed. Here she was, walking up the main staircase in nearly total darkness, alone, carrying an awkward and heavy jug that would be death (or worse) to drop, therefore she was unable to reach for her wand, which she could feel in the inner pocket of her robes. It was not a situation what she enjoyed being in. Rather, she wished that she was safe in her bed in Ravenclaw tower, fast asleep.

The footsteps came closer, obviously from someone larger in size than she was. At best, it would be the Head Boy or Girl coming to ask why she was out after curfew, at worst, it would be Malfoy and his Slytherin cronies come to torment her, or even Professor Sejanus to give her detention; he seemed to like doing that to every house except Slytherin. It might not even be anyone she knew. Emma chided herself for being too fanciful, but still the footsteps continued up the stairs behind her.

Once she arrived at the first floor landing, she stopped and turned to face whoever was there. The person behind her stopped as well, but Emma could not see the person's face among the shadows.

"Emilia, I never would have expected to see you here at such a time," a familiar voice stated. "Surely you're not breaking the rules, Merlin forbid. Ravenclaws don't do such things as that, I believe."

Severus Snape. It was just as bad as Emma had imagined.

"I don't remember giving you permission to call me by that name, Master Snape," she replied, struggling to keep her voice even. "And about my being up past curfew, how do you answer for your own breaking of the rules?"

She knew he was smiling, even though she could not see his face.

"Strange noises in the corridor of the dungeons disturbed my reading," he said with an amused tone that made Emma want to throw the potion-filled jug at him. "So I came out and noticed light coming from the potions classroom. From the doorway, I saw you, Emilia, and Professor Grimm working on a potion. Presumably the one that you are presently carrying up to Madam Pomfrey."

'What difference does that make?" Emma argued. "I have permission to be out in the halls during this time. Something that you do not have."

"Indeed I do not," he agreed complacently. "But if I may be so bold to ask, why is it that you are receiving lessons on how to produce potions which are above your years in skill? I understand that you are talented in potions, Emilia, but why does Grimm show such an interest in you?"

While he spoke, Snape came out of the shadow he stood in. Looking at him closely, Emma could see that he was more relaxed than she had ever seen him in class and that he seemed to be laughing at her from the way his fathomless eyes glittered in the candlelight. There was no one else in the halls near them, she was alone with Severus Snape. Yet, for some strange reason, she did not feel frightened of him: something in his stance and voice was companionable and almost friendly in nature.

"How can I be sure to trust you, Master Snape?" she asked.

Suddenly, the candles all went out, leaving them in nearly complete darkness. Upon hearing a small sound behind them, Snape whipped around, brandishing his wand and moving to stand in front of Emma, as though to protect her.

"Lumos," he recited, and the air around his wand erupted in light.

A large tabby cat sat at the edge of the light, staring at the two students with flashing red eyes. It was Mrs. Norris, companion and minion of Filch, the Hogwarts caretaker. If he caught the two of them on the staircase after curfew, they would be in deep trouble. The cat mewed and disappeared into the darkness, most likely to warn Filch of their presence in the halls.

"Hurry," Emma whispered. "We must get out of here before Filch comes. Follow me."

Before she could move, Snape grabbed her arm. "How do you know - ?"

"I just do," she interrupted, her voice hard with impatience. "Now are you coming or not?"

For a moment, he stared at her, his eyes questioning, then his mouth set in a firm line.

"At least let me take the jug, then. It's too large for you to carry," he said.

Gratefully, Emma handed him the potion-filled jug and began hurrying through the hall towards the Hospital Wing. "There's a place in there that we can hide until we're sure that Filch is gone. I doubt he'd even look there for errant students."

For once, Snape did not give a curt reply, he simply followed her through the shadows towards the Hospital Wing. They passed paintings in which the occupant was fast asleep, suits of armour covered in dust and cobwebs, and empty doorways that seemed to lead nowhere. Snape noticed how Emma's footsteps made no sound on the stone floor, and how at times he could barely make out her form in the dim light from the full moon that streamed through the windows. He began to believe that she was part of the shadows, merely a figment of his imagination who would disappear without warning.

When she stopped at the double doors that led to the Hospital Wing, he walked into her and she squeaked with surprise and a bit of pain. He had stepped on her toe and she bit her lip to deep from making another sound.

From down the hall, a flickering lantern travelled closer and closer, while the voice of the caretaker closely followed. "Here kiddies, I know you're hiding somewhere here."

Before she opened the door, Emma stood on tiptoes to whisper a warning into Snape's ear. "When I open this door, place the jug on Madam Pomfrey's desk and continue to the back of the room, where you'll see a storage room. Go in there and wait for me, I'll be right behind you."

He nodded briskly and stepped through the open door while Emma watched the approaching lantern, the hair on the back of her neck prickling uncomfortably. Never in her entire time spent had Hogwarts had she been caught by the old caretaker, Apollyon Pringle, a very old squib with a hunchback and distorted face, but a great sense of humour. Unfortunately, Argus Filch was not the same sort of person.

As soon as she was sure that Snape was in the storage room, Emma slipped into the Hospital Wing, gently closing the door behind her. Tiptoing through the long ward, making sure not to step on a creak in the floor, Emma noticed that all the beds were empty, but that there was a strange hum of expectancy in the air. This mysterious current that flowed through the entire ward caused Emma to forget her purpose there and to freeze in the centre of the floor, looking about for the source of it. She turned towards the window, almost hypnotized by the bright moonlight shining through, and stepped closer. There was something out there. Something both dangerous and exciting at the same time.

Just as she reached the window and layed her hand upon the cold stone ledge, she was roughly pulled back, her assailant using one hand to cover her mouth and the other to drag her towards the storage room. She fought back, moving her legs about to kick whomever had grabbed her when a stray thought passed across her consciousness. Severus.

Where was she? Why was she here? The feeling in the room had made her forget. Severus Snape, however, was not affected by such trivial things and shoved her into the storeroom before closing the door behind him and rounding on her.

"What in Morganna's name were you doing?" he whispered fiercely. "It's like you were possessed. You just stood there, even when I called your name."

"There's something out there," she replied, her voice barely audible. "Something terrible, over by the Whomping Willow. A monster."

He looked down at her pale face and wide eyes, wondering at the sudden change in her mood. From what he had seen of her in the past month, she was quiet and cooly logical. He knew of her sudden temper caused by impatience or ringing laugh caused by intense happiness, but never had he seen her eyes so filled with fear. Seeing monsters in the light of the full moon did not fit into the character of the person before him.

The door to the Hospital Wing opened with a loud creak. Looking out a crack in the storeroom door, Snape mused over how Emma was able to open the door so quietly. He felt her presence behind him, still not fully understanding what had occurred to her only moments earlier. She knew more than to ask who had just entered the Hospital Wing: Filch had been the only person in that hallway.

Stout footsteps came from behind a curtained partition on the far side of the ward and Madam Pomfrey, the school nurse, stepped up to where Filch was standing, looking about the room.

"Mr. Filch," she said with a yawn. "What seems to be the problem?"

The caretaker's beady eyes swept across the room. "I followed some students in here, Madam. It's after curfew, too. Headmaster wouldn't be pleased at all..."

Snape could imagine Madam Pomfrey, who had her back to the door, raising an eyebrow. "Indeed? No one has been in here that I have heard. And believe me, Mr. Filch, I would have heard."

"Are you sure?" he persisted, raising his lantern to squint at her face. "What about that jug there on your desk? I could swear that it wasn't there earlier when I checked the rooms."

Madam Pomfrey turned her head to look around Filch at her neat and tidy desk. "Yes, that should be there, Mr. Filch. Professor Grimm probably sent Miss Goldwyn up with her on her way to Ravenclaw tower. He does that often when I need a healing potion."

"Does he really?" Filch asked incredulously. "He'd trust a student with it?"

Madam Pomfrey crossed her arms impatiently. "Yes he would. She's a good girl and capable of doing many things. Now, I need my rest for the morning. Good night, Mr. Filch."

Knowing a dismissal when he heard one, the caretaker frowned and turned to leave, waving his lantern around the room one last time before the door creaked shut behind him. Madam Pomfrey sighed a breath of relief, obviously she didn't like Mr. Filch very much, and took the jug off of her desk, carrying it over to a table in the corner. For a few moments, she fiddled with the bed beside this table, seemingly preparing it for a future patient. Then, looking around the room to check for complete tidiness, she disappeared back behind the curtain.

Snape heard Emma breath a sigh of relief that matched Madam Pomfrey's in measure and feeling. He then felt her hand rest gently on his shoulder.

"I must thank you, Master Snape, for your help this evening," she told him, her voice formal, yet playful. "Although I cannot fully understand why you persist in paying attention to me, I feel much gratitude for everything you've done. It seems as though you have saved my skin too many times to count."

He froze, not knowing what to say in return. Perhaps it was because he himself could not understand why he was interested in the awkward and humourous Ravenclaw. Or rather it was because he was surprised at her gratitude and was unsure of how to accept it.

"It was nothing," he said stiffly, brushing her hand from his arm. "I would have done the same for anyone else."

Snape began pulling open the door, but a pale white hand stopped him by placing a finger upon his lips.

"Liar," she said, a crooked smile playing on her mouth. "You'd have never done it for Potter and Black, nor, I think, for any Slytherin. You are an entity to yourself, without weakness or any negative aspects to your personality."

She moved towards the door and opened it herself, gently pushing him aside.

"Good night, Master Snape. This evenings events were truly enlightening."

With that, she disappeared into the shadows. Snape did not even notice when the door opened and a shadow slipped out. His black eyes stared at the place where she had last stood and spoken to him as an equal and a friend.

Severus Snape had never had a friend before, much less one like Emilia Goldwyn.


Autumn became winter, a long winter that was bitter cold. Even though the four girls had kept to themselves for most of the autumn, the weather later in the year kept the students inside the school, including James Potter, Sirius Black, and their new friends Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. The four boys could be heard setting off dungbombs in the lavatories and running through the halls, closely chased by an angry Filch.

Emma immersed herself in her studies, almost beating out Marlene in a History of Magic test and tutoring Dorcas in Transfiguration. She and Snape had barely spoken since the incident in the Hospital Wing, having been shy of each other's presence. In potions, Emma would feel Snape's gaze upon her, but Professor Slughorn's praise of her work would always bring her back to the potion she was brewing. Emma vowed not to let anything distract her during the long winter months; she meant to learn as much as she possibly could. Anything to keep her mind of her parents, whom she frequently found herself thinking about.

In her dreams, she would see featureless faces staring at her from above and strange flashes of light that made her wince from the brightness. Over and over again, she would relive a day at a beach with her parents, her mother holding her and always laughing while her father splashed water at her. The feeling of sand running through her fingers persisted in that dream, but after having it, she always felt happy. Those smiling faces similar to her own gave her comfort, even though they had changed too soon after.

No one had ever told her why she had been taken to her grandmother's as an infant and what had happened to her parents to cause her mother's death. Whenever she had asked her grandmother, all she had received in reply was the rebuff that she was too young. Emma's aunts had only told her off, saying that if she weren't careful, she'd end up like her mother.

It seemed that they all knew what had happened and why, but that they would not tell her.

Sitting on her bed one Sunday morning, Emma was searching through her books for a parchment that she'd scribbled some notes upon and was unable to find it anywhere among her possessions. Angrily, she kicked her trunk and was rewarded by a dull thump. Papers fell out that had not been there before.

A secret compartment.

Kneeling down beside the trunk, Emma picked up all the papers, finding not only a packet of letters tied with a faded yellow ribbon and a small pile of photographs, but the parchment she had been searching for as well. Looking closely into the deepest corners of the trunk, Emma discovered a crack in the back of the trunk that, when she pushed upon it, opened up to reveal a space about one inch thick that resided upon the entire back wall of the trunk.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor, Emma first glanced through the pile of photographs which were mostly of a dark-haired man in rich wizards' robes and a short blonde woman smiling brightly at the camera. In later pictures the man and woman were joined by a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes. But Emma knew who these two people were because they were the ones who haunted her dreams.

Her parents.

Someone many years before had hidden these photographs and papers inside the trunk for safe-keeping. Someone who may or may not have known that Emma would one day use the trunk when attending school. Someone who wanted to keep her parents's secrets hidden away.
Footsteps on the stairs woke Emma from her brown study and she quickly stuffed the letters and photographs back into the trunk's secret compartment. She looked up to see Marlene at the door, her head tilted with curiosity.

"House cleaning?" she asked.

"Something like that," Emma replied, standing and brushing dust from her robes. "I had lost a piece of parchment, so I had to search through all my things to find it."

"Must have been pretty important," the other girl commented. When Emma said nothing, she continued. "Are you going to join us for breakfast? Or are you going to be rummaging through your trunk all day?"

Grabbing an armful of books, clothes, and rolls of parchment, Emma dropped them into the trunk and slammed the lid closed, securely locking it. Dusting off her hands, she joined Marlene at the door to their dormitory.

"Do you know if there's a snowball fight planned for today?" Emma asked absently as they walked down into the common room and through the hidden entrance door.

"You know that they never plan them," Marlene replied. "It would make things so easier if they did."

Emma grinned. "Indeed it would."

End of Act One


EDITED 08/03/05