A/N: I decided to update a day early, because tomorrow I might be too tired and brain dead to update.

Prompt: Depth of Knowledge (# 212)

Of Harkers and Frauds

or

Halloween

Across the table, Amarantha Baptist with her shiny Prefect badge on her chest, looked at Harley questioningly with her striking, hazel eyes. However, she didn't say anything, merely gave Harley a small, mysterious smile and turned her own attention back to her meal, daintily wrapping her full, pink lips around a spoon.

Just as Mina had told her the previous night, Amarantha Baptist kept mostly to herself. She was friendlier than Mina, but also seemed very reserved and aloof. But judging by the badge on her chest, and the stack of books she piled up on her nightstand, Amarantha was not only stunningly beautiful but smart and responsible.

She was prettier even than Calliope, and therefore seemed to receive much of the other blonde's scorn.

But where Calliope and Daphne both had straight, sleek hair the color of pale hay, Amarantha's hair was honey-blonde.

Harley couldn't help wondering at Slytherins. It seemed that for Slytherins... they were either extremely unattractive, or extremely attractive; anything that fell in between the two extremes was sparse.

For her part, Harley felt that she must be one of the sparse in-betweens. Her father, she knew had been considered exceedingly handsome and her mother quite beautiful. But she'd inherited more from her father, then from her mother and the only thing about her that she felt was striking, was her bright, emerald green eyes.

Sure, her facial structure was more feminine and her lips were plumper than her father's and perhaps even her mother's, but Harley didn't consider herself anything more than pretty. And at that, she was sure she might be reaching. Perhaps plain was a more accurate description. Although, not so plain as Ilene Dobbs, whose hair at least was manageable whereas Harley's was an untamable wreck.

Harley was brought out of her mindless eating of her breakfast when a pale hand popped before her face, holding onto a sheet of parchment.

Straightening in her seat, Harley followed the familiar hand up the black-robed arm and to the man standing slightly towards her right. Snape gave her a pointed look even as he stared at her with an unfathomable expression in his dark eyes.

Harley gulped her porridge hard and took the parchment from his hand after unceremoniously dropping her spoon. "Thank you, sir," Harley smiled up at him, taking the timetable.

Snape didn't say anything as he moved past her. Harley turned and watched her Head of House for a moment, wondering what the man had been wondering about her as he continued to move down the table, handing out schedules.

For a moment, she narrowed her eyes when she saw him reach Calliope Greengrass, who batted her long and curly lashes at the man and gave him a seductive smile that made Harley's stomach turn.

'What the hell?' she wondered, not liking the expanded pupils that were staring out from bright blue pools at their Potion's Master.

"Gross, isn't it?" Gemma commented and Harley turned, noticing that Gemma was also watching Calliope's attempts at enticing Snape who was either not interested or did not notice. Though Harley guessed it was the first. Snape wasn't the oblivious sort and as impossible as it seemed that a student may be interested in him, it wasn't unheard of from Slytherins.

Harley wasn't sure how to respond to that, not sure if Gemma meant Calliope's display, or the fact that she would want Snape.

"Yeah, I guess," Harley replied noncommittally, forcing her attention to the timetable, though she found she didn't really see it. The idea that Calliope was interested in Snape made her both uncomfortable and anxious. And there was no little degree of jealousy to accompany the writhing in her stomach.

"You can bet now that she's at the age of consent, she's going to go after him with everything she has," Gemma commented.

Harley grimaced at that. The age of consent for witches and wizards was fifteen, something that Harley had always found strange and a little bit disturbing. Fifteen struck her as a bit young, even when she'd been fifteen herself. Though the law seemed irrelevant, as most witches of that age were stuck in Hogwarts and rarely exposed to older wizarding society, so the 'seduction' by an older party was rare.

Except of course where purebloods were concerned. Which was probably why the age of consent had never been raised in the past three hundred years. Purdebloods wanted to reserve the right to marry off their children as soon as they legally could. Though, causes for such an early marriage had largely become scant, so there weren't many married fifteen or sixteen-year-olds in the wizarding world if there were any at all.

Harley supposed that the age had never been raised because Purebloods simply objected to change very much on all matters.

"Why the hell would she go after Professor Snape?" Harley asked with a frown, feeling even worse now at the reminder of consent laws. Though Harley was officially an adult in the wizarding world, she didn't like that her fifteen-year-old classmates, particularly Calliope, were at the age of consent.

"My guess is she's drawn to power. And our fearless leader happens to be the embodiment of it, and his being Head of Slytherin makes him the most attractive and appropriate option," Gemma replied with a shrug of her shoulders, now turning to her own breakfast. "That or she wants to practice her skills of seduction on a man... teenage boys don't require any effort after all."

Harley continued to frown but tried to focus on something else instead. She didn't have time to worry about what Calliope was up to, and she didn't think it really mattered.

'Like Snape would ever give her the time of day. He's not interested in children.'

Though, Calliope hardly looked like a child... indeed, she could pass for a woman in her early twenties. Whereas Harley, always looked a few years younger than her own age. Or at least, most people mistook her for someone years younger than she was.

Harley groaned when she finally focused on her schedule.

"What's wrong?" Gemma asked.

"We have Lockhart first thing today," Harley groaned.

"And that's bad?" Gemma asked, causing Harley to turn to look at her with a raised brow.

"Yes! He's a bloody vain, pompous, boob!"

"But at least he's a good-looking, vain, pompous boob," Gemma grinned, raising her brows suggestively at Harley. "I sure wouldn't mind having a piece of that!"

Harley, who had never had much regard for physical attractiveness merely shook her head and looked at the other girls around her. Mina for her part, seemed to not know what was going on around her, never having looked up form the book she was apparently writing.

Amarantha Baptist, who was listening but not participating, blushed to the roots of her honey blond hair and averted her warm, hazel eyes. She tried to hide her face with her hair, but didn't manage to as the blonde curls were mostly held in a messy bun that somehow only made her look charming and elegant.

"He doesn't know a fig about Vampires," Mina suddenly stated, signing the bottom of her long sheet of parchment with more force than was necessary before looking up, her light brown eyes flashing behind her emerald-green glasses. "Voyages with Vampires was absolute tosh," she went on, as if the book was written to give her personal offense.

"Well at least there is one other person that isn't taken in by a pretty face," Harley commented in deadpan.

"Oh, I wouldn't be so sure. But Mina's had her heart set on her vampire friend for ages, so she doesn't have eyes for anyone else," Gemma teased, earning a slight glare from Mina who flushed a pale shade of pink which clashed with her dark-auburn hair. In the sunlight, the red-highlights in her reddish brown hair seemed to light-up like ley-lines of fire.

"Vampire friend?" Harley asked slowly before her eyes widened and she looked at Mina. Her mind finally made a connection she had somehow completely forgotten and she wondered as she pieced it all together, if the family was the same in this world.

In her own world, there was a Pureblood family who advocated for Vampire rights, due to their long history with a particular London clan or coven. The Harkers were perhaps not as old as the Malfoys or Notts, nor anywhere near as influential, but they did have money in spades. Unfortunately, they lost rather a lot of social sanding because of their alliance with vampires, who were classified by the ministry as dark creatures barely above inferi or zombies.

Harley was only aware of all this, because Remus followed vampire legislature closely. For some reason, vampires were thrown in the same lot as werewolves despite being completely different curses, and usually whatever law affected one, was likely to affect the other in a similar way. It was never fair and always detrimental.

"The Van Helsing clan has long been tied to my family, since the time of my great grandmother Mina Harker whom I was named for," Mina replied, lifting her chin proudly, as if challenging Harley to say something nasty or prejudiced.

However, Harley didn't say anything. Truthfully, she'd always found the Harker family of interest. Them and Van Helsing had helped to inspire the book Dracula, written by the Muggle Bram Stoker. Of course, Bram Stoker had gotten it all wrong, but it was interesting to see how fact could influence fiction and where the two diverged.

'Well if anyone would know about vampires, it would be a Harker,' Harley thought, knowing that the family dealt very closely and even had periods of living with vampires.

"Well, if it makes you feel better, Lockhart is probably an absolute fraud," Harley responded, though she knew for a fact that Lockhart was a fraud if his magical skill was anything to go by. "Do you really have a vampire friend?" Harley couldn't help asking curiously.

Mina regarded her for a moment, as if wondering whether or not she was worthy of telling before deciding that she was, or that it didn't matter if she knew.

"Cole Barker, or rather Nicholas," Mina replied, a slight flush painting her high cheeks, giving her away. "He's lived in our castle since long before I was born, he's a close friend of the family and very careful about his affliction."

Harley nodded her head, wondering if living with a vampire was easier than living with a werewolf, or if it was just as painful to watch someone you love suffering and treated as if they are less than human.

Vampires were not, after all, anymore monsters than werewolves. It all depended on how the individual dealt with their affliction, and how much they tried to control themselves. She knew that Vampires struggled with their thirst and found it difficult to control, but that did not mean that they did not try. She was aware that there were many that gave up, and lost sight of the importance of preserving human life, or that delighted in the dark impulse to attack a human, but for every one of those, there were just as many that simply wanted to cope.

For whatever reason, Harley suddenly felt sympathy for Mina. It couldn't be easy, to be a Harker.

X

When they exited double Defense, Harley was massaging her temples. Somehow class with Lockhart was even worse than she remembered.

Like in second year, the class had started with a lengthy quiz that was all about Lockhart. Harley had wanted to slam her head into the desk. She was at least glad that the quizzes weren't going to be counted towards a grade, as she answered what little she could recall from her reading five years ago, as she had not been able to bring herself to crack open Lockhart's books a second time in her life.

After the quizzes, which Lockhart had painstakingly gone through, question after question, he then started their lesson. Which actually was a reenactment from his book Holidays with Hags, in which Lockhart played himself while asking Derrick Bole to play a Hag- a very dangerous choice on Lockhart's part, given the murderous glint in Derrick Bole's beady eyes and the way he cracked his knuckles as he got to his nearly six-foot height to move towards the front of the class.

The Hufflepuff's who they had class with, at least the girls, were completely enthralled. On the Slytherin half, most of the boys were laughing and commenting on Bole and Lockhart, and wolf-whistling at Henrietta Marks, who was chosen to play the peasant/damsel-in-distress.

The only Slytherin girl that was gazing dreamily at Lockhart was Ilene Dobbs. Amarantha was blushing, but seemed somewhat disenchanted, leading Harley to believe that she was blushing out of embarrassment for Lockhart.

For her part, Calliope quickly lost interest in Lockhart and started to paint her nails.

Like Harley, Mina was disgusted.

"We're never gonna pass our OWLs with that fraud as our Professor," Mina frowned as they made their way down the corridor.

"We'll simply have to learn on our own," Harley replied with a shrug, although she wasn't sure if she was going to bother doing any such thing.

"What do you have next?" Mina asked, rolling her shoulders, as if that would help the strain she felt growing in her neck.

"Divination," Harley replied.

"Me too," Mina replied, suddenly giving Harley the first smile she'd seen. "Finally! I won't be stuck working with Calliope and Ilene!" Harley raised a brow. "We have an uneven number of students in our Divination class, and no one wants a Slytherin third wheel."

"Ah, I see. I suppose it's just too bad I've come two years too late to save you form that horror," Harley teased.

"Four if you count the first two years of school as well, which you have to count," Mina bantered back.

"We can hear you!" Ilene called irritably, turning momentarily to glare at the girls and walking backwards. Both Ilene and Calliope were walking ahead of them. Amarantha took Arithmancy, so she'd headed in another direction, separating from the rest of the Slytherin girls while all the Slytherin boys seemed to be heading out of the castle for Care of Magical Creatures.

"We don't care," Mina replied, fixing Ilene with a look of complete disregard while Harley flipped her off again.

Ilene glared at them before turning with sniff of her nose.

Harley shot Mina an amused look which the girl returned. She had to hand it to Mina, the auburn-haired girl was certainly bold. Harley almost didn't mind, being stuck in fifth year with students two years younger than her.

TBC...

Halloween- Write about someone pretending to be someone they're not. Or write about people becoming friends in an unlikely fashion.