Mist covered the grounds of Hogwarts. Looking down from the gaping window, it looked like Ravenclaw tower were floating in clouds. Róisín's feet tingled, her legs wobbled, and the broom she was holding trembled in her hands. It was a long way down.
"Fly to Pomfrey, or Flitwick, or Dumbledore," Ida shouted, her words disappearing into the shrieking wind. "I don't know, but you've got to get out of here, I can't lift that curse, and with the veritaserum it could be fatal."
Róisín nodded and gripped the broomstick tighter, careful to avoid the glass shards encrusted in its handle. She kicked off the ground and hovered in the little annex, bumping against the bookshelves around her. Body close to broom, feet tucked, elbows in, body close to broom, feet tucked… she repeated to herself. She hadn't practiced with Eóghan in weeks.
The stairs outside the door creaked as though someone were climbing them.
"Go! Now!" Ida exclaimed.
With a surge of anxiety Róisín leant forward and flew out the window.
She fell, plummeting to the ground as though Ida had betrayed her with a muggle broom. Her intestines leapt to her throat and Róisín tugged the handle up with all her strength. She somersaulted upwards. It was sickening and out of control but away from the hard ground below. Feet tucked, elbows in… Finally, she managed to steady the moontrimmer, although the alcohol and nerves were causing her to experience turbulence, to put it mildly.
Her dress was short and thin and her exposed legs and arms were red raw from the freezing air, like it were ice her body had to cut through. She curved around Ravenclaw tower and headed towards Slytherin's Dungeon quarter, keeping close to the castle walls to avoid the worst of the wind. She had to go to Snape. She was tongue-tied from talking to Flitwick or Pomfrey and she'd eat her broom before she knocked at the Headmaster's office after midnight, drunk. The potions professor was her only option. She squeezed her knees together, suddenly feeling as though she were going to wet herself at the thought of Snape seeing her this intoxicated on school grounds. She would've killed for a sober-up potion. If only she'd brewed one before the party, but she'd agreed with Anna that there wouldn't be any strong liquor. Then the Gryffindors had turned up with firewhiskey, Richard with his father's brandy, and the gigglewater, who'd even brought that?
A sudden gust flung her sideways. She tried to maintain her balance by repositioning her hands and pain shot through her palm as though an animal had sunk its teeth into it. Reflexively she dropped the broom. The glass roofs of the Greenhouses zoomed towards her. She reached desperately for the falling moontrimmer and as it surged magically into her open grip another glass shard in its handle sliced into her. She was momentarily blind, scrunching her face against the pain. The pointed tip of a triangular greenhouse roof hit her shin and she hurled herself away. Her legs kicked with pain and she was tumbling through the air again.
A bus hit her.
A flying bus. Or a huge boulder hurtling through the sky. The pain was a screaming, living thing. Then she hit the ground with a thump.
Something massive was moving above her. Its countless limbs wooshed and creaked. Róisín opened her eyes to see the black silhouette of the Whomping Willow towering above her, blocking the moonlight. It bristled its leaves and pulled back a huge branch. She rolled and scrambled to her feet just before the branch walloped the ground, pounding into the dirt her shoe which had slipped off her. Pain shot up her leg and she hopped away on the other foot, a white hot pang stabbing her in the chest at every bounce or breath. She put the broom between her legs and tugged herself into the air. She flew low over the grounds, the grass sparkling with dew beneath her. The Stone Bridge loomed ahead and she swept under it, reducto'd a stained glass window as its inhabitants leapt out of the way, tumbled into the Viaduct Entrance, and flew down the Long Gallery towards Octagon Tower. She bit her lip hard, trapping her pain inside.
The Dungeon passageways were narrow, and Róisín hurtled through them recklessly, grazing herself against the stone walls again and again, the pain of the scrapes eclipsed by the throbbing in her leg and chest. She skidded to a halt outside the potion master's office.
She knocked. Silence answered. She knocked again, harder, tears squeezing from her eyes. Still more silence. The sound was unbearable.
She was pounding both fists against the door when she heard it. A clicking, a sliding and a prickling passing over her skin, a wave of magic. Wards being pulled down. Then the door opened.
Severus Snape was standing at his desk, his hair rumpled and his shirt half-untucked from his trousers. She had never seen him look so unkempt. Or so serious.
"Miss Feral, tell me-" He paused as he stepped towards her. "Who attacked you?" he demanded.
Róisín wobbled, her one supporting leg giving up.
"The Whomping Willow," she replied in the automatic way the veritaserum made her speak, then she crumpled forward. Snape caught her in his arms and carried her to his desk, the door slamming behind them with his magic.
The contents of his desk swooshed to one side as though swept by an invisible arm. Snape dropped Róisín onto the cleared space and began to cast spells. He spoke to her between his incantations,
"I need to know if a man - if you were assaulted."
"I wasn't."
"Don't lie to me."
"I can't, sspiked... veritasserum," she slurred.
"What?" Snape snapped.
"I've been sspiked with veritaserum."
His magic tingled over her skin.
"Your femur is fractured. To heal it, I need to place my hand on your thigh. May I do so?" Snape said through his teeth.
"Yeah cus yer' my su-superior and don' need permission," she answered like a malfunctioning robot.
Snape looked down at her like he wanted to take every point Ravenclaw had earned in the last thousand years away.
"I'm asking you to give me permission, can you do that?"
Róisín nodded, not wanting to open her mouth to the veritaserum.
He placed his hand on her upper thigh, partly beneath the hem of her dress. It felt warm against her frigid skin and Róisín squirmed at the sensation. Snape's jaw tensed. He pointed his wand at her leg and whispered in Latin. There was a flash of pain. Then the burning in her leg softened to a dull ache.
"You have two broken ribs. May I heal them also?" he snapped.
"Yer' my professor, you can do wha you like."
"I cannot do what I like," he said, his lips barely moving, but he placed his hand on her ribcage anyway, just beneath her left breast. Another flash and the stabbing pain subsided. Róisín let out an involuntary moan of relief. Snape stepped away and Róisín sat up stiffly.
"Who gave you the veritaserum?" he asked sternly.
"I'm not sure."
"Who have you been drinking with?
"Most of the seventhhh years."
Snape towered above her, hands on hips, his lank hair framing his face.
"How much have you had to drink?"
"Don' remember." Nausea bubbled in her stomach as the veritaserum vomited what she did remember past her lips, "At least eight gobbles of gigglewater, two, no, three thimbles of firewhiskey, sips of bub-bubble brandy…" Snape raised his hand and Róisín cowered, thinking he was going to strike her. His brow furrowed and Róisín realised he was holding his wand. The veritaserum continued to push words out of her, "Truckleberry cider, butterbeer…"Snape brushed the tip of his wand against a gash on her arm. "Oh, a flute of elves champagne," she finished. He muttered an incantation.
"Your blood alcohol level is not deadly, although high enough to expel you on the spot." Expel? Róisín brought the heels of her hands to her eyes to force the thought away. "I have more pressing concerns however," Snape continued. "Which affluent housemate provided you with Elvish champagne?"
"Not a Ravenclaw. Zoltan Kun."
Snape's eyes flashed at the name.
"Zoltan Kun gave you the champagne?"
"Yes"
"Where is he now?" he pressed.
"I-I don' know."
A black painting flew out of a desk drawer and into Snape's hands.
"Phineas" he called. A wizard with a pointed beard appeared in the gilded frame, looking displeased. "Find Zoltan Kun. Immediately." Phineas huffed with irritation and left the frame.
"Expecto Patronum," Snape muttered. A sparkling doe leapt from his wand-tip and disappeared through the door. He turned back to Róisín. "Did you tell him what you are?"
"I don't know." The alcohol sloshed sickeningly in Róisín's stomach. "I don't remember. I-I tink I drank too much."
"Well that's a bloody understatement," he spat. "If he knows-"
"Ahem"
The pointy wizard had returned to the frame. "The boy is in his common room," he stated, his accent gratingly posh, "he's chatting with his fellow Slytherins about the wild birthday party they attended this evening in Ravenclaw tower, thrown for a certain Róisín Feral."
If the combination of veritaserum and tongue-tie curse didn't kill Róisín, the look Snape shot her certainly would.
"Watch Kun. Keep me informed of his whereabouts," Snape told the portrait.
"Perhaps if I were enlightened as to why-"
"Now," Snape ordered.
Phineas rolled his eyes and disappeared again. Snape took Róisín's hands roughly and started healing the gashes on her palms.
"Is anyone else injured?"
"No"
"Is anyone else dangerously intoxicated"
"I don'- know, maybe. I tink I was the drunker, the-the drunkest."
"Why were you near the Whomping Willow?"
"I flew into it."
"You flew into it," he repeated. Róisín nodded. Snape muttered something under his breath, but all Róisín caught was, "like moths to a flame".
"Pardon sir?"
"Lie down," he directed. Róisín obeyed. He pulled her t-shirt up to expose the gash above her belly button and Róisín hissed as the fabric unstuck from the congealed blood. "I need to know what happened tonight, Miss Feral. Tell me or I will force you to."
It felt like Róisín's insides were boiling in a rancid stew. She tried to focus on the events of the previous couple of hours but she couldn't push the nausea down.
"I-I was at the party, em.. I was talkin' and playin'-" Her stomach contracted violently. Róisín sat up, pushed her professor out of the way and threw up on his office floor.
The sound of her vomit splattering was so revolting Róisín gagged again, but this time nothing came up. She stared at the sludge of semi-processed sugary alcohol and begged herself not to cry. Her hands shook where they gripped Snape's desk. She didn't dare look at him.
Snape vanished the mess.
"Scourgify," she heard him hiss. His scouring charm rubbed her entire body like sandpaper. "I don't have time for this," he growled. "Legilimens!"
Image after image raced past her eyes, blinding Róisín to her surroundings, all disjointed like a thousands film strips muddled up…..
She was six, her father was walking into the house laden with suitcases and her heart was bursting with joy... She was eight, screaming and pounding the locked windows of the car as her parents carried Whiskey, their old Irish setter, into the vets for the last time…It was the day of her first holy confirmation, she was spinning in the dress her mother had handmade her… It was the last day of primary school, her father was hugging her, Róisín's report card in hand… She was thirteen, pulling back her bed clothes to discover a large red stain seeped into the mattress, the insides of her thighs sticky and sore… She was a year older, flicking through a "lad mag" she had stolen from her cousin, her hand down her trousers… She was up a tree and the boys from down the road were hitting her with branches, laughing at her…
Then it stopped, like she had been flung from an out of control merry-go-round.
"Who gave you the veritaserum?" Snape barked. "Legilimens!"
She was in the Great Hall, staring at her Potions OWL exam, terrified that she had forgotten two of the ten uses of knotweed… Her arms were wrapped around a sobbing Anna, whispering that Adonis Greengrass was useless, that there were so many better boys out there... Her mum was shouting at her, a blackened Christmas cake by her side… She was on Eóghan's bed, he was kissing down her stomach… Anna was lying on the floor of the Defence classroom, her body twisted like a rag-doll and just as still… They were in Anna's room, sitting around in their underwear trying on dresses for the party and Róisín eyes were sliding up Ida's long slim legs jealously… She was staring at herself in the mirror, naked, scrutinizing every inch… She was lying in bed, flashes of that night flicking through her head as her hand trailed downwards… Kun was holding her hand, leading her into the huddle of dancers… She was naked, squirming against the tall, cloaked figure pinning her against a wall, time stretching in that way it only could in dreams, the pale face with a hooked nose morphing into an angry caricature of Snape…
The wind was knocked out of her. Snape's office swam into view. There were pieces of wood flung everywhere and his desk was broken in half. Her professor stood to the side, huffing through his nose. Róisín was on her knees.
"Did you mean to cast a blasting curse?" he asked icily.
Her head pounded from his intrusion.
"I don-"
A huge feathered patronus swept into the room and the headmaster's voice boomed through its beak,
"Secure the castle, the boy and the sióg. I'll return shortly."
Snape snapped his fingers and the fireplace burst into flames. He flung floo powder from a jar on the mantelpiece and muttered "Godric's chambers". He waited a moment before sticking his head into the fire. "Professor," he grunted, "the headmaster requests that the castle be fortified." He leaned out of the fire and the flames contorted into the face of Professor McGonagall. She wore a hairnet on her head and her eyes squinted without her glasses.
McGonagall! Róisin realised. She should've gone to her!
"What's happened Severus?" the head of Gryffindor asked, alarmed.
"Feral was spiked with veritaserum at a party in Ravenclaw tower this evening. Her secret may have been compromised."
"Where is Miss-"
"I have the girl. The castle bulwarks need to be triggered and they need to be triggered now," he said, his voice growing louder. McGonagall's head nodded and disappeared from the flames. "Phineas!" Snape called. The clever-looking wizard appeared in the frame again, sighing with exasperation,
"Yes?" he asked boredly.
"What of the boy?"
"He's gone to bed."
"Are you watching him?"
"Unfortunately the boy hasn't hung a portrait of my fine person in his room."
"Well find a painting there and get in it," Snape snarled.
"And if the boy notices?"
"He will not notice, because you are going to slip into the painting like a nundu stalking its prey or I will burn every last portrait disgraced by that triangle you call a beard," Snape said savagely. Phineas rolled his eyes and left.
Snape grabbed another handful of floo powder and threw it into the fire, this time muttering, "Rowena's chambers".
A moment later, Professor Flitwick's tiny voice came from the flames,
"Professor, to what do I owe the pleasure?" The charms professor sounded pleasant if not a little groggy.
"My apologies, professor, for disturbing you so late at night." Róisín was taken aback by the change in Snape's voice; it was now cool and collected. "My more dutiful students have informed me that some of their seventh year classmates slipped out of the Slytherin common room this evening to attend a party in Ravenclaw tower. A well supplied party. Perhaps you could take care of it?" Flitwick threw his eyes to heaven as if to say, oh those rascals keeping us up at night!
"Of course, of course! Thanks for letting me know, good night!" he replied and his flaming head disappeared.
Snape turned to Róisín.
"Expelliarmus!" Her wandless spell threw his own wand from his hand. Róisin raised her hands in front of her, as if expecting an impact. Her hands shook and she was still on her knees. Snape's lip twitched upwards menacingly. "No more!" she shouted, "No more of that, of that mind-reading shite-"
"Legilimency," Snape corrected. His wand flew across the room back into his hand.
"My head is sooo sore. Can't you give me a sober up potion and interrogate me? Please."
Snape gripped his wand so tight his knuckles were white, but he kept it at his side.
"A sobering potion will not make you remember what the alcohol prevented your mind from recording in the first place. It may make you forget more of what happened."
Róisín was running her hands over her body, looking for her wand. She stumbled to her feet.
"I don't.. I don't have my wand, but-but if you try to read my mind again I will yell confringo and see what happens," Róisin said, trying to sound bold.
Snape's lips curled.
"Your mind is a mess and I've no intention of inspecting it further. Tell me everything you remember and I might not insist on your expulsion."
Róisín began to describe sneaking in butterbeer, receiving her birthday kisses, drinking, playing goblet guzzlers, fly-tongue and pin the tail on the hippogriff. She couldn't meet his black eyes, which seemed to grow darker with every word she said, instead she spoke to the place where his neck met his collarbones. The top button of his white shirt was undone. Her face was hot.
"After that things get hazy," she admitted. "I remember Kun kinda em… chatting me up and giving me Elvish champagne. Then he inviting me to dance so-"
"Zoltan Kun invited you to dance?" Snape said coldly.
"Yes"
"Why?"
"Em... I think he fancies me, sir."
"I find that unlikely." His words stung. Róisín knew Kun was a handsome and popular Slytherin, but she hadn't thought he was so far out of her league that Snape would comment on it. "Phineas," he called sharply. The pointy wizard reappeared. "What is Kun doing?"
"Crying"
"Is he alone?"
"Yes, he's alone, whimpering in bed. The Slytherins of my day would never-"
"- Keep watch over him," Snape interrupted.
"For how long must I carry out this hopelessly dull task?"
"Until I permit you to stop." Phineas disappeared and Snape addressed Róisin again, "What happened after Kun invited you to dance?"
"Well, we… danced." Her tongue was finding the strength to pick its own words and her sentences were becoming more coherent, which meant the alcohol and veritaserum were wearing off. It should've been a relief, but Snape's comment about Kun still hurt.
"Were you close to him?" he asked. Róisin bit the inside of her cheeks.
"Yes, I suppose."
"Did it make you feel ill?"
"Pardon, sir?"
"Did being close to Kun make you feel unwell like it had with McCormack?"
"No, sir." Snape watched her but didn't reply. "But, em… I wasn't really with it at that point, sir. I don't think my body would've known how to react." She explained how Ida had realised someone had brewed veritaserum and spiked Anna and herself with it, how she had almost choked to death until Ida discovered she was tongue-tied and changed the subject, and how she had flown from Ravenclaw tower to his office. Snape looked unnerved.
"To be clear, Miss Evrard's theory is that someone purposely let a baumidger into Greenhouse seven so it wouldn't look suspicious when plants needed to brew veritaserum went missing."
"Yes, sir."
"And she knows that you've been tongue-tied."
Róisín nodded.
"You will return to Ravenclaw tower and bring Miss Evrard to me," Snape ordered.
"Why? None of this was her fault, the party was my idea."
"I see the veritaserum has worn off," Snape sneered. "It's obvious Miss Bathworth planned that party. You don't have to be concerned, Miss Evrard is not in trouble."
"Why do you want to see her?" Róisín asked again, determined.
"Manners, Feral," Snape said dangerously. "You will do as I tell you."
Róisín didn't reply, she just stood there, her hands clasped in fists. She didn't have a good feeling about bringing Ida down to the dungeons.
The fire chose that moment to burst into green flames, and her head of house's jolly face appeared there. Snape swept towards him, blocking the rest of his office, and Róisín, from view.
"Good morning, professor," Flitwick said, "Just wanted to let you know that I popped into Ravenclaw tower and all of my students were sleeping soundlessly like a poffle of puffskeins. Maybe the Slytherins were playing a trick on you."
"Perhaps, professor. My apologies for wasting your time," Snape said curtly. The green flames disappeared.
Well done, Ida, Róisín thought. She must've managed to shoo everyone to bed.
Snape turned and eyed Róisín intently. She looked down to avoid his gaze and realised that she was wearing only one shoe. She shivered, remembering the other being buried by the whomping willow.
"Miss Evrard knows too much," Snape said. "I have to obliviate her."
"That's not fair!" Róisín cried. "None of this is her fault!"
"It's not a punishment, it's to keep you both safe," Snape growled, "Which would be easier if you didn't get bloody wasted."
Róisín blushed but continued to protest,
"We've studied obliviation in charms, you can't do it without damaging her mind, without deleting things peripheral to what you are trying to target-"
"I'm exceptionally proficient at memory charms, Miss Feral, there's no -"
"-I don't CARE how good you are at them, you're going nowhere near Ida's brilliant mind! Without her I'd have died choking to death on the combination of veritaserum and your tongue-tie curse!"
Snape's nostrils flared.
"A few seconds without breath is not a near-death experience, Miss Feral." He watched as a violent shiver ran through Róisín, his face an indifferent mask. When he spoke again he sounded as though he was trying to sound disinterested. "Because you feel so strongly about it, I will not obliviate Miss Evrard. I will speak to her however."
"You can't put the tongue-tie curse on her either, not after she saw what it did to me," Róisín said.
"Miss Evrard is a particularly restrained individual, if she swears to me that she will keep her word then it won't be necessary."
Róisín wanted to argue that she could be "restrained" too, but she swallowed her objection. Instead, her teeth chattered in the silence. Her thin dress had seemed modest when she'd picked it out but now it felt tiny. She discreetly tugged it up where it dipped at the top and tugged it down at her knees. She felt a jab of shame as she realised how drunk she must've been before to not notice the cold of the dungeons.
Snape produced another patronus and stared at it a moment before letting it go.
A large black shadow swept into the room and Róisín yelped, her eyes searching for a sucking hole in the folds of its hood. But it wasn't a dementor, it was a woolen cloak. Snape grabbed it from the air and passed it to her.
"Take it," he snapped. Róisín wrapped the large cloak around herself. She felt like a caterpillar in a cocoon.
"Do you think it was Kun who spiked my drink?" Róisín dared to ask.
"I have reasons to believe so, yes."
"What will you do about it?"
"That is not your concern."
Snape accompanied Róisín back to Ravenclaw tower. He forbid her from telling Ida anything except that she must report to the headmaster's office tomorrow. He also ordered Róisín to recount everything she could remember of her interaction with Zoltan Kun.
They were in the west wing of the castle, near Ravenclaw tower, when Róisín remembered a new detail,
"There was a note in his inner pocket, sir. Like a letter or something. I remember noticing it because, well the style of handwriting reminded me of the title on the books, The Lord of the Rings."
Snape halted mid-stride and turned to her,
"Did you catch any of the words on the paper?"
"No, sir."
"Go the rest of the way by yourself, quickly. Send me a patronus when you reach your bedchambers." He pivoted to return the way they had come when Róisín called out,
"But sir, I'm not able to send a patronus!"
He sighed and snapped his fingers. There was a clap as a house elf apparated to his side. "Misty, keep the girl safe," Snape ordered. Then he strode away from Ravenclaw tower, looking naked without his flowing robes.
Róisín huddled on her bed swaddled in Snape's cloak. Misty sat at the foot of it cross-legged, watching Róisín with unblinking eyes the size of saucers.
"Do I know you from somewhere?" Róisín asked her.
"Yes, Miss, we met before in Master Snape's bedchambers. I changed the burnt sheets," she stated matter-of-factly.
"Oh, of course," Róisín replied and then muttered under her breath, "how could I forget?"
The clock on the wall ticked away five silent minutes. Róisín's eyelids sagged.
"So, em, what's it like working in Hogwarts," Roisín began, "do you like-"
"-Miss shouldn't feel obligated to make conversation. Miss is very tired, she should sleep," Misty said firmly. Her eyes had not once left Róisín.
Normally, Róisín wouldn't have been able to fall asleep in such vigilant company, but the sky had turned from black to pearly gray and she was too exhausted to think. She didn't bother to undress or climb under her covers; she fell asleep in her thin dress, wrapped in the Head of Slytherin's cloak.
Professor Snape turned from the Central West Corridor where he had left the sióg in the protection of the house-elf, and began descending towards the dungeons. He was unnaturally silent and quick as he glided through the castle, spurred on by hurrying charms.
He stopped at a seemingly bare patch of dungeon wall and said,
"Prince of Enchanters"
The stones melted away to reveal a passageway. Snape strode through it and into the Slytherin Common Room.
The handful of students still awake despite the hour hushed as he swept passed them. The bravest, Charles Balthazar, muttered a deferential, "Professor" in greeting.
"All of you will be in bed when I return in two minutes," Snape said to the room. He entered another passageway and descended the spiral staircase at its end. He strode down the corridor at the bottom and stopped at the third door. Inside, he could hear a young man mumbling and sniffling.
"Quietus," Snape mouthed. The mumbling faded and the silence it had unsettled deepened. With a flick of his wand, the door opened soundlessly. The young man curled on his bed only managed to whip his head towards the door before Snape whispered, "Somnus". Zoltan Kun fell asleep instantly. His chest began to inflate and deflate with each breath. Snape closed the door behind him.
There was a note clasped in Kun's fist, crumpled for being held so tight. The few warped words Snape could see were enough to recognise the handwriting. One stroke of the quill would have been enough.
He levitated the paper out of Kun's hand and into the air. He did not touch it, or read it.
"Homenum Revelio"
Kun's body glowed white in response to the charm. It was dark in the room, dark enough to notice that the words written on the note also responded to the magic, glittering with a dim, murky gray light. A shiver crawled up Snape's spine.
Other specks of light now dotted the room too. They came from underneath the mattress, the pillow, a satchel on the ground, in between the pages of books on the shelves and in the pockets of clothes strewn around the room. With a sweep of his wand, those sparkling scraps of paper joined the first one hovering in the air. Snape levitated all of them into a drawstring bag and pocketed it.
Next, he lifted the sleeping Kun. The boy was heavy, much heavier than the sióg. Not wishing to disturb the sleeping charm, he refrained from using magic on the boy, and instead cast a strengthening spell on his own back and arms.
"Phineas!" he called in a whisper. The former headmaster was sleeping in the only painting in Kun's bedroom, his head resting on the scaled belly of a snoring common Welsh green. He jolted awake. "Check that the common room is empty," Snape ordered. Phineas disappeared for a moment, then returned and nodded. Snape left the room with Kun still asleep in his arms. He climbed the spiral staircase to the common room, threw a vial of floo powder into the smouldering fireplace and stepped into the cool green flames.