Looking Beyond: Chapter Twenty-Eight: Reconciliation of Silence

George could see just how nervous she was by the way her fists clenched around the sheet until her knuckles shone white against her skin and how she bent her head slightly, her crimson fringe overshadowing her emerald eyes, but not hiding how she bit the corner of her lip.

She could feel her heart beating traitorously against her ribcage and she turned her head away from him, determined to ignore his presence for as long as possible, after all, she had done it quite successfully for several days now.

"You're going to have to talk to me sometime," George murmured, speaking in low tones so that Madam Pomfrey wouldn't overhear. His eyes fell to the silver ring on her finger of her good hand. It was one of the two rings that she hardly ever took off; a token from her parents, perhaps? It was silver and wrapped around her finger in the pattern of the coils of a snake, with tiny emeralds for eyes.

The facts were quite literally staring him in the face all this time. How could he have not seen it? She was as sly as Slytherins were stereotyped to be and she could outsmart people with just her words. She was witty and quirky and sarcastic, and it was her Slytherin traits that made her such a great friend; fun and exciting (which was the very best kind, mind you).

"Hey." He was hardly speaking above a whisper now. "Five minutes, Hope, that's all I'm asking. Please?"

Her eyebrows scrunched together and her lips pulled down into a frown. George recognized the expression easily, it was the I'm-thinking-hard-about-something expression. The look itself was adorable, but George had too much riding on her answer to notice.

"Fine," she said, staring at a spot directly in front of her so she wouldn't have to look at him. "You talk, I'll listen; no promises."

George breathed a sigh of relief; that was better than nothing. "I'm sorry about what I said, about you not being Slytherin's great granddaughter—"

"It wasn't that," Hope said shortly, cutting him off, "it was that I couldn't possibly be related to him that really made me mad."

George lifted his head slightly to find himself caught in eyes that were a stormy hazel.

"I like you, George," she said honestly, "I really do, but there are just some things that can really piss me off, and the relation to Salazar Slytherin isn't something I like to talk about, but I don't need it pointed out to me as if there was no way I could be of his bloodline, because I am, whether I like it or not."

"I'm sorry," George said a bit morosely. "I was just trying to cheer you up, and…"

Hope sighed, the air exhaling loudly from her lips. He was making it really hard to be mad at him. "I know. I was scared that if my friends knew about it, they'd…" She shifted uncomfortably.

George could guess what she was thinking. She thought that if she told them, they wouldn't want to be her friends anymore because of the terrible reputation Slytherin had. "Come here you worrisome girl."

Hope blinked as George gave her an awkward hug, being careful of her injured arm, her forehead making contact with his shoulder. She reached an arm around to squeeze his side. "I'm sorry I was mad at you," she said, her voice muffled by the cloth of his robes, "especially over something as stupid as that…I was just so mad—"

"I know."

He released her. "And for the record, you are definitely sly enough to be Slytherin's Heir."

She gave a light chuckle at that. "If you say so," she said. "But thanks anyways."

"I'm serious," he said with a grin.

"I'm Hope," she answered sarcastically, "nice to meet you."

George's lips spread into a wide smile at probably the most overused joke in the history of jokes, but it was the first joke or even the first use of sarcasm that he'd heard from her in about a week.

"That's was bad."

"Absolutely terrible," she agreed, "but it made you smile."

"A lot of the things you do make me smile," George returned easily. "Just like a lot of things I do make you smile."

She cast him an amused glance, her cheeks pinking at his words, and would have probably said more if Madam Pomfrey hadn't come over to tell them that their five minutes was up. So, regretfully, George left her to a restless night of sleep.

Hope awoke the next morning to find her arm a little stiff, but filled with thirty-three new bones, and she'd take that stiffness any day if it meant she had have all her bones in her arm.

Once she'd left the hospital wing, she almost collided with another body and had to step back suddenly so she wouldn't.

"Did she finally let you go, then?"

Hope blinked. "Oh, it's you."

George grinned in a roguish manner. "You weren't expecting some other dashing ginger-haired Gryffindor, were you?"

"I didn't know you were dashing," Hope said with a slight smirk, "do tell."

"Ah, Milady," he said solemnly, sounding a bit like Michael the Knight, "it is a rather lengthy tale that involves the outsmarting of pompous students and arrogant teachers."

"That's always fun," Hope said after a short laugh had erupted from her lips as he extended the crook of his arm to her, and she looped her arm around his and they descended the stairs together. "Ravenclaws and Snape and Lockhart?" she guessed.

"Oh, yes," George agreed. "Some Ravenclaws can be…"

"I can imagine," Hope said humoured as they stepped through the doorway and into the Great Hall. Ron and Hermione were nowhere to be seen, something that confused and disappointed Hope a bit. She would have thought they would be the first to come and find her…she wanted to talk to them about Dobby (who had visited her in the night) and the attack on Colin Creevey.

She had barely managed to get a bite of toast when Angelina drew her attention from the food.

"So you two aren't fighting anymore?" Angelina asked hopefully.

Hope curled a strand of her vibrant hair around her finger, looking a little awkward. She glanced at George, but he was smiling at her. Her cheeks flooded with heat. "Erm, yes," she muttered, "we've worked everything out."

"That's great!" Alicia said in relief. "Because your boy here was wallowing in self-pity."

"I was not wallowing—"

"He's not my—"

Angelina smiled sweetly, but there was something sly lurking in those dark brown depths. "You two are so adorable when you try to defend yourselves."

George mouthed wordlessly at the girl whom his twin was so enamoured with, while Hope gave her friend a shrewd glare.

"Angelina," she said, her voice filled with warning.

"Alright, alright," the dark-skinned girl conceded, drawing in her claws temporarily. "But, really, it's good that you two aren't fighting anymore…it's really weird when you don't talk."

Hope stuck out her tongue before taking a long swig of pumpkin juice. "Anyone seen Ron or Hermione?"

"Nope," was the consensus of the small group, leaving Hope frowning slightly.

"I'll catch you later?" she asked, "I'm going to find them."

She was cheerfully waved goodbye, exiting the Great Hall in search of her elusive friends, almost running into Percy in the process. Honestly, she was going to have to watch where she was going, if she kept almost running into people like this.

"Oh, hello, Hope," Percy said brightly, a beaming smile plastered to his lips…and was that a hint of lipstick? Hope smothered her grin; so Percy had a girlfriend, did he? "Excellent flying yesterday, really excellent. Gryffindor has just taken the lead for the House Cup –you earned fifty points!" This prospect seemed quite exciting to him.

"Thanks," she said, "You haven't seen Ron and Hermione around, have you? I thought they'd be at breakfast, but I guess not."

"No, I haven't. I hope Ron's not in another girls' toilet…"

Hope laughed lightly at Percy's words, but they gave her a different idea. And not five minutes later she could be found rushing along the fourth floor corridor, barking out a choice phrase and ascending the staircase that led to her grandmother's secret room.

They were both on edge as she hoisted herself through the trapdoor, only relaxing once they'd recognized her.

"Hope!" Hermione gasped out loud, raising a hand to her chest as if its presence would calm her frantically beating heart. "Don't do that!"

Hope rolled her eyes at her.

"How's your arm?" Ron added from where he was leaning on his elbows on the table upon which a pewter cauldron had been set up with a pale blue fire flickering underneath.

"A little stiff," Hope said with a shrug, "but Madam Pomfrey says that'll fade soon enough. Trust me, I'm fine," Hope added when they gave her dubious looks (she was a notorious liar, after all). "Seriously…Are you starting the potion, then?"

Hope leaned forward on the table so she could look within the black cauldron, wrinkling her nose at the putrid smell, and frowning at the beige colour it had turned. "Is it supposed to look like that?"

"We decided to start this morning," Hermione agreed, answering her friend's first question first, "after Professor McGonagall told us about Colin."

Hope frowned slightly, recalling how stiff the first-year had been when the staff had brought him into the hospital wing late the previous night, just like Mrs. Norris had been.

"It should look like this until we add the bicorn horn," she added.

"Looks disgusting," Hope said for good measure, earning her a sharp whack to the back of her head. "Dobby came to visit me last night," she told them.

Ron and Hermione looked up at her in surprise. "What? Why?"

Hope wrinkled her nose in irritation. "Apparently, he was the one that charmed that bloody Bludger, hoping that I would be so grievously injured that I would have to be sent home."

Ron's eyebrows creased together in a frown. "But that doesn't make any sense," he said, confusion obvious in his voice, "I mean, even last year when you got his with that Bludger, you just went to St. Mungo's and then came right back here when you were all healed up. Even if Dobby had gotten you seriously injured, you wouldn't be sent home. That never happens, especially with Muggle families."

"What do you mean 'especially with Muggle families'?" Hermione said, sounding a little insulted.

Ron backpedalled fast. "I don't mean it like that, I just mean that if they sent you home, for instance, then you'd be living with people who wouldn't know how to deal with a magical injury, that's all."

Hermione's eyes narrowed suspiciously, but she didn't say much else on the matter, much to Ron's relief.


Hope's day went downhill the second she uttered that word to the snake that Malfoy had conjured out of thin air.

That word was "Stop" but no one else heard it the way she did.

She could see the fear and the anger that flitted across their faces, as if she was the enemy, the abomination that should have never existed on the physical plain. Like she was a disease. Ron and Hermione had to drag her away from the converged group so they could speak without prying ears.

"You're a Parselmouth!" Ron exclaimed as soon as they were out of earshot. "Why didn't you tell us?"

"Parselmouth?" Hope said flummoxed. She had never heard of such a word before. "What's a Parselmouth?"

"Someone who can speak snake language," Ron said. "Didn't you know you were saying it? It's no wonder Justin freaked out; for all we know you could have been egging it on, or something…"

This revelation of Ron's stung Hope, who would have never thought that her own friend would believe her to be capable of setting a snake on a fellow student. She gritted her teeth and clenched her fists into tight shaking balls.

"The last known Parselmouth was Salazar Slytherin," Hermione added.

"And now the whole school's going to think you're his great-great-great-great-granddaughter or something—"

"So what?"

Ron and Hermione both blanched. Hope's voice had grown dangerous and cold; distant and frosty like a snowstorm was about to hit. She lifted her head and they saw that her green eyes had morphed to a midnight black, like dark, angry onyx spheres had been grafted into her eye sockets. Her voice trembled but it was hard to tell from what.

"So what if I'm Salazar's granddaughter," she snapped out like the crack of a whip, "so what? I'm not the one sending people into the hospital wing; I'm not the one in control of some sort of beast—!"

"We're not saying that!" Hermione said, frantically trying to calm her down because she had once seen Hope's temper crack stone.

"Then what?" Hope seethed. "Maybe I'll murder my whole family like his son did. Oh, wait, I don't need to they're already dead!" You knew it was bad when Hope brought up the death of her parents.

"We know you're not behind anything," Ron said, sounding a lot calmer than normal (as one had to be when dealing with Hope's few but damaging tantrums). "Hope." He put as much emphasis as he could on her name, hoping (pun unintended) that would snap her a little out of her anger.

The girl deflated a bit but still looked as though steam should have been pouring from her ears. Her clenched fists loosened and she released a heavy sigh, but much to Hermione's relief, the tension and anger seemed to have melted off of her.

That night, Hope went to bed early, feeling legitimately a little sick to her stomach. She hadn't meant to blow up like that towards Ron and Hermione, she knew very well of how…unfavourable Salazar was, but, like his brother, Ron had brought up her possible relation to the founder, and not in a good way.

She should take up meditation, or at least something less…oh, she didn't really know.

The next few days afterwards were remarkably tense, mostly because Hermione and Ron were trying to tread very cautiously around their friend, but also because the whispers about Hope had begun again and not in a good way. Hope didn't look as though it was affecting her, but Hermione and Ron could see the light bruising under her eyes from many sleepless nights. After the fourth night had passed, the tension between the three had finally eased past and they had all forgiven each other, like all children do, and the next day –a snow day–, Hope was in a much chipper mood and had actually smiled a few times, and that was a miracle.

So Hope skipped off to the library in search of a good book, happening upon the Invisibility Section. She pondered it for a second before skimming her fingers over the titles in search of one that might explain how something could roam the castle unseen…Invisibility for the Cowardly: A Guide to Hiding From Your Enemies…Travelling Unseen…that one looked promising. She lifted the book from the shelf, pausing when she heard low voices speaking close-by.

"So anyways," the voice of a young boy said, "I told Justin to hide up in our dormitory. I mean to say, if Potter's marked him down as her next victim, it's best if he keeps a low profile for a while. Of course, Justin's been waiting for something like this to happen ever since he let slip to Potter he was Muggle-born. Justin actually told her he'd been down for Eton. That's not the kind of thing you bandy about with Slytherin's heir on the loose, is it?"

Hope's hands clenched around her book and she turned on her heel, stalking up to Madam Pince to check the book out, pausing once again as she found herself close to the small group that must have been made entirely of Hufflepuffs.

"She always seems so nice, though," the girl who had spoken from before said with voice layered with anxiety, "and, well, she's the one who made You-Know-Who disappear, so she can't be all bad, can she?"

The first boy's next words drove an ice pick through Hope's heart. "No one knows how she survived that attack by You-Know-Who. I mean to say, she was only a baby when it happened. She should have been blasted to smithereens (Oh please, Hope thought angrily, the Killing Curse doesn't blow you up, it just kills you where you stand!). Only a really powerful Dark witch or wizard could have survived a curse like that. That's probably why You-Know-Who wanted to kill her in the first place. Didn't want a Dark witch competing with him. I wonder what other powers Potter's been hiding?"

"Do you just talk to hear yourself talk?" a new voice asked in irritation. "Because the last time I checked, surviving a killing curse doesn't automatically make you evil."

Hope glanced past the bookshelf to see George glaring at the small group.

"How would you know?" the first boy demanded, though Hope could hear the slight tremor of his voice; Fred and George could look very impressive when they wanted to, especially when they were irked or angry. "You and her haven't talked for weeks, probably because—"

"Because I said something stupid," George said, cutting across him, "I insulted her by accident and she took personally, which she should. We made up about a week ago, which you would have known if you weren't hiding away in your common room like frightened little rats." Hope felt her lips twitch slightly; oh, she really was a bad influence on the Weasleys…George had to have picked up that sarcastic tongue from her.

The Hufflepuffs had the decency to look ashamed as Hope stepped out into the light, and then they looked terrified, many going stark white.

"Hello, Hope," George said conversationally.

"Hello," she said quietly, much more quietly than she had intended, and she wished more than anything that they would stop looking at her like she was some monster under the bed. She eyed the boy who had insulted her the most with distaste. Ernie…wasn't it? McMillen, or something? MacMillan?

"I thought Hufflepuffs were supposed to be honourable," she said spitefully, holding her book tightly to her chest as if it was a shield of some sort. "But I guess the hat made a mistake there, didn't he?"

Ernie's face purpled at the insult. "Turning it back on me, how very Slytherin of you."

Hope's glare would have melted two holes where his eyes should have been, that is, if glares were capable of doing such, which Hope dearly wished they could.

"And I'll have you know," he said, puffing up slightly and sounding braver than he looked (anything could sound braver than he looked), "that you can trace my family back through nine generations of witches and warlocks and my blood's as pure as anyone's—"

"I don't give a damn about how pure your blood is," Hope seethed, "and I don't have anything against Muggle-borns!"

George reached to squeeze her fingers tightly.

"I've heard you hate those Muggles you live with."

Hope went stark white with suppressed anger. What did he know of her life? Nothing! So what gave him to right to judge her as if she was the villain? Like she was some sort of criminal?

"Yes, because decent folk put bars on their niece's window," George said coldly, gripping an arm around Hope's shoulders and steering her away before she exploded for the second time within the same week.

"Are you alright?" he asked quietly once they had left the library.

"I'm fine," Hope said without feeling.

George glanced her over. "I'm fine" was her go-to phrase which usually meant she was far from fine but didn't want to talk about it. She looked angry and sad and disheartened all at the same time.

"Ignore what that kid said," he advised, relaxing his grip on her shoulders which must have been uncomfortably tight he realized, slightly ashamed, "he doesn't know you like we do." He pressed a light kiss to her temple, making her cheeks burn a bright red.

"George…thanks," she said sincerely, tilting her head back slightly to look at him in the eye. "Thanks for everything."

"No problem," the ginger-haired boy said with a grin, pulling her back swiftly. "Whoa! Look out for Hagrid!"

Hope stuttered out an apology to the large man who just waved the comment aside (almost whacking Hope in the head in the process but she was willing to forget about that, as it was Hagrid). "'Lo you two, why aren't yeh in class?"

"Cancelled," Hope said shortly.

"Free period," George added, his time having completely slipped his mind while in the library…his time was almost up by now…damn.

"What about you?" Hope asked, her eyes dropping to what looked like- "Is that a dead chicken?"

Hagrid nodded almost solemnly. "It's the second one killed this term," he agreed. "It's either foxes or a Blood-Suckin' Bugbear, an' I need the Headmaster's permission to put a charm around the hen coop." He looked down at the pair of them, gazing intently at them with his black shining eyes from under his bristly eyebrows. "Is something wrong? You two look upset."

"It's nothing," Hope said quickly, Ernie's words still ringing in her ears like an ever-ringing echo. "We'll be seeing you around, Hagrid, bye!" And she dragged George away before he could contradict her.

They got about fifty feet before Hope went stock-still.

"Wha-?" George blinked and stared at his friend.

Hope seemed to have frozen over completely, almost as if she had been turned to stone, or ice, even. George followed her eyes to what looked like a fallen suit of armour.

Her hand clenched tight over his arm. "That's Michael," she whispered, her voice laced with worry and confusion, "why isn't he getting up?"

George remembered Hope mentioning the suit of armour that had carried her back from the chamber that had once held the Philosopher's Stone, but he had never given it much thought until now.

"Wait-Hope!"

But she had already reached the side of the suit of armour, but not as close as George would have expected, and when he finally approached, he saw why. The armour…it was melting, as if it had been doused completely in acid, which could be quite possible. Before George could speak a few words of warning, Hope had darted forward to wrench the helmet from the now mangled ruin, holding the metal gingerly in her hands.

It was only when George looked beyond that he realized how bad the day had gone.

'Shite.'