The Badger Pendant

It was late when Lily and her roommates started to yawn and decided to go to bed. Within seconds after laying down on the soft beds, they were all fast asleep, as if the sheets were covered in sleeping draught.

The peace, however, didn't last.

It wasn't long after they had fallen asleep that Lily woke up screaming, feeling a painful sting in her wrist. Her pillow was covered in some warm liquid, which had also dried on her face. She soon figured it was blood, because Susan, who had lit the candles to see what was happening, started screaming in despair. It took a while until Lily became conscious enough to understand the blood was coming from her wrist, where the little badger pendant on her bracelet had sunk its teeth many, many times, carving her flesh and veins, trying to wake her up.

"There's something wrong! I need to see professor Sprout!" Lily protested as Megan, Susan and Hannah pushed her to the hospital wing, because her wrist was bleeding a lot - apparently the badger had been biting for a long time before she woke up. In fact, she was glad the girls were taking her there, since she felt a little bit lightheaded.

Madam Pomfrey was quite shocked by the sight of her bloody face and clothes, she kept asking how it had gotten to that point before she even noticed something was wrong.

"It was right of your friends to bring you here, your pendant seems to have reached a large vessel there," said madam Pomfrey as she washed the wound to see better through the blood. Then, she reached for a flask containing a translucid potion and used a dropped to drip some of the potion on the wound, which closed miraculously. Then, she gave Lily a glass with a deep red potion which smelled a bit like iron. "It's to replace the blood you lost. Take it all at once, it won't taste good."

The taste was, indeed, bad; but Lily felt the light dizziness dissipate.

"It would be better if you took off your bracelet, dear."

"It has saved my life a couple of times, I would rather keep it on."

Madam Pomfrey made Lily promise she would at least take the bracelet off at night, and then gave the girls a note to hand to any teacher who caught them on their way back to the dormitory.

"I should probably go to Dumbledore," said Lily when they left the hospital wing.

"It's after curfew, you should go tomorrow."

"But, Hannah, what if someone got hurt? The badger never bit me that hard!"

Megan held Lily by her shoulders with a firm but calm grip.

"If whatever happened is that dangerous, you should wait until tomorrow morning, when the school will be full and it will be safer."

Lily took a deep breath and considered Megan's words. She was right.

On the next day, Lily woke up and went straight to Dumbledore's office and stood by the gargoyle, hoping it would open at any moment since she didn't know the password. A moment later, it did, but no one came down the stairs, so Lily assumed the gargoyle had allowed her to pass through. She started to climb and arrived at the door, which was open.

"Good morning, Lily," greeted the headmaster from his desk.

"Good morning, professor."

"Since you are here, why don't you join me for breakfast? I was just about to conjure myself a nice plate of french toasts," he said. "Unfortunately, it isn't everyday that I can enjoy breakfast at the Great Hall."

"Thank you…" she said, sitting at the desk in front of Dumbledore. A mug of hot chocolate appeared in front of her, and it was the most delicious hot chocolate she had ever tasted. It was thick, sweet, and strong.

"Please, tell me what brought you here this early in the morning?"

"Something happened last night. I woke up to my bracelet pendant biting my wrist so hard I had to go to madam Pomfrey."

"Well, I suppose we could search your pendant for any dark magic inside it."

"Professor, the purpose of the pendant is to warn me when there's dark magic around. Something evil was in the castle last night and the proof is right here!" Lily extended her arm to show the recently made red scars on it. Dumbledore frowned and took off his half moon glasses to take a closer look at the pendant.

"Yes, yes… I remember your mother used to wear this very bracelet during the war."

"What do you think might have happened? It was way worse than the bites it gave me when Voldemort was around."

Dumbledore went quiet for a while. His eyes were vague and he was staring at a stone basin located on the side of the room.

"I'm afraid I cannot think of a reason why your bracelet bit you last night. As far as I can tell, no one suspicious came into the castle."

"What about Lockhart?" Lily said before she could hold her tongue.

"Gilderoy Lockhart is many things, but a dark wizard he is not."

"I see," Lily looked around, as if the covers of many books, or one of the unending strange objects, could possibly provide her with an answer. "Can it have malfunctioned, then?"

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "I'm afraid there's no way that this bracelet will deceive us in any way. It is an old heirloom from Helga Hufflepuff herself."

"Wow! How did my mother get it?"

"I'm afraid that she left us before I had the chance to ask."

Lily Both went quiet and finished their french toasts. Then, she excused herself and left after Dumbledore assured her that he would be watchful of any events in the castle.

On her way to the Great Hall, Lily met Harry, which for some reason gave her a chill down the spine. Then, she remembered he had been on detention until late last night, and decided to ask if anything odd had happened.

"Actually, yes. I heard a voice when I was with Lockhart. It was around midnight."

"Oh, no!"

"What is it? Did you hear it too?" Behind his obvious concern, Harry looked somewhat relieved.

"No! But look at what my pendant did to my arm," she pulled up her sleeve again. "I had to go to madam Pomfrey last night, I woke up covered in blood. Whatever you heard, it must have been what triggered my bracelet."

"Do you know what it might be?"

"No idea. What did the voice say?"

"It… it sounded like it wanted to kill someone."

"How was the voice? Did it sound familiar? Did… did it sound like Voldemort?" Lily felt like she had swallowed dry ice, but tried to ignore it to hear Harry's answer.

"I don't know… no, I don't think so. It was colder, and not so high pitched. It sounded like it could freeze me from inside."

As much as hearing Voldemort's voice had frightened Lily in her encounter with the dark wizard, she hadn't felt the way Harry had described that bodiless voice he had heard. And not even Quirrell revealed the parasite-like Voldemort in the back of his head did Lily's badger bite her so hard.

"If you hear it again, let me know, please. I will look for Hector, maybe he knows something about some source of dark magic in the castle."

"Ok. Let me know if you are bitten that hard too."

Hector was reading a book called Biographies of Important Muggle Borns, by Bathilda Bagshot. It appeared to be an unpublished manuscript, judging by the way it was precariously bound.

"Did you know there were muggle borns in Hogwarts ever since it was founded? Salazar Slytherin was the one who tried to stop them from studying. That is why the founders fought amongst each other, and Slytherin decided to leave the school. The first Muggle Born was actually one of the daughters of Kenneth II of Scotland. Can you imagine?" said Hector excitedly. "A princess of Scotland studied here. Her name was Catrina, and she was a Hufflepuff! Helga Hufflepuff herself took her into the house, because no one was sure muggleborns should be in Hogwarts. It was only ten years later that Hufflepuff convinced Ravenclaw and Gryffindor."

"Wow! That is way more interesting than the Goblin revolutions… I wish we were taught that in History of Magic class."

"Me too. But the thing is… no one wanted to publish this book. Bathilda Bagshot spent ten years researching and writing this, but then no one would publish. This is the only one besides the original. Dumbledore asked her to send a copy to Hogwarts - the introduction of the book is the letter he wrote to her. But since it is not an official book, it cannot go on the students book list."

"That's a shame," Lily said, feeling bad about changing the subject from something that was interesting to Hector to something that would potentially upset him. "Hm, Hector… I will love to hear more about the book later, but something happened last night..." she began, "do you know if there is any source of dark magic in Hogwarts?"

"Dark magic? No, I don't think so. Why, what happened?"

Lily proceeded to tell him about how she had woken up soaked in her own blood, and had to visit Madam Pomfrey; and about her conversation with Dumbledore about there having no chance that the pendant malfunctioned; and lastly about the bodyless voice Harry had heard in the previous night.

"Could the voice have been the Bloody Baron? He can be quite creepy sometimes."

"No, the Baron has never triggered my bracelet."

"It could have been two separated events. Just a coincidence."

"Might have been, but I don't think so. It was about the same time, and Harry said the voice was talking about killing someone. The Baron is a ghost, he can't actually do it."

"Maybe he was sad. He could have been thinking of when he killed the Grey Lady."

"But the voice sounded like it was going to kill, not like it regretted killing."

"Anyway, I don't think I ever heard of a possible source of dark magic inside Hogwarts. Hermione might know something, though. I talked to her last week about joining the Mug Club and she started talking incessantly about all the clubs she read about in Hogwarts, a History."

"Okay, then. Well, tell me more about that book."

And Hector started to tell Lily all about his findings regarding muggleborns, and about the many children of important muggles that had been sent to Hogwarts. "It was actually a muggleborn that convinced one former Headmaster to install plumbing in the school," he would say at one point. And "Did you know that one of Charles Darwin's daughters actually studied here? She was a Ravenclaw!". And Lily just silently listened to his excited words. Hector had always enjoyed studying and knowing things, but it was the first time that Lily saw him really find a subject to which he could donate himself in that way.

On that afternoon, Lily finally managed to write home to announce that she had entered the Hufflepuff quidditch team as a beater. She didn't often discuss quidditch with her mother, nor with Remus, but she knew they would be excited and proud of her.

A/N: So... did you like it? Please, let me know in the comments!