cxxvii. the plague of hamelin
The days leading up to the Yule break passed quickly.
Whatever issues and drama kept bubbling between the students—between Harriet and Elara—dwindled to the background like fuzzy white noise because exams had to be taken and proctored, and not even Sirius Black could interfere with that.
Defense proved the most grueling course, Slytherin matching up groups of students with live Dark creatures, tasking them with subduing the monsters in a timely manner while he sat and drank tea. One particularly nasty revision resulted in the class huddling behind their conjured shields as a batch of furious Hodags snapped at their legs. In Herbology, Sprout had them handling prickly winter foliage, and though Harriet genuinely found Ancient Runes interesting, Professor Babbling's concentration on theoretical work often bored her something fierce.
Despite all that, Harriet's least favorite class had to be Divination; Trelawney kept the classroom sweltering, and sitting in the stuffy, dark room lit by the scarf-covered lamps made Harriet groggy and caused her scar to itch. She filled every homework assignment with lines copied from the textbook because she couldn't seem to make much sense of anything otherwise. Elara enjoyed the subject—or, at least, she enjoyed it outside of Trelawney's purview—and Hermione pronounced it hogwash from the beginning.
The three of them spent much of their time ensconced at their table in the common room or the library, talking of nothing aside from magic or classwork or their grades. Harriet was still angry with Elara—more upset, really, but the feeling had settled into something less rancorous, and when she realized her distance hurt Elara, Harriet stopped running off or giving her the cold shoulder. She didn't want to hurt Elara, after all. She just needed time to think.
On the last day before the break, after their exams had been taken, the whole of Slytherin House spent the evening in the common room by the roaring hearths, celebrating a successful term with Butterbeer and hot cider. Even Hermione had taken a break from her frantic studying; she slumped in one of the small armchairs, chatting with Tracey Davis, and though Harriet had grown accustomed to Hermione's hectic researching habits, she thought her friend look a tad…tired. Worn thin like a jumper that had seen a few too many washes.
Harriet finished her Butterbeer and dropped the bottle into the bin set out for them, the sweet flavor lingering overlong on her lips and tongue. The other Slytherins were saying goodbye to one another, none of them planning on staying for the holiday, especially not with Black on the loose or the Dementors haunting the gates. Harriet hadn't bothered to ask if she could leave; being on the outs with Elara meant she didn't know if she was welcome at Grimmauld Place, and she knew Snape and Dumbledore would want her to stay in the castle regardless.
Speaking of Elara—.
Harriet glanced around the busy room but didn't spy the taller witch anywhere.
"D'you know where Elara's at?" she asked Hermione, who blinked in surprise and paused mid-conversation. Harriet blushed. "I just—I need to talk to her, I think."
Hermione hadn't seen her, but Tracey said, "I think she's in the dorm," as she popped a piece of Everlasting Gum into her mouth. "She gave us all a filthy look when we were in there earlier for Pansy to finish her hair, and I didn't see her leave."
Harriet thanked her for the information and stood, meandering through the crowd toward the girls' dormitories. It was quieter there, and colder, cold enough that Harriet didn't hesitate in the corridor despite her nerves. She eased the door open and stepped inside.
A dog sat on Elara's bed, reading. Said dog tensed when the door slipped from Harriet's fingers and closed with a thud. Elara resumed her typical form, sitting cross-legged on her bed with some moldering old tome in front of her.
"Er, sorry," Harriet said, giving the door a slight tug to make sure it closed properly. "Isn't that—I don't know, dangerous to do in here?"
Elara shrugged, not bothered. "The others are louder when they walk. I would have heard them approaching."
"Oh. Can I, um, sit?"
Elara nodded, and Harriet settled on the edge of the bed, the mattress sagging under her weight. "They've got Butterbeer and stuff out in the common room if you wanna come out there."
"Us having a fight hasn't made me inexplicably fond of crowds." Her brow quirk. "You can say what you want to say to me, Harriet. I'll listen."
"Right." Harriet grimaced. Though she didn't meet Elara's eyes, she felt the other girl's attention on her, waiting, and she didn't know where to begin. The sting of betrayal had dimmed, and now she wanted things between them to be—better, back to what they had before. After all, they had to spend the next few weeks together as the only Slytherins, and Harriet had spent enough time thinking to realize people told lies, but it didn't mean they meant harm. Elara hadn't meant to hurt her.
She attempted to untangle her own feelings and explain.
"When I lived with the Dursleys," she started, swallowing past the nervous tension building in her chest. "They used to tell me all the time that my parents were drunks. That they were layabouts and drunks and they didn't care for anyone but themselves, and that they died in the car wreck that gave me this." Harriet rubbed at her neck, over her scar. "That's what I believed was the truth for most of my life."
"Harriet…."
"I was—happy, I guess, when I learned they'd been murdered instead of just being victims to their own negligence, and Merlin, isn't that horrible? I felt so bloody foolish, like everyone else knew the truth, and I was—an idiot. It was humiliating."
Elara didn't say anything.
"Like Professor Lupin said, it wasn't right to expect you to tell me the truth about—about your dad, but with everything going on this year, I—. I thought you were in danger, and all the while, everybody was just going along with that narrative as if I was a kid who still believed in Father Christmas and they were all having a nice chuckle behind their hands at my expense. I dunno if that makes any sense." Harriet sighed, scratching at her neck again. "I don't expect to be told everything, but something like that—."
"I couldn't," Elara replied, face set in a pained rictus. "But how could I ever admit to the horrid things he'd done?"
"It's not your fault. You can't help who you're related to. I just want you to know I'm sorry for being so cold and—angry. It wasn't your fault." Harriet forced her hand from her neck and concentrated on her own bed next to Elara's, spotting Livi's curious nose poking out from under the bed's skirt. She strove to change the conversation. "Y'know, that's really amazing magic, becoming an Animagus."
"You don't need to apologize to me, Harriet. You never need to apologize." Elara pursed her lips. "Do you really like the transformation? It isn't odd or off-putting?"
"No, it's wicked!" Harriet enthused. "Magic's just—brilliant! And you don't even need your wand to be an Animagus. It's your own skill—totally reliant on you. It still surprises me what things magic can do, and every day we learn a little bit more."
"I supposed that's true. If you were interested…I could teach you."
Harriet cast Elara a puzzled look, the other witch closing her book. "Teach me what?"
"To become an Animagus."
"Wh—? Don't be silly. It's too difficult for me! I wouldn't be able to do it."
"Well, not with that attitude. It was just a suggestion—but you shouldn't estimate yourself so poorly."
Harriet watched Elara's hands on the book's edge, her fingertips worrying the rounded leather corners where years and years of casual touch had worn the texture smooth. Harriet's first instinct was to decline the offer because she didn't think it'd been made in earnest—but Elara was nothing if not earnest, even in her deception, and sometimes Harriet struggled to find the right words to say, but she could recognize an olive branch well enough.
"Okay," she said. "I'll try—and it's something we can do together, right?"
A genuine smile broke Elara's somber expression, the first Harriet had seen from her in ages, and it occurred to the bespectacled girl how very young it made her appear, how young they both were. It put their situation into perspective. What did people like Pansy Parkinson and Daphne Greengrass squabble over? Probably not the murderous past of a shared relative—but who could say? Nothing had ever been normal at Hogwarts.
"Have you two made up, then?"
Both Harriet and Elara jumped, startled by the voice intruding on their conversation. "Hermione! How long have you been standing there?"
"Long enough. I snuck in." She crossed into the room proper and dropped onto Harriet's bed, her heel bumping Livi's face. "Oh, I beg your pardon, Livi."
"Don't mind him. Livi, budge over."
The Horned Serpent slithered out from his nest of blankets, his black scales blending in with the dark stone of the dormitory's floor. "The noisssy one isss rude," he complained, stretching his neck to reach the top of Elara's bed—only to be blocked by said witch, Elara knowing only too well how difficult it could be to remove the snake from a warm bed. "Thisss one isss rude, too!"
"C'mon, then. Over here with me…."
Once the snake had successfully piled himself in Harriet's lap, Hermione continued, "So, have you made up?"
Elara and Harriet exchanged glances. "I suppose," Harriet said, and Elara nodded, smiling. A loud, relieved breath left Hermione—and then she hopped to her feet, and smacked the pair of them atop their heads. "Ow! What was that for?!"
"For worrying me sick over these last few weeks!" she exclaimed. "I've been at my wits' ends hoping you'd talk things over, but you're both as stubborn as hippogriffs!"
"Hey! That's not fair at all!"
Elara leaned into her headboard, rolling her eyes. "You should be able to rest at home without us worrying you now."
The mention of home did nothing to alleviate the stress in Hermione's expression. "The less said about home, the better. My parents and I didn't part on the best of terms last year. Anyway, I'll have plenty to keep my mind occupied."
"Oh? With what?"
Hermione gave a smug grin and reached into her robe pocket, extracting a carefully folded bit of old parchment.
"The Marauder's Map? Wouldn't it be better for Harriet's safety if she kept it?"
In answer, Harriet shook her head, tracing the crack in Livi's horn. The Horned Serpent stared up at her, his tongue flickering. "Not with the professors watching us so closely all the time. I wouldn't be able to use the map at all unless I stayed in bed, and Professor Dumbledore doesn't let us linger down here all day. He probably thinks it's depressing."
Hermione glanced up at the ceiling, at the silver lanterns and the gentle, wavering light of the gloaming hour warming the otherwise dark window. She probably had the same thought Harriet did, that to an outsider, the dungeons elicited ideas of grime and mold and rusted, rattling chains, but Slytherins grew accustomed to the small luxuries in their den beneath the lake. They had their silver lamps, their aquatic view, and the low murmuring of icy water lapping against the stone. The rest of the world and its problems felt very far away.
"I'm going to figure out how the map works over the holiday," Hermione avowed. "I've already deduced it's connected to the wards in Hogwarts somehow. Having the extra time will let me wrap my mind around the problem…."
She waxed on about her impressions of the Marauder's Map and her plans to decipher its secrets, and Hermione somehow managed to talk them into a final, late-hour trip to the library so she could borrow a research book. Harriet and Elara plodded after her through the loud common room, the upper-years growing steadily more intoxicated in their absence, and when the trio stepped out of the protected portal into the corridor beyond, they almost collided with Ronald Weasley.
"What on earth are you doing, Weasley?" Hermione demanded as they spotted the red-haired boy straightening from his crouch. His cheeks reddened, embarrassed at being caught out. "You're not supposed to be in this passage!"
"I'm looking for Scabbers," he retorted.
"For what?"
"For my rat!" The red in his cheeks extended into his ears, the tops visible through his shaggy hair. "He's been a bit off lately, and I've caught him down here before. I was just looking for him."
"Well, get a prefect or a professor to Summon him, then. There's no need to go skulking about in the dark."
"You Slytherins would know all about that, right?" He crossed his arms, and Hermione bristled, but Harriet thought the retort lacked heat. "I think it's your bloody cat that's been driving him out of Gryffindor Tower, Granger."
"Crookshanks? Don't be ridiculous. Why ever would you think that?"
"I've seen that menace in our common room before! No one knows how he got in. That cat has it out for Scabbers, has from the moment he saw him in the store!"
"Good lord, Weasley, it's a cat. Cats like rats. There's no great plot behind that."
Ron's face and ears reached maximum redness, and the Gryffindor finally relented, beating a quick retreat out of the passage and into another corridor—taking a wrong turn. He'd end up getting lost and found out by Slytherin or Snape if he didn't correct himself—but Harriet was feeling just petty enough not to help out.
She waited until the last of his footsteps faded before saying, "Livi almost ate that rat over summer."
"What? Harriet!"
A nervous giggle left her as they continued to the library. "I'm just saying! If that rat came down here—well. We know Livi can get about just fine on his own when he wants, and he really doesn't understand how some rats are food and some aren't."
"Oh, that's awful. Poor Scabbers…."
The three Slytherin witches kept on their way, the dark cloud that had been hanging above them losing its strangling hold, but none of the girls or the redheaded boy who'd passed through thought to glance into a dim alcove housing the bust of Marcurio the Mediocre. Had they looked, they would have seen a pair of beady black eyes peering back, and a whiskered nose twitching in thought.
A/N: We're only to Yule and I've cut 10 chapters already. Oh boi. We're a little over halfway through PoA.
Pettigrew over here courting death by hungry snake and Crookshanks, kneazle assassin for hire. He better watch out.