dark things

by llaxiaabris

1 dies 2 come back

Certain Dark Things Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at /works/16940712.

Rating: Mature Archive Warning: Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings Category: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling Relationship: Harry Potter & Severus Snape, Hermione Granger & Harry Potter,

Harry Potter & Original Female Character(s) Character: Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Original Female Character(s), Severus

Snape, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Tom Riddle Voldemort Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Female Harry Potter, Slytherin

Harry Potter, Slytherin Hermione Granger, Master of Death Harry Potter, OoC!Neville, Wrong Boy-Who-Lived (Harry Potter), Mentor Severus Snape, Mentor Tom Riddle, Evil Voldemort (Harry Potter), Minister for Magic Tom Riddle, Professor Tom Riddle, No character bashing, Parseltongue, Necromancy, Character Death, Harry Potter is a Horcrux, Original Character(s), Eventual Harriet Potter / Severus Snape, Eventual Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy, Not romance- centric, Slytherin Pride, Dark

Collections: May I Slytherin?, Stories That Deserve More Stats: Published: 2018-12-10 Updated: 2021-05-16 Chapters: 136/? Words:

414887

Certain Dark Things by evejenson (rentachi)

Summary

They sought her out for conversation sometimes, cornering her in the garden or at the park, not that they ever had much to say. Really, Harriet thought snakes were rather dull.

--

Harriet Potter has always been odd. Between having a shadow that moves on its own and chatting with grass snakes, learning she's a witch really isn't the strangest thing to happen to the bespectacled girl with a lightning scar on her neck.

Harriet attends Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where she makes new friends, encounters a prickly Potions Master, learns about the Boy Who Lived, and meets the enigmatic Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor, Professor Tom Slytherin./users/rentachi/pseuds/evejenson

the shadow of the serpent charmer

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

1 - THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE

hell is empty and all the devils are here.

prologue. deathly reverence

The girl had barely begun to live before her life ended in a flash of green.

Caught in the space between here and there, she might have drifted until the end of time, when the world would shudder and smoke and snuff itself out with a final, seething hiss—if not for a peculiar twist of fate that brought the looming specter of Death to Godric's Hollow on a desperate October night in 1981.

You see, Death never needed to waver far from the side of the man who called himself Lord Voldemort. For all that the Dark Lord despaired and spat upon his inevitable end, he danced willingly enough with his invisible nemesis and delighted in sending soul after soul into Death's waiting hands. Death took what was given to him, he wouldn't turn away those who crossed the Veil, but with every life lost and every flicker of green light, Death came to loathe the spiteful monster just a little bit more. He watched the soul break piece by piece by piece. Voldemort didn't have sovereignty over the end; he had no right to feed Death like a corpulent cat nipping at his master's heels.

For his lack of reverence even in the face of utter terror, Death hated the man who was born Tom Riddle all the more.

It was on the night of Samhain, when the Veil drew taut between the two worlds and the looming specter could almost step out into the realm of the living, that Death followed Voldemort to Godric's Hollow. He took the soul of the father, watched him crumple upon the carpeted stairs as Tom stepped over the man's limp corpse. He took the soul of the mother, heard her beg for the life of a terrified, black-haired child clinging to the rails of a crib.

He heard the mother's soul whisper, " Spare her."

Then Voldemort raised his wand for the third time, his silhouette a gruesome sight in the watery glow of a nightlight, the sweeping motion of his arm practiced like a reaper hewing through the stalks of a summer harvest. Green light struck the crying infant and splayed across the crook of her neck in a sizzling mimicry of lightning—only for something to go wrong, some resplendent hitch of gold ambiance that blinded even Death himself stealing through the small nursery. The wall exploded outward. Another piece of Tom Riddle went flying away from the rest of his wretched

being.

Death watched Voldemort flee, the man's pale visage shaken, his soul hemorrhaging—but ignorant Tom felt no remorse for what he had done, only a sick remnant of fear from witnessing the curse sling itself back in his direction, and so his soul found no respite as the Dark Lord fled into the night. Death didn't follow. Instead, he remained and looked down upon the still form of the infant with red seeping from her neck, her green eyes frozen, her being tangled in the net between this realm and the next.

Shadowy fingers slipped across the child's brow. Strange, Death mused as he plucked the girl's soul from the Veil. He knew this soul; had come across it in another time, another place, another world, and had called it Master. The bit of Tom that had splintered from the already ravaged whole had twisted itself about the girl, strangling her soul like a determined snake, but something of the mother remained in a vein of gold suppressing the parasitic fragment.

Try as he might, Death could not steal that piece of Tom's wretched soul. It clung with unrivaled ferocity to the girl's in an attempt to consume and subvert it—but the innocent soul did not give in. It persisted, burnished and brilliant despite the taint trying to tear it apart.

An idea occurred to him.

He returned the soul to the girl. A shuddering breath escaped fragile lungs, and then weeping split the air, the great, gasping sobs of a wounded child shattering the solemnity of Death settling upon the broken home. The had girl lost everything in but a handful of minutes.

Death sunk into the shadows spilled about the crib's base. Perhaps not everything.

i. the shadow of the serpent charmer

The Dursleys of Number Four, Privet Drive, liked to think they were as normal as normal could be.

Really, they turned normalcy into an art form; Mrs Dursley fancied herself a model housewife, Mr Dursley the consummate businessman, and their son a rosy-cheeked, boisterous lad. Petunia Dursley—tall, blond, thin and rather horsey in appearance—cleaned house, gossiped with their equally nosy neighbors, and always had supper on the table by five in the evening. Vernon Dursley was a heavyset man with a black mustache and little hair on the crown of his head. He work as a director at Grunnings, a firm that produced drills, a career so thoroughly mundane even his office was painted a boring beige. Their son, Dudley, often returned from school with a note or two of reprimand from his teachers, but they put off his antics as examples of youthful enthusiasm.

Yes, the Dursleys were perfectly bland. By all expectations, a soul would be hard-pressed to ever find a family more ordinary, more average, more dull than the Dursleys of Privet Drive.

They did, however, have a secret—a secret who lived in the cupboard under the stairs, a secret the Dursleys hated to acknowledge, a secret they denied and ridiculed and feared in equal measures.

Her name was Harriet Potter, and she was not a normal girl.

The sudden rapping of knuckles on the cupboard door jerked Harriet out of unsound dreams. Groggy, she rose from her nest of well-worn blankets—and whacked her head on the underside of a stair riser.

"Bloody hell…."

"What was that?" demanded the shrill voice on the other side of the door.

"Nothing, Aunt Petunia," Harriet slurred in response as she fumbled in the dark, her thin fingers curling around the cool metal of her wire-framed glasses. Her dream stayed with her like a filmy shroud of mist. She tried to wipe it from her skin, but the malignant sense of oozing dread remained, and when Aunt Petunia slid back the latch on the cupboard door, Harriet remembered that something had been there in her dream, something scrabbling at the handle trying to get inside. She shivered.

The door came open, and Harriet's eyes watered in the harsh brunt of morning sunshine. Aunt Petunia crouched at the entrance, wearing an apron already spotted with flour, glowering at the scrawny girl sitting in a dizzy heap atop her cot.

"Get up and get breakfast ready," she snapped. "And you'd best not burn the bacon."

"Of course, Aunt Petunia," Harriet said, because there was nothing else really she could say. Harriet watched as her aunt sniffed and rose, turning on the heels of her white shoes before pacing back toward the kitchen. Harriet swayed for a moment and weighed the repercussions of falling back into her pillow against Aunt Petunia's eventual wrath. The black shadows in the cupboard created by the narrowly focused sunshine curled and twisted in such a way that was not at all typical for shadows to behave. The tendrils solidified into a rather comical approximation of an arrow and jabbed toward the waiting hall.

Harriet snorted. "Yeah, alright, I'm up and going, Set."

In her own opinion, the strangest thing about Harriet Potter had to be her shadow—or, to be more precise, the creature who lived within it. He had been there for as long as she could remember, and she knew he was a he because of the vaguely looming, masculine shape he took when he stopped hiding underfoot. One of her earliest memories was of him making shadow puppets on the ceiling of her cupboard just to make her laugh. She knew nothing about him, really, and had only ever gotten three words out of the entity in the all the years she'd been testing him: "yes," "no," and "Set," which she later came to understand was his name.

Harriet was not like the Dursleys. She was thin-boned, green-eyed, and messy haired—an ugly crow chick kicked too soon from the nest, short and skinny and pale from living in the dark for the better part of ten years like Gollum in her favorite story books. Her thick glasses had been picked from a bin at a local charity shop, and her hand-me-down clothes were stained and carelessly hemmed by her Aunt within an inch of their life. Whereas the Dursleys were fleshy and loud and red in color, Harriet was dry, quiet as the wind through winter trees and just as lackluster in hue. Her mum had been Aunt Petunia's sister, but Harriet just couldn't imagine coming from a woman related to anything Dursley.

She also had scar upon her neck she had supposedly received in the accident that had killed her mum and dad ten years ago. A curious thing, it stretched from her right collarbone up around her

throat and down part of her chest in fractal patterns, like branches of lightning spiraling through her flesh. The white color of the scarring stood out stark against even Harriet's pale skin, and her aunt often sneered whenever she caught sight of the strange marking. She wondered if the scar reminded Aunt Petunia of her sister Lily.

Sighing, Harriet shuffled out into the hall, feeling grubby and disheveled from sleeping in the stuffy dark of the cupboard. She ran her fingers through her short hair in a vain attempt to flatten the wilder spots, but nothing Harriet ever did tamed the mop on her head. Several times she'd pleaded with her aunt to let her grow it out, but Aunt Petunia had no time from her "scruffiness," and so every other month or so the woman took a pair of kitchen shears and hacked off Harriet's hair until it was only vaguely longer than a boy's. Her classmates often mocked her and called her "Hairy Harry." Harriet hated that.

The smell of vanilla and cinnamon invaded Harriet's nose when she walked into the kitchen and she sniffed in appreciation, glancing toward the oven to see Aunt Petunia moving a baked cake from its pan onto a cooling rack. Bowls of mixed frosting and little tacky decorations littered the counter. Harriet stifled a groan when she remembered it was Dudley's eleventh birthday.

Should have stayed in bed.

The boy himself came barging in not a minute after Harriet finished frying up three plates of bangers and mash and more bacon than a reasonably sized pig could provide. Dudley was blond like his mother and rotund like his father—more so, in fact. He had all the presence of a garishly colored beach ball, especially in his striped t-shirt already stained with what looked like chocolate on the collar. Harriet wouldn't have held his weight against him if Dudley hadn't of been such a terrible little monster. He and his gang of friends loved to chase her down, and though Harriet was often quick enough to evade him, Dudley had caught and sat on her once. Harriet broke two ribs and spent two days whinging about the pain before Uncle Vernon took her to the emergency room.

Dudley toddled over to the table groaning under the weight of wrapped presents with a gleeful expression on his face. "How many are there?" he demanded of his mother, ignoring Harriet's presence entirely as she slid plates of food onto whatever clear space she could.

"Thirty-seven, Diddykins," Aunt Petunia crooned as she came up behind her son and smoothed his combed hair. He looked a bit like a pig in a wig to Harriet, but she wisely kept her opinion to herself.

If Aunt Petunia expected Dudley to be grateful, she had another thing coming. "I only count thirty- six," he said, sullen color rising in his already pink cheeks. "Thirty-six. That's two less than last year!"

Aunt Petunia went about trying to mitigate the boy's oncoming temper tantrum and Harriet turned a deaf ear to the conversation, going back to the kitchen proper so she could pop a piece of bread into the toaster and slather on some peanut butter. She thought of her own eleventh birthday looming on the horizon, just a month away, and knew there'd be no celebration, no happy affection or hugs or warm kisses on the cheek. There'd be no presents for her, of course. There never were. The Dursleys abhorred spending any amount of money of selfish little freaks like Harriet.

She couldn't help being a freak, if that was indeed what she was. Sometimes odd things occurred around her, odd things that infuriated her aunt and uncle and terrified the daylights out of Dudley. Harriet didn't think it fair for them to blame her, especially since she couldn't explain why these things happened in the first place. Sometimes objects fell off the counter, and she had a sneaking suspicion Set was to blame, though she never caught him in the act. Once, Uncle Vernon's pant leg burst into flame when he stood over Harriet threatening to smack her upside the head for her cheek.

Another time the television exploded while Harriet wasn't even in the room, though she had been fervently hoping someone would turn the roaring volume down.

They could hardly blame her for such oddities. It wasn't like someone could set people on fire with their mind.

Though, to be honest, Harriet rather liked the idea; she thought the Dursleys could benefit from having the seat of their pants set alight every now and then.

The phone rang and Aunt Petunia tutted about solicitors interrupting breakfast as she got up and went to answer the handheld. At the counter, Harriet polished off the last bit of her toast and looked glumly down at the crumbs on the plate. She's go for a second piece if she didn't think her relatives would snatch it right out of her hands for being greedy.

"Bad news, Vernon," Aunt Petunia said as she returned, her face scrunched in a look of displeasure. "The old woman just called. She can't take the girl; something about a broken leg."

Harriet perked up. The "old woman" in question was Mrs Figg, an elderly widow who lived the next block over on Wisteria Walk and had a mildly obscene obsession with cats. The Dursleys left Harriet with the woman whenever they went on vacation or somewhere exciting, not that Harriet minded much. She imagined even the best places would be atrocious in the company of her relatives, and Mrs Figg was nice enough. She was odd, but Harrriet liked off things and odd people. Sometimes she gave Harriet left over cake.

As Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon argued, Dudley threw a right fit about "not wanting her to come," his voice ringing in the confines of the house. Apparently they had an outing at the zoo planned for today. Harriet loved animals and, for a moment, the thought of going to the zoo sounded fascinating—until she saw the look in Dudley's piggy eyes as he glared at her over Aunt Petunia's shoulder.

No, going to the zoo would be a bloody nightmare in the making.

"I'm supposed to do the garden today," she said aloud, raising her voice high enough to be heard above their yelling. The Dursleys stared, Uncle Vernon quickly approaching a shade near violet. "So I could, err, just do that while you're gone?"

Her aunt and uncle exchanged pointed looks, Uncle Vernon seemingly pleased with the idea, Aunt Petunia more suspicious of Harriet's motives. "We can lock her out in the garden," Vernon said softly, hand on Petunia's arm. "It's a pleasant enough day out, plenty of water—a day of chores will do the lazy runt some good."

Harriet almost—almost—rolled her eyes. Rolling one's eyes was quite high on the list of things one shouldn't do if they didn't want to get swatted.

Aunt Petunia fretted a bit more, Dudley's great, heaving sobs cutting off with haste when the doorbell rang and Petunia went to greet Piers Polkiss, Dudley's best mate. Uncle Vernon quickly ushered Harriet out the back door while Aunt Petunia was distracted. The lock engaged behind Harriet with a decisive snap.

A different little girl may have been terrified of being shut out in the yard for much of the day, but Harriet was quite enthused. She sat on the porch steps with the morning sun hot on her head, listening to the voices inside dwindle, then shift out into the front. She could hear Uncle Vernon's booming laugh, then the clap of car doors coming closed. A minute later, the engine to Uncle Vernon's brand new company car turned over, and the wheels rumbled on the asphalt as the

Dursleys drove away.

Harriet's shoulders slumped. From the bushes came a rustle of broken twigs.

"Ssspeaker."

A voice rose from the bed of Aunt Petunia's prized violets. Harriet hopped off the porch steps and crouched in the grass, her arms around her knees as she peeked through the bright leaves and saw a slender body slide through the mulch. "Ssspeaker," the little grass snake said again as it raised its narrow head.

Ever since she was young, Harriet had been able to understand snakes. They sought her out for conversation and addressed her by the assumed title "Speaker." Harriet didn't know what a Speaker was—well, aside from the obvious. She didn't know why she was different in that regard and simply decided it was yet another odd factoid on the ever increasing list of reasons why Harriet Potter was not normal. Next to having a sentient shadow and occasionally sparking accidental fires, Harriet considered chatting with snakes a rather tame quirk.

"Hello," Harriet said. "You have pretty scales." She had learned early on that the smallest snakes usually weren't overly bright and were only good for short bursts of conversation.

"Thank you, Ssspeaker," the snake replied, swaying as if mesmerized. Another snake moved in the bushes and addressed Harriet, their sibilant voices twining together as they hissed out that title again and again. Harriet wondered what it was like to be a snake. Would it be better than living here, at Privet Drive? Maybe. Maybe not. Harriet didn't think she'd much like the taste of mice or bugs, so she had better stay a little girl.

"There's some crickets in the hedge, you know," Harriet told the little snakes, pointing out the boxwood off by the locked garden gate. "Should be enough for both of you."

Both little snakes thanked her before zooming away like flickers of light in the parched grass. She was feeling rather maudlin about the day, as she always did around holidays and special occasions, but Harriet decided everything really wasn't all that bleak. In fact, she was looking forward to the start of the new school year; she'd be attending Stonewall High, a local state secondary school, and for the first time in her life wouldn't be in class with her bullying cousin. Dudley had gotten in to Uncle Vernon's old public school, Smeltings. Harriet wouldn't have to see Dudley for almost ten months while he was away.

Smiling, Harriet stretched herself out on the lawn, feeling the warmth of the earth press into her back as her shadow stretched long at her side and one of the grass snakes returned, its hissing muffled by a mouthful of cricket. It wound about her ankles, and though the pressure of the thin body felt odd and ticklish, Harriet thought it comforting.

"Things are going to get better. I'm going to make friends and do my best and Dudley won't be about to stop me!" she said to no one in particular, though Set did spool around her in a great black circle. He spiraled in feathery coils not unlike those of a giant snake. "Everything is going to be alright."

Set pooled through the upturned blades of grass and seemed to go on forever.

Chapter End Notes

Thanks for reading Certain Dark Things! This is an eight-part retelling of the original Harry Potter series, told from varying PoVs, and eventually continues beyond the war.

There's a Pinterest board for this story here

And a Spotify playlist here

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under the stairs

ii. under the stairs

Everything, Harriet understood, was not alright. Truly Harriet knew the way she lived was not proper; no other girl at her primary lived in a boot cupboard or wore hand-me-downs of such ridiculous proportions. No one else went hungry at lunch time because they didn't have pocket change and no one else seemed baffled by simple affection like Harriet was. The only time she ever remembered being hugged was in her third year, when she told Mrs Richards the Dursleys didn't give her dinner and wouldn't let her have a better blanket and Dudley kept pinching her arms until they were black and blue. The Dursleys told Mrs Richards that Harriet was a horrid liar and the teacher never hugged her again.

Harriet didn't realize she wasn't being properly treated until she started first form. Then she learned that "nasty little burdens" aren't actually something you should call children, let alone a blood relative, and for all their vaunted respect of normalcy, the Dursleys were perfectly abnormal in their care for poor Harriet. Still, she liked to tell herself "Everything will be alright" from time to time, liked to dream her parents would pop up out of the blue and say there had been a mistake, they'd survived the car accident that had supposedly killed them, or a long-lost relation would arrive on the doorstep of Number Four to whisk Harriet away. "Everything will be alright" she told herself, and soon Harriet hoped that wish would come true.

Her life changed on a balmy summer day midway through July. It was an innocuous day like any number before it; Aunt Petunia banged on the cupboard door, Harriet stirred herself from unpleasant dreams and set about making breakfast. She fried up the eggs and potatoes, serving the family before she took her own seat at the table and picked over a bowl of stale granola. Dudley sat across from her in his new Smeltings uniform. He looked so ridiculous, Harriet had to hide her laughter in well-timed coughs.

She didn't find the knobbly Smeltings stick very funny, however. Why a school thought it necessary to give young boys sticks for whacking each other was beyond Harriet's comprehension.

A clatter in the hall signaled the post's arrival.

"Get the mail, Dudley."

"Make her get it."

"Go on then, girl."

Harriet set aside her granola and rose from the table. Dudley aimed a whack toward her leg with his stick and she dodged, scrunching her nose up in derision as she passed him by. Her cousin scowled. Really, Harriet couldn't even begin to guess what life at Privet Drive would be like without Dudley constantly hounding her. Maybe Aunt Petunia wouldn't be so cold if Dudley wasn't near by for her to smother with her unfettered love. Not that Harriet thought she should be smothered instead. She knew her aunt was capable of being nice if she wished to be; she simply never seemed to have the inclination.

She dragged her feet over to where the letters lay on the mat and picked them up. There were several bills, a postcard from Vernon's sister "Aunt" Marge, who was staying on the Isle of Wight

—and a letter for Harriet.

Frozen, Harriet almost dropped the thick envelope as she turned it about in her hands and reread the addressee.

Miss H. D. Potter

The Cupboard Under the Stairs

4 Privet Drive

Little Whinging

Surrey

A sound of disbelief left Harriet. There was her name, plain as you please, written in a lovely green ink on a pricey piece of parchment with a purple wax seal on the back. She examined the seal and saw some kind of crest embedded in the wax, though the details were a bit difficult to decipher. There was a large 'H' in the middle. Who in the world would write to her? Was this some type of new viral marketing? If so, how did they know where she slept?

"What are you doing, girl? Checking for letter bombs?" Uncle Vernon chuckled at his own joke.

"Oh, har har," Harriet muttered. "Ripping good joke, ol' chap." Hesitating, she stuck the letter into the voluminous pocket of her cousin's oversized shorts and went to take the rest of the mail in. Uncle Vernon grunted as she set the stack of post by his elbow on the table. She retreated to her chair, feeling the sharp corners of her letter poke at her thigh as she sat and finished her granola. Dudley eyed her like Harriet was an ugly bug he wanted to squish.

"Marge is ill," Uncle Vernon said, flipping over the postcard. "Ate a funny whelk."

"Oh, dear."

Breakfast was finished in short order and Harriet cleared the table. She continued to touch the outside of her shorts even while she washed the dishes, leaving the occasional smudge of soap on the fabric, her head full of questions. What if it was someone who knew of Harriet? What if they were writing to tell her they wanted to take her away? She didn't know if that was possible, but she surely wished it so.

Once the last bowl had been dried and neatly stacked on its shelf, Harriet scampered off. She didn't want Aunt Petunia to call her back with another list of chores and she had long since learned that out of sight was out of mind when it came to her relatives. She paused in the hall by her cupboard door, listening to Dudley jabber on to his parents about wanting to go visit his mates, then slipped the envelope out of her pocket once more.

A second inspection proved to be just as mystifying as the first. Harriet ran her thumb across the wax again, frowning, then gently pried it open. From inside she pulled free two sheets of soft, yellow parchment, gleaming with the same green ink as the envelope.

HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore

(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

Dear Miss Potter,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress

"What in the world?" Harriet murmured as her brow furrowed. She gave the second sheet a quick inspection and did, in fact, find a list of books by people she had never heard of and a motley collection of the oddest sounding things. Potions kits and cauldrons? Telescopes and scales? Was this real? Was there really a school for witchcraft? Harriet had never applied to such a place. Her aunt and uncle would have screamed themselves hoarse if she'd asked.

Harriet reached for the cupboard door. She would've opened her letter inside, but the cupboard lacked any kind of light and became decidedly dark once the door was slammed shut. Her fingers skirted the latch when—SMACK!

"Ouch!" Harriet cried as she jerked her hand back, no longer alone. She looked around to see that Dudley—holding his Smeltings stick—had left the kitchen and to come sneaking into the hall, no doubt looking for some retribution after his earlier nagging attempts had failed. His narrowed eyes landed on the folded parchment Harriet clutched to her chest, and before she could think of what to do, her cousin sucked in a gust of air and shouted. "Mum, Dad! She's got a something! The freak's got something!"

Uncle Vernon came stomping through the doorway, mustache twitching. He glared at Harriet as she hid the letter behind her back, her throat gone dry and her head fuzzy as her uncle loomed overhead and her heart kicked her ribs.

"Well?" he said with his meaty hand out held. "Give it here."

Harriet took a step back. Dudley, having shuffled to the side to give his father room, made a grab for the letter and Harriet dodged—right into Uncle Vernon's hands. He gripped her wrist with considerable force as he brought her arm forward. One of the pages tore when he jerked it from her

grasp.

"What's this then? Some garbage you nicked from school—?"

Uncle Vernon suddenly went very pale and still. His beady eyes flickered back and forth, back and forth, faster and faster. Harriet reached for the letter and he jerked his arm higher out of her reach. "Petunia! Petunia, get in here!"

A pause, then came the sharp clack, clack of Aunt Petunia's heels as the door swung open to admit the horse-faced woman. "Yes, Vernon, what is it?"

He shook the rumpled parchment in his fist. Aunt Petunia didn't even read the letter; she looked at what he was holding, at the fine paper and the wax seal hanging off the envelope's flap, and choked. She wheeled on Harriet.

"Where did you get that?!" she demanded, hissing like one of the garden snakes. "How dare you! Have you been in contact with those freaks? Have you been out sending owls where the neighbors can see you like the nasty little sneak you are?!"

"Owls?" Harriet weakly asked, feeling quite out of her depth. Aunt Petunia seemed to know a lot more about all this than poor Harriet did. It was almost as if—. "Hang on. What do you know about all this? Have you gotten one of these letters before?"

Aunt Petunia paled like Uncle Vernon. "Don't—don't ask questions," she gasped. Of course, that was one of the first rules Harriet had learned at Privet Drive; don't ask questions. Especially stupid ones.

At the moment, Harriet was not inclined to follow that particular rule. Her relatives' reactions led her to believe they knew exactly what that letter was on about and where it had come from. Harriet thought it might have all been a big joke, but Dursleys didn't like jokes, not unless they were told by Uncle Vernon and had vaguely racist undertones to them. The Dursleys knew.

"Do you know that lady who sent it? Or about this Hog—Hogwarts place?"

"Don't—," Uncle Vernon sputtered as a red flush began to overcome his pallor.

Harriet thought about all the odd things that occurred in the house, her strange shadow and the chats she had with the snakes who came searching for her at Number Four. "Am I a—a witch? Do I have ma—?"

"DON'T!" Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia thundered in unison. Both Harriet and Dudley slapped their hands over their ears, frightened by the sudden explosion of sound. "Don't you dare say that word!"

"Is it true, then—?"

Aunt Petunia jerked the cupboard door open with such force the hinges groaned. "Get into you cupboard. No more questions—."

"But what about—?"

"No!"

With his hand still on Harriet's arm, Uncle Vernon jerked her forward and stuffed her inside the cupboard. Harriet struggled, reaching for her letter, not wanting him to take it away—.

Then the door slammed shut, and Harriet heard the latch slide home.

touch of the unholy

iii. touch of the unholy

Not terribly far from the dark cupboard beneath the stairs of Number Four, Privet Drive, lived another little girl quite like Harriet Potter. That is to say, she was a girl who the Dursleys, convinced of their own exemplary ordinariness, would not think normal in the slightest.

Elara Black couldn't help being odd. There simply hadn't been a chance for normality in her upbringing; living in a place like St. Giles' Institute of Wiltshire often precluded such pleasantries. Matron Fitzgerald—hunched and scowling, limping with a cane that thumped loud on the hollow floorboards—woke the children at six o'clock, led them through their morning prayers, and set them to their lessons with one of the younger sisters. Lessons were interspersed with chores, and sometimes a light game of football in the courtyard. After vespers they sat down in the dining hall and Father Phillips led the children in saying grace.

If one was very, very lucky, they never had to see Father Phillips outside of dinner or Sunday mass. They never got called into his office.

Elara was never lucky.

Terrible things just happened to Elara and to those around her. She had a predilection for causing mayhem without meaning to, without raising a single hand or uttering a single word. The roses in the courtyard withered to blackened stubs after Elara helped Sister Abigail trim the buds, and she once wished Mandy Tibbs would fall off a ladder and she did. Kaleb Sanders got sick after pushing her down the stairs and he spent time in hospital, attached to all manner of strange tubes and a ventilator. Elara almost cried when she saw him. She knew it was somehow her fault.

"She's cursed," the other children whispered behind their hands. "Elara's got the devil in her. Black as her name."

Elara didn't think she believed in the devil, or demons, or any of that nonsense. As far as she was concerned, the "devil" existed all around them; he resided in Sister Mattie's too-strong grip, in the side of Matron Fitzgerald's cane, in Father Phillips sharp tongue, and maybe even in Elara, too, though whatever resentment festered in her heart had been born and bred by others, not by herself. She never meant to hurt anyone—not the garden, not the other children, not the sisters who were too loud and too fast with the backs of theirs hands. She mights be cursed, but it wasn't her doing.

The summer heat sank into Elara's back as she leaned against the brick wall and lifted gray eyes to the empty sky overhead. Voices echoed in the confines of the garden walls, younger children playing in the sand pit or among the overgrown weeds hemming the parched lawn. Elara sat behind the hedge, on the little strip of rough concrete separating the dirt from the property's dividing wall, the air always smelling faintly of cigarettes from the eldest kids smoking where the sisters couldn't see. They didn't mind if Elara sat there; the children on the cusp of adulthood really stopped believing in curses and devils and God a long time ago, after all.

Elara was a thin girl, considerably tall for her age and "passably pretty," as Matron Fitzgerald always said, though the Matron believed Elara had best join the convent and not fuss with finding a husband when she was older, lest her demons get the better of her. She was too pale and always outgrew her dresses too fast, much to the consternation of the sisters, and she was prone to terrible

bouts of motion sickness. She kept her black hair consigned to a tight bun on the back of her head and liked to wash her hands far more than the other children her age. Elara thought herself quite plain, really. If not for the occasional accident happening in her vicinity, she fancied that no one would ever notice her at all.

Letting out a huff of air, Elara returned her attention to the book bent open on her knee. It was an old bible, battered and torn and water-damaged, resigned to a regretful fate in the bin before Elara salvaged it. She had no love for the scripture—rather the opposite, in fact. Lips pursed in concentration, she used her ink pen to gently black out certain passages and lines, creating mini stories with the words and letters that were left. If one of the sisters found this, Elara's backside would have yet another unfortunate meeting with Matron Fitzgerald's cane.

She pulled at her wool gloves, her hands hot and itchy, but didn't remove the coverings. Sweat prickled on her brow and the back of her dress had a decidedly sticky feel to it. I should probably go inside, she thought, morose at the idea of having to face the others. I'd rather cook than listen to Sister Mattie snarl psalms in lessons. She could probably fly to Bath with the amount of hot air in her head.

A sudden screech jerked Elara upright. The bible snapped shut on the concrete.

An owl—an honest to goodness owl with rumpled feathers, sharp talons, and a rather cross look in his or her gold eyes—had landed on the wall above Elara's head. Surprised, she stared at the creature and the owl stared right back. Had Elara not been used to "devilish" things happening to her, she would have been a touch nervous to have such a sharp-beaked bird inspecting her like a piece of tasty roadkill.

"Ah," she said, reaching for the bible in case she needed to chuck something at it. "Hello, there."

The bird clacked its beak twice, then jumped down off the wall into the narrow space allocated between the hedges and the bricks. Elara scuffed her shoes scrambling out of the way, and the owl followed her, hopping about on one leg with a displeased hoot. Confused, she realized the poor thing had an envelope tied to its upheld foot, and it insisted on her taking it off. Elara hesitated, then reached out to pull the loop of twine.

The heavy envelope fell and the owl moved away. Under the direct brunt of sunlight, the letters inked in green shone like emeralds.

Miss E. A. Black

Bedroom 3, St. Giles' Institute

45 Riversrun Lane

Wilton

Wiltshire

A letter for me? Elara pondered as she took the envelope in hand. The thick paper reminded her of the pages in Father Phillips' oldest bible, the one he used for special sermons during the holidays. Nobody had ever written a letter to Elara before. She had no living relations, no friends, not even any cordial acquaintances. She could count on one hand the number of times she'd ever left the

orphanage since she'd been left there at almost two years old. Someone delivered me a letter by… owl? I've heard of carrier pigeons, but not carrier owls, for goodness' sake.

She cracked the purple seal and proceeded to read.

HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore

(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

Dear Miss Black,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress

Elara held her breath. A light breeze rippled through the hedge leaves. "It's a test," she managed to choke out past the lump in her throat. "They're trying to test—." Because how could it not be a test? The Matron and Father did so love to try the zeal of their charges, none so much as Elara and her perceived wickedness. "A fanciful child," they called her when they were being generous, " a damned heathen" when they were not. Hogwarts? Witchcraft? A confederation of Wizards? What nonsense—?!

She went to crumple the letter in her fist, frustrated, when the owl gave another haughty hoot.

Where did the owl come from?

Frozen, she forced a breath into her lungs and blinked away the sting of tears. Elara had seen many bizarre things in her short life. She had seen books float on their own accord, flowers shrivel between her fingertips, silverware start to dance, had dreamed about a black haired man who could turn into a great, shaggy dog, and had felt the rekindling of a tiny rapid heartbeat cupped in her hands—but Elara had never seen an owl so uncanny in its intelligence, and had never seen anyone at St. Giles' exhibit even an ounce of the creativity it would take to construct such an elaborate little game.

Where would Matron Fitzgerald even get an owl? She swallowed, turning the letter and the accompanying list over in her hands. It seemed such a fanciful thing. An ill-tempered bird comes

soaring out of the sky to deliver a letter from an academy of magic to a poor orphan girl. For her entire life, the Institute and the church had all but beaten into Elara's head the evils of witchcraft and blasphemy—but by instilling those teachings, were they not confirming their existence? Elara didn't think much of devilry, but what if magic, real magic, existed? Did this letter mean Elara did magic? Was she really and truly cursed?

She wasn't sure, couldn't be sure, and the skeptic in Elara warned her against such silliness. Would it hurt to reply? she asked herself, running a finger along the signature of Minerva McGonagall. The pen had cut deeply into the paper—parchment—leaving indents.

"Miss Black!"

The voice of a sister carried through the garden from the back door, and Elara tucked the letter and envelope into her bible without hesitation. The owl continued to watch her as Elara rose to her feet and brushed dust from the backside of her skirt. Her socks and Mary Jane shoes were hopelessly dirty. Stealing herself, she looked at the owl, and said, "Just…just wait—or not. Whichever," then hurried off after the call of her name. Her face felt hot with her own embarrassment.

Talking to birds now. Maybe I am touched in the head.

Sister Abigail waited for her, holding open the door and the screen against the casual tugging of the wind. She smiled when she saw Elara and her young face creased. "There you are, Miss Black. Father Phillips has been askin' for you."

Elara's heart lurched. "Did—did he say what he wanted?"

"No, not as such." Distracted, Sister Abigail craned her neck to peer by Elara toward the younger kids chasing each other in a game of tag. One of the girls tripped and let out a piercing cry. "Here, you go on, Miss Black, Miss Richardson needs some help over there…."

Elara continued inside on her own, clutching the tattered bible against her chest, the letter and alterations inside like brilliant hot stones she wanted to let go of and hold all the tighter at the same time. Her footsteps echoed in the narrow, crooked halls, a fan droning somewhere behind a shut door, the children either outside or cloistered in the chapel or in the musty classroom listening to Sister Mattie snarl. Elara pushed her panic away, took the trepidation she felt tapping at the inside of her ribcage and shoved it to the back of her mind until she felt reasonably calm. It didn't stop her gloves from sticking to the palms of her hands.

Father Phillips' door lay at the end of the long, twisting corridor. Elara stood before it, and knocked.

"Come in, please."

The door swung in on silent hinges, her steps muffled by the thick rug residing just past the threshold. Silence typified the the priest's office, no radio sitting on the empty bookshelves, no fire in the grate even in the dead of winter, no ticking of a clock on the paneled walls. The rest of the world seemed to get just that much farther away whenever Elara was called into his presence, as if everything beyond St. Giles' just ceased to exist.

"There you are, Elara," Father Phillips said with slight simper from behind his desk, the corners of his mouth pulling at the aged skin of his heavy cheeks. Bushy brows capped his eyes like the white peaks of mountains, though the man himself was a whole and hale fifty in age, his Irish brogue deep and rolling. "And how does God find you today?"

"Very well, Father Phillips."

He gestured at the wooden chair by the covered window and Elara went without protest, her fingers cramping around the bible from their unforgiving grip. He must have sensed her anxiety despite her best efforts, because he laughed. "Oh, you needn't be so anxious, child. I just wanted to check up on you."

"Of course, sir."

"How have you been feeling?"

"Very well, sir."

His gaze trailed over her, hard and disinterested, then lingered on the bible with the slightest bit of warmth. "Have you been doing your readings outside? It's a nice day out. Best to be thankful for the weather before the rains blow back in."

Elara gave her head a quick nod as she stared resolutely at a certificate handing above the wood mantel. She couldn't read it from her angle, and the frame was so thick with dust the letters would have been lost anyway. She didn't want to look at the priest.

Father Phillips stood and came around his desk, his hands folded behind his back, his pace measured and loud in the pressing silence of the office. "Sister Mattie tells me you've been quiet in lessons, and you haven't been eating all your food at supper."

Something tightened in Elara's chest as the priest came to stand before her. Memories weighed on the edges of her thoughts like feet stepping on the hem of a dress, jerking it back, causing her to stumble.

"Now, child, I know you've been through an ordeal, but it's important to keep your strength up. Heaven knows we don't want to be hearing more tales about any resurrected birds, aye?"

The window was covered, but Elara knew that if she were to twitch the curtains aside, she would be able to see the great old willow tree that Elara had avoided looking at ever since that day. Flickers of images returned to her: Gunther Lyle with a sparrow in his hand, the other orphans shouting, jeering, crying, a stone coming down, a tiny body broken and thrown into the leaf-strewn roots, bloody feathers sticking to Elara's trembling fingers as she gathered the bird in her hands, feeling the warmth spill through her skin—and she suddenly watched as the dead sparrow took a breath and flew away.

The tightening sensation in Elara's chest constricted, and she wanted to tear it free, tear through the cloth and bandages and flesh until she could put her hands on her bones and shake the feeling out. She didn't do that, though. She just laid her bible in her lap and discreetly wrung her hands.

Father Phillips settled his own hand on the top of her head, stroking her hair. "Recovery is a hard road, but I know you have a good soul in you, Elara, and God does not abandon his faithful servants to the treachery of the Devil."

Elara nodded once, numb. She didn't trust herself to speak. From the corner of her eye she saw a glass begin to spin and shudder, coming ever closer to the edge of the priest's desk, and she willed it with everything in her to stop, to stay still. Please—please, not again, I can't go through THAT again—.

Too many hands in the dark. The sharp bite of steel in her young flesh, encircling her wrists, the cross glowing red like a shooting star, Father Phillips clutching that special bible of his while he

loomed overhead, the silk of his purple stole cool against her skin as it trailed across her tear streaked cheek.

"Most cunning serpent, you shall no more dare to deceive the human race. We drive you from us, we drive you from us…."

Shivering, Elara stood and banished the images and voices from her head. She hated that office more than any other place in the orphanage. "Father Phillips, I need to go get ready for my lessons later this afternoon."

"Of course." He straightened, stepping back, and Elara exhaled. "Make sure to study well. We'll have tea in a few days to check up on how you're doing. How does that sound?"

Awful. "Wonderful, sir."

"Excellent. Off you go then."

Elara turned on her heels and hurried from the room, trembling. The sound of glass shattering filled her ears and she broke into a run, the bulbs in the light fixtures bursting as she crossed the hall, dashing up the stairs and into another passage. Elara didn't stop until she was safely ensconced in her bedroom and the door slammed shut behind her on its own.

That won't go unpunished. She stripped off her gloves, then threw them at the wall in a fit of self- indulgent frustration. The room was not very large but it was modestly comfortable, the iron frame of the slim bed cleaned of rust, her sheets firmly tucked, her desk empty of everything aside from a notebook and pen she'd been using earlier that morning to write lines for Sister Mattie. Sunlight streamed through the window, and the silhouette of the wrought-iron bars laid a crooked latticework on her polished floor.

Elara sat on the edge of the mattress and covered her face with her sweaty hands. She was tired of this. She felt as though she lived her life on a tightrope strung between punishments, and no matter how skillfully she managed to cross the gap, her reward was yet another sharp reprimand, another smack with a ruler, another scathing monologue promising Elara Hell waited for her and she would burn for all eternity. She was already burning. Elara Black was eleven years old and yet she felt so, so much older. She could not go on like this.

Thwack! Thwack!

Sitting up, she glanced toward the window where the tapping sound originated. She blinked. The owl that had accosted Elara in the garden now perched on a rung of the bars, sticking its head through the barrier to rap its beak against the glass. She hurried to open it, and the owl gave a rueful hoot as it studied her.

Right. Hogwarts. Elara found the bible laying on her mussed blankets, and she whipped out the letter again, flattening it on the top of her desk.

Magic. That invisible force that welled up inside her and broke light bulbs and cups and returned smashed little birdies to life. She had been told it was evil, that she was evil, for her entire life, but this—.

You have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Elara traced the words with her fingers.

You have been accepted.

Hardly daring to breathe, Elara sat at her desk. She pulled her notebook closer and tore out the page of lines, crumpling them until the sentence 'I will not blaspheme' disappeared into the crinkled paper. Elara picked up her pen, and on the new, fresh page, she began to write: Dear Deputy Headmistress McGonagall….

but blood is thicker

iv. but blood is thicker

Harriet's every thought, either waking or dreaming, was consumed by that letter.

Who had sent it? Were all the odd things that happened around her really magic? The Dursleys had always hated that word, maybe even more than they hated Harriet herself. They didn't talk about magic and most certainly didn't allow anything fantastical into the house; even Dudley was denied new fantasy computer games, much to his consternation, and Uncle Vernon had burned Harriet's Tolkien books when Aunt Petunia discovered them hidden in the garden shed.

Had the letter met a similar fate? Harriet hoped not.

Shut in her cupboard, she whispered all her questions to Set, and he either didn't answer because he didn't want to, or because she couldn't read shadows in the miserable darkness. Harriet would shut her eyes and listen to the house: the groaning pipes, Dudley playing the telly both upstairs and downstairs, Aunt Petunia nattering on the phone about Mr Lobelia's ugly new hedges. She thought about the dreaded "m" word and her stomach fluttered when she dared to hope she wasn't really a freak at all; rather, she was magical. A witch.

The Dursleys, for their part, refused to acknowledge that the letter had ever existed in the first place. Harriet was relegated to the cupboard full time, let out only in the morning and the evening for a spot of food and quick dash to the loo. Perhaps her punishment wouldn't be so severe if she stopped bombarding her aunt and uncle with demands for answers every time they dared cross the hall—but she felt as if she stood upon the cusp of some great change, and hovering there without really knowing anything for certain was like hanging from a noose. The bottom of her toes could scrape the ground, but Harriet was still suffocating all the same. She needed to know there was more to life than this.

Some mornings Harriet woke and it all seemed like another product of her nightmares; a mysterious missive boasting of her acceptance into an academy of magic arrives only to be taken away minutes later. Ridiculous. I didn't hallucinate, she told herself fiercely. She could remember the touch of purple wax giving under her fingertips, the way the green ink shone in the sunshine. She could recite many of the strange names she'd seen listed beneath their strange books, orders to get black uniforms and a pewter cauldron, the ban on first year broomsticks. Though Harriet considered herself quite imaginative, she couldn't have imagined that.

One line caused Harriet to worry: "we await your owl by no later than 31 July." She hadn't a clue how one went about catching an owl to send a missive—but the rapidly approaching deadline had Harriet anxious. July thirty-first, her birthday. If she failed to send a reply by then, would this Hogwarts place revoke admission? Would they send another letter? Or would Harriet be stuck with the bloody Dursleys until she was eighteen? She was content with her prospects of going to Stonewall High right up until she discovered there could possibly be a school out there that taught magic of all things and it wanted oddball little Harriet to attend. How could she let such a thing go?

Harriet squashed her nose against the cupboard's vent and drew in a long, muffled breath. The air whistled through her nostrils as she breathed, shaking the door, not that she cared about that. A week had passed since the letter's delivery. Harriet had seen very little outside her cupboard since then.

Someone entered the hall—Uncle Vernon, judging by the heavy, plodding tread. The latch on the cupboard rattled as he stooped before it and Harriet leaned back, expectant, preparing for the sudden burst of light that came whenever the door opened. The hinges creaked, and Uncle Vernon —still dressed for work, though his tie had been loosened—glowered at Harriet. She frowned. Harriet had been sure it was still early in the afternoon; she lost time sitting in the cupboard for so long.

"Come eat the dinner your aunt made for you, girl."

Harriet stepped out of the cupboard and stood. She didn't feel very brave with her uncle looming overhead like a great, bulbous blimp of pent-up anger, but she held her ground and squared her bony shoulders. "I want my letter back."

Uncle Vernon didn't reply as he rounded on his heels and stormed into the kitchen. Harriet followed. A plate of cooling scraps from the roast Aunt Petunia had cooked earlier lay at the end of the counter, and the three Dursleys sat around the table picking over their dessert, ignoring her presence entirely. Harriet wanted to set in on them about the letter right away, but her stomach rumbled in protest, and so she slumped over to the spotless counter where her dinner waited and shoved forkfuls of gristle in her mouth. Chewing, she glared out the window facing the garden and studied the burnished color of the sky, the fluffy clouds scudding along the horizon behind the neighbors' houses.

What does it even matter? They'll never agree to let me go, came Harriet's sullen thought, but she tamped down that pessimistic voice with a determined shake of the head. No. They have to. I can't stay here and go to Stonewall. I just can't.

Harriet swallowed and went to rinse her plate in the sink. With that finished, she forced herself to stand as tall as she could—which, really, wasn't that tall at all—and turned to face her relatives.

Uncle Vernon saw her coming and stiffened. Aunt Petunia, seeing Uncle Vernon's foul expression, craned her long neck about to level a sour grimace at Harriet. Dudley just kept eating.

"I want my letter," she said, speaking as calmly as she could. "It's my letter, and I think I have a right to know about magic and—."

"The right?" Uncle Vernon thundered, jumping to his feet. Harriet took a step back before realizing it. He came nearer, throwing his napkin on the floor as he went. "You don't have the right to anything, you utterly ungrateful freak! We take you in out of the goodness of our hearts, take the clothes off our son's back for you, keep you fed, give you a place to sleep, and this is how you repay us?!"

Aunt Petunia swiftly ushered Dudley out of the room, though the fat boy didn't seem inclined to go, shoving at his mother as he complained. She finally snapped the door shut in his pudgy face and locked it. Fear frazzled the edges of Harriet's temper, and her voice grew louder in response to her uncle's darkening face. "It's not on, keeping this stuff from me! It's my bloody life! It's not fair!"

"It wasn't fair when my stupid sister went and got herself blown up and we go landed with you!" Aunt Petunia burst out, surprising both Harriet and Uncle Vernon. Color burned in her cheeks and her eyes were half wild, glittering like coins at the bottom of a fountain, grubby and dark but catching the light when you least expect them to. "Don't you understand anything? That's what magic does to people! It ruins their lives!"

"B—." Harriet sputtered. "Blown up? W-what do you mean 'blow up'? You told me my parents

died in a car crash!" Bile crawled into her throat and it was all she could do to stop herself from being sick on their shoes. "How could you lie to me about that?! They're my parents! I've never even seen a picture of them!"

"I've heard enough of this—," Uncle Vernon warned, but Harriet kept going.

"What in the hell is wrong with you people?!" she demanded. The windows shook in their casements and though Harriet knew shouting never got her anywhere, she couldn't seem to calm down. She couldn't stop. A headache pulsed behind her temples. "I'm your niece and you treat me worse than Aunt Marge treats her dogs!"

"How dare—!"

"I want my letter! It's mine, and you have no right keeping it from me! I want to go to Hogwarts! I want to learn magic!"

A sudden pain flared through Harriet's face and, before she knew it, she was on the floor, slumped against the kitchen cabinets with one of the knobs digging painfully in her shoulder. With a dazed blink, she looked up at Uncle Vernon—just as the man lunged, wrapping his meaty fingers around Harriet's skinny neck to haul her upright. He squeezed until Harriet couldn't breathe, terror ripping through her like water through a broken dam and Uncle Vernon shook his arms. Yells punctuated each shake.

"You—don't—talk—to—me—like—that!"

"Vernon—Vernon! You can't do that!" Aunt Petunia shrieked. He dropped Harriet as swiftly as he had grabbed her, both breathing hard, Harriet swaying on her feet. With a trembling hand, she touched her throbbing lip and held bloody fingers out toward the light. The red looked ghastly on her skin. Harriet was stunned. Getting punched by Dudley or receiving a few slaps about the head for her cheek wasn't a rare occurrence at Privet Drive—but the Dursleys had never struck her before. Not like this.

Uncle Vernon quivered with rage, and Harriet knew in that instant he wished he'd killed her, that if Aunt Petunia hadn't of been here, he would have kept squeezing and squeezing until every last breath left Harriet's scrawny little body. She had never been so afraid of the man before.

He grabbed her by the front of her overlarge shirt like he was afraid to touch her skin now and dragged Harriet toward the hall. "I will hear no more of this!" he roared, throwing open the door, Dudley almost falling in face first from having his ear pressed to the keyhole. A moment later and Uncle Vernon had the cupboard door open, too, the dark inside waiting as it always was to swallow Harriet whole. Her head struck one of the shelves with enough force to bruise when he threw her in. Uncle Vernon slammed the door closed again. "Get in there, and see if we let you out before Christmas!"

Harriet sobbed. She sobbed long after Uncle Vernon had stormed away, long after Dudley's laughter had subsided, and long after the Dursleys had tromped up the stairs to their beds. Aunt Petunia hesitated once outside Harriet's cupboard and had enough compassion in her to open the vent, but she moved on quick enough at Uncle Vernon's insistence. Weak afternoon sunlight gave way to the gloaming hour. Harriet watched the light die through watery eyes. She had never been so miserable before in all her life.

Some time after night fell, Harriet dropped into a fitful doze, curled up tight in ball upon her cot, dreaming of green light and cold laughter and shifting shadows. She didn't think about Hogwarts, about magic, her letter, or her parents. It hurt too much, worse than the pain in her lip or in her bruised neck or her bumped head. What else had the Dursleys lied to her about all these years?

A hard poke pulled Harriet from her lousy dreams. She lay on her cot and tried to breathe through her stuffy nose, wondering if she had imagined the feeling—until it came again. For one horrible second Harriet thought someone else was in the bloody cupboard with her, but no, she was quite alone. Set was the one trying to rouse her.

Harriet sat up—avoided bashing her skull on the riser—and stuffed her glasses onto her blotchy face. She couldn't see very well, but she could hear, and what she heard was the distinct sound of the cupboard's latch sliding along its groove. Harriet watched, frozen, as the door popped itself open and slowly swung aside. In the soft moonlight suffusing the hall, the shadows wheeled and pulsed until Harriet saw Set's hand take form, beckoning her forward from the cupboard's belly. She went.

No one was in the silent hallway. Set moved, illuminated by the light coming through the windows that flanked the front door, his black form stretching and distorting as he edged his way up the stairs. What is he on about? Harried marveled, still crouched down. A door creaked open. Set returned before she could consider following, not that Harriet was keen on following him upstairs to where her relatives slept. His shadow rippled on each step as it came down, Aunt Petunia's handbag floating silently along with him.

"What are you…?"

Set brought the bag to Harriet, then flipped it over. Aunt Petunia's things clattered on the floor, a tube of lipstick rolling away, loose change bouncing and spinning as Set tossed crumpled tissues and sweet wrappers aside. There, among the detritus, was Harriet's letter. She took hold of it, gaping, and saw that someone had obviously tried to set the pages alight, but had ultimately failed. The edges were crispy and left ash on her questing fingertips.

Set broke open Aunt Petunia's purse and extricated the folded notes, flinging them in Harriet's face. She caught the money on instinct more than anything else and gawked, having never held more than a few quid in her hands before. Set moved again, and the front door slammed open. The evening breeze whispered through the space, cool with the first distant murmurs of autumn held in its grasp, inviting Harriet to take one breath, and then another. Her cheeks felt chilled where the tears dried themselves.

Harriet glanced at the money in one hand, at the letter in the other, and then the open door.

Set pointed toward the exit.

Her heart was beating very quickly at this point, because Harriet understood perfectly what Set meant for her to do, but she wasn't sure she could. Harriet wasn't even yet eleven years old, and though she despised this place, Privet Drive was the only refuge she had ever known. Bitter and hateful, but a refuge all the same. The unknown was a terrifying thing, and it waited for young Harriet now, yawning like a great maw beyond the threshold of the open door where the night lay thick like dew on the lawn. The world was very quiet then. Harriet could hear her heartbeat.

Her legs wobbled when she stood. Set twisted about her feet as Harriet walked toward the open door, her hands coming to rest on the frame, shoes scuffing the threshold though they did not cross it.

In her head, she could hear the Dursleys shouting again. "You don't have the right to anything."

"That's what magic does to people!"

"Ungrateful freak."

"It ruins their lives!"

Harriet stepped forward. They won't hold me down anymore, she told herself. Not again. I'm not afraid.

Hissing voices rose from the grass. " Misstresss," the snakes called as she walked them by. "Misstresss."

The yard teemed with dozens of slender, glistening bodies writhing in a chaotic mass of scales and sharp teeth and wavering tongues. As she leapt over the low garden wall, the snakes began to pour into the open door of Number Four, Privet Drive. Harriet Potter followed the pointing arm of her shadow gesturing into the night and she smiled as she walked away.

bind thy hands

v. bind thy hands

The vial shattered when it hit the floor.

Albus Dumbledore stared at it, at the jagged triangles of glass peppering his rug and the blue swirls of Pain Relief seeping into the fibers—but Severus stared instead at his hand held aloft like it was some ghastly appendage he'd never seen before.

It happened again. Fuck.

The Headmaster wore an uncharacteristically stern expression behind his silvered beard as he surveyed his Potions Master. "Are you alright, Severus?"

"Fine," Severus replied automatically, which was true enough. The initial flare of pain had faded after his fingers spasmed and had dulled to something less incandescent than an outright inferno. Now the ache settled deeper in the muscles and bones, leaving behind nothing to indicate his hand and wrist had been in searing agony only moments before.

What the bloody hell is that?

Dumbledore flicked his wand toward the broken vial and it repaired itself, though the potion it'd contained couldn't be salvaged. Another spell Vanished the remainder of the mess. "Are you certain, my boy?"

Severus tore his eyes away from his hand, lip curling as he addressed the Headmaster. "I assure you, I am perfectly fine. Your concern is unnecessary."

Lips pursed, Albus settled once more in his armchair, tucking his wand away in the inner fold of his gaudy robes. His left hand came to rest on his lap while the sleeve of his right rippled, empty.

"Ah, Severus," he sighed, a weary chuckle hidden beneath the breath. "I guess even you are entitled to a moment of clumsiness."

The Potions Master said nothing. It wasn't clumsiness. He didn't admit as much to Albus, because though he may detest the simpering fool's well-wishing and soft-hearted nagging, he was loathe to give the old man anything more to worry about. If it was anything to worry about at all. Severus sank farther into the crimson cushions of his own chair, glaring at the small fire built in the gaping hearth.

"Are you prepared for classes to commence in September?" Dumbledore asked. He reached for the bowl of tart sweets resting on a short, spindly table by his elbow and the bowl obliged him by sliding nearer.

"Nearly," Severus said.

"And are you ready for…certain students to make their appearance?" The knowing look Dumbledore leveled over his half-moon spectacles was not appreciated and Severus told him as much, his irritation mounting as he forced his hand to lay flat on his thigh. The fingers continued to twitch. He had seen similar damage done to nerves with the Cruciatus Curse, and yet Severus knew

this was not a result of that spell.

"Of course," he sneered, eyes still on the fire. "The wretched year has come at last. We're to be blessed with the presence of the Boy Who Lived. Tell me, where did he spend his summer studying again?"

"France, I believe, but I'm not certain. I would have to write Augusta and ask." Dumbledore sucked on a lemon drop and, for an instant, appeared deep in thought. A somber expression arrested the usual twinkle of his eyes. "Neville is not the only child of whom I speak, though."

Severus said nothing. In fact, he pretended he hadn't heard.

Dumbledore persisted. "Are you excited to see Harriet again?"

He ground his teeth. Bloody meddlesome fucking fool. "Has her letter been sent?"

"Yes, it went with the rest of them, or so Minerva tells me."

"And there hasn't been any…issues?"

Stroking his beard, Dumbledore contemplated his reply before saying, "The charm on the paper tells Minerva that young Harriet opened and read her letter. She's simply waiting for a reply now."

Severus eyed the darkening sky outside the window and his hand gave a painful throb. "If Petunia doesn't have the girl respond by the thirty-first, I'll go visit the Muggles myself."

Dumbledore's beard twitched in what either could have been a smile or a frown. It was impossible to tell. Around them the silver mechanisms and multi-colored dials continued to swivel and chime, providing ambiance to the stilted conversation unraveling between the pair of wizards. "Now, Severus…you know you would attract the wrong kind of attention should you go to investigate yourself. I'm sure they're merely waiting for the opportunity to go to Diagon and use the owl service in the alley. Young Harriet will be coming to Hogwarts; I told Petunia and her husband as such when I left Harriet in their charge."

"You shouldn't have left her there," he retorted, knowing exactly type of "wrong attention" the Headmaster spoke of, not caring what that particular sadistic arsehole thought for once.

"There was no one else."

"Anyone would have been better, Headmaster." He knew that. He knew that with every fiber of his being, no matter that Albus always said "People are capable of change." The Headmaster could be blinded by the vaunted light gleaming off his own pretty pure morals. Severus had been born in spite, and he'd recognized its mirror in Tuney when they were just children. Petunia had loved Lily once, and so Severus could only hope to God or to Merlin or to fucking Morgana that she'd done right by her sister, but the Potions Master was a cynical man by nature. People didn't change. The girl's life had probably been uncomfortable in Petunia's ugly hands.

He prayed she had something of Lily in her. He couldn't stand suffering another seven years with a miniature James Potter.

"Anyone, my boy? So you would have taken Harriet in?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Severus scoffed. Snape could have barely taken care of himself let alone a child, especially a child whose mother had been so recently murdered. He didn't like to admit how many nights he'd spent pathetically drunk in his quarters, seated with his back to the wall, because

that's where freaks sit, boy, the fire banked low and the cold seeping through his night clothes. To this day, he still thought of Lily—sans the drinking now—and of their last meeting.

She'd been holding a swaddled bundle to her chest and had asked if he'd wanted to hold her, but Severus had declined, because what in the hell did he know about holding babies? She told him she forgave him, that she understood all that Severus did for them—for Lily and her bastard of a husband and that tiny lump of a newborn she clutched so protectively, but Severus retorted, "It's not enough. It'll never be enough." Lily was all that was good in the world, and sometimes Severus thought she would've forgiven the Dark Lord if the maniac bent his knee and bowed his head in repentance.

Smiling, Lily said there was only one thing in the world she cared about, and he would care about it too, if he meant to keep Lily in his life.

He remembered kneeling on the parlor floor, clasping Lily's wrist, her hand on his own, James Potter's wand hovering over them.

"Will you, Severus, always do your best by her?"

"I will."

"Severus?"

"If the worst should come to pass, will you keep her from danger?"

"I will."

"Severus, my boy, are you listening?"

The Potions Master lifted his gaze from the grate and dismissed the nagging sensation tickling the back of his mind. The remainder of the Vow seemed to echo in the air between the pops and snaps of the fire and the whir of delicate instruments. "Will you protect my daughter, the person I love most in this world, if I cannot, Severus Snape?"

"I will."

He never saw her again after that day—neither her, nor Potter, nor her daughter. September would be the first time he'd seen Harriet Potter since her infancy, since he'd reluctantly stepped over her mother's cooling corpse to approach the bloody cradle and pour Essence of Dittany over her weeping wounds. The mewling brat had been the only thing that stopped him from turning heel and chasing down his Lord that very night. He'd sat in the ruins cradling a wounded babe, sobbing his blasted eyes out, until Sirius Black—that fucking traitor—arrived on his flying motorcycle.

He and Severus probably would have cursed each other to bits if Hagrid hadn't shown up and almost killed him by smacking Snape in the back of the head. The Potions Master woke several days later in the hospital wing, only to learn that Black had escaped, had murdered Pettigrew and a shite ton of Muggles, and that Neville bloody Longbottom was being heralded as "the Boy Who Lived" after the Dark Lord supposedly vanished into thin air right in the middle of casting the curse that would have destroyed the sniveling boy.

Lily—his Lily—her husband, and their scarred little girl had been relegated as little more than footnotes in a madman's murderous rampage. Harriet's survival had been attributed to a simple mistake on the Dark Lord's part, a stroke of luck that hid her in the ruins of her home from his attentions. Severus knew better. So did Dumbledore.

He rummaged in his robes, searching for another Pain Relief, but came up empty handed. "Apologies, Headmaster," he drawled. "I need to return to my stores to find you another analgesic potion."

Dumbledore waved aside the subject change. "That's not necessary, Severus. I will get one from Poppy if I need to."

"Her stores are out of date. I haven't yet restocked the infirmary. In fact, I should see to that now." Severus rose, straightening the fall of his robes as he did so, refusing to meet the Headmaster's persistent stare.

"I get the distinct impression you're trying to avoid this conversation."

Severus lifted a brow in mock surprise. "Who, me?" He then made good on his escaped and pretended he didn't hear Dumbledore's chuckling at his back.

Severus couldn't remember the last time he'd laughed.

It was a rather stupid thought in his opinion, though he'd been having more and more of these stupid thoughts the closer September crept and the more he remembered Lily Evans and the misspent years of his youth. He'd laughed without mirth before, to be certain, cold and snide and sarcastic, a quick burst of reviled derision passing through him like the snarl of a wounded animal. He must have been very young—that is, if he'd ever laughed at all. He couldn't be certain.

Hearing Dumbledore's amusement, how easily it came to the ancient wizard, rankled Severus's already pained and agitated mood, because he stood before the sink in his quarters downing the strongest Pain Relief he had and still his hand ached, thinking about fucking Dumbledore and his bloody twinkling eyes. Sometimes Severus really hated him. The Headmaster reminded Snape of how little humanity the Potions Master still retained.

Water splashed over his hand. In the low, greenish light of the dungeons, it looked as if it belonged to a dead man. Severus snorted. The pain had been reoccurring for several years now, sometimes only as a slight ache he'd attributed to the cold, or—on rare occasions—as a sudden spear of unadulterated agony ripping through his flesh and bones. It never lasted long, yet the echo of it remained, mystifying and terrible, a fucking promise and threat Severus had never found the cause of.

He lifted his gaze to the mirror above the sink. The visage held there was just as it ever was: stark and severe, two eyes like unlit wells boring deep into the earth, black and glinting, nose sharp and cheeks gaunt, lips a displeased slash above a hard jaw. His skin was remarkably, well, unmarked considering his prior profession and the time he spent around idiot children wielding knives and bad tempers. There were, however, several scars clustered about the orbital ridge and cheekbone of his left eye, interrupting the dark hair of his brow and the fringe of black lashes. Sneering, Severus lifted his hand to gently prod at the eye.

The glass was cool beneath his fingertip.

The pain's not from that, he told himself as he inspected the lid and blinked, looking for any abnormalities in the Charmed orb. He knew the curse that had taken his eye would eventually blind the other eye as well, but Severus also knew he'd most likely be dead by then, so he didn't

bloody care about that. Whatever malignancy persisted there wouldn't manifest in his hand or wrist.

Frustrated, he used his wand to douse the lights and returned to the main living area. He had a great many things to see to—potions to brew for the infirmary, for his own stores, responsibilities to shirk and other professors to avoid, journals he wanted to read and correspondences in desperate need of being returned—but Severus ignored those tasks and settled in the armchair by the hearth. He glared into the depths of the twisting flames and, layer by meticulous layer, submerged his worthless thoughts and furious emotions into the hungering abyss of his Occluded mind.

Severus lifted his hand and stared at it. He stared at the way the firelight played across the sallow skin and caught upon the barely there etching left by Lily Potter's Unbreakable Vow.

"It's not the Vow," he whispered, not for the first time. "That's not…that's not how it works."

But what did he really know?

Sometime after dark, long after irritable Potions Masters should have retired to their beds, the pain suddenly stopped.

mind of the clever

vi. the mind of the clever

Hermione Granger was a girl who, since her earliest days, had been told she was "too" much.

Naturally Hermione knew it was possible to have too much of something, and it could be just as detrimental as having too little—but the things of which Hermione was accused of being too much of never made much sense at all to the bushy-haired, bright-eyed girl. The other children in her primary told her she was too bossy, and the teachers often grumbled that she was too clever, too well-prepared, too attentive. "Hermione, why don't we give someone else a chance?" they'd say, and while Hermione fully believed in being fair, nobody else ever wanted to try.

Even her parents, through tight smiles and gentle touches, would say "Dear, you can be a bit too much sometimes."

Too, too, too.

Hermione never had any patience for that silly little adverb. Why on earth would people say "be the best you can be" and then tell her that her best was "too much"?

It was an absolutely ridiculous double-standard. Hermione was clever, though, clever enough to know that sometimes it was best not to be too much, no matter how it stung her pride and wounded something deep inside her. Jean and Robert Granger were always so pleased when their daughter pretended to be intrigued by the simple revisions offered by her teachers, when all Hermione wanted was to study something more challenging, read something more engaging, and move at a pace that wasn't so infuriatingly slow.

Sometimes, Hermione had to pretend to be an idiot and she resented the world when that happened.

So when a stern older woman dressed in a tartan suit and a pair of square spectacles arrived at the Granger household in July and told Hermione "You're a witch," Hermione didn't dismiss her out of hand. She sat, and she listened.

Professor Minerva McGonagall, as the woman addressed herself, was the Deputy Headmistress and Transfiguration instructor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the most prestigious academy of magical learning in all of Great Britain. She explained—quite patiently—that yes, magic was real, no, she wasn't in fact a madwoman, and yes, she'd love to preform an example for the Grangers. As they sat in the lounge, Professor McGonagall Charmed the tea to pour itself, had the Hummel figurines on the mantel break out into dance, and changed a vase into a chicken all with a flick of the thin stick she called a wand.

Hermione couldn't believe her eyes.

The professor asked, "Miss Granger, has anything odd ever happened to you? Have you ever done something or seen something you couldn't explain?"

Hermione wanted to say, "Of course not, everything that occurs has a perfectly rational explanation —," but she didn't. Instead, she sat picking at the crumpet her mother had given her and thought on the question, returning to those curious incidents in her past her logical mind had assumed explanations for. Sometimes she would reach for a second book while reading and find it in her

hands when it should have been across the room. She very desperately didn't want to get her homework wet while dashing from the car to the classroom once, and she alone out of all the students arrived dry.

"Yes," she told Professor McGonagall, eyes darting between her parents and the witch. "A few times, ma'am."

"Sometimes," McGonagall explained. "Witches and wizards are born to parents who aren't magical. It's never been explained why exactly this happens, but magic is not always wholly understood. That is why we study it. Some devote their entire lives to the pursuit of answers and only come out with more questions—but Hogwarts is there to help anyone who has need of it."

The professor handed Hermione a letter and she held it close, H. J. Granger gleaming in navy on the thick parchment envelope, a noble crest pressed securely into the purple wax on the back. Hermione tore open the letter. She began to read—and at the end of the list, she looked up at Professor McGonagall with something like wonder in her eyes. Magic. Real magic, and she had it.

There had to be a catch. There was always a catch to something that sounded so wondrous, and when Hermione said as much, Professor McGonagall's expression creased as she reached into her purse to retrieve a special form.

The Muggle-born Protection Act of 1982.

"It is a law implemented by our current Minister for Magic when he came into office," Professor McGonagall informed them, her lips thinning, her voice somber. "In essence, it is a law meant to protect magical children born to non-magical families who can often find themselves in undesirable situations. The gifts of the magical children can sometimes alarm the unprepared." Her nostrils flared. "The Ministry finds that the MPA protects these children against violence and misunderstandings."

The Grangers continued to ask questions and Hermione watched the little furrow between the woman's black brows dig itself deeper and deeper. What Hermione gathered was that Professor McGonagall did not approve of the MPA, which dictated that any Muggle-born who accepted their place at Hogwarts would have to be fostered by an approved Wizarding family, and would only be allowed to visit the non-magical world for the Yule holidays, which amounted to roughly two weeks in the year. If Hermione went to Hogwarts, she would have to leave home. If she went to Hogwarts, she would only see her parents for Christmas until she reached her magical majority at seventeen.

Ten weeks. For the next five years, she would only see her parents—her family—for a grand total of seventy days.

The Grangers didn't often feel out of their respective depths, but listening to Professor McGonagall proved more than they were capable of understanding. Jean and Robert knew their daughter was different—gifted—and that she struggled to fit in as she never struggled to do much else. She'd secured a place at a very fine public school for the upcoming year, but would she only experience more of the same? More misunderstandings? More bullying and grief?

Hermione only had to read the letter once to memorize the words, but she read it again, and again, fingers folding down the worn edges of the paper, lips pursed.

She thought about her mum and dad, about Dr. and Dr. Granger, and about the clean-cut lives they led. Being dentists was perfectly acceptable of course, yet remained…tame in the vaster vision of their youthful ambitions. Mum had wanted to be a barrister and perhaps a judge one day. Dad had

wanted to go into neurosurgery and the study of the mind.

"Be the best you can be."

"Dear, you can be a bit too much sometimes."

Too, too, too.

She loved her parents dearly, just as dearly as they loved her, but their stale ambitions left Hermione discomfited.

"Professor McGonagall," she asked as her parents looked to her and waited for what she would say. "Is there such a thing as being too much of a witch?"

The older witch blinked, lips pursed. "No, I don't believe so, Miss Granger."

Hermione closed her eyes. She took a breath—and chose.

Two days later, she stared up at the great black gates and really, really hoped she hadn't chosen wrong.

A hedge of yew curved along the long gravel drive and the summer air smelled of jasmine, acres and acres of land spilling in every direction without a single indication of civilization. Hermione and the professor had walked along the gravel road—which bore no trace of tire marks, no scuffs, perfect as a ribbon of stone scarring the earth—for quite some time before turning right and coming upon the gates. Beyond the gates loomed the dark stone edifice of a manor illuminated in the afternoon sun.

"The Malfoys fashion themselves to be the pinnacle of Wizarding society," the professor said, her moue of displeasure making a return appearance. "You will be very well taken care of, Miss Granger, as I assured your parents. You will certainly learn quite a bit about what it means to be a witch in the hands of Lucius and Narcissa."

In the interim of the two days Hermione had been given to wrap her mind around everything that had happened and to read the basic information pamphlets, she had learned exactly two things about her new foster family; they were called the Malfoys, and they had been a Wizarding family for as long as history had been recorded.

Professor McGonagall turned to face Hermione and seemed to be thinking very hard on something, her spectacles flashing in the sunlight, which made Hermione feel a bit queasy with apprehension. "If you require anything, you are free to write to me at Hogwarts. And if…." She lowered her voice and paused as if contemplating her words. "And if you feel a situation is urgent enough, I will do my utmost to deliver any messages to your family."

Hermione's brow rose. That was against the law—their law, the Muggle-Protection Act. It prohibited contact with the "Muggle" world outside specified windows of time to mitigate possible exposure.

"Thank you, professor."

"Well, then." Professor McGonagall nodded once, then returned her attention to the gates. She withdrew her wand once again and gave it a flick over herself, reverting her tartan suit into a pair of dark emerald robes, the shoulders quite stiff—not unlike the witch herself. Hermione watched with rapt attention and found herself still unable to fully accept that this all was really happening to her. She had always been a rational girl, convinced of logic and science and medicine—until magic came in and readily tipped her world onto its head.

"On we go, Miss Granger."

Doubling her grip upon her small piece of luggage, Hermione followed Professor McGonagall as the older witch strode forward—and stepped right through the imposing gates as if they weren't there, or simply comprised of something vaporous like smoke or mist. A ticklish sensation overcame Hermione when she did the same and she gawked.

McGonagall hid her smile. "Come along."

The Malfoy Manor was a grand place indeed. Hermione had visited many of the historical houses in non-magical—Muggle, now—England and parts of France with her parents, and the Manor rivaled any of those sites in quality and sheer elegance. What magic was in evidence wasn't gaudy or, well, cliche; no rabbits came popping out of hats, no man was standing by to retrieve an ever- extending line of handkerchiefs from his sleeves. White peacocks strolled through the green lawn, their cries sharp and clear, and stone snakes wound around the cornices.

Hermione wiped nervous sweat from her palms as they walked inside and kept her bushy-head raised held high.

A short creature with green eyes the size of tennis balls, dressed in a ratty pillowcase, greeted them in the foyer, bowing so low its—his?—long nose brushed the marble floor. A chandelier dripping crystals burned with a load of yellow candles overhead, the walls braced with rather terrifying rocaille and moving portraits. Pale, white-haired men and women watched from their gaudy frames.

"Dobby will be taking Miss to his Master's family now," the creature—Dobby—squeaked as those odd eyes landed on McGonagall. He wrung his long-fingered hands. "The Master says to thank the Professor McGonnagolly!"

Professor McGonagall took the hint and gave Dobby a prim nod. Hermione, on the other hand, was still puzzling over the word 'Master.' Was Dobby some kind of—servant? Her stomach lurched.

"This is where I leave you, Miss Granger. Remember, if you have need of anything, please write to me at Hogwarts," Professor McGonagall said. She and Hermione shook hands and the latter swallowed her building nerves, telling herself there was no reason to be so nervous, she was a witch and she would learn magic and be the very best she could be at it. The front door opened again without assistance, and Professor McGonagall disappeared in the sunlight.

Dobby spoke and Hermione jumped. "This way, Miss!"

"Yes, I'm coming," she said with a breathless nod. Hermione quickened her pace and followed the bobbing form of Dobby out of the foyer and down an adjoining hall. She continued to try to guess what he was exactly—some kind of hobgoblin? A fairy? A gnome? Something else entirely? And why did he refer to Mr Malfoy as "Master?" It seemed terribly formal to her.

They stopped before a door painted black and framed in the thinnest gilding of gold. Dobby knocked, then proceeded inside.

"The Miss Herme-ninny is here, Master!"

Hermione winced at Dobby's horrible pronunciation of her name and stepped over the threshold. Four people sat in the well-appointed drawing room: a man with the same silvery-blond hair visible in the portraits, a woman of similar cold beauty, a boy Hermione's age identical to the man, and a boy older than her with mousy brown hair and a tired expression. The man, with his pointed profile and silver-tooled robes sitting in the scrolled wing chair by the hearth, looked up at the intrusion and snapped the book he'd been reading closed.

"Ah, yes," he said as he stood. "I thought I heard Minerva's voice. Take her luggage to her room, Dobby." His voice came out hard and sharp as a whip.

The strange creature bobbed in his bow and snatched hold of Hermione suitcase before scuttling out of the room. The door swung shut and Hermione had to lean away lest she be clipped by it.

"Miss Granger. A pleasure to meet you. I am Lucius Malfoy, this is my wife Narcissa Malfoy—." The woman nodded her head in acknowledgment but otherwise remained seated, flipping through what looked to be a moving furniture catalog with disinterest. "My son, Draco—." The pale haired boy sneered. A silent look from Mr Malfoy sent him strolling out of the room without a single word spoken. "And our other Muggle-born ward Jamie Ingham." The tired boy only stared before going back to his own reading.

"Hello. How do you do?" Hermione said, feeling the horrid urge to curtsy. Ridiculous.

"Very well. Please, have a seat."

He gestured to an empty chair with a lazy flourish; the Malfoys seemed to be quite practiced in expressing that kind of indolent, well-mannered grace, as if nothing at all mattered, their eyes remarkably distant when they looked at her. Hermione told herself she was being ridiculous again. The Malfoys had been nothing but cordial so far, and it was kind of them to open their home to her and other Muggle-borns like Jaime.

Hermione sat. The Malfoys watched her like fat, glistening spiders wondering if a fluttering moth would land in their web or not. Mr Malfoy smirked as he returned to his own chair and Hermione glanced at the cane leaning against its padded arm. The head was in the shape of a silver snake.

"You must have done exceptionally well at your at Muggle school for the Ministry to place you in our home." The word "Muggle" came out oddly among the other posh syllables, spat with his tongue lingering on the alveolar ending. Hermione shifted under his attention.

"Yes, I—I was the best in my class. I even won a scholarship to Cheltenham."

"And now you've discovered you're a witch. How exciting." His tone suggested it wasn't very exciting at all. Mr Malfoy rested his pale hand atop his cane, withdrawing a wand from the top of it when the hand lifted again. He flicked the dark wand toward one of the towering bookshelves flanking the enormous hearth and several volumes jerked themselves free. "You will come to find, Miss Granger, that while the House of Malfoy may not be the oldest pure-blood family in Britain, it is surely one of the most distinguished. You are very fortunate to have been placed with us. You will receive the best money can buy while you remain here—but I must insist your studies remain exemplary. Your marks and your manners reflect directly upon my family name and I will not see it sullied."

"Of—of course, Mr Malfoy," Hermione stuttered, surprised at the forcefulness of his statement. She had about a million questions buzzing inside her skull—but something of this dark and ancient

place, of the man before her, forbid such flippancy. If she wished ask something, she had best make sure it was a very good question. "What would happen if my marks fell?"

His lip curled. "You would be placed with another family."

"I see." Hermione's eyes flickered toward Jamie and lingered on the fatigue written in his countenance. "I will do my very best, Mr Malfoy."

The books he'd summoned came soaring toward her. Hermione caught one on instinct and the others stacked themselves on top of it until she held several tomes on her lap, feeling more assured now under the weight of so much knowledge. Some of the titles read Wizarding Traditions of the Twentieth Century, Noble Houses of the Current Era, A Beginner's Compendium on the Magical Arts, A History of Magic, and Manners for the Modern Witch. A few didn't sound even remotely interesting to Hermione, yet she knew she would read them anyway.

"I am lending you these volumes from the Malfoy library. I expect them to be returned in the same condition."

"Of course," Hermione replied. It seemed to be the only thing the Malfoy patriarch wanted to hear and Hermione would oblige him if it meant having access to such a trove of written word. She tentatively touched the binding on one text, fingertips skirting along the well-worn paper as something like electricity sparked under her skin. If they continued to be so generous with their books, Hermione didn't much care that the Mafloys didn't appear to be a warm family. She had her own family at home and didn't need a second.

I'll make my parents proud, she thought. And I'll become the best witch there is .

Mr Malfoy inclined his blond head. His silver eyes gleamed. "Very good, Miss Granger. If you're ready, your education on the Wizarding world begins now."

find more than treasure here

vii. find more than treasure here

Harriet was beginning to think she might just be losing her mind. She was, after all, chasing her own shadow through downtown London.

She had followed Set to a bus station in Little Whinging, and from there she had taken a bus all the way to the city, earning many speculative glances from the driver and those passengers who climbed aboard. They looked at the scruffy girl in her over-sized clothes with her unbrushed hair covering her bruised neck and wondered where she was going and if they should perhaps call the authorities. Fortunately for Harriet she reached her stop before anyone could think to detain her.

The sun had well risen and the weather grew warm, muggy, Harriet's mouth dry and her bladder full and her stomach empty. She trailed Set down one street and then another, moving along as fast as she dared, careful to avoid any more attention and the occasional police officer she spotted on the prowl. Harriet found herself eventually toddling down Charing Cross Road, which seemed quite the busy thoroughfare with numerous shops and venues dotted along the avenue. She collided with several pairs of legs as she chased Set.

Suddenly he veered to the left—right across the threshold of a pub Harriet hadn't seen at first. Blinking, she swiped her sweaty fringe out of her eyes as she peered up at the swinging sign that depicted a great pot with a crack in its basin. The letters read "The Leaky Cauldron."

"Oh, excellent," Harriet whispered, tired from a poor night of rest and really in desperate need of the loo. She stepped inside and almost swooned at the pleasant rush of cold air coming over her before immediately darting toward a little corridor off to the side, ignoring Set and any of the inner patrons. She found the water-closet and darted through the door.

Once her business was finished and her hands washed, Harriet stepped out of the loo and spared the pub a better look over. Shadows clung about the corners and in the rickety rafters, a mixture of voices and clinking cutlery reaching her ears from the main room, where she'd glimpsed a long bar and a cluttered motley of mismatched tables. On the wall right across from the loo hung a painting of a cauldron, and as Harriet watched, ingredients hopped off shelves and poured themselves into the bubbling stew, changing the liquid in a never-ending rainbow of color.

Her jaw about hit the floor as she lifted a finger to prod the canvas. The ladle took an idle swat at her hand, not that she could feel it. "Utterly mental," she whispered. "I've gone round the bend."

It was magic—bloody magic, plain as you please, right smack in Harriet's face, hanging in an empty hall and all she had to do was stroll in off the street to see it. Like it was nothing. Like this rather ugly painting hadn't just rocked Harriet's small, uncomfortable world.

It's real, isn't it? Really, really, real.

A sudden poke in her ribs turned Harriet's head, and she saw Set flit against the wall behind her, rippling in the weak light thrown by the gas lamps as he pointed toward the bar.

She did as Set directed, having no reason to distrust her shadow, not after he'd taken her this far already.

Behind the counter, the wizened barman with his bushy brows and lined face chatted with a wispy, gray-haired woman dressed in purple robes and a pinstriped skirt. Most everyone in the establishment wore similar robes, some subtle, some outlandish, one man with blond hair and big, pearly teeth dressed all in gold with a group of woman hovering about his table, causing quite a fuss. Some wore clothes that looked normal under their longer robes, if a bit old-fashioned—until closer inspection revealed differences in cut and style than Harriet was used to. One woman's blouse had blooming flowers on it that shed and regrew their peachy petals over and over again.

"Hullo there, lass. How can I help ya?"

Startled, Harriet tore her eyes away the many strange sights around her and instead looked up at the barman. "Oh, er." Harriet had no idea what to say or why Set had led her here, besides the fact that the establishment oozed magic and mystique. "Um, could I get something to drink…?" She took the crumpled bills from her pocket and wrinkled her nose at the damp texture. Sweat. Gross.

"No Muggle money here, lass," the barman said as he spied the notes in Harriet's hands. Muggle? "You'll need to go on to Gringotts first. You Muggle-born? Where's yer guardian?"

Harriet wondered why he skipped straight to guardian rather than parent. Did she have some sort of cosmic sign over her head that said 'orphan'? "Er—they sent me on my own."

The barman's brow furrowed and he seemed on the brink of saying something, perhaps something against her supposed guardians or perhaps in recrimination of Harriet herself, but he thought better of it. The gray-haired witch who'd been listening to their exchange finished her drink—some kind of juice if Harriet wasn't mistaken, the remnants of an English breakfast on the plate before her— and stood. "I can show the girl on up to Gringotts, Tom," she offered, giving Harriet a small smile. "My name is Mafalda Hopkirk, Miss…?"

"Harriet," she said, pausing. "Well, Potter. Harriet Potter."

"It's very nice to meet you, Miss Potter. Let's be off then, shall we?"

Harriet nodded, not knowing what else to say, though she was leery of going somewhere with a stranger. That leery feeling only grew when she followed the woman—the witch—into a grubby back alley adjoined to the rear of the pub, and Harriet almost darted back inside and away from Mafalda. She didn't consider herself a coward, but Harriet had very little luck with adults in the past and had even less trust for strangers. The witch took out a stick from the inner folds of her long, rippling cloak and gave the bricks on the wall a good sharp tap.

A crack resounded through the air. Harriet watched, dumbfounded, as the bricks began to shift on their own accord, peeling like the skin of an orange, curling at the edges until a new pathway was plainly visible. The roof of the warehouse above the wall remained—and yet there was an alley in front of Harriet, not the rear of a warehouse; an alley full of people dressed in funny clothes carrying funny things and saying funny words.

There, a name was written on an arch: Diagon Alley.

"Come along, then, Miss Potter. I need to get to the Ministry yet this morning."

Harriet urged her wobbly legs forward despite the sudden tingling in her limbs and hands. Mafalda tucked her stick into her cloak with a curious look in Harriet's direction, then led the way up the street away from the grubby alley opening. Harriet, for her part, did her best not to gawk and shriek and generally make a nuisance of herself, staring at every little thing she could. There was a man selling bits of dragon liver, and that vendor there had little cooling charms you clipped to the front

of your robes, guaranteed to keep you cool and fresh the rest of the day! Harriet brushed the side of a lumpy witch and her cloak left out a chorus of bird calls.

"Is this your first time to the Alley?"

Harriet started when Mafalda addressed her. The witch had already moved off several paces and Harriet blushed in her rush to catch up. Set had returned to her shadow for now, leaving Harriet to her own devices. "Er, yeah." She scratched her head and tried to think of a plausible reason for her being there by herself. While the temptation to ask questions—or to simply beg for help—was great, Harriet knew she'd most likely end up in a police station, or right back with the Dursleys if she wasn't careful. She refused to return there. "My folks had to work and, uh, sent me on my own."

Malfalda's brow furrowed. Harriet knew there must be some glaring inconsistencies in her story, so she shrugged off any of the witch's follow up questions and hurried her on to their destination. Gringotts, the barman Tom had said. Harriet guessed it was a bank of some kind, and that she'd have to exchange her stolen pounds there for whatever money the magical people used. Hopefully she had enough to buy all the odds and ends listed on her charred letter.

"That's Gringotts there, Miss Potter," Malfalda said when they reached the alley's end. A towering building of white stone sat at a fork in the path, Diagon Alley continuing to the left, a sign stating the right to be Empiric Alley. The name "Gringotts" scrolled across the bank's stone face, a set of sweeping steps leading up into a marble antechamber. It looked like the kind of place someone would want to store their money—or spend it, whatever their preference. It also looked like the kind of place that would throw a scruffy urchin like Harriet right out on her ear.

"Ah—thanks," Harriet said, staring up at the waiting doors and the thick columns like the arching teeth of a wolf.

"There's access to the Ministry for Magic down Empiric Alley, if you didn't know," Malfalda said with a telling nod in that direction. "The Department of Welfare and Muggle-born Placement could provide…help, if one were to ask. Discreetly, of course."

Harriet didn't know exactly what the witch spoke of, but she was bright enough to recognize the words Ministry and Department of Welfare. No, if Harriet went toddling about a government building, she'd end up with the Dursleys again, in her cupboard, before she could blink. What if they took her letter away? What if they told her it had all been a mistake, that Harriet was just weird, that she didn't belong anywhere at all?

"That's okay, Ms Hopkirk. Thank you for showing me the way."

Resigned, Malfalda nodded. "I'll be off, then. Good day."

"Bye."

Harriet started up the steps and the gray-haired witch went her own way, hurrying along the right fork in the road. Many people came and went from the bank, some dressed as flashy as that smiling wizard in the pub, some more demure in shades of black and brown and gray. One wizard in a purple turban came dashing down the steps in a terrible rush, his face stricken. A man with long silvery hair and a black cane brushed by Harriet and sneered as if he'd touched something disgusting.

Well I could do with a shower.

Harriet managed to climb halfway up the steps before she caught sight of who—or what—guarded the doors and froze.

What the bloody hell is that?

"That" being a creature with very long fingers and feet, though the rest of it—him—was comparatively small. A bald pate gleamed on the top of his domed head and pointed teeth showed through his thin, parted lips, a crest of some kind positioned on the center of his black vest. A passing witch counting gold coins in the palm of her hand muttered, "Bleedin' goblins and rubbish exchange rates—."

Goblins? Harriet marveled, watching the creature watch the customers come and go. Goblins were real now too?

A sudden jab in the ribs brought her attention down. Seth, distorted by the angle of the steps, jabbed a finger toward the waiting doors.

"Yes, alright," Harriet whispered, ascending the rest of the way into the foyer's cool shadow. Harriet edged around the goblin, half expecting him to bar her entree and shoo her away, but the goblin only leered, motioning for Harriet to stop blocking the entrance with her horrid spy theatrics. She quickly apologized to the wizard she'd bumped into and rushed inside.

Two high counters dominated the inner chamber, stretching from one end to the other, behind which clustered more of the pale, long-fingered goblins dressed in black suits with gold fobs and brooches and pins. One was laying rubies the size of Harriet's head on the side of a scale, another arguing with a well-dressed witch over a set of fine dishes, a third stacking gold bars on a hovering cart that left on its own once filled. Some humans in uniforms similar to the one the goblin outside wore marched the chamber and exchanged brief words with one another.

Harriet puffed out her cheeks, overwhelmed, then exhaled. Here goes nothing.

She approached a goblin who appeared to be both unoccupied and a teller. He made idle scribbles in the ledger before him with a feathered quill tucked into his strange hand. "E-excuse me? Err— Sir?"

The goblin continued to write until he reached a stopping point, when he lowered the quill and leaned forward to leer over the edge of the counter with an unfriendly sneer. "Name?"

"Uh," came Harriet's initial—and rather intelligent—response. "I mean, Harriet Potter. My name, that is. Harriet Potter," she rambled.

He scribbled something on the ledger again and flipped a page. He sniffed. "And does Miss Potter want to make a withdrawal from her vaults today?"

"My what now?"

Harriet swallowed as the goblin leaned forward again, a decidedly displeased gleam in his beady eyes. "Do you wish to access your vaults or not?"

"I don't have any vaults."

"Our records show different."

Then the goblin snapped his fingers, and Harriet jumped when the ledger he'd been writing in jerked itself about and dropped roughly two feet off the edge of the counter to come to her eye-

level. Harriet gawked as letters unfurled themselves across the opened page, stark and black against the yellow sheen of bound parchment.

1. House Potter Estate, entailed, nontransferable.

Beneficiary: Harriet Dorea Potter, 31 Oct 1981.

The letters continued in a looping script of puzzling legal nonsense and Harriet struggled to recognize even half of the jargon. A few columns of numbers and names spilled themselves over the ledger when the page flipped itself, and though Harriet still couldn't make heads or tails of the figures, she did see that the names had "Potter" for a surname. She recognized the one listed above her own moniker, James Fleamont Potter, as her father—though she hadn't know his middle name was Fleamont. How unfortunate.

Her dad must have been a wizard, then. Was her mum a witch? Aunt Petunia had shouted "That's what magic does to people!" when she'd rowed with Harriet about her parents leaving her with the Dursleys. Was that how the Potters had actually died? Harriet didn't see any bloody cars out and about on Diagon Alley. Did wizards and witches even use cars? Had magic killed her parents?

I'm going to find out, Harriet told herself as the ledger snapped shut an inch from her nose and rose into the goblin's possession. Right after I find out about this vault business. How did he even know who I am? It's not like Potter's an uncommon name.

"Does Miss Potter wish to inspect her vaults?" the goblin asked again in a noticeably more tetchy tone.

Harriet fussed with the hem of her ugly secondhand shirt and nodded.

"Does Miss Potter have her key?"

"No," Harriet replied, heart sinking. "I was never given a key." He should know that, of course, considering she obviously didn't know about the blasted vaults in the first place. Maybe there had been a mistake. She didn't think the Dursleys had ever been given a key, either, since they would've cleared out any money her parents left Harriet—and maybe they already had. Maybe these vaults or boxes or whatever had already been sucked dry by Harriet's relatives.

The goblin let out a put upon sigh. "You will need to give a sample of blood before a key can be reissued and then you will be escorted to your vault by a goblin associate. Is this agreeable?"

"Yes?"

In short order, one of the human employees came over and dropped a stool down on the floor with a kindly smile toward Harriet as he helped her up. Harriet burned under the curious attention of the other bank goers turning to look at the raggedy little girl, and being closer to the goblin did not make her less nervous. He leered as if he'd love to do nothing more than shove Harriet backwards off that stool, but he went on with his task. Her finger was pricked, a droplet sampled, and suddenly Harriet was being hustled off down a side corridor with a gleaming golden key pressed into her grubby palm.

A door opened onto what looked like a dusty mineshaft. The goblin assisting Harriet now— Griphook—led Harriet toward a waiting cart that sat upon a pair of thick iron rails. The rails plunged off into the dark. Griphook held the only light, a battered old lantern with a wavering flame.

Harriet gulped as she took a seat and the goblin jumped into the front. Are these vaults

underground?

"Potter trust vault. Six hundred eighty-seven."

"Six hundred eighty—?"

The remainder of Harriet's question was cut off with a yelp when Griphook thrust the lever holding the cart in place forward and they went rocketing into motion. She clutched the cart's metal sides with white-knuckled fists as they plummeted down one slope and then careened through another, the cold air whipping past, turning Harriet's already frightful hair into a right mess, her small backside lifting off the padded seat when the rails abruptly swerved again. Griphook grinned nastily.

Several minutes later, the cart came to a lurching stop and Harriet—dizzy but a bit enthralled by the journey—stumbled out after Griphook. "Six hundred eighty-seven," the goblin said, jabbing a long finger at the vault in question. Harriet had been expecting something more along the lines of a safety deposit box, not an actual, honest to goodness vault. "Six hundred eighty-eight—." He pointed instead at the larger metal door across the way. It was partially obscured by a glittering stalagmite—or was that a stalactite? "Will be accessible at your majority."

"Okay," Harriet said, not knowing what one should say to a goblin. Instead, she passed the key over to him and allowed Griphook to get on with opening the vault up.

Green smoke hissed out through the crack, torches burst into life, and Harriet almost had a heart attack.

Gold.

It glimmered in every corner, climbed the walls and spilled across the polished floor— gold. She had never seen so much of it before in her life, not in books or pictures or even on the telly when the Dursleys let her watch commercials after the dishes were washed and her chores completed. The vault itself seemed to emit a brilliant yellow light from how the torches reflected on the accrued wealth, on the tidy mountains of solid gold bars, on the buckets of coins, the roped coils of white pearls and silver chains and the gilt frames with moving people on the canvases. There were trunks stacked to the ceiling and long curtains of silk fabric and stacks upon stacks of great fat books. Trembling, she bent down to pick up a coin that had fallen near the vault door.

Poor orphan Harriet, who had a pocketful of sweaty, stolen notes, who had never eaten a full meal before, who had lived under the stairs and now lived nowhere at all, burst into tears.

Griphook despaired.

wand of elder

viii. wand of elder

When the hysterical tears ran dry, Harriet wiped her eyes—and her nose—and took a breath.

She knew she wasn't terribly clever; rather, she was intelligent but lacked that spark inherent to those of true cleverness, that intuitive sixth sense that allowed those more brilliant than her to assimilate their environment and find information with ease. Sometimes Harriet had to be told things twice, and sometimes she didn't have to be told at all. What a life with the Dursleys had taught young Harriet was that one got by on a lack of cleverness by using cunning, and by taking stock of their situation while they could.

The goblins, she guessed from their behavior, didn't much like witches and wizards, so she asked them questions, confident they wouldn't send her off to that welfare office Mafalda had mentioned because they simply didn't want to deal with the hassle. Griphook grumbled and grunted and sneered while he spoke, but a coin or two placed in his hand loosened the goblin's tongue well enough.

He told Harriet that the gold coins were Galleons and the silver were Sickles and the bronze were Knuts. He wasn't sure how the Potters had died but knew that James Potter, despite his vast fortune, had been an Auror—which was a bit like a Muggle policeman—so Griphook assumed he and his wife Lily must have been offed during the war. When Harriet asked about the war, he told her she'd best go to Flourish and Blotts and buy a bloody history book because he didn't have all day to tell stories to nasty little wizarding brats.

Harriet was apparently the head of the "Noble House of Potter," which wasn't as great as being in a "Most Noble House" or in a "Noble and Ancient House" or even a "Noble and Most Ancient House." When Harriet asked if there was such thing as a "Most Noble and Most Ancient House," Griphook told her not to be ridiculous. What the designation boiled down to, she understood, was that she had a seat on the Wizengamot, which was a bit like a magic conclave that Wizarding families applied to so they could sit in on very boring political meetings about laws and whatnot and have their voices heard. It cost two hundred Galleons per annum to retain a House's seat, and one of Harriet's ancestors had apparently paid the fine up through the next one hundred and fourteen years.

Sounded barmy to Harriet, but there it was.

The Potters had an estate—the Stinchcombe House—which was a modest manor out in the Gloucestershire countryside. It was "entailed," which meant the house belong to Harriet's family and not really to Harriet herself, and she had absolutely no access to it because it was part of the fortune secured and locked away in Vault Six Hundred and Eighty-Eight. Vault Six Hundred and Eight-Seven was a trust fund set aside for the Potter heirs for their personal use, kept separate from the main estate in case something catastrophic were to happen to the family's fortune. Griphook had a nasty grin on again when he told Harriet about all the Wizarding families who had bankrupted themselves in the past.

While goblins didn't seem very nice at all, they did prove informative, and when plied with gold, Griphook was quick enough to mention useful things to Harriet. He pointed out a spelled trunk with an extension Charm that was most likely illegal now and would be excellent for Harriet's use at

Hogwarts. The goblin noted her keen interest in the Stinchcombe House and commented that the Leaky Cauldron could take on longterm boarders if necessary. He told her that if she wished to be smarter than the average stupid witch or wizard she needed to buy more books than were on her school list, and if she wanted anyone to take her seriously, it didn't matter if she had a bag filled with Galleons, she needed to go to Twilfitt and Tattings and get some bloody better clothes.

So, once Harriet loaded a purse with coin and took hold of her family trunk, she finally trundled out of Gringotts into the hot afternoon sun and took a left upon the alley to venture down the Southside. She ambled along with the strange crowd, feeling loads more confident now that she had real Wizarding money and knew, without a doubt, that she was a witch, her eyes taking in all the peculiar sights with hungry attention. Newspapers at a stand outside a building called the Daily Prophet read themselves aloud to passersby. A pair of twin red-heads came out of Gambol and Japes with wide grins. Shady characters lurked near an arch proclaimed the entrance to "Knockturn Alley" and Harriet kept well away from there.

Harriet paused at the post office to send off her acceptance notice to Hogwarts, then entered Twilfitt and Tattings and was almost immediately set upon by a snooty witch who didn't seem to believe Harriet was, in fact, a paying customer. Logically Harriet knew Griphook had been correct in his assumption that no one would take her seriously when she dressed like a beaten rag doll, but it was still annoying to be judged solely based off her appearance. The witch eventually changed her tune—after much cajoling and purse rattling—and Harriet walked out of the shop an hour later with a new wardrobe. She wore an emerald sun dress that had a neckline high enough to hide most of her scar, and a Charm in the hem meant to prevent it from tearing or becoming dirty.

Harriet had never owned anything new before, let alone something so pretty.

Magic oozed through the alley and Harriet found herself quickly becoming enamored with it. It was such a marvel; every little thing could be accomplished with a spell or a Charm or a Hex, witches and wizards whipping out sticks—or wands, as she learned they were called—to shrink their bags or levitate them, changing their cloaks from blue to green to red, popping in and out of existence with a quick turn of their heels, or jabbering on as they carried cauldrons and books and owls and moving papers. Harriet felt like she was in a dream and she never wished to wake from it.

After Twilfitt and Tattings she returned to the Northside of Diagon to find Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions, where she would have to buy her uniforms for school, according to the snooty witch at Twilfitt. Harriet found the shop and poked her head inside. A small bell chimed.

"Hogwarts, dear?" asked an older witch with red cheeks and curly hair. She was much nicer than the other witch Harriet had met, and she smiled when Harriet quickly nodded, then led her farther into the shop where two other students were already being fitted for their own robes. Harriet was ushered onto a stool next to a bushy-haired girl about Harriet's age while a pale, drawling boy on the girl's other side continued to drone.

"—honestly, Granger, how you expect to manage at all when you can't even recognize which of the houses is greatest—."

The girl, Granger, flushed an irritated color and, when she spoke, did so in a rush of very precisely enunciated words. "None of the houses are greater than any of the others," she insisted. "The book states clearly that each has it failings and its accomplishments. Slytherin is not the best, nor is Gryffindor, or Ravenclaw, or Hufflepuff."

"Don't let father hear you saying that. He might chuck you back to the Muggles," the boy snorted. He seemed to realize someone else had appeared, because he looked past Granger to Harriet and said, "Well? What do you think?"

Harriet blinked as a shop assistant jerked a standard black robe over her head and started in on the magic pins. "What?"

"Which house do you think is best?" he demanded.

Harriet hadn't the faintest clue what he was asking, so she looked to the other girl for help. "Err, I think you're right," she said. The boy was being rather rude, and Harriet decided it was best to give the other girl some support. What houses is he going on about? Slithered in? Huffle buff?

The boy scoffed. "You haven't a clue what I'm talking about, do you?" When Harriet didn't respond, he straightened himself and stared into the mirror before him with an unpleasant scowl. "Bloody Mudbloods everywhere nowadays…."

"Draco!"

"Do shut up, Granger. Try to show some dignity."

Granger turned her shoulder to the boy—Draco—and ignored him. "I'm Hermione Granger," she said to Harriet, sticking out her hand. "I'm a Muggle-born, too. You are going to Hogwarts, right?"

"Right," Harriet replied as she shook Hermione's hand, her brow furrowed. She didn't think she was a—what did she call it? Muggle-born? Griphook had said "Muggles" were the non-magical people out in regular London, and Harriet's dad had been a wizard, and she was fairly certain her mother had been a witch—or maybe not, considering Aunt Petunia was about as mundane as a person could be. Mundane as cheese. Maybe Harriet was Muggle-born. There was so much she didn't know. "I'm Harriet."

"Are you excited to go to Hogwarts?" Hermione asked, going on before Harriet could open her mouth. "I personally can't wait. Magic is so very fascinating. You really should think about getting Hogwarts: A History before you go. It has all kinds of information about the Houses and all the classes that have been taught at the castle over the centuries and the separate modifications it's gone through. Draco insists that Slytherin is the greatest, but I think it has more to do with your personal values and qualities. You can't truly think to rate a House based on the virtues of ambition or loyalty or wisdom—."

"Take a breath, Granger. For Merlin's sake."

Unfortunately at that moment Harriet was brought down off the stool, her robes finished, and so she waved a quick goodbye to Hermione and Draco, feeling a bit irked she hadn't been able to have a decent conversation with either. She loaded her purchases into the top drawer of her trunk, careful not to drop anything into the cavernous lower drawer, then moved on to her next stop.

Harriet purchased a pewter cauldron at Potage's Cauldron Shop, picked up a standard potions kit at the rather smelly Apothecary, ogled the fancy flying brooms at Quality Quidditch Supplies, then stepped into Flourish and Blotts. She remembered Griphook's advice and selected several other books aside from the ones on her school letter, including one on goblin wars, one about magical creatures, another containing a multitude of ways to curse your enemies and hex your friends, and Hogwarts: A History. In the end she was glad she had taken the trunk along, as it seemed to be Charmed almost weightless as well as big and roomy.

She was on her way back to the other end of the alley when Set jabbed her in the ribs again, this time gesturing at a brightly lit sweet shop stationed near Gringotts. Only then did Harriet realize how very hungry and thirsty she was, her head dizzy and her feet aching from walking on the hard cobblestones, so she stopped at Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour for a blueberry and mint

flavored treat, as well as a tall glass of something called "pumpkin juice." Harriet wasn't sure if she liked the drink, but she assumed it would grow on her.

She came at last to the shop she'd been most looking forward to: Ollivanders. It didn't look like much on the outside. The sign proclaiming that they'd been in business since 382 BC was faded and peeling, the gold letters of the name crinkled at the edges, and the display window held only a single stick—wand—on a faded purple cushion. From all the conversations she'd overheard snippets of, Harriet knew it was the very best place in all of Britain to buy one's magic wand—and Harriet was ecstatic to purchase her own.

She'd never been to a church before, but she rather imagined it was a lot like stepping into Ollivanders; a hush pervaded the tiny shop, a palpable sanctity that clung to the place as surely as the thick layer of dust. Long, slender boxes filled the shelves from floor to ceiling with very little room to spare. There was a counter with an ancient register sat atop it and one spindly chair with the stuffing poking out the sides of the cushioned seat. No one was in sight.

Set flickered and curled about Harriet's feet, waiting.

"Hello?" Harriet called, setting her trunk down by the chair. "Is anyone here? I need to buy a, er, magic wand?"

"Hello," echoed a man's voice. Harriet let out a startled swear when the old man slipped quietly from the shadows, his wide, pale eyes watching her with all the eerie uncanniness of two uncovered moons. His gray hair was wispy and wild about his head. "Ah…Harriet Potter."

Harriet stared as the elderly wizard came slowly forward, gradual as creeping mist, tingles prickling along her spine. "H-how do y'know my name?"

The wizard smiled. "You've your mother's eyes," he said. "And your father's poor hair, I'm afraid. Ten and a quarter, Lily was. Willow, excellent for Charms. And James…eleven inches, Mahogany. Pliable. Perfect for Transfiguration. I remember every wand I've ever sold, Miss Potter, though I don't always know where they end up."

Harriet failed to find her voice, overwhelmed as she was by the sudden jolt to her system. Really, she liked to think she didn't normally lack control over her emotions, but the day had been quite long. Harriet had seen many marvelous things, and she'd also learned a high volume of stressful information. She'd never seen a picture of her parents. She had no idea that she mirrored Lily's eyes or James' hair.

"I sold the wand that did that as well," the wizard murmured as his fingertips grazed the side of Harriet's neck over the thin veins of scarring that curled about her throat. Harriet jolted out of her stupor. "Thirteen and half inches, yew. A powerful combination. Very powerful indeed." The briefest flicker of contrition passed through those pale eyes. "Perhaps, in hindsight, I should have known better. Making a wand like that. Power does so often call to the Dark—or perhaps the Dark calls to power? Who can say?"

"You—you said a wand made my scar?" Harriet asked, fidgeting with her glasses.

"Of course. Very distinct, curse scars. I am, of course, in the minority that believes He-Who-Must- Not-Be-Named cursed you directly, but fools will believe what they want to believe."

He who what—?

Harriet's mouth was dry. Her head was spinning again. "I was told I got it in the car accident that

killed my parents."

"Car?" the wizard frowned. "For certain you received the scar when Mrs and Mr Potter died; He- Who-Must-Not-Be-Named could have hardly cursed you without going through your parents first." He seemed to realize he'd said something insensitive, because the wizard covered his mouth and urged a swaying Harriet to have a seat on the spindly chair. He rushed on before Harriet could ask questions. "Ah, well—where are my manners? I'm Garrick Ollivander, Miss Potter, and it is very nice to meet you. Now, let's see about getting you a wand, shall we?"

Harriet let him get on with it while she tried to gather her wits. Blown up, Aunt Petunia had said. That's what magic does to people!

The Department of Magical Law Enforcement still deposits payments out of Potter's pension benefit. He was probably an Auror met a sticky end in the war.

He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named could have hardly cursed you without going through your parents first.

Someone…someone had killed Harriet's family. James and Lily must have been mur—.

"Oh dear, not that one."

Harriet looked about and had a chance to glimpse the wand that had been shoved into her hand before Ollivander jerked it away. Another replaced it, then another, and another. On and on Ollivander went to the teetering shelves only to return with more wands that he summarily rejected. Harriet tried to reclaim the joy of the moment, and yet her excitement remained tame in the light of this newest revelation. Perhaps it should've been obvious after all the small hints and outright claims she'd heard so far, and perhaps Harriet had ignored the hints, had buried her head in the proverbial sand to escape the terrible, terrible news. Perhaps she hadn't wanted to know.

"Yes, this one," Ollivander said as he returned once more, this time only holding a single battered box in his pale hands. "I have a very good feeling about this one. A very good feeling. Holly, eleven inches, nice and supple. Go on, Miss Potter. Give it a flick."

Harriet lifted the wand—and immediately felt a ticklish kind of warmth spread beneath her skin, pushing aside the wounded feel of her saddened heart. Smiling, she did as Ollivander suggested and gave the wand a swish, gasping when a burst of silver sparks poured from the wand's tip. Magic. Harriet had done magic, easy as you please.

"Excellent!" Ollivander cheered, clapping. "A wonderful bond, Miss Potter. Curious, though, very curious."

"How so?" she asked as she tucked the wand back into the box and Ollivander took it toward the register. He opened his mouth to answer, then came to an abrupt halt, looking down upon short Harriet with her bruised neck and thin face and tired eyes. He turned the box, thumbs hooked along the lid's edge, and simpered.

"Nothing at all, Miss Potter. Nothing at all. That will be seven Galleons, and…here."

He reached below the register to a shelf that held a collection of weathered tomes coated in the same saintly dust as the rest of the shop. Ollivander withdrew one of the books and handed it to Harriet along with her wand when she extracted the seven coins from her purse.

"The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts ," she read aloud, puzzled. "What's this for?"

"A small gift. You will find it…informative." Ollivander smiled again, just the slightest twitch of the mouth. "I will expect great things from you. Great things indeed. Good luck, Miss Potter."

Harriet was shooed from the shop then, her trunk laden with magical purchases trailing at her heels, a fat book under one skinny arm and a wand box in the hand of the other. Few witches or wizards wandered this far end of the alley, and Harriet wagered it was because buying a wand wasn't an everyday occurrence for most. The sun was dipping low along the crooked roofs belonging to Diagon Alley's many shops, and Harriet decided she had best return to the Leaky Cauldron and see about that extended boarding Griphook mentioned. Harriet wasn't sure how she'd manage without an adult.

She made to stop and tuck her new things away—when her wand was jerked from her hand.

"Hey—!"

Harriet's breath left her in a gasp when she saw Set—more corporeal than she had ever seen him before—crack the box between his spidery hands and retrieve her wand from the plush velvet. The stick of holly spun between fingers comprised of shadow and air as the box fell to the cobblestones, forgotten, and the wand turned in ever quickening circles.

"What are you doing?!"

The wood lightened until it was as pale as ash, the shape changing, new grooves forming where Set's tapered fingers traced funny designs. The tip lengthened beyond the original eleven inches. Set flicked the wand into the air and, on instinct, Harriet reached out to catch it. The wand slapped into her palm as if summoned.

The warmth that answered her touch was not the same; no indeed, the tepid satisfaction became a soaring inferno, and the sadness imparted by learning her parents' fates was incinerated beneath a wave of confidence that thrummed like a heartbeat in Harriet's small hand. It sung. For a girl who had never owned anything of her own before that day, Harriet felt uncommonly attached to that wand now. Like it was a part of her arm and she'd sooner lose a hand than let it go.

As Set returned to her shadow, the young Potter girl marveled at how much she loved magic.

where stars dwell

ix. where stars dwell

When the final letter came, Elara was ready to go.

The benefit of practically being raised in the shadow of a pulpit was the exhausting linguistics preparation that went into teaching jaded orphans how to read and interpret the puzzling language of the bible. The inhabitants of St. Giles' spent an abundance of time with their necks bent over stuffy passages, fighting the urge to yawn, lest they wanted to feel the back of a ruler slap their hands. Elara excelled at her coursework—if only because she loathed being struck or touched. She could recite whole pages of Matthew or Mark or the Epistles without much thought, and when she sat down to write Minerva McGonagall, she had the literary prowess necessary to ask the right questions without receiving the wrong reactions.

She thought her handwriting would have been neater had her wrists not still been aching from Father Phillips' treatment.

Elara Black knew how to read Latin and how to sing psalms and how to forge acceptance letters to religious boarding schools on the other side of the country. She knew the right words to say and knew when to be quiet, knew when to keep her eyes down and when to bluff. She wrote questions to Professor McGonagall in the dead of night and let Matron Fitzgerald send an acceptance note to St. Katherine's School for Girls, a note that would go absolutely nowhere at all. Elara walked a thin line between outright deception and truth, letting neither woman know all the answers to the questions they asked, never letting them know just how desperately she wanted to leave that place.

Because Elara had decided to leave. Hogwarts or no, she would not stay at St. Giles' another day.

By stating that her guardians weren't familiar with the area, she managed to convince Professor McGonagall to send a brief series of instructions for where to purchase school supplies and how to access the "Wizarding" world, as it was called. The instructions included many words that were outside Elara's vocabulary—including "flooing" or "Apparating" or "Muggle"—but she understood the basic necessities.

When she asked about tuition, the tone of McGonagall's letters became more suspicious, pondering if something had happened to the Black fortune, if Elara or her guardians were being denied access to the Gringotts vaults, and so Elara quickly demurred until the subject was changed —but the words stayed with her. Fortune. Gringotts. Vaults.

Had Elara's parents left money for her? Perhaps McGonagall had the wrong Black. It wasn't a terribly uncommon surname, after all.

Or so Elara thought.

She left a week from the end of July. A final letter from McGonagall included possible temporary accommodations she could find in London, and a ticket for the train to school that would depart at exactly eleven o'clock on September first from Platform Nine and Three Quarters, Kings Cross Station. Elara gathered her satchel and her fare for the non-magical train trip into the city. Sister Abigail cooed about how proud she was of Elara, Matron Fitzgerald warned her there'd best be no problems from her at St. Katherine's, and Father Phillips pressed an iron cross on a chain into her

palm, saying they would see her when the holidays came.

In a fit of vindicative pique, Elara threw the cross into the bushes once she was left at the station alone.

They would never see her again.

The name Black, she came to know, was not as common as she theorized.

No, Black was the name of traitors, of murderers, and of madmen—and Elara was the daughter of all three.

Her revelation began at the bank Professor McGonagall mentioned in her letters, Gringotts. Elara followed the instructions on how to reach "Diagon Alley" from the "Muggle-side" of London, and though she was suitably flabbergasted by her first real experience with magic, she managed to stagger along the alley's length until she found the goblin-ran bank. She almost collided with a bespectacled girl in rumpled clothes coming out of the foyer dragging a trunk, but once there, the goblins swiped some of Elara's blood—and her life started to unravel at the seams.

She was not the only Black alive. In fact, not only was Elara not the last of her name, she also wasn't in control of the family fortune the professor had told her about. That honor fell to the current head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, her father Sirius Orion Black—and his proxy, Cygnus Pollux Black the Third.

Well, she thought, sitting in one of the well-appointed meeting rooms off the main Gringotts' chamber. The celestial monikers would explain my name, at least. "Sirius," she asked in a breathless whisper, staring at the goblin—Sledgetongue—across from her. "My father, Sirius, is alive?"

The scrawny goblin bared yellow teeth. "If you can call being incarcerated in the Wizarding prison alive."

More letters were written. More owls sent winging off into the summer sky. Elara left to check into a quaint inn on neighboring Horizont Alley called "The Niffler's Nest," which she was assured often boarded Hogwarts students who lived far from London and needed to be closer to the station —though not usually quite so early in the summer. They charged a fee to Hogwarts itself, so she needn't worry about paying for that yet. Elara perched silently on the edge of her mattress, dazed, her satchel resting on the duvet at her side. She stared at the pinstriped wallpaper and told herself again and again that it didn't matter, that it didn't matter if her father was alive because he was in prison, for goodness' sake—.

Elara returned to Gringotts at precisely eleven o'clock. She expected to greet Mr Cygnus Black, her great uncle and proxy head of the family, whom the goblins had written earlier that very morning to arrange a meeting with—only for Elara to confront one of the ugliest creatures she had ever seen when she stepped into the second chamber again.

It was shorter than the goblins, hunched with gangling limbs, a bulbous nose, bloodshot eyes, and great sagging folds of flesh. If Elara were to be honest, it looked as if someone had held the scowling imp over a fire for too long and he'd started to melt like overheated wax. The creature dipped his head in the approximation of a bow after he looked Elara over from head to foot. The

white hair sprouting out of his floppy ears shifted with the motion.

"The master sends his regrets for not being able to attend, but poor master is not well. Kreacher is here to take the blood-traitor's daughter to Master Cygnus."

Blood-traitor?

Elara wasn't sure she wanted to go anywhere with such a cantankerous little thing, but she wasn't given much of a choice. Kreacher, as he called himself, reached out a bony arm and took hold of Elara's wrist. She gasped at the resulting sting, and the breath disappeared into the sudden crushing pressure that consumed her. It was like being sucked through a narrow straw at high velocity without access to air, her insides churning, heart pounding—.

As abruptly as it had begun, the pressure abated and Elara landed on her knees, retching.

Kreacher twisted his lined lips, biting back a retort, and gave his fingers a snap. The sick splattered across the floor vanished.

"The blood-traitor's daughter will follow Kreacher."

Elara lifted her head and saw a narrow foyer, a black door with no knob at her back, a dusty corridor before her that led to a stairwell and another shut door. Flocked wallpaper peeled from the walls in curling strips, and Kreacher's little feet left smudged prints on the floorboards and carpet runner. Gas lamps flickered to life, putrescent yellow in color behind emerald glass globes, cobwebs thick as hair caught in the fixtures' curlicues. Kreacher turned to glare. Elara stumbled upright, dazed, and trailed after him.

Another girl might not have followed the pale little thing deeper into the house. Another girl would have been frightened out of her wits by Kreacher, by the decor, by the sudden relocation from one place to another—but Elara had lived for several years frightened of herself, of the Matron, of the Father, and compared to the orphanage, this place wasn't remotely scary. It certainly set her ill at ease, yet the grandeur beneath the grunge remained prevalent, and Elara was sad when she thought of what the house must have looked like in years past.

As they climbed the stairs, Elara could've sworn whispers bloomed at her back, yet a glance over her shoulder showed the landing as bare as it had been when she passed it by. She kept her eyes forward after that.

Kreacher knocked upon a door and opened it with a wave of his gnarled hand. He gestured Elara inside.

Breathing was the first thing she noted; heavy and wet, the pants came at a stilted intervals in the darkened room, little sunlight managing to crawl about the edges of the thick damask curtains on the windows, a fire all but dead in the filthy hearth. The man lay in his nightgown beneath several comforters and blankets with his torso propped up by fine, tasseled pillows, the silver and emerald hangings tied off to the thick posters of the bed. The room smelled of sweat and sick.

"Come closer, then, I'm not contagious."

Embarrassed to realize she'd just been standing on the rug staring, Elara stepped nearer, her hands folded before herself.

"Kreacher," the man called. His voice cracked at the end and devolved into a hacking cough. "More light, Kreacher. And a chair."

The little scowling imp hadn't followed Elara into the room, and yet a stuffed armchair appeared behind Elara—almost taking her legs out from under her—and the silver candelabrum on the nightstand burst into flames. Elara sat before she could be asked, mostly because she was beginning to feel a mite weak in the knees. Magic could be overwhelming when it happened so suddenly.

The man on the bed surprised Elara. She'd been expecting someone a great deal older, someone in their seventies or eighties—but the man looked barely fifty, aside from the wasting kiss of illness drawing his waxen skin taut and painting perspiration on his brow. In him she saw several of her own features: the black hair with the slight wave to it, the gray eyes, the sharp, symmetrical bones of his cheeks and jaw. He gave her a hard look as his thin chest continued to rise and fall. Elara noticed several letters laying on the duvet at his side, including the one sent off by the goblins.

At length, he said, "You look like him," and fell into a coughing fit once more.

Elara wondered if there was anything she could do and voiced the concern, but he waved it off with a slight flick of the hand.

"There's nothing to do. I'm dying. It's as simple as that. Whatever comfort can be brought to my body does nothing to stop the inevitable." He breathed in and out as he looked at Elara with his brow furrowed. "So you must forgive me for my lack of manners. I am Cygnus of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, the proxy-Head of the family. It is a…relief to meet you."

Relief? An odd way to greet someone. Not that my entire life hasn't become decidedly odd. "I'm… Elara. It's very nice to meet you, Mr Black."

He tutted. "No. That's not how you introduce yourself to the Head of a pure-blood family. It's 'Elara of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.'" He coughed again, briefly. "Heir to the Black family. And here I didn't think anything could surprise me at this point in time. Tell me, girl. How did you come to be here? Who has been raising you since Sirius got himself incarcerated?"

Elara bit back the urge to pounce on the first question that jumped into her head, wanting to know about Sirius, about who he was and what he'd done, and if that was why she'd been left at St. Giles' as a child. But why the non-magical world? Why? Elara had been taught not to interrupt adults, however. "I was raised at an orphanage in Wiltshire. I…I received my Hogwarts letter, and found out I'm a witch. I left. I'm not going back."

The lines on Cygnus' face deepened and Elara noticed there were threads of silver in the black hair of his brows, a tinge of gray marring the first shadow of a growing beard. "Muggles?" he demanded, voice rising. "They left you with Muggles?!"

"Yes."

He said something then beneath his breath, something about Merlin's pants that Elara guessed might be a magical euphemism, and looked more ill than ever. "The world's going to the dogs." By 'dogs," she assumed he meant 'Muggles.' His tone told her as much. "The Ministry can't even keep track of pure-blood magical children, let alone the rest of the rabble. They assured Sirius and Walburga that the premises was checked, but what can you expect from a fool like Millicent Bagnold? Of course, she barely lasted long enough to warm the seat for her successor." He paused then to breathe—or wheeze, more like. "But you wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

Elara stiffened. "No, sir."

"It's not your fault," he replied, voice gruffer than it had been before. "You will be taught. I have enough strength left in this body to see the state of the family better off than it was left to me. You mentioned not returning to that—to that orphanage. That's quite out of the picture." Cygnus stopped speaking and cleared his throat, his eyes closing for a long minute of silence interrupted only by the faint crackle in the hearth. "Where are you staying?" he finally asked.

"The Niffler's Nest. It's an inn in Horizont Alley that boards Hogwarts students before the term begins."

"I know of it. You can stay there or you can reside here, if you wish. Merlin knows I could use better company than the house-elf." He wrinkled his nose in that dignified way rich parishioners always screwed up their faces when confronted with a particularly scruffy orphan. Cygnus eyed Elara again, taking in her proper—if worn—attire, her clean shoes, her washed face and cut fingernails. "As I told you, Miss Black, I am dying and it is inevitable, but I won't see this house crumble or fall into the hands of fools like my own children, pledging themselves to madmen or Muggles. Toujours pur, do you know what that means?"

"No. I was taught Latin, not French."

"At least you recognize the language. It means 'always pure.' Remember those words. It's the motto of this family, and while some will tout it as a slogan galvanizing hate and the agendas of lesser wizards, that is not what it is. Not originally. Toujours pur means to always be loyal to blood, to family—to magic. You are, or will be, the last free member of the House of Black, a family that has existed in Britain since before the Ministry came into being—before the Conqueror even set sail for the Isles—and it will be your responsibility to carry on our noble name."

Elara felt wide-eyed and silly listening to her great uncle speak. Why, just that morning she dressed in her modest bedroom at St. Giles' hearing the morning sermons echo from the adjacent church, and while she'd been exchanging letters with Professor McGonagall for a week now, it hadn't been real until now, until she sat down at the bedside of a dying relative and he regaled her about lineages and house mottos and magic.

"Please, Mr Black," she asked softly. "Can you…can you tell me about my parents?"

"I don't know much," he replied, sighing. He began to cough again and struggled to control it, one hand plastered over his mouth as his reddened eyes watered. "Th—that potion there—."

Elara lurched to her feet and followed his pointing finger toward the dusty sideboard. There were several "potions" sitting there in a line of various crystal vials, their contents luminescent and churning at Elara's inspection.

"Th—the pink one."

She grabbed it and brought it back to him. Cygnus drank the infusion, sputtering, and instantly his fit subsided into a grateful gasp of air. Elara took the empty vial from his hand as he slumped against the pillows, clearly exhausted. "I don't know much," he repeated. "Your grandmother, my sister Walburga, was some thirteen years my senior, and so we were never really close. You can find her portrait on one of the landings, howling about blood purity like a Gryffindor who can't string more than two words together." He sniffed. "She married our second cousin Orion—don't make that face at me, girl—and had two sons, Sirius being the eldest. No one's quite sure where his brother, Regulus, got off to."

Elara nodded along, and though she forced her face to remain composed, she still didn't like the idea of her paternal grandparents being related, for goodness' sake. It was technically legal, being

second cousins and not first, but still.

"As far as I know, Sirius rowed with Walburga and Orion sometime during his Hogwarts years and she had him disowned, but when Regulus disappeared in 79' and Sirius returned with the promise to marry a pure-blood heiress, Walburga had little choice but to accept him back into the family. I actually don't know who he married, though I heard she died early on in 81'. Walburga and I were hardly speaking at the time, differences in political opinions being what they were—but I digress."

"And what happened to Sir—my father? I know he's…incarcerated. For how long?"

"The goblins tell you, then? Oh, he's there for life." Cygnus' eyes gleamed hard like cooling quicksilver. "He killed twelve Muggles and an old school-mate of his with a Blasting Curse. The Hit Wizards found him in the ruins, laughing like a madman. Took him straight to Azkaban with the rest of the Death Eaters they rounded up that day. He besmirched the whole of our house with his idiocy, and you'll bear the brunt of his treachery for years to come. Trust me when I say this, Miss Black; the only part of Sirius that will ever see the outside of an Azkaban cell is his rotting corpse, and even then I have my doubts."

Elara shuddered and shut her eyes. She wished she hadn't asked. She really wished she hadn't.

"I think his punishment fitting," Cygnus said as he sank farther into the pillows and his tired gaze roved from Elara to the far wall, focusing on the empty portrait frame there. "He doesn't know about you, after all. He gets to sit in that prison every day, gets to wake up every morning on that dismal island, and gets to remember again that his only child is dead."

the boy who lived

x. the boy who lived

Harriet spent three days reading The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts from cover to cover and didn't feel better when she finished it.

The Dark Arts, she learned, were a kind of particularly punishing magic that was, for the most part, used for the express purpose of evil. Spells themselves didn't have morality—but sometimes gathering the things that went into the preparations of the spells required evil, like fresh baby hearts or the eyes of your murder victim, or they needed you to feel evil things like hatred and rage or bloodlust before they could be cast.

The book talked about a witch named Morgana who was said to have brought the Dark Arts to Britain, and who hated Merlin—who actually existed, much to Harriet's shock. Page after page of Dark wizards and witches flipped by under Harriet's hands: Ekrizdis, Herpo the Foul, Godelot, Gormlaith Gaunt, Ethelred the Ever-Ready, and Emeric the Evil—on and on it went. Harriet felt queasy reading about the deeds they'd committed, the books they'd written, the places they'd built. So far, all she'd seen was the wonder of magic, but she soon came to understand magic was also capable of great terror.

When events encroached on the modern era, a curl of dread settled in Harriet's stomach. She learned of Gellert Grindelwald, who sought to dominate the Muggle world with magical might, who met his fate at the hands of a great wizard named Albus Dumbledore—and then he faded, replaced by a new section in the book attributed entirely to the "Wizarding War" and "The Dark Lord V—."

No history of the wizard's past could be found, and not a bloody hint of his name, either. The author referred to him only as "The Dark Lord" or "V—" or "You Know Who," which Harriet thought incredibly frustrating because no, no she did not know who. "V" rallied followers dubbed "Death Eaters" to his cause of pure-blood supremacy, wanting nothing more than the utter subjugation of the non-magical world.

He killed many people. Their names blurred together for Harriet, but she knew she'd see their children at Hogwarts, and that all this was more than some dry history in a book, or a fantastic fairytale about magic battles. This was real, and it was the world she'd been born into with so many others. Fear and uncertainty bled through the yellowing pages like wet ink.

She found her parents listed near the back. The passage read; "James and Lily Potter were both subjected to the Killing Curse by V— on the evening of October the 31st. V— ruined their residence with a Blasting Curse, overlooking the Potters' daughter, who survived in the wreckage."

That was it. Nothing about why they'd died, if they'd opposed "V" or if they'd been neutral or just people caught in the crossfire. The author hadn't even included Harriet's name, and though she really didn't want her name written in such a horrid book, it bothered her that she was separated from her parents even in print. James and Lily Potter. The Potters' daughter. Overlooked, it said. Wallowing, Harriet bitterly muttered that the word basically summed up the whole of her existence until now. Overlooked.

The worst part was learning "V" met his fate barely two hours later. His followers, his Death Eaters, raided a home in Dorset and killed a pure-blood witch named Alice Longbottom. The Death Eaters occupied her husband, Frank Longbottom, as "V" entered the home and aimed a Killing Curse at their son, Neville, only for the Dark Lord to vanish with an "agonized scream" before he could finish casting. No one was precisely sure what happened and the author included several interviews from various magical experts who postulated on the phenomenon, but one thing was certain; Neville Longbottom had survived the Dark Lord and was hailed "the Boy Who Lived." He was a hero. The war ended.

Anger and resentment festered in the deepest pits of Harriet's heart. Two hours. A decade of war, and her family was torn apart a measly two hours before it ended. Two bloody hours. If "V" had gone to the Longbottom's first, or if he'd stopped for supper or hit buggering magical traffic— Harriet would've spent the last ten years with her mum and dad at home, not living in a cupboard with spiders, not toiling in the garden and hoping she'd get dinner later. She couldn't even figure out the bastard's name.

Harriet hated that petty emotion. It was something the Dursleys would feel; slighted by fate, entitled, fussy and argumentative, like Dudley when he counted his presents and came up short. She wasn't the only one to lose people, not at all. Two hours, two days, two years—what did it matter? James and Lily were dead, and though Harriet was alone now, she had Hogwarts to look forward to, and perhaps friends.

At the bottom of the page, in the footer, her finger traced over the handwritten words "The best coups are silent." In light of everything she'd learned, Harriet could make little sense of the words, so she shoved them from her mind. She snapped the book closed, took a deep breath, and moved on.

On the thirty-first of July, Harriet Potter sprang out of bed more excited than she had ever been on her birthday before.

Her exploration of Diagon Alley and the adjoining lanes had taken her all over in the week Harriet had been boarding at the Leaky Cauldron. She ate ice cream at Florean's almost every day and wandered from there, through Diagon and Horizont, along Empiric Alley and Toad Road all the way to Carkitt Market, where she liked to watch the wizards work at the Bowman E. Wright Blacksmith and listen to explosions coming from Dr Filibuster's Fireworks. A teenage witch intern at Globus Mundi Travel Agency liked to chat with Harriet about all the magical societies scattered around the world, and the clock outside Cogg and Bell Clockmakers always chimed the hour with a series of strange, screaming bird calls. Harriet's favorite stop, though, was The Junk Shop, where she'd poke through all manner of delightful bits and bobs, most of it broken, but some of the stuff quite interesting all the same.

Today, Harriet had a special destination in mind: the Magical Menagerie.

She had seen the owls at Eeylops and cats ran rampant throughout the whole of the Wizarding quarter, but there was only one kind of animal for Harriet and it wasn't allowed at Hogwarts. Resigned, she promised herself she wouldn't stop by the store until her birthday, when she'd go to fawn over the great scaly beasts none of the other witches or wizards seemed inclined pay attention to. It promised to be the best birthday ever.

No bell chimed when Harriet edged open the door to the Magical Menagerie early that afternoon; instead, she was greeted by collective squawking from an—she squinted—unkindness of black- feathered ravens. There were no shelves in the Menagerie; rather, the aisles themselves were comprised of dozens and dozens of cages stacked atop each other, the interior a constant riot of squeals and barks and cries. Several haughty owls lined the top of a rail protruding from the brick wall and they glared at Harriet as she passed them by. A small dog with a forked tail dashed around the store chased by a younger witch spouting muttered obscenities.

The snakes and other less popular pets were kept farther in the store's depths, nearer the smudged windows that looked out over Horizont Alley and the corner of Gringotts. There weren't many there; a few skinny garter snakes, some darkly colored adders, two sleepy cobras with glittering scales of gold, and a very ornery boomslang tearing up his bed of green leaves.

"Hello," Harriet, crouching down before the glass tanks, whispered. The snakes paused as all snakes did when they suddenly heard Harriet talking to them. "You're all very pretty."

The cobras preened like peacocks, if such a thing were possible. "Misstresss," the garter snakes jabbered. The boomslang's tongue flickered in and out at a rapid pace before it slunk beneath its torn bed and disappeared. Harriet guessed he or she wasn't up for conversation.

"A Sspeaker?"

Startled, Harriet glanced at the larger tank that sat above the others, partially covered by a velvet drape and dark on the inside. Scales glittered in the sparse illumination of the sun, and she reached up to give the drape a gentle nudge or two. Two blue eyes appeared to float in the tank's inky shadows—but, no, there was serpent hidden inside. It was mostly black, body larger than the littler snakes below with silvery scales on its belly and a crown of stubby white horns. A small gemstone that looked like a sapphire rested on the crest of its angular head.

"Ssspeak," the serpent ordered as its violet tongue flicked out of its mouth. Harriet guessed it to be five feet or so in length, thicker than her arm.

"I've never seen a snake like you," she blurted, almost nose to nose with the creature on the other side of the glass. Those eyes burned blue and white, fierce and unnaturally intelligent. "What are you?"

"You tell me," the serpent returned. "If you are ssso sssmart. I call mysself Liviusss."

Harriet didn't know snakes could have names—or that they could be so snooty. She'd asked the little grass snakes and adders who visited Number Four before, but to the last they seemed confused by the concept. Truly, most snakes Harriet encountered hadn't been terribly bright. They chatted about crickets and mice and had little patience for any other kind of conversation.

"That's a nice name," Harriet told the serpent. "You are very pretty."

The snake—Livius—scoffed at Harriet. Scoffed! "You sssaid that to the…othersss." Given its tone, Livius didn't appear to enjoy the company of his monosyllabic friends in the tanks below.

Harriet blinked. "Well, you are very pretty. You have a gem on your—err—forehead. I imagine it glitters in the sun."

Livius lifted its head an increment higher and swayed as it continued to study Harriet. "I wouldn't know. I wasss hatched in thiss placcce. The ssun iss beyond me."

"How terrible."

Livius swayed again, the motion hypnotic. "Yesss. Terrible…Misstresss."

"Are you talking to that snake?"

Harriet jumped and blushed when she realized how close her nose had gotten to the glass. "Um." Turning, she found a girl about her age standing nearby, though she rose a full head taller than poor Harriet in height. She wore black wizarding robes with silver thread tooled about the wide sleeves and the high collar, a little pin with a crest attached to the lapel. The girl was much prettier than Harriet, she noted with chagrin, her black hair neatly brushed and gathered in a bun at the nape of her neck, her gray eyes able to look about without the obnoxious cover of thick glasses or a wild fringe. She had a bent notebook in her slender hands.

"Yeah," Harriet finally admitted. The girl leaned nearer the tank to peek at the serpent inside, her lips tipping into a slight frown.

"I didn't know witches or wizards could do that," the girl said.

"I didn't know either." Harriet wondered how many others spoke to snakes. Perhaps it was one of those things in the long list of things that made Harriet odd, even among magical folk. "This one's kind of bossy."

"Bossy?"

"Yeah. All the snakes I've found in the garden before just want to chat about bugs or where the sunniest spot is to nap. Two grass snakes once argued over which rock in the flowerbed was best, so they both napped on the rocks for about an hour while I weeded to test the theory."

The corner of the girl's lips twitched into a lopsided smirk, which looked a bit odd on her otherwise prim face. "How strange."

Harriet shrugged, self-conscious.

"Do you know what kind of snake it is—?"

A shadow fell across the pair, and together they glanced up into the face of an older wizard with a tremendous mustache. "A Horned Serpent," he said as he brusquely shoved by them and went to properly cover the tank again. Livius hissed with displeasure as it disappeared from view. "An exceedingly rare and exceedingly expensive male specimen from North America. It's also quite venomous and not for sale to children. Move along."

The clerk chivvied them back toward the shop's front, which was crowded with kittens and a litter of those playful fork-tailed puppies. "Well, that's rude," the other girl murmured, watching the wizard walk away from the corner of her eye. "Seems an odd choice to keep the creature in the shop then scare off potential customers."

Harriet shrugged again. "I can't buy it anyway. Hogwarts doesn't allow snakes, and where would I keep a thing like that? With my socks?" Chuckling, she poked a finger through the bars of a box containing oddly purring puffballs puddled together. A long pink tongue slipped out to lick Harriet's skin. "Oh, gross."

The girl didn't reply. Harriet glanced about and saw that she had her pale gaze fixated on something occurring out on the street. Harriet craned her neck to see over the top of a crate and through the window, but all she could really see was the backside of a plump wizard talking with the witch next to him. A number of people were clustered in the alley now, all facing something obscured from view.

"Wonder what that's all about," Harriet commented. The girl shook her head in silent answer, then moved toward the rail of owls Harriet had spotted at her entree. Harriet followed along, unsure of what else to do, and the girl didn't appear to mind.

"I need an owl," she said. Harriet decided the statement was directed at her and took the chance at conversation.

"An owl? They have a ton at Eeylops Owl Emporium. It's on the other side of Gringotts. They're a lot more—." Harriet glanced at one of the glowering screech owls. "Friendly."

"I didn't like any of those." The girl pursed her lips as she studied her choices. She had a calm mien, quiet and considerate, relaxed. Harriet, who didn't know how to act in situations like this, felt antsy and wagered that the other girl probably had plenty of Wizarding friends, so it was just Harriet who was awkward and anxious like Aunt Petunia just before Dudley started in on one of his really nasty tantrums.

The door to the shop jerked open and Harriet jumped at the sudden clamor of voices. A boy slipped inside. The door was promptly closed by a wizard wearing maroon robes with fitted attire underneath, who then leaned against the door to prevent it from being opened again. Harriet—who had spent far too many years locked in the cupboard—didn't much like being trapped in a shop, but she swallowed her protests and turned her attention back to the owls.

The girl held up her arm, bent at the elbow, and one of the largest creatures hopped down. Harriet thought it was the meanest looking one of the bunch, with furious golden eyes and a face set in a permanent scowl, but he hooted softly at the girl and gave her fingers a gentle nip. She stroked the glossy black feathers, revealing spots of brown and gray around the back of the bird's head.

"It'd be really useful to have an owl," Harriet babbled. She fussed with the sleeves of her new casual robes. "And he's really big. He could probably carry mail far without getting tired. I read that Hogwarts is in Scotland, so he looks like he could make it back to London without a problem. That's, err, if you are going to Hogwarts and do need to write letters to London…." Harriet subsided into silence.

"…I think I'll get him," the girl replied, voice distant as if lost in thought. She blinked then and gave Harriet a small smile. "I'm sorry for being rude. I'm Elara, and I am starting Hogwarts this year."

Harriet grinned in return. "I'm Harriet."

A loud gasp from the store's manager had Harriet jumping yet again, and the owl on Elara's arm gave his wings an indignant flap. The mustachioed wizard and the younger witch Harriet had seen chasing the dog were both standing by the blond boy who had come inside, the wizard seemingly in raptures and the witch gushing on.

"—and I wasn't even supposed to come in today, it was supposed to be Maggie, it was—."

"—the wife won't even believe me when I tell her—."

"—Morgana's knickers, if I can't even believe it, Belinda's going to be over the moon. Wait until I tell Maggie—."

"—the Boy Who Lived, in my shop!"

Oh, Harriet thought as she stared at the boy who was no older than herself. Youth still clung to the round cheeks of his face and the wide grin he plastered on didn't quite reach his eyes, but his

posture oozed easy confidence and he had a cocky set to his jaw, chin tipped up and one hand propped on his hip like he practiced the pose in the mirror.

"Can we have your autograph, Mr. Longbottom? Oh, it would just be such a treat for Belinda—."

The boy gave a slight nod, still smiling, and said, "Of course, sir."

That ugly seed of resentment still rattled about in Harriet's middle as she looked at Neville Longbottom and she squashed the emotion, feeling small and ugly herself for that bitter voice in the back of her head. He took the quill and parchment proffered to him by the wizard and signed his name with a flourish.

Elara watched the scene, the frown once more set on her face. The witch and wizard continued to prattle on and on.

"We should get him some owl treats," Harriet said, wanting to do something besides stand there like a numpty with her stomach full of spiderwebs. "And a cage. I saw some over here…."

Harriet and Elara ventured deeper into the store again and Elara lifted the owl to her shoulder so she could lower her arm. She grabbed a cage off a rack and Harriet sussed out a package of owl treats from behind a bag of lime green fish food.

"Do you reckon he'll like these?" Harriet asked as they started toward the front of the store with the purchases in hand. Elara was rather quiet and Harriet hoped she wasn't bugging the other girl. She tended to be a chatty when nervous. "I mean, I don't know if they come in different flavors or anything. Mrs Figg used to babysit me, and she had all these cats and said they each liked a different kind of canned food—."

They almost bumped into Neville Longbottom coming out of the aisle. Both girls took a step back and Harriet suppressed a grimace.

"Sorry about that," he said with another quick grin. He looked between Elara and Harriet, then asked, "You don't want autographs, do you?"

It was the awkward sort of question Harriet could've never asked with that level of aplomb, but Neville pulled it off as if he did so regularly—which he probably did, considering his level of celebrity. "Er," Harriet said, fiddling with corner of the owl treats bag until it frazzled. Shoot. "No thanks…?"

He blinked, taken aback, like no one had ever turned down an autograph from the Boy Who Lived before. The more Harriet thought on it, the sillier the name sounded. He was the Boy Who Lived and everyone else was the People Who Died or the People Who Are Just Grateful A Murderer Isn't Hanging About Anymore.

Neville didn't look as surefooted as he had a few minutes ago. He acted as if Harriet had gone wildly off script and now he had to improvise.

"If you'll excuse us," Elara said, breaking the awkward silence. "We have somewhere to be."

"Sure, uh—."

Elara stepped around the boy, keeping a polite distance despite the abruptness of her exit, and Harriet scuttled after her. She was grateful for the excuse to leave Neville behind and would have thanked the other girl, had Elara seemed remotely interested in being thanked. The wizard behind the register was still exchanging excited whispers with his assistant, so Elara had to clear her throat

to get his attention as she set the ungainly cage on the counter and urged the great horned owl inside of it.

Miffed, the wizard gave Elara her total, and instead of reaching for her purse, the girl asked to borrow the wizard's quill and used it to write something down inside that notebook she'd been carrying since Harriet first saw her. Harriet watched as Elara carefully detached a slip of parchment from the binding, and the inked numbers on the slip glowed for a second before the parchment vanished, only to be replaced by a small pile of gleaming Galleons.

"Wicked!" Harriet said. "And here I've been lugging about all those bloody coins. It's like checks!"

"A bit," Elara admitted as she accepted the cage with her owl and the wizard shrunk the treats down so they could fit inside her pocket. "My guardian showed them to me."

The wizard dressed in maroon robes opened the door and helped them through the crowd standing just outside. The throng had multiplied in the past several minutes. They called Longbottom's name and were disappointed when two girls came out instead. Harriet wondered how Neville dealt with popularity like that. She had difficulty with simple conversation, let alone being some kind of international idol.

"It was really nice to meet you," Harriet said to Elara once they broke out of the milling bodies and began to part ways. The other girl seemed to be headed back toward the Leaky Cauldron while Harriet wanted to return to Gringotts and see about getting one of those nifty checkbooks. Maybe she could bribe Griphook into saying 'happy birthday.'

"You as well." Elara turned to leave—then paused, facing Harriet once more with a determined expression. She jostled the owl about and extended a hand.

Smiling, Harriet offered her own hand and they shook. Is this what it's like to have a friend? Harriet didn't know, but excitement unfurled in her belly at the prospect of finding out. Elara departed then, and Harriet called after her with a happy wave.

"See you at Hogwarts!"

snake thief

xi. snake thief

All in all, the life and future of Harriet Potter looked brighter than they ever had before.

Others may have thought her birthday a miserable event. Other little girls received presents or had parties to which their friends were all invited, cards were sent by relatives who lived too far away, and they would blow out the candles atop their cake before the wax could melt. While Harriet had none of that, she did have cake flavored ice-cream at Florean Fortescue's, chatted with a magical snake, and even met another girl who was about her age. She wasn't smacked for burning breakfast, wasn't given an extra long list of chores, and wasn't shoved in a spidery cupboard under a set of stairs.

It was, in Harriet's opinion, the best birthday ever.

She returned to her room after having a hearty dinner down in the pub—and was almost instantly assaulted by a shrieking ball of feathers. "Ouch! Alright—ouch!" Harriet snapped as she caught the owl. It beat its gray wings against her head as she tried to untangle the crinkled letter from about its leg and, when the string finally came loose, the barmy bird rocketed away with a final shriek, clipping the sill as it sailed out the open window and into the encroaching night.

"What was that for?!" Harriet demanded of the retreating owl, rubbing her cuffed ear as she scowled at the feathers scattered on the floor. Shutting the door and adjusting her glasses, Harriet examined the letter—then let out a soft sound of exclamation when she recognized the swirling green script. It was a letter from Hogwarts, not that she expected anyone else to write to her. She tore through the seal and pulled out the missive, something heavier than parchment slipping through her fingers to fall like the owl's lost feathers on the floor.

"'Dear Miss Potter,'" she read aloud. "'Thank you for your reply. We look forward to having you join us here at Hogwarts. Enclosed is your ticket for the train that departs from Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, King's Cross Station, at precisely eleven on September first.' Three-quarters?" Harriet muttered under her breath, brow furrowed. What did she mean by that? "'Wishing you many happy returns on your birthday, Deputy Headmistress McGonagall.'" Harriet blinked. "Hey, she knows it's my birthday!"

Of course, no one answered her, but Harriet was pleased nonetheless. Harriet couldn't remember ever being wished a happy birthday sincerely. Dudley would sometimes shout "Happy birthday!" before punching her in the arm or pulling her hair, but Harriet didn't count that. She tucked the letter back into its envelope and knelt to pick up the ticket, testing the thick edges of the cardstock as she saw for certain that she was expected to board the Hogwarts Express from Platform Nine and Three-Quarters on the first.

"Well that's helpful." Rolling her eyes, she tucked the ticket into the new Galleon register she'd gotten from Gringotts earlier that day, setting it aside on the wobbly table. Harriet heaved a sigh and peered out the window toward the lights of London—Muggle London, that is. She saw how the air appeared to ripple and warp with color, like sunshine on an opal, and how it seemed to redirect and turn the train tracks away from the magic alley behind the crooked pub. Everything in her view was spotty because of magic and how it came into contact with the mundane. Harriet couldn't help but stare at those odd anomalies. She thought they were pretty.

"Sss…Missstressss…."

Startled, Harriet spun in place, expecting to find someone behind her, but there was no one. The room remained empty aside from herself and her shadow, though she didn't know if Set was still there. Movement from the hearth caught Harriet's eye and, breath held, she watched as a familiar head poked up from the side of the armchair.

"Missstresss."

"W-what are you doing here?!" Harriet sputtered as the Horned Serpent uncoiled himself and came nearer. His black scales flashed and sparkled in the gas lamps when he moved.

"You are my Missstresss, little Ssspeaker."

"Yes, I bloody well heard you," Harriet swore as the snake rose and swayed at her eye level. At least she knew why the owl had been panicking. "How did you get out of your cage?!"

"They cannot keep me from you." If snakes could shrug, Harriet bet her very last quid—or, well, Knut—that the snake in front of her would have done so. "Humansss are easssily fooled."

"They're also going to think I stole you!" Harriet threw her hands into the air, irked and more than a little unsettled. Did the store owner know the 'highly venomous' snake in his collection could slip his containment whenever he fancied? "We have to go back!"

Livius let out a long stream of nonsensical hisses and Harriet yelped when she felt cool, dry scales flowing over her legs. She jumped, aiming to free herself, but the serpent wound his tail around her ankles and Harriet toppled onto her backside with a loud "Oof!" Her head narrowly missed the edge of the table.

"We will not go back," Livius said as he came face to face with Harriet again and his violet tongue flicked in and out. "Foolisssh Ssspeaker."

"Oh, that's nice," Harriet said, voice testy. She gave his coils a shove but they only tightened. "Calling me foolish when all I want to do is get to school without being bloody arrested first! "

"What isss arresssted?" Livius asked. Harriet paused in her mounting tirade to study the serpent. Can snakes lie? Harriet didn't think so—at least, not before she met Livius, who was much smarter than the little mundane snakes who hung around Privet Drive. Really, it would figure even the snakes were dumb in Little Whinging.

"It's where they put you in a cage and don't let you out," Harriet explained. Livius hissed.

"No cagesss. No cagesss for you, no cagesss for me ."

Suddenly, the sapphire on Livius' brow sparked—and the serpent vanished. Harriet yelped and Livius gave his coils another squeeze so she could feel them still looped about her ankles and calves. He hadn't vanished; was invisible!

The serpent returned, blinking into view without a sound, gone and then not, quick as could be. Like magic. "Bloody hell," Harriet whispered as she raised a tentative hand and brought it out to touch his head. Livius butted his nose against her fingertips in approval. Honestly, she had no clue how to go about returning a rather large snake to the Menagerie, especially if he didn't want to go. The mustachioed wizard at the counter hadn't been very nice, and Harriet had no doubt she'd be blamed for the Horner Serpent's escape if she came skipping in with him slung about her neck. Did wizards have the equivalent of a lost and found?

Something Livius had said earlier in the day stuck with Harriet; "I wouldn't know. I was hatched in this place. The sun is beyond me."

Sometimes, Harriet felt like she had been born in that stupid boot cupboard, hatched just like Livius and stuffed into the dark like a scaly, terrifying Thing the Dursleys didn't understand and didn't want ruining their furniture—but at least she knew what the sun was like, knew enough to love and miss it.

She touched his nose, then the gem atop his head, marveling at the heat of it beneath her touch. "I'm going to call you Livi," Harriet decided with a nod. She had no clue what he ate, but she surmised Livi would make sure she knew.

His tongue flicked at faster speeds. "Do not likesss," he hissed, displeasure plain in the harsh rasp of his tone.

"Livius is too snooty."

"What isss sssnooty?"

"You. You're snooty."

The serpent unwound his tail with a huff of air and slithered over to the bed, which he promptly hid beneath for a good sulking. Harriet saw Set swirl beneath her feet, amused.

Sitting on the floor with a sore backside, watching a serpent pout while her shadow laughed, Harriet decided that though she may never be normal, she was more than okay with being odd. She couldn't wait for September to begin.

not slytherin

xii. not slytherin

King's Cross buzzed with noise like an active beehive, people hustling in every direction, calling out to loved ones and checking watches or timetables, mothers holding the hands of fussy children while harried travelers ran by. The noise pressed upon Harriet as she stood halfway between Platform Nine and Platform Ten, glaring at a bit of wall.

There was some kind of invisible bubble surrounding the area because the Muggles going about their business avoided the space, turning their heads and bodies away without noticing—which was all well and good, as wizards were not the most subtle of people. Harriet had seen a whole gaggle of red-headed witches and wizards go by pushing trolleys loaded with magical things, and though she had wanted to ask the mother for help, Harriet had hung back, anxious and perspiring, until it was too late.

She'd observed several people slip through the bloody wall now and she guessed it was where the Platform was—but what if it was more difficult than it appeared? What if there was a password or some kind of secret phrase or look or spell? Harriet thought she might literally sink into a puddle of her own embarrassment if she cracked her head on the bricks by running full on at a wall.

Well, she thought as she gave Livi's head a gentle rub through the fabric of her shirt. The serpent had wrapped himself about her torso, comfortable as could be, and was disinclined to leave. Harriet's blouse was loose enough to accommodate him and he stayed invisible while in public at her request. She simply appeared a tad lumpier. I haven't come this far to fail now. Here goes nothing.

Tightening her grip on the handle of her trunk, Harriet set a brisk pace and aimed for the wall. She came closer, ten steps away, eight, five—she shut her eyes and threw out a hand, almost certain it'd collide with bricks—but Harriet felt nothing. She just kept walking, and walking, until she did collide with something, though it was much softer than a wall.

"Watch yourself!" the wizard said in gentle reprimand as he gripped Harriet's shoulder to steady her. Harriet blinked at him—then whipped about to face the barrier behind her. It stood brazen and solid as ever, which meant not very solid at all, apparently. I did it! There was nothing to worry about!

A scarlet steam engine puffed plumes of white as it idled on the tracks. Families crowded the platform, parents with their arms wrapped around their children, children desperately trying to escape their cooing ministrations. Owls shrieked in their cages, cats tried to evade their owners, and one boy with dreadlocks had a box with a tarantula hidden inside, and spectators gathered to stare and squeal. Not being overfond of spiders after a childhood stuck in the dark with them, Harriet gave the boy and his pet a wide berth.

Some students struggled to boost their heavy trunks that final step from the platform to the train itself, so Harriet paused to help one of those red-heads she'd seen earlier heft his luggage up onto the steps, then went off to find a seat. Harriet's dithering in the station meant most of the compartments had already filled and many students had thrown their Hogwarts robes on over their Muggle attire. She felt a mite too shy to intrude where the older kids were already happily chatting away, so Harriet continued along the train in hopes of finding an empty compartment, or one with

other first years like herself.

Luckily, she stumbled upon the person she'd been looking forward to seeing again.

"Elara!" Harriet chirped, surprising the taller girl out of her reading. She was looking over a journal, and not one very well-written if her squinting was anything to go by. Next to her on the seat rested a covered owl cage, but the compartment was otherwise empty. "Is—is that bench taken?"

"Hello, Harriet," Elara said with half a smile. "No, it's free. Go on."

"Thanks." She pulled her trunk over the threshold and let the door slide shut on its own. Elara set the journal aside to help Harriet heft her trunk into the rack overhead, not because it was heavy, but because the bloody thing was almost the same size as Harriet herself and levering it over her head could be tricky. "Thanks," she muttered again. They settled in their seats.

The crowd began to thin on the station as students got on the train and some parents went on their way. Harriet saw that red-headed family again, or at least the mother and the daughter, the latter clinging tearfully to her mother's skirts as she waved at her brothers. Harriet thought that was nice —well, not the crying, but that the girl would miss her siblings, that she hated to see them go. The closest Harriet had to a sibling was Dudley, and he'd sooner throw Harriet onto the tracks than wish her well.

By unlucky chance, Harriet glanced toward the far end of the platform and saw a group revolving around a trio crossing toward the train. She recognized Neville Longbottom and fought against a grimace. He followed his dad—a taller wizard with prominent ears and an argyle sweater under his maroon robes—and a blond witch who had her arm linked through Mr Longbottom's. Harriet remembered reading that Neville's mum had been killed, so she guessed Mr Longbottom eventually remarried.

That ugly feeling in Harriet's middle twisted itself into painful knots as the blond witch smoothed Neville's already tidy hair and he shooed her away, grinning. The crowd cheered when he stepped off the platform.

Harriet ground her teeth.

Elara kept reading and didn't appear up for conversation. Where were her parents? She'd mentioned a "guardian," Harriet recalled, at the Menagerie. Maybe her family had died in the war, too. The Wizarding world had an awful lot of orphans.

The train set on its journey, releasing a final mournful whistle that echoed into the distance as the wheels turned and the station faded. Those opalescent distortions Harriet had first noted at the Leaky Cauldron happened here, too, where the mundane and magical collided, pushing back the Muggle world to let just a thin sliver of the magical one exist, hiding the tracks and the steam engine from Muggle eyes. Staring out the window, Harriet felt like they were traveling through a great soap bubble, one that didn't burst until they were well away from the city proper.

Harriet fiddled with her sleeves and with her glasses and with the snake napping under her clothes, then pulled out her own book from the satchel looped about her neck. She didn't really want to read, so she just pretended to thumb through the pages of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, pausing whenever one of the sketched images caught her attention.

London disappeared soon enough, dwindling as if it'd never been, and Harriet couldn't seem to tear her eyes away from the shifting scenery as her heart flip-flopped in her chest. The Dursleys never

took her anywhere, not even to London, so Harriet couldn't recall a time when she'd ever been this far away from home. Of course, Harriet also didn't have a home now. She was on her way to school, and when summer rolled about again in ten months, she would have to figure out where to go from there.

The compartment door slid open and a bushy-haired girl slipped inside. She slammed the door closed again as she ducked down on the floor, alarming Harriet and earning a raised brow from her silent companion. Harriet met the girl's brown eyes and a jolt of recognition went through her; this was Hermione Granger, who she met briefly in Madam Malkin's.

Hermione lifted a finger to her lips in a universal plea for silence.

A minute later, a familiar blond boy went sauntering by with two larger counterparts far too reminiscent of Dudley. Draco, as she remembered his name, glanced inside their compartment and missed Hermione sitting crouched below the window, so he simply sneered at Harriet before moving on.

"Thank goodness," Hermione breathed, standing. She straightened the hem of her skirt and pulled on the shade's cord, bringing it down to hide the outer corridor from view. She'd already changed into her school robes. "I'm terribly sorry for barging in like that—oh but you're Harriet! We met at Diagon Alley!" Hermione's relief became more genuine as she sat on the seat next to Harriet and extended her hand. "I'm Hermione Granger, if you don't recall."

"Hi, Hermione. It's nice to see you." They shook hands. Harriet was pleased to meet her again, as Hermione seemed far more enthusiastic about her presence than Elara did. "Was that your, er, brother?"

Hermione glanced at the door over her shoulder before shaking her head. "No, definitely not. I'm just being fostered by his family."

"Doesn't—doesn't that make him your foster brother, then?" Harriet asked, confused. She'd known a few foster children in primary and they'd been almost as bullied as Harriet had been.

"Don't be silly. I'm Muggle-born." Hermione gave Harriet a funny look. "I thought you were Muggle-born too?"

Harriet didn't know what being Muggle-born had to do with fostering, though after a month of listening to conversations in the Wizarding quarter, she knew she wasn't Muggle-born herself, even if Lily had been a Muggle like her Aunt Petunia. "Uh," Harriet said, trying to change the conversation. "This—this is Elara! Elara, this is Hermione."

Thankfully, Elara lowered the journal to grant Hermione a small smile and a nod. "Nice to meet you."

"Likewise."

Hermione turned her gaze back to Harriet, obviously expecting an answer to her question. Harriet cursed in her head. "Well, my dad was a wizard," she said slowly. "But I was raised with relatives who didn't like him all that much, so I never learned a lot about him or my mum. What about you? Did…did something happen to your parents? You don't have to talk about it if it did. I'm just being nosy."

"No, my parents are perfectly fine." A furrow appeared between Hermione's brow as she bit her lower lip. "There's a law, you see. The Muggle-born Protection Act of 1982, or the 'MPA'. I didn't

realize there were witches or wizards who didn't know about it."

"What's the law do?"

"It—well, in simple terms, it says Muggle-borns who accept a place at Hogwarts must leave the Muggle world and be fostered by a proper Wizarding family."

Harriet blinked, then gawked when the full implication of Hermione's words bowled her over. "D'you mean they took you away from your parents?!"

"No! No, of course not," Hermione said with a harried huff. "I chose to leave—and I get to spend time with them over the winter holidays, so that's…something. Really, the MPA is a good thing. It was contested when it first came out, the war having just ended, but tensions with the Muggle- world were high in the wake of You-Know-Who's atrocities, and the Ministry decided that children who presented with magical abilities would be safer among their own—own kind, and statistically speaking there's been a fifty-three percent reduction in Muggle-on-wizard violence since the last report in the seventies—."

Hermione went on in this vein for a time, and though she had all kinds of information to back up the 'efficacy'—a word Harriet knew she'd have to look up later—of the MPA law, she sounded as if she were trying to convince herself as well as Harriet. Harriet was uncertain. It seemed horrifying, being taken away from one's parents, but what the bloody hell did she know about parents? What if there were mums and dads out there who treated their magical kids like Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon treated Harriet? Didn't they deserve a chance to escape that?

It didn't sit right with her. Harriet thought of her own mum and dad and longed to know what they would have said, what they were like.

Hermione and Harriet chatted together until a witch pushing a trolley of food stopped by and they bought lunch, the conversation lulling. Hermione took one look at the display of sweets and stuck up her nose, muttering about her parents being dentists, while Harriet got some of everything and Elara took two Cauldron Cakes after giving the treats a dubious stare.

Truly, Harriet was again reminded of how splendid magic was when she ripped open a Chocolate Frog package only for the frog to leap free. Elara caught the escapee with little effort, proving she wasn't quite as distant as she appeared. They both sampled a few beans from the box of Bertie Bott's —until they bit into something foul and promptly shoved the box aside. Harriet entertained herself with the sugary trove while Hermione unfurled a copy of the Daily Prophet and read. The occasional rustle of a turning page broke the silence.

"Hmm…they still haven't found that rare Horned Serpent that went missing from the Magical Menagerie."

Harriet choked on a frog's leg and started coughing. On the other bench, Elara glanced up from the journal and gave Harriet a curious look.

"That's, ah, interesting." Beneath her shirt, the snake in question shifted in his sleep. "Hermione— speaking of Diagon, what were you talking about with Draco at Madam Malkin's? If you don't mind me asking?"

Hermione wrinkled her nose at the mention of the pale blond. "The Hogwarts Houses," she replied, tone crisp. "Did you ever learn more about them?"

"I did! I read 'Hogwarts: A History' like you said—or, at least some of it." The book contained an

equal measure of fascinating information and tedious facts. Really, there was only so much Harriet wanted to know about sediment analyses or plumbing updates throughout the centuries.

A bright smile broke over Hermione's face. "Isn't it just so interesting? I've read it cover to cover twice now—but never mind that. You said you read about the Houses. Which do you think you'll be in?"

"I'm not sure," Harriet admitted. "The book talked a lot about being ambitious or witty or courageous or hardworking, and I don't think I'm any of those, really."

Hermione nodded along in thought. "Well, no one knows for certain where they'll be until they arrive. There's a ceremony that Sorts incoming students, but I couldn't find any information on how the Sorting occurs exactly. I've been told it's 'meant to be a surprise.'"

Nervous, Harriet prayed there wasn't a test waiting for her the moment she stepped foot into the school. She'd tried to read her textbooks, but the sheer flood of information Harriet had been forced to assimilate was mind-numbing. What if they asked her to do magic? Would she be able to?

"I think Ravenclaw would be excellent," Hermione said. "Or Gryffindor. Both are my top choices —but as I was telling Draco, none of the Houses are truly superior to any other. Ravenclaws are known for being bookish, and I know I'm a bit bookish myself—." Hermione's cheek colored. "— so that's where I'll most likely end up, even though I'd love to be a Gryffindor. Being a Hufflepuff would be nice, too." She paused. "But not Slytherin. No, not Slytherin."

Harriet frowned as she tried to remember all that she'd read about the Houses. "What's wrong with Slytherin?"

"Nothing," Hermione said in a voice that meant everything. "Nothing at all. It's a perfectly respectable House. I just…the Malfoys have all been Slytherins since they first started attending the school, and Draco will most certainly follow his family's legacy. I don't think I could stand having to stay in the same dormitories as him."

"That's a bit silly," Elara commented. Having been quiet for most of the journey, her sudden input startled Hermione. "Allowing one person to sully an entire House for you."

"It's not that alone," Hermione replied, red darkening her face again. "It's—I don't believe I would be a good fit for Slytherin, that's all!"

Unimpressed, Elara replied with a simple "Hmm," and lowered her attention to the journal again. Hermione opened her mouth to argue—when a voice echoed through the train compartments.

"We will be arriving at the Hogsmeade Station within a half hour. Students are reminded to leave their pets and luggage on board, and to change into their uniforms before disembarking."

Harriet let out a relieved breath and stood, shuffling through her satchel to find the robes she'd stashed in there. She and Elara both changed while Hermione disappeared behind the newspaper again, grumbling. Nervous excitement bubbled in Harriet's chest once she sat and looked out the window at the darkening horizon. How many hours had passed? A half dozen, at least. Across from her, Elara finally tucked her reading away. She pulled on her sleeves until they mostly covered her hands.

The train slowed until it stopped, brakes squealing, white plumes drifting by the window, and sound in the outer corridor doubled. Harriet gave her middle a pat to make certain Livi remained in place as she rose and tucked her satchel with her trunk. Hermione lifted the window's shade,

peeking into the corridor. A group of older students with robes trimmed in blue passed, and Hermione shoved the door open. "Let's hurry, shall we?"

Hermione obviously wished to avoid Draco, so Harriet went along with her. She glanced behind her to see Elara following with the same impassive expression she'd worn all afternoon, though she didn't let a boisterous boy trimmed in red cut between her and Harriet when he came charging out of his own compartment. Harriet heard the whispers again, Longbottom's name caught on every tongue, people standing on tip top and craning their necks to look about.

No one gave three random girls a second glance.

Outside, the dark closed about them, thick as lamb's wool, and Harriet gazed at the sky bursting with stars overhead. The vastness of the revealed universe reminded Harriet how very small she was, how truly insignificant. While some despaired at being so negligible, Harriet thought it freeing. She was but one leaf on a towering tree where a thousand leaves had grown before, and no matter how alone she felt, others had been in her shoes before, staring at that sky, and someone always would be.

Hermione jostled Harriet's arm to hurry her along.

"Firs' years! Firs' years! This way, Firs' years!"

A giant of a man loomed above the milling students with a lit lantern in his massive hand. At his side stood another adult, a sour-faced, bespectacled wizard with broad shoulders and hair so light it appeared transparent. "Be swift, now. Allow the incoming first years passage—yes that means you, Mr Leovitch. Out of the way—."

Harriet started to fidget again, patting Livi or her wand tucked into the new leather brace on her wrist. The breeze sighed through the eerie wood surrounding the station, and Harriet swore she saw the gleam of eyes watching them. The older students hurried to the platform's end where a line of carriages drawn by skeletal horses waited.

"That all o' you lot?" the giant boomed as he swung his lantern about and almost clipped his companion in the head. "Alright then. This way!"

They started along a steep path into the woods, stumbling in the dark on the narrow slip of gravel and stone, their tremulous voices vibrating with excitement and trepidation. At the path's end rested the shore of a great, still lake—and on the cliff's edge across the water waited an ancient castle comprised of Saxon turrets and Gothic spires, a sleeping dragon with stone spines sprawled upon the hill, waiting for them to come nearer. Harriet wasn't the only one to gasp.

Hogwarts. I'm really here. It's real.

"Only four to a boat, lest you want to capsize before you even get to the school!" the older wizard called. Harriet hadn't noticed the small fleet of boats resting on the shore at first. Harriet clamored in after Hermione and Elara—and they were swiftly joined by Draco, who almost shoved Harriet headfirst into the lake when he jumped into the boat as well.

"Granger," he said, snide. "Have a nice train ride with your Mudblood pals?"

Hermione glowered at the boy and didn't answer.

The boats jerked into motion. Harriet held on with both hands and Livi tightened his coils, stirring beneath the rippling cover her robes, his voice rising in a hiss barely audible above the smooth lapping of the lake's water against the bow.

"We are almossst there?"

"Soon," Harriet replied into her collar, earning a bewildered look from Elara. It always sounded like English to Harriet, but she knew from experiences with Dudley creeping up on her that her conversations with snakes came out in odd, rasping hisses.

They docked at a small harbor carved through the solid rock of the cliff's face, where the shifting water echoed and the smell of algae thickened in their noses. The shorter wizard urged them out of the boats and up a flight of stone steps illuminated by torchlight. The stairs led their whispering group up to the hill's crest, then across a lawn speckled in evening dew, the castle glittering overhead as it watched the first years approach.

This is home now, Harriet thought. She was caught in the wonder and mystique, gliding with the others by touch alone, unable to look away. This is going to be my home for the next seven years .

Ahead waited the great black doors leading into the castle proper. The bespectacled wizard lifted a hand and knocked.

in your head

xiii. in your head

Minerva led them inside, a tail of slack-jawed miscreants who walked before the inquisitive attention of the student body and stared at the ceiling, the candles, and the High Table with its stern array of waiting professors. They watched with their eyes wide open and unblinking.

Severus watched them too, his fingers tapping a soundless rhythm against his thigh.

He found the faces he knew first. Picking out the spawn of his associates proved a simple feat, even when Severus hadn't seen some of their number in years. Parkinson and Goyle, Crabbe and Nott, and of course Lucius' boy. There were others. He knew they slunk among their number even now, innocent faces and innocent soul who would be lulled by the Dark no matter how hard Severus or Albus or any of their professors tried to push them away. The latest passel of Death Eaters had arrived, but the question remained; who would they serve?

Severus lowered his gaze to the table and exhaled.

Merlin, he was tired.

Minerva set the Sorting Hat upon the stool, and it began to sing.

The last of the song died away amid generous applause.

Elara wrung her hands as the stern witch in square glasses started to call out names. It was happening too quickly—far, far too quickly. Her name was high in the alphabet, it was only a matter of time—.

She had learned much about her family in the past month. Too much.

"Black, Elara!"

The call stirred whispers in the hall like small bodies thrashing in the underbrush, animal eyes gleaming through the dark.

"Black?" they hissed.

"I thought they were all dead."

"Do you think she's related to—?"

"She has to be—."

"He was the last one alive—."

"Madman's daughter—."

Elara forced herself to walk because she couldn't just stand there. The stool was hard beneath her when she sat and she averted her eyes from the students, allowing McGonagall to drop the Hat over her head, plunging her into darkness.

It was only a matter of time before it was discovered , Elara thought, miserable. I wonder if they'll kick me out before the end of the week.

"I wouldn't be so sure. We're not accustomed to judging children by the sins of their fathers here at Hogwarts."

The sly voice speaking in Elara's ear spooked her, but she remained still, terrified.

"You're not mad. I'm just the Sorting Hat!"

Oh, Elara thought. Oh, how stupid of me—.

"You've a sharp mind," the Sorting Hat said, cutting off her self-effacing comments. "But the joy of learning for learning's sake has been stripped from you, hasn't it? My, what wretched things some people are capable of. You haven't the heart for Hufflepuff, too brittle now for kindness, a breath away from shattering—."

Elara flamed at the idea of being brittle. Nearby, a goblet shattered and a professor complained. The Hat chuckled.

"Yes, yes, I can see all that in your head, you know. It doesn't sit well with you, weakness. Your pride, your desire to reclaim identity from the travesties your family has committed—oh yes. I'll send you on to achieve your goals. Better be, SLYTHERIN!"

Hermione forced her foot to stop tapping and told herself to calm down, only for her foot to disobey and start tapping again.

A dreadful habit, her mother called it. It's very pushy, dear.

Hermione hated being called pushy.

"Granger, Hermione!"

She saw Malfoy sneer from the corner of her eye where he stood with his mountainous friends. Behind her, Harriet whispered "Good luck!" and Hermione felt lighter, fighting not to smile like a loon as she came forward to take her place. A friend. Harriet was a friend, wasn't she? Hermione had never had one before.

The Hat came down over eyes and blacked out the world.

"Hmm..." muttered a small voice. "I sense you'll be a challenge, girl. You don't live life in half- measures, do you? Nerve and cunning, loyalty and wit—but what shines above the rest?"

A rush of thoughts went through Hermione's head, a whirlwind of questions and ideas, things she

wanted to ask the Hat and things she wanted to research later. What kind of magic could be put in a bit of cloth to make it read someone's mind? That sounded like the rare, inexplicable things Hermione wanted to understand and master.

"I'm not just any bit of cloth," the Hat countered. "There's ambition in you—great, great ambition. You want to be the greatest witch of your age? Well I know just where to put you—."

No, Hermione suddenly thought, swallowing. No, not Slytherin.

"Not Slytherin? Why ever not?"

Images of Draco filled her head, of Mr and Mrs Malfoy, of their scornful faces and passive aggressive moods. Mudbloods don't go to Slytherin, Draco had said. You'd best stay with the rest of the duffers!

Then she remembered that girl, Elara, and what she said on the train. "That's a bit silly, allowing one person to sully an entire House for you."

"She's right, you know," the Hat commented. "I see it all here, in your head. You want to be more than witty or brave or hardworking. Slytherin will lead you to greatness—but not if you let the actions of someone else hold you back. A boy's words can be cruel, a man's actions crueler, yet they only have power if you allow yourself to be swayed by it."

Hermione didn't want to be held back, didn't want to be swayed. No, she'd left behind too much, had sworn she'd do too much, to be hampered by the likes of Draco Malfoy. If Slytherin would help her be great and take her to the top of her ability, then Hermione wasn't going to let him take that from her.

"Better be—SLYTHERIN!"

"Longbottom, Neville!"

He was used to the muttering, of course. Used to the crying and the whispering and the incessant handshaking, had kissed his fair share of babies and had signed his name so many times his signature looked like it belonged to someone twice his age. He'd gotten used to it all a long time ago. He couldn't remember a time when that cocky grin and quick wink hadn't been an instant reaction for him.

Sometimes Neville really hated himself.

The Boy Who Lived. Really, Neville wasn't one to complain; he got to travel all over the world, train with some of the best wizards in their fields, meet interesting people. He didn't know how he'd done it, but something in him had killed Voldemort, hadn't it? He wanted to find that, make it the best it could be. The crowds could get frustrating, though. The touching, the role modeling.

Neville wondered what his life would be like if Voldemort hadn't hunted his family down. He wondered what would have happened had both his parents died; Grandma Augusta and Great Uncle Algie could be real ball-busters, and Neville didn't want to imagine what life would be like with them full-time.

The Hat came down on his head and he thought, Gryffindor.

The Hat said, "You'd do well in Hufflepuff. Your life is built on falsity. The House of Badgers would help you heal."

But Neville wasn't listening. He rarely listened to anything he didn't want to hear. Gryffindor, he thought again.

And so the Hat sighed. "Better be—GRYFFINDOR!"

The table of crimson and gold exploded.

"Malfoy, Draco!"

He could barely hear his own name over the wretched sound of the Gryffindors cheering. Bloody Longbottom, Draco seethed as he marched to the dais and the waiting stool. Longbottom the Loser.

Draco knew exactly what he wanted. There had never been a question in his mind or in his heart; he would make his mother and father proud. He wouldn't be outdone by stupid Mudbloods or blood-traitors or gits like Longbottom. He was a Malfoy! He was a Slytherin. He had always been a Slytherin.

The Hat knew it, too, because the mangy things barely brushed Draco's hair before screaming—

"SLYTHERIN!"

There weren't many people left and Harriet swallowed her nerves, thinking of all the dreadful hypothetical things that could occur once she took her place on the stool. Had anyone ever been denied entrance? Harriet was sure if it was at all possible it would happen to her.

"Potter, Harriet!"

The Great Hall still rang with excitement over Neville Longbottom's Sorting, so hardly anyone heard Harriet's name being called, and fewer cared. A pale, dark-haired professor at the far end of the staff table stiffened, and the Headmaster in all his aged splendor gave an encouraging smile as Harriet slipped to the front of the scant group. Taking a deep breath, she adjusted her glasses and mounted the dais.

Professor McGonagall smiled slightly as Harriet sat—and the girl prayed to whatever deity listened to ragamuffin witchy runaways that Livi didn't suddenly decide to come slithering out of her clothes. That would be embarrassing, and hard to explain.

The Hat almost swallowed Harriet's head when it came down, and she held her breath.

"Well, well…isn't that curious."

What's curious? Harriet asked, because of all the odd things that had occurred in her life, a hat that could talk in her head wasn't too terribly surprising.

"You're curious, Miss Potter. Everything in your head."

I'm weird, aren't I? she thought with a dejected sigh. I'm a fr—. No, she wouldn't say that word, wouldn't even think it, because the Dursleys were hundreds of miles away and Harriet would never have anything to with them again. She didn't need them. She could survive on her own.

The Hat chuckled. "You DO sound a great deal like a Gryffindor. I wonder, though…."

Gryffindor? She shifted the Hat's brim to peek over at the House in question, at the students still clamoring to get a good look at the Boy Who Lived now trimmed in red and gold. She looked at Neville and resentment smoldered in her gut, just waiting for a fresh blast of air to leap into an inferno. The boy who got to keep his family. The boy who got fame and probably a legion of friends. Harriet doubted he had to live in a cupboard after his mum died. The bold and brave found homes in Gryffindor—but Harriet felt neither bold, nor brave. She felt petty and foolish. She wasn't worthy of Gryffindor, not really. She wanted to prove herself better than she was, better than that sharp sting in the back of her eyes. Harriet wanted to go where she could make her parents proud of the witch she would become.

"Not Gryffindor, eh? Better be—SLYTHERIN!"

Harriet rose, heart pounding, and all but yanked the Hat off of her head. She handed it to Professor McGonagall with a quiet word of thanks and rushed off the dais. She plopped onto the first seat she could find, which just so happened to be between Elara and a fifth year Slytherin who would later introduced herself as Gemma Farley. Sitting across the table, Hermione grinned at Harriet.

Elara had gone quite pale and only nodded meekly at Harriet's greeting.

The Sorting came to an end after Weasley—who Malfoy had sneered at in the entrance hall—went to Gryffindor and Blaise Zabini came to Slytherin. Professor McGonagall rolled up her list, picked up the stool and the Hat, and proceeded out of the Great Hall. The Headmaster—Dumbledore, Harriet reminded herself, thinking back to the header on her Hogwarts letter—stood, the voluminous material of his crimson robes rippling like fire when he raised his left hand for silence. Something strange occurred to Harriet as Dumbledore smiled.

"Gemma," she asked in a soft voice. "Does the Headmaster—is he missing an arm?"

The older girl glanced in Dumbledore's direction but no shock showed in her expression. "Yes. Happened before I came to Hogwarts, so he's been like that for awhile."

The wizard's warm voice rose above the chatter. "Excellent! It is wonderful to see you all again— or to see you for the first time." The Headmaster winked behind his half-moon spectacles. "Welcome to Hogwarts! Before we feast, please allow me these few words….Nitwit! Oddment! Blubber! Tweak! Thank you!"

"And yes," Gemma gamely said when Harriet's mouth popped open. Dumbledore sat down. "He is a bit mad."

Harriet giggled and food appeared on the table—great platters and tureens of it, acres of edibles Harriet had only ever sniffed from afar while living with the Dursleys. Her month in the Wizarding quarter, however, had taught Harriet a love for potatoes and gravy, which she ladled onto her plate

with unfettered relish. Elara eyed her as Harriet started building a volcano-esque mound and substituting lava with hot, delicious gravy, then snorted.

"Harriet, you really shouldn't play with your food," Hermione said, her tone uncertain.

"I'm not playing with it," Harriet assured her. "I'm going to eat it. Watch." She did just that.

"Ssss…." Dry scales rubbed against Harriet's skin as Livi, roused by the smell of food, poked his head out through the collar of her robes and almost caused Harriet to dump pumpkin juice in Elara's lamp. She had forgotten, of course, that the snake was invisible. "I want sssome of that, Misstresss."

"Which?" she asked under her breath, covering her mouth with her napkin.

"The dead thing before you. It sssmellss delicciousss."

'The death thing' was apparently a whole roast beef, which Harriet discreetly sliced the proper sized piece off of to secret away into her napkin, which she laid open on her lap beneath the table so Livi could eat. Normal snakes had particular dietary needs, but she'd learned from her textbooks that Horned Serpents and other magical snakes were freer in their restrictions, as long as they got the proper nutrients. Livi scarfed down his selection and Harriet disguised his pleased hissing with a cough.

She let her attention wander around the Hall, traversing the walls, the columns, up toward the ceiling enchanted to look like the sky, then down along the High Table. The professors ate their food and chatted with one another, each of them more different than the last; the giant sat at one end next to a tiny wizard who could only be as tall as Harriet's waist, and a woman reminiscent of great glittering dragonfly rambled on to stern and oblivious Professor McGonagall. Headmaster Dumbledore said something to Professor McGonagall with a slight wave of his hand and her lips went so thin they almost disappeared. A younger man in a purple turban flinched so hard when addressed he spilled chutney into his lap.

At the other end of the table, the wizards sat without conversation, quiet and dour as they ate or picked at their plates—and they were all wizards. The man Professor McGonagall had addressed as "Otho" at the castle's doors occupied the last seat, having slipped in through a side door with the giant earlier. His mouth moved with silent mutterings as he viciously stabbed his pork cutlet and hacked off a piece.

Next to him was a taller, gaunt wizard with pale skin and a prominent nose. Harriet was forcibly reminded of the dated scary movies Dudley would watch on the telly when Aunt Petunia wasn't home; he seemed shaded in monochrome, with his stark skin, the curtain of black hair coming down to his shoulders, and eyes as black as the deepest, hungriest pits in the earth. Harriet knew that because she sat near enough for their gazes to briefly meet. His face hardened before he looked away.

They last professor didn't look old enough to be a professor. He appeared barely any older than the eldest students chattering in the halls and was quite handsome, the symmetry of his features really quite striking in Harriet's opinion—but something of the young wizard didn't sit right with her, like a voice murmuring in her ear that she couldn't quite understand, no matter how she tried to listen. His tidy hair gleamed in the candlelight and so did his white teeth when he smiled at the Slytherin table.

Harriet suddenly thought about sharks swimming in the darkest parts of the ocean.

"Gemma," she asked again, the older girl glancing down. "Who are those professors sitting closest to us?"

Gemma didn't need to check who Harriet meant. "Those would be the Slytherin professors. At the end there with the light hair, that's Professor Selwyn. He teaches History of Magic. On his left is Professor Snape, the Potions Master, and on his left is our Head of House, Professor Slytherin."

"Slytherin?" Harriet parroted. "Did they name the House after him?" But no, that couldn't be right. Harriet knew that from Hogwarts: A History—and from the glare Hermione threw across the table. Gemma rolled her eyes.

"No. He's descended from Salazar Slytherin, the House founder."

"Oh. That's, er, interesting."

Dessert was served and though Harriet thought she was stuffed from dinner, she promptly ate far too much ice cream and decided that if they weren't dismissed soon, she might just fall asleep and spend the night right there at the table. She could use a treacle tart as a pillow. Her plans came to naught when the Headmaster stood again and the platters of sweets vanished without a trace.

"Another wonderful feast! Before you're seen off to your dormitories and comfortable beds, I must reiterate a few start-of-term policies. The Forbidden Forest on the grounds is, as its name would suggest, forbidden." Dumbledore chuckled. "As is magic in the corridors between classes, and all joke products purchased from the fine establishments of Gambols and Japes, and Zonko's. The first Hogsmeade trip for third years and above is scheduled to be in December, and Quidditch trials will be held next week for the respective House teams. Please contact Madam Hooch with any questions. At last, I would inform you that the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds and trespassing will result in a very painful death."

Sleepy Harriet blinked. Did I just hear him right?

"Bloody hell," someone farther down the table whispered.

Professor Slytherin continued to smile. Dumbledore seemed to look everywhere but at him.

"Now! Off to bed! Here's to wishing us all a fun and fulfilling term. You've much learning ahead of you all!"

Older kids titled "Prefects" gathered the first years and the student body departed en masse, the resulting babble of noise and jostling bodies doing little to wake Harriet. She felt a hand on her elbow and looked about to see Elara guiding her from the paths of bigger students who probably didn't even notice they were about to trod on poor short Harriet. Half the school departed in the entrance hall, climbing the sweeping marble steps to the floors above, and the other half took the stairs leading down. The group split again, and the Slytherins delved deeper and deeper, the light disappearing at their backs, torches wavering in shades of yellow and green and blue, the air crisp and heavy in their lungs.

Harriet couldn't remember the common room. In fact, had anyone asked how she got there in the first place, she couldn't have told them. All she recalled were floating orbs of emerald light and towering windows that looked out upon the black tide. Harriet laid down, felt blankets shift higher until they covered her and Livi, and heard the water sigh. She dreamt she was a Galleon tucked in a chest that had sunk to the very bottom of the ocean. She listened to the sea and when the hand came to scratch at the chest's lid, demanding to be let in, she rolled over in her bed of treasure and ignored it.

house of serpents

xiv. house of serpents

Hermione woke to the sound of groggy cursing.

For the briefest of moments, she thought she was at home—home, as in not with the Malfoys but snuggly tucked into her bed in her Muggle house surrounded by her books with the smell of pancakes drifting down the hall from the kitchen. Then Hermione remembered the train ride, the lake, the Sorting and the feast. She sat up and reached out to jerk the jade hangings aside.

Dark still encumbered the first-year girls' dormitory, though morning light filtering through the lake outside the windows illuminated the ticking clock set above the student carrells. Hermione squinted at the clock and saw that while early, it was almost time to get up. Harriet knelt on the stone floor by the bed next to Hermione's, hissing underneath of it for some unfathomable reason.

"Harriet!" Hermione said, and the other girl jumped, banging her head on the bed's rail.

"Bloody hell—."

"Harriet!" Hermione said again, chiding. "Really. What are you doing?"

"Oh, er, nothing." Rubbing her head, the girl straightened the bed's skirt until it lay flat once more. Hermione narrowed her eyes when she thought she saw the cover move, wondering if she should say anything. Was Harriet hiding something? What if it got the rest of her dorm mates in trouble? Hermione had been at Hogwarts for less than a day and she did not want to be in trouble!

Then she looked into Harriet's smiling face and she bit her tongue, swallowing the building lecture. Right. Don't be bossy. Don't be too much. I'm sure it's nothing.

"Morning, Hermione!" Harriet chirped. She still wore her clothes from the day before, robes wrinkled beyond salvaging, her thin face marked where her glasses must have pressed into the skin. Elara had deposited the exhausted girl in her bed last night, stopping only to remove her shoes and jerk the covers over Harriet. With the collar of Harriet's shirt stretched and displaced, Hermione could plainly see the rather ghastly scar that originated from her right shoulder. Of course, Hermione didn't mention the scar to Harriet, thinking the other wouldn't like having the old injury pointed out in casual conversation. Hermione did wonder how she'd gotten it, though.

"Good morning. You're up early. Are you excited for classes?"

"Yeah," Harriet agreed with a nod. "You?"

"Definitely. Gemma said we get out timetables at breakfast, didn't she—?"

A groan emanated from behind the curtains two beds over. "Will you two be quiet?"

That's Daphne Greengrass, Hermione told herself, summoning in her mind the sheet of pure-blood families she'd had to study. From the Noble House of Greengrass. The eight beds were arranged in a line against one wall, the carrells on the opposing one, and Hermione had been the bed second closest to the door, with Tracey Davis first. Davis. That wasn't one of the families Mr Malfoy had me study, but I don't think she's Muggle-born like me.

Harriet—from the Noble House of Potter, why does she seem so much like a Muggle-born?—had the third bed, and Elara Black the fourth. Black. Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. Mr Malfoy said it was only extant in the female line, but he also said Mrs Malfoy was the last free member of the family? Odd. Hermione would ask if Elara really was from the House of Black and not, say, a Muggle-born with a fortuitous surname, but she doubted the quiet girl would answer.

She gathered her things for the shared bath and Harriet joined her, wrangling a clean uniform out from her ancient trunk. When Hermione asked her about it, Harriet said, "It belongs to my family." Her green eyes were bright behind her glasses. "It's really nifty, too."

Hermione made quick use of the showers and dressed behind the divider before returning to the dormitory. She was at the room's threshold, mind full of her perspective classes and which text books she might need—when she almost collided with someone. Hermione started to apologize, then they knocked her folded pajamas out of her hands. Hermione ground her teeth as she met the gaze of Pansy Parkinson, of the Most Noble House of Parkinson.

"Watch where you're going, Granger," Pansy sneered, wrinkling her short nose. Pansy had a hard- face framed by short brown hair and pricey stud earrings pierced her ears, diamonds glittering on her lobes. Millicent Bulstrode standing behind her was a solidly built girl with dark hair and an unfriendly expression—from the Ex-House of Bulstrode, Hermione's brain supplied without prompting. She remembered the genteel snickering of the Malfoys as they discussed the fallen fortune of the once Noble House.

"I already said sorry," Hermione snapped, picking her things up. She'd met Pansy briefly over the summer when the other girl had come to visit Draco, and she'd sneered at Hermione then, too.

"So tell me—," Pansy continued. "How did you make it into Slytherin? I was under the impression Mudbloods weren't allowed in. How does one go about bribing a hat?"

Hermione straightened her spine as she met Pansy's gaze again. She was used to bullies. There had been boys in primary who'd loved knocked her things off her desk and they once threw her bag in a pond because she was too 'bossy.' "Your impression is wrong. Plenty of Muggle-borns have come through Slytherin before. I didn't have to bribe the Hat. Did you?"

Pansy went to rebuke Hermione, when somebody else coming out of the dormitory spoke. "You're blocking the door."

Elara was an inch or so taller than Millicent, which made her several inches taller than Hermione or Pansy and a whole head higher than Harriet, who had come up behind Hermione with her wild hair tamped down with water. Elara's face was elegant but tired, black smudges under her colorless eyes, her temper visibly thin, and Hermione guessed she was not a morning person. Pansy gave Elara a look that clearly conveyed her displeasure but kept her mouth shut, because she couldn't say anything rude to her. The House of Black was above the House of Parkinson—was above most everyone, really. Their pseudo-feudal system is both terribly archaic and utterly fascinating .

Pansy stepped back. Elara scoffed as she entered the bathroom, and Hermione made good on her escape.

The first day of classes proved as exciting as promised.

The Slytherins spent the morning outside the castle, in one of the many greenhouses dotting the grounds, joined by the Ravenclaws and a plump, earthy witch who introduced herself as Professor Sprout. Hermione and a few Ravenclaws took feverish notes, journal popped on their arms, as they stood between muddy planters and the Head of Hufflepuff introduced to all manner of mystical flora and fungi, most of which moved or bit, could poison, stun, or kill the unwary. Most wore wary expressions when Professor Sprout asked for volunteers, so Harriet was the first to raise her hand, jumping in with both sleeves rolled up. Elara Black later managed to kill her own plant seemingly by touching it and lost Slytherin five points.

Expectations ran thick as they made their way to Charms after that, holding their wands in their hands, itching for a chance to use them. Hermione's was yellowish in color, made from vine wood, excellent for those who sought a great purpose—according to Ollivander, at least. Pansy and Katherine Runcorn—the final first year Slytherin girl—both had elm wands and said they made for the best pure-blood wands. Draco didn't like that and he sniffed a he informed them that hawthorn wands were obviously the greater choice.

Harriet got quite vague when Hermione asked about the pale wood of her wand. It was only later that Hermione realized she never got an answer out of her.

After Charms with Professor Flitwick—which only had theoretical studies on the first day—came lunch, then History of Magic with the Hufflepuffs, taught by Professor Otho Selwyn. Hermione knew of him, of course, because he was one of the final living members of the Noble and Ancient House of Selwyn, a family that hotly contested they'd been in Great Britain longer than the Blacks. Professor Selwyn didn't appear to very much want to be a professor, as he spent the first half hour of class muttering about children who didn't know anything about history or magic or the world in general. He scowled with ferocity at the Hufflepuffs—and Hermione.

Their last class of the day was Transfiguration, taught by the stern Head of Gryffindor, Professor McGonagall. Hermione had read all about Transfiguration, of course, and loved how very complex this particular branch of magic was. She had to suppress the urge to laugh when the others babbled in the corridor on the way there, excited to jump right in, when Hermione knew they wouldn't touch anything even remotely difficult until they had practiced and studied Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration. She had dozens of questions written in a notebook already and hoped the older witch had open office hours.

Professor McGonagall passed out a match each with instructions to turn the matches into silver needles. Hermione felt quite smug indeed when she alone fully managed the feat, earning ten points for Slytherin and a warming smile from the strict professor.

Then Harriet somehow managed to turn her match into a short wooden javelin.

"Miss Potter, what are you doing over here?"

"Er…."

Many of the other Slytherins were torn between being elated about the points or glaring at Hermione. She really hoped their antagonism would pass. Logically, the antipathy pure-bloods showed toward Muggle-borns didn't make sense. They had emotional bonds to their family heritage Hermione understood, but wasn't magic magic? She'd read some absolute tosh about how Muggle-borns stole pure-blood magic—but Hermione had found nothing credible that said the ability of Muggle-borns or half-bloods was any less than a pure-blood's!

But what do you know, really? A sharp, cold voice in the back of her mind demanded. It had always been there, but lately it had begun to sound more and more like Lucius Malfoy. An entire world of magic existed without you having a clue. You know so little.

Hermione wondered if she'd made a mistake in letting the Hat place her in Slytherin. She fretted over the decision. Oh, she had ambition in spades, but she wasn't—wasn't cunning, wasn't sneaky or subtle or traditional. She passed the perfect needle from hand to hand and sighed. The House of Serpents was home to people like Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson. Could it be home to someone like Hermione, too?

"Father says Mudbloods are always thirsty for attention," Draco said to Goyle once Professor McGonagall moved away. "He says you have to watch how much you feed them or they'll forget their place—ow!"

Harriet's javelin slid off her desk and landed on Draco's foot. Given the thunk it made, Hermione guessed it was solid wood.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Malfoy," Harriet said in a flat voice, twiddling with her wand. The pointy faced boy turned an unattractive red. "I'm just so clumsy."

Then Harriet winked.

Hermione covered her mouth to hide her smile.

professor tom

xv. professor tom

Harriet was not looking forward to Defense Against the Dark Arts.

Her first day of classes had been amazing—up until Transfiguration, when Harriet had taken her wand out for the first time with the intent of using it and had transformed her match into a bloody javelin. Professor McGonagall told her to stay after class, then demanded to know which spell Harriet had been using. Harriet tried the spell again on another match at the professor's insistence —and, in her panicked rush, managed to make an even bigger javelin that almost toppled McGonagall's desk.

The professor gave her a very strange look as she told Harriet to practice her control.

"Control," Hermione told Harriet later while they were sitting in the common room by one of the windows, their homework spread out on the table between them. A strange fish kept making rude faces at them through the glass. "Refers to the amount of magic you funnel into a spell and how you mitigate it."

Harriet had no idea what that meant, but decided she'd best practice before she turned a house cat into a tiger and got one of her classmates mauled.

"Still working on that match?" Elara asked at breakfast the next day. The other girl watched Harriet drown her toast in syrup and seemed to find Harriet's almost overt enjoyment of the food at Hogwarts amusing.

"Yeah," Harriet glumly admitted, poking her sticky toast. "If you find a bunch of stakes in the common room's broom closet—they're not mine."

Elara smiled—well, the corner of her mouth twitched. Across the table, Hermione had her nose buried in the Herbology textbook, and three seats down Pansy was waxing on and on to a bored Daphne about her new necklace and how exceedingly expensive it was. She reminded Harriet of Aunt Petunia, always chatting up the neighbors, making sure they knew just how much the Dursleys spent on their car or their house or their clothes. Harriet imagined what Pansy would say if she told her she sounded like a Muggle, then snorted.

The owl post arrived with a flurry of feathered wings, the birds slipping in through the open slots in the Great Hall's eaves, seeming to plunge right out of the sky itself. Two owls dropped a crate of home goods in front of Malfoy and he crowed with delight. Elara's terrifying horned owl came swooping in and scattered the smaller post deliverers, startling some of the students with his baleful glare. Unperturbed, Elara stroked his head, tied a letter to his leg, and sent the creature on his way.

"Have you managed it, then?" Harriet asked. In response, Elara retrieved her journal from her school bag and cracked it open, revealing the horrid handwriting inside—as well as a few perfect silver needles tucked safely in the binding. Harriet pouted and scratched at Livi's belly beneath her vest. The serpent disliked remaining behind in the dorm and she hadn't been able to convince him to stay today.

"My…Uncle Cygnus taught me a little about control," Elara said, her tone careful, her eyes on the

journal rather than Harriet. "To help mitigate…accidents. He says you can feel your magic like shouting."

"Like shouting?"

"Yes. He said it's similar to the feeling of pulling air into your lungs, how the muscles in your chest constrict and how your vocal cords vibrate to increase pitch. He told me that, if you concentrate, you can sense your magic doing something similar just before you cast a spell."

That sounded complicated to Harriet, but she tucked the information away, nodding her head. "Thanks, Elara."

"You're welcome."

They had Herbology again after breakfast which, ironically, Harriet found quite relaxing. She hated toiling Aunt Petunia's garden where she had to clip, trim, bind, and battle the wildness of nature into something her relatives deemed respectable, but Herbology wasn't like that. Caring for magical plants meant learning and understanding their oddities, letting them flourish any way they wanted, not in ways deemed "proper." Harriet earned points for Slytherin—which proved a good thing, because Elara kept losing them, muttering "it's the roses all over again" under her breath.

The bell rang and Harriet's dread rose. It was time for Defense.

"You needn't be so nervous," Hermione told her as they reentered the castle and made for one of the many staircases. Harriet had a wretched sense of direction and Hermione had mapped out three different routes to every class, so Harriet stuck to her friend's side like a limpet. "It's not as if you're going to set someone on fire or something."

Harriet quickly buried the memory of setting Uncle Vernon's trousers alight and prayed they wouldn't have a repeat performance today.

Voices in the corridor outside the classroom alerted them to the presence of the Gryffindors, the only House the Slytherins hadn't had a class with yet. Harriet only counted nine students wearing gold and crimson trimmed robes, which made their year considerably smaller than Slytherin at thirteen—most of which were girls. Longbottom more than made up for their lack of bodies however, as older students crossing the hall had to stop and stare at the boy, and voices around him swelled to almost intolerable levels.

"Must be difficult, Longbottom," Malfoy drawled, facing the Gryffindors across corridor. The door to the class was shut tight. "Trying to fit your fat head in the castle."

Goyle and Crabbe guffawed. Longbottom didn't react; his eyes flickered in Malfoy's direction, then tipped away as if Draco simply wasn't worth his time. Harriet thought living as a celebrity had probably thickened his skin—but that wasn't the case for Ron, who flushed red from his ears to his freckled cheeks.

"Shut up, Malfoy."

"Or what, Weasel?"

Before they could find out "what" Ron had in mind, the door popped open in wordless invitation. Hermione—ignoring the unbecoming behavior of her fellows—was the first through the entrance, and Harriet hurried in after her.

The Defense classroom had to be the largest of all the classrooms, though Harriet hadn't been to

Potions or Astronomy yet. A wide aisle split the room's middle, the desks scattered on either side, and a small platform with a lectern dominated the front instead of a desk. The guttering torchlight cast shadows through the bones of the preserved creatures crowding the various display cabinets. Each of the soaring windows was shuttered closed.

"Take your seats." Slytherin's Head of House stood shy of the halo thrown by the nearest torch and his outline seemed strangely blurred against the dim backdrop—but then he stepped forward, black robes rippling, and the illusion dissipated. He had his wand in hand, texts tucked under an arm. "Quickly."

Hermione took one of the seats in the very front. Harriet wanted to sit next to her, but she felt increasingly uneasy, so she sat behind her next to Elara and Blaise Zabini. One side of the aisle had exactly thirteen seats and the other nine; a natural division was drawn between the Gryffindors and the Slytherins, the House of Lions drifting as far from Harriet's dorm mates as they could.

"You do not need your textbooks in my classroom," the professor said—and Harriet saw Hermione's hands stop before they could fully open her bag. "I have no patience for watching children read."

A few Slytherins chortled.

The professor's robes swept the ground as he stepped onto the platform and came to the lectern, flashes of emerald-green embroidery shifting on the hem like scales under a roiling tide. He set his books atop the lectern, then looked over the room like a king viewing his less than exemplary kingdom and Harriet still couldn't believe someone as young as him was a teacher. "Good morning, Slytherins…and Gryffindors." He added the latter in afterthought. "I am Professor Slytherin—yes, direct descendant of Salazar Slytherin himself, Head of his House, and your Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor." Professor Slytherin inclined his head and stepped off the platform, slowly pacing the aisle as he continued.

"Who here can define the Dark Arts for us?"

Hermione's hand shot up into the air.

"Name?" Professor Slytherin asked in a lazy drawl.

"Hermione Granger, sir."

"Tell us then, Granger, how you would define the Dark Arts."

"The Dark Arts are a magic that intends harm to those it is cast upon."

Slytherin shrugged a shoulder. "A prosaic answer," he replied, and Harriet saw Hermione's back stiffen. "But one that proves you reviewed the material before coming to my class. A point to Slytherin." He gave a languorous turn and paced the room again, wand still braced between his hands, index finger balanced on the tip. "There are seven distinct branches of magic: Transfiguration, Charms, Jinxes, Hexes, Curses, Counter-spells, and Healing-spells, each school with its own variations, disciplines, and cross-sections. The Dark Arts comprise all branches of magic, and though our vaunted Headmaster may disagree in my definition, you will cast many Dark spells in all of your classes during your years at Hogwarts."

"Hogwarts doesn't teach Dark magic," one of Gryffindors argued—Seamus, Harriet thought his name might be. "Me Mam told me Professor Dumbledore banned the lot of it when he took over."

Professor Slytherin paused, head swiveling to fix Seamus with a pointed look. The position finally

brought his face directly into the light, and Harriet realized the wizard's eyes were red, as red as Uncle Vernon's face when Harriet had really messed up, red as the lining on the Gryffindors' robes, red as blood—

A sudden prickling stole through Harriet's neck and she scratched at it, lowering her head when the professor's gaze swiveled over the Slytherins, his brow furrowed.

"Your name?" he asked when he turned to the Gryffindors again.

"Seamus Finnigan."

"Sir. You will address me as 'sir' or 'professor' or 'my Lord' if you're feeling particularly proper; I am, after all, Lord to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Slytherin." He smiled and it was not a nice expression. "Tell me, Finnigan; where did your 'mam' receive her mastery?"

"S-sir?"

"Where did your mother receive her mastery in Defense Against the Dark Arts, Finnigan?" The sentence rolled off his tongue dripping disdain and he leaned nearer the paling Gryffindor boy. Harriet shivered and Seamus looked too terrified to answer. "I will take your silence to mean 'Oh, Professor Slytherin, my mother never achieved mastery in Defense. Please do excuse my worthless interruption about the opinions of my ignorant family members. We should obviously take your opinions and advice far more seriously.'" Slytherin straightened and his face lost its mocking smile. Seamus trembled. "Five points from Gryffindor."

The professor returned to the head of the aisle and when he faced the class again, his expression was once more relaxed, almost approachable. Almost. "I do believe that's enough introduction. Let's do something practical, shall we? I will teach you the most basic of protection spells: the Shield Charm. Wands out!"

Harriet's nerves from earlier returned as she retrieved her wand from her brace, noticing many of the others had theirs simply stuffed into robe or pants pockets. Livi hissed something but Harriet didn't catch what he said.

"Now, the spell is simple enough. Copy my pronunciation and movements." Professor Slytherin lifted his wand, then brought his hand down in a slow, slicing motion, saying, "Protego."

The class mimicked him.

"Again."

They repeated this three time before the professor seemed mollified. Harriet wouldn't say Slytherin was satisfied; no, indeed, the young wizard wore the most bored expression possible while he led the first years through their paces. Satisfaction was far from his mind. "Enough. We'll see if you've managed it….ah, yes, Mr Longbottom. How about a demonstration? I'm told you've trained with some of the very best in the field." The way he said "best" conveyed Slytherin's clear dismissal of others' prowess in his subject.

Neville simply stood, shrugging. Professor Slytherin flicked his wand at the opposing end of the aisle with a wordless spell and a red lion glowed on the floor. "Your mark, Longbottom. In case you get lost."

Several Slytherins snickered.

Holding his wand tight, Longbottom made his way to the lion and stood on it, his face set in a

determined glare as he met Professor Slytherin's gaze. This amused the wizard. "I won't be instructing you in dueling until next year, but it would be beneficial for us to practice proper form, yes? Bow, Longbottom."

Both Neville and the professor dipped their heads and again several Slytherins laughed. Malfoy seemed to be enjoying himself.

"Cast the Charm."

Neville shifted his feet into a better stance as he faced his opponent, his wand steady when he slashed it downward and stated, "Protego!"

The air before him shimmered, milky as a ghost but not as opaque, rumpled at the edges like a sheet left too long in the drier.

Professor Slytherin aimed a flippant jab in Neville's direction. "Flipendo."

Nothing happened at first, then—BANG! Blue light flared and Harriet jumped when a girl from Gryffindor shrieked, the force of Professor Slytherin's spell rippling through the floor when it collided with Neville's shield. It held, if only just, Neville's feet sliding several inches along the stone floor until he came to a stop, panting hard. The Gryffindors broke into applause.

"Quiet," Professor Slytherin said, waving Neville back to his seat. "Decent. Though I expected better from someone meant to already know the spell. Five points to Gryffindor. Someone from Slytherin now…you. Name?"

He pointed at Malfoy's tallest friend, the boy with big feet and bristly hair. "Greg Goyle, sir."

"All right, Mr. Goyle. To the mark."

The red lion dissolved into a green snake and Goyle lumbered over to it. He and Slytherin bowed to each other, displaying a touch more respect than Neville had, and the duel repeated itself. This time, however, when Professor Slytherin's spell struck the milky distortion before Goyle, the shield gave wave with an audible sigh and the younger wizard went toppling backward. The other side of the classroom broke into smothered laughter.

"Deplorable. Return to your seat, Goyle." Slytherin rubbed his brow as Goyle stumped over to his chair more disheveled than he'd left it. "Do not mumble when you're casting. Enunciate. Let's have one of our witches redeem us, shall we?"

Hermione's hand once more bobbed in the air, but the professor ignored her, surveying the other seven Slytherin girls. Harriet shrunk herself down and stared at the top of her desk, furiously chanting 'Not me, not me, not me' in her head.

"You." Professor Slytherin tapped Harriet's desk to get her attention and she almost groaned. Shite. "Name?"

"H-Harriet Potter, professor."

Recognition whipped through those terrifying eyes, then disappeared. "To the mark, Miss Potter."

Harriet stood and almost tripped over her own bag in her rush, but she staggered upright to the waiting snake with her head held high. Livi tightened himself beneath her clothes and hissed, "You sssmell of fear."

"Shut up," she responded, quietly.

"What was that, Miss Potter?"

"Nothing, sir."

Harriet turned in place and met the watching stares of her classmates. Her face burned. I can do this, she told herself. Slytherin stood at the opposing end of the aisle, waiting, not a hair out of place. I can do this. What's the worse that could happen? Has anyone ever blown up a professor before? Can you get kicked out for that?

She mimicked the professor's stance and adjusted her glasses before clenching the hand holding her wand. The strip of wood hummed with excitement beneath her skin. "Protego!"

The air swirled and hardened like a thin cloud suddenly freezing in front of Harriet. She braced herself and thought she might feel what Elara had spoken of at breakfast, the sudden warm tension in her chest, the heat whispering down through her arm and out her hand—.

"Flipendo."

The blue light cracked against Harriet's shield and, for an instant, she thought she might go flying like Goyle—until the spell suddenly slung itself back at Professor Slytherin. Harriet gaped in horror—and the wizard quickly flicked his wand to divert the returning Jinx, sending it flying over his shoulder, riffling his tidy hair. The class gasped. Slytherin grinned.

Harriet had only a moment to act—. "Protego!"

"Flipendo."

The second spell came faster and didn't rebound. Harriet's feet slid like Neville's had, her arm shaking.

"Flipendo!"

"Protego!"

Slytherin's third attempt came quicker still and Harriet's hasty shield warbled until it collapsed in on itself. Harriet landed on her backside with an "Oof!" Livi hissed in displeasure.

"Excellent, Miss Potter," Professor Slytherin said as the members of his House clapped. The Gryffindors didn't applaud. "Take ten points for that demonstration and return to your seat."

She did as instructed, weak-kneed and dazed with her glasses sitting crooked on her nose. The mini-duels continued, most students sent sprawling on the ground like Goyle by their bored professor, others summoning a weak shield that nullified most of the energy in Slytherin's spell but still tripped them up. Hermione and Draco managed to stay standing like Neville—yet no one pulled off the Charm as well as Harriet had.

"How did you do that?" Hermione asked later, miffed, as they gathered their bags and headed to lunch. Harriet didn't know how to answer her. The move had been instinctive, easy. Despite her misgivings and the eeriness of the professor, Harriet thought she might like Defense Against the Dark Arts.

She wished her neck would stop itching, though.

fire burn and cauldron bubble

xvi. fire burn and cauldron bubble

Severus was convinced he never got around to growing up.

Not really, at any rate. He often reflected on his immaturity, his suspended evolution, when his mind wandered in the dead hours of the morning—a time of day even the ghosts found themselves drifting through with half-closed eyes and weary yawns. Severus was trapped in a limbo of maturation, not unlike those prepubescent dunderheads he taught, the tangle of a half-lived existence that seemed to have no beginning nor end; just endless, spiraling knots. It was the result of spending his life among children, of never leaving Hogwarts—except for those three horrendous years he submitted himself to the thrall of a madman.

Those three years he would spend the rest of his life atoning for.

He was both too old and too young; too old to be a child and too young to be an adult, constantly under the scrutiny of those who taught him while he attended the school, and Severus often felt as if he'd simply exchanged his class schedule for a lesson plan and continued on without a thought. Dumbledore addressed him as "my dear boy," Minerva chided him to be "kinder, more empathetic," and Filius still called him "Mr. Snape" on occasion, much to the wizard's chagrin.

Memories blurred and echoed in the castle's unchanging halls. The sensation worsened whenever he crossed paths with the relatives or children of those he went to school with. He'd chastise Jacob Rowle and suddenly remember the boy's father, Thorfinn Rowle, crowing about joining the Dark Lord, telling young Severus he'd "better take care of his Gryffindor bullies, before someone took care of him." He'd grade an essay for a Rosier cousin and remember completing assignments for Evan Rosier, just to be paid Knuts from the pure-blood boy's pocket change.

He'd hear girlish laughter and think of red hair in the sunlight, bright like fresh apples.

He'd see pale eyes and think of a haughty boy now rotting in a cell. Good riddance.

The cowardly fear of what nightmares awaited him, unborn until he entered the Potions classroom for his first year Slytherin class, sickened Severus. He didn't want to open the classroom door. Hell no. He wanted to return to his quarters and swill enough Dreamless Sleep to sleep through the next seven years.

Seven years. Merlin, Severus knew he probably wouldn't survive that long.

The door bounced off the stone wall with a clatter when he strolled into the dungeon, startling the first years out of their tentative conversations. Their faces shone ghoulish in the candlelight reflected by the specimen jars and Severus sneered, thrusting his robes aside as he sank onto the chair behind his desk. The first name on the role call lit a fire in his gut and he regretted getting up that fucking morning.

"Elara Black."

He wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't seen her with his own eyes, hadn't heard the discreet whispers shared between the others in the staffroom. "His daughter," they said as if afraid to use the actual name. "And Marlene's. Poor dear." Severus always thought Black had a thing for the

werewolf—but there sat evidence to the contrary in the middle of his classroom, a mirror image to the malicious bastard who almost killed Severus in their youth. He met her eyes and heard Black's voice, "All right there, Snivellus?"

"Present, sir."

Of course she sat by Lily's daughter. Of course.

He dreaded the echoes he would hear when he looked at the girl. Severus had caught a glimpse of that atrocious Potter hair at the Sorting and had looked away—had looked anywhere but at the child he'd sworn on his life to protect. What he hadn't expected, however, was for there to be no echo; Severus glanced at Harriet Potter and realized she only vaguely resembled James or Lily, a palimpsest of two originals blurred to create something other.

She had none of Lily's softness, none of James' arrogance. The girl glanced about at the grim decor with the same tentative curiosity he'd seen Muggles use at crash sites, her expression openly fascinated, but her gaze dark, closed off. Even in the height of war, Lily's eyes had sparked bright as if the witch contained an endless vault of joy in her head she could delve into whenever she wanted—and the girl's eyes reflected none of that.

She was not James, and she was not Lily. She was a girl with hair like a Niffler, eyes like a jackal, and a tie of green and silver cinched about her throat. When the Hat had shouted Slytherin, parts of him rejoiced and parts of him despaired, because he wanted proof that even the good got sent to the snake pit sometimes, but he hadn't wanted that for her. Nothing good could last in Slytherin's hands.

They should check to see if Potter is still spinning in his grave, Severus thought with a snort. He returned his attention to the list before him, marginally relieved, marginally disappointed, and continued to call names.

"Ah, Neville Longbottom." He flicked the parchment, voice thick with sarcasm. "Of course. The Boy Who Lived. It appears, class, our savior has taken leave of his busy traveling schedule to bestow us with his presence. How remarkable."

Severus had a role to play. He knew this—and yet it came so easily, as if it wasn't a role at all, Slytherins chortling like their fatuous fucking parents used to do whenever the Dark Lord tortured the "unworthy," and Severus gloried in the vitriol bubbling in his veins like poison. The Boy Who Lived To Do Fuck All, his mind snarled, even as a very small voice murmured, It's not his fault. No, no it wasn't Longbottom's fault the world was filled with idiots, but that didn't make it simpler for Severus to swallow. The boy's ignorance chaffed.

Longbottom played poster boy for the Ministry, said, " The Dark Lord's dead,"and the public cheered, all while men like Severus and Dumbledore knew better. Oh, how they knew better. The Dark Lord was anything but dead.

"Tell me, Longbottom: what would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

An unfair question, but a plausible one for a brat like Longbottom, inundated with tutors since he'd first worn swaddling clothes. "I don't know, sir," the boy said with an unaffected shrug.

"No?" Severus replied in a voice barely above a whisper. He rose from his behind his desk, walking slowly between the tables, arms crossed. A deathly hush encumbered the dungeon. "Let's try again, shall we? Where, Mr Longbottom, would you find a bezoar?"

"I don't know."

From the corner of his eye, Severus saw one of the bushy-haired Slytherin girls raise her hand, the motion determined. Who was she? Not a Death Eater's kid, and there'd been only two names on the register that he didn't recognize. Either Davis or Granger, Lucius' ward. Severus tipped his dark gaze in her direction and gave his head a definite jerk to the side. Paling, she dropped her arm again.

"Do you even know what a bezoar is, Longbottom?"

"No." Longbottom gave him a peeved look and most of the Gryffindors fumed as Severus belittled their golden scion.

"What is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

The tension shifted in the boy's round face, his mouth quirking into a grin. "Nothing. They're both the same plant, called aconite."

"My, my," Severus sneered. "One in three. Please forgive if I don't hold my breath for those odds in your marks, Longbottom."

Malfoy laughed loudest. At her table near the front, Severus spotted the Potter girl discreetly flipping through the back of the textbook, terrified of being called on next. He ignored her and Black's spawn sitting at her side.

He didn't know which one the bushy-haired girl at the front table was, so he said, "Granger," aloud, and was rewarded for the lucky guess when she lifted her gaze from her notes. "What is the result of adding powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

"The Draught of Living Death, sir."

"Where is a bezoar found?"

"In the stomach of a goat, sir."

"What is it used for?"

"An antidote for most poisons, and several kinds of venom, including those man-made and those that occur naturally—."

Severus cut her off. "Name one potion that uses aconite."

Here she paused and gave his question thought, brow furrowed in concentration. "The—the Wideye Potion, sir?"

"Are you asking me, Miss Granger?"

"No, sir."

"Then you would be correct." He swept past the table toward his desk again. "That'll be ten points to Slytherin…and ten points from Gryffindor."

Minerva's little lions gasped, outraged. Longbottom scoffed and curled his lip. "That's hardly fair, sir."

Severus only smiled. "Let me be the first to inform you, Longbottom; life isn't fair."

His hand began to itch as he stood over Longbottom's cauldron and sneered at the contents.

Severus scratched at his palm without thought as he berated the boy and his partner, Weasley, for the globular mess they'd concocted—and for nearly exploding a perfectly simple Cure for Boils by not taking the cauldron from the flames before adding the porcupine quills. He'd caught them in time, if only just, smacking the quills from Weasley's fingers an instant before he'd dumped them into the stew.

Of course, not a moment later, acrid smoke billowed through the dungeon as a cauldron near the front of the room collapsed, and Severus almost swore aloud.

The Potter girl had quick reflexes, as she managed to shove herself and Black aside before the main deluge doused them, though part of her leg was already breaking out in furious boils. Black, wringing her hands, was apologizing profusely to Potter as Severus swept over them and Vanished the botched potion, his temper close to snapping.

"What are you idiots doing?" he hissed in an undertone. The Gryffindors were plainly enjoying their failure and Severus couldn't have that kind of dissension in his dungeon. Gryffindors couldn't leave his class looking pleased, for Merlin's sake. "Did you not just hear me tell off Longbottom and Weasley for almost doing the same exact thing?!"

"We took the cauldron off the heat," Black argued, her face red and flustered. Angry as he was, Severus did, in fact, see that the ruin of Potter's cauldron had been lifted from flame and set upon the proper cooling rack so it wouldn't scorch the tabletop. "I was—I was just stirring it, like the instruction said—sir." Her tone corrected itself when she remembered to whom she spoke.

Severus glared at the mess. "You must have not paid attention to the temperature then. Idiots." He wasn't sure what'd gone wrong, but in a decade of teaching Potions, Severus had never seen a Cure for Boils combust when someone was "just stirring it." They did something to it, foolish brats.

"Sir?" Potter asked, and Severus forced himself to look down—down all the way at girl he loomed above. Potter was thin; short and thin and fine-boned like a mottled fledgling, not at all like her tall, winsome mother, or James Potter, who had been athletic and statuesque—for all that he was a great ruddy fathead. "Can I go to the infirmary?"

"No," Severus snapped. Ignoring her flabbergasted expression, he pointed his wand toward the storage cupboard and waited, hand extended, until the door banged open and jar of ointment smacked into his palm. "There's no need to bother Madam Pomfrey with something so imbecilic." Severus had no wish for details of this incident to find a home in the wrong ears.

He shoved the medicine at her, then glowered at Black. The contrite expression the girl wore when glancing toward Potter worried him more than any arrogance or malice he might have seen written in her face. With his luck, it would figure the bloody traitor's heir would befriend Lily's daughter. As if Black Senior hadn't done enough to the Potters.

Another problem for another day.

Severus turned then and found every eye in the dungeon upon him. He bore his teeth. "Get back to work."

The lesson ended soon afterward, potions divided into slender vials and neatly sorted into the rack waiting on his desk. Severus ordered them to clean their stations but inevitably found himself lingering after the students ran from the dungeon, using his wand to Scourgify the tables, chairs, and floor, repairing knife marks gouged into the wood, muttering darkly over the residual damage wrought by inconsiderate children wielding scalpels and fire and acidic concoctions. Lunch had started by the time he could finally leave.

Which was why Severus wasn't prepared for the voice that came slithering out from the shadows when he opened the classroom door.

"Find any potential among the dregs, Severus?"

Tom Slytherin, he knew, was not actually a Slytherin—no more than Severus was a Prince, or their bigoted Minister a Gaunt, or the Dark Lord named Voldemort. He also knew that Slytherin was and was not Tom Riddle, not exactly, and the only person who fully understood how that phenomenon came to pass was Dumbledore himself. Severus had given up questioning the Headmaster on the matter years ago. All that mattered was that no Ministry law in existence, be it old or new, could draw a connection between the seemingly youthful wizard before him and the twisted wretch Severus had served in his youth.

All attempts to oust Slytherin from the school—both bodily and judicially—had been met with the kind of legal fluidity that came from years and years of blackmailing school governors and Ministry officials, whispering the right words into the ears of bylaw creators, watching and waiting with the kind of uncanny patience Severus had never thought possible for the Dark Lord. Albus had tried to duel him and lost his arm. Severus had tried to poison him and lost his eye.

"No," he replied to the shorter wizard stepping into the wavering torchlight. Tom had a sense of melodrama just like the Dark Lord; he always dressed in robes tooled with his House colors, snakes on the hem and silver buttons on the waistcoat. His appearance gave him effortless charm, sharp cheekbones and symmetrical features, tidy hair and a guileless smile. Severus often pondered the number of witches—and wizards—who had been lured to their doom by that young face. "They are as insipid as ever and singularly dull. Though, Nott showed some instinct with the skill."

Had he been speaking to the Minister, he would have put on airs about Lucius' son or the Runcorn girl or Parkinson, but the running tally of which master the Death Eaters served was always shifting, and so he praised Nott Junior—well, as much as Severus ever praised anyone. There was a kind of sick irony in the illusions cast by these men who were and were not Voldemort; in the open, they presented themselves as pure-blood lords of particular talents, and behind closed doors they one and all claimed to be the Dark Lord and demanded submission, leaving the Death Eaters to play a game of confused musical chairs with their loyalty.

"Oh?" Slytherin said, head tipping. "A pity—though you are ruthless in your artistry, aren't you? A few showed promise in Darks Arts." When speaking to Severus or to that churlish bastard Selwyn he referred to the Defense class solely as "Dark Arts." Tom'd been doing so for years, and if that wasn't sign of ominous portents, Severus didn't know what was. "The Potter girl, for instance."

The sudden urge to ram Slytherin's sodding head into the stones scoured through Severus and he would have done so, had he thought it'd do anything. He'd watched the wizard drink a glass of pumpkin juice laced with enough nightshade and aconite to take down an Erumpent without flinching. Slytherin would undoubtedly survive a good head bashing.

"Miss Potter," he said with uncaring ice in his voice. "Is as perfectly average as the rest."

Slytherin just smiled.

what awaits the sin of greed

xvii. what awaits the sin of greed

Before the students knew what was happening, their first week at Hogwarts had come to an end.

The walls of Number Four, Privet Drive, were once the whole of Harriet's world; the horizon stopped where the drive met the street, the trimmed hedges were her jungle, the cupboard her prison and sanctuary, the kitchen a pseudo-minefield she navigated every single day. With the Dursleys, Harriet didn't dream about a different life, as it was quite difficult to imagine that which you knew nothing about—but she would spend long hours trapped in the cupboard's belly thinking about impossible things; about elves like the ones in her story books, about trees that craved conversation, about motorcycles that roared across the stars.

But, even in her most outlandish thinking, Harriet could have never created something as magical, ridiculous, and wonderful as Hogwarts. The stairs moved and the portraits snoozed, the ghosts seemed to flee Harriet's presence, throwing themselves right through the walls whenever she entered a corridor, and the horizon stretched far, far away, far past the mountains and the lake and the forest filled with terrifying creatures of legend.

She loved her classes, some more than others. Astronomy happened on Wednesday nights, and though seeing all the constellations shine in a sky untouched by electric lights was breathtaking, there was a lot more maths involved than Harriet had been expecting. Transfiguration, too, proved difficult for her, with all its theoretical topics and abstract thinking. The Dursleys had raised Harriet with a rigid way of thinking, and while she liked to believe she'd bucked their influence, that wasn't wholly true. Professor McGonagall would say "Imagine the beetle becoming a button," and a hateful voice in the back of Harriet's head would sneer "Beetles don't become buttons."

Harriet had far more fun in Herbology and Professor Sprout was amused by her willingness to tackle the tasks set out for the day, but her best class was—somehow—Defense Against the Dark Arts. Harriet couldn't explain why, no matter how Hermione badgered her about it. She could only guess that, at their heart, defense spells responded to intuition, instinct—and despite the weight of the Dursleys' grounding heel, Harriet had always been a wild thing who thrived on instinct.

It helped that whenever Professor Slytherin turned his wand on her, Harriet's heart would lurch and she'd suddenly find her own in her hand. Sometimes she swore she spotted Set out of the corner of her eye stretching for the professor, but never quite reaching.

Professor Slytherin was scary—yet not as terrifying as the Potions Master. Professor Snape had the same look as those blokes Harriet sometimes saw heading toward Knockturn Alley; like he was capable of stealing your organs and preserving them in his jars if you weren't paying attention. He towered over them, a black pillar of barely restrained fury, soft voice scantly audible over their bubbling potions. He mostly ignored Harriet—a relief, really—but he seemed to hate Elara and Neville Longbottom. The former he approached with subtle disdain, often snapping at her to leave Harriet's table and sit by herself in the back so she'd stop dousing her fellows in fouled potions. To be fair, Elara did melt an awful lot of cauldrons.

Neville, on the other hand, bore the brunt of the professor's scorn and melted almost as many cauldrons as Elara. Harriet found it hard to sympathize, especially when she'd hear Longbottom whisper how Snape was just a greasy Slytherin no one had or would ever love.

No one ever loved Harriet either, and some days she still blamed the Boy Who Lived for that.

"Harriet!"

She was jerked out of her maudlin thoughts by Hermione's voice and the flat rock in her hand hit the water with a dissatisfying 'plunk!' "Err—what was that?"

"The First Principle, Harriet," said her friend from her perch on the dry boulder at the shoreline. "What is the First Principle of Gamp's Law?"

"Err," Harriet said again as she nudged the stones underfoot, looking for another worth skipping. She stood ankle deep in the cool water of the lake, as did several other students dotted about the shore, all happy to have a short reprieve from classes. Had Harriet less studious friends, they might have joined her in skipping rocks instead of insisting on quizzing, but Harriet didn't mind. She thought this must be the best way to study and was just glad Hermione wanted to be around her. Elara proved more complicated in comprehending, Harriet torn between calling her a friend or not because sometimes Elara was perfectly friendly and other days she said almost nothing to her. Harriet didn't understand but, really, Harriet understood very little about people.

"It's about food," Hermione hinted, tapping the open text spread on her lap.

"Oh. Um, it says that…you can't conjure food out of nothing, right?" Harriet pushed her glasses up her nose again and frowned. "But where does the food in the Great Hall come from then?"

"It must be transposed from the kitchens."

"'Transposed'?"

"Swapped, basically. Transfered."

"Wicked," Harriet said with heart. She loved magic—though she questioned who made the food if it wasn't magic. The professors? A sudden image of Professor Snape in Aunt Petunia's pink apron flashed into her mind and Harriet choked.

"Are you alright?"

"I-I'm fine."

Hermione sighed as she let her book close with a soft thump. "You could always tutor me in Defense if you don't want to do Transfiguration."

"I'm a wretched tutor, Hermione."

"You're the best in our class!"

"Yeah, but I don't know how," Harriet insisted as she returned to the shore. "It's not like I have some fancy technique or something. I just…do it, y'know?"

Hermione looked more dejected than ever. "It would figure you're a Defense prodigy."

Harriet started to laugh.

"You are!"

She laughed harder.

After Harriet's giggles subsided, she tugged on her socks and shoes again and they started along the path back toward the school, skirting the edge of the Forbidden Forest's shadow. They strolled on—until Harriet paused, watching a pair of horses graze near the grassy boundary. She had seen them before, from a distance, pulling the carriages that the older students had taken from Hogsmeade's station.

"What are you looking at?" Hermione asked.

"Those horses," Harriet said. "They're awful spooky, aren't they?" With great black wings and skeletal bodies, Harriet couldn't imagine an eerier creature—especially when she realized they weren't grazing, but instead picking over a dead rabbit.

Hermione wore an odd expression as she studied Harriet. "What horses?"

"Those, right there." she pointed.

"I…I don't see any horses, Harriet."

Was Hermione having a laugh? Harriet didn't think so, not because Hermione had no sense of humor, but because Hermione was more inclined to laugh than to make others laugh. Why lie about this? Harriet rubbed at her eyes and hoped, not for the first time, that she wasn't going barmy.

"Alright, you two?"

The girls turned, then lifted their eyes to the familiar face of the giant who had helped them on their boat ride to Hogwarts with Professor Selwyn. The groundskeeper, Harriet had heard one of the older Slytherin's call him. He wore a friendly smile beneath the tangle of his black beard, a drooling boarhound standing by his knee. Harriet barely rose to his thigh in height—which was understandable, considering she was only a half a foot taller than Professor Flitwick, who was part- goblin, for goodness' sake. Harriet hated being short.

The man peered down at her—then blinked. "Say, you wouldn't be James and Lily's girl, would ya?"

"Yes—?"

Harriet squeaked at his sudden movement, and then she was being smothered in a tight embrace, getting a face full of bristly beard and furry overcoat. Then she was on her feet again, staggering and more than a bit embarrassed. Had she ever been hugged before? Harriet couldn't remember.

"Shoulda known! Of course, I took you off Professor Snape myself, right after he got you from the ruins. Didn't mean him no harm, read the situation wrong, my mistake—."

"P-Professor Snape?" Harriet stuttered, befuddled by this latest turn of events. What was all this about ruins and the Potions Master?

The giant stopped rambling and his cheeks reddened. "Shouldn'ta mentioned that. Sorry—but you're Harriet! Got Lily's eyes exactly, and James' hair! Haven't introduced myself though, have I? Name's Rubeus Hagrid, and I'm the Keeper of Keys here at Hogwarts. Just callin' me Hagrid's fine, though, none of that 'sir' business."

"It's nice to meet you," Harriet responded in earnest. "You knew my parents?"

"'Course I did! Great people, Lily and James. Such a terrible thing to happen to them." Hagrid

turned his glittering eyes toward Hermione and Harriet jumped to introduce her.

"This is my friend Hermione Granger." Friend. How odd it felt to say that.

"Pleasure to meet you, Mr Hagrid."

"Just Hagrid, that's fine. Great to meet you." Hagrid and Hermione shook hands, though the giant was very careful in doing so. "Would you two care for a spot a' tea? My hut's just there…."

He pointed out the cottage near the forest's edge with a patch of immature pumpkin vines by the door and a smudge of smoke trickling from the crooked chimney. Harriet and Hermione agreed, if only because Harriet really wanted to hear more about her parents and Hagrid seemed a decent sort. They sat at his homemade, over-sized table, and Hagrid served them great mugs of a tasty tea and rock cakes—which, they discovered, we far more like rocks and much less like cakes.

Hermione asked what duties as a groundskeeper entailed and Hagrid chattered on about the interesting creatures he tended to in the forest and his efforts to grow giant pumpkins for the feast in October. At one point he mentioned, "Quite a shock it was, you being Sorted into Slytherin, Harriet. Probably woulda upset James, but Lily woulda been fine with it."

"My parents wouldn't have liked me being in Slytherin?" Harriet asked, heart sinking.

"Both of them were Gryffindors, weren't they?" It wasn't a question. "And James was a Chaser for the Quidditch team on top of that. Terrific flyer, your dad. Had a lot of rivals in Slytherin—jealous, the lot of them. But Lily was different, didn't mind Slytherins after all, being friend with—." Hagrid cleared his throat. "They'd be awful proud of you. Houses don't matter, after all. Not really."

"That's right," Hermione said, sensing Harriet's distress. "All that matters is learning magic and doing your best, Harriet."

"Yeah," Harriet responded, though she wasn't so sure. Would her mum and dad be disappointed in her? She couldn't live by the expectations of dead people, of course, but she wanted to be the kind of witch they could've taken pride in, had they been there with her. Hermione's right, she decided. Houses are just Houses. I'll just do my best for them—and for me .

Conversation continued and Harriet wanted to ask more about James and Lily, but she was nervous the conversation would turn to why she didn't know more about them and who she was living with —or, supposed to be living with. Harriet had learned a bit more about the MPA and Ministry laws from Hermione and knew she'd most likely be removed from the Dursleys because they were Muggles and she was a witch—but the possibility of being sent back remained, or relocated to a family like the Malfoys. Draco was a prat and Harriet didn't want to think what his parents were like. Hermione never talked about them.

What if she got sent to a family even worse than the Dursleys?

Lost in thought, Harriet scratched the boarhound's—introduced as Fang—head, and he drooled on her lap. There was a copy of the Prophet laid on the table, and she glanced it over. An article near the back caught her attention.

"Someone broke into Gringotts," she mentioned. Hagrid dropped a rock cake.

"Really?" Hermione asked. "The Malfoys told me the bank was impregnable, and I couldn't imagine them putting their gold anywhere unsafe."

"The person didn't steal anything, apparently," Harriet continued, reading more of the article. "Err —the goblins said the vault was emptied earlier that day. Hey, it happened on my birthday! That's seren—seren—?"

"Serendipitous," Hermione supplied as she sipped her tea.

Harriet returned the paper to its proper place on the table and changed the topic—much to Hagrid's apparent relief. Certainly Harriet wondered what was so precious someone would risk breaking into Gringotts and aggravating the goblins for it, but a bank break-in was hardly the strangest thing she'd seen in the Wizarding world. She mostly thought about her parents, and about Hagrid telling her she had Lily's eyes and James' hair. What else did she have?

Harriet and Hermione drank their tea, hid rock cakes in their pockets, and headed back to school after a very pleasant afternoon.

gryffindor

xviii. gryffindor

"Who, on earth, thought flying broomsticks were a good idea?"

Harriet asked herself the same thing when she saw the notice of their upcoming lessons posted on the common room board, though not with the same ire Elara injected into the words. The sentiment wasn't one reflected in the other Slytherins; the older students regaled the first years with tales of Quidditch and their own adventures while the first years themselves boasted about their brooms left at family estates or sneaking off to fly in the summertime when their parents weren't paying attention. Malfoy swore he almost collided with a helicopter.

"Like he even knows what a helicopter is," Harriet muttered under breath. Hermione coughed.

Harriet, Elara, and Hermione seemed to be the only ones who had never been flying, and the others made sure they felt every bit as inferior as the pure-blood Slytherins from proper pure-blood homes deigned them to be. Pansy had taken to stating "She can't really be a Black," while in Elara's hearing and Hermione snuck a copy of Quidditch Through the Age from the library when she thought Harriet wasn't looking. Draco liked to lean over his desk in class and tell Harriet she was evidence of how far "blood-traitor" families fall.

All in all, Harriet's second week at Hogwarts was not nearly as great as the first.

The Slytherins departed History of Magic on Thursday and, instead of enjoying a free period as they had the week prior, made their way to the main courtyard and the grassy quad beyond. Harriet, Elara, and Hermione hung behind the rest of their classmates—who all but raced forward in anticipation, the boys leading the way with the girls feigning indifference as they followed.

"I wandered through Quality Quidditch Supplies in Diagon Alley," Harriet commented, uneasy. "And saw some pictures of people flying at Quidditch games and stuff. It looks like it could be fun."

Hermione sniffed. Elara had been looking a bit green since lunch and only paled further once they saw the line of brooms waiting for them. "It seems an utterly illogical mode of transportation," Hermione said. "When they have the Floo Network, and Apparition, the Knight Bus, and Portkeys available—."

"I don't have any idea what those are," Harriet interrupted, bemused.

"Honestly, Harriet, how did you even get to Diagon Alley?"

"Walked." She quickly backtracked when Hermione gave her a startled look. "Muggle bus. Took the Muggle bus."

Elara said nothing, even when Hermione's gaze rose to hers with an expectant brow quirked. Harriet didn't like that her two friends—or her one friend and almost-friend—didn't seem to like one another very much. They never argued or fought; in fact, Hermione and Elara barely ever exchanged a word. Elara was difficult to talk to, Harriet knew, and she thought this might be why Hermione—who appreciated forthrightness in all its forms—often got frustrated with her. Indeed, even now, Hermione huffed a breath and turned away when Elara didn't answer her.

"Find yourself a broom. Stand next to it—no touching yet!" called Madam Hooch, their flying instructor. Harriet and the two with her meandered over to pick their own spots, and a minute later the Gryffindors ambled up, their approach heard long before they appeared by the raucous echo emanating from the courtyard.

"Great," Malfoy sneered. "Longbottom and his leeches have arrived."

Harriet and the rest of the class soon learned Madam Hooch had attended Hogwarts with Neville's grandmother, and the other woman apparently enjoyed writing to all her old schoolmates to boast about her "talented grandson," about how he excelled, how he'd had the very best tutors in everything—even flying. Neville chatted loudly with the instructor about being taught to fly by the Arnold Vogler of the Heidelberg Harriers and the Gryffindors were suitably impressed while the boys of Slytherin rolled their eyes. Harriet, not knowing what a Heidelberg Harrier or an Arnold Vogler was, just toyed the grass and waited for instructions.

"To your place now, Mr Longbottom, thank you. Hold your dominant arm out over your broom, and in a firm voice say, 'up!' Are we clear? Go ahead!"

Feeling silly, Harriet did as Madam Hooch instructed—and her rather raggedy broom leapt right off the ground and into her hand. She gave it a surprised glance, then looked about at the others, who had mixed levels of success. Malfoy and Longbottom, of course, had their brooms in hands and smug grins on their faces. Ron managed it after repeating himself. Some brooms rose about halfway off the grass before faltering, falling with dull thumps. Elara's almost made it, and she swooped forward to snatch it before Madam Hooch could see. Hermione's rolled on the ground as her face became increasingly red and Daphne Greengrass snickered.

Harriet scrutinized her broom. With twigs sticking out every which way, it didn't look anything like those sleek products she'd seen in Diagon.

"Now," Madam Hooch called once everyone had their brooms. Hermione, like several others, had finally given up and grabbed it off the ground. "Straddle your broom and take the handle in a firm grip—like so." She displayed the proper technique for them on a broom of her own and Harriet mimicked her. It felt ridiculous to hold that position for so long while Hooch walked along the line, correcting as she went, but Harriet's patience was rewarded when the instructor paused by Malfoy to fix his hands.

"I've been flying for years!" he argued.

"Well, you've been flying wrong for years," she rebuffed. If the Gryffindors hadn't laughed, Harriet was sure she would have.

At last, Madam Hooch reached the end of the arrangement and told them they could kick off. "No more than ten feet!" she ordered above the excited whispers. "Anyone who goes higher without my say so will be grounded! On my mark. One, two, three…."

She blew her whistle. Harriet pushed herself upward—and her apprehension faded to white noise in the back of her mind as the weightless sensation of flight seeped into her very bones. Her hands stopped strangling the broom's handle and her posture loosened, relaxed, and though the urge to keep rising up and up an up roared in her ears, Harriet stopped just shy of ten feet, kicking her legs.

Elara, who had become greener and greener as the lesson progressed, only made it two feet before she pitched herself off her broom and vomited on the lawn.

"Ew!" Pansy shrieked, chorused by several of the girls in Gryffindor.

"Elara!" Harriet pointed her broom toward the ground and landed as swiftly as she could, going to the other girl's side. Hermione and Tracey Davis did the same, along with Theodore Nott, though the others looked a bit more unsure about what they were doing. Elara retched again.

"Oh dear," Madam Hooch said with a tired sigh, feet thumping on the dirt. "There's always one." She shooed Harriet back as she approached, took a firm grip on Elara's elbow, and hefted the ill girl to her feet. "Motion sickness among the old families always seems more common than not. You there—Granger was it?"

"Yes, ma'am?" Hermione responded.

"Take Miss Black on to see Madam Pomfrey."

Harriet wanted to protest, wanted to take her herself, but there was no reason to be fussy so long as Elara was all right in the end. She watched Hermione lead an unsteady Elara away and Harriet didn't think she imagined the grateful look on Hermione's face as they hurried from the quad and the collection of waiting brooms. Madam Hooch ushered Harriet farther down the line, away from the sick splattered in the grass, and she somehow managed to be slotted between Ronald Weasley and Draco Malfoy.

Great.

Malfoy didn't hesitate to lampoon Elara. He was in rare form today, his jaw locked in that practiced grin just shy of a sneer, pale hair windblown like the fluff off a dandelion. "What kind of witch can't fly?" he asked aloud, earning a snort from Goyle. One didn't have to be clever to earn a laugh from Goyle or Crabbe; one simply had to look in their direction after speaking and wait. "It all comes down to blood, my father says, and her branch of the Black family has gone rotten. Did you know that, Potter? Whole lot of them went spare. Black's father is a madman, after all."

"Stop being a tit, Malfoy," Harriet hissed through her teeth as she kept her eyes on Madam Hooch.

"He was a blood-traitor, too. But you would know all about that, wouldn't you?"

No, Harriet wouldn't. She couldn't fathom why everything always came down to blood with Malfoy and people like him. To use Hermione's word, it seemed quite inane. Magic was magic to Harriet. She'd rather be a Muggle-born than a plain Muggle—and if being a pure-blood meant having a bunch of blokes in her family like Draco, then maybe she was better off being just a half- blood. She'd put enough pieces together between her Aunt Petunia and Hagrid to realize her mum must have been a Muggle-born just like Hermione, and that was just fine with her.

"Weasley would know all about blood-traitors, too," Malfoy said, speaking to the quiet red-head on Harriet's other side. "He comes from a whole wretched brood of them."

Ron's ears almost disappeared against his hair as blood rushed into them.

"How do your parents manage to feed you lot, Weasel? Does your mum just sell your filthy blood in vials as fertilizer?"

"You shut up about my mum, Malfoy," Ron spat as he trembled with rage.

"Does your family just share the one bed in that shack you call a house?"

"Stop it," Harriet said to Draco—and suddenly Ron rounded on her.

"I don't need your help, stupid Slytherin," he snarled, eyes glassy, blotchy patches of purple color

blooming in his scrunched face. "I know all about your family, Potter. All the Potters have been Gryffindors since anyone can remember, and your mum and dad were both Gryffindors—so what's wrong with you? Why are you a slimy Slytherin? Bet your folks would be ashamed."

All week Harriet had been annoyed by the Slytherins' jeering her about flying; she was worried about Elara and mad Malfoy kept belittling Hermione, who was bloody brilliant and didn't deserve the rubbish that came spilling out of him like his head was a bin with a crack in the bottom. Defense Against the Dark Arts made her terribly nervous, and somewhere very distant from herself she kept remembering she lacked a home, and terror seized her when Harriet imagined what would happen when Christmas came rolling in, or the summer hols. Ron's words hit her anxieties like a stick whacking a beehive. Suddenly her arm jerked itself up, and her hand collided with Ron's mouth.

Honestly, the punch surprised the boy more than anything, and it hurt Harriet's hand rather than his face. Stunned, Ron took a step back, the class gasped, and Harriet had her fist still raised when Professor McGonagall shouted, "Harriet Potter!"

Harriet blinked, then stared at her own hand in baffled horror as the Transfiguration professor swept across the quad from her position near the courtyard's entrance and towered over the scattered students. "Twenty points from Slytherin, Miss Potter! We do not strike others here at Hogwarts! You'll have a detention—and your Head of House will be hearing about this!"

The horror thickened in her middle, folding tighter and tighter until it sat like one of those bezoars in a goat's stomach. Detention. Barely two weeks had passed, and Harriet already had a detention! What if she got suspended? Where would she go? What would she do? Could Hogwarts write to the Dursleys? What would the Dursleys say?

Class commenced, but Harriet wasn't allowed to fly again. Professor McGonagall dragged her to the shadow thrown by one of the school's spires and, in a quieter tone, demanded to know what had gotten into her, why she felt the need to hit somebody else.

"It was an accident, Professor," she said, and Harriet didn't think that a lie. She hadn't meant to punch Weasley, and certainly if a modicum of thought had passed through her brain, she would have restrained herself. Professor McGonagall didn't believe her and spent the remainder of the class scolding Harriet. She felt small, wilted like one of Aunt Petunia's violets on an extraordinarily hot summer day, and though she considered telling McGonagall one of her Gryffindors had been running his mouth—she refrained.

Harriet didn't know why. Tattling didn't seem like the right thing to do at the time.

High above their heads, Neville Longbottom took a spherical glass ball from his robe pocket—a Remembrall, she would later learn—and passed it back and forth between himself and his friends. They laughed and McGonagall watched, lips pursed and her eyes bright with a curious, expectant glint.

Harriet followed the flying students with her eyes as they swooped through the air, and just for a moment, she really did hate the Gryffindors.

snake tongue

xix. snake tongue

Harriet stabbed one of her eggs and yellow goo spread across her otherwise empty plate.

"You should really eat more," Hermione chided as her friend spread the yolk about with the tines of her fork. Harriet scrunched her face and didn't reply, intent on being glum. Every so often she would glance toward the High Table, where the professors sat enjoying their breakfasts and each other's company. Professor Slytherin chattered quietly with Professor Selwyn, Professor Snape scowled at his porridge, and Professor McGonagall leaned closer to the Headmaster so she could mutter near his ear. Professor Dumbledore glanced toward the Slytherin table, and Harriet looked down so fast she almost planted her face in her eggs.

It was a miserable way to start a Friday.

Professor McGonagall hadn't mentioned anything about her detention yet, but Harriet wasn't optimistic. If she got sent to Professor Slytherin, what would he do? Was caning still a thing at Hogwarts? State Muggle schools in the UK didn't allow that kind of treatment, but Hogwarts was an old-fashioned kind of place and Harriet plainly remembered that Smeltings had handed out those bloody sticks to their own students. She hadn't hurt Weasley. Her punishment shouldn't be so severe…right?

Livi moved his head where it lay upon her chest and Harriet hunched her shoulders so the shift wouldn't be noticed by others. "There are many riversss," he hissed. "And many bridgesss to crosss them."

Horned Serpents could occasionally say rather insightful things—though Harriet had discovered Livi was young enough yet to be confused by his own insights, and sometimes he said things that made no sense at all.

This was one of those times.

Harriet sighed and discreetly rubbed at his snout. The post arrived with its usual dusting of feathers and shrill hoots, and one owl swung away from the main group to hover before Harriet. It extended his leg for her to take the missive attached there, and she did so with trepidation.

Miss Potter—

I have decided to forego notifying your Head of House about your behavior during Thursday's flying lesson. Instead, Professor Snape has volunteered to oversee your detention himself. Please report to his classroom this evening after dinner.

I do hope you will reflect upon your actions and make better choices in the future.

Prof. M. McGonagall.

"Oh, this is worse!" Harriet said aloud, garnering several curious glances.

"Who's it from?" Hermione asked as she smeared marmalade on a piece of toast and laid it on Harriet's plate.

"Professor McGonagall," Harriet replied, hoping her voice held steady despite her misery. "She's set my detention for tonight with Professor Snape."

"So?" Malfoy snorted. Harriet hadn't realized he'd been listening in. "What's wrong with Professor Snape?"

"…nothing, I guess." Harriet glanced at the wizard in question. He'd finished glaring at his porridge and now glared at Slytherin, then at Dumbledore. "He's just…." Terrifying. Just looks like he might stuff me into a cauldron and boil me alive.

"Snape's great. He looks out for Slytherins," Malfoy said as he stuck his nose in the air. "Mind, I think it's ridiculous you got detention in the first place. The Weasel deserved a good punch in the mouth for talking back to his betters."

Harriet snorted. "I'm a 'better' now? Weren't you banging on about me being a blood-traitor just like Ron?"

"It doesn't matter; you're still in Slytherin, and that makes you better than any of the Weasleys."

Pansy sniffed and flipped a coiffed ringlet of hair out of her face. "A real witch would have used magic and cursed him."

"A real witch would have been expelled," Hermione sniped. She shoved her plate away and stood. "I'm going to the library before class."

"Nobody cares, Granger."

Harriet cared, so she stuffed the toast into her mouth—getting marmalade on her face—and departed from the Great Hall with her friend.

With every step that drew her nearer the Potions Master's lair, Harriet wished she had taken the detention with Professor Slytherin instead.

He's wicked scary, too, Harriet thought as she stopped before the door to the Potions classroom and took a breath. But at least his class isn't literally in the dungeons. I wonder if they actually held people here in the old days….

Harriet knocked and a cool voice responded. "Enter."

She did so, pushing on the door so it inched inward on thick iron hinges. The boards of the door were battered, dented and scratched and a bit twisted from Professor Snape entering his classroom in a snit, kicking it open and letting it slam against the inner wall with its rusted rivets bolted to the stones. Pickled things floated in the jars on the walls and Harriet always stared at them whenever

she had Potions, both fascinated and repulsed by the strange things the wizard had preserved in innocuous glass containers.

The professor himself sat at his desk in the permanent semi-darkness of the castle's sub-levels with a quill in hand and a scowl on his face. His black eyes rose from the parchment before him when Harriet slipped inside. The scowl deepened. "Miss Potter."

"H-hello, Professor Snape. I'm here for my detention."

His eyes dropped to the parchment again in dismissal. "So you are." His arm lifted and he pointed one pale hand toward the far wall, where a line of cauldrons waited on the counter near the stone sink and the faucet shaped like a gargoyle's mouth. "Clean the cauldrons, Miss Potter. No magic."

That's it? Harriet thought as she scuttled across the room to the waiting mess. Harriet had plenty of practice in non-magical scrubbing, so this task hardly seemed a punishment at all. Well, what did you expect? she asked herself, peeved. You're such an idiot. You didn't actually think he was going to poison you or beat you or something, right?

Harriet didn't answer that, not even in the privacy of her own brain. Instead, she fished out the soap and cleaning implements from the proper cabinet and turned the water on. Professor Snape gave no further instructions. He went back to work, quill scratching away at the parchments Harriet suspected were student essays, and the water gushed from the gargoyle in a frigid, gurgling stream.

She removed her hampering outer robes, folding them carefully before setting them on the nearest dry table. Livi stirred beneath her uniform and Harriet paused to make certain his outline wasn't visible through her clothes. "Sss…cold," the serpent complained as he placed his head in the crook of her shoulder and left it there. One of his nubby horns jabbed Harriet in the neck and she poked him over, wincing.

"It'll only get colder ," Harriet responded, her voice covered by the sound of the water. The dungeons would be frozen in the harshness of the highland winters and she didn't look forward to that. How did the older Slytherins manage? "Will you be okay? You don't—you don't hibernate or something, do you?"

"No," Livi said. "I am not like thossse othersss." He referred to snakes who weren't himself as "other," as if they didn't deserve to be in the same species as him. "I do not endure the ssslow ssseasson."

"The slow season?"

"Misstresss keepsss me warm. My blood doesss not cool."

Harriet snorted. Harriet Potter qualities: nice place for snakes to cuddle. Wonderful .

"Something amusing, Miss Potter?"

"No, Professor Snape."

He went back to writing again and Harriet concentrated on her task, ignoring her professor and Livi's complaining. The cauldrons proved harder to clean than expected, difficult to maneuver and coarse in texture, so the gunk and stains settled deep in the pitted metal and Harriet had to exert considerable effort to scrub the rubbish away. She didn't like to think about what she was getting stuck under the nails of her frozen fingers. Brains? Eyes? Dung? A mix of all three?

An hour passed before Professor Snape set aside his markings and came to loom behind Harriet,

inspecting the cauldrons she had already finished. "Professor McGonagall tells me you struck Weasley. Why?"

Unlike the Transfiguration professor, Snape didn't sound accusatory; rather, he had a sharp, inquisitive air about him, reserving judgment until he better understood the situation. Harriet hesitated—but then decided Professor Snape probably didn't care enough about stupid childish spats to get Ron in trouble. "I didn't mean to," she grumbled. "He said some…some stuff and—I don't know. I got upset. I didn't know I'd hit him until it had already happened."

"What stuff did Weasley say, Potter?"

Harriet frowned at the brush in her hand, at the grimy bristles and raw spots on her knuckles. "He said my mum and dad would have been ashamed of me being in Slytherin because they were Gryffindors, but I don't think that's true." At least I hope not.

She didn't notice Snape stiffen. She didn't notice the way his hand curled into a fist behind his back, or the dangerous flick of light touch his eyes, because in an instant the emotion was gone.

"You shouldn't pay attention to the foolish prattling of Gryffindors," he sneered. "They are arrogant and foolhardy to the last. Your year will be especially insufferable because of Longbottom; the boy king of ignorance and unquestioning virtue."

Harriet didn't agree with that—or, well, she didn't think she did. A few Gryffindors were friendly enough, in that they didn't scowl or mutter or walk away when a Slytherin passed them by, though she rarely witnessed Slytherins themselves behaving friendly in turn. Malfoy excelled at antagonizing the House of Lions, berating Neville because he was famous or Ron because he was poor or Dean because he was a Muggle-born. Pansy made fun of Lavender's hair or Fay Dunbar's freckled complexion.

She paused in her work to rub at her sore skin. The dynamic in Slytherin baffled Harriet; on one hand, the House was filled with people like Draco: sharp-tongued, affluent, hateful. On the other, students like herself dotted the population: indifferent, patient, empathetic. Harriet wouldn't say she was kind, not when life with the Dursleys had honed her too much, like a knife sharpened until the metal became brittle, and her suspicions ran deep. She still didn't feel the need to be cruel like Malfoy, though.

Then again, Harriet reminded herself. I did punch Ron in the mouth.

Snape criticized one of the cauldrons she'd already cleaned and Harriet hurried it back into the water. He retrieved his wand—black like Elara's, the design simple, obscured by his hand—and muttered a spell that lifted the finished cauldrons from their places on the wet counter so he could march them into the storage cupboard. His voice rose from inside when he spoke again.

"That being said, you cannot go about striking cretins, no matter what nonsense comes dribbling out of their mouths. It is unbecoming, especially from a Slytherin. Our House is held to a higher standard, Miss Potter, and your behavior must conform to that standard or you will be having more detentions. Let me assure you, I have far less pleasant tasks I could assign."

Shivering at the thought, Harriet raised her voice when she answered. "Yes, sir." Livi poked his invisible head out of her collar and flicked a curious tongue against her earlobe. "Ew, gross."

"What was that?" Snape returned to the doorway.

"Nothing, Professor."

Pausing, he folded his arms against his chest, looking more sinister than ever with only his pale face visible in the gloom, his eyes narrowed. "I don't appreciate backchat, Pot—." Snape's voice ended with a sudden breath when Harriet turned her head, reaching for a dirty ladle. "Miss Potter!"

Harriet jumped as he shouted and the ladle slipped through her fingers to clatter upon the stone floor. "P-Professor Snape?"

He had his wand out, pointed at her, and Harriet's heart raced. "Miss Potter, are you aware there is a highly venomous snake tucked into your bloody shirt?!"

"Sn—?" Harriet froze, because while she of course knew Livi was there, she couldn't fathom how Snape knew when the serpent in question was mostly out of sight and invisible to boot.

Professor Snape took a step forward, wand raised, and Harriet's hand flew to Livi's head. "Don't!" she cried, unsure what the wizard's intentions were. "H-he's my familiar, Professor."

His advanced stopped, as did the sharp movement of his black wand. "Familiar?"

"Yes. I know snakes weren't on the letter about pets, but he wouldn't hurt anyone, I swear! And I keep him out of sight—."

"You cannot keep a large, deadly snake, Miss Potter! Remove it!"

"Well, I tried to tell him that before and he said—."

If Harriet thought Professor Snape was pale before, she was abruptly treated to another level of sallowness when the professor sat down—hard—on the edge of the nearest table, as if his knees had given out on him. "He said?"

"Yeah," Harriet replied as she maneuvered Livi's head back under her collar and into perceived safety. "I mean—yes, sir."

Snape seemed to struggle with words for a minute, mouth opening twice without sound coming out before he ground his teeth. "You can…speak with snakes, Miss Potter?"

"Yes, sir. Most of them are real nutters. Mad about bugs." Harriet shifted under the uncomfortable scrutiny of Professor Snape's expressionless stare. "That's not…not normal, is it? Not even for witches?"

"No," he responded slowly. "It is not a common trait."

Aunt Petunia's voice rattled in Harriet's head like the last mint in a tin. Freak. Freak. Freak.

"Your ability is called Parseltongue, and you would be referred to as a Parselmouth, Miss Potter. Salazar Slytherin, our House Founder, was famous for having the same skill." He heaved a weary sigh. "Who else knows?"

"No one," Harriet said, then reconsidered. "Well, Elara I think. She saw me chatting with him at the store, but I don't think she knows I have him here."

Snape squeezed his eyes shut, muttered something under his breath, then snapped, "You will not tell anyone else—especially your Head of House. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir." Harriet didn't really understand. She hadn't disclosed her ability to anyone because it would mean exposing Livi and she had become rather attached to the snooty snake. She didn't

want him to be sent away. The Potions Master was quite earnest, however. "Professor Snape? Is it —is being a Par—Parselmouth? Is it bad or something?"

He didn't answer at first. Rather, Professor Snape rose to his full height and tucked his wand back into his sleeve. "It is not bad or good, Miss Potter, it is simply a skill almost wholly unique to yourself, and one often misunderstood. Should you have brains in your head, you will realize the advantage in keeping knowledge of your true abilities close so they cannot be used against you— and yes, they would use this against you in a heartbeat."

Harriet didn't ask him to explain his vague usage of they. "That's very…Slytherin, Professor."

Snape smirked—or at least Harriet thought he did. The expression dissolved into disdain quicker than milk dispersing into tea. His eyes glinted and Harriet gulped. "Leave the rest of this and return directly to the dormitories. I had best not see you in detention again, Potter, or there will be consequences."

"Yes, sir."

"Go."

She snatched up her robes and pulled her arms through the sleeves as she rushed from the dungeon. Harriet was almost back to the common room when she realized she never did find out how Snape had seen Livi in the first place.

samhain

xx. samhain

Life at Hogwarts continued on.

On the Tuesday that followed Harriet's strange detention, she finally plucked up the courage to approach Weasley after they'd been dismissed from Defense Against the Dark Arts. He scowled when she asked him to hang back a moment and so did the other Gryffindors, but they moved along and Ron remained, knuckles white from his tight grip on his bag's strap.

"What do you want, Potter?"

"I, err, just wanted to apologize. About Thursday. About, you know…." Harriet scratched at the back of her neck. She'd given her actions considerable thought over the weekend and didn't like that violent impulse hidden in her heart. It reminded her too much of Uncle Vernon's bellowing and Aunt Petunia's quick, sharp slaps. Elara had pointed out how a childish disagreement could— as Hermione said—fulminate into a full-blown rivalry, and Harriet didn't want enemies at school. She could swallow her pride, especially when she was in the wrong. "It wasn't right of me. I still think what you said was foul, but that's not an excuse for me to go hitting you. If I hit Malfoy every time he said something nasty about me or my family, I'd be in detention until seventh year. So, I'm sorry."

Ron was stunned. He gaped, wide-eyed, until he snapped his mouth shut and flushed. "That's fine," he muttered. "I was…the stuff I said about your parents wasn't on. Malfoy just…."

"Got under your skin?" Harriet supplied, and Ron nodded. "Yeah, I think he does that to everyone, even in his own House."

"He's a prat." Weasley snorted as the tension in his lanky body lessened, shoulders slouching and his face returning to its normal color. "You're alright, Potter—for a sneaky Slytherin."

Harriet grinned.

"Oi, Ron!" came a voice from the corridor's head. Neville Longbottom stood there with Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan. "Stop playing with the snakes and come on, mate!"

"I'm coming!" Ron called back. To Harriet, he added, "See you around, Potter."

"Bye, Ron."

Ron and Harriet didn't become friends, but sometimes they struck up amicable conversations and he didn't pitch a fit if they somehow wound up as partners in one of their shared classes. Harriet thought him far more pleasant than Malfoy or Crabbe or Goyle—and Neville Longbottom, who had it out for her even after Ron told him he'd forgiven her for their stupid scuffle. Resentment still curled in her chest whenever she looked at Neville, so being churlish and short with the Boy Who Lived was far too easy for Harriet.

September dribbled into October and the fantastic wilds of the rural highlands began to chill in earnest around the castle. Hermione and Elara still didn't speak much and didn't seem to have any friends at all aside from Harriet—not that Harriet was any better. She bickered with her dorm

mates, arguing with Pansy about her hogging the counters in the washroom with her stupid make- up, or with Millicent about her cat purposefully clawing up Harriet's bedding. Their disagreement peaked when Set threw one of Pansy's powder poof things at Millicent's head when the burly girl wasn't looking, covering the dorm in white powder while Pansy shrieked and Millicent fumed.

Both girls ended up in the infirmary, Harriet with a black eye and Millicent with a split lip and neither inclined to tell displeased Madam Pomfrey what happened.

Hallowe'en, or Samhain as the pure-bloods in Slytherin called it, fell on a Thursday and their final classes for the day were canceled in favor of a holiday feast awaiting them instead of dinner. The older students waxed poetic about the marvelous treats served at past feasts and the first years were so excited to attend teaching became difficult. Luckily, Slytherin didn't have Potions that day, but Defense Against the Dark Arts proved a trial with a prickly Professor Slytherin supervising.

Harriet was uncommonly quiet for much of the day. Around her students laughed and whispered and kicked their feet in eager anticipation, and she couldn't help but remember that, exactly one decade ago, a madman no one would say the name of broke into her home, murdered her parents, and left Harriet for dead. Not at all a cheery thought to have, but it remained with Harriet, dampening her mood and the buzzing thrill enticing the others.

Sitting next to Harriet in History of Magic, Elara nudged her elbow and lifted a brow in silent question. Harriet just shrugged and went back to her notes, trying to concentrate on what Professor Selwyn was saying.

"—and 1689 saw the first proposal for the original International Statue for Wizarding Secrecy being signed into law by an early iteration of the I.C.W. The law would not be enforced until 1692 —and would, subsequently, lead to the creation of the Ministry of Magic around the Wizengamot in 1707. As the Wizarding world shut itself off from the Muggle populace, we found it necessary to create more complicated councils and bureaus responsible for regulating magic and hiding its traces from the ignorant masses. Which of you can tell me a reason for the introduction of the ISWS?"

As usual, Hermione's hand rose and, as usual, Professor Selwyn looked past her to the other Slytherins. Malfoy lifted his own hand and Selwyn called on him.

"Yes, Mr Malfoy?"

Malfoy thrust out his chin as he said, "Well, Professor Selwyn, Muggles started killing witches and wizards, didn't they? Because they were jealous of our magic." He spoke in the affirmative and slanted a scathing look in Hermione's direction. "My father says the Muggles started burning themselves and magical kind alike, unable to tell the difference."

"Correct," Selwyn said, simpering. He came to stand before Hermione's desk. "Yet another example of Muggle stupidity. The ISWS would, actually, be the basis upon which our current Minister built his campaign for the MPA. He sited the irrational behavior of Muggles and the pathetic emotional pathos of Muggle-borns as reasons they had to be protected from themselves." The set of his face was unmistakably mocking as he watched Hermione, who had hunched down in her chair, embarrassed and trembling. A few Hufflepuffs had the same look about them.

Harriet drew air to speak and Elara nudged her again, harder, her blank gaze still pointed straight ahead. Right, Harriet told herself, slumping. Right. I'll get detention if I backchat Professor Selwyn and Snape'll skin me alive, probably. He was suspicious of her, especially after the "I-did-not- head-butt-Bulstrode-in-the-face" incident, which Harriet stood by, because she didn't hit the other girl first. Besides, I would just embarrass Hermione.

Throughout the rest of the lesson, Harriet kept glancing at the back of her friend's head, trying to think of what to say, and when the bell rang, she was no closer to knowing. She rushed out into the hall after Hermione, who dashed ahead of the others, and grabbed her arm. "Hermione—."

"Just—just—I want to be alone, Harriet," Hermione said in a high voice, refusing to lift her head as she kept her books close to her chest in a constricting hold. "Please."

She jerked herself free and left Harriet standing there, hand still raised, feeling unhappy and inept. Hermione raced from the corridor and out of sight. Elara eased to Harriet's side with silent grace and remained with her even as the others pushed around them, voices raised, excitement once again thrumming in the halls like lifeblood pumping through veins.

"The feast is soon," Elara commented.

"What about Hermione?" Harriet replied, glum. "She's going to miss it!"

"I'm sure she'll show up—and if not, that's her choice." Elara shrugged. "It's not as if she'll forget."

That didn't sit well with Harriet, yet she saw little other recourse. She nodded her head and shoved her glassed back up her nose. "I'm going to go check the dorms anyway, then meet you in the library before dinner?"

"Yes," Elara said. If she disagreed with Harriet's plan, she gave no indication, as carefully blank as ever. Harriet waved goodbye and set out. She didn't find Hermione in the empty common room or the first year dorms, much to Harriet's disappointment, so she settled for taking Livi from his hiding place beneath her bed so she could sneak him food at the feast later on. She worried about Hermione but wanted to give her friend the privacy she wanted. It was the only thing Harriet could do.

She hated how Muggle-borns were treated, how they were ridiculed and thought of as lesser. What did it matter? Harriet had grown up with Muggles too, just like Hermione, so what did it matter that she was a half-blood? What did it matter that her mum and dad were a witch and wizard and Hermione's folks weren't? Hermione was a witch just like Harriet, just like stupid Pansy and stupid Millicent, who punched even harder than stupid Dudley did.

Thinking about her parents only soured Harriet's mood further. With concerted effort, she forced a neutral expression onto her face and journeyed to the library, where she met Elara and buried her head in some half-hearted studying of seventeenth century Wizarding laws. They went to the feast an hour later.

Live bats swooped from the twilit ceiling of the Great Hall, swathes of glittering spiderwebs spun between the rafters, Hagrid's pumpkins carved in spooky grimaces and Charmed to cackle or spit little candle flames between jagged teeth. Sweets of every possible flavor or combination burdened the tables: pies bulging with candied fruits, tarts smeared in glaze, dripping confectionery goodness, clouds of spun sugar and chocolates stuffed with a dozen different kinds of cream. Small paper ghosts flapped and moaned as they drifted between the subdued candles as the real ghosts eyed them with derision.

As usual, the resident specters drifted away as soon as they spotted Harriet. The Bloody Baron stared at her the longest before he too lost his nerve and floated to a different table.

Harriet forgot her troubles for a time, sucked into the festive spirit with the rest of the first years. Distantly she remembered past Hallowe'ens, where Dudley would sit outside her cupboard with his

back to the door and gorge on sweets until he made himself sick, and Harriet would be blamed for his lack of self-control. To think that she would be in a place like this, a place thrumming with magic, serving such food, while Dudley remained miles and miles away at Smeltings probably getting whacked by other students with their Smeltings sticks made Harriet's night.

Then the Muggle Studies professor slammed open the doors and came sprinting along the main aisle. "Troll!" he shrieked, face pale and gleaming with perspiration. "Troll! Troll in the dungeons!"

He fell in a dead faint, the sound of his body hitting the floor resounding in the silence that followed his proclamation. Then, the hall erupted.

Harriet slapped her hands over her ears in the resulting chaos, taken aback by the level noise. Students screamed, terrified, and Headmaster Dumbledore had to use his wand to bellow for silence before he could be heard. "Remain calm. Prefects, lead your Houses to your dormitories while the professors search the castle. Professor Slytherin, if you would see to your students—?"

Professor Slytherin didn't look all that pleased at being told to babysit, but he nodded in acquiescence. Harriet wondered why Dumbledore told him to stay behind—he's the Defense teacher!—until she remembered the Slytherin dorms were in the dungeons and quickly paled. Benches toppled when people stood in a surge of movement. Dumbledore banished the feast with a swish of his wand, and Professor Slytherin strode right down the middle of the table to reach the front of his House—not that anyone would have dared stand in the man's way.

Looking about, Harriet realized something she should have realized right away; Hermione was not there.

the harder they fall

xxi. the harder they fall

"Hermione?" Harriet said aloud, voice going unheard in the general calamity. "Hermione! Has anyone seen Hermione?"

"Granger?" The girl next to her spoke, a third year she didn't know the name of. Harriet bobbed her head in affirmation. "I saw her in the first floor bathroom crying earlier."

Harriet's heart sunk. Oh, she thought in despair. I'm a shite friend. Perfectly worthless, but she doesn't know about the troll! What if she wanders into the dungeons before it's caught?! I have to tell someone—.

She tried. Kicking and swearing, Harriet elbowed her way to the front of the mass and attempted to get Professor Slytherin's attention, but his focus was on leading the Slytherins as a whole out of the Great Hall, shunting aside a line of terrified Hufflepuffs so the House of Serpents could go ahead of them. Harriet doubled-back toward the High Table and struggled through until she caught a flash of billowing black robes.

"Professor Snape—!"

It was no use. He darted out the side passage the staff used to enter the hall and the other professors were quick to follow, Dumbledore looking particularly menacing before them despite his resplendent purple robes. Harriet spotted Draco between Crabbe and Goyle and grabbed his wrist. His shriek went unremarked.

"Unhand me, Potter! How dare—?!"

"Draco! Draco, Hermione's not here—!"

He slapped her hand and Harriet let go. "I don't care where the Mudblood is," he spat. "I hope she gets flattened by the troll, wretched know-it-all that she is!"

Fury exploded in Harriet's heart like a living thing, surreal in its intensity, and she wanted nothing more than to strike Malfoy—detentions be damned. He must have seen it in her face because he backed away. "What's wrong with you?" she snarled. "Isn't Hermione like your foster sister? How can you be so bloody terrible?!"

Draco said nothing and swiftly disappeared into the crowd.

"Harriet—."

Harriet whipped around to find Elara standing next to her. The taller girl proved a sturdier barrier against the shoving students at their backs, more grounded than Harriet who kept getting shoved about like a trout in a whirlpool. Elara extended her hand. "Let's go get Hermione."

She didn't question it. Their hands came together in a bruising grip and Elara pulled Harriet through the frightened throng, chasing the Slytherins into the entrance hall—then slipping from the group along a side passage that would lead them to the girls' loo on the first floor. Harriet guessed no one had seen them because there wasn't an irate Defense professor breathing down

their necks.

"Let's hurry," Harriet babbled, trying to sort through her panic without any luck. "We'll get Hermione and then—what? Should we go back to the dungeons alone? There's a bloody troll! Should we head higher, away from it?"

"We need to get back to the dorms before a head count is taken. We may be too late already." The grimness in Elara's voice caused Harriet's pulse to spike higher.

"What if we went to the library? Pretended we weren't even at the feast?"

"We were seen, Harriet. Besides, the library closed after we left it."

"Shite," Harriet cursed. She was unable to think of any other plans because they had come upon the loo and were barging through the door. No ready sign of Hermione presented itself—but, over the harried rhythm of their breathing, Harriet heard a despondent sniffle, and she dashed to the only locked cubicle. "Hermione! Hermione!" Harriet slapped her palm upon the shut stall door. "Hermione, we need to leave!"

"I told you I wanted to be alone!" came Hermione's tearful reply.

"Yes, but there's a troll on the loose now and we very much need to get to the dormitories!"

A moment passed and Hermione unlocked the cubicle. In Harriet's original rush, she hadn't realized how terrible this loo smelled. Yes, it was a loo, but the stench burned in Harriet's nose, in her throat, cloying as raw sewage and an unwashed body. Harriet, having been barred use of the shower by the Dursleys before, sadly had intimate knowledge of what the latter smelled like.

"A troll?" Hermione said in disbelief—then she, too, pressed a hand to her nose. "What is that smell?"

"I don't know. I don't know how you can stand it—."

"That wasn't here before—."

A sudden lyrical chime emanated from Harriet's shirt and they both jumped. "Misstresss!"

"What in the world was that?!"

The chime came again.

"I don't—."

Suddenly, Elara gasped. With a hand against her own chest, Harriet turned.

The smell, she discovered, oozed from the menacing creature now shouldering its way through the open doorway. It was tall, taller than Hagrid even, its body almost too massive to fit through the entrance, but Harriet's luck proved just as terrible as ever, because the troll—what else could it be? —managed to squeeze in. The lower portion of one leg was bigger than Harriet both in height and in width, one horny foot larger than her entire torso. Its bald head appeared comically small atop its towering, boulder-like frame, flanked in humongous ears that flapped when it faced them.

Harriet would've found it funny had the troll not been dragging a wooden club stained with old blood.

"Mary mother of God," Elara whispered, trembling. Harriet whipped out her wand—and Hermione

screamed.

The troll shook its head, grunting when the sound echoed. It flailed and the club came crashing into the first cubicle, collapsing them together like flimsy paper cards. Harriet, Elara, and Hermione dove toward the line of sinks and barely avoided being smashed by the falling stalls. Splinters of wood bounced of Harriet's glasses.

Elara had her wand in hand too. "Flipendo!"

A jet of blue light hit the troll in the chest—and did nothing.

"Trolls have thick hides exceptionally resistant to magic!" Hermione shrieked, the words barely intelligible in her hurry to speak. The troll must have felt something from the spell, however, because it scratched its gray chest and roared. The floor beneath the trio shook. They would never reach the door in time.

"Then what—?!"

The troll lifted its bloody club with surprising speed and brought it down towards them. Elara shouted. Harriet thrust her wand out and yelled, "Protego!"

The club barreled toward their heads and bashed into Harriet's rippling ward—rebounding with incredible force, slamming into the wall, shattering the line of mirrors as the troll stumbled. Bits of glass rained upon them and the troll kicked one of the sinks in frustration. The pipes burst and doused the trio in frigid water.

Something shifted against Harriet's stomach, warmth slicing through the chill of the liquid, then—.

"Livi!"

Six feet of enraged snake flew across the bathroom floor as Livi threw himself toward the troll's wrinkled ankles. With a furious hiss, he sank his teeth into the creature's thick skin and the troll roared again, louder, its agony plain. It tried to smash Livi with the club and again Harriet threw her wand arm out, but she wasn't the only voice to shout this time.

"Protego!"

The club struck the shield powered by all three witches and bounced to the ceiling. It hit the stones with enough momentum to crumble them, cracks spreading through the club and the mortar both, debris raining down on their bowed heads. "Livi!" Harriet cried, arms held out, and serpent surged into her embrace, coils whipping about her sopping body. The troll tipped to one side, dazed, and all three witches ran for the lives.

Out in the corridor, they heard the rapid slap, slap, slap of approaching feet.

"Someone's coming!" Harriet hissed, hoping she spoke in English.

"Here!"

Elara's hand grabbed onto the back of her collar—yanking out no small amount of hair—and jerked Harriet toward a broom cupboard located just across the corridor from the loo. Hermione threw herself in and next came Harriet, squashed quickly between the two others as Elara pressed herself in and shut the rickety doors. The broom cupboard was not big enough for the three of them.

"Ouch! Hermione, you just elbowed me right in the boob—!"

"Where did that snake come from?!" Hermione demanded, not arsed about giving Harriet bruises. "You—you what?! Just walk around with that—that—!"

"He's my familiar!"

"That's not an excuse! You don't see Elara with that owl of hers stuck under her blouse! That owl she hasn't even named yet!"

"Don't blame me for Elara's weird owl. I think Livi's got separation anxiety."

"Snakes do not get separation anxiety!"

"Will you two shut up?" Elara grunted. She had her hands braced on either wall to keep herself from being forcibly ejected out of the cupboard. The troll was trying to follow them now. They could hear it, shuffling about, groaning, every footfall thumping on the floor like a boulder crashing down from a mountaintop. Harriet wriggled until she could press one eye to a crack in- between the wall and the hinges. She could barely see through the scratched, filthy lens of her glasses, but part of the corridor—and the lumbering troll—was visible.

Her leg stung something fierce but Harriet ignored it.

"There it is!" said a voice—a familiar voice.

"Is that Neville?" Hermione whispered. Elara shushed her.

It was indeed Neville; Longbottom and Weasley and Finnigan and Thomas. All four of the Gryffindor boys in their year stood in the corridor just within Harriet's sight, staring at the troll stuck halfway in and halfway out of the bloody loo. Sick burned the back of Harriet's throat when she realized Livi's bite was killing the creature, because its limited faculties were shutting down, beady eyes listless and bloody, lolling tongue fat in its gaping mouth.

"What's wrong with it?" Ron asked aloud. Hermione's arm—had it always been wrapped around Harriet's waist? When did it get there?—tightened.

"Dunno," Longbottom replied, wand held at the ready, his stance firm. "I think it's…sick. None of the trolls I've seen looked like this."

"Was this all for nothing then?" Finnigan asked.

Neville shrugged. "Not totally. At least we found it, even if we didn't need to defeat it."

Snorting, Harriet muttered "Are they serious?" and earned another elbow to the torso.

"If we could defeat it," Dean mumbled.

The troll groaned and thumped a useless arm on the floor.

"I told you, I've learned to deal with them. Merlin, must have spent a whole summer in those stupid, smelly mountains—."

"Look at it, it's huge!" Seamus sputtered.

A new voice spoke. "Yes, fully grown mountain trolls are quite alarming in size, aren't they?"

The three witches stuffed into the cupboard heard the familiar—dangerous—crooning of Professor Slytherin and stiffened.

If he's here, he couldn't have done a head count in the dorms, Harriet's furiously working mind supplied. Really, it hasn't been that long. He only had enough time to drop us off at the common room—we have to get back before he does, before someone realizes we're gone!

Harriet could see that the professors had arrived, their approach covered by the Gryffindors arguing and the haggard breathing of the dying troll. Slytherin's face was as amicable as ever; that is to say, he wore a chilling smile that could strip flesh from bone and terrify men three times his age. Snape stood partly behind him, discreetly kneading his right hand, and behind him came McGonagall. The Transfiguration professor sputtered in disbelief.

"In all my years—I've never—Mr Longbottom!" she thundered. Her brogue thickened. "What on earth were you thinking?!"

"We defeated the troll," he said, throwing his shoulders back. The three shivering, dripping witches in the cupboard sucked in breaths and it was all Harriet could do to keep Hermione from bursting out of there shouting "Like hell!" The bushy-haired girl did not take kindly to others stealing credit for her work.

"Did you now?" Professor Slytherin said as he stepped around the troll to have a better look. The indolent creature grunted, flailed, and did nothing more. "Unless you're carrying around a deadly poison, Mr Longbottom, I highly doubt that."

Neville teetered, wand lowering, and though Harriet couldn't see his face she could hear the uncertainty in his voice. "Poison?"

"Oh, yes. This troll's been poisoned. The water closet's a ruin, and yet…all four of your haven't a spot of dirt on you, aside from the usual first year filth."

"Really, Professor Slytherin," McGonagall said, tone as stiff as her back. "There's no need for that."

Slytherin waved a hand. "It appears, Minerva, your lions are not only reckless but also liars."

Water began to overcome the loo threshold and flood the hall, seeping nearer the trailing edge of Slytherin's robes before he stepped aside. The water wasn't quick enough, however, to wash away the dark splotches of blood smeared across the stones, a speckled trail that led straight to the cupboard.

Snape's head turned as he followed the dots of red—until his gaze rose to stare at the rickety doors.

Harriet held her breath and was fairly certain the others did too.

"I think that'll be twenty points from Gryffindor," Professor Slytherin said. "Each."

The four Gryffindors gawked, pale and furious, McGonagall told Slytherin he was being too harsh —and Snape just stared at the cupboard. Harriet hoped with everything in her that he would look away, that someone would call his attention or the bloody troll would take a swing at him. Anything.

"Ah, it appears you've found our troll."

Dumbledore swept into view, trailed by Professors Sprout and Flitwick, who wrinkled their noses

as they looked down at the half-dead mountain troll sprawled in the loo's doorway.

"Yes," Slytherin replied. "Your noble Gryffindors here felt they had the wherewithal to challenge a mountain troll…but it appears someone beat them to it, as it were."

The Headmaster came nearer, water soaking the hem of his purple cloak as he bent over the troll's small head and inspected its bulging eyes. Livi's venom had worked quickly—and painfully. Harriet didn't much care that the creature that had tried to turn them into jelly was dying, but she did regret the suffering it had to endure. "You're right of course, Tom. Most peculiar. What do you make of this, Severus?"

Harriet didn't know whose name that was, but Dumbledore stared at Snape—and Snape stared at the cupboard with a wealth of emotions passing through his eyes like trains roaring in the underground: disbelief and rage, terror and relief.

"Severus?"

"I think we should do a bed check, Headmaster," Snape answered, voice hushed. "Just in case."

Hermione whimpered against Harriet's shoulder.

"An excellent idea!" Dumbledore straightened and turned his back to the cupboard, blocking Snape's sight of it, as well as Professor Slytherin's. "But, first, I believe our young adventurers here need to be returned to their fellows. Courage is an admirable trait, my dear boys, but it must be tempered with wisdom. Your grandmother writes to me quite often about your training abroad, Neville, and while I am most pleased to see you exercising and willing to share the knowledge you've acquired, you must remember that your classmates have not been exposed to the same trials and could have been severely injured. You could have all been severely injured." His voice resonated with intensity and, for a moment, nobody spoke. "Do you understand?"

"Yes, Professor," the four boys mumbled. Harriet felt Elara's arms trembling from exertion. She wouldn't be able to hold herself up much longer.

"Good! I imagine Professor Slytherin has already given a fitting punishment…?"

"Eighty points taken," McGonagall said through clenched teeth. Harriet didn't know who she was more upset with: her Gryffindors or the Defense teacher.

"Well, then. How about we award twenty for good use of deduction? After all, they did find the troll before us!" Dumbledore chuckled and straightened his spangled hat.

Slytherin scoffed. "Ridiculous."

"Minerva, if you would see your charges off…?"

Professor McGonagall departed, ushering the boys before her. They hadn't quite vanished before Harriet heard the professor's sharp, furious brogue chastising her students further.

"Pomona, Filius, I believe you should go on and check your own students." Sprout and Flitwick nodded and left. "Severus, Tom, I do believe we have a certain corridor that needs our attention. I will meet you there, after I secure our mountainous friend here."

"It's dead," Slytherin snapped. His voice became colder, harder, in the absence of other teachers or students. Harriet wasn't the only one to shrink herself in fear. "What's there to secure, Dumbledore?"

"Be that as it may, if you would honor an old man's request, Tom." Like Slytherin, the Headmaster's voice changed too, cool and uncompromising, a barest whisper of power threaded through his words like the silver stitching on his robes. Harriet couldn't believe Professor Slytherin's first name was Tom. It seemed so…so tame.

The Defense instructor seethed but did depart, swinging the hem of his robes out behind him as he stormed away. Not a second had passed after Slytherin's footsteps vanished when Snape darted toward the cupboard and Harriet jumped, terrified, only for Dumbledore to abort the Potions Master's movement with a steady hand and a quick word.

"Severus."

Snape sneered and shook the Headmaster off. He gave the cupboard one final burning glance before saying, "As you wish, Albus." He went after Slytherin, leaving Dumbledore alone with the dead troll and the steady stream of water gushing into the corridor. If only he'd leave too, Harriet desperately thought. If only this stupid night would end.

The Headmaster hummed to himself and stroked his beard, fingers pulling gently at the small tangles caught in the silver hair. The troll no longer drew breath. "Oh dear," Professor Dumbledore said aloud as he tipped his face toward the flat ceiling. "I do believe I am about to suffer from a spontaneous episode of sudden blindness and deafness. Dear me, I do think it will only last for a minute or so, however."

Harriet blinked. He's not—he's not serious, is he? He couldn't be—!

Apparently Elara thought he was, either that or her strength had finally given out, because her arms folded and the doors burst open, spilling three sodden witches and a hissing serpent onto the stone floor. Harriet gasped as her glasses skittered away through the water—then groaned when Hermione kneed her in the kidney in her rush to get up.

"Professor," Hermione said, breathless, seeming very near tears if the blotchy color of her face was any indication of her mood. "Professor, it's all my fault. I wasn't at the feast, and they were just trying to warn me—."

Elara picked bits of porcelain out her hair and glanced at Hermione. "Honestly, he wasn't even being subtle about ignoring us—."

"But it's all my fault!" she wailed.

"The troll was meant to be in the dungeons!" Elara retorted. "Not here! That's what Professor Squirrel said!"

"Where are my glasses?" Harriet patted the flagstones but couldn't discern much beyond the toppled forms of brooms and upturned buckets.

"But you two could have been killed—or expelled! Just because I was upset with Professor Selwyn —."

"I don't think this escape attempt is going well," Dumbledore mused. He bent down to pluck Harriet's glasses off the floor and gently dried them on his sleeve. "Here you are, Harriet." She fumbled to take the spectacles from his hand. "And his name is Professor Quirrell, Miss Black, no matter what the older Slytherins might have told you."

Elara flushed.

Harriet stuffed the glasses onto her face. "Err, Professor?" She smeared wet hair and bits of stone out of her face as she chanced a look toward the Headmaster. Dumbledore wore a kindly expression as he surveyed her, blue eyes bright. Livi coiled himself about her neck like a living scarf, hissing obscenities Harriet had never heard before. Trolls didn't apparently taste very nice. "Can we have another go at that escape attempt?"

"Yes, I believe one more attempt should suffice, don't you?"

The three Slytherin witches didn't need to be told again; Hermione grabbed Harriet's hand, towed her to her feet, twisted her fingers into Elara's sleeve, and they set out at a run while their Headmaster pretended to stare at the ceiling again.

None of them heard Dumbledore's gentle chuckling at their backs.

the third floor corridor

xxii. the third floor corridor

Severus barely noticed the roaring over the sudden agony devouring his hand.

Not now, he snarled in the confines of his own mind as his fingers curled in upon themselves, nails digging into the fleshy mound of his palm, and Severus slammed his arm against one of the slick dungeon walls to reassert a measure of control over the limb. Weeks had passed without so much as a single twinge of pain—now this.

The roaring, he realized, was not the enraged shouting in his skull. No, it echoed in the narrow passages delving beneath the school, down deep into the perilous, untraveled oubliettes and locked chambers where the manacles still hung on the walls, the stones branded with runes long since consumed by time's avarice. The sound grew fainter, and as Severus straightened, a figure appeared in the green torchlight.

He sucked in a breath as another figure from another time overlaid itself on that youthful face, and he was torn between reaching for his wand and dropping to his knees. Welcome, Severus….

"Snape!" Slytherin snapped once his first attempts to get Severus' attention failed. "Snape, the beast's above us now."

Severus straightened again, then nodded. The image in his mind faded. They whirled about and ran for the stairs, Slytherin quick to overtake him, but Severus let him go, not wanting to give the other man his back. After all, who would have the skills and wherewithal to let a bloody troll into Hogwarts if not Slytherin? Snape didn't trust him—at all. Was this some kind of ploy? What was he up to now?

Minerva joined them in the entrance hall, appearing from the shallower dungeons where the kitchens and Hufflepuff dolts dwelt. The older witch was spry for her age and managed to keep up with Slytherin's demanding pace, the portraits following their progress through the empty corridors. The roaring had silenced itself.

Ahead, Severus heard a familiar and totally unwelcome voice.

Is that fucking Longbottom? he asked himself—and indeed, the three professors found Longbottom and his duped fellowship standing about like thrice-Stunned garden gnomes with their wands all but stuffed up their noses, as if they knew how to do anything with them besides cast Tickling Charms or bloody Levitate. He didn't have to look at Minerva to feel the impetus of her fear and rage.

What caught Severus' eye was the troll itself, laying spread eagle on the floor caught halfway out the doorway to what looked like a girls' lavatory. For one nausea-inducing minute, Severus thought Longbottom and his idiot groupies had downed the savage creature. How was that possible? He ignored Slytherin's sniping and Minerva's sputtering, ignored the four Gryffindors and studied the hulking mound of gray flesh, nostrils flaring against the foul odor.

Its skin lacked color naturally, but a new pallor had overtaken the thick folds of dry, mottled epidermis. Its movements were listless and automatic—twitches, really, the final impulses of a

body giving way to a mind that could no longer control the heavy arms and stumpy legs.

"We defeated the troll," Longbottom proclaimed. Arrogant little shite.

"Did you now? Unless you're carrying around a deadly poison, Mr Longbottom, I highly doubt that."

Severus flattered himself in thinking he knew quite a bit about poisons. It was for this knowledge he'd been originally brought to the Dark Lord's attention, after all, and while Severus would always regret that decision, he wouldn't regret what he learned while suffering Voldemort's unique brand of tutelage. He'd heard it said in the Muggle world that poison was the weapon of women—but in the Wizarding world, everyone knew poison was the tool of Slytherins.

This didn't manifest like a poison. A troll would have to ingest massive quantities of any toxic plant—and trolls were carnivorous by nature. They didn't eat plants, and most common poisons wouldn't present themselves in this manner. Aconite, for example, would induce sickness first, shut down the respiratory system, then attack the heart. Breathing difficulties were a common symptom among most harmful ingredients. The troll's tongue was swollen, the inside of its disgusting mouth blackening, the eyes swelling with blood. If Severus had to guess, he wouldn't guess poison. He'd say this was caused by—

Venom.

Blood not belonging to the troll speckled the floor. Slytherin didn't notice it, not with his head stuffed so far up his own arse. None of the Gryffindors were hurt. They'd clearly arrived at the scene to find the troll half-dead and Longbottom decided to take credit—a reminder that had Severus grinding his teeth. The blood led away from them, across the passage to a…broom cupboard.

Venom. What kind of venom—?

A sudden recollection struck Severus dumb. "Miss Potter, are you aware there is a highly venomous snake tucked into your bloody shirt?!"

"He's my familiar, Professor."

His lungs burned for air but Severus couldn't bring himself to breathe past the knot in his throat. He thought he might literally spit fire, because if he didn't, he'd have to swallow it down and combust from the inside.

She wouldn't. She FUCKING WOULDN'T—!

Albus was there and speaking to Severus. When the hell had the Headmaster arrived?

"Severus?"

"I think we should do a bed check, Headmaster," he whispered, too furious to speak. "Just in case."

He'd check Slytherin House himself. Severus didn't give a fuck if he wasn't Head anymore, that he hadn't been for years. He'd check the dorms and if Potter's spawn wasn't there, he'd wring her bloody neck himself for risking her fucking life! He'd make death by troll seem like a fluffy alternative to his rage. How dare she!

Albus dismissed the others and, taking the sudden opportunity, Severus went for the cupboard only to have the Headmaster grab his arm. Albus squeezed with enough strength to break through the

Potions Master's seething mood. Severus remembered that he had more to do here, a role to play, especially at this critical junction, and he couldn't lose his head.

Yet.

"As you wish, Albus."

Severus turned his back on the Headmaster and the dead troll and the broom cupboard. He sank his worries and speculations on the matter into the frigid stillness of his Occlumency shields, allowing the cold waters to overcome him inch by inch, quenching the spark of his fury, his terror, his uncertainty. He sent it all down into the abyss so that by the time he rejoined Slytherin in the entrance hall, his face was perfectly placid and his mind empty as a Gryffindor's skull.

"Well, this is a promising development," Slytherin said as he fell in step with Severus and the two wizards walked to the marble staircase.

"The prospect of students being crushed by a mountain troll is promising, is it?" Severus drawled in response.

The Defense teacher's lips curled in the mockery of a smile. "As if you'd mourn the loss of Longbottom."

Severus said nothing. No, he wouldn't miss Longbottom if the boy dropped dead, especially if he met a sticky end as a result of his own foolhardy stupidity, but only a sociopath like Slytherin—like Gaunt, like Voldemort, like Riddle—would see children being crushed by a troll as just another hurdle to overcome. Only a sociopath like Slytherin would let a bloody troll into a school as a distraction.

They mounted the moving steps and Severus tapped the railing with his wand, sending the stairs upward toward the third floor. "You believe he's taken the bait then…my Lord?"

"Naturally, Severus. He wouldn't be able to resist. After all, if anyone could understand Voldemort's mind, it would be me." Slytherin then shifted and removed his own wand from his sleeve. Not his wand, of course, not in truth. His fingers traced the wand's the length and Severus heard the other wizard sigh.

He wisely chose not to comment.

The brazier kindled itself when he and Slytherin stepped from the stairs to the waiting corridor and paced to the final door. A simple lock of crude Muggle designed blocked the path and a thoughtless motion of Slytherin's hand opened the way. They entered the third floor antechamber. The silence resounded through the empty space.

There was nothing—no one—there.

Slytherin sucked air through his teeth, displeased. "What a pity."

Severus stood to the side as the other professor strode to the trap door situated in the room's middle. Slytherin flicked his wand in wordless incantation and the invisible wards came into relief, gold and crimson and blue, spiraling in meticulous nets of runes and old magic even Severus hadn't heard of before. This was Albus' work; the wards gleamed with purity, the same fragile purity the bled from a Patronus and filled up a person's heart with joy and relief and love.

An irked scoff left Slytherin as he stepped back from the ward, and Severus squeezed his eyes shut, holding tight to his Occlumency skills.

"No luck, then?" Dumbledore asked from the doorway. Severus spared a thought for how swiftly the Headmaster seemed to move through the school, but then again he was Headmaster, and had been working at Hogwarts for far longer than Severus or Slytherin—in any iteration of self—had been alive.

The House of Serpents alumni didn't respond to Albus as he entered the chamber and quickly shut the door behind himself, the lock clicking home with a heavy thunk. Slytherin drifted from the trapdoor to a darker edge of the interior, the motion silent as ever, his wand still held in loose fingers. Severus watched him, and he watched the Headmaster as the elder wizard began to check his own wards.

"Ah!" Dumbledore said and Severus started. "Perhaps we had more luck than we thought."

Slytherin slid forward without another word. Albus smiled at him—smiled at him like how he used to smile at Severus in the early days, a cruel curve of pity and reservation begging stupid sinners to repent, to recede again into the Dark or burn themselves in his light. "Though, I take it you didn't catch that, did you, Tom? No, not when you close yourself to magic like this—the magic and the possibilities it holds."

"Enough of your pedantic prattling, old man," Slytherin spat. "Did someone attempt to breach the corridor or not?"

"Yes," Dumbledore replied without missing a beat. "It wasn't you, was it, Tom?"

Cracks began to appear in Slytherin's calm facade, hairline thin and not always visible, but Severus was adept in studying people and he could sense the angry snap of energy surrounding the Defense professor. Albus referred to him as "Tom" constantly and consistently much to Slytherin's consternation, widening the cracks in his persona in an attempt to pour light on the nasty little creature hiding behind that handsome face.

Then Slytherin stilled himself and smiled.

"No. As you are well-aware, Dumbledore, I have no need for the Philosopher's Stone."

Severus fought the urge to roll his eyes. No one needed the bloody Stone; they simply wanted it, wanted what it could offer, and Dumbledore knew Voldemort, that half-alive thing that mostly died exactly ten years ago that very evening, would want the Stone more than any other person in existence. It wasn't as difficult to understand the Dark Lord's mind as Slytherin supposed it to be. Truly, the desires of the power hungry were disgustingly myopic.

Who the fuck actually wants to live forever?

No, the real question was why Slytherin wanted Voldemort apprehended in the first place. Severus assumed it was because recruiting snotty little cretins to the Dark Arts became unquestionably more difficult when there was a mad Dark Wizard on the loose spreading anarchy, slaughtering Muggles and pure-bloods with little discrimination. The farther removed he was from all speculations on Voldemort, the more Slytherin legitimized himself, the more trustworthy he became. The deadliest of fruits and lies tasted the sweetest, and the very worst poisons Severus had hidden in his stores were subtle things that did the worst damage long before the toll became detectable.

"Then we will suppose his agent has come to inspect the situation, at the very least. A troll. How very imaginative." Dumbledore stroked his beard. "Should he—or she—attempt to break my wards, they'll be sent into a nice cozy sleep. Unbreakable, of course, unless given the proper

antidote." Here, he nodded at Severus with a look akin to pride. Severus wanted to sink into a hole and never be found.

Slytherin frowned. "He's not stupid, Dumbledore," he said as he gestured at the trapdoor. "Mad; yes, stupid; no. He might see through this…ruse. He might realize the Stone isn't being kept here. You are almost too flagrant in flaunting the knowledge of its location. At the very least, he will be reticent to break wards he doesn't understand."

"I know. He won't try again until he feels more confident, but confidence is the armor of the wise man and the folly of the ignorant. Voldemort will lose patience and he will try again. I know this. I know him." Half-moon spectacles gleamed in the low light. The look their venerable Headmaster bestowed upon Professor Slytherin could have made Hit Wizards weep. "I know you, Tom."

"And you're just as predictable, Albus." Slytherin started for the door and unlocked it with a twitch of his hand. "We shall see how this unfolds and how far my assistance will extend. Come, Severus, we have a House to count heads in."

Severus—the well-heeled, if ill-mannered, dog that he was—followed him out of the chamber, though not without sharing a final glance with the Headmaster.

Watch him, said that searching look. Watch him closely.

As if there was another choice.

come back for me

xxiii. come back for me

Pure luck saved the trio of Slytherin witches from being stopped and apprehended inside their own common room.

Harriet later learned that a Dungbomb spontaneously ignited in someone's bag and the foul smelling cloud of brown dust that burst from the satchel drew the crowded room's attention like moths to a particularly stinky flame. Harriet, Hermione, and Elara didn't notice the smell, not after tangling with a mountain troll, so they barely acknowledged the cloud or the shrieks or the general rabble as they passed through the entrance in the stone wall and all but dashed to their dorm room.

No one else was inside. With all the excitement of feast and troll incursion, the five other first year girls were mostly likely in the common room with everyone else, chatting and theorizing, waiting for more information. Elara was the first to sink into a boneless heap, wheezing in a way that worried Harriet, and Hermione followed suit, crumpling on her bed as she massaged a stitch in her side.

Rock dust and porcelain debris covered them from head to foot, shavings from the mirror gleaming like stars in Elara's disheveled hair and grime patterned in nervous fingerprints across Hermione's face. Livi slid from Harriet's shoulders with a sullen, tired complaint. She sat on the edge of her bed and hissed in pain.

"Harriet—," Hermione panted. "You're—you're bleeding!"

She was. Something in the loo had cut her calf from ankle to knee, the slice shallow but long, ruining both her sock and the hem of her uniform's skirt. "Bloody hell," Harriet groused as she thumbed the shredded threads. She hadn't bought many uniforms, anticipating—hoping, hoping— she'd grow taller and have to get more before the start of next year.

"Really, Harriet!" Hermione said, her voice several octaves too high. "Your language is terrible —." Then the bushy-haired girl dove into her trunk and threw aside sweaters and cloaks and more books than Harriet could count, emerging at last with a little zippered Muggle satchel she opened to reveal a handful of plasters, a wrinkled roll of gauze, and a tube of ointment. She disappeared into the washroom and returned with a dampened towel.

"I'm fine, really, you don't need to—," Harriet stuttered through chattering teeth, but Hermione wouldn't hear of it. She made quick work of cleaning the blood and grit off the affected skin, applying plasters to keep the cut closed before they both wound the gauze around Harriet's twig- like leg.

"You two could have been killed!" Hermione lectured under her breath. Silence had been thick in the room ever since their heavy breathing had subsided. "Such an utterly insensible thing to do!"

"I tried telling a teacher!" Harriet huffed. "But they ran off after the troll! And Slytherin wouldn't listen!"

"And so you just gave up?!"

"Well, someone had to come get you!" Harriet's voice rose to match Hermione's in pitch. "I wasn't

going to let my best friend go wandering with that big buggering thing stomping about! It could have killed you!"

"You—." Hermione was suddenly reduced to tears. Harriet felt ill, unsure of what to do when clear, glistening streaks cut through the dirt on the other girl's cheeks. "Y-y-you came back for me." She whirled on Elara, who flattened herself against the door again, wide-eyed and startled, like one of Mrs Figg's cats when she'd corner it for a brushing. "And you. I never—. You—. You came for me, too! And I thought you didn't even like me."

Elara's pale face turned brilliant red in color and she fidgeted with her sleeves. It was a nervous tick Harriet had noticed before; Elara tugged her cuffs down toward her hands or straightened her collar, making sure the top button remained closed, and Harriet knew she'd wear gloves if the professor would let her get away with it. "I…of course I like you. I know it doesn't seem that way. I just—. I'm not…not good with…people." She kept her gaze on her hands as she wrung them together. "The…the people who…the place that raised me, they didn't—." A shuddering sigh escaped and she squeezed her eyes shut. "Of course I like you. You and Harriet are my friends. My only friends."

Hermione stood and hesitated for the briefest of instances before she went to Elara and gave the other girl a hug. Elara became rigid as a board, clearly unaccustomed or uncomfortable with the touch, and yet she pushed aside her own misgivings to lay a tentative hand on Hermione's shoulder.

Harriet smiled. Her cheeks ached from the strength of it and her eyes felt wet behind her scratched glasses. She didn't look away.

"I'm being silly," Hermione said with a broken chuckle as she used her sleeve to wipe her face. "I didn't mean to cry, how ridiculous—." She hunted through her pockets for a sodden tissue when she stepped back from Elara—who visibly deflated in relief—and happened to clap eyes on Livi again. "Harriet…is that the Horned Serpent from the Magical Menagerie? The one they reported stolen?"

Elara only quirked a brow.

"I didn't steal him," Harriet replied, hoping the two other witches believed her. Neither appeared wholly convinced and Harriet ground her teeth. "I didn't! I went into the shop and we had a little chat—apparently I'm a Parseltongue or, err, a Parselmouth, like Professor Snape said—and I got shooed out by the shop owner. Livi showed up in my room later and told me he didn't want to go back and I told him he had to go back, and then he kind of pinned me down and I couldn't think of how I'd go about getting a big snake back into the store—."

Harriet knew she was rambling but couldn't stop. Elara, who'd be there in the Menagerie and had heard Harriet talking, wasn't surprised by her snake chatting ability; Hermione reacted much like Snape, her expression cycling through various degrees of disbelief and shock. "Holy cricket. You can speak to snakes?"

"Yes—? But you can't say anything! I told Snape I wouldn't mention it to anyone else and he—." Might give me detention until the next century? Seems that kind of bloke.

"That's incredibly rare," Hermione said. "According to Hogwarts: A History, Salazar Slytherin himself was a Parselmouth—it's the reason our House symbol is a snake! And it's a hereditary talent, which is why Professor Slytherin is a Parselmouth too—."

"Professor Slytherin's a Parselmouth?"

"He would have to be. Some of the, um, books speculate on the legitimacy of his claim to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Slytherin because he simply couldn't have been born a Slytherin, as the family went extinct in the male line centuries ago—."

"Hermione—."

"—and the Gaunts became the last direct family, with the Minister claiming to be the final living member of the House—."

"Really, Hermione—."

"—so Slytherin would have to display a magical hereditary trait such as that for his claim to be rectified by the Wizengamot, not that any of the records make note of that. Shortsighted of them, really. Harriet, you're most likely related to him!"

Harriet wrinkled her nose. Maybe that's why Professor Snape warned me not to say anything. Something about Professor Slytherin seemed off to Harriet, something she couldn't name or really put a finger on, especially since he was always cordial with her, praised her Defense abilities, and was Head of Slytherin House. His presence…aggravated Set, riled her shadow when no one was looking, and Harriet didn't like how he grimaced at the Gryffindors and ignored Hermione. She already had enough terrible relatives, thank you very much.

A sudden bang hit the door and all three witches jumped.

"Professor Slytherin's doing a head count in the common room in five minutes! Be ready!" Prefect Farley called. Harriet, Hermione, and Elara looked at one another—then at their filthy, rumpled uniforms and dripping robes.

"Oh, no—!"

"Shite!"

"Oh, we're going to be—!"

"Don't say it—!"

"Expelled!"

"Will you two move—!"

Trunk lids clattered against the ends of their beds as the three girls grappled for any clothes they could, Elara disappearing into the bath where she typically changed while Hermione and Harriet tore off their robes and vests to jam jumpers on over their heads. Harriet used her dirty shirt to hastily clean her face and hands, then found a pair of new socks that mostly covered the gauze on her sore leg. She shoved her shoes onto the wrong feet in her haste and almost collided with Hermione when they both bolted for the door. Elara joined them then, her hair once more collected in a bun, her appearance much fresher than Harriet's.

The Slytherin common room was a long, sunken space built beneath the lake, windows set to look out into the black tide, the hearths gone dark and cold despite the number of people congregating on the plush couches and winged armchairs. The House of Serpents was the smallest House at Hogwarts despite the contrary size of Harriet's own year; sixth and seventh year girls often left Hogwarts early, content to marry with their O.W.L.s alone and lead their lives, pure-bloods marrying other pure-bloods to make pure-blood mums and dads and relatives happy. Some of the older girls, like Gemma Farley, sneered when someone asked if she was going to follow the same

tradition, and disparaged those "unambitious twits" who did.

That left sixty or so students to mill about the room, their anticipation politely subdued but still palpable, like static clinging to the surface of a well-kept cashmere scarf. The eldest Slytherins intimidated Harriet so she didn't know much about them; they took the best seats by the best hearths, gleaming in the lowlight like cut gems, and those that crowded their sides reminded Harriet an awful lot of Dudley's snotty friends—if better bred. They looked and spoke like adults, not like children, with posh "r"s and "h"s, House rings on their fingers and practiced smirks at their lips.

"This way—," Hermione whispered once they exited the dorm corridor and came into the throng. "We'll just stand back here—."

Hermione quickly dragged Harriet and Elara to the farthest edge of the common room, where the light was the weakest and the temperature plummeted several degrees. Harriet's teeth started chattering again—though whether from cold or apprehension, she didn't know. Elara gripped her hand and Hermione gripped the other as they hunched their shoulders and waited for what would happen.

Professor Slytherin appeared less than a minute later. He strode from the dim passage that held the hidden wall entrance, silent as one of the ghosts when he walked, Professor Snape like a sure- footed cat at his side—a large, predatory and undeniably furious cat towering over Slytherin and the students. Harriet stared at the floor and gulped.

"Well, we've certainly had an interesting evening, haven't we?" Slytherin said, earning several genteel snickers out of the oldest students. They looked at Slytherin with something like adoration in their eyes and it made Harriet a bit queasy for reasons she wasn't sure of. "Yes, yes—funny, isn't it?" Something in Slytherin's tone shifted, indicating that no, nothing was funny about his words. "Funny to waste my time with a troll hunt through the castle. Funny to endanger the lives of Slytherins—funny to spoil a perfectly good Samhain those of you with half a brain would have used to prepare your best ingredients and rituals, or have you not be paying attention while attending this school?"

Hardly a breath could be heard. Slytherin always spoke louder than Snape did but he needn't have bothered; he could've muttered and it would have resounded among the students gathered there. "Professor Snape will call names by year. If you are not prompt in answering, you will be very sorry indeed."

Snape didn't need a list; he said the names from memory, and with each "present, sir!" Harriet watched his thumb tap against a fingertip as the professor counted in his head. He spat "Potter" like poison and, when he glowered at her, Harriet knew they hadn't fooled the Potions Master for an instant. The man was too clever for his own good.

"He knows," Elara whispered to the floor, her lips barely moving as Snape finished off the role call.

"He can't—not for sure," Hermione responded. "There's nothing that could prove we were there —."

"Except her knows about Livi, and he knows Longbottom didn't poison the bloody troll, and he knows someone was in the broom cupboard, even if he can't prove it—."

"Sh—!"

Slytherin dismissed the crowd. They made for the dorms, moving as swiftly as they could, but three first years didn't have the same presence as their older counterparts, so Harriet, Elara, and Hermione were shoved to the back of the dwindling line. Snape was on them the instant Slytherin turned to the common room entrance and disappeared.

"Potter," he said, voice low, eyes flashing as he leaned forward and the three girls froze. "Black, Granger. Don't think for an instant I'm fooled—."

"We weren't there. There's no proof—sir," Harriet told him. The statement came out much braver than Harriet felt, which was good, because Snape only paled further in his fury.

"Oh no? No proof? Perhaps I should bring a certain reptile to the Headmaster's attention then, hm?" Snape snarled.

Harriet blinked, because that was an empty threat and she hadn't realized Snape gave empty threats. Dumbledore had plainly seen Livi in the corridor and hadn't breathed a word of protest, so either the Headmaster knew about the snake already or the professor'd told him.

"If any of you do something half as brain dead ever again, I'll personally see to it that you'll be dissecting toads and scrubbing cauldrons for the duration of your stay at this school. I don't need proof, Potter, and you're a fool to suggest otherwise. Am I understood?"

Eyes on the floor, they nodded.

"Get out of my sight."

The congestion in the corridor had cleared during Snape's brief tirade, so the trio managed to slip by him and disappear with minimal fuss. Harriet's chest ached like she hadn't taken a breath in several minutes and now that she had, the air burned in her throat, in her lungs, and rendered her limbs as listless as cooked noodles. Dread and relief mixed in her head, and a single thought burst through the morass with startling clarity.

He didn't threaten to expel us.

"You know," Harriet murmured as they approached the door to their dormitory. Pansy's grating voice was audible just inside. "Tonight wasn't so bad. I've had worse Hallowe'ens!"

Hermione buried her face in her hands. Elara shook her head and looked toward the ceiling.

"Honestly, Harriet…."

curse thy enemies

xxiv. curse thy enemies

November landed with all the subtlety of a firecracker being lobbed into the middle of a silent church.

Those born and bred in the Wizarding world had been ticking off the weeks and days in rampant anticipation of the Quidditch season's beginning, and they couldn't wait for the first match between Slytherin and Gryffindor slated for later that very month. The blood fanaticism and constant sneering about Muggle-borns abated in the common rooms and classes in favor of talk about favorite teams and prospective winners. Slytherin hoped to take the Quidditch Cup for the sixth year in the row.

Of course, Harriet knew very little about Quidditch, only what she'd learned in Diagon Alley and from listening to some of the more talkative boys wax poetic about player statistics and famous maneuvers—but she found the enthusiasm infectious. Hermione thought it was silly; she told Harriet a whole list of grievances against sports in general as Harriet helped her carry books out of the library, and every time Elara so much as glimpsed a broomstick, she turned a bit green.

Nevertheless, both girls followed Harriet out into the bracing November chill as the school made their way to the Quidditch pitch.

"I just don't see the point," Hermione grumbled as a Gryffindor running by almost clipped her in the head with a flapping pennant. "I don't see why people are so mad over such a silly thing."

"Because it's magic!" Harriet replied. "I still can't believe you two hate brooms. They're a lot of fun!" She thought so, at least. She'd only been on a broom twice: at the very first flying lesson and at the very last. Madam Hooch had been reticent to let her into the air at all after she punched Ron.

Speaking of whom—

Harriet caught a flash of red hair as they climbed the steps into the stands with the rest of the students and paused. "Err, we're not on the Gryffindor side are we?" she asked as she glanced behind her at Elara and Hermione. They both shared puzzled shrugs.

"How should we know?"

"Well, I guess we're going to find out…."

The stands, of course, didn't have any official form of categorization, but the trio of Slytherin witches did end up seated in a mass of Gryffindors with a scattering of yellow scarf wearing Hufflepuffs and a few older Ravenclaws who didn't look all that excited to be there. Harriet plunked herself down on a bench without care and dragged in a lungful of cold air as Hermione and Elara sat down as well.

"What are you doing here?" one of the Gryffindors in their year—Seamus—asked as he twisted in his seat to glare at them. "Why aren't you sitting with the rest of the Slytherins!"

Besides the fact that Harriet hadn't seen where the majority of her House had migrated, she had little interest in hanging around those of her own year. Some were all right. Theo Nott was a bit

like Hermione in regards to studying and could be courteous, though he could also jump onto Draco's Muggle-hating bandwagon quick enough when it suited him. Daphne Greengrass also adopted "pure-blood politeness," as Harriet thought of it. They were nice enough not to make themselves look like total arses, though Malfoy never had the same compunction.

An entirely different dynamic ruled the Gryffindors. Thanks to her magical foster family, Hermione was a walking encyclopedia on Wizarding families, and so Harriet knew Seamus was a half-blood and Dean Thomas was a Muggle-born and three of the Gryffindor girls—Parvati Patil, Lavender Brown, and Fay Dunbar—were all pure-bloods of varying "purity," while Fay's friend Gretta Meadowes was a Muggle-born and Sophie Roper was a half-blood. Ron and Neville were both considered "blood traitors." None of those in the House of Lions ever seemed to care about that, though.

That's because it doesn't matter, Harriet reminded herself as she glanced between Elara and Hermione. Elara was a pure-blood—supposedly, because all Blacks were supposedly pure-blood, though Elara fiercely ignored all questions regarding her family no matter who they came from. Harriet didn't begrudge her that silence since she herself was just as tight-lipped about her home life. Hermione was a Muggle-born and had to be the top in their year, she was just so dead clever. It doesn't matter.

"I'm here to watch Quidditch," Harriet said stiffly, meeting Seamus' glare. "There's no assigned seating."

Seamus opened his mouth and Ron—with clumsy red and gold stripes painted on his cheeks— elbowed him in the ribs. "Leave off, Seamus! You're going to miss it!"

Harriet wondered what he meant by that because it wasn't likely he'd miss an entire Quidditch match before it even began—or maybe it was, what did she know? She sat straight and stared out across the grassy expanse of the pitch. The voice of the commentator, a Gryffindor boy Harriet didn't know, boomed from the staffing stands visible in the periphery of Harriet's vision.

"And here comes this year's Slytherin team: Chasers Flint, Pucey, Montague, Keeper Bletchley, Seeker Higgs, Beaters Derrick and Bole! Flint back again as captain as well, even after some blatant examples of cheating last season—."

"Jordan!" came McGonagall's voice, distant but still sharp. The Slytherin team walked from their locker room with their brooms balanced on their shoulders, and the greener part of the stands—so that's where the other Slytherins went—burst into applause.

"Now the Gryffindor team—! Keeper Wood, extraordinary captain there—Beaters George and Fred Weasley, couple of Bludgers themselves those two, Seeker Alicia Spinnet, Chasers Angelina Johnson, Katie Bell, and—new to the team this year—Neville Longbottom!"

Harriet froze.

The stands erupted in cheers and shouts and bouts of chanting, though it couldn't quite drown the tremendous, echoing "boo" that roared out of the Slytherins. Ron and the other Gryffindors must've already known about Neville's placement on the team because they showed no surprise, only blatant enthusiasm as they jumped to their feet whistling and yelling Neville's name.

"But first years aren't allowed brooms or to try out for the House teams," Hermione said as a furrow dug its way between her brows. "That's against the rules. It's hardly fair."

"Like Professor Snape said," Harriet told her, her own enthusiasm dulled. "'Life's hardly fair.'"

"Lighten up, Potter." Ron dropped onto his seat again. He was breathless from cheering, though that didn't stop the rest of Gryffindor from continuing as the teams met Madam Hooch on the field. "We're all a bit jealous of Neville, but that's no reason to get yourself in a snit about it."

Harriet bit her own tongue. Jealous of Neville? Yes, Harriet decided she was mostly likely jealous of Longbottom—though not over something as silly as Quidditch. Truth be told, she wished she'd gotten more of a chance to fly during their lessons, but she had only herself to blame for being grounded. Her jealousy toward Longbottom stemmed from the fact that, though war had touched his life just as it had touched Harriet's, he came out of it almost wholly unscathed. Harriet longed for the family she'd lost so long ago and would never know.

"Quiet, Weasley," Elara snapped, causing the red-head to jump.

"No one's talking to you, Black!" Finnigan put in.

"No one's talking to you, either, Finnigan."

Out on the field, the two teams were mounting their brooms and rising into the air. They ascended much faster and far higher than Harriet's year had with Madam Hooch, and Harriet shoved aside her immature distaste for Longbottom to watch. The older students handled their brooms with obvious skill, flying like they'd been born on a broomstick, steering with their knees and hips, relying very little on their hands. After all, they needed their hands free once the Quaffle and the Bludgers and the Snitch were set loose.

"That's called Checking," Harriet said when one of the Slytherin Chasers—Pucey—darted between Johnson and Longbottom just as they passed the Quaffle between them, snatching it from Longbottom's fingers before darting in the other direction. "And that, well—." Flint threw an elbow into Bell's face. "Well that's called Cobbing."

"Where do you learn this, Harriet?" Hermione asked, confused.

"I have to read something while you're in the library studying."

"You're supposed to be studying, too."

"I am!" Harriet shrugged. "Just not what you thought I was."

Hermione scoffed, scandalized, and Elara snorted into her scarf.

The game continued at high speeds. Harriet had to admit Neville seemed to have some skill at the game. He flew with aggressive confidence despite his relatively small size and fronted several Hawkshead Attacking Formations—which involved the three team Chasers coming together like an arrowhead and flying with speed to force other Chasers aside.

That said, Longbottom didn't appear to cooperate well with Johnson and Bell. A few times they waited at his flanks, open for a pass, and Neville would just barrel forward through the Slytherin offense like no one else was even playing. The louder the crowd yelled his name, the more reckless he became. Watching him, Harriet didn't feel quite so jealous. She'd rather be set on fire than let her head get that swollen.

Her attention wavered until Ron yelled, "There's something wrong with Neville!" sounding terrified.

"Yeah, it's called being a prat—." Harriet turned her gaze from watching Flint lob the Quaffle toward a goal and found Longbottom higher in the air than he'd been before. Bell and Johnson

circled below him with apparent apprehension, and when one of the Weasley Beaters tried to get closer, Longbottom rose even higher. He had both his arms wrapped tight about the broom, his hands white on the haft as it quivered and rolled.

"There's something wrong with his broom," Elara corrected Ron, her pale eyes following Longbottom's twitchy ascent. The broom rolled again and jerked forward, the motion not unlike the hard flick a person might give their hand after they burn it or jam a finger, like they're trying to throw the pain from themselves. Neville clutched to handle harder and shouted wordless alarm to the Chasers below him. The Slytherins were taking full advantage of the distraction to freely score points.

Seamus took note of this too. "Why haven't they called the match?!" he shouted with anger. "What are they doing—?!"

A whistle blew and barely cut through the rising din of watching spectators. The broom bucked harder and rose sharply, bringing Neville a good fifty or sixty feet above the pitch. The Slytherin team were forced to the ground, none looking pleased, as Madam Hooch retrieved her wand and flicked it toward Longbottom. Nothing happened.

"Harriet—," Hermione said in a voice loud enough to be heard by her alone. Harriet tore her eyes from Longbottom's peril when her friend jerked on her arm, and Hermione pointed toward the higher staffing section of the stands. "I think—I think it's Professor Snape!"

Snape? The professor was difficult to pick out of a crowd; he was distinct one on one, but in a group of other professors and guests and shopkeepers from Hogsmeade all dressed in drab winter cloaks, he blended in. Harriet could only see the profile of him and he looked to be speaking very quickly, thin lips in constant motion. "What about him?"

"I think he's…." Hermione's voice dropped lower still and Harriet had to bend her neck so she could hear the other girl. "I think he's cursing the broom!"

"What?!" Harriet squawked.

Hermione gripped her wrist and rushed on. "He hasn't broken eye contact once, not once, and he must have his wand out, and—."

"I know he's not the nicest bloke, but he wouldn't!" Harriet glanced at Professor Snape again and he still hadn't broken eye contact. Her stomach twisted. "I mean, he's right out in the open there, sitting with a bunch of teachers, and if we've noticed him staring, I think better witches and wizard would have too, right?"

Hermione pressed her mouth into a thin line. "But—."

The bucking broom became too much for Neville; it heaved, then threw itself forward, and the Boy Who Lived came sliding right off the end. The crowd screamed and Harriet gasped, horrified, as Longbottom plummeted toward the earth, going too fast, flipping end over end like a limp ragdoll —.

"Levicorpus!"

Much too close to the ground, Professor Slytherin—standing at the head of the teacher's box, wand extended—shouted a spell that broke through the din and caught Neville by the ankle. The boy's descent slowed all at once, as if he had a noose wrapped tight about his leg, and the bones gave with a loud crack! Harriet winced. Otherwise, Longbottom hung suspended, unharmed, a few feet

above the pitch. His teammates jumped off their brooms and raced toward him. The Gryffindors in the stands did the same, and Harriet caught an elbow to the ear when she didn't move quick enough for Finnigan.

"That was…eventful," Harriet muttered as she rubbed her head. Hermione still had her lips pursed as she stared off toward the higher staffing seats. Snape stood as well, though he didn't make for the field. He seemed to be thinking very hard, wand in hand, brow low.

"It was Snape," Hermione said for Elara's benefit. She kept herself mindful of the trailing Gryffindors around them, but no one was paying attention to the three first year witches. Elara blinked. "He was cursing Longbottom's broom."

"We don't know that," Harriet told her. The last thing Harriet wanted was for a rumor about Snape trying to off Neville to get out and trace its way back to them. Snape might really try to kill a student then. "He's a teacher, Hermione! You love teachers!"

Hermione flushed. "I know! But what else could he have been doing? I've studied curses, Harriet, and you have to maintain eye contact, and Snape—."

"It could have been a counter-curse," Elara said, cutting Hermione off. The bushy-haired witch jerked as if shocked. "Both need constant eye contact. But I wouldn't put it past Snape. He can be quite foul."

He could. The acerbic attitude of the Potions Master rarely extended toward the Slytherins, and yet they still felt the backlash of it, and Elara's explosive ineptitude at the subject earned her just as many biting comments as any Gryffindor. Harriet he mostly ignored and Hermione sometimes even won points for her perfect brews.

"He wouldn't," Harriet said again, though her heart wasn't in the statement. "It's…not very Slytherin—and Professor Slytherin himself saved Neville!"

"He has that nasty grin of his on though," Elara muttered. "Maybe he and Snape are playing a game of terrify the Gryffindor?"

They couldn't be certain. As Oliver Wood began shouting about sabotage and the Slytherin Quidditch players denied all allegations of foul play, Harriet, Hermione, and Elara remained sitting on the cold benches and wondered who had tried to kill the Boy Who Lived.

eye of newt

xxv. eye of newt

Sooner than anyone expected, the holidays arrived at Hogwarts.

Severus both loved and loathed the Yule time; the miscreants returned home to their doting families, leaving the castle blissfully silent, but he rarely had the opportunity to enjoy that silence between resupplying Pomfrey's infirmary and dealing with the Headmaster's well-meaning—and unwanted—Christmas cheer. Severus would languish in the lab, frozen through by the highland winter, and his hand would inevitably ache to the point of distraction. Dumbledore would ask "How are you, my dear boy?" and Snape would snarl, bitch, and most likely drink too much at the yearly feast just to sleep through the night.

He didn't expect this year to be different—not until Prefect Farley flounced into his office the afternoon before the train was set to head to London and handed him the list of students staying behind.

Slytherins rarely lingered for the break. The occasional N.E.W.T student would remain, intent on escaping irascible relatives and utilizing the school's quiet to study, and both Slytherin and Snape would have difficulty prying them away from their books long enough to stuff food into their mouths. One name was hastily jotted on the list this year, as if the writer had done so unwillingly, looking over their shoulder to see if the other students were watching. Severus recognized Harriet Potter's untidy scrawl.

The parchment bent and twisted under his fingertips. He pushed the roiling mass of dread into the back of his mind and refused to acknowledge it.

Severus saw her the next day. He stood by a drooping Sinistra in the entrance hall as the little monsters flocked through the castle's doors dressed in Muggle-garb and dragging their luggage. The sun managed to break free of the winter clouds and spilled upon the stone floor, glittering in the bits of snow drifting on the morning breeze, the smell of fresh rain and pine disgustingly refreshing. The brightness burned Severus' eyes and he rubbed at them, aggravated.

Potter was one of the only students wearing school attire. She came out of the dungeon corridor with Granger and Black, the latter pair dragging their trunks, the Granger chit talking much too fast if the speed of her moving mouth was anything to go by. It was the only time of year Muggle-borns could return to the Muggle world thanks to that ridiculous law passed by Gaunt, so Severus knew where Granger was headed, but he didn't know where Black was going, why she was opting to leave her supposed friend alone for the holidays.

Why the hell is the girl not going back to Petunia for the break? He'd asked himself the same question in his office. It kept bobbing up in his head like flotsam after a storm, the "why" like the incessant dripping of a leaking faucet over a sink that wouldn't drain. Why, why, why—drip, drip, drip. Severus had an answer—one of many, he told himself, one of many—and it threatened to come into focus at every turn, but he ignored it, buried himself in his own Occlusion, because the general consensus among the staff was students who remained during the holidays weren't typically happy at home. Severus didn't want to think about why Potter might not be happy at her own.

You're a freak, Lily! A freak!

"Long night, Severus?" Albus asked as he came to stand by the Potions Master. The light blue of his robes reflected the soft color of the sky visible through the shredded clouds and snowflakes made of threads coalesced along the wide sleeves, dripping and dissipating only to repeat the action again and again.

"Your robes are ridiculous," Severus grumbled in lieu of answering. By the doors, Granger jerked Potter into an strangling embrace and Black followed suit before they made for the exit with the rest of the departing mass. Potter waved goodbye, glum. Severus' gaze drifted through the hall and came to rest on another remnant who would be plaguing the corridors this holiday.

"Tell me Longbottom isn't staying," he said, glaring at the idiot boy as if his stare alone could burn through him. Longbottom stood with his Weasley cohort at the bottom of the marble staircase, leaning on the newel post, and neither were dressed to leave. When Dumbledore didn't reply, Severus had to bite back a groan. "For Salazar's sake—."

"Molly and Arthur Weasley are out of country visiting Charlie and so their other boys are remaining with us for the holidays. Neville expressed worry to Frank over his friend and asked to stay behind," the Headmaster explained with an idle shrug that only further pissed Severus off. "It's a noble sentiment, Severus."

Snape didn't unleash the verbal tide of swear words churning in his gut, but it was a near thing. "He's a wretched, arrogant brat, Albus. He has a team of Aurors watching his home and enough wards to satisfy Gringotts; why remain, especially after that debacle on the Quidditch pitch? For Weasley? It's not as if he's in danger."

"It can be difficult to leave behind those we care about. Impossible in moments of crisis, and sometimes wholly irrational, but who are we argue against the sentiment? All we can do is watch over them and ensure their safety."

Severus' attention flickered back to the girl. She still stood watching the backs of her friends dwindle into the distance and he felt a fresh stab of anger toward Black, because if Neville fuckwit Longbottom could stay behind for bloody Weasley, why couldn't Black remain for the girl? She was alone in the dungeons and if Voldemort had an agent in the school, someone intent on the Stone, someone intent on Longbottom, was it possible some fragment of the Dark Lord's twisted mind would recognize her? Realize the truth—?

Slytherin came sauntering out of the underground passage and Severus sneered, ducking his head so his hair swung forward and obscured the direction of his sight. The Defense professor paused by the Potter girl and Snape felt more than saw Albus stiffen, a sudden rigidity falling over the older wizard when Slytherin scrutinized the short, strange girl with her wild hair and haunted eyes, and brought his fingers together in thought. He said something to her, something lost in the distance and din of running feet, and the girl stirred, blinking as she looked up at her Head of House. Slytherin spoke again and Potter made her excuses, dashing off into the dungeons once more.

It was difficult to tell from the angle, but Severus thought Slytherin looked…curious.

"Forgive me if my worry doesn't extend to Longbottom at the moment," he drawled, leaving his place by the wall. Albus said nothing.

Ten students in total had been left in their charge during the Yule holiday. It was a simple task to count them during lunch, scattered at their respective tables as they were, the House of Lions making up half that number. Three Weasleys sat clumped with the Longbottom boy and made a disproportionate amount of noise, earning several pointed looks from Minerva and one scolding rebuff from the remaining Weasley, Percy.

At the Hufflepuff table, first year Susan Bones sat affably chatting with third year Randy Twilfitt. Severus guessed Bones' aunt was too busy with the Ministry and Twilfitt's father was probably inundated by end of the year orders. The friendliness exhibited by the Hufflepuffs didn't extend to the neighboring table; the two seventh year Ravenclaws, Wendell Henge and Felipe Sanders, sat at opposing ends of the hall and shot one another bitter, harried looks, both slumped over open texts, hands grubby with dust and ink. The pair exhibited the stereotypical competitiveness that plagued Filius' house and Severus imagined they'd come to blows like a pair of tired Muggle thugs before long.

Finally, there was Potter, of course, sitting on her own and picking at her sandwich, gazing morosely at the delicate decorations that had sprung up in the castle only that morning. Pitiful sight that she was, Potter attracted the notice of other professors aside from Severus. Pomona leaned nearer Minerva and he heard her mutter. "Poor dear. Black and the Granger girl didn't stay? Why didn't her family have her come home?"

Minerva pressed her lips into a firm line and she surveyed Harriet—who not so subtly dropped part of her sandwich into her lap for that invisible snake of hers to eat. "They must have been busy."

The Herbology professor hummed around a bite of potatoes. "I still remember her parents well. Tragic thing, what happened. Who did their girl get left with after 81'?"

"Relatives of hers."

Pomona frowned, the look unnatural on her well-mannered face. "I didn't know James had folk about still."

Then Minerva quickly tucked into her soup and changed the conversation. Pomona would know any relatives of Lily's to be Muggles and that was not something Dumbledore or those who had even the slightest inkling of what really happened that Hallowe'en so long ago wanted others privy to. The girl had been left with Petunia—with Muggles—despite the law prohibiting such arrangements for her own protection. The Dark Lord's influence ran deep in the very bones of Wizarding society; Lily's daughter wouldn't have lived through infancy had she remained in the magical world.

Slytherin watched the girl, too. Selwyn nattered on in his ear about some petty grievance and Slytherin didn't even bother to nod; he ran the tip of his thumb against the tips of his fingers over and over again, then touched one of the ubiquitous books he seemed to always carry, the formation of dastardly thoughts churning like thunderheads amassing on a horizon, threatening an oncoming storm. Severus had watched one too many Slytherin students succumb to the man who wore the name of their House like a smiling mask; he wasn't about to watch Potter run headlong into the hurricane.

He shoved away his cold plate and stood.

"Finished, Severus?" Minerva asked, eying the wasted food.

"Yes." Severus paused "Potter has a detention to serve."

"A detention?!"

Severus didn't give an explanation. He gathered himself and strode from the dais, walking into the midst of the Great Hall instead of leaving through the side chamber. Potter didn't notice him until he snapped her name and the snake darted for cover under her robes once more. He felt stupid for not noticing the creature sooner; it looped itself about her shoulder and gave the scrawny girl an odd, moving hunch.

"P-Professor?"

"Come with me, Potter."

She did as told, scrambling up from the empty table, leaving behind a plate of food just as full as Severus' had been. She trailed after the Potions Master as he strode out of the hall and made for the dungeon corridor, his left eyes aching in the sudden—and severe—shift in temperature. He rubbed at the scars, irritated, and tried to think of what to do with the brat now. Minerva would verbally flay him later. His immediate plan had been to remove Potter from Slytherin's sight; like the symbol of his Noble House, the man had an indolent disposition, a propensity for snatching things dangled in front of his nose before hunting for bigger, juicier prey. Slytherin wouldn't put the effort into searching for Potter if she wasn't in his immediate vicinity.

Severus wondered if Albus would protest him giving the girl detention for the rest of break.

"Professor Snape? Am I…in trouble?" she asked, the words coming out small and nervous, like Severus might turn around and start screaming. He rolled his eyes—and immediately regretted the motion when his left began to throb again.

"No," he retorted as they entered the Potions classroom. He pointed at one of the tables near his desk, told the girl "Sit," and she did so. "The infirmary requires new potions to be brewed and I would rather not waste my time with menial prep work. Since you have nothing better to do…."

Defiance sparked in her, a brief flicker of irritation behind tired eyes, and Severus waited for her to take exception to his tone— but then Potter looked down and nodded without protest. Odd.

Severus flicked his wand toward the storage cupboard and waited for the needed ingredients to come zooming out, settling a cutting board, a knife, and a sizable clutch of different roots on the table before her. "These must be cut to specification. Watch carefully." He diced one daisy root and one stick of yew, then sliced a Gurdyroot, showing the girl how each needed to be prepared. "Do you think you can manage that, Miss Potter?"

"Yeah—yes, Professor."

"Good."

Severus retreated to his desk and retrieved the proper cauldrons needed to brew Pomfrey's potions. Silence descended over the dungeon, broken only by the small noises arising from their separate motions: the quiet scuff of Severus' shoes on the floor, the screech of metal cauldron legs sliding on wood, the slow but steady thud of the knife cutting through plant matter. Potter concentrated on her task, nose wrinkled against the smell of split Gurdyroot. Her potion making abilities weren't as clear as her Muggle-born friend's, but she had a spot of talent in handling ingredients and properly measuring materials—not like Black. Every cauldron Black touched seemed to collapse in on itself.

They worked without exchanging words for an hour—well, Severus worked without exchanging

words while the girl hissed from the corner of her mouth and made a mockery of subtlety. He could hear the serpent whisper in return as they carried on a conversation. Every sibilant word hit his ear like a sledgehammer, images of the Dark Lord flashing through his recollection, memories of deadly vipers spilling through the man's white, white hands and stirring around their ankles, Death Eaters trembling in fear as pythons thicker round than grown wizards slithered through the room.

Severus sat down with a heavy sigh and rubbed at his sore eye as his iron cauldron continued to simmer. Why can't anything ever be simple?

"Professor Snape? Is your eye okay?"

He froze, then jerked his hand away from his face. Shit. "It's fine," he snapped, leveling a fierce glower in the nosy chit's direction, daring her to question it again. Not many students knew about his eye, not anymore. Those who'd been in school when the incident occurred had graduated, leaving their younger siblings and friends with nothing more than rumors and speculations— rumors and speculations that proved to Severus the uncreative idiocy of his students over and over again.

"Sorry, sir." She didn't sound sorry. She sounded irked, and Severus guessed he deserved that for dragging her to the bloody frozen dungeons and telling her to chop roots. What other excuse could he give? Stay away from your Defense professor, he's an ill-defined, maliciously clever, nefarious duplicate of the same Dark Lord who killed your parents? He regularly bends the minds of children to accept his potentially deadly ideology? Slytherin would read that in Potter's head like he was perusing the Daily Prophet and Severus would probably be dead in a week.

"Potter…." Severus paused, then stood to inspect his cauldron again. "Why did you choose to stay for the holidays?"

The knife's steady thud stuttered. "Err—what?"

"Are you deaf, girl?"

"No, it's just—why do you want to know? Sir?"

Severus quirked a brow as he stirred, counting the ladle's revolutions through the thick concoction. No, Potter had no subtlety whatsoever, but for a moment, he saw a glint of Slytherin evasiveness in the girl. Being eleven, it was unrefined, the childish misdirection of a girl used to lying to idiot Muggles, not practiced deceivers like Severus—but is was there, and likely part of the reason she ended up in the House of Serpents. "That doesn't answer my question."

"I'm not deaf." She poked at the daisy roots, shredding the messy ends, staining her fingertips green. "My, err, relatives work."

"Yes, everyone works, Potter. Does that work actually interfere with you returning to your home?"

She thought about it. Severus saw her trying to come up with some answer beyond 'my aunt's a bitch,' like little cogs clicking behind the face of a clock. "Yes."

"In what way?"

"I dunno. Just does." Potter furiously chopped at the roots again and created a mess of useless pulp. "I ruined these, I think. Sorry, professor."

Severus scoffed at her purposeful destruction, but allowed the subject to drop for now. "Never

mind. Move on to the yew." She did so, and he removed the ladle from his cauldron, careful to not unduly disturb the base mixture. "And what of Black? Surely her caregivers could spare her for the holidays. Why did she not stay?"

The stiffness leached from the girl's shoulders and she stopped massacring the roots. "Oh, um—." Severus winced when she brought the knife too close to her face, using the hand to adjust her glasses. "Elara's uncle's been sick and she's a bit worried about him, so she decided it'd be best to go home."

Uncle? Severus took a moment to pore through his knowledge of Black's family lineage; her wretch of a father only had one brother, Regulus, and he'd been presumed dead since before Potter or Elara Black's birth. Marlene McKinnon had no brothers and only one older sister who died with the rest of the McKinnons in the fire. Black had no uncle—unless she meant great uncle. Severus knew through Narcissa's scathing comments that Cygnus was still alive and still not speaking to the Malfoy family after they quarreled years ago. Perhaps he was the one who took Black in.

Potter kept talking. "She's also hoping to find out more about her parents, since her uncle didn't really know them, I guess. He doesn't even know her mum's name and it's been hard getting information while at Hogwarts."

Severus stilled. "…does Black know who her father is?"

"Yeah—I mean, yes. But she doesn't really like to talk about him."

Ah, he thought. So she does know about him. The students are quick enough to call her the 'Madman's Daughter,' so I shouldn't be surprised. "Her mother was Marlene McKinnon."

The sound of the knife hitting the cutting board came to a stop yet again and Severus lifted his gaze from the cauldron. Potter stared at him in astonishment. He scowled.

"You will keep the source of that information to yourself, Potter!"

"Y-yes, sir!"

Severus glared and the girl returned to her task. She prodded a Gurdyroot with the tip of the knife and lunged forward to grab it before the spherical root could roll off the table. Potter's friendship with the Black heir still grated on Severus, so he found himself speaking before he could think better of it. "It doesn't surprise me Black dislikes speaking of her father. He was an abominable human being and a very dangerous wizard. Most Blacks are."

Potter glanced up and caught his eye. She'd heard the implicit hint in his tone. They stared at one another as Potter passed the Gurdyroot between her small hands and her thoughts churned inside her head. Severus wasn't fool enough to think she'd toss Black's friendship aside on his accusations, but he hoped the sentiment sank in somewhere in thick skull. Even he hadn't suspected Sirius Black of being a traitor; he wouldn't see Potter's spawn fall into the same trap.

"It doesn't really matter though, does it, sir?" she said slowly. "I mean, whoever her dad is or was, it doesn't matter. Most kids don't grow up to be like their parents. Not really, anyway."

Severus looked at Potter for several seconds, expression inscrutable, then spoke. "No," he said. The cauldron hissed and bubbled, and the flame cast an eerie light through the cold room. "They don't."

reflections of desire

xxvi. reflections of desire

Harriet peeked into the deserted corridor, let the tapestry fall behind her, and released a relieved breath.

Professor Snape hated her. It was the only reason she could imagine responsible for his sudden, burning need to give Harriet detention every time they crossed paths; four days had passed since the rest of the student body went home and already Harriet had been given four detentions. One she spent chopping more potion ingredients, one cleaning cauldrons, one polishing trophies with Filch, and one lingering in the Transfiguration classroom. Professor McGonagall didn't seem all that pleased with Professor Snape and probably would have let Harriet go had Harriet not been convinced she'd only get another detention for leaving detention early.

He punished her for the stupidest things—for having messy hair or for dropping a book or for sneezing too loud. When Harriet protested, Snape gave her yet another detention, all while wearing a smug expression that dared Harriet to argue further so he could extend what rubbish penance he'd already assigned. Naturally, she wouldn't accuse a git like Snape of ever liking anyone, but Harriet'd thought he didn't hate her as much as he seemed to hate the Gryffindors—or Elara, who melted all his cauldrons and once caught her table on fire. She'd obviously been mistaken.

The corridor was Snape-free—or it looked Snape-free, at least. Harriet felt cautiously optimistic. She walked carefully as she headed for the library, which she hoped was close enough to Professor McGonagall's office to stave off anymore run-ins with the Potions Master. She tried coaxing Set into being her lookout, but her shadow remained obstinate and quiet, much to Harriet's frustration. She would've kicked him had she known where his shins were and if it wouldn't have bruised her toes on the stone floor.

One stairwell separated Harriet from her destination. She wanted to run, if only to get there quicker and find a quiet table out of sight where she could think about reading the books Hermione always pestered her about and probably settle on something more recreational. Harriet wished one of her friends could've stayed, but she understood better than most the importance of a loving family, and she wouldn't begrudge Elara or Hermione for wanting to go home and see theirs.

Maybe she could reach the Owlery. Elara had left her bird behind so Harriet could write if she wanted. Harriet would've used a school owl, but Elara said a school owl probably couldn't reach her because of the old enchantments covering her house. The owl still didn't have a name and Harriet kept trying to give him one whenever he stopped by in the morning for part of Elara's breakfast, yet the owl disliked every choice she gave him, leaving Harriet with nothing but nipped fingers for her efforts.

Raised voices in the stairwell reached Harriet's ears and she froze.

"—don't know how you're managing it, but I'll go straight to Flitwick, I swear—," one Ravenclaw snarled at another, his bespectacled face mottled with flushed red color.

"I'm not cheating, you're just a bloody moron." The taller Ravenclaw shoved the boy in glasses and took a step back. "You've never been top of the class so I don't get what your problem is—."

"I was top of the year last term—!"

"Yeah, that was sixth year," the Ravenclaw sneered. "No one cares about sixth year, dunce." He turned and climbed the steps toward Harriet, slamming his feet down as he went. The sound of his stride echoed in the enclosed space. "Get out of the way, Slytherin."

Harriet shuffled to the side, though the larger Ravenclaw still knocked his arm against hers. On the landing below, the bespectacled boy glowered at the taller student, his eyes hard—until suddenly he had his wand clenched in his fist and his voice rang in the stairwell when he shouted, "Slugulus Eructo!"

Really, Harriet had no desire to be in the middle of whatever issues the two older students were arguing about. She much rather be in the library, reading a nice story book, or in the Owlery sending a letter, or outside in the snow building snowmen and generally avoiding any of the school's professors, especially Snape. However, long hours in the Defense classroom or studying practical lessons with Hermione had drilled habit into Harriet's head; when the curse came flying toward the other Ravenclaw, Harriet had her wand in hand, incanting, "Protego!"

The spell struck her transparent shield and ricocheted into the wall, where it left a long smear of a green, slimy substance. It looked like bogeys to Harriet's eyes. "Oh, ew, gross—!"

The taller Ravenclaw whipped around on his heels and jabbed his own wand toward his fellow. "Calvario!"

Red light smacked the bespectacled boy in the face—and suddenly the brown curls atop his head fell from his scalp like dead leaves off a tree. His eyebrows did the same. The taller student barked with laughter, and the furious boy below took the chance to yell, "Locomotor Mortis!"

The second boy's legs snapped together and Harriet yelped when he toppled into her, almost sending them both down the steps. She grabbed the Ravenclaw by the arm in an attempt to keep him upright, but he was a great deal larger and heavier than Harriet, his weight dragging her down with him as he fell and smacked his face on the top step. The bespectacled—and bald, very bald— Ravenclaw started to climb, his wand raised, and because Harriet had crumpled atop the other boy, she knew any spell sent his way would hit her instead, so she grappled to right her grip on her own wand, eyes wide, mouth dry—.

"Enough!"

The sudden voice froze the three students in place and dread spilled along Harriet's spine like ice water. Professor Slytherin appeared at the bottom of the stairs, books tucked under an arm, his red eyes roving from the pile of hair strewn on the stones to the Ravenclaws and finally to Harriet herself, who shrank under his scrutiny and adjusted her glasses. "Are you injured, Miss Potter?"

"N-no, Professor Slytherin."

"Good." He flicked his wand and the mess on the floor burst into flames, the hair incinerating itself to nothing in a matter of seconds as Slytherin strode up the steps. "Forty points from Ravenclaw," he snarled. "Get up, Henge."

The boy on the floor—Henge—tried, but his legs were immobile from the waist down still so he could only manage an ungainly push-up. A small pool of blood had formed where he'd smashed his nose.

"Pathetic, the pair of you. Finite Incantatem." The cursed ended and Henge righted himself,

wincing at the bruise forming on his face. He fired a furious look in the other boy's direction, then wilted when he caught Professor Slytherin's eye. "Henge, Sanders—you will both go to the Hospital Wing and wait there for the Headmaster and your Head of House. If I catch wind of even so much as a whisper of more fighting…." Slytherin allowed his hissed threat to trail off into nothing and the two boys ran for it, their quarrel forgotten in lieu of escaping Slytherin's wrath. Harriet tried to sidestep by him and make her own escape. His hand came down on her shoulder and squeezed.

"A moment of your time, Miss Potter," he said with a smile—one of those smiles that wasn't a smile at all, simply a tight curl of his lips like a snake preparing to open its jaws and devour a cricket whole. "I'm sure the Headmaster will appreciate an unbiased report of this embarrassing behavior."

He then proceeded to march her straight back the way she'd come, up to the top floor of the high tower, where Harriet had hid herself early in the day to escape Snape-the-dungeon-dweller. Slytherin brought them to a halt before a winged gargoyle crouching low with bared teeth, and the man said the words, "Pumpkin Pasty."

Harriet glanced at him, wondering if the wizard had gone mad, and the gargoyle shifted aside, revealing a set of spiral steps that began to revolve upward the moment Slytherin pushed them past the entrance. At the top of the stairs waited a door carved with intricate designs bearing an aged patina, though Harriet didn't have time to appreciate the picture because Slytherin shoved the door open without knocking. He ushered Harriet into the space beyond.

Harriet hadn't been called into the Headmaster's office before; she liked to believe she was rather well-behaved, punching-Ron-in-the-mouth incidents aside. The Headmistress in primary had punished her on occasion, so Harriet expected Dumbledore's office to be something like hers; wood finishes, a large desk, lots and lots of little folders for organizing. She did see a large desk ahead of her—but everything else in Professor Dumbledore's office was nothing like Harriet would have guessed. Shelves lining the lower walls were crowded with all manner of texts and above waited line after line of gilded portraits, most of the residents fast asleep, or at least pretending to sleep. Low tables held collections of odd, whirring instruments cast in silver, emitting thin puffs of steam or chiming with gentle song. By the desk stood a golden perch, and on the perch rested the most regal bird Harriet had ever seen.

She glanced about but found no sign of Professor Dumbledore.

Professor Slytherin sighed, rolling his eyes at the crimson bird as it warbled a bright melody that eased the tension in Harriet's shoulders and warmed her heart. "It appears we will have to wait for Dumbledore's return," he said as he settled in one of the armchairs facing the desk. "Wonderful."

He gestured toward the accompanying chair and Harriet eased into it, nibbling on her lower lip, watching the man from the corner of her eye. The bird chose that moment to hop off its perch and come rest upon Harriet's knees, leveling her a searching look as it cocked its head to the side and clacked its beak. Nervous, Harriet lifted a hand to stroke the bird's striking plumage and it allowed her to do so, crooning once, twice, and then taking flight again, alighting through an open window into the gentle flutter of snow beyond. Harriet watched it leave and, for some reason, felt incorrigibly sad.

Whispering jerked her head around just as Professor Slytherin tucked one of his books into the front of his robes. Harriet caught only a glimpse of it; bound in black leather with brass tabs on the corners, it appeared to be a journal, and the second it slipped out of sight, the whispering stopped. Professor Slytherin met Harriet's inquisitive gaze and smiled. Again, the expression showed

nothing but sharp teeth and something distinctly vicious that made Harriet swallow and look away.

"Something the matter, Miss Potter?"

"N-no, professor."

"Hmm."

The wizard studied Harriet, his thoughts unknowable, his index finger tapping his lower lip until Slytherin put aside his woolgathering and summoned a book off one of Dumbledore's shelves with a wandless wave of his hand. The cabinet door sprung open and the book made an audible slap of sound when it landed in Slytherin's upheld palm. Stare still lingering on Harriet, he popped the book open, then began to read.

If Harriet thought conversations with the Defense professor were nerve-racking, his silence was even more so. She kept shooting furtive looks toward his chest without meaning to, thinking about that journal with its weird whispering and the strange, gelatinous feeling of dread she'd gotten from just seeing it. Like tar, the feeling stuck with her despite the book's absence and left behind a smudged residue, something tacky beneath her fingers that Harriet couldn't help but poke and prod and scratch at.

She stood and meandered toward the Headmaster's tables of silver instruments, putting much needed space between her and Slytherin while also sating her curiosity. Harriet didn't know anything of what those contraptions did and could only guess and wonder to their function. She bit back the urge to touch things, a voice suspiciously like Aunt Petunia's snapping at her to keep her grubby hands to herself, though Harriet still craned her neck, twisting this way and that, to get a better look. She swore she heard one of the portraits snort, but they all resumed their naps when she glanced up in suspicion.

The was a room adjoined to the main office. Of course, there were several other rooms and a set of stairs Harriet suspected led to Professor Dumbledore's private quarters, but the door to this room stood partly open—or partly closed, the chamber beyond roughly the size of a large cupboard or a small study, illuminated by a single golden candle. Harriet poked her head inside for a look and saw nothing but a couple of closed trunks, a few shelves holding some broken oddments—and a mirror.

The door's hinges creaked as Harriet stepped inside. She stared at the gilded mirror that reached from floor to ceiling, spots of wear speckled on the silver glass, words carefully chiseled into the thick gold frame arching over the mirror's top: Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi. Harriet wrinkled her nose and decided if that wasn't a bunch of gibberish, she didn't know what was.

Maybe it's some kind of spell, she thought as she edged nearer and peeked at her reflection. Maybe something to activate it—.

There were people standing right behind her.

"Frick—!" Harriet jumped and wheeled about, heart pounding. No one was there.

She glanced at the mirror and found that the image hadn't changed.

Is this room haunted or something? Does Dumbledore have a closet full of ruddy ghosts? Or is this some kind of joke mirror—?

A woman stood closest to her, and she passed her fingers through mirror-Harriet's hair, through real-Harriet couldn't feel it. She looked into the woman's eyes—and they were familiar, so

familiar, and the man at her side grinned from ear to ear, black hair untidy, glasses sliding down his skinny nose, and behind them lingered more faces, all of them so achingly memorable—.

Harriet blinked. A hollow ringing built in her ears and beneath her feet Set curled, shadows clinging to her heels, slowing her laborious trudge toward the mirror as Harriet lifted a hand and felt the cold glass beneath her fingertips. "…Mum?"

The woman nodded.

As if she'd taken a punch to the gut, the air whooshed from Harriet's lungs and she gaped, wordless, hands trembling. The image blurred and shifted, the crowd in the background dissolving so two additional figures could appear with Harriet and her parents. A younger girl with hazel eyes gripped the wizard's hand and the witch had a third girl, a toddler with dark red hair, balanced on her hip. Siblings, Harriet's beleaguered brain supplied, and the thought plinked through her like a breeze in wind chimes, hollow bones resounding with a soundless, vibrating need she had never encountered before.

Harriet didn't know what her parents looked like. Here and there she'd heard a comment about her hair being like James' or her eyes like Lily's, but Harriet had never seen this for herself and now she could. She wanted desperately to know the name of her siblings, to know if they liked Harriet, if they spent time together as a family, if her mum baked cookies and how warm her dad's hugs were. What was growing up in a wizarding household like? She pressed her hand flat to the glass in effort to slip through it and join those on the other side.

"Ah, the Mirror of Erised. What a droll trinket."

Harriet jerked back. Professor Slytherin sauntered through the open door with his arms crossed and he smirked at her, and the mirror. Not wanting him to see her family, Harriet stepped to the side, out of frame, and her parents vanished.

"Figured out how it works then, Potter?"

She hadn't, no. Why did the mirror show her family? Her mum and dad had been real enough—but those two girls hadn't ever existed. Did it show some type of alternate future? A world that would never be? Harriet's heart ached in her chest and she laid a hand against it, fingers brushing the edge of her lopsided tie as she recalled the sudden burst of emotion that had erupted there, the sheer need—.

"It—it shows you what you want," she stuttered. "Whatever you want, even if it's not possible."

"Partially. Five points to Slytherin." The professor shrugged as he leaned his weight against one of the shelves. The shelf didn't appear very sturdy, and yet it didn't wobble in the slightest. "The Mirror of Erised is enchanted to show your most ardent desire, not the petty wants of everyday life. Many a wizard and witch have been fool enough to let the images depicted therein drive them to madness."

"So it's not real," she whispered, more to herself than to Slytherin, her eye still drawn to the mirror despite the absence of her family. She wanted to see them, just once more, just long enough to commit the image to memory, just so she could have the picture of them in her head—.

Harriet hated the mirror when she realized Slytherin was right, that someone could go quite mad wanting to look at that lying hunk of antique junk, even if just for a few seconds more. Her weight leaned precariously forward and Harriet had to smother the voice in the back of her head telling her to take that step, to bring herself into the mirror's line of sight, to look one more time. It's not true.

It's pretend, like dreams in my head projected onto the surface. It's not real.

"What do you see, Miss Potter?" Slytherin asked. Her breaths still came in shallow increments when she turned to him, then lowered her chin, not wanting to meet his terrifying eyes.

"Err—I'm with my relatives. It's Christmas time," she lied, deciding it best to splice in a measure of truth.

Slytherin tipped his head and a curl of brown hair fell across his brow. "Yule," the wizard corrected her in a sharp voice. "Christmas is a Muggle holiday. Yule is celebrated by magical kind. Why, Miss Potter, it sounds as if you were raised by Muggles."

Then he grinned and Harriet wanted to sink through the floor and disappear. Her neck itched something fierce.

Movement at the door caught her attention. Dumbledore stood there in crimson robes striped with thin lines of gold, his sleeves lined with fur that looked particularly warm. "Hello, Harriet," he greeted with a gentle smile—then his blue eyes cut to Professor Slytherin and the soft creases on his brow became hard and deep. "Is there a reason you've brought Miss Potter here, Tom?"

Slytherin sucked air through his teeth and Harriet thought of how Uncle Vernon would've cuffed him in the back of the head for showing that kind of disrespect. "Miss Potter witnessed a fight between Henge and Sanders. I thought it best she give her account of the story, lest you question my bias."

"Oh, I'd never doubt your professionalism, Tom. Simply your methods." Something cold slithered in Dumbledore's normally jovial voice and Harriet shifted. The Headmaster extend his arm out toward her. "Come along, Harriet. It's best to leave the mirror alone and not dwell upon what is seen within. Dreams, while lovely, should not be pursued at the expense of living."

She placed her hand in the Headmaster's and, when his warm fingers closed over hers, a feeling of safety enfolded Harriet like a new cloak. That prickly misery that had reared its ugly head after encountering the cursed mirror deflated, and though Harriet could see Slytherin sneer in disapproval, Harriet smiled at Professor Dumbledore and followed after him.

the house of black

xxvii. the house of black

Elara yanked on her trunk to get it over the crack in the sidewalk and scowled.

It was a long walk to Grimmauld Place from King's Cross, made all the more difficult by the thin layer of half-frozen snow that stuck to Elara's shoes and the trunk's wheels. She could have gotten a taxi, of course, but Elara hadn't thought of that before and didn't have any Muggle money on her person. Besides, she wanted to avoid the Muggle world, just in case the orphanage had reported her as a missing person.

Father Phillips would probably tell the cops I'm an escaped nutter.

Elara crossed the quiet square with the looming faces of townhouses watching her progress. Number Twelve Grimmauld Place appeared right between Number Eleven and Number Thirteen, rather woebegone and weathered compared to its neighbors, the whispered, tinny sound of a television fluttering out someone's cracked window. The neighbors flitted by their windows, ignorant to Elara's presence, and the many shuttered eyes of Number Twelve remained dark, haunting. She mounted the steps, huffing all the way, and ignored the serpent-shaped knob in favor of rapping on the door itself.

"Kreacher," she said aloud with a glance up and down the street, seeing no one. "Kreacher, open the door. Please." When nothing happened, Elara smacked the door with more strength. "Kreacher."

The knob creaked, twisted, and the door popped open an inch or so, allowing a sudden gasp of moldy air to escape, like breaching the vault of a forgotten tomb. Elara wrinkled her nose and quickly stepped inside. The house-elf's milky eyes gleamed in the low, sputtering light of the gas lamps once the door came closed again.

"The blood-traitor's daughter is back."

"Yes," she said, sighing. Kreacher had warmed to her—somewhat—over the summer hols, but it seemed he was back to referring to her as the blood-traitor's brat. "It's nice to see you too, Kreacher."

The elf grumbled and sneered but otherwise refrained from making a comment. "Master Cygnus is not well."

The handle of Elara's trunk slipped from her sweaty hand and thumped on the dusty carpet. A knot had begun to twist itself into her middle not long after leaving Grimmauld for Hogwarts and it doubled itself now, tightening until Elara felt like she might be ill. "Can I—can I see him?"

"Kreacher will ask."

"Thank you."

He frowned and turned away, his pale body hunched and off-kilter as he tottered down the hall and up the stairs. Elara picked up her luggage again and went to find her room. She ignored the glassy- eyed stare of dead house-elves on the wall, a spider hanging from one's bulbous nose. Elara would

have to do something about those heads, something that wouldn't set Kreacher off into a full- blown fit and yet still removed them from her sight.

The room Elara had inhabited since that summer was, ironically, bedecked in faded banners of crimson and gold, a Gryffindor lion embossed on the wall—right between a few posters with scantily dressed models that pouted when Elara pinned sheets of parchment over them. She would tear them down if they hadn't been stuck to the wallpaper with a spell.

It was in this room that she had found the journal, the one she took to reading between assignments at school or on the long train ride into the city. The writer had been particularly fond of code names and she had no idea who used to inhabit the space she now utilized. Cygnus himself had only come to live at Grimmauld some years after Walburga's passing, when his illness had worsened beyond its initial stages, and thus didn't know much of the house's more detailed information. Kreacher could tell her, were he not the most intractable of people Elara had ever had the misfortune of meeting.

She settled down and took out the journal in question, a tattered thing with a magical shop's logo branded into the inside cover along with a series of nonsensical doodles. It was not a diary—not the sort Elara had ever seen—but rather a book of thoughts, funny anecdotes, ideas, and bits of copied lectures. What she found particularly compelling were the parts detailing Animagi and their transformations. Whoever had owned the journal had a penchant for rude humor and was an absolutely brilliant wizard.

Elara thumbed the weathered pages, considering the scribbled handwriting and the careless blotches of ink. She'd considered the possibility of the book belonging to her father—he'd lived in this house too, as far as she knew—but Elara couldn't reconcile the image in her head, and dozens of Black sons had lived in the house over the years. "Padfoot" wrote with vivacity, wrote about pranks and a boy he fancied named "Mooney" and how much he loved Quidditch; Sirius Black was a madman who killed thirteen people with one curse and supposedly laughed. The journal couldn't belong to him.

Feeling sick at heart, Elara set the journal aside and exhaled. She rubbed at her wrists and wished the cold didn't make them ache so.

Kreacher arrived with a sudden pop! and she jumped, startled, giving the house-elf a reproving look as he grinned nastily. "Master Cygnus is awake."

"Thank you, Kreacher."

The elf disappeared as Elara stood, straightened her clothes, and headed up to the proper bedroom. She knocked on the door and the occupant called out entry, voice as weak as a summer breeze, and Elara eased into the room. The dark remained omniscient with shadows as thick as shrouds, the smell of sick and ash heavy as a morning fog. Elara strode forward without waiting for invitation and brushed her fingers against the base of the candlestick sitting on the nightstand. A grunt rose from the bed when the candle came to life.

"Brat," Cygnus rasped as he turned his head on the pillow and his black hair clung in limp coils to his pale skin. Elara pulled the shade low around the candle to dilute the light and her great uncle sighed in response. "Thank you."

"How are you, Uncle?"

Cygnus didn't respond. His eyes gleamed in the flickering light, two bright spots in and otherwise blurred countenance. Elara felt the sudden urge to tear away the shade and cast the light fully upon

him, just so she could see him, so she could see how much worse he must have gotten in her absence, but she'd been raised with better respect, even if she resented that place with every bone in her body. Cygnus wouldn't tell her and it was better if she didn't ask. "How was your trip?"

"Fine. Uneventful."

He harrumphed. "How is Slytherin House treating you?"

"Fine." Elara fidgeted, bringing her fingers together, studying her nails. "I have some friends and my studies have been going well."

"Ah, yes. The Potter girl and the Mud—Muggle-born." He narrowed his eyes. "I do hope you haven't alienated the students from the old families?"

"No, but they are a bit…." Elara trailed off and Cygnus chuckled. The sound was heavy, wet, and painful.

"They will grow out of their idiocy with age," he said. "They confuse bigotry with House pride and forget a man's fortunes can dwindle in a single afternoon." Cygnus coughed and turned from Elara, facing the dark. "The blue potion, if you'd be so kind…."

Elara jumped up to retrieve the asked for mixture, then returned to her seat. At Cygnus' prompting, she continued to share stories of her time attending Hogwarts and he coached her to speak up or to speak more, because telling a good tale was part of knowing how present oneself. He scoffed over recollections of Draco's behavior and stated that "Allowing Narcissa to marry Lucius Malfoy" had been one of his stupider decisions in life. "He may be pure of blood, but he and his father Abraxas are the greatest of cross-eyed dolts."

She pressed her lips into a firm line to swallow her laugh and if Cygnus noticed, he chose not to comment.

"To that end, I actually have a gift for you…." Elara's great uncle shifted and she heard the fine scratch of paper moving on paper before he found the missive he wanted and extended it to her, bringing his trembling hand into the light. Elara stared at the pale, wasted thing and felt something twist in her middle again. His skin was paler than the parchment and just as thin and dry. "The letter, brat."

"My apologies." Elara took it from him. She opened the page and held it closer to the single candle, squinting against the dark to decipher the words scrawled there in a very official manner. It was some kind of legal document and the jargon therein confused Elara, since her vocabulary leaned more toward the romantic, poetic styling of religious dogma. "This says I've been—."

"Emancipated," Cygnus said with a sigh, as if he'd grown tired of watching Elara try to read. "It took a great deal of gold and persuasion to manage it for a girl your age. What it means is that upon my death you will become the proxy-Head of our family, and you will not be forced into some lesser household—or, Merlin forbid, taken in by one of my daughters. You will be recognized as an adult in the eyes of magical law."

Elara stared at the paper in her grip until her eyes blurred. "I don't have to go back to the orphanage." She had no plans of ever returning there, but it had always been a possibility, a threat looming in the back of her mind like the ominous rattle of handcuffs and the slow intonation of priestly chanting. She didn't have to fear ending up somewhere just as despicable in the Wizarding world.

"No, you don't."

Careful, as if handling a priceless heirloom, Elara folded the letter and held it to her chest, repressing the prickling sensation in her eyes that threatened tears. Cygnus wouldn't appreciate that. "Thank you."

He didn't smile, but he did watch Elara, his gaze glassy with pain and his sunken skin wet with fresh perspiration. "You will do the House of Black proud," he said. His words rang with certainty, the kind of certainty only men like her great uncle—men who'd walked in the upper echelon of society and had sampled the fruits of indulgence—could achieve. "The least I could do was assure you were not taken away from it."

Cygnus Black died three days after Elara arrived at Grimmauld Place.

She woke early in the morning to the sound of house-elf sobs echoing in the narrow corridors and entered her great uncle's bedroom to find that he had, presumably, expired in his sleep sometime the night prior. At a loss, she sank into the armchair by the bedside and stared as Kreacher howled and Elara patted the elf's heaving shoulders. Cygnus' death was sudden, though not unexpected. Had he not introduced himself to her by stating his condition was fatal? Elara knew that, had seen how shaky his handwriting had grown, how tired he sounded, and yet she'd hoped for more time. Just a little more time.

Having been a man of thought and foresight in life, Elara's great uncle had made arrangements for his inevitable end and had left detailed instructions for Elara—or Kreacher, had she not been home when he passed on. Elara liked to think herself passably clever and well-read, but she was still only eleven, and she had never dealt with a death in the family before. She appreciated the tidy, bulleted instruction scrolls as she'd appreciated everything given and taught to her by Cygnus in the short time of their acquaintance.

Letters were written and sent out to Cygnus' specifications, Elara managing to coax her great uncle's ancient owl—Percival—out into the frigid weather. St. Mungo's was contacted, a death certificate issued, and the mortuary received a new occupant. Elara spent much of that first afternoon sitting small and uncertain in the overlarge leather chair of Cygnus' solicitor, Mr Piers, who became Elara's solicitor and managed the arrangements and the obituary for the Daily Prophet. Elara returned to Grimmauld Place and spent time in the library, trying to muddle through the legal diction with a dictionary. She wished Hermione was there to help. She wished Harriet was there to make her laugh.

Two days later, Elara found herself walking up a flight of iced steps as the air escaped her lungs in puffs of white and she struggled to hold onto both her umbrella and the handrail. Around her rose the dark, snow covered tombs and markers belonging to wizards and witches long dead, the sky cloudy but bright with the sun hidden in the silver whorls, the silence broken only by Elara's slow tread.

The cemetery in the borough of Hertsmere had belonged to the magical folk of Britain for generations, before Merlin was born or Hogwarts was built, before Hadrian's Wall rose—before the Romans even thought about crossing the water. Most of the old Wizarding families aside from the Lestranges had mausoleums or plots there, and the Blacks were no exception. Cygnus had

chosen one of the spots that lay in the shadow of the Black tomb itself, by his wife Druella and his brother Alphard, and the gravedigger had already prepared the site by removing the ice and spelling a barrier over the plot that stop more snow from falling. Elara paused when she came in view of her destination.

A priest stood at the head of the waiting grave, a bible in his hands, his pointed hat stuck to his stooped head with a spell. The church and magical kind had a long and often vicious history together. The Catholic miracle workers had more often than not been wizards who—in ages past— would use their abilities to heal the sick or inspire the wayward, and the clergy had been known to harbor witches attempting to escape persecution. Elara knew Hogwarts had a small chapel not far from the dungeons, a place where the Fat Friar lingered—not that she'd ever been there.

Elara swallowed and kept walking.

Aside from the priest and the gravedigger, four other people stood on the patch of grass cleared of snow, waiting for the service to commence. A blond wizard bent to mutter into the ear of his wife, both dressed in black robes tooled in silver, the latter wearing a gilded cameo at her throat that bore the Black crest. The two witches who stood on the opposing side of the grave were less polished than the first pair, the older witch obviously a Black, with her patrician beauty and practiced posture, her hair lighter than Elara's and her expression soft. A witch several years older than Elara waited with the woman, streaks of vermilion coloring her brown hair.

Closing her umbrella, Elara stepped past the ward and found several pairs of eyes swiveling in her direction.

"Ah, Miss Black," the priest said with a kindly smile, though Elara couldn't quite meet his gaze. "Are we ready to begin, then?"

"Yes, sorry," she replied. She would have told them it was a long walk from the road and even longer walk from the train station but refrained, a lump growing in her throat.

A magical funeral service proved similar to its mundane counterpart. Elara had never attended a funeral before, of course, but she'd seen them happening in the cemetery that adjoined the church's lot next to the orphanage and had listened to the voices on the wind, ashes to ashes, tearful widows, people shaking their heads and whispering "such a shame." Cygnus' funeral was quieter than that, no one aside from the priest speaking, the snow still falling silent below the mausoleum's eaves, the gravedigger smoking at a respectful distance, waiting.

Elara wrung her hands until creases appeared in her leather gloves.

The priest stopped speaking and drew his wand. He enacted several spells without uttering a word, a soft yellow light phasing over the coffin before the gravedigger left his post and lowered Cygnus into the earth. The waiting witches and wizard conjured flowers to toss down, which Elara couldn't do, being underaged and scarcely trained, so the young witch with red in her hair passed a carnation to her with a smile. Elara flushed before adding her flower to the others. Magic returned the dirt to its proper place, resowed the sod, and Transfigured a blank sheet of marble into a stately headstone embossed with the family's motif and Cygnus' name. The ward fell with a soft pop! of displaced air. Snow speckled the grass.

It was over. Cygnus was gone.

"Miss Black."

The blond wizard spoke as he and his wife turned from the fresh grave without a glance in its

direction. Looking at him, with his haughty sneer and cold eyes, Elara was struck with a sudden rush of déjà vu, though she couldn't quite place where she'd seen the man before.

"My name is Lucius, of the Most Noble House of Malfoy, and this is my wife, Narcissa, Cygnus' youngest daughter."

Elara's eye twitched at the excessively formal greeting—though she realized where she'd seen him now; Draco was a foul little carbon copy of the wizard before her. Hermione never said a word against the Malfoys, but life in St. Giles had drilled the importance of subtext into Elara's head; Hermione said nothing against the Malfoys and nothing for them, her eyes always blank whenever Draco opened his trap to wax poetic about his vaunted father. Cygnus claimed the Malfoys were weak-willed, wealthy and impeccably bred but unable to do anything more than ride the coattails of others. Really, Elara hadn't met anyone who had something nice to say about the couple now looking down their noses at her.

"Hello," she responded, fidgeting with her sleeves. When Elara declined to say more, Lucius cleared his throat. She doubted they knew her name.

"Yes, well. I have been led to believe you resided with Cygnus at—." He hesitated, like he had the name on the tip of his tongue and couldn't quite spit it out. "At—?"

"Grimmauld Place," the wife—Narcissa—put in. "Aunt Walburga's, Lucius. Uncle Orion cursed the place so thoroughly the name escapes those who aren't current residents or Blacks."

"Of course," he drawled. "How remiss of me. Nevertheless, with Cygnus passed and your father's continued incarceration, we will be able to make arrangements and take you into our home—."

"She doesn't have to go with you." The witch with brown hair and kind eyes wasn't looking particularly kind as she left the grave's side; her stare hardened as she studied Lucius and found him wanting. She addressed Elara next. "Hello. I'm Andromeda Tonks, Cygnus' daughter, and this is my daughter, Nymphadora—."

The younger witch flinched and the red in her hair suddenly turned a poisonous green. Elara blinked, shocked and more than a bit alarmed.

"She's a Metamorphmagus," Andromeda said by way of apology. "Dora, you know better than to —."

"Well, don't call me Nymphadora in front of people—."

Lucius released a low, genteel scoff and raised his chin as Narcissa looked anywhere but directly at her sister. "You clearly have your hands full, Andromeda. It would be best if we—."

"I'm not leaving Grimmauld," Elara said, freezing the others in place. Malfoy's brow furrowed.

"You don't expect your new guardian to move in, do you?"

"I don't require a guardian."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"I have no intention of being ridiculous, Mr Malfoy. I don't need a guardian because I've been eman—." Elara had to form her tongue around the unfamiliar word and felt heat rise in her cheeks, feeling young and naive and about two centimeters tall in Mr Malfoy's eyes. "Emancipated."

"The Ministry does not emancipate eleven year old pure-blood girls!"

Elara already had a hand in her robes, retrieving the folded copies of the legal notice Cygnus had left for her. She all but threw the first at Lucius and, for good measure, handed another to Andromeda, who accepted the note with something like sadness in her careworn expression. Lucius, meanwhile, was looking more and more thunderous with every line he read. Finally he snatched the letter from his own face and shoved it toward Narcissa's.

"This is the kind of unbecoming behavior we've come to expect from Cygnus. He was old and half mad with fever toward the end—."

"I think I would know better, Mr Malfoy, seeing as I was there," Elara replied. Her voice reflected more bravery than she actually felt, considering Lucius Malfoy had been—was—a Death Eater, and Cygnus had no reservations about telling her those who pledged themselves to any wizard in such a manner were unpredictable and most certainly dangerous. She knew her great uncle had been more than a bit racist, but Cygnus had recognized his own failings and had made an effort to teach Elara what it meant to be a pure-blood without falling victim to one's own pride like the Malfoys.

Her gaze flicked toward the silent grave and a fresh stab of misery jolted her heart, Elara's eyes dampening of their own accord. She spent ten years in the orphanage and these people never spared a thought for her, having thought she was dead from infancy—and now they cared. Now they wanted a say in where she lived and whom got control over her life, but Elara wasn't having any of it.

"If you don't mind," she said, breath hitching. "I'm going to go home now."

"Listen here, girl, we don't accept this kind of insolence—."

"Narcissa, tell your wretched husband to let the poor girl be—."

New waves of civilized and grossly well-mannered invectives came hissing from Lucius' mouth while Elara took the opportunity to turn and walk away. She could feel the gaze of the witch who didn't like to be called Nymphadora lingering on her back.

The snow crunched under Elara's boots. The priest and the gravedigger had Disapparated the moment they sensed a family feud on the rise. Elara had left Grimmauld the Muggle way that morning after discovering Kreacher still weepy and inconsolable, balling into a pair of trousers for some inexplicable reason, but when Lucius snapped "Get back here! You haven't been dismissed!", Elara shouted "Kreacher!" and the house-elf appeared. She stuck out her hand and, without another word, the glowering imp took hold of her and Apparated them home.

It was much later, after night had fallen and silence had settled good and thick about Grimmauld Place, that Elara cried.

She sat at the table in the kitchen, folded as small as she could be in one of the stiff chairs with her arms wrapped about her legs and her nose buried in the crook of her knees. Tears painted damp patches on the hem of her skirt and Elara sniffled. Elara hadn't known Cygnus very long, and yet he'd shown her great patience, had given her all the tools she needed to succeed, and Elara

appreciated that more than any pity she'd ever gotten, any half glances from the nicer sisters who said "Poor dear" and tried to ply her with extra desserts while never doing anything. After all, they knew what would happen, had agreed with Father Phillips, had turned a blind eye when they dragged her from her bed in the dead of night and—.

A part of Elara wanted to yell, throw a tantrum or be overtly hysterical like Kreacher had been that morning. The sisters had taught her tears were a sign of weakness, and weakness was a sin—much like everything else, if she were being honest. So Elara sucked in a ragged breath and let out a sharp, short scream, just because she could. The sound echoed and one of the portraits out in the hall squawked. The tension in her chest ebbed, and Elara laughed, tired and lonely and yet inordinately pleased with herself for shattering the silence, if only for a second.

Somewhere farther in the house a clatter came and Elara paused, listening, hearing the approaching mutter and thump of familiar feet. The kitchen door swung open seemingly of its own accord— then Kreacher came into view, foul tempered as ever, carrying her owl in his arms. The owl, for his part, looked most displeased with this arrangement and shot filthy, accusing glares in the elf's direction.

"The Mistress has mail."

"Thank you, Kreacher," Elara returned. The elf sniffed and let the owl go. The bird landed on the table with a screech, beating his wings, and Elara reached out to soothe his rumpled feathers. Harriet's voice played in the back of her mind, the bespectacled girl trying to give the scowling avian a name—monikers like 'Zeus' and 'Bacon' and 'Berk' after he smacked Harriet in the face— because "All familiars need names, Elara!"

Bits of broken snowflakes melted until Elara's fingertips as she stroked his feathers and the owl stuck out his leg. Attached to it with a clumsy bit of twine was a letter from the aforementioned girl and Elara smiled when she took the letter in hand. She remembered to write.

The owl fluffed his plumage. Elara studied him and, unbidden, a name fell from her lips. "Cygnus."

He nipped her cool fingers in approval.

bequeathed

xxviii. bequeathed

Harriet Potter woke to a strange and puzzling sight.

She sat up from her mangled sheets bleary-eyed and mussy-headed—Livi complaining at the sudden draft created by the shifting covers—and stared at the odd blurs cluttering the foot of her bed. Harriet didn't remember dropping anything on the bed before going to bed, so someone must have put it there after she went to sleep.

"Wazzit?"

Several moments and mumbled curses left the sleepy girl before she could find her glasses and stir the lanterns into something brighter than a dim blush. Crowded on top of her trunk and the end of her bed were several boxes wrapped in silver and green paper. One had a bow.

Bloody hell, she had Christmas presents!

Harriet had gotten gifts before from the Dursleys—if you could call them that. Sometimes she got old socks or secondhand clothes from the charity shop, and one year she got the wrapping paper that came off of Dudley's gifts, which she actually tacked up in the cupboard to make it pretty until Aunt Petunia snapped at her to take it down. The year she got absolutely nothing was the year the oven somehow turned itself up to "broil" and reduced Petunia's Christmas roast to cinders.

Harriet picked up the first present and recognized Elara's stilted handwriting on the tag. Inside the wrapping she found an old book that was considerably heavier than she expected, the cover most likely made of something more substantial than cardboard. Harriet couldn't see a title on the dusty binding, only some kind of crest with a tiny skull, three birds, and what looked like a blurb of French, though she wasn't certain. On the first page scrolled the words "A Compendivm of Defense Against Magic Moste Dark: First Edition." Below that Elara had written, "For Harriet — to learn something that might surprise even Prof. Slytherin himself. Sincerely, Elara."

Harriet snorted.

There was another book in the next package from Hermione, this one brand new and glossy, the pages crisp and smelling of new ink: 101 Legendary Artefacts of the Wizarding World. A cursory flip through the contents revealed a wealth of bright, moving pictures and the letter from Hermione was considerably longer and more verbose than Elara's had been. Harriet huffed with amusement when she thought of how her best friends seemed determined to make her just as brainy as they were, though Harriet knew she'd never have Hermione's knack for Charms or Elara's precision in Transfiguration. At least she didn't kill everything in Herbology.

The next package contained blank stationary that, to Harriet's surprise and unease, had the Potter family crest stamped across the top in green ink. This, too, came from Elara—but the letter was different, written in the smooth script of a Dicta-Quill rather than personal handwriting, signed with "From the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black." A note stuck to the bottom told Harriet that it was, according to Elara's uncle, a pure-blood tradition for Wizarding families to pass on gifts for the Yule to invite good fortune in the new year.

Indeed, the remainder of the gifts were from the families of her housemates—Malfoy and Greengrass, Nott and Runcorn, Goyle and Crabbe. Nothing extravagant was inside the Transfigured boxes, just simple things like new quills or Chocolate Frogs or fresh parchment, but Harriet thought it was an oddly generous tradition for the pure-bloods. Then again, wizards and witches were some of the most superstitious people she'd ever met and not all of the pure-bloods were snobs; some of the upper year Slytherins were quite nice, as were a few pure-blood kids in the other Houses Harriet shared classes with.

A final gift lingered, half caught in the crevice between the mattress and the footboard, soft and squishy as if whatever inside were made of cloth. Set hovered around the package more than he had the others and Harriet thought he might be excited, if spooky shadow dwellers with a penchant for throwing things could be excited. She shoved the rest of a Chocolate Frog in her mouth, then tore away the paper.

Cool, light fabric spilled from the open wrappings into Harriet's hands and she marveled at the feel of it, like water through her fingers—yet so alive, sparking with the sharp, crisp prickle of active magic. For half a second Harriet wondered if the cloth was cursed, then decided it didn't matter now since she'd already grabbed hold of it, and who would want to curse an eleven year-old?

She very pointedly ignored the memory of Neville Longbottom falling from his broom in November.

Further investigation proved the cloth to be a cloak of some time, adult in proportions with a deep hood and a slightly crooked hem, as if whoever had cut the fabric before stitching it had done so with something rough and uneven. Harriet nudged Livi's tail off of her lap and hopped to her feet, letting the cloak pool about her like a ridiculous cape. She found it rather old fashioned, the pattern on it distorted and difficult to decipher, the threads glinting like silver in the green glow of the lanterns.

Then Harriet folded the cloak around herself and disappeared.

"Bloody hell!" Harriet swore, tripping on the hem she couldn't see, catching herself on the bedpost with a hand that was there but wholly invisible to her eyes.

"Misstresss?" Livi hissed from the tangled nest of sheets when Harriet rushed by to the full-length mirror hanging between the empty carrells. Her head appeared in the speckled glass—and that was it.

"I'm invisible!" Harriet yelled at the snake as she threw the hood over her head so it vanished as well. Once fully immersed in the cloak she could see herself again under the cloth, Set pooling in a narrow puddle at her feet, lapping the cloak's hem, the lantern light strangely ethereal where it managed to peek through the cloak's impermeable weave.

Livi lifted his head from the blankets and lazily turned in Harriet's direction—only to pause. His tongue flickered in question. "…Misstresss?"

"I'm here!" she told him, not quite able to hold back the laugh burbling in her chest. "This cloak is amazing!"

Livi didn't seem to agree if his annoyed hissing was anything to go by. The Horned Serpent levered himself off the bed, silver belly touching the floor with an audible thump of dry scales upon stones, and made his way nearer Harriet, following the quick darting of his violet tongue. Once he found Harriet, he slithered under the cloak's rumpled edge and wound about her legs, using the witch's offered arm as a way to lever himself higher. "Sss…thisss is ssstrange magic,"

the snake said.

"It's not cursed, is it?" Harriet asked, suddenly apprehensive.

"I do not know. It sssmellss like you."

"Well that's helpful," Harriet grumbled as she pulled off the cloak and carefully refolded it. She returned to the wrapping and poked about, looking for a card, and the search took several minutes before she managed to find it stuck in the crevice between the mattress and the bedrail. Huffing, Harriet pulled it out and read what was written there.

Your father left this cloak in my possession before he died. It is time I returned it to its proper owner. Use it well.

There was no name listed. Harriet traced the looping cursive letters and marveled at the cloak now settled on her lap. It belonged to my dad? She had an entire vault in Gringotts of things that had belonged to her parents, and yet Harriet felt oddly attached to this strange bit of fabric. "Use it well," the note said. How did one go about being invisible well? To Harriet's knowledge, people typically wanted to be invisible to do nefarious things, like steal or sneak about. Harriet didn't want to steal anything and didn't much fancy sneaking about. What should I use it for?

Harriet tucked her new possessions away and nicked another Chocolate Frog from her stash of candy before heading out to the common room with Hermione's gift. Once in the hallway, however, she heard hushed, raspy whispering and—terrified of running into Snape again—Harriet tiptoed to the corridor's end and carefully peeked into the room proper.

"—Vaisssey hass promissse," said the portrait of a snake that hung above the empty hearth.

"Does he?" replied Professor Slytherin, one elbow propped on the mantel, hand carelessly running through his hair. "He's never shown much initiative in class."

"He readsss booksss on the magic forbidden by the old man by the fire late in the eveningsss."

"Hmm," Slytherin responded. "He shows interest, then."

"Yesss…." The snake bobbed in affirmation, its painted coils writhing beneath the roots of a great rowan tree.

"And the first years? " the professor inquired. "What have you noted of them?"

Harriet held herself very still as she listened to the wizard speak in Parseltongue to the inanimate serpent. He has the snake spy on us! She quickly tried to think of any snake she'd ever see in the castle portraits, then had to relent, because it wasn't like Professor Slytherin could only speak to snakes. He could talk to painted people just fine as well.

"The blond hatchling ssspeakss often of his sssire."

"That would be Malfoy's get," Slytherin scoffed. "Lucius acknowledges Gaunt's authority over my own. A fool, but a fool who has always sought influence over true power. He will most likely be a loss. Pity. Tell me of Nott."

"He ssstudiess his booksss with great fervor ."

"Excellent." Professor Slytherin paused then, one long finger tapping his bottom lip. "And what of Potter?"

Harriet pressed herself into the wall with all her strength and thought it a marvel she didn't just sink into it.

"I do not know thisss name."

"Black hair. Bespectacled. The smallest of the first years—the runt of the litter, if you will."

Harriet bristled.

The snake lisped in irritation. "Ssshe is a ssstrange hatchling."

"How so?"

"Alwaysss…whissspering…."

"Odd."

At this point Harriet thought it prudent to retreat before she could be discovered and quickly eased back to her dorm. She could've kicked herself for being so careless; sometimes she spoke to Set when she passed through the common room on her own. Being Muggle-raised, Harriet often forgot the bloody portraits not only moved but also saw and heard and spoke—and apparently Professor Slytherin used them to spy on his students, finding out if they had promise or not.

Promise for what was the real question, and Harriet wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer.

She went back to her dorm, locking the door for good measure.

Harriet didn't leave the dungeons until supper time, when she scuttled out through the empty common room and all but ran to the lighter, warmer parts of the castle. She could hear voices coming from the Great Hall, mostly adult, but with a few younger laughs interspersed between the deeper droning, and the smell of cooked meat, potatoes, and baked bread had drool pooling in Harriet's mouth. She sighed with relief—until she looked into the hall and found only one table waiting for her. Comfy purple armchairs surrounded it, with one seat open by Professor Selwyn, and another by bloody Longbottom.

Scrunching her nose, Harriet took the place by Longbottom and the Weasleys. "Happy Christmas —err, Yule!"

The Gryffindors blinked in surprise at her presence.

"Oi," Neville muttered as he glowered, his voice low enough to escape the ears of the arrayed professors. "Why don't you go sit with the other slimy Slytherins?"

As one, the Gryffindors and Harriet glanced toward the opposing end of the table where Professor Slytherin sat with Snape and Selwyn on either side of him, their faces all set in a unique kind of

grimace achieved by the truly cantankerous during times of excessive joy. In fact, it appeared they'd largely Vanished any of the decorations that had dared spilled in their direction, though none of the other professors had the same problem.

"Is that—is that a serious question?" Harriet asked as she piled potatoes onto her plate. "Because I could give you about half a dozen reason why I'd rather drink Bubotuber pus." Harriet would bet a sack full of Galleons she'd get half a dozen detentions from Snape for breathing the same air as him.

The Weasley twins snorted into their pumpkin juice. Neville might have protested, but Ron nudged him in the ribs and said, "Leave off, Nev, the food's gonna get cold!" so Longbottom harrumphed, sticking a bite of chicken into his mouth. Harriet looked over the Gryffindors and noted that Ron and his brothers—including Percy, who sat by the Arithmancy teacher chatting with fervor—all had on thick, woolly sweaters. Given how frigid the dungeons were, Harriet gazed rather wistfully at their attire.

"I like your sweater," she told Ron, who flushed. "Was it a gift for Ch—Yule?"

"Yeah," Fred—his sweater had a large 'F' stitched into the threads, so Harriet guessed he was Fred —said as he chewed. She knew the twins by the rather terrible reputation they had in Slytherin. "Mum sends one every year."

"We'll have to tell her an itty-bitty snakey admired her handiwork," George put in. "What's your name, anyway?"

"Harriet Potter."

"Potter, Potter…say, aren't you the girl who punched Ickle Ronnikins?"

Harriet blushed and mumbled into her food. "I said I was sorry."

Fred and George burst into laughter, earning several curious glances from the professors. "Brilliant, that," George said with a wide grin. "Poor Ronni gettin' nipped by baby Slytherins."

Harriet huffed and cast a sympathetic look in Ron's direction, who continued to stuff his face and ignored his brothers' pestering, asking Neville to pass the butter dish. The meal progressed easily enough, the bubbly professor on Harriet's other side striking up a lively conversation about her subject—Ghoul Studies, of all things, which she taught part-time to the sixth and seventh years who wished to take the class. Crackers made an appearance and Harriet pulled one with a reluctant Longbottom, getting showered in red confetti, tiny lion figurines that moved about on their own, and a small green snake—which Harriet quickly secreted into a robe pocket, lest it terrify the Gryffindors.

"Say," she asked once dessert was well underway and a few professors had departed. Selwyn made a quick escape, but Snape lingered and had his head tilted toward Dumbledore's ear, speaking in a low whisper that had the Headmaster nodding his head every so often. Slytherin surveyed the table, lost in thought. "If you were invisible, what would you do?"

"Is this one of those morality tests?" George asked, licking a bit of icing from his thumb. "Like if you have two kids on either side of a Nundu who do you save?"

"The answer's always the handsomest twin," Fred stage whispered.

"Wh—no," Harriet said. What in the world is a Nundu? "No, I mean like if you could go about Hogwarts invisible, what would you do?"

They considered that for a time, bouncing ideas off each other, which included and were not limited to sneaking into the Slytherin common room, Snape's store room, and the girl's locker room—the latter earning a harsh look from Harriet and placating hand waves from the redheaded twins. Ron perked up and, after swallowing, said, "I know! The Restricted Section! We could find out more about N—."

Neville kicked Ron under the table hard enough to jostle the flatware and Ron choked on his treacle tart.

Harriet frowned at their not so subtle behavior but otherwise pushed it aside, thinking about the suggestion. She was rather curious about the Restricted Section, about what kind of books and magic were considered too dangerous for casual viewing—and she wondered what Neville Longbottom could possibly want or need from the Restricted Section of all places. The boy loved to boast about all the tutors and fantastic places he'd been to over the years, and all Harriet could think about was how she'd been stuffed in a cupboard or scrubbing toilets while Longbottom had been scaling mountaintops or saving a village or something equally exciting and distinctly un- Dursley.

She sighed and popped a spoon of blueberry ice cream into her mouth.

Slytherin rose from his seat, dismissing his napkin with a negligible wave of his hand, the volume of conversation dipping around him as he strolled out of the Great Hall without a backward glance. Harriet shivered. He gives me the creeps . Was that how other Houses saw Slytherins? Ill at the thought, she set down her spoon and considered the Gryffindors she sat with. They chatted as they ate, the twins still bent on figuring out the very best mischief one could get into while invisible, Ron rolling his eyes while Neville ate his pudding. No, they didn't see her as they did her Head of House. Whatever Professor Slytherin was, Harriet wasn't anything like him.

She was glad for that.

Harriet was having second thoughts.

Originally, the idea of venturing through Hogwarts' corridors in the dead of night had been exciting, tinged with a bit of forbidden thrill and open curiosity. Now Harriet was faced with the very real prospect of venturing through the frigid, echoing dark of a castle literally haunted by ghosts and patrolling professors like Snape and Slytherin.

Hogwarts became sinister at night once the students were tucked into bed and the torches doused. Harriet shivered beneath the cloak as she inched out of the common room and found herself in a hall too black to see anything at all. She fumbled for the cloak's edge until she could poke out a single hand and press it against the stone wall as a guide. The cold burned against Harriet's skin and she hissed in a breath, bundling her fingers in her sleeve before touching the stones again. She hurried forward.

I'm glad I don't have Prefect duty; this place is too spooky, the young Slytherin thought as her soft footsteps echoed in the entrance hall, moonlight splayed on the floor, wavering through the thundering clouds. She could barely tell where she was in the dark.

Harriet had almost reached the floor where the library could be found when she heard sobbing. Muffled sniffling drifted from the open door of an empty classroom, and when Harriet inched nearer to see who it was, she saw a professor standing hunched in-between the sparse whorls of moonlight coming through the frosted windows. He wore a purple turban, a dark olive cloak—and sobbed into his cupped hands.

"I'm trying, Master—. I can't—. I can't—."

He sobbed again, harder, then abruptly stopped, sucking in a breath and no small amount of snot. He whipped around and Harriet scuttled backward as if she were visible, which she was wasn't, of course. Seeing him clearer, Harriet realized the wizard was the Muggle Studies professor. Terrence Higgs pointed him out when she asked about the subject at lunch one time—pointed him out with the kind of sneering snark most Slytherin reserved for anything even remotely Muggle in distinction. She couldn't remember the wizard's name.

He passed her by and heat struck Harriet's neck like a thousand stinging needles abruptly diving into the flesh of her shoulder and throat. A gasp left Harriet but the wizard kept sniffling as he shuffled off, covering the sound. The pain lasted only a moment, then vanished as it'd never been; Harriet, however, kept her hand clasped her neck as if to ward off a second bout. She watched the teacher until he wandered out of sight.

Slytherin's not the only one who gives me the creeps .

Harriet waited several minutes and took several steadying breaths before she turned—and saw Professor Snape standing at the corridor's end.

Standing there, staring at Harriet.

But that's impossible, she told herself as she stood perfectly still. Snape did the same. He couldn't possibly—.

Snape took three furious steps forward and lunged before Harriet could do more than jump, the Potions Master snatching the cloak right off her head. "Potter!"

"How do you do that?!" Harriet blurted out before she could think better of it. "Can you see through all invisible stuff or—?"

Professor Snape loomed overhead and Harriet's blathering dwindled. The girl gulped.

"Thirty points from Slytherin!" he snarled. "What kind of absolute idiocy would lead you to believe wandering the school in the middle of the night was permissible? I had hoped you were beyond such puerile arrogance. What do you have to say for yourself, hmm?"

"Err—." Harriet blinked at the man as he continued to silently fume. "What's—what's puerile, sir?"

"Childish, Miss Potter! Childish!" Snape hissed. "Return to your dorm! Immediately!"

"But what about—?" She reached for the cloak still hanging from his pale fist and Snape pulled it out of reach, the hem fluttering against Harriet's fingertips.

"Oh no," he said, voice returning to the cold, soft intonation she was used to. Harriet thought of it as like getting jabbed by a metal knife instead of being bludgeoned with a club. "I believe I'll be confiscating this."

Harriet opened her mouth to argue and Snape gave her a glare so ferocious she thought she might just be immolated on the spot if she so much as breathed funny. "Go, Miss Potter. Or do we need to wake Professor Slytherin and have this discussion with your Head of House?"

Harriet went. Snape followed her all the way down to the dungeons again, though not into the common room itself. He stood beyond the open passage door with her cloak stuffed into a robe pocket, and as the stones grated against stone, preparing to close, the professor said, "One last thing, Potter."

"…yes, sir?"

Snape grinned and it was not a nice look at all. "That'll be another week of detentions."

The passage closed, leaving nothing but a blank stretch of wall behind.

"Well, shit."

pure-blood

xxix. pure-blood

The scarlet steam engine idled by the platform and perfumed the air with the heavy smell of carbon and ash. Hermione, bundled in her coat and scarf, paused just beyond the empty barrier onto the station and sighed, puffs of white still slipping through the loose weave of her emerald scarf.

Hermione Granger loved her parents. Truly. Her childhood had been filled with love and trips to educational locales and warm Sunday afternoons spent in the den reading together or watching telly. She would read the paper over her father's shoulder. She would play checkers with her mum, knees tucked under the coffee table, a furrow of thought digging between her mum's brows as she considered the board. Dr and Dr Granger were genuine and affectionate parents.

However, Hermione knew they weren't very understanding.

The Grangers never much enjoyed Hermione's insatiable quest for knowledge. To be certain, having a bright child was a joy, but when curiosity turned into near-obsession, a need to question everything right down into the atoms of its creation, that brightness becomes a curse. Her parents would feed Hermione's inquisitive nature to a point, then say "Enough, Hermione," with exasperated sighs and brow rubbing.

They had no comprehension of magic. To them, magic was the trade of backroom peddlers and shabbily dressed charlatans on stage; it was all theatrical, pulling rabbits from hats and yanking loads of handkerchiefs from one's sleeve—smoke, mirrors, and a bit of glamour. The Grangers let their daughter go with Minerva McGonagall in hopes of Hermione learning better control over herself and her rabid curiosity, and after a few months missing her presence, they'd come to fully understand they'd sent their only child into a realm beyond their own. There'd be no Oxford for Hermione, no future as a lawyer or a doctor or a dentist like her parents. By sending her into the world of magic, they'd effectively cut off feasibility of her ever functioning in their own.

The Granger spent much of their two weeks together attempting to convince her staying home and not returning would be best. Hermione knew that wasn't an option—not that she wished to leave Hogwarts behind anyway. From the moment Hermione stepped foot across her threshold and took Professor McGonagall's hand, her parents ceded all guardianship rights over to the hands of the Ministry, and in the eyes of judicial circumstance, she was Hermione Malfoy, ward of the Most Noble House of Malfoy and subsequently held to a contract that wouldn't be completed until September nineteenth, 1996. To the Ministry, Hermione Granger no longer existed.

She loved her parents. She'd greatly looked forward to spending the holiday with them, and yet the more the Grangers persisted in disparaging magic, the more Hermione felt as if they were again telling her she was too much, that magic was just one element too much in their otherwise practical daughter they wished she could be rid of. Hermione could no more quit being magical than a cat could quit being feline. She spent the final days of break in her room, longing for Hogwarts, for Harriet and Elara and a comfortable four poster beneath a murky lake.

Hermione's stomach flipped with guilt when she glanced one last time at the barrier before walking away.

The majority of students returned home for the Christmas—Yule—holidays and yet few filled the

compartments, most lingering still on the platform, procrastinating to the very last minute to wring out the last drop of vacation they could. Hermione boarded the train and thought of finding an empty compartment—until she saw a familiar face and burst into a wide grin.

"Elara!" she said as she eased the door open and dragged her trunk behind her. "Can I sit here?"

The pure-blood girl lifted her eyes from the book in her hands and smiled in turn, a hesitant look Hermione might have taken offense at before she came to learn more about the youngest Black daughter. "Of course," she said. Hermione jerked her trunk over the threshold and let the door clatter shut. Using her wand, she cast a quick Wingardium Leviosa, and the trunk settled neatly on the rack. Hermione sighed when she sat because using magic again after abstaining for two weeks was a joy.

And to think I haven't even been a witch for a full year. She paused. Well, technically, I've always been a witch, haven't I?

"Did you have a pleasant holiday?" Hermione asked. Elara closed her book on her hand, using a thumb to hold her place, and gave Hermione her attention.

"Not…entirely. My uncle passed on."

"Oh, I'm so sorry. You mentioned he was ill, but I didn't know…." Of course she hadn't known. Elara was particularly quiet and answered most personal questions with blank stares or utter passivity.

"I had hoped for more time. I was quite busy with the arrangements afterward."

What does she mean by that? Why would she be busy with such things when she's only eleven?

"How was your vacation, Hermione?"

She pushed such thoughts away and smiled. "It was—nice." Hermione left out the strange anxiety that had prevailed in her warm but nonetheless mundane home. "Mum and dad wanted to get out of country for a bit, but opted to stay home in the end."

"Read anything interesting?"

Now that was a question Hermione could answer at length, and she did so with pleasure, rambling off about the very book Elara had sent her for Christmas from the House of Black library, an tome about old and more dubious Charms. Hermione knew if a prig like Draco or, God forbid, Mr or Mrs Malfoy knew Elara was distributing books out of the family library to a Mudblood like her, they'd go ballistic. She expressed interest in seeing the Black library in its entirety, then winced at how heavy-handed she sounded. Elara simply smiled again.

"I would invite you and Harriet over during the summer, but the house is…not in the best repair."

"Oh, that's okay, I didn't mean to invite myself over." Hermione nibbled on her lower lip and wondered why she suddenly felt so anxious. Then, she realized this was the first time she'd been alone with Elara and her presence was…singular. Normally Harriet would be there, ignorant to any awkward tension—well, not ignorant so much as uncaring. The bespectacled girl could be quite persistent and read Elara's silences and minute shifts in expression better than Hermione did. "I hope Harriet had fun staying at Hogwarts."

Elara grimaced. "She sent Cygnus home with a letter. Apparently Snape's been giving her detention."

"No! Why would he do that?"

"Because he's a miserable bat." Elara scowled at the air before her. Professor Snape always snarled over Elara's terribly botched Potions, so Hermione assumed the dislike was mutual. "He's the sort. After all, aren't you of the opinion he cursed Longbottom in November?"

She had been, but a trip to the library after the match had proved Elara correct in her guess that Professor Snape could have just as easily been reciting the counter-curse. "I'm not sure." It wasn't very Slytherin to curse people out in the open; oh, they'd do it in a dark alley without witnesses, but in the middle of a stadium? No, that showed no finesse, no skill. Sloppy.

"He acts oddly around her," Elara said, her eyes hard.

"How so?"

"He…hesitates."

Hermione didn't understand what she meant by that and, frustrated, went to ask the other girl to clarify—when the door clattered open again.

"Granger," drawled Draco Malfoy in a chilling, if childish, mimicry of Mr Malfoy. "Back from the Muggles, are you?"

"Hello, Draco, pleasant holiday?" Hermione asked through her teeth, wanting more than anything to set the pointy little toady on fire. She checked that urge, however, before her wishes became reality.

Draco sniffed and lifted his sharp nose into the air as Goyle and Crabbe stood silent and bored behind him, blocking part of the corridor. The train had set out some minutes ago, though parts of outer London still flashed by the windows. "You didn't come to our Yule ball."

Hermione's mind flashed back to the gilded invitation she'd received via owl post, the one she'd thrown into the fire after penning a succinct reply. "I was with my parents," she said by way of explanation. Really, she thought it should be obvious.

Malfoy sneered. "You're a witch, Granger, and it's tradition! You don't celebrate Christmas anymore."

"There's a difference between being proud of heritage and being a bigot, Malfoy," Elara interrupted. She opened her book again and prepared herself to settle in with such carefree indifference, Hermione was beginning to believe the pure-bloods might really have that cold, haughty look encoded in their DNA. "Learn it."

"Watch your mouth, Black," Malfoy spat. "Or people will start thinking you're a Mudblood loving fool, too."

"I have no love for Muggles," Elara responded with a shrug, causing Hermione to flinch with surprise and considerable hurt. "Nor whatever diatribe you mean to spew."

"Father's quite upset with you, you know. He's been to the Ministry and they're going to overturn the emancipation. You should watch yourself, blood-traitor."

"The list of things I don't care about is quite long; even so, the concerns of Lucius Malfoy and his feeble-mouthed son might just top it."

Hermione thought it unfair that, even when flushing with rage, Malfoy was still pretty in that prim, affluent mien of his. She had always been an ugly crier. Goyle and Crabbe shuffled in the background and looked eager to be off, seeing as they didn't have the skills to counter Elara's savage repertoire.

"Good day, cousin," the pure-blood girl said with finality, disappearing behind her book. Malfoy stood and gawked for a moment longer, then allowed himself to be encouraged into the corridor and out of sight by his bored friends. Once the door rolled shut, Elara lowered the book again, looking cross, and yanked the shades down on the windows.

"What's this about an emancipation?" Hermione asked for lack of knowing what else to say. Oh, she had plenty she wanted to say, but the words vied for dominance and created a traffic jam in her head.

"My uncle," Elara began as she closed the book again and, with a sigh, dropped it on the seat at her side. "He assured my emancipation before he passed on so I—and, by extension, the House of Black—wouldn't be slipped into Malfoy's pocket. Malfoy's been to the Ministry to throw a tantrum, of course, but there's nothing he can do about it."

"Do you really not like Muggles?" Hermione asked, unable to keep the hurt out of her voice. Yes, she was a witch—but Hermione had been raised a Muggle, was a Muggle-born, and to hear that someone she considered one of her best friends might hold that heritage against her was almost more than Hermione could take.

Elara must have seen the pain in Hermione's eyes because her irritated expression eased to something softer. "I think it's more appropriate to say I don't like people in general," she replied with a crooked smile. Pausing, she then began to unbutton her cuffs, rolling them back to reveal pale, skinny wrists. Given that Hermione had never seen the other girl dressed less than perfectly and completely covered, even when she woke up late and surly in the mornings, she couldn't help but glance at the skin bared to the afternoon sunlight.

Scars marred Elara's arms, puckered and pink, not quite new but definitely not old either. Horrified, Hermione initially thought they were evidence of Elara hurting herself. The thought turned Hermione's stomach with worry, until she noted how thick the scars were, the flesh torn rather than sliced, amassed mostly about the mound of her palms and the lower portions of her thumb joints. If she had to be objective, Hermione would say it looked as if…as if her wrists had been bound by something restrictive, unyielding, something like handcuffs, and she'd tried very hard to rip them off.

"The place I lived before, the people there, were much like the Malfoys. The kind of people who justify what the Dark Lord did, just as the Dark Lord justifies what they do. They prescribed to a particular dogma and felt themselves justified in harming those who were different from themselves."

"That is foul," Hermione said, shaken, staring. "Foul. Why haven't you gone to Madam Pomfrey? Or Dumbledore? Or—or—!" She didn't want to say Professor Slytherin. Their Head of House was terrifying.

"Because it's done. I'm not going back there. I don't want to talk about it."

"But—."

"No, Hermione." With that, Elara quickly pushed her sleeves back into place and redid the buttons. She kept her eyes averted.

Hermione didn't know what to say. Elara had only spoke of her prior home once or twice and had referred to it as 'that place' or 'those people.' Still, Hermione couldn't have guessed this kind of trauma lay beneath Elara's steely exterior, her inflexible need to remain unnoticed and in control of herself. The part of Hermione that was 'too much' wanted to urge the other girl to tell someone who could do something, someone who could fix that horrendous scarring or take away the flinty, hateful gleam in Elara's pale eyes. Someone had to be able to help.

Hermione closed her mouth. She stood from her seat, then sat next to Elara. The other girl stiffened, but as the minutes passed and the train continued to rattle around them, laughter echoing in the corridor, she finally relaxed. "Don't tell Harriet," Elara whispered.

"Why ever not?"

"She has her own problems to deal with."

That brought an end to the conversation. The two witches sat in silence as the world continued to change beyond the gentle rocking of the train's carriage. Hermione watched the countryside and considered just how little she truly knew about her best friends' lives.

a breath before the storm

xxx. a breath before the storm

On the evening students were set to return to Hogwarts, Harriet came barreling out of the dungeons and collided with something solid.

"For Merlin's sake, Potter," Professor Slytherin grunted, one hand pressed to the place on his chest Harriet had smacked with her head. "Do watch where you're going!"

Harriet backpedaled and would have tumbled down the steps behind her had Slytherin not grabbed hold of her arm. His grip chafed and Harriet winced, then gave a swift apology before hurrying on. Slytherin hissed "Rude child," behind her. Harriet almost froze, shocked by his open usage of Parseltongue, but she wasn't meant to understand that, so Harriet kept running. Odd, she mused. I thought I'd imagined it, but his accent really is different from mine, even in a snake language.

Scratching her neck, Harriet entered the entrance hall and dodged around the few older students who'd already arrived, sliding on the ice that encased the outer steps, though she kept her balance and hopped into the snow. Others weren't as lucky; they laid scattered and rumpled, complaining as McGonagall used her wand to warm the stones and scolded those who swore within her hearing. Harriet shivered in the wind and gave a thought for her cloak down in the dormitories.

"Harriet!"

Coming up the path from the line of creepy horse-pulled carriages strode Hermione and Elara, both panting heavily as they trekked through the sludge. A wide grin spread across Harriet's face as she set off again, weaving through the crowd, her feet small and light enough to skate over the snow where others sunk deep. She felt like one of the elves from the Tolkien books Aunt Petunia had burned. Hermione let out a small shriek when Harriet threw her arms around her and they toppled into a drift, Elara evading a similar fate by jumping aside.

"Miss Potter—!" McGonagall admonished, only for her attention to be diverted by a sixth year Ravenclaw toppling into a third year.

Giggling, Harriet rolled onto her back and sunk into the snow while Elara pulled Hermione to her feet.

"Harriet, you're going to freeze to death, you're not even wearing your cloak!"

"Don't care," she said with a sigh as the air escaped her in a white plume. "I haven't been outside in days thanks to Professor bloody Snape."

"Did he really give you all those detentions?"

"Yes! He even gave me two in one day. For lookin' at him funny."

Hermione managed to pry her out of the ice. "You aren't serious. You can't be, that'd be monstrous."

"I think his exact words were 'If you can sit there glaring at me, Miss Potter, you can spend an hour in the dungeons glaring at the wall'."

Snorting, Elara wrapped an arm about the shorter girl's shoulders to bring her into the shelter of her own cloak. Hermione started plucking dead leaves out of the unholy tangle of her hair. "That does sound like Snape, Hermione."

The older Slytherin huffed with disapproval.

"I've missed you two lots," Harriet said. "Hogwarts isn't the same without you."

"We missed you too, Harriet."

The oddest thing about classes resuming was Snape's sudden switch in attitude.

He went right back to ignoring Harriet, like a cobweb too far up on the ceiling to be bothered with, or an ugly painting you pass by without giving it any real thought. Her detentions came to an abrupt halt the afternoon the rest of the student body arrived, and so baffling was the change, Harriet knocked a beaker off her desk on purpose in Potions to see what he'd do. Snape just sneered and continued pacing the class.

He's a confusing bloke.

"I bet he was trying to keep you out of trouble," Hermione said one afternoon as they ascended from the dungeons and headed toward the Great Hall for lunch. "Being the only Slytherin here over break. Honestly, Professor Snape seems to take over most of the Head duties. Professor Slytherin just—." Hermione waved a hand in a vague gesture.

"Slithers about?" Harriet put in.

"Creeps?" Elara muttered, earning a titter from the bespectacled girl.

"Stalks?"

"Will you two be quiet before someone hears you?" Hermione hissed as they came into the Great Hall proper. They edged nearer the Slytherin table, pausing only to let a group of sneering fourth year Gryffindor boys pass before reaching their seats.

"I don't get into trouble," Harriet insisted as platters and full cups of pumpkin juice appeared before them.

"You did drop a beaker on Professor Snape's foot," Hermione told her.

Elara spooned green beans onto her plate. "And then headbutted him in the thigh when you bent down to retrieve it."

"It's his own bloody fault for standing so close," Harriet grumbled, cheeks red. "Don't take his side; he stole my new cloak! Says I won't get it back until I 'learn some responsibility.' What does that even mean? How does one learn responsibility? I'm plenty responsible!"

"Well, what did you expect to happen when you went out after curfew with it?"

"I expected to be invisible, that what." Harriet popped a biscuit into her mouth and chewed. She

thought there might be something funny about Snape's eye; during the detentions he'd assigned later in the evenings, she'd seen how he'd always rub at his scarred left eye after brewing something particularly smelly or reading a clutch of essays. How else could he see through the cloak? How else could he see Livi? The ruddy snake could cross the dorm and steal all the food in the bowl laid out for Bulstrode's cat without anyone any the wiser but Snape always stared whenever Livi poked his snout outside her collar.

Harriet stuck another biscuit into her mouth and Parkinson, seated across the table, grimaced. "You eat like an animal, Potter," she complained. "Were you raised in a barn?"

"Close 'nough," Harriet replied, memories of the cupboard and sitting alone in the dark, listening to the Dursleys eat, flashing through her mind. She smacked her lips just to irritate Pansy. Parkinson voiced her revulsion and turned away.

Hermione and Elara took it upon themselves to slip servings of foods healthier than sugary biscuits onto Harriet's plate as conversation turned away from their prickly Potions professor. "I must have read a dozen theory books on the Shield Charm during the holiday and still can't cast it as well as you can, Harriet. I just don't understand. Of course, I'm doing better than most in our class, but the practical spells just aren't as fluid as yours, no matter how often I practice."

Shrugging, Harriet pointed out that she still managed to turn her matches into javelins half of the time in Transfiguration. Recently they'd moved on to changing plants into various inanimate things and Harriet's almost always turned out over-sized or oddly disproportionate, though she was getting better.

"I was actually reading the book you got me for Christm—Yule, Elara, and it talked all about Shield Charms."

"Really?" Hermione asked, interest piqued. "I've read about Protego Duo and Protego Totalum, though the latter is considered far beyond our current ability."

Harriet gave her head a quick, sharp nod. "There's loads more—all of them made to counter specific elements or objects, making them stronger or weaker than plain Shield Charms, depending on when you use them. There's Protego Impervius, against water based spells, and Protego Flammae against fire—and harder stuff like Protego Mente Malitiae, which is supposed to ward away spells of 'ill intent,' and Protego Visus, which I gather is a bit like a Notice-Me-Not? I didn't really understand that part. It's supposed to make you harder to concentrate on and takes a barmy amount of wand-work if the diagrams were anything to go by."

"Can I borrow this book?"

"'Course," Harriet said. "Look, I've been practicing the one that conjures water shields—." Making sure no one else was paying attention, she drew her wand from its brace on her wrist and held it under the table, out of view. Like a typical Protego, the charm required a sharp downward slash, but before that she needed to perform a gesture similar to the alchemical symbol for 'water,' an inverted triangle created with three rapid, tight twitches with the wand made from the wrist rather than her fingers. Harriet performed the proper motions, then whispered "Protego Flammae."

Properly done, the spell was meant to conjure water in a wispy shield reminiscent of the thin, milky sheen of a plain Protego, but Harriet must have done something wrong, because the moment the words crossed her lips, every goblet in the Great Hall burst, sending their contents flying ten feet into the air before raining back down. Students shrieked as they were doused in pumpkin juice and tea. Most of the professors managed to throw Impervius Charms over themselves, though Selwyn bellowed when he caught a face full of hot cider on its way up, and Dumbledore actually laughed

at the madness unfolding before him. Snape and Slytherin looked murderous.

Harriet just gawked in horror.

She didn't resist when Elara cinched an arm about her own and all but yanked her from the bench. Others had jumped to their feet as well, and it looked like a full food fight had broken out at the Gryffindor table much to McGonagall's despair. Elara swiftly led Harriet right out of the Great Hall's doors with Hermione scrambling after them, pale and speckled with juice.

"And here I thought you were saying you don't get into trouble," Elara said once they'd made it into the entrance hall with a few miffed Ravenclaws clutching damp books to their chests. "That certainly looked like trouble."

"I don't know what happened," Harriet complained. "I did it all right in the dorm over break. Here lemme—." She whipped out her wand, fully intending to try the Charm once more—when Hermione lunged for her arm, pushing it down. "What are you—?"

"Hey, Potter!"

Two of the Ravenclaws had stowed away their texts in their school bags and approached. Harriet recognized them as Terry Boot and Anthony Goldstein, the former lanky and brown-haired, the latter boasting a shock of blond locks atop his head. "W-what?"

"You were the one who cast that spell, right?"

Harriet sputtered. "Wh—? No, of course not. Why would I do something like that?"

Terry's eyes dropped to her wand with a bemused expression and Harriet quickly stuffed it into her sleeve, her cheeks bright pink.

"Can you teach us how to do it?" he asked, genuine curiosity in his bright eyes. "I haven't seen anything like it. It would have amazing uses."

"Er—," Harriet hedged, fiddling with the edge of her sleeve, her face still warm. "That, uh, wasn't really what it was meant to do—not that I'm admitting it was me who cast it."

Terry grinned. "Do you think you could show us how it went wrong?"

"It only works with liquid that is already present," Hermione interrupted. "The original is meant to coalesce it from the air, like an Aguamenti Charm. What practical use would you have for a spell that throws all open liquids within a hundred yards into the air?"

"Well, it could be really useful, couldn't it?" Anthony replied, earnest. "Like you said, water conjuring Charms can only make use of what is already there, typically what is atmospheric and gaseous. What if your spell could be used to move an underground spring closer to the surface? Imagine the impact that could have on Herbologists and Wizarding farmers!"

Hermione's mouth popped open and she got that glassy-eyed look Harriet recognized as one of her overly thoughtful expressions. "But that's brilliant. I thought you wanted the spell for a prank or something ridiculous like that…."

Harriet didn't think that. Ravenclaws, from what she'd seen, found witty jokes like riddles far funnier than anything physical like a food fight. She followed along with the conversation, though she thought it a bit too dry and theoretical for her tastes when Hermione, Terry, and Anthony devolved into a conversation about magical agriculture and the limitations of duplicating matter for

consumption.

"Honestly," Harriet grumbled to Elara. "They're eleven. Where do they find time to think about all this stuff?"

Elara shrugged.

In the end, the Ravenclaws convinced Harriet to teach them the Protego Flammae Charm, and after dinner they all gathered in an empty classroom on the first floor and tried to recreate the spell. They didn't manage to explode any more goblets, but before Filch came to chase them back to their dormitories at curfew, all five of first years could create a passable water shield. They returned to their beds sopping wet and tired, but also rather pleased with their progress.

Overall, Harriet was glad everything was back to normal at Hogwarts.

like an untimely frost

xxxi. like an untimely frost

Yawning, Harriet leaned an elbow on the planter's edge and watched the Plufferupherius sob.

"I really don't know what happened," Elara said as she wrung her gloved hands and the plant's weeping increased. Professor Sprout gave her a stern look worthy of Professor McGonagall and Elara winced. "Really, Professor, I don't understand why this always happens. I'm not doing it on purpose, and I—."

The Plufferupherius' yellow petals drooped as it wailed and leaned away from Elara. Professor Sprout rolled her eyes and used a pair of pruners to nip off the blackened stem Elara had inadvertently touched while they'd been collecting the orange pollen. Their station was covered in the stuff now, their gloves stained from trying to sweep it up when the plant wheezed and threw a tantrum. Needless to say, Professor Sprout was less than impressed, which meant Harriet and Elara had to stay behind the rest of the class and try to explain themselves.

"I've never met a jinx quite so cursed as you, lass," Sprout said as she set the dead branch on the counter and stroked one calloused finger down the Plufferupherius' prickly stem. The strange plant shivered and fell quiet, swaying slightly under her practiced ministrations. "We may need to 'ave a word with your Head of H—." She stopped, an odd expression crossing her face. "With Professor Dumbledore about that. Going forward next year we're going to be handling more of my rarer specimens and I can't 'ave you killing them." Sprout tutted, lost in thought. "Finish up your cleaning, then hurry to dinner, girls."

She shuffled off to check a few of her other plants in the greenhouse as Harriet and Elara hurried to brush the rest of the pollen into the folded parchment they'd been using to funnel the sticky granules into their vial. The Plufferupherius ignored Harriet but kept its eyes—well, the twiggy part Harriet thought it must see with—suspiciously trained on the Elara the whole time. Elara frowned at the dowdy little shrub and it sniffled, shedding more pollen. Harriet grimaced.

"I'm sorry for keeping you," Elara said. "You should probably partner with someone else in this class."

Harriet waved a hand. "I don't mind. Gardening's not all that bad; I used to do all the yard work for my aunt, you know." She managed to sweep up the last of the dust with the parchment's edge. "This stuff reminds me of the pollen that comes off lilies—meaning it gets bloody everywhere." The Plufferupherius gave her a scandalized look and sobbed. "Oh, budge up, you cry baby."

Glancing toward Elara, Harriet saw that the other girl had plucked the dead branch from the counter's edge. She held it between thumb and forefinger, twirling it slightly, the branch black and shriveled to half its typical size as if every drop of moisture had been sucked out of it. As Harriet watched, the branched changed. Veins of green returned between the bark's cracked husk, like blood seeping beneath new skin, and tender little vines sprouted from the end. A white flower blossomed.

"Wh—how'd you do that?" Harriet asked, gob-smacked. Elara jumped as if she'd forgotten Harriet was there and chucked the branch into the rubbish bin.

"It's nothing," she said, stripping off her gloves.

"It didn't look like nothing. It looked like—."

"Don't."

Harriet had never heard Elara speak like that before; sharp, but quiet, like the sudden jab of a spear aimed toward a shark circling her sinking boat. Aunt Petunia used that voice when Harriet dared mention the dreaded 'm' word. Harriet was dreadfully curious; she knew what she'd seen and wouldn't be convinced otherwise, but she shrugged and went about tidying up. Elara shot her a gratified look.

She brought that branch back to life, Harriet thought. But she didn't want me to know that. Why not say anything? Is it a Slytherin thing? Like Professor Snape telling me to keep my Parseltongue to myself?

The two girls delivered the last of the pollen to Professor Sprout, who then shooed them out of the greenhouse and off toward the castle. They hurried along, the evening air brisk where the breeze chased itself up from the forest and through the open courtyard, though the sun hadn't quite yet receded fully. Dinner would be commencing by now, and Harriet longed for something hearty to eat, something that would tie her over through the evening. They had Astronomy that night as they did every Friday and Wednesday night, and reading through constellation charts was excruciating on an empty stomach.

"There you two are!" Hermione said once Harriet and Elara slid into their places on the bench at Slytherin table. The merry raucous of dishes being shifted and laughter rising—especially from the Gryffindors—made it difficult to be heard in the Great Hall, but Hermione managed. "I was beginning to think you'd gone off to the dorms without dinner, and you know we have Astronomy tonight."

"Elara would've been fine," Harriet put in as she nudged a tureen of gravy closer. "She's better at it than both us." She was, too; Astronomy and Transfiguration proved to be Elara's best subjects, better than Hermione even, if only slightly. Being an absolute wreck and Potions and Herbology balanced her out. "Besides, we saw you getting along quite well with Mr Boot, didn't we, Elara?"

Elara smirked.

Hermione gave Harriet a look that said in no uncertain terms she did not care for what the bespectacled girl was insinuating. "Terry and I were discussing our last Charms class."

"Really? How…charming."

Hermione whacked her arm with the back of a serving spoon.

"Ow."

"He was telling me about how their Head of House, Professor Flitwick, tutors the Ravenclaws on the weekends in their common room." She poured herself a glass of chilled milk and let out a huffy sigh. "It's unfair, don't you think? Our Head of House hardly seems to realize he is a Head of House and I doubt he'd ever lower himself to tutoring first years on the weekend—let alone a Muggle-born." She scoffed and took a sip of her milk. "He's far more concerned with the upper years. I've only seen him in the common room twice if I remember correctly."

Harriet had a sudden recollection of tiptoeing from the dorm, disturbed by sibilant hisses rising in the otherwise empty common room. "I've seen him there," she told them in her gravest tone.

Hermione's brow rose and Harriet glanced about at the other students. She would tell her friends more later, but too many ears were present to do so now. "But that portrait above the hearth? You probably shouldn't go telling it all your secrets, if you catch my meaning."

Both Elara and Hermione were clever—cleverer than Harriet, she thought—so they took her meaning immediately. There were several hearths in the Slytherin common room, and yet only one had a picture hung above its mantel, and that picture held only one occupant—an occupant of the serpentine variation.

Elara did as Harriet had and checked around them for eavesdroppers. Across the table, Malfoy was busy puffing out his chest and drawling to Parkinson, who reveled in his attention while Crabbe and Goyle ate their dinners and grunted about a Quidditch game posted in the Prophet. No one ever took much note of three random Slytherin girls. "When did this occur?"

"Yule holiday," Harriet replied. She reached for the carafe of pumpkin juice—and a cup of steaming tea appeared just under her hand. Harriet didn't much fancy herself a tea drinker, having only ever got the cold, bitter slop in the bottom of the pot at the Dursleys, but a cuppa before heading off to the library for homework sounded lovely.

"And he was just—just in the common room? While you were alone?"

"Well, I was in the dorm at first. He didn't actually see me." She blew on the tea and took a sip. It still burned on the way down. "I'm not mad enough to go out there with him mucking about."

"It's still very strange."

"We've spoken before on Professor Slytherin's oddity, Hermione. He—." Elara stopped and frowned. "Harriet, are you all right?"

Harriet's first reaction was to say "Fine," but she couldn't force the word past her lips. The burning she'd mistook as heat from the tea didn't abate and, instead, continued from her mouth into her throat and stomach, then her lungs. She choked as the burn intensified, then sputtered, coughing, a burst of red exploding out her mouth. Some splattered on Parkinson and she recoiled, glancing down at the sudden damp spots on her arm.

"Merlin, Potter, you're disgust—." Her voice cut off as her eyes widened. Pansy shrieked.

Harriet's fingers scrabbled at her throat in a bid to remove the obstruction. Nothing was there.

"Harriet!"

On instinct, she went to rise and only managed to throw herself backward, not registering the hard thwap of her skull smacking the floor in her desperation to breathe. Black spots bubbled to life. I can't breathe! I can't—! Someone had hold of her arm. Hermione screamed, "Professor Dumbledore!" and Harriet's vision tunneled until everything seemed to simply drift away.

Then, she knew no more.

hand to the heart

xxxii. hand to the heart

Severus was having a wretched evening.

The day itself had been wretched from the outset, the first class a double period with the first year Slytherin and Gryffindor sods, two full hours spent attempting to squeeze information into their vacuous little skulls while he toadied to Death Eater brats and sneered at Minerva's charges. Longbottom spent much of the lecture silently scoffing at everything Severus said before he and Finnigan proceeded with their abysmal work in the practical. Malfoy's sprog almost laughed himself sick when the Boy Who Lived melted yet another bloody cauldron.

Potter and her cohorts required little attention; indeed, the three girls sat clumped in the back and only Granger dared ask questions during the lecture. As long as he allowed Black to partner with the other two, her catastrophes were limited. They formed a veritable paragon of social awkwardness and floated about the edges of Slytherin House, escaping pure-blood posturing and dissenting politics with an ease only children were capable of. It kept interested eyes away from Potter, kept her safe. Being able to somewhat ignore the girl as a result proved relieving for Severus.

He picked at his cold dinner, ignoring Minerva's little irritated sniffs of disapproval. Gryffindor lost a grand total of forty-five points in Longbottom's class alone and he knew the miffed Scotswoman would be banging on his office door later that evening, demanding an explanation. Slytherin would probably come slinking by for the show, foul creep. He felt the impending headache already lurching in his skull like a dark and foreboding promise.

Severus reached for his goblet—and swallowed a scream when agony tore through his hand.

Lucky for him, no one noticed; at that moment, a shriek filled the hall and several bodies at the Slytherin table leapt to their feet. As pain savaged Severus' arm, Harriet Potter toppled from her seat between Granger and Black, spewing blood.

Severus couldn't breathe. It's the Vow, he realized. In that instance of time, seemingly suspended for an eternity, the world moved in slow, languorous increments around him as he cradled his burning wrist. It's the FUCKING VOW!

"Professor Dumbledore!" Granger cried. The Headmaster was already descending the dais with Minerva in tow, students scattering before them like sparrows watching a cat approach. Minerva may coddle her Gryffindors, but not even the Potions Master could construe that fondness as neglect for any child of the other houses.

"Severus! Quickly!"

Albus' voice shattered time's suspension and Severus moved with ungainly speed, throwing himself over the table and down the dais steps with little more than a lunge. His vision wavered. With every passing second, the agony spread like a curse, pulsing with his heartbeat past his elbow, his shoulder, reaching for his chest and the vulnerable muscle racing inside its cage of bones. It almost appeared as if the shadows themselves rose from the floor to thrust the puling onlookers aside as Severus slid to his knees at the girl's side, but he couldn't be certain; his left eye

strained and the right could see little more than blurs.

The Vow, the Vow, the Vow—.

He had a bezoar in his breast pocket, a habit he had picked up years ago in the wake of Slytherin's nasty little curse as he didn't trust the wretch or bloody Selwyn not to poison him for amusement. Severus wrenched the lumpy little stone out and had to almost break the girl's jaw in his effort to pry it open. She convulsed even as he shoved the bezoar down her throat, her teeth cutting his fingers, not that he could feel the biting beyond the Vow's unmitigated fury.

If she dies, I'll die as well. A hysterical part of his beleaguered mind put in, What an embarrassing way to pop off, keeling over at the side of a student like a geriatric having a heart attack.

Granger, kneeling next to the girl, held Potter's arm down and sobbed. Black stood behind her, fists clenched tight and her face pale as a unicorn's hide. The tightness in Severus' chest began to subside as the girl's convulsions eased, though her breathing remained thin and several blood vessels in her eyes had burst. The Potions Master drew his fingers from her mouth and hissed at the sting. "She must be taken to the infirmary."

Pomfrey shoved her way through the gawking brats and conjured a stretched, which Severus and Minerva helped load the girl onto. "I will go with her," McGonagall said as Albus ordered the Head Boy and Girl to help the prefects disperse the crowd back to their dormitories. Naturally, Granger and Black resisted Farley's efforts to escort them away and remained behind. The other professors trailed their charges.

"I'm her Head of House," Slytherin sneered. "You needn't bother, Minerva."

Minerva narrowed her eyes but didn't argue. She also followed Pomfrey and Slytherin out of the Hall as the former levitated the stretcher and the latter curled his lip. Severus didn't know why Slytherin bothered; the wizard professed no interest in his students beyond those malleable to the Dark Arts and had no patience for sick children. What is his game now?

His hand and wrist continued to throb as if both had suffered a sudden collision with something hard and unyielding. Severus sat back on his haunches and stared at his bitten fingers, blood oozing from the torn incisions, the flesh marbled with ripening bruises. Below that, he could barely see the pearlescent scarring of the old Vow.

I knew the truth all along, didn't I, Lily? I knew it was the Vow but didn't want to admit what it would mean.

He thought of all the times his hand had ached and pained him, of the weeks it would echo with distant prickling, of the nights he would wake in a cold sweat, searching for the blade piercing his skin only to find none. The pain had abated upon the girl's admittance in Hogwarts; the worst incidents had been in the Headmaster's office over the summer, and when the troll went on its rampage. The letter, he realized. We were discussing Potter's reply to the letter when I was in the office. What happened to her then?

Despite its rather transparent name, the "Unbreakable Vow" was a gray and vacuous area of magic; those who studied it often died, infringing upon invisible terms and stray addenda, taken by a deadly curse masquerading as a promise because one cannot qualify what an oath means from one person to the next. Those dunderheads who had any real understanding of the Vow would never undertake it, and in the extreme hypothetical that they did, they knew only to agree to three stringent promises, three concise goals ingrained with expirations or loopholes that allowed for their survival. One did not promise something as wretchedly vague as "protecting" someone else.

Will you protect my daughter, the person I love most in this world, if I cannot, Severus Snape?

The Vow surged with agony, with warning, whenever he came close to failing her, like a tightrope frazzling under his feet. Swearing to protect a girl marked by the bloody Dark Lord may've been a stupid choice, and it may've been cruel of Lily to ask it of him—but Severus would've rather, quite literally, died than be shut out of his best friend's life for a second time. Against the cold reality of lost absolution, pledging himself to the girl that had become Lily's whole world was a little thing.

Movement jerked Severus' attention to the handkerchief Dumbledore proffered, the older wizard's eyes trained on his. Severus took the cloth and wrapped it around his injured digits.

I'm going to fucking kill Petunia.

"Miss Granger," the Headmaster said in a soft voice to the girl still kneeling on the floor by the blood-splotched stones. He offered his hand and, once she took it, he helped Granger take a seat on the crooked bench behind her. The girl's face was mottled and her hair a mess of frazzled curls. "Can you tell us what happened?"

"I—I don't know, sir," she replied, stealing a fortifying breath to still her tears. "We were talking about—." Her eyes flicked toward the open doors, then away. "About things, and Elara noticed Harriet's face had gone a bit funny. She started coughing, and there—there was blood, and she knocked over—." Granger stopped and her eyes opened wide. The girl whipped herself around and stared at the blood splattered table littered with dinner's remnants. "The tea!"

"Tea, Miss Granger?"

She pointed out the offending cup, tipped over in its saucer, most of the brown liquid splashed onto the floor or Potter's abandoned plate. "The cup there! It wasn't here when we sat down. I'm sure of it! Harriet drank from it and right after—!"

"Thank you, my dear…."

Severus swiped the cup from the table and gave the rim a delicate sniff. He heard Albus gently encouraging the two first years to return to their dorm, though Severus himself paid them little mind. He inspected the liquid, then dipped his little finger into the dregs and tapped the tip against his tongue. The burning, acrid taste confirmed his suspicions.

Soon only Dumbledore and Severus remained in the Great Hall, the solitude punctuated by the heavy thud of the hall doors coming closed. "Our poisoner has a sense of irony," he spat, taking up a stray water goblet to clean his mouth. "They used an extract of Salazar's Tongue." A plant found common enough in the Forbidden Forest, though the average student wouldn't know how to take the snake-like petals and brew them properly for a working poison.

"Hmm. It wouldn't be my first choice for a poison." The Headmaster stroked his beard in thought, then said, "Loppy."

A loud crack heralded the arrival of a miserable, floppy-eared house-elf wringing the edge of his tea towel. "The Headmaster Dumblydore is needing Loppy?"

"Yes, thank you, Loppy. Could you bring us the elf responsible for supplying this cup of tea?" Dumbledore pointed out the cup in question and the elf's blue eyes followed.

"Yes, Headmaster, sir. Right away!"

The house-elf disappeared. Severus sneered at the spot where it had stood, more out of frustration

for himself than anything else. Poison. She was poisoned no more than a few meters away from you. Albus sat on the edge of the Ravenclaw table's bench and held his single hand in a fist, the knuckles white. He was angry, Severus knew, but also worried; the skin about his eyes tightened, his white brow low and furrowed as the Headmaster's brilliant mind set to work.

"You know," the Potions Master said into the quiet, his voice cold. "I find your concern for Potter…surprising."

"Why is that, Severus?"

"Because of her House." Pacing the aisle between tables, Severus hid his trembling hand in the folds of his robes and rounded on Dumbledore. "I assumed you would be disappointed in her— suspicious, even. You've shown your precious Gryffindors considerable favoritism in the past, Headmaster. I am simply curious as to why you haven't written Potter off as a lost cause."

"Ah, my boy." Albus heaved a weary sigh and his beard twitched in what could have been an indulgent smile. "You of all people know I've made many mistakes, especially in regards to your own person while you attended this very school. I allowed a schoolboy rivalry to progress into hostility on both sides."

Severus looked away. "This is not about me."

"No, of course not, my apologies. I simply mean to tell you that even men of my age are capable of changing and learning from their missteps. I have learned to not allow Tom Riddle's corruption of Slytherin color my perception of its children; I have, after all, been shown that some of the purest hearts come from the House of Serpents."

The Headmaster's knowing gaze caused Severus to scoff. Pure-hearted indeed.

"There is good in Slytherin still. I will not give up on it. Harriet is kind—withdrawn yes, but kind and well-meaning, as are her friends Miss Granger and Miss Black. Miss Granger's time with the Malfoys seems to have tempered her resolve and ambition, while Miss Black appears determined not to repeat her father's mistakes," Albus continued. "Aside from that, I find a poisoning always warrants the Headmaster's concern. Don't you, Severus?"

The Potions Master said nothing.

Loppy reappeared a moment later with a second house-elf in tow. The latter creature swayed where it stood, eyes hooded as if dazed, and when Loppy let go of its arm, the elf fell to the floor.

Severus shared a look with the Headmaster. It's been Imperiused. Not well, either. The caster had left the spell to recede on its own without contingency, rendering the elf more of an insentient fool than usual as its personal will fought the expiring will of its attacker.

"This is Rikkety, Headmaster, sir," Loppy said, dragging the other elf back to its feet.

"Thank you, Loppy, that will be all."

The elf vanished again with a final worried glance about the Hall, and Dumbledore reached out to hold Rikkety steady as the cursed elf teetered. "Severus, if you would—?"

Nodding, he retrieved his wand and flicked it between the creature's dazed eyes. "Finite Incantatem."

The elf stumbled as the Imperious broke. A quiver ran through its spindly limb—then it burst into

tears.

Wonderful, Severus griped as the green-skinned creature wailed. Dumbledore gave it several reassuring pats to the head and back before it calmed, snot dripping from its skinny nose, its tea towel wet with miserable tears.

"Oh, Headmaster Dumblydore, sir," it said in a high-pitched voice. Female, then. "Rikkety is being a bad elf, sir!"'

"Can you tell us what happened, Rikkety?"

The elf nodded, head bouncing as she sniffled and fresh tears threatened. "Rikkety was told to serve the bad tea to Harriet Potter, sir. Rikkety didn't want to, Headmaster Dumblydore, but Rikkety couldn't stop herself!"

Albus conjured a handkerchief. He handed it to the elf, and she used to blow her nose. Tears peppered the ground underneath her.

"All is well, Rikkety. You were placed under a particularly powerful curse. Did you see who cast it upon you?"

As Severus expected, the elf shook her head. "No, Headmaster Dumblydore. Rikkety was cleaning up after Peevesy in the sixth floor corridor when someone came up the stairs and told Rikkety to go to the kitchens and make the bad tea."

Severus and Albus shared another look. The Imperius Curse necessitated a certain level of power and knowledge to perform with any proficiency, but any student sixth year and above had knowledge of the spell as per the curriculum, and a particularly studious fifth or fourth year could figure it out. Their suspect had thinned, but not by much.

Albus sighed. "Thank you, Rikkety. I would ask you to warn the elves to be cautious over the coming weeks and to alert me if they witness anything suspicious."

"Yes, sir, Headmaster Dumblydore," the elf said. She paused and wrung the damp cloth tea towel between her knobbly hands. "Is—is Miss Harriet Potter going to be all right? Oh, Rikkety is a bad elf, very bad…."

"She will be fine with a bit of rest, never you worry. Off you go now."

Rikkety sniffled again before disappearing. Severus stared at the far wall and fought his revulsion, his frustration. "Why," he said to Dumbledore. "Would the agent go after Potter and not Longbottom? The stupid boy ate and drank plenty tonight, to no ill-effect. Why not curse the elf to taint both of their beverages? We would have only had time to save one." And I would have gone for the girl, if only to save my own hide.

"The limits of the curse, I suppose," the Headmaster replied, voice weary. He lifted his wand and banished the evening meal's remnants.

"That still begs the question of why Potter and not the Boy Who Lived."

Albus said nothing. They both knew the answer already.

"The agent is closer to the Dark Lord than we suspected," Severus said, dread pulsing in his chest like a living thing, coupling with the fading agony in his arm. "If they know Potter is not all she seems—if he remembers something about that night—. Using Longbottom as a red herring will be

pointless."

"Not pointless, Severus. Tom does not know the truth. I am assured of this."

"How?" the Potions Master snarled. "How can you be so sure of this when the girl almost choked to death on her own blood not ten meters from us?!"

The Headmaster raised his hand and Severus calmed himself, forcing one breath, and then another, into his chest. "I believe Voldemort—." Snape flinched. "—ordered his agent to test the waters, as it were. Had he known who Harriet is, he wouldn't have bothered with Neville."

"Unless attacking Longbottom was a rouse."

"I don't believe he has the patience for that, not in his current situation. Had he knowledge of Harriet and not just suspicions, or an old grudge, he would have gone for her directly."

"You underestimate him."

"No." Albus shook his head. "I know what Voldemort is capable of—what he, Slytherin, and Gaunt are capable of. In any iteration, Tom is not a man to suffer fools lightly, but what is left of his true self will be desperate, Severus. We must be cautious."

The Potions Master stared at the Dumbledore's empty sleeve and the dread in his heart refused to abate, curling and snapping, tearing at his flesh until he felt he might bleed inwardly. Cautious. Severus no longer knew how to live any other way. "As you say, Headmaster."

"Excellent. You should go to the infirmary and check if Poppy needs anything. I will check the third floor corridor."

They departed, and as Severus walked the empty corridors, night clinging to the stone casements, his cloak trailing on the floor like a personal shadow nipping at his heels, he prayed the Headmaster was right.

dark lord's mistake

xxxiii. dark lord's mistake

Harriet didn't wake all at once. Rather, she became aware of an annoying ache in her back, and even as she tried to ignore it, the ache grew and grew until it persisted from the bottom of her ankles to the top of her head. Groggy and uncooperative, Harriet pushed the feeling aside and attempted to let sleep take her again, but the longer she lay in the half-doze between dreams and reality, the more Harriet began to realize something was not quite right.

She was used to things being "not quite right"; the whole of her existence up until she stepped onto the Hogwarts Express could be considered just that—and yet this was a kind of not quite right Harriet hadn't experienced before, or at least not for a while. The only time she could recall something similar happening was when she woke in her cupboard, Set prodding her in the side, a large bump on her head after Uncle Vernon threw her inside.

What…what happened? What am I doing?

Harriet opened her eyes and expected to see the top of her dormitory ceiling, fingers of moonlight rippling through the lake's clear waters—but that was not what she saw.

Where am I?!

She sat up and the white sheet pulled up to her chin fell into her lap, pain throbbing anew in her back and about her stomach. Harriet plucked at the front of the unfamiliar nightdress, then pushed a hand against her middle. The pressure increased the ache and she groaned.

"Good evening, Harriet."

Harriet almost toppled right out of the narrow little bed she inhabited when a voice spoke at her side. She peered through the fuzzy darkness, trying to make sense of the misshapen blobs, and started again when someone slid her glasses into her hands. Muttering her thanks, she put them on and blinked.

The room she lay in was very large—a ward Hermione would call it—with more than a dozen empty beds lined up along both walls, the sconces all doused for the evening, rendering thick shadows where the moonlight couldn't touch. Harriet's bed sat near the far wall inlaid with diamond-paned windows, a screen blocking off much of her view of the ward, and perched in a chintz armchair at her side was Headmaster Dumbledore. He smiled at her.

She blinked again. "Er—?" Harriet blurted, nose scrunched in confusion. "Wh—? Where—?"

"Eloquent, Potter."

The bespectacled girl was in for another shock when what she'd assumed to be a shadow by the windows bloody moved, and the starlight glowed on Professor Snape's pale face when he turned in her direction.

Harriet stared at the gaunt wizard as she swayed ever so slightly, still mussy with sleep and cranky from pain. He stared in return. "I don't know what happened," she said. "But you can't give me detention for it."

His answering smirk said, I can try.

"I think we can do without any detentions tonight," the Headmaster said, raising his brow for Snape's benefit. The Potions Master huffed and crossed his arms, moving his attention to the view outside once more, which meant he missed the sudden humor in Dumbledore's bright eyes. "Can you remember anything that happened, my dear?"

Harriet mulled over her jumbled thoughts and flashes returned to her, voices and screams, hot pain in her mouth and throat, Hermione's clammy hand on her arm. "I…I drank something. Some tea I think, sir. It hurt."

Dumbledore nodded, his expression once more grave as he ran his thumb along his knuckles in what Harriet thought might be an anxious gesture. "Yes. You were poisoned, Harriet."

"Poisoned?"

She remembered blood on Parkinson, red drops peppering her own hands and her plate, the strange burning not abating even as liquid poured out of her mouth.

"Is—did anyone else get poisoned?" She had sat between Elara and Hermione like she always did in the Great Hall; were they hurt too?!

"Everyone else is fine, my girl—as are you, thanks to Professor Snape's swift actions and Madam Pomfrey's care."

Like a punctured balloon, Harriet deflated with relief, a heavy sigh leaving her as she slumped. Snape saved me? "But how did it get into my tea, sir?" Harriet asked. She looked into Dumbledore's patient, knowing face, and when the silence stretched between them, she got her answer. "Someone put it in there? Someone meant to—?"

Someone meant to kill me.

Harriet couldn't fathom why anyone would want to kill her; not even Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia could muster the kind of hate necessary for murdering their niece, though her uncle came close the last time she saw him. Harriet was a nobody; an eleven-year-old orphan, an average student, and a girl who mostly minded her own business. "Why? I haven't done anything!"

Dumbledore considered her for a long moment. Snape, still at the window, said nothing and didn't appear to even breathe, holding himself like a gargoyle looking out over the battlements. Harriet could see his arms folded behind his back and his clenched fists were plain against the black fabric of his robes.

"Tell me, Harriet; what do you know of Lord Voldemort?"

"That's You-Know-Who, right?" It had taken months for Harriet to discover his stupid name. The Wizarding world refused to say it and Slytherins gasped when she asked. Even Hermione hadn't known; it was only through Elara, who read the name written in a journal, that they discovered the truth. "Why won't anyone say his name?"

"He put a Taboo upon it during the war. That is a kind of curse placed upon words—very old and very powerful magic, my dear. Voldemort felt it increased his mystique when others feared uttering his very name, but I feel fear of a name is a very silly notion. By naming a thing, we take away its anonymity and dispel the fear of uncertainty."

"Don't tell her that."

Snape whipped around, his face livid. "With all due respect, Headmaster, the girl is a Slytherin. You, in contrast, are eminently powerful—and independent—wizard who doesn't have to worry about others taking offense to what he says. She cannot go about naming the bloody Dark Lord. Discretion is a virtue of the highest importance in our House."

"Perhaps you are right, Severus. However, it is up to Harriet to make that decision for herself."

Given the look Snape leveled in her direction, Harriet was fairly certain she'd land herself about a dozen detentions if she said "Voldemort" anywhere in his hearing.

"Nevertheless, his name and its usage are not what I wished to discuss; Harriet, what do you know of your history with Voldemort?"

History? "He killed my mum and dad, right?" Harriet lowered her eyes, and instead of looking toward the Headmaster, she stared at the hem of Snape's black cloak. It trembled ever so slightly. "Before he tried to kill Neville Longbottom."

"Yes. He killed many, many people, your mother Lily being the last."

The same anger Harriet had experienced in Diagon Alley when reading The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts came upon her again, and it curled in her belly like a living thing, wanting to lash out at someone, anyone, as she hated Longbottom for surviving, her own parents for dying, and Voldemort for being a monster. It wasn't fair—but Harriet couldn't change any of it. She forced the feeling away and shut her eyes.

"Voldemort is many things, Harriet; powerful, dangerous—and also cowardly, petty. He is a wizard who has committed as many mistakes as he has misdeeds, though he refers to the latter as his successes and would never acknowledge the former. If given the chance, he tries to rectify those mistakes—erase them, I should say, so they cannot remind him of his failures."

Harriet listened to the Headmaster and flinched each time he referred to the Dark Lord in the present tense. You-Know-Who was gone. He died at the Longbottoms'…hadn't he?

"Sir," she said, speaking softly, hesitating before meeting his eyes. "Sir, is—he's dead, right? You- Know-Who died that night. Neville defeated him."

Snape scoffed. Dumbledore's gaze flicked in his direction, a warning in his slanted brow, and the Headmaster shook his head. "No, I'm afraid not, my dear."

The blood roared in Harriet's ears as she gaped without a word at the Headmaster's statement, so simply given, his face open and calm even as Harriet's heart bludgeoned itself against her ribs. I'm afraid not, my dear. How could he not be dead? How could—? He killed so many, ruined so many families and reduced whole Muggle villages to ashes, had murdered her mum and dad and—. How could Dumbledore say he wasn't dead?

Harriet trembled. The Headmaster took her hand in his, squeezing, and only then did she realize how very clammy it'd become.

"You are one of his mistakes, Harriet," the elderly wizard said. "Greater than you know."

"Why? Because he missed me in the house that night?!" Her voice went high and tremulous. "He's going to try to kill me?"

"Headmaster…" Snape cautioned.

Dumbledore ignored him and answered her. "Yes."

Harriet felt very much like she might lean over the bed's edge and vomit on the wizard's shoes. Sweat peppered her brow and her mouth dried, her tongue heavy and awkward behind her teeth, Harriet's fingers buzzing with numbness and fatigue. Someone had tried to poison her. Someone had tried to kill her for the Dark Lord.

"He's not…he's not here, is he?" Harriet asked, though surely that couldn't be right. Someone would have recognized one of the most dangerous wizards in history trotting about the corridors, wouldn't they?

"We believe he's had an agent infiltrate the school—either willingly or unwillingly, as there are curses that exist to bend a person's will against their own. You see, Harriet, Voldemort is not alive in the sense that you think he is; he's a shadow of his former self, unable to live but unable to die, and he will use any means he can to return himself to our plane and wreak havoc again on society."

"Dumbledore," the Potions Master snapped, stepping forward. "I really must protest—."

"Harriet has a right to know," the Headmaster responded with a shrug, his eyeglasses flashing in the moonlight. "Voldemort ensured her involvement when he ordered an attempt against her life."

"But why send someone to Hogwarts?" Harriet asked, gulping. "Surely not because of me. Is it because Longbottom's here?"

"No. He's searching for something, something he knows was moved from Gringotts and placed here within my safekeeping. I do flatter myself in thinking I'm rather clever sometimes, and this artifact—."

"Headmaster!"

Before Snape could be reprimanded for interrupting again, the sound of the infirmary door popping open and muffled voices moving closer silenced the Headmaster and the dour Potions Master. They both turned their alert gazes toward the screen blocking view of the ward—and Harriet froze in her bed, jerking her hand from Professor Dumbledore's so she could twist it into the sheets. What if it was the poisoner coming to try again? Surely she'd be fine with two professors sitting right there—but what if she wasn't?

Harriet almost wept with relief when Hermione and Elara stepped by the screen and both yelped when they caught sight of Snape swooping over them.

"Thirty points from Slytherin," he said without preamble. "Out after curfew, the nerve—."

"Sir, we were coming back from Astronomy and wanted to see if Harriet was well!" Hermione quipped before realizing to whom she spoke, slapping a hand over her mouth in afterthought. Elara just eased herself from foot to foot, looking queasy, if determined.

"I think, Severus," the Headmaster said as he rose from his armchair. It vanished with a quick flick of his hand. "We shouldn't fault Miss Granger and Miss Black for getting lost after their lesson. The castle can be a confusing place after nightfall, can't it?"

Both Slytherins nodded.

"Let's see…I believe thirty-five points should go to Slytherin for checking on the welfare of a classmate," Dumbledore pronounced, smiling, though Snape curled a lip and his hands clenched the footboard on Harriet's bed. Hermione beamed and Elara's cheeks flushed. "Though Professor

Snape is correct, and it is quite late. If you'll excuse me, I have much to see to before I can seek my own bed. I will have to write to your relatives, Harriet, about this—."

What?! "No!" Harriet shouted, shocking those gathered around her, the Headmaster's brow rising and Hermione choking like she'd just cursed at the Queen of England. "I mean—you don't have to, I—err—I'll write to the Dursleys, I mean my aunt. I want to write to my aunt and uncle and tell them myself. Sir."

For one long, dreadful moment, Dumbledore seemed on the verge of denying Harriet's wish, then reconsidered, tugging at the end of his beard as he hummed. "Well, I'm sure it will comfort them to hear from you personally. I'll ask Madam Pomfrey to give you what you need for a letter in the morning."

"Thank you, Professor Dumbledore."

The Headmaster nodded, then left the ward. Harriet thought—hoped—Snape might go as well, but the thoroughly irritable wizard lingered at her bedside, plucking a vial from the nightstand and all but shoving it into her face. "Take this."

"What is it?"

Snape didn't say anything at first, but when it became clear Harriet wasn't about to take anything someone just handed her at random, he rolled his eyes and pinched the bridge of his considerable nose. "Incomprehensible little twit. Take it. The poison used, Salazar's Tongue, Lingua Salazarius, has lasting effects the Amino Accelerator counteracts by rebuilding liquefied tissue."

Harriet sighed. He could rattle off a line of absolute nonsense and I'd have no clue what any of it meant or if it was true. She took the potion and drank, wincing at the coarse, slimy texture. Snape snatched the empty vial back.

"It was laced with an analgesic melatonin infusion. You two—." He glared at Hermione and Elara. "—have five minutes before she's asleep. If you are not out in the corridor, where I will be waiting to escort you back to the Slytherin common room, after those five minutes, I will begin handing out detentions. Don't try my patience."

With that said, Snape followed Dumbledore's path out of the infirmary, his cloak flaring like a particularly ominous thundercloud in his passage. He disappeared—and both of Harriet's worried friends threw themselves at her bed, wrapping their arms tight around the scrawny bespectacled girl.

"You're crushing me, really—."

"Don't you ever do that again!" Hermione whispered in a furious undertone. She and Elara released Harriet, the latter coming around the other side of the bed to avoid Hermione's agitated hair flipping. "You could have died! Haven't you been told not to accept food or drinks if you don't know where they come from?!"

"To be honest, Hermione, I don't know where any of the food or drink on the House tables comes from."

"You know what I mean!" She sniffled and wiped at her misty eyes. Harriet stared, dumbfounded and not quite sure how to react; no one had ever been so worried over her wellbeing before. Had she walked out into the kitchen of Number Four one morning missing a limb, the Dursleys would have snapped at her to make certain she hadn't left any blood or bits of flesh on their clean floors.

No one had ever cared about Harriet Potter.

Elara reminded Harriet of Snape when she looked to the other girl for help; the moonlight falling through the window blazed across her pale complexion, dark tendrils escaping the bun at the nape of her neck, gloves covering her anxious hands. She remained quiet as Hermione regained composure, then finally spoke. "…You're not going to write to your relatives, are you?"

Stricken, Harriet looked down at the blanket covering her knees. She shook her head.

The silence continued for much of their alloted five minutes, which surprised Harriet because she thought Elara would disapprove, or Hermione would argue. Instead, they stood quietly at her sides and each took one of Harriet's hands in their own. Harriet held onto them even after Snape's potion kicked in and she fell into her pillow once more, lost to her muddled dreams.

She was in the Great Hall, alone, seated at her familiar spot at the Slytherin table with nothing but a cup of tea before her. The cup of tea said, "Drink me, Harriet," and when Harriet refused, the cup repeated, "Drink me, drink me, let me in!" Harriet ignored the tea and stared instead at the ceiling above, watching the night sky bleed starlight until, one by one, the torches went out, and she drifted away.

clever witches

xxxiv. clever witches

Harriet grimaced when she heard the familiar patter of Madam Pomfrey's approaching footsteps.

"Miss Potter," the mediwitch snapped when she stepped out of her office and found the girl attempting to escape the wing, one hand still on the knob, moments away from slipping through the opening. "I told you—."

"But I'm perfectly well now!" Harriet argued, and the witch scowled, flicking her wand so the infirmary doors slipped right out of Harriet's hands and closed. "C'mon, Madam Pomfrey—!"

"As I said, Miss Potter, you may return to class tomorrow, but for the weekend you are to remain here." She pointed one imperious finger back into the ward's depths. "Bed."

Harriet returned the way she'd come, Madam Pomfrey quick on her heels, tucking Harriet in until the bespectacled girl felt all but strangled by the tight sheets. "Now rest. The more you rest, the quicker you can leave."

Harriet scrunched her nose at the witch's back when Madam Pomfrey finally returned to her office and quickly disentangled herself from the sheets, though Harriet did remain put. She was mostly sure the threats about Sticking Charms weren't real—but only mostly, and Harriet didn't much fancy being stuck anywhere while some nutter agent of the Dark Lord ran about the school wanting her dead.

An hour passed before Hermione and Elara arrived, both slinking by the ajar office door so Madam Pomfrey wouldn't shoo them away before they had a chance to visit. Harriet perked up at their entrance and grinned as her friends hurried over and slid the screen into place behind them, blocking view of the ward once more.

"Did you bring it?" Harriet asked, positively bouncing with eagerness as Hermione adjusted the satchel slung across her shoulder and searched the interior.

"Yes, of course I brought it, though I don't see why you want it so much…."

The bushy-haired girl unearthed Harriet's copy of 101 Legendary Artefacts of the Wizarding World.

"Excellent!" Harriet crowed before checking the volume of her voice, glancing toward the screen. "Really, thank you, Hermione."

"It's fine," Hermione said, though a pleased blushed spread across her cheeks. "Oh! And Elara brought—."

The taller girl stuck a hand into the pocket of her robes and withdrew a coiled bit of green.

"Kevin!" Harriet said as Elara deposited the little snake into her waiting hands. Kevin was the Christmas cracker snake she'd stuffed into her pocket at the feast and had promptly forgotten, until she returned to the dorms and heard Livi hiss about an intruder. "Thanks, but why'd you bring him?"

"Livi's been going a bit…a bit mental," Hermione confessed, eying the snake with a healthy dose of caution. "We can't see him, of course, but he did tear Parkinson's bed to shreds and broke a mirror. I tried telling him you were fine—but, well, I don't speak snake, do I?"

"No," Harriet affirmed. "Though Livi understands some English when he feels like it."

"Elara came up with the idea of bringing you Kevin—such a ridiculous name, Harriet, really—so you could tell him what happened, and he could tell Livi."

Harriet lifted Kevin to her face. "I dunno if that'll work," she said, dubious. "Kevin's a bit of an idiot."

The snake blinked one eye, then the other, as his black tongue flickered.

"Really?" Hermione asked as she sank into the visitor's chair. Elara elected to perch on the end of the bed, and Harriet folded her legs to give her room. "That's fascinating. You know he's not a real snake; he's a low-level Transfiguration golem created by the magic in the cracker you pulled. He's like the insects and animals we work with in Professor McGonagall's class."

Harriet blinked. "So—wait? Those animals aren't real?"

"They're real in the sense that they have flesh and synapses and comprehend basic stimuli. According to Professor McGonagall, however, they lack a certain indefinable spark of life. Did you know that's where the stories of Frankenstein came from? He was a wizard who attempted to bring a human golem to life. The creation of human golems is Dark magic, of course, though they are permitted in the training of Healers and mediwizards—and, anyway, Frankenstein thought to use dead bodies as his base because he felt it was the closest he could get to true living flesh, and that broaches into Necromancy, which is a forbidden branch of Transfiguration—."

Harriet and Elara nodded their heads at proper intervals while Hermione rattled off more magical history, until she paused for breath and realized she'd been rambling at some length. "Oh, I'm sorry, the thought got away from me. Anyway, Kevin's a golem. It's quite interesting that he's able to understand and perform commands."

"Yeah," Harriet replied. "I wonder if that's why Livi hates him, though. I had to ask him nicely not to eat Kevin and now Livi treats him like his own personal slave."

"Oh, Harriet, that's awful."

"Well, what would you have me do?" the bespectacled girl huffed. "Livius is almost as heavy as I am and I don't much fancy getting into an argument with a miffed Horned Serpent."

Hermione subsided with a cross expression and Elara smirked, turning before the older Slytherin could see. Harriet stroked a finger against Kevin's skull to get his attention.

"Misstresss," the little snake hissed, wriggling in her palm, looping skinny coils about her wrist.

"Hullo, Kevin," Harriet said. "Can you bring a message to Livi?"

The snake swayed.

"Tell Livi I am okay. Can you do that?"

The swaying paused, then Kevin responded, "Kevin will."

Harriet gave the snake a minute to process the information before testing him. "Kevin will what?"

Kevin's beady little eyes widened as he stared at Harriet and whipped his forked tongue out. "Kevin will…?" His coils tightened, voice puzzled. "Kevin will…Kevin will bitesss."

Satisfied with his decision, he reared back and bit the finger that'd been stroking his head—the finger that was bigger around than the whole of the little snake's body.

Harriet pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed.

It took several more rounds of repetition and finger chomping before Harriet felt they had a semi- decent chance of Kevin relaying a proper message to Livi, and she handed the snake back to Elara, who slipped him into a pocket without so much as a flinch. They chatted quietly for a few minutes about the rumors swirling through the school and the general unease in Slytherin House after one of their own was poisoned. Harriet propped open 101 Legendary Artefacts in her lap and began flipping through pages.

"So why did you want the book?" Hermione asked as Harriet frowned at the picture of a green suit of armor. "I know you must be bored up here, but you were rather…insistent, and specific."

Harriet stopped her perusal and considered her two friends, Hermione and Elara considering her in return. Should she tell them what the Headmaster had said? What would they do? Harriet didn't want them to worry—or, worse, decide being around Harriet was too hazardous for their own health, which might very well be true if Harriet's would-be murderer felt less stingy with his poisons. She fiddled with the corner of a page.

"Professor Dumbledore…when he came Friday night, he told me that I was poisoned by an agent of the Dark Lord."

"What?!" Hermione gasped, clapping a hand over her mouth when the exclamation echoed. Both she and Elara paled considerably, torn between outright horror and incredulity. Harriet rushed to explain.

"I know, I know, I didn't really believe him at first, either. Professor Dumbledore said I was a mistake to—to him. That he meant to kill me when I was a baby with my parents, and that he's not really dead like we think he is." Harriet picked at the book until the page's corner and she pressed her thumb against it, flustered. She didn't meet their eyes. "They don't know who the agent is, 'course, and I'm not the reason they're here. According to the Headmaster, the Dark Lord wants something that Dumbledore has—an artifact, he said, that was in Gringotts before and then came here." And I want to bloody well know what it is if I'm going to be murdered over it.

"And did—did Professor Dumbledore say what this artifact was?"

"No. I think he was going to, but Snape looked like his head might explode if the Headmaster did." Harriet patted the book. "So I thought I might find something in here."

"But, Harriet, it could be anything."

"I know, but if it's something important enough that the bloody Dark Lord wants it so much, and it had to be moved from Gringotts of all places, then maybe it's in here."

Elara lifted and folded one leg at the knee so she could sit more on the bed and crane her neck to look at the book. Harriet was relieved neither she nor Hermione had gotten to their feet and ran from the room. "Rule out anything overly large," Elara muttered, pointing out a picture of Hebo's dragon-drawn chariot. "Anything ancient with old magic in it can't be shrunk, and usually can't be

levitated. The goblins have week-long waiting periods to get over-sized objects in and out of Gringotts because of the mine shafts; it would not have been removed as quietly as it has been."

Harriet flipped ahead, nodding. "How 'bout any of these?" she asked as she pointed out a fancy array of different swords. "Excalibur. Galatine. Cla—cla—? The Clam Sola."

Hermione bounced out of her chair and came to Harriet's side. "Claiomh Solais, Harriet. Not Clam."

"Well, however it's pronounced—what do you think? This says it glowed with the light of the sun and could cut enemies in half. Oh, bloody hell."

Hermione gave her swearing a half-hearted reprimand as she nibbled at her lower lip, deep in thought. "That…that wouldn't make sense. Oh, none of it makes sense at all! You-Know-Who is supposed to be dead! How could Headmaster Dumbledore—?" Hermione took a shuddering breath as she saw Elara's stern expression and Harriet's nervous flinching. "I'm sorry. No, not a sword. Most listed here are accounted for and are simply legendary for their ownership. Not very useful."

The next few pages held three items collectively entitled the Deathly Hallows. "I'd want these if I was a murderous Dark Lord," Harriet said as she stared at an illustration of a black rock, wand, and cape. "Listen to this; 'it is said that he who brings Death's three Hallows together shall be his master, and confront that which terrifies mortal man.'"

Hermione shook her head. "No. The Deathly Hallows are purely a legend. Witches and wizards have claimed to own the Elder Wand or the Cloak of Invisibility dozens of times over the centuries and are always proved wrong. Whatever You-Know-Who is after has to be real, because the Headmaster says it was in Gringotts before." Suddenly, she blinked, her mouth popping open in silent shock. "The third-floor corridor on the right-hand side!"

Harriet knew about the corridor, of course; Professor Dumbledore had told them all at the start of school to avoid the place unless they wanted to die. It wasn't the kind of thing one forgets in a hurry. The Slytherins, being Slytherins, avoided the place and generally only spoke about the corridor in theory if they spoke of it at all—while the Gryffindors gamely admitted they'd tried the door at least once, just wanting a peek, but couldn't get past the lock.

"That must be where he's put it," Hermione said, grinning from ear to ear. "Why else keep something potentially dangerous in a school?"

Elara, reading an line about Goswhit, Arthur's helmet, frowned and said, "He was overtly theatrical about that, don't you think?"

"What do you mean?"

"His speech regarding the corridor was blatant, given before the whole school. He didn't need to say anything, did he? He could've just kept the door locked and anyone who came across it would've been quietly turned away, as we've seen. Instead, he told everyone about it. I would presume he also told this agent."

Hermione's eyes widened. "You don't think it's in there."

"If the Headmaster was a Slytherin, I would guarantee it wasn't."

They continued to theorize on the Headmaster's motivations while Harriet flipped further ahead in the book, moving past the Shield of El Cid, the Brisingamen, the Gem of Kukulkan, and settling on the image of a black cauldron oozing veins of green. "'Pair Dadeni: Cauldron of Rebirth,'" she

read aloud, interrupting Hermione. "'Those who possess the Cauldron are said to be able to pour life into the dead and revive them from their eternal rest'." Harriet glanced up. "Professor Dumbledore said he'd use any mean he could to 'return to our plane.' D'you think this is it?"

They debated the idea, then Hermione shook her head, decisive, hair bristling about her frustrated face. "No. The Pair Dadeni is real, unlike the Hallows, but it's been lost. See, right here it says; 'The last owner Cadfan Blevins reported the Pair Dadeni missing from his Vaults in 1982.'"

Elara scoffed. "Reported missing, Hermione. The Blevins are a dodgy Welsh pure-blood family on the verge of selling their House rights. Cadfan was trying to pull what the Muggles call an insurance scam. Doesn't work well against the goblins, I'd gather."

"Why haven't I heard about the Blevins family?"

"Because the Malfoys are narrow-minded. I doubt they want to teach you much about pure-bloods outside England or Scotland."

Harriet kept reading, pressing a knuckle between her teeth and biting down as she concentrated. No, she thought. Not the Cauldron. Looking at the pictures, it's much too big and probably weighs five or six stones. Professor Dumbledore said Voldemort is unable to live and unable to die; I don't think the Cauldron would help him.

A flash of red on a new page caught Harriet's eye and she paused. "'The Philosopher's Stone—.'" She had barely begun to read before Hermione snatched the book from her hands. "Steady on!"

Hermione's brown eyes flicked back and forth at dizzying speeds. "This!" she cried, Harriet and Elara hurrying to shush her. She continued at the same volume. "It has to be this. It fits!"

"Shh! Lower your voice!"

Hermione scoffed. "If she hasn't come to shoo us off by now, she's not going to. You do know she has wards around the beds, right?"

Harriet opened her mouth to say that, no, she hadn't known that, when Elara asked, "What is the Philosopher's Stone?" and tried to read the book's print upside down. Hermione flipped the text around.

"'The Philosopher's Stone exists as the pinnacle achievement in the field of alchemy, with only alchemist Nicholas Flamel noted as a successful creator of the legendary substance. The Stone can transform any metal into gold and is capable of creating the Elixir of Life, which grants its drinker health, immortality, and preserves them from infirmity.'"

The three girls shared a look over the book's colorful pages. "But why does it have to be this?" Harriet asked. "Why are you so certain?" Sure, the immorality and wealth seemed perfect, but Harriet thought the Cauldron would fit the needs of a man not wholly alive too if he really wanted it—or maybe one of those fancy swords that could cut enemies in half just by nicking them. Ick.

"Because," Hermione replied, smug as could be, a smile curling her lips. "The Ministry offers public records of Hogwarts' merits and standards, which includes the qualifications and references of the school's professors. I reviewed them over the summer because I wanted to know why Hogwarts was considered one of the best schools in the world. Did you know Professor Snape became Europe's youngest Potions Master and got references from both Ebus Pippet and the Libatius Borage? And Professor Flitwick used to be an international dueling champion—? But, anyway, I looked up the professors' qualifications, and then the Headmaster's."

"And?"

"And Professor Dumbledore is eminently qualified for his positions as Headmaster and Supreme Mugwump of the ICW. He's widely recognized as an authority and genius in his fields of mastery, Transfiguration and alchemy—the latter of which he apprenticed for under—."

"Nicholas Flamel," Elara said as she caught the train of Hermione's thought. "He received his mastery from Nicholas Flamel, so it would be safe to assume they remained friends."

"And who would you ask to guard your precious and valuable stone if not your good friend and master sorcerer, Albus Dumbledore?"

Suddenly, from behind the screen came the sound of slow, methodical clapping.

"Well, well," said a familiar voice, and Harriet's heart almost escaped her chest when Professor Slytherin stepped into view, sliding out from behind the screen with effortless grace and a haughty smirk in place. "Aren't you a trio of clever, clever witches."

Both Elara and Hermione stood, only to sit once more when getting off the bed only brought them closer to the Defense professor. Slytherin's unnerving red eyes flicked between them, contemplating, until he settled on Harriet. "Dumbledore is a meddler," he said at length, flicking imaginary lint from his robe sleeve. "He is a meddler of the highest order, a wizard of passable talent who uses the skills of others to elevate his status and quite enjoys having Slytherins clean up the mess. I couldn't begin to fathom his reasons for wanting you to know of the Philosopher's Stone, but I will give you three some sound advice; clever little first years who stick their noses into the business of Dark Lords don't become clever little second years."

Harriet swallowed. She didn't know if he was threatening them with expulsion or—or something worse.

"Leave it be. Don't ask questions."

Hermione and Elara nodded, mumbling "Yes, Professor," but Harriet—perhaps emboldened by boredom or her very recent escape from death, briefly met the wizard's gaze. Prickling alighted from her shoulder and trailed across her collarbone, scraping at her chest and her throat. "We're Slytherins, sir," she said, swallowing again. "Not mad."

He seemed to find that funny because he laughed—and the sound hit Harriet like a bucket of ice water. I've heard that laugh before. High, cold, and utterly humorless, Professor Slytherin's cackling caused all three witches to shiver with unknowable dread.

"Quite right, Miss Potter. Thirty points to Slytherin."

cross my heart

xxxv. cross my heart

Elara Black knew more about helplessness than most twelve-year-old girls.

She'd spent the majority of her life helpless, entrusted into the hands of men and women who followed their dogma with fanatical, closed-minded fervor and practiced their absolutions on the children they tended. She knew what it meant to be pinned, held down, by words and by steel, belittled by scripture and drunken slurring and childish fear. She could remember the smell of burning flesh in her nose when Father Phillips pressed the glowing brand into her chest yelling "By Christ be purged!"—and still, Elara had never felt quite so helpless as she did when watching her best friend choke to death.

The feeling remained with her days after Madam Pomfrey discharged Harriet from the infirmary and they went about their classes, the short Slytherin more subdued than usual. From everything Elara had seen, Harriet wasn't a boisterous girl; she came across as rather brash sometimes, but Elara felt her attitude came from a lack of self-awareness rather than malice or rudeness. She'd seen similar behavior in the younger orphans at St. Giles' who used to live with neglectful families, families who left them on their own for long stretches of time. They jumped at raised voices and generally avoided eye contact, just like Harriet. Sometimes they had imaginary friends.

Elara wondered if that was why Harriet often whispered to herself. She was, without a doubt, an odd girl—but also one of the loveliest people Elara had ever met, and the idea that an agent of the half-dead Dark Lord—the Dark Lord her father supposedly served—had tried to kill Harriet sat heavy upon Elara's heart.

Harriet was quieter than usual, tired after her stint in the hospital wing. Elara had learned from Hermione that the poison used, Salazar's Tongue, melted the imbiber's insides, not quite like an acid would but with comparable results, and Harriet would need time to regain strength in her repaired muscles, bones, and organs. Her already sketchy control suffered, and Harriet managed to turn her mouse into a baby elephant during Transfiguration, breaking the desk and earning a flabbergasted tongue lashing from Professor McGonagall. Normally she took everything in stride and brushed off Parkinson's teasing, the sneering Slytherin always mocking Harriet's hair or her scar or her glasses, but for the last few days Harriet had only slumped beneath the relentless mocking. Parkinson kept pantomiming choking in the Great Hall and Harriet refused to touch any of the drinks.

So if Elara paid an upper year Slytherin to Charm Parkinson's pumpkin juice to shoot straight up her nose, she felt justified in that bit of petty bullying. Parkinson vomited all over a screaming Malfoy and although the sight almost made Elara sick herself, Hermione and Harriet—and most of Slytherin House—laughed so hard they nearly wet themselves.

Snape proved particularly unforgiving on Friday during double Potions. He skulked the dungeon's length, a terrifying specter right out of Father Phillip's biblical stories about pale, furious ghosts and devils, his footsteps silent but no less haunting in their intensity. "Black," he snapped as soon as they filed into the classroom. "Back row."

Elara sighed and moved her cauldron from Harriet and Hermione's table to the single one in the back. She fought the urge to mutter darkly under her breath, guessing it was going to be one of

those days, the ones in which Snape didn't allow Elara to skate by on Hermione and Harriet's efforts and instead made an absolute hash of things on her own. She let the legs of her cauldron touch down with a loud bang and the Potions Master shot a glare in her direction before beginning the lecture.

She brooded through much of the lesson, ignoring Slytherins and the Gryffindors who still seemed to find it awfully amusing that a member of the House of Serpents got themselves poisoned and almost died. Elara had heard Longbottom mutter that Harriet "got what she deserved" on more than one occasion, though the sentiment lacked heat, laced with the same tepid energy the orphans used after witnessing one of the sisters' punishments, simply relieved it hadn't been them under the switch.

The first portion of class ended without event and they began their practicals. Snape prowled about, swooping over the Gryffindor side of the room to chastise Weasley on some contrived grievance. Malfoy took the opportunity to lean back in his seat and, within Harriet's hearing, said, "Oh, I do hope my dinner doesn't end up poisoned. Just imagine; I actually have parents who'd mourn me."

Harriet shot Malfoy a two-fingered salute and Hermione smacked her arm down before Snape whipped around and paced back in their direction.

To Elara's surprise, she almost managed to finish her potion before the situation went pear-shaped. Her concentration wavered during the final maturation as she looked about the class and watched Snape's back when he passed Harriet's table and, for the briefest of moments, hesitated. What if it was Snape? an insidious voice in Elara's head whispered. Hermione still suspects he might have cursed Longbottom in November. What if all of this is a twisted scheme between him and Slytherin meant to endear or test our loyalties? What better way to divert attention than to place himself in situations where he appears the hero or savior?

Her control slipped, and some organic ingredient within the brew began to decay or blossom, spoiling the whole potion. The liquid curdled and began to swiftly rise like dough, cresting the cauldron's top before Elara felt a sudden shove of magic hit her in the chest, throwing her into the counter at her back as the frothing meniscus collapsed and a wave of foul goo sloshed over the table and floor.

"How shocking," the Potions Master drawled from across the aisle, wand extended. He had been the one to push Elara back. For once Snape sounded bored and impatient rather than gleefully mocking. Apparently, there was more on his mind than lambasting Elara's substandard brewing skills. "Clean your mess, Black. No magic."

The 'mess,' as he'd stated, had begun to cool and congeal on the table and stones underfoot, sticking the abandoned stool fast to the floor. Elara retrieved the cleaning supplies typically reserved for detentions from the cupboard by the stone sink and dragged her feet back to her seat. He could clean it up in an instant if he wanted. Git.

Class came to an end soon enough and the other students hurried to tidy their stations and tuck away their kits. Longbottom escaped a similar meltdown by a slim margin and scampered with Weasley and Finnigan quick on his heels, the trio shedding Billywig wings and nettles in their wake that had Snape cursing softly. Harriet and Hermione lingered, but Elara shook her head, hands covered in inert green goo, so the pair hefted their bags onto their shoulders and departed.

Snape's eyes followed Harriet from the dungeon. Even after she'd passed through the door, the man's gaze bore into the weathered wood as if trying to see through it, not yet ready for the girl to pass beyond his sight.

Elara didn't like the way Snape looked at Harriet. It wasn't predatory; Elara would've gone straight to Dumbledore if she'd thought so, consequences be damned. Rather, it was the way a person might look at a teacup sitting too close to the edge of the coffee table—or at a priceless Faberge egg in the hands of a drunk. Raw panic glinted behind Snape's black irises and it made Elara nervous, nervous because she hadn't a single idea why the wizard looked at her best friend like that. What was there to be nervous about? What did he know that Elara didn't?

The last student left, the door swinging shut, and Elara dropped the dirty rag onto the table with a thwap. Snape glanced toward her—and found the girl regarding him with a narrow-eyed stared.

"Why do you look at her like that?" she asked, her tone questioning rather than impertinent. Elara hardly cared if she offended Snape of all people—the great bat—but she did want an answer.

"Excuse me?" he replied in a voice that conveyed an easy, chilling distaste.

"Why do you look at Harriet like that?" Elara repeated. Snape's eyes widened as if he hadn't actually expected her to say the words again. "I don't like it."

The Potions Master blinked, then gathered himself like a growing storm, anger blotching his pale face, hate glittering in his eyes like the hard shell backs of dead beetles. Time in the orphanage made Elara sensitive to an adult's shifting moods, and just as she knew Harriet made Snape nervous, Elara knew her presence sparked fury in the wizard. "I'd be very careful about what you're insinuating, Black," Snape said in that soft, whispering voice of his. "Very, very careful."

"I'm not insinuating anything," Elara replied. She refused to match his whispering and spoke clearly, loudly. "I'm asking a question I hope to have answered. Sir."

Snape stepped away from his desk and, when he approached, Elara tried very hard not to shudder. The man loomed like a silent, seething terror, and with his black robes relieved only by the slightest touch of white at the collar and his cuffs, the wizard looked close enough to a priest for her heart to race with panic.

Elara swallowed as the Potions Master stared her down.

"You're awfully bold, aren't you, Black? Perhaps you would have done better in Gryffindor…like your good-for-nothing father."

She flinched, face burning. So that's it, Elara realized. He knew Sirius. Or, at least he knows of him. I wonder…. "I'm not my father."

"For your sake, you'd better hope not."

Snape went to leave, dismissing her, and Elara spoke before she could stop herself. "If you hurt her, I'll see you sorry for it."

He froze. Elara fancied she could hear her heartbeat echoing against the dungeon's cold, grimy walls as the wizard slowly, slowly turned to face her. "Are you hoping to be expelled, Black? I can accommodate that wish, but do make sure you're very certain you want to be on the train back to London after supper before threatening me."

"It's not a threat," she said, feeling more than a touch queasy. "Only Gryffindors make threats, sir; Slytherins make promises."

"A promise, girl?" Snape took another step forward and Elara couldn't help herself; she retreated and her back met the edge of the counter behind her. The professor sneered. "Pathetic. I don't

know what game you're playing, child, but—."

"I'm not strong," she blurted out. Elara didn't know why she kept talking despite every manner she'd had drilled into her head screaming at her to be quiet. In her mind's eye, Harriet lay prone on the Great Hall's floor, suffocating, poisoned by an innocuous cup of evening tea, and who best to poison a girl than a wizard who worked with poisons every day? Elara never wanted to be helpless again. "I'm only twelve and I don't know much magic—but I do know the name of Black has clout, and I would use whatever clout I could against anyone who hurt Harriet or Hermione."

Snape leaned forward and Elara reciprocated by leaning back. She wrung her hands together and wondered what it'd be like to be back at Grimmauld Place full-time, if she'd be able to teach herself magic after being expelled, if that was allowed, or if they snapped your wand and—.

"Only Miss Potter and Miss Granger, Black? Am I free to poison whoever else I wish outside your purview?"

The question threw Elara, who'd been preparing for another verbal onslaught maligning her character. "Ah," she said, biting her tongue. She remembered then something that Matron Fitzgerald once told her when Elara asked why she was being punished after Wendy Pamilo, a daughter from one of the church parishioners, broke the fence in Elara's sight. "We take care of our own," Elara repeated in monotone. "And God manages all the rest."

The Potions Master scoffed, but he did lean away once more and Elara breathed easier. "Insufferable fool," he sneered. His glare softened, or so Elara imagined. The low, murky light of the dungeons made such things difficult to decipher. "Make no mistake, Black, you are remarkably like your father; arrogant and presumptuous. He too made hollow promises to protect his friends, promises that meant nothing to him or to them in the end. Save your sanctimonious posturing for someone who actually means Potter harm."

Quick as a whip, he drew his wand and Elara flinched—only for him to brandish it at the mess on the table, vanishing the mucky cauldron and spilled glop with a single gesture. Snape smirked as he tucked his wand away again. "Get out of my sight."

Elara was all too pleased to oblige the man; she snatched hold of her bag and bolted from the classroom, earning a sharp rebuke for running and slamming the door. Even so, Snape didn't give her a detention, didn't take points, and though Elara wound up sick from nerves in the first-floor loo, she counted her confrontation as a win.

She wouldn't allow anyone to hurt her friends.

silvered want

xxxvi. silvered want

If there was one thing Harriet couldn't stand, it was all the staring.

She didn't know how Longbottom could tolerate it, how he didn't start yelling at people to look the other bloody way when he walked down corridors, because Harriet felt sick to her stomach with the strange level of infamy she seemed to be experiencing. The whole of the school or at least the vast majority of it had been present for her poisoning, and they wanted to know why one small, twitchy little first year Slytherin kid almost kicked the bucket in the Great Hall. Hence the staring.

As May moved on, some of the staring tapered off, but Harriet still heard the whispering and it made her increasingly uncomfortable, so much so that she accidentally magicked one of the tapestries to tear itself off the wall and chase a particularly loud sixth year Hufflepuff through most of the school. Nobody could prove she'd done it, of course, but Harriet took that as a sign to keep to herself for a while.

The afternoon was warm—one of the warmest they'd had in quite some time, and Harriet couldn't bear the idea of grinding her nose in revisions for another minute, even if Hermione and Elara seemed perfectly content with studying until their eyeballs fell out. Harriet wasn't having it.

So, after promising she wouldn't wander off alone, Livi fast asleep and coiled about her torso, Harriet headed outside where other students congregated in the sunshine and borrowed one of the training brooms from Madam Hooch. The brooms didn't go very fast and only rose three feet off the grass, but Harriet enjoyed the weightless sensation, the pull of wind through her hair, and the quietness found while toddling about the grounds on a broom that could be outstripped by passing butterflies.

Harriet caught sight of a familiar form heading toward the Forest's edge and zoomed nearer.

"Hagrid!" she called out, hopping off the broom at the half-giant's side, setting off a small cloud of dust and dirt from the path.

"Hullo, Harriet!" he boomed, grinning, reaching out with his free hand to pat her shoulder—almost driving Harriet into the ground. In his other hand he held a suspiciously stained sack, and upon seeing where Harriet's attention had wandered, he shrugged. "Goin' to feed the Thestrals. Got a new foal who needs lots o' protein."

"Can I come?"

"'Course," Hagrid responded—then paused. "Err, well if you don't mind a bit o' blood, I should say. Thestrals love raw meat—can't get enough of the stuff. They're scavengers by nature and harmless."

"I don't mind."

Harriet followed Hagrid on her broom since his stride was exponentially longer than her own. Thin saplings surrounded the path, and though they'd entered the treeline, Hagrid mentioned they wouldn't be going into the forest proper.

"Nothing would hurt you in there, though, not with me around," Hagrid boasted, swelling with pride. "Lots o' misunderstood creatures, you see, but they demand respect and space, which is what I keep havin' to tell those Weasley twins—but those two never listen, and I have to keep chasin' them off for their own good…."

Hagrid went on at some length about Ron's rascally brothers, though he sounded fond rather than scornful, and soon they came upon a partial paddock in a clearing where Hagrid set the sack down.

"You like flyin'?" Hagrid asked as Harriet hopped off her broom again and found a seat on the rickety paddock fence. An older student might've landed flat on their face, but Harriet was light enough for the barrier to hold. Livi hissed in his sleep and tightened fractionally, causing Harriet to wiggle to loosen his hold around her middle.

"Yes!" she replied with a wide grin. "I wanna try out for the team next year, if my marks are good enough."

"Marks?"

"Yeah. Professor Snape said you have to have all E's to play on the House team!"

Hagrid gave her a funny look and mumbled something into his beard that sounded like "sneaky sod," then picked up the sack and entered the paddock. "Your dad used to play Quidditch back in his day."

"You mentioned that when we first met."

"Did I? Guess I'm fergettin' things in my old age." Hagrid chuckled. "Damn fine Chaser he was. James flew like he'd been born on a broomstick. I think he won every game he played for Gryffindor. Gave me a shock seein' you flying about. You look just like James at a distance."

Hagrid opened the sack and drew out the bloodied haunch of what looked like a deer, or maybe a small cow. He strode a few paces from Harriet toward the trees, twigs and fallen branches snapping under his great boots, and seemed content to wait for whatever it was he was feeding to come to him.

Harriet tried—and failed—to picture her own father on a broom, playing Quidditch, wearing gold and red instead of silver and green. She wished she could've seen it for herself. Would James have taught her how to fly? Would he have gotten her a broom when she was little? Or would her mum have protested? What was Lily like? Did she play Quidditch too? Or did she watch Harriet's dad and cheer for him?

A sound shuffling nearer the clearing drew Harriet's attention to the paddock again. She blinked as she saw a black, skeletal horse coming over to the half-giant, fluttering its leathery wings and kicking its hooves in anticipation.

"Hey," Harriet said. "It's those spooky horses!"

Hagrid stumbled as if she'd assaulted him and the bloody leg in his large hand hit the dirt. The horse squawked in indignation but lowered its head to eat all the same, stripping bits of meat from the whole with its tapered beak.

"You c—? You can see 'em?" Hagrid choked as the face behind the beard paled drastically. Another horse came to investigate the commotion, seeming to slip right out of the sparse shadows accrued about the base of the wispier trees.

"Of course I can," Harriet said—then she recalled the time she'd tried to point them out to Hermione, and the other girl had given her a puzzled look, saying there was nothing there. "Is that, err, odd?"

Hagrid fumbled with the sack and drew out another leg—chicken, maybe—and proffered it to the new horse, who trotted over and happily accepted the food. "No, it's just—. They're terribly misunderstood creatures, Thestrals. People get scared of 'em, because you can—. Blimey, Harry. I'm probably not the best—. Well, you can only see 'em if you've…if you've seen someone pass on."

Harriet winced at the nickname before the meaning of Hagrid's words sank in. If you've seen someone pass on. "Oh," she replied, swallowing. She only knew two people who'd died, and while she knew she'd been in the house that night, she hadn't realized she'd been close enough to actually see what'd happened. Merlin, Harriet thought, morose. No wonder I'm so weird.

"Would'cha like to feed 'em?"

He extended one of the plucked drumsticks to Harriet and, nodding slightly, she clamored off the fence and came nearer. The horses—Thestrals—watched her with curious attention, cocking their heads like birds, turning ever so slightly to keep her in sight. Harriet wrinkled her nose at the feel of lukewarm meat in her hand and Hagrid grinned, though his watery sniffle ruined the effect.

"Go on. Mind your fingers—they're harmless as lambs but can get a bit too excited. And remember to wash your hands real good after we're done…."

Two more Thestrals wandered out of the forest, plus the foal Hagrid had mentioned; long-limbed and clumsy, it would've knocked Harriet over in its rush if Hagrid hadn't caught her by the scruff of her neck. They were undoubtedly strange creatures, imposing and cool to the touch, and Harriet could see how carnivorous horses only visible to those who'd seen death might be scary to others —but the Thestrals proved as friendly as Hagrid said, and running her hands over their bony snouts reminded Harriet of petting Livi or other snakes.

As the Thestrals crowded around her and nosed her hair and licked her fingers clean, Harriet thought about her mum and dad and wondered, grimly, which of them she saw die as a toddler. How had she survived? Headmaster Dumbledore said she was a mistake, that Voldemort—the Dark Lord—had meant to kill her as well, but how did she live while James and Lily died? They'd been a full-grown wizard and witch, and Harriet had just been a little baby. She didn't understand.

Harriet watched the scrawny foal lean against its mother as the mare pestered Hagrid for more scraps and she wished, more than anything, that she knew what having a family was like. All she had for comparison were the Dursleys, and they were no more her family than some rocks or the Thestrals themselves. She remembered Aunt Petunia would coo over Dudley and fix his hair and sometimes Harriet would do the same to herself, pretending she had a mum who cared about her scruffy haircut and ugly clothes, though the imitation never lived up to the real thing.

"Hagrid?" she asked, brushing one of the Thestral's scraggly manes. "If you could have anything at all, what would it be?"

"Eh?"

"What do you want more than anything else?"

"Hmm," he pondered, scratching at his wiry beard as he did so, leaving behind bloody scraps. Harriet would've pointed that out had the tallest Thestral not wandered over and plucked the pieces

out himself. "Watch it there, silly beast. What was the question? What would I want more than anythin'? Not quite sure, really. Always wanted me a dragon, though." His tone turned wistful as he gathered the empty sack in one hand. "Fascinating creatures, dragons, but they don't live wild no more. They get into too many scrapes with the Muggles and the Ministry can't keep up."

Harriet's mouth quirked as Hagrid gushed about his favorite scaled creatures, and in the back of her mind a familiar sly, cold voice spoke.

"The Mirror of Erised is enchanted to show your most ardent desire, not the petty wants of everyday life. Many a wizard and witch have been fool enough to let the images depicted therein drive them to madness."

"He will use any means he can to return himself to our plane."

She gathered the broom and Hagrid led the way back to his hut, where he let Harriet wash her hands and served a spot of afternoon tea before they found places on the porch to sit and enjoy the spring weather. The May sun felt like heaven upon Harriet's upturned face, but a growing unease suffused her when she thought about that mirror in the Headmaster's office, and no matter how warm the weather grew, Harriet felt cold.

look and see

xxxvii. look and see

Harriet stared at the gargoyle, and the gargoyle stared at Harriet.

She didn't know how long she'd been standing there, nor was she precisely sure of her reason for coming. To speak with the Headmaster, maybe? Whatever her motives, a sudden hankering for Muggle candy had Harriet drooling and so she told the gargoyle, "Fizzing Whizbees."

"No, no," said the gargoyle, its stone lips cracking and crumbling as it sneered. "No Fizzing Whizbees here. Only lemon sherbets!"

The gargoyle opened a taloned hand and, there, on its rigid palm, balanced a pile of sour yellow candies.

Harriet frowned. "But I don't want lemon sherbets."

The bright candies fell to the floor and disappeared in sooty puffs. "Then go through that door there."

Harriet whirled about, and behind her found the mentioned door, one she'd never seen before and knew couldn't possibly be across the corridor from the gargoyle. Still, she reached for the knob and stepped through.

A cool breeze whistled in the unyielding dark and Harriet's feet tamped down damp leaves, the Forbidden Forest stretching tall and foreboding all around her. She couldn't recall how she'd gotten here—hadn't she been in the castle speaking to the Headmaster's gargoyle a moment before? The night wood laid dark and unwelcoming in all directions, large shadows crawling in the bracken, sharp-toothed faces carved into the trees. Mirrors crowded the forest, mirrors of every shape and size, gilded or cracked, taller than houses, framed in the words 'Nie mte l'. A single light flickered in the distance.

Harriet ran. The roots rose from the earth and coiled around her legs, but Harriet pushed through, kicking and writhing, until she reached a small cabin no bigger than a boot cupboard at the foot of a great oak. She threw open the door and slammed it shut behind herself. A torch lay on its side, flickering, batteries on the verge of going out.

Something heavy collided with the door at Harriet's back. She pressed against it, quivering, as fists pummeled the flimsy wood—then they stopped.

"Harrrriet," rasped a voice on the other side. " Let me in, little Harriet. Just for a minute, let me in."

The torch flickered again, stronger than before, and Harriet silently begged for it not to go out. Nails scoured the door.

"Let me IN!"

The torch died and Harriet lunged for it. "Please, please, please—," she chanted as she beat the plastic tube against her hand and the batteries rattled. Finally, the light came on—and Harriet

looked up into a pair of watching red eyes.

"—Harriet!"

She woke with a gasp, almost colliding with Hermione in her rush to sit up. The dream crowded her thoughts, then like a sugar cube in a cup of tea, broke apart and dissolved until only the taste remained—sour and acrid with bile and fear. The sensation of pins and needles crawled through her shoulder and neck. Swallowing, Harriet breathed hard and adjusted her glasses as she blinked and met Hermione's quizzical look.

"Are you okay?" the bushy-haired girl asked. "You napped right through lunch and I know you wanted a bit of a lie in, but I didn't want you to sleep through dinner as well."

Harriet yawned wide enough to crack her jaw and nodded, wiping gunk from her eyes. "I'm okay. Just had a bad dream." Which wasn't a rare occurrence, really. She studied the empty dormitory, brow furrowed, until she found Elara leaning against one of the carrells, a half-written letter abandoned on the desk alongside her quill. "Thanks for waking me."

Humming, Hermione sat on the edge of her own bed and fiddled with the curtains.

"Ssss."

Livi shifted in the rumpled sheets, a somnolent hiss rising from the vicinity of Harriet's feet as she lifted the counterpane and peered at the snoozing serpent. An indolent blue eye opened and gleamed before Livi settled again. Harriet set about unraveling his coils and the snake dragged himself farther into the bed's covers. She was thankful she'd left Kevin in his makeshift terrarium in her trunk's nifty extension, since he had the unfortunate habit of sticking his snout in her nose while she slept.

"I'll never get used to that," Hermione said.

"Used to what?"

"Finding you in bed with a snake twice your size."

"He's not twice my size!" Harriet protested as she stroked a hand along Livi's back. "Livi's only— well, maybe a foot or so longer than I am tall."

"Isn't he going to keep growing?"

Harriet shrugged. "I read some of those books you showed me in the library and Magizoologists don't know much about Horned Serpents, really. They live for a long time apparently, and can take years to shed their skin, depending on 'magical maturation.'"

"Hmm."

Just then the door banged open and Pansy strode in, gifting all three of them with her haughty, scrunch-nosed sneer as she paused beyond the threshold and Harriet scrambled to make sure Livi was covered. The other witch didn't notice. "What are you three nerds doing in here?"

"We sleep in here, Parkinson," Elara drawled before Hermione could say anything. Pansy glanced at Elara and, meeting the taller witch's glare, decided to move on without comment, though she did scoff as she strutted over to the washroom.

"Reapplying her makeup. Again," Harriet muttered. Hermione disguised her laugh as a slight

cough, which didn't do much to hide the sound. Apparently Pansy heard because she came back into the dorm and scowled.

"Don't you have something to study for, Granger?" One eye had a glob of mascara smudged in the corner and it stuck her lashes together in messy clumps.

"No? We just finished the last of our exams yesterday, if you can't recall."

"As if you'd let that stop you." Pansy stomped into the bathroom again.

Hermione glowered at the open doorway for a good minute before looking away, her cheeks stained a delicate shade of pink. "I don't know how she manages to make being studious and smart sound like an insult."

"Better yet," Elara said. "I don't know why she thinks that's an insult."

Hermione didn't bother to cover her laugh this time, though if Pansy heard she chose to stay in the washroom. Harriet grinned—then pain lanced through her shoulder and neck, catching her unawares, and Harriet gasped, slapping a hand over the offending spot.

"Are you all right?"

"…Yeah." Harriet rubbed the shirt covering the old wound and popped open a button, pulling the collar down to inspect the irritation, though she couldn't quite manage. "My neck—my scar— hurts."

"Your scar?"

"Mhm. I always guessed the cut hurt the muscles or the nerves or something, since sometimes it acts up. It's been a bit worse lately, though."

Hermione stood. She reached for Harriet's collar and, after pausing to receive permission, plucked the fabric aside. "It looks—well, it looks bad," she decided, lips pressed into a worried line. "The skin's gone puffy and inflamed. Have you been scratching at it?"

"No. Nothing more than usual."

"I don't like the look of it." Hermione's frown intensified and Elara drifted over to inspect the scar as well, going so far as to run her fingertip over the thickest vein of gnarled tissue. Her hands were cold. "You should go to Madam Pomfrey. Or even Professor Dumbledore, since it's an old injury."

"What does that have to do with it?"

"It's part of the school's public information, the same place I learned of the professors' qualifications." Noticing Harriet and Elara's blank expressions, Hermione rolled her eyes. "Honestly. 'Hogwarts' attending healer cannot affect maladies, deformities, or injuries accrued outside of term without giving knowledge to and acquiring consent from the patient's parent or guardian.' There is a bylaw, though, that allows the Headmaster or the student's Head of House to grant permission in special cases or emergencies, in loco parentis."

Harriet blinked. "It terrifies me that you have all that memorized."

Pansy came strutting out of the washroom and went to her trunk. "Dumbledore's not here," she commented in passing, digging through her possessions until she found the blue top she sought. "Saw him leave like ten minutes ago."

Pain prickled in Harriet's neck and straightened her back. "What do you mean he's not here?"

"Do you need to clean out your ears, Potter? I'm not going to repeat myself."

"Where has he gone?"

Pansy propped her hands on her hips and scoffed. "How in the world would I know? Or even care? I only know this because Daphne and Millicent and Tracey and me were sitting out by the lake with Draco and Greg and Vince—." Pansy giggled and Elara grimaced, though Pansy didn't see. "And we—well, anyway, we saw the old man leave through the front gates in a hurry and Disapparate."

Harriet didn't know what Disapparate meant and didn't let that distract her. As far as she knew, the Headmaster never left the school while in classes were in session. Why leave now? Why had he been called away so suddenly? She hopped upright and, disregarding the robes thrown across the foot of her bed, snatched her wand from the nightstand and stashed it into the brace on her forearm. "I need to go talk to—someone."

Confused, Hermione asked, "Who?" even as Harriet hurriedly stuffed her feet into her shoes.

"I don't know," she confessed. "I just—I have a really bad feeling about you know what." She let her eyes drift toward the small shelf above her bed, where A Compendivm of Defense Against Magic Moste Dark and 101 Legendary Artefacts of the Wizarding World sat.

Hermione's eyes widened with comprehension and Elara crossed her arms, the tension in the room increasing as Pansy looked between them. "What are you talking about?"

"I think I'm going to go see Snape," Harriet said—even if the idea sounded barmy even in her own mind. She couldn't decide if Snape hated her or not, given he either seemed intent on burdening her with as many detentions as possible or completely ignoring Harriet. Sometimes, though, in the quiet of the dungeons when he set her to task and sat behind his desk doing his markings or checking his inventories, she could ask him a question and the professor would answer, sometimes with his familiar sarcastic snark and sometimes with resigned weariness. He'd probably tell Harriet she was an idiot, but she would feel better for hearing it from someone who knew what he was talking about.

"Snape?" Elara echoed. "I'd be worried he'd poison me again if I were you."

Pansy gave her a scandalized look and almost dropped the blouse in her hands. "Like Professor Snape would bother poisoning a weird half-blood nerd like her. She probably faked the whole thing."

"Funny, Parkinson. You sounded convinced when you screamed bloody murder in the Great Hall."

Elara and Pansy's bickering gave Harriet the opening she needed to escape the dorm, and she flashed a grateful—if strained—smile in the older girl's direction before hurrying into the corridor. Slytherins milled about the common room, basking in the freedom provided post-examinations, and they gave the bespectacled witch scurrying for the exit little thought. Harriet wished she'd taken Livi with her, but she wouldn't have had the chance to pull him from the covers with Pansy there, and really, Snape should still be in his classroom, only a short jaunt down the hall, either proctoring a test or finishing one up.

Harriet was almost there, too, when she collided with a body around a blind corner where the dungeon corridors bisected one another. She caught herself against the stone wall and winced at

the renewed pain in her neck, blinking through tears as she looked at the figure shadowed by doused torchlight.

"…Professor Quirrell?"

He said nothing, standing stiffly, crookedly, as if lame in one leg or in pain, until he whispered. "… yes, why not?"

Before he could say more or Harriet could react, the wizard moved and magic winnowed through the enclosed space. A sudden burst of red light was the last thing Harriet saw before the world went dark.

"…can't do it, Master. I can see it, can see myself giving it to you, but oh where is it? I don't understand—."

"Quiet, you fool."

Groggy, Harriet became aware again in tenuous increments; her senses reignited one by one, hearing the high, cold voice and the downtrodden muttering, pain in her oddly bent leg and numb hands, candlelight fluttering against her eyelids. She sucked in a breath and blinked until she could make sense of the scene before her.

She was in the Headmaster's office—or, rather, she leaned against one of the battered trunks in the spare room off the Headmaster's office, and in front of her a hunched Professor Quirrell whimpered as he looked in the gilded Mirror of Erised.

He hadn't seen her yet, or at least Harriet thought he hadn't. She doubted anyone else was about, given her hands were bound behind her back and the wizard in his purple turban was wholly absorbed with the mirror, but there were people in the office; painted people, dozens of them. If she could get the attention of the portraits….

No sooner had Harriet sucked in a breath to scream then Quirrell spun on his heels, wand raised, and snapped, "Colloportus!"

The door slammed shut with a tremendous bang. Quirrell turned his wand on Harriet and she choked, terrified, an eerie, not entirely lucid grin splitting the wizard's wan face. The single candle that gave light to the room had gone out when the door slammed, and now the only illumination came through the boarded up window, sharp bars of late day sunlight slicing across Quirrell's front and the Mirror behind him.

"Good afternoon, Miss Potter. If you scream, I will kill you."

Harriet tried to gather her scrambled wits, terror drying her mouth and throat until she could hardly swallow. "Wh—wh—?"

Quirrell sniffed, annoyed, and turned to the Mirror again. He touched the glass with his left hand and let his fingers play over the frame's intricate design as he mumbled and hummed. "Where is it? How did the old fool manage…?"

Oh, Harriet knew what the wizard wanted; since that sunny afternoon with Hagrid a month ago, she'd been harboring a heavy suspicion about the looking glass sequestered away in the

Headmaster's discreet keeping. As Elara'd noted, Professor Dumbledore's blatant mention of the third-floor corridor at the Welcoming Feast had surely drawn attention and suspicion to the place, including the attention and suspicion of anyone looking for the Philosopher's Stone, but the Mirror —in contrast—was safely tucked away. Harriet only knew of it by chance.

If Quirrell was after the Stone, that would make him—.

Harriet's heart started to beat very fast indeed as she struggled against the bonds on her wrists. Set pooled beneath her and she felt the featherlight touch of shadows creeping across her skin, plucking at the ropes.

"Master, I do not know what to do!"

Quirrell sudden cry jerked Harriet's attention back to the wizard.

"Use the girl…."

The chilling voice spoke from thin air and Quirrell spun about, Harriet scuffing her shoes as she tried to scramble away from his reaching hand, but Quirrell managed to haul her upright. Having sat on her left leg too long, it gave beneath the sudden weight and Harriet slumped to her knees before the Mirror, dangling from Quirrell's grasp.

"Tell me what you see, girl."

Harriet didn't see anything. The images within the Mirror flickered and morphed as different scenes battled for dominance. Her deepest desire changed every second or so as Harriet vacillated between fear and anger, horror and disbelief, stubbornness and desperation.

"I—I don't know."

The angle was awkward, but Quirrell managed to strike her across the face with his wand hand. Harriet tasted iron as her teeth cut her lower lip—and she remembered being struck by Uncle Vernon in a similar manner all those months ago and crying in the cupboard afterward, alone. Always alone.

In the Mirror, Lily Potter knelt to embrace the image of her daughter. Tears spilled from Harriet's eyes.

"You're not worth the time I wasted brewing that poison," Quirrell said before tossing her aside. Harriet landed on her back, wincing as her arms twinged, but Set returned to fraying the bonds once out of the wizard's sight.

"Let me speak with her…."

Quirrell paused, head tilting as if listening to something Harriet couldn't hear. "Are you certain, M- master?"

"Do not question me, Quirrell…."

Without further prompting, the wizard tucked his wand into his belt and began to unwrap his turban. Withered garlic cloves fell from the loosening cloth with distinct plops, and the smell of rot mixing with the sulfurous garlic odor overwhelmed Harriet as bile burned in her throat. She retched.

The last of the turban fell like the cloves and Quirrell turned his back. Harriet wished he hadn't.

She had no words for the abomination before her; it defied description, and the longer she looked, the more terrified Harriet became. A second face protruded from Quirrel's skull, two slits approximating nostrils, a slash where the lipless mouth opened and sharp teeth shone, red eyes peering right at her. The skin was peeling in great chunks and bruises mottled Quirrell's cranium like mold on cheese.

Harriet felt faint.

"Not a pretty sssight, is it, Miss Potter?" the second face mocked, the voice frigid and raspy, sibilating from the malformed jaw. "See what I have been reduccced to? Possessing snakes and lesser wizards, skulking in the dark, playing Dumbledore's ridiculous gamesss. See what I, the greatessst wizard who ever lived, have become?"

Oh, no. She realized Quirrell wasn't just an agent for the Dark Lord; he bloody was the Dark Lord, or least a carrier for the Dark wizard's twisted remnant.

If she didn't do something, she knew she wasn't going to leave that room alive.

"He thought to trap me, Dumbledore, that wretched old fool. Sought to trick me, thought to outsssmart me, but I am far too clever for such pitiful attempts. You're clever too, aren't you, Harriet?" the voice crooned. "A Ssslytherin, like me. You know what I am after. Look into the Mirror. Give me what I want. You and your friendsss are smart, aren't you, Harriet? You will be given everything if you assissst Lord Voldemort…."

"No!" Harriet yelled, trembling. "I would never help you! You killed my parents!"

Voldemort hissed his displeasure. "I can give them back to you, silly girl. What Voldemort takes away, he can return…."

For the briefest of moments, hope blossomed in Harriet's heart—and once it decayed, Harriet hated the wizard more than she ever had before, because she knew he lied and she hated that, even for an instant, she'd considered betraying her parents, her friends, the whole of the Wizarding world, for a selfish dream that could never be.

"I will let you share in that eternal life, Harriet…. You and your family could live forever…."

Mustering strength, Harriet spat, "No one lives forever," and Set tore the ropes free. Harriet did the only thing she could think to do, and lunged at Quirrell.

The wizard stumbled and Voldemort yelled, wordless and furious, Harriet's sore hands fumbling to grasp Quirrell's wand, pulling—.

An elbow collided with her collarbone. Fresh pain lit through her scar, blazing incandescent, and Harriet's vision blurred before she fell, and the wand slipped through her fingertips. It bounced once, then rolled below a cabinet, out of sight.

He doesn't have a wand now! I can do it! I can escape—!

Quirrell reached into his sleeve and Harriet stopped breathing when he retrieved her own wand. Of course. She'd forgotten in her terror, but Quirrell must have disarmed her after hexing her in the corridor, and now he towered over Harriet with her pale wand clasped in his hand, a wicked grin playing across his cruel features.

"Kill her!" Voldemort shrieked.

Harriet drew in a breath to scream.

Quirrell raised the wand and, still smiling, said, " Avada Kedavra!"

shattered

xxxviii. shattered

The agony struck before Severus could call an end to his sixth year N.E.W.T class.

The students were intent over their cauldrons, Volubilis Potions bubbling away, careful measurements of hellebore syrup being diluted and stirred while the withered faces of chopped up mandrakes dissolved in the brews. Between one step and the next, Severus gasped and stumbled as he brought his arm to his chest and very nearly knocked Lauri Lyons' cauldron to the floor. The freckled witch gawked at him and Severus sneered through the lank curtain of his hair.

"You have five minutes," he announced to the room at large, a slight roughness in his quiet baritone the only indication of the pain wracking his right hand. "By now you should be decanting your potion, and if you have not provided me with your sample at the end of those five minutes, you will fail."

Severus returned to his desk and dropped into his chair. In his lap, he attempted to unfurl his clenched fingers and failed as the muscles seized. What the fuck has she done now? he thought, loosening his wand from its brace so he could slip the stick into his left hand. Casting with a non- dominant hand could prove disastrous—and no matter how many contrary little dunderheads squawked "But I'm ambidextrous," magic did not flow in symmetry through the body—though Albus proved proficient enough. Albus Dumbledore wasn't a good marker for what the average wizard could achieve.

Concentrating, Severus whispered, "Fretum," and cool, green mist spooled around his wrist and forearm. By no means powerful, the numbing Charm blunted the pain enough for Severus to clench his wand in his proper hand and suck air through his crooked teeth. Shit.

He retained the proper, passive facade until the very last student—twitchy Lauri Lyons—all but dropped her vial on the desk's top. The bottle hadn't settled before Severus Vanished the lot to the storage cupboard and got to his feet. "Class dismissed."

The sixth years clamored to collect their possessions and didn't notice Severus dart out the door, his footsteps quiet but urgent, the numbness fading with every fiery pulse caused by the Vow. His heart thumped against his sternum like a small, shriveled hummingbird trying to escape. Damn it, wretched girl, where is she?

Severus rounded the corner and the common room's entrance came into sight—as did Elara Black and Hermione Granger, the pair deep in heated conversation, their expressions as taut as the body language suggested they were.

"Black, Granger—."

Before he could demand the girl's whereabouts, Black lifted her chin and demanded, "Where's Harriet?"

What?

Granger pursed her lips and huffed. "What she means, sir, is that Harriet left the common room about twenty minutes ago and she—. Well, she said she had a bad feeling about you know what."

"About—?"

"About the Philosopher's Stone," Black clarified, obviously in no mood for prevaricating. Severus' eyes widened. Hell. How do they know about the Stone?! "Parkinson came into the dorm and said the Headmaster has left the castle and Harriet popped up and said she needed to go talk to you."

Severus' mind worked quickly as the pain tightened in his wrist again, echoes of agony spiraling through his elbow and to the tips of his fingers. Potter never arrived at his classroom, which meant she had lied to her friends, or—.

Or she was taken.

He flicked his wand and the silver doe warbled into relief, almost transparent from lack of concentration. "Recall the Headmaster!" Severus ordered the Patronus, and it bounded through the solid stone wall, the two witches gawking at the spell as the silver light faded from their faces.

"Return to the common room."

"But—."

"Now!" Severus thundered. His voice echoed in the dungeons' narrow confines, and both Granger and Black grudgingly retreated. The entrance closed behind them and Severus rapped his wand against the wall's stone to activate the castle's wards. Technically, the power should be beyond him as a simple teacher, but Severus had been given the ability when he'd been Head of Slytherin House as Albus now turned a convenient blind eye to the forgotten permissions. It made things easier, what with Slytherin himself being utterly unaccountable half the time.

He flicked his wand again and an even weaker Patronus emerged, but it would suit his purposes. "Minerva," he said. "Lockdown the castle."

As the doe disappeared, Severus set off at speed, robes flaring, wand clenched in a white-knuckled fist as he ran up the steps two at a time. His arm quivered.

I've waited too long. Five minutes was too long. Let them blow up the ruddy classroom for all I care, I waited too long now, and she's—.

"Severus," Slytherin acknowledged as he came swanning out of the Great Hall, prowling for what drama and mischief he could capitalize on. He spotted the Potions Master and stilled, registering the other wizard's urgency, the rigidity of Severus' expression and the speed of his gait. The mocking smirk dissipated into blank awareness, not unlike a snake coiling in upon itself, waiting for the opportune moment to strike.

"He's called our bluff and taken a student," Severus said without slowing. Slytherin swore and fell into step with him.

The staircases moved to ease their passage, and a moment later Minerva's voice echoed through the halls and boomed across the grounds. "Students are to return to their dormitories immediately."

Time slogged on. His footsteps echoed, his breath grown ragged as he all but ran the bloody length of the castle, though he couldn't hear Slytherin at all. Agony surged through his skin, but Severus embraced the sensation and willed it to continue, because so long as he remained in pain, the girl lived, and that certainty was worth the torment.

Dumbledore's plan had been bound to fail from the beginning, Severus told himself. It was too complicated—and, in the same breath, too simple, and he should have known failure was imminent

when Slytherin agreed with the idea. Naturally, he agreed; it fed his sense of the theatrical, and the rouse may have deterred him for a time, but the Dark Lord—in any iteration—was wily, capable, and only became more cunning as time progressed.

They were never going to win.

A small, self-defeating voice whispered, The greatest mercy you'll receive is ceasing to exist when the girl does. Perhaps, even in this, Lily was looking out for you.

Severus shook his head, furious with himself, as they came onto the seventh-floor corridor. The gargoyle leapt aside without prompting and he almost fell when he hit the spiral stairs at full pace. He thought Slytherin said something along the lines of "Where the hell is Dumbledore—?" but the blood rushing in his ears made it difficult to hear anything aside from his screaming pulse, his wand wavering, blood in his mouth, teeth buried in his tongue to abate the swelling fire gorging on his bones.

Then, the pain stopped.

The storage room's door was locked, as expected. Muffled sobbing broke the otherwise stilted, worried whispering of the portraits, who could hear the sound but had no vantage into the room itself. Severus tried the handle, then took a step back, bringing his wand down in a practiced slash. "Aperianuam!"

The magical seal on the door gave as it flung itself open, revealing the darkened room beyond. Potter sat on the bare floor, sobbing, blood on her lip, and before the shattered remnants of the Mirror of Erised lay the crumpled body of Quirinus Quirrell.

Minus the back of his head, of course.

Slytherin took in the scene with the dispassionate air of a casual observer, equally as irked by Potter's tears as he was bemused by Quirrell's shattered visage. Frayed ropes lay by Quirrell's leg, and in his hand he clutched a wand—Potter's wand, Severus recognized. "My, my," Slytherin said. "It seems the Muggle Studies professor was our little agent all along. I wouldn't have thought the stuttering fool capable of it."

Potter sucked in a shuddering gasp and looked at her Head of House, then turned to Severus. Her green eyes were raw with tears.

"Miss Potter, are you all right?" Severus asked. Of course she's not all right, you twit. A part of him wanted to scream at the girl out of sheer bloody relief. What happened?

The girl sniffled and wiped snot on her sleeve. Disgusted, Severus conjured a handkerchief and handed it to her, and Potter blew her nose like a trumpet before she answered. "'M okay, professor."

A sudden blast of hot wind and searing light brought Severus and Slytherin around, their wands raised, and the Headmaster appeared from nothing with his phoenix perched on his shoulder and steel in his blue eyes. Severus lowered his wand in an instant, though Slytherin's lingered, his lips pulled back in a displeased curl.

Dumbledore cast one cold look in the Defense professor's direction before disregarding the man entirely and going to Potter's side. "Harriet," he said, extending his hand for her to take. "Harriet, my girl, can you stand?"

She tried to, and Severus intervened before the chit could yank the elderly wizard right off his feet.

He took firm hold of her skinny arm and the girl leaned into his grip, content to hang limp and shiver.

"He—he—," the girl choked between heaving breaths. "He cursed m-me, in the dungeons. W-with something red."

Stunner, Severus' mind supplied.

"A-and I woke up here. He wanted the Ph-Philosopher's Stone, wanted me to get it f-for him, but I didn't know how." Potter swallowed and shook so hard Severus could feel it in his own bones. "He —it was Vol—the Dark Lord," she whispered. "He had the Dark Lord with him, inside of h-him, on the back of his head—."

Dumbledore's brow furrowed and dread sung in Severus' veins. The Dark Lord. He had always thought Quirrell to be an odd character and his sabbatical on the continent had only exacerbated his eccentricities, but the Potions Master hadn't suspected this. He hadn't suspected poor fumbling, feeble-mouthed, Muggle-loving Quirrell of anything at all.

"H-he used a spell when I—when I tried to grab his wand." She pointed toward a cabinet, beneath which peeked the edge of a dropped wand. "He had mine and he said something, s-something I don't know—." The girl swallowed. "A spell. There was a green light, and then—."

The three men in the room froze. The portraits in the office continued to squabble among themselves and Potter's breathing remained ragged, but Severus, Slytherin, and Dumbledore said nothing at all. Slytherin traced the large cracks splintering what fragments remained in the Mirror's frame. "Well," he whispered. "Isn't that interesting."

Albus picked up the wand from Quirrell's limp, dead hand, and stared at it. "It is indeed…Tom."

never prosper

xxxix. never prosper

"Drink."

Harriet looked at the vial tucked into her pale, trembling hand and did not drink. She stared at the opaque blue liquid and remembered, oddly enough, the sound of the Mirror of Erised breaking. It should have been on the low-end of memorable events this afternoon, and yet Harriet couldn't forget the crash and the subsequent pinging of jagged glass bouncing on the stones as Quirrell slumped to his knees and fell forward.

Then the wraith had burst from his skull and screamed, "This isn't over, Potter!" while the glass continued to rain.

Harriet jumped when Snape snatched the vial from her and uncorked it with one practiced hand, holding the rim to her mouth. "Drink it."

"Severus, a modicum of care at this moment would go a long way—."

Harriet didn't hear the rest of Dumbledore's statement because she swallowed the silty blue potion and everything ceased to matter. Harriet stopped thinking about the glass, about Quirrell's dead eyes, Voldemort's screams, or the vibrant green flash that poured from her own wand and flung itself back at the wizard who cast it. She barely noticed when the Heads of Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff came streaming into the office and all began to talk at some volume. Harriet just sat in the wing chair by the fire with Snape watching her until the mediwitch came, at which point Madam Pomfrey began bickering with Dumbledore as she healed Harriet's busted lip and smeared a nice, cool cream on her aching shoulder, neck, and chest.

A white sheet covered a Conjured cot, Quirrell's body stretched out beneath it. Muggles did that too, Harriet knew from catching snippets of Dudley's programs. They covered their dead in clean white sheets. The strange, unexpected commonality almost had her breaking out in a hysterical, giggling fit.

By the time the world came back into focus, Harriet felt much calmer and the body had gone, as had everyone but for Professor Dumbledore. The Headmaster sat in another wing chair across from her, his profile highlighted by the flickering fire in the hearth, the windows grown heavy and drab with sunset. He noticed Harriet's rapid blinking as she straightened and sucked in a breath.

"I believe Professor Snape was a bit heavy-handed with the Calming Draught," he said with a small smile. "He means well, of course. Lemon sherbet, Harriet?"

The end table balancing the colorful candy dish scuttled closer on spindly, delicate legs and leaned to offer up a sweet. Harriet stared at the candy dish for a moment before taking one.

"I had a bad dream with lemon sherbets in it," she said, not quite sure why she was mentioning the weird nightmare. It seemed surreal after having watched a man with a ghost in his head accidentally kill himself.

"Oh?"

"Mhm. I wanted something sweet and the gargoyle told me all he had were lemon sherbets. He sent me out to the Forbidden Forest where there were lots of mirrors and a cupboard that I hid in to escape."

"To escape what?"

"I'm not sure, sir." Harriet popped the little yellow candy into her mouth and the sour taste helped further clear her mind. "I have that dream a lot, though."

The Headmaster studied her over the top of his half-moon spectacles. "Curious," he decided, taking one of the candies himself. "I'm sure Professor Trelawney would have much to say about your dreams. She's the Divinations teacher, you see." Professor Dumbledore said this with a wry note to his voice that puzzled Harriet, but the elderly wizard simply shook his head. "Never mind, my dear. You've been through a great deal and I've no doubt that listening to an old man's prattling isn't high on your priorities. I did want to ask you about…this."

He held up Harriet's wand, which she'd quite forgotten about in all the commotion. "That's mine, sir."

"Yes. Tell me, Harriet, where did you receive this wand?"

"From Ollivanders, Professor."

The Headmaster lifted one brow in disapproval. "Now, I think we both know that's not true, my girl."

Not precisely, no, but the truth was infinitely odder than the lie, and though Harriet had come to learn many fantastical things in the magical world, she knew some things were still labeled as 'weird,' and possibly possessed shadows fit neatly into that category. "I'm not sure," she said instead. "I know it's not the same as it was, but I don't actually know what happened to it. It is the wand I got at Ollivanders, Professor, I promise. It's just—different now."

Professor Dumbledore made a thoughtful sound as his fingertips moved over the surface of the wand and he relinquished it to Harriet. "It's made of elder wood, I believe. A very rare kind of instrument indeed; according to Garrick Ollivander, it takes a rather special and talented kind of wizard—or witch—to master a wand of elder."

Harriet blushed.

"I could guess at the core, but I believe such projections would be best left to others, because I couldn't say for certain. It is a very loyal wand, one of a pair."

"A pair?" Harriet asked. "Who owns the other one?"

The Headmaster shrugged, then extracted his own wand from a fold in his navy blue robes. "Me."

It certainly looked like Harriet's wand, the same pale wood and of similar length, but the professor's had more design to it, a band with funny markings about the part where his knuckles rested and several pitted protuberances, kinda like the knobbly tops of bones Harriet had seen pictures of in her old Muggle texts. Her own was like a very thin, tightly wound tree branch with funny markings on it from Set's fingers.

"As I said, they're very loyal wands, Harriet. They can prove quite difficult, impossible in most cases, to turn against their chosen master, and if someone were to attempt casting a deadly curse against the will of the wand—well, I would think that someone might find themselves the recipient

of their own misdeed."

Harriet's eye wandered over where the Conjured cot had stood and she gripped her wand tight. Dumbledore watched her, and for a moment looked nothing like the spry, gentle Headmaster she'd come to expect, but rather an aging wizard with a great weight upon his shoulders.

"I'm sorry, Headmaster," she mumbled. "I shouldn't have left the dorm on my own."

Dumbledore let out a short breath of disbelief and smiled. "Oh, my girl, it's not your fault."

"No," Harriet agreed, staring at her scraped knees. Madam Pomfrey must have missed those. "But I knew I should be careful. Hermione and Elara always tell me that. And I—I meant to take Livi—." She cast a furtive glance in the Headmaster's direction. "But I had to leave him behind. I should've known better." In afterthought, she added, "He's gonna come after me again, isn't he, sir? Voldemort is?"

He didn't respond immediately; instead, Professor Dumbledore returned his wand to his pocket and eyed the window, night coming to sit prim upon the sill, the final whisper of sunlight still caught in the dust that lingered there, speckled spots of brilliance on an otherwise dim surface. She felt anything but calm, and yet Harriet relaxed despite herself, holding onto her wand as if she'd never let it go and wishing she could thank Set for setting her free earlier. She would've died without him.

"Harriet, I once told you that you were what Voldemort considered a mistake, but not for the reasons that you believe, or even for the reasons he believes. Sometimes…sometimes it is not the blow that kills us, but the wound."

"The wound, Professor?"

"Yes. You see, when he attacked your family that Hallowe'en, Voldemort very much intended to kill you, Harriet. He did not overlook you; much like Quirrell, he attempted to curse you—and failed."

Harriet's hand crept upward until it cupped the sore side of her neck, the cream Madam Pomfrey had spread still tacky beneath her rumpled shirt. "Why…why did he fail?"

"I believe it was because of your mother. I believe Voldemort meant to spare her, but Lily refused to step aside, and her sacrifice—her love—invoked an old and very powerful kind of magic that we may never really understand, a kind of inscrutable, uncontrollable, wonderful magic Voldemort fears above all else. It's the same kind of magic you feel in your heart when you look at your friends or think of your parents, dear girl."

Her eyes stung and Harriet stared again at her knees.

"He wounded himself when he attacked you. He broke himself truly, though he didn't shatter. He fled your home, mortally wounded—though, in his arrogance, I doubt he saw it as such—and attempted to rejoin his followers in Dorset, where they had been sent on their own mission to raid another wizarding home."

Slowly, Harriet lifted her head and found the Headmaster watching her closely as he continued speaking.

"I do not know how he managed to leave your home at all that night. Something of his being persisted, a thread of himself keeping the whole together, fraying from the moment he spoke the curse meant to end your life, and when he attempted the same spell again, before he could even

manage to summon the words, Voldemort soul gave out, and he became what he is today—a wraith who cannot live, and who cannot die. And it is all because of you and your mother, Harriet."

The bespectacled girl had to swallow twice before she could speak, and even then her voice escaped in a thin, terrified whisper. "But…but Neville, he's the Boy Who—."

Professor Dumbledore shook his head and dread tightened in Harriet's middle.

"Neville is a brave boy who lost his mother and nearly his own life that night, but he is no more the cause of Voldemort's downfall than myself or this candy dish."

"But—but, bloody hell, Professor, he's famous!" Harriet winced at her own cursing, but the Headmaster only shrugged.

"He attracts a great deal of attention, yes. A rather large detachment of Aurors from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement is tasked with his safety, and both his father, Frank Longbottom, and his stepmother, Catherine Blishen, are aware of what truly transpired that night. Frank, and his late wife Alice, were quite devoted to seeing Voldemort defeated."

Harriet felt nauseous as she struggled to keep her head from spinning out of control. She'd wondered on many occasions how it was possible for her to survive that night and had dozens of her own speculations on the dilemma. Those speculations, though, had turned themselves on their heads when she went with Hagrid to feed the Thestrals and realized she must have witnessed the death of one of her parents. How did I survive? Apparently, madmen will overlook you if they've already killed you. It made an awful, terrible kind of sense. "Neville's like the third-floor corridor."

"In a manner of speaking, yes. A clever way to put it."

"And I'm…I'm the Mirror of Erised."

Again, Dumbledore nodded and Harriet turned her face to the fire. "That's rather Slytherin thinking, isn't it, Headmaster?"

"To quote Professor Snape; 'if one wants anything at all to be done, then they'd best find a Slytherin with an ounce of sense in his head, because that's an ounce more than anyone else has.'"

Harriet snorted, covering her mouth, and Professor Dumbledore chuckled. She laughed more fully at the sound and a measure of tension left her upset, nervous stomach, allowing Harriet to feel more herself than she had since stepping foot into that office. "Sir, why couldn't Vol—Voldemort get the Stone out of the Mirror? I think that's why he brought me along, in the end. He couldn't figure out how to get it and thought I might be able to."

"Ah, it's one of my cleverer ideas, if I do say so myself. Anyone who wished to possess the Stone to use it could not possess it, but a person simply wishing to keep the Stone from harm could be given it quite easily. If I may ask; what did you see when you looked into the Mirror?"

"I didn't see any of that, sir. I just…I just saw my mum."

Dumbledore nodded as if he'd expected nothing else. "Yes, that's evidence of your Slytherin character— no, my dear girl, I don't mean that as an insult. Quite the opposite, in fact. You see, Slytherin House has a poor reputation, and even I myself have been swayed by that prejudice in the past—but over the years I have come to learn that those who find themselves Sorted into Slytherin are often of a singular character, possessors of quick-wit, ambition, and their own kind of bravery.

Hufflepuffs are kind even when it's difficult to be so, Gryffindors brave in the presence of fear, Ravenclaws inquisitive even when challenged, and Slytherins are unbelievably loyal to those who've earned their trust, even in the face of great temptation."

"I…I don't know if I'm any of those things, Professor."

"But you are, Harriet. I'm certain he tried to tempt you; far better witches and wizards than you and I have fallen prey to Voldemort's false promises, and many more will, before the end. However, you didn't give in. You resisted."

"I almost didn't," Harriet confessed, horrified at the quiet words coming out of her mouth. "For a second, I…he promised…."

When it became clear Harriet couldn't continue, Dumbledore asked with plain curiosity, "So why did you deny him?"

"Because he's a liar!" she snapped, tears stinging her eyes again. "Because he's the one who took them from me. I just…I just wanted my family back."

The Headmaster leaned forward to grasp Harriet's hand in his own. "And therein lies your greatest strength and your greatest weakness, my dear; loyalty. An old proverb in our Wizarding community says 'a Slytherin who cheats at cards and steals your wife says nothing when you take his gold and give him strife, but threaten his family and you'll meet his knife.' A bit melodramatic, but it makes a poignant point. You saw your mother, Harriet, because you didn't care about Voldemort or the Philosopher's Stone; you cared about her."

Harriet gave the Headmaster's hand a squeeze before letting go and mulling over his words. It was selfish of her, she decided, not caring about the Stone or Voldemort or any of that. She never felt like much of a Slytherin, having grown up downtrodden and decidedly Muggle, concepts of normality drummed into her head like a stick beating a snare drum—freak, freak, freak. Hermione was clever and quick-witted, Elara was cunning and proud, and Harriet—.

Well, Harriet didn't know what she was.

"The Philosopher's Stone is gone, isn't it, sir?" she asked. "Because the Mirror's broken?"

Dumbledore sighed and adjusted his spectacles. "Yes, unfortunately."

"What's going to happen to Nicholas Flamel? He'll die without the Stone, won't he?"

"Oh, you know about Nicholas, do you?" He smiled when Harriet nodded. "Nicholas knew there would be risks in lending me his stone—the worst of which was possibly having it stolen by Voldemort. He has enough Elixir for himself and Perenelle to set their affairs in order, and I imagine that, at the end of the day, they were prepared for this eventuality. To live forever is a great burden, Harriet. A quiet death can just as often be a gift as it can seem a curse."

"I'm sorry."

"It wasn't your fault, dear girl."

"I still think it should be said, Professor. He's your friend."

The Headmaster met her gaze and Harriet saw the briefest flash of profound sadness in the wizard's blue eyes before he stood from his comfortable chair. "Come along now. I've kept you far too long and Madam Pomfrey will have my beard if you don't get the rest you deserve."

He walked her toward the waiting door, past the storage room where she saw Quirrell kill himself, Dumbledore's hand coming to rest on her shoulder so Harriet wouldn't stop and stare. "He's… Voldemort's going to return, isn't he, Professor?"

"Not today, Harriet."

"And when he does, sir?"

He considered her, then opened the door with a wave of his hand. "Then we'll be prepared. But, as I said, that day is not today."

Harriet left the office. She wiped her face when the cooler air on the stairs chilled the smudged tears on her cheeks, and she found none other than Professor Snape waiting in the hall outside the gargoyle. Clearly in a dark mood, he pointed in the direction that would lead them to the common room and they set out without a word, the Potions Master leaving once Harriet stumbled through Slytherin's secret entrance.

She didn't start crying until she entered the dark dormitory and changed into her nightgown. Harriet lay in bed and tried to smother her stupid sniffles, and suddenly Hermione and Elara were there, embracing her tight with whispered worry until Harriet buried her face in someone's shoulder and quietly sobbed herself to sleep.

She didn't dream.

on your way to greatness

xl. on your way to greatness

Harriet felt as if she'd only just arrived at Hogwarts when summer descended upon them and it was time to depart.

Items were gathered and trunks were packed, final minute squabbles had, books Summoned through the air by forgetful students as familiars crawled about underfoot. Marks were distributed and no one was at all surprised to learn Hermione was top of their year overall. Elara had scored marginally better on their final Transfiguration exam, much to Hermione's frustration, and Neville Longbottom had earned top marks in Herbology.

To Harriet's absolute shock, she took first in Defense with what Hermione considered a wide margin between her and Longbottom in second. All subjects cumulated, Harriet ranked eleventh in her year, and she had never felt as proud of herself as she did when blinking dumbfounded at the listings posted in the common room. Attending primary with Dudley had meant having her homework stolen or handed in late, and as such Harriet had never taken much interest in learning— but here, at Hogwarts, with a world of magic at her fingertips, Harriet found she enjoyed studying, enjoyed classes and picking up new spells, listening to Hermione squeeze all sorts of information into her skull while Elara did her best to tutor her in Transfiguration.

She was grateful her friends were such bloody geniuses and hoped some of their intelligence rubbed off on her.

Professor Snape called Harriet into his office on the last day of term. She expected a detention or another punishment. Was summer detention a thing? Harriet had had enough of that at the Dursleys', thank you very much. She slunk into the cramped space wearing a pinched expression. Snape saw it immediately and scoffed.

"Don't look at me like that, Potter. Sit."

She tried to control her face as she sat and ended up looking mildly ill.

Unamused, Snape strode behind his desk and unlocked one of the drawers with a tap of his wand, extracting a familiar bundle of silvery fabric. Harriet forgot her frustration and instead gaped. The professor held the cloak out and, when Harriet reached for it, he jerked his hand back, ensuring he had her attention.

"You will use it only in emergencies, girl," he said, pronouncing every word like a pebble being pinged off Harriet's forehead. "It is not a bloody toy. You will not abuse the privilege. You will not use it to gallivant about the school after hours or cause mischief with your cohorts. If I find that you have, I will take it back—and don't think that I can't or won't."

Despite the snarl in his voice, Harriet was as pleased as Punch. She'd been convinced Snape would never return the cloak, that he'd forgotten about it entirely or had simply thrown it out in a fit of pique or carelessness. He poured the cold cloth into Harriet's open hands and when she grinned, he blinked as if startled, looking at Harriet as if he'd never really seen her before. She doubted Snape ever had students smile at him, and though Harriet thought the wizard spent far too much time being a miserable git, he had been the first one through the door after what happened in the

Headmaster's office. Harriet wouldn't forget that.

"Thank you, Professor Snape!"

He grunted and returned to his chair behind the desk, straightening the cuffs of his sleeves and staring resolutely at the far wall. "Remember what I said. Get out, Potter."

Harriet did as told, though she also hung back just long enough to yell "Have a good hols, Professor Snape!" as the door swung shut and she ran before he could change his mind about that detention.

At the Leaving Feast, Slytherin colors decked the Great Hall and Professor Dumbledore stood up, waiting for silence to fall across the chattering students so he could be heard. "Ah, another year gone! And I hope it has been an excellent year for all of you, and I hope you will indulge an old wizard's need to maunder before we tuck into our excellent meal. We've a House Cup to award it seems. In fourth place, we have Gryffindor with three hundred and twelve points; in third, our friends in Hufflepuff, with three hundred and fifty-two points; Ravenclaw is in second with four hundred and twenty-six points, and Slytherin stands at first with four hundred and seventy-two points."

The Slytherin table applauded themselves and a few of the other Houses gave perfunctory claps.

"Yes, well done again, Slytherin House. It would, however, be remiss of me not to take recent events into account."

The applause faded and many of the Slytherins were looking at the Headmaster with wariness, Professor Slytherin's red eyes narrowed at the older man, Snape's hand wrapped tight about his goblet's stem.

"No matter that you are in first already, I find it important to acknowledge every students' trials and successes so they can be recognized for their cunning, their brilliance, bravery, and humility in the face of difficult challenges and harrowing danger. To Misters Neville Longbottom and Ronald Weasley, I would like to award ten points each for their efforts in researching and warning the school of a danger that had gone unknown to the professors. Thank you, gentleman."

Gryffindor House cheered and Longbottom beamed, Ron shrugging off his brothers' well-meaning hair ruffling. Now that Dumbledore mentioned it, Harriet recalled Longbottom and Weasley wanting to go into the Restricted Section during the Yule hols to research something that began with "N," something Harriet suspected might be "Nicholas Flamel."

"To Misses Hermione Granger and Elara Black, I award ten points each for their care and consideration in regards to a classmate's protection and safety."

Harriet grinned at her best friends as their House clapped and whistled, even Malfoy and Parkinson begrudgingly bringing their hands together a few times. Hermione let out an embarrassed squeak, burying her head in her arms, and though Elara bore the attention with better poise, her cheeks did turn a flustered pink color.

"To our Head Girl, Miss Amanda Robinson, and our Head Boy, Ryan Uzkosk, for keeping calm, protecting and gathering younger students during a declared emergency, I award ten points each and wish them the absolute best in their adventures beyond our hallowed halls. Remember, Hogwarts is always here to help those who ask for it."

The Head Girl and Boy, a Hufflepuff and a Ravenclaw respectively, were applauded by their Houses and Harriet clapped too, because she could imagine how scary it must've been for other

first years like herself, not knowing what was happening, why the school had been in lockdown, and she doubted they made things easy for Robinson and Uzkosk.

"And, finally, to Miss Harriet Potter, for remaining true to her friends, her family, her House, and herself in defiance of great evil and imminent threat, I award fifty points."

Harriet blushed from her head down to her toes when her House cheered, acting less dignified than a bunch of stiff pure-bloods usually did, though not as riotous as the Gryffindors would've been in a reversed situation. At the High Table, Harriet thought she saw Snape pinch the bridge of his nose in exasperation. Professor Slytherin clapped like his students and looked…curious, just as he had every time he saw Harriet in recent days. She couldn't decide if that was a good thing or not.

"Yes, congratulations again, Slytherin House. I wish all of us a lovely summer and hope you'll arrive in September ready to learn again; maybe we'll get to see the Great Hall in different colors next year, hmm?"

The Feast commenced, and the Headmaster's words stuck with Harriet throughout the meal, a grin at her lips that'd been more reticent of late. For remaining true to her friends, her family, her House, and herself. The older Slytherins smiled and shook Harriet's hand, looking appreciative in a way her relatives never had, and Harriet herself felt proud—proud she'd done well in her classes, proud she'd made such wonderful friends, and proud that, in a moment of panic, she hadn't betrayed who she was. She hoped her mum and dad would be proud, too.

The Sorting Hat chose right, she told herself as she lifted her chin and looked at the enchanted ceiling. I will do well in Slytherin.

The train rattled on the rails as it chugged ever southward toward the distant horizon.

"I still don't understand what Professor Dumbledore's thinking," Hermione said, fidgeting with her forest green robes, causing the bench to squeak. "It doesn't make sense."

"It makes a perfect kind of sense, if that kind of sense is Dumbledore's," Elara countered as she lifted her nose from her journal. She, too, wore robes; a dark gray pair with sage lining and a high collar. Harriet, in contrast, dressed like a Muggle—though not her cousins' cast-offs, since those had met an unfortunate fate in the grate last summer. "He's privy to something we're not."

"Exactly," Hermione replied. "Why else would he keep this a secret? And for so long."

"Longbottom could use a bit of a head shrinkage," Harriet grumbled, giving her feet a moody kick. Livi grew restless inside her thin jumper and popped his head out the bottom, tongue flickering, lounging across Harriet's lap. She rubbed his snout with little thought.

"To keep Harriet safe." Elara crossed one leg over the other and leaned back. "The Boy Who Lived attracts a certain amount of enmity and we can assume the Girl Who Lived would be no different."

Harriet shuddered. "Ugh."

She'd told them all about Professor Quirrell, the Mirror of Erised, Quirrell's unsavory passenger, and what the Headmaster had told her afterward, despite the niggling fear that Elara and Hermione might decide friendship with her was too complicated or dangerous. Both had taken the news in stride, much to Harriet's relief, and they tried to puzzle out Dumbledore's decisions and actions

when privacy allowed.

"But that's my point exactly, don't you see? Longbottom is guarded. He is, arguably, more protected than Harriet, who's anonymity and safety depends upon a serendipitous rouse, and what's the point of that?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why would Harriet need anonymity? Why was she denied the fame and attention given to Neville?"

Harriet huffed and unwrapped a Pumpkin Pasty. "Please. I'd rather eat my wand then put up with all that stupidity." She shoved half of the Pasty into her mouth and presented the other to Livi, crumpling the wrapper to stow it in her pocket. "After talking with Professor Dumbledore, I think…well, I know he believes the Dark Lord's going to return."

"But what is the point of keeping you safe—? Oh, I didn't mean it like that, honestly, Harriet. I mean theoretically. Neville is, for all intents and purposes, the Boy Who Lived. He has been brought up and touted as such for years; should he die, it would have the same impact upon the community as it would if Harriet died had she been rightfully identified. There must be a reason that, in a worse-case scenario, it is plausible for Neville to die, but not for Harriet."

They sat in silence for a time, lost to their respective thoughts, and though it may have been macabre to consider the worth of a classmate's life against her own, Harriet was terribly glad Hermione and Elara were pragmatic enough to not make such projections personal.

Elara ran her fingers over the bent, worn edges of her journal's pages and said, "We're missing too many pieces of this puzzle, Hermione."

The bushy-haired girl exhaled and admitted defeat. "Yes, yes. You're right…."

All too soon, they slipped through London's peripheries and barreled on, the train rolling to a halt at Platform Nine and Three-Quarters where hundreds of parents stood about waiting for their children to disembark. Harriet pulled down her Charmed trunk, hoisted Livi higher, and followed her friends into the students streaming toward the doors. Her heart felt heavier with every step.

"I have to go," Hermione murmured once they stepped outside. Already she'd caught sight of Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy standing to the side like a pair of perfectly matched salt pillars, Malfoy Senior leaning on a black cane while he surveyed the moving crowd with impassive eyes. Hermione hugged Harriet, then Elara. "I'll write—if I can. I'm not sure—oh, I'll miss you both terribly."

"We'll see you in September."

Hermione smiled, and off she went to greet her foster guardians. Elara and Harriet parted ways at the busy Floo, though not before the former embraced the bespectacled witch tight and warned, "I will be writing. And I expect you to send a letter back with Cygnus."

"'Course."

Elara held her skinny hand. "Tell me if you need anything while living with the Muggles."

Harriet didn't quite meet her eyes. "I will."

Then, Elara Black disappeared, just like Hermione had, and Harriet walked through the barrier into King's Cross Station alone aside from her serpentine companions and mischievous shadow. She

strolled until she came to the avenue, where she tipped back her head and let the hot London sun warm her face, listening to the bustle of Muggle society around her, the honking horns, rolling tires, the screeching brakes of a lorry.

She took a breath, then let it out. She had nowhere to go and yet Harriet wasn't afraid, because Harriet Potter was a witch. She could talk to snakes, cast spells, and just days ago survived a confrontation with one of the Darkest wizards to ever live. Harriet Potter was a proud Slytherin, best friends with Hermione Granger and Elara Black, and was going to learn all the magic she could so, one day, she'd become great—because Harriet Potter was not afraid.

Not anymore.

"All right then. First stop on our way to greatness is…." Harriet stared at the pavement and, after swirling lazily about her feet, Set extended an arm and pointed along the avenue. "That way, I guess. Lovely. I think greatness needs a compass."

- e n d y e a r o n e -

A/N: That's the end of year one! *confetti*

Thank you to all my reviewers and commenters! I love to read your thoughts on the story!

On a different note, I know my Dumbledore might be a bit OoC. I try to write him as I would expect a man supposedly as wise as Dumbledore, living in this altered world, would—and should—behave. I still expect he'll have spots of Gryffindor bias (like allowing Neville onto the Quidditch team), but he's going to be more straight-forward than canon Dumbledore, a bit more cunning, and more compassionate. This world has enough bloody Dark Lords, thank you very much.

bruises on the soul

2. THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS

but be the serpent under't - w. shakespeare

xli. bruises on the soul

The broom scraped along the floor and the sound echoed in Grimmauld Place's oppressive silence.

In Elara's limited memory, the house had never been as quiet and doom-laden as it was now; when Cygnus had been in residence, a breath of life wheedled through the place, and no matter how thin and sickly it'd been, Elara recalled a comforting weight to the occasional wet coughs or the raspy mutterings he shared with the portraits of his forefathers. Now, there was nothing. Aside from Kreacher, Elara Black was alone.

The bristles scratched the wood and she sighed as she lifted the dust pail and dumped its contents in the rubbish bin. The bin coughed, sputtering out half the dirt and earned a tight-lipped glare from Elara. A month had passed since her arrival at the London townhouse and most of her efforts had gone into fixing the damage accrued during her extended absence at Hogwarts. Kreacher, still moping over Cygnus' death, was of no help at all, and Elara didn't have the patience or the wherewithal to chastise him for it.

Giving up for the moment, Elara leaned the broom against the peeling wallpaper and dropped onto the divan below an open window. Outside, a transparent veil of magic created generations before Elara's own birth hung between the house and the sidewalk, blocking the Muggles' view of the property, glittering slightly in the afternoon sunshine. A paltry breeze crossed the sill and stirred the mottled curtains, and though she wished for it to stay, the breeze retreated and the air stilled again. Elara resigned herself to melting in the muggy heat.

Sprawled on the divan, she stared at the ceiling and its weathered paint, then raised one hand before her face. Elara peeled off the sweaty glove, then, with deliberate attention plucked at the buttons on her sleeve until she could yank it down to her elbow. The light played over her pale skin and the scars that started about halfway up her forearm gradually thickened to their worst around her wrists, looking like ugly, scarlet bangles embedded in the flesh.

Elara poked the scar sitting over the tendon that ran into her thumb and the digit trembled.

She sighed louder and dropped the arm onto her middle, then went about shedding her remaining glove and rolling back that sleeve as well. Unsightly as the scars were, the weather was inexcusably hot and she was alone. Matron Fitzgerald would've called it an "Indian Summer," but Elara was fairly certain that was the incorrect term, which didn't surprise her in the slightest. Bigoted and cruel, Matron Fitzgerald had also been a bit of an idiot.

A Doxy made a conspicuous show of tip-toeing back into the draperies Elara had de-infested the day before. She glowered at the tricky devil and, not for the first time, wished she knew and could

perform the proper cleaning spells. Doing everything the Muggle way had quickly lost its charm.

Muffled flapping brought Elara's head up and she watched her owl Cygnus come winging through the open window, making a brief circuit around the dilapidated office before landing on the divan's arm. He pecked at her groomed head affectionately and Elara sent her fingers questing over his dark wing, feeling the sun's heat still trapped in the feathers.

"Thank you," she said once Cygnus proffered his leg for her to take the attached letter and package. He hooted, apparently finding her response acceptable, and took off through the open door to find his water dish. Elara pried the red seal open on the letter and proceeded to read. It was from Hermione.

Dear Elara,

I hope your holidays are going well. I know only a month has passed, but it seems inexorably longer, doesn't it? I miss you and Harriet and Hogwarts terribly.

I'm sorry if I've been remiss in sending a letter earlier. Mr. Malfoy keeps us to a very strict studying schedule and I have not had the opportunity to use the owlery much.

Elara snorted. Between the lines, she read, "Lucius Malfoy is a prig and he's not allowing me to use the owls." Hate was not a feeling she often relished, but Elara thought she might hate Lucius a little more each time she received another notice of investigation involving her emancipation from the Ministry. He could do nothing, and yet he persisted because he had the money, the time, and the desire to simply pester Elara constantly.

Have you had the chance to review Prof. McGonagall's summer assignment? It deals with the principles of Gamp's Laws in the Vera Verto spell, and though I've looked up the spell and its usage on aves, rodents, et al., I question the efficacy of the third string in the Conjuration wheel, wherein the inverted symbol for truth seems out of place—.

Grinning, Elara quickly skimmed through what amassed to several rambling paragraphs concerning Vera Verto, a spell they'd be learning next year, and its applications. It seemed Hermione was determined to place better than Elara in the upcoming year, and Elara looked forward to a bit of friendly competition.

Farther down the parchment, Hermione changed topics.

I've attached Harriet's birthday gift and would really appreciate it if you'd send it on for me. I'm —here a word had been delicately scratched out—concerned about her. I know we haven't much discussed our home lives, but I also know you understand a bit more of her situation than I do, and I've come to think possibly her—again, another word was blackened by ink—situation might well be a product of that unfortunate Hallowe'en.

Elara hummed low, finger tapping the parchment. Harriet never spoke of her relatives, but she had the distinct misfortune of being friends with a pure-blood and a pure-blood's overly curious ward. The Noble House of Potter was notorious for producing single sons for generations; James to Fleamont to Charlus—though Elara hadn't traced the House farther than that, as the Blacks had married into the Potters at that point, which coincidently made Elara and Harriet third cousins.

Regardless of their relation, Harriet's father was known to have married "outside" the other families, which basically meant he'd married a Muggle-born. Harriet had mentioned her "aunt and uncle," and from then on Elara realized the bespectacled witch lived with Muggles on her mother's side, and she hadn't seemed particularly pleased when summer rolled about. None of them had.

Elara contemplated the little package in which Harriet's present was contained and pursed her lips. She'd written to Harriet twice earlier in the month and both times Cygnus had returned rumpled and irritable, unable to deliver her messages, and if Elara hadn't known better, she would've said Cygnus hadn't been able to find Harriet because she was moving.

Whether or not that's true, I still hope she's well. Mr. Malfoy made a comment in passing about her the other day—Elara's eyes narrowed—and I confess that I don't actually know where he might have heard about Harriet, unless Draco mentioned her. That seems unlikely, as he's far more prone to badmouthing you and me than Harriet.

Scoffing, Elara read Hermione's salutation and folded the letter again. She tucked Harriet's present into her skirt's pocket and took her time getting up, content to remain languid and close to the window's relief for a minute longer before returning to the main house's sticky heat. When she rose, Elara abandoned the office as a bad job for today and returned instead to her own bedroom across the hall.

The scantily clad swimsuit models scowled over the top of the parchment sheets covering their permanently stuck posters with, though she ignored them and went to the desk, sitting on the crooked stool. Balled up parchment and bits of old quills lay on the surface between heavy, dry tomes concerning Ministry and Goblin laws that Elara found incredibly dry but endeavored to slog through nonetheless. She had a solicitor, Mr. Piers, but her late great-uncle had said it was stupid to place all of one's faith concerning financial matters in another's hands, and Elara agreed.

Even so, Elara was still twelve and had to look up every third word or so written in the legal texts, making her studies very slow going.

Shuffling through the desk's top drawer, she retrieved a fresh sheet of parchment, then uncapped the inkwell and picked up a quill. The edge proved worn down and bent at the tip, but when she looked about for her Charmed trimming knife, she came up empty.

"Kreacher?" Elara called, waiting. When no response came, she huffed and tried again. "Kreacher!"

The old house-elf appeared with a crack of noise and a glower. "The blood-traitor's daughter is calling Kreacher?"

Elara pinched the bridge of her nose and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. "Yes. Do you know where my trimming knife is, by chance?"

The elf snapped his knobby fingers and the little blade appeared in his hand.

"Oh. Thank you."

She reached for it—and suddenly remembered her arms were bare, and Kreacher's bloodshot eyes froze on the ugly blemishes before moving to her face. Elara felt as if he could see more than just the tarnishing marks on her flesh; Kreacher looked at her like he could see the very bruises on her soul and didn't like what he saw.

Elara snatched the knife from him and quickly turned away, shoving her sleeves back into their proper place. "That's all, Kreacher. Thank you."

She heard the house-elf's shuffling, uneven gait as he left the room, mumbling all the way to the hall and the stairs beyond. Elara gripped her wrist and shut her eyes, willing the creeping shame from her thoughts as the fixtures on the wall rattled and dust shook from the ceiling. She took one breath, then another, then opened her eyes and finished buttoning her cuffs.

Silly of me, she told herself. Kreacher was bound to see them eventually, and he already thinks I'm about as useful as pond scum. It's not as if his opinion can get any lower.

Elara returned to her seat and trimmed the quill, tidying the desk before she wrote out another brief letter to Harriet and tucked it into an envelope. She had her own gift meant for Harriet's birthday, of course, and she found it before putting the velvet pouch into her pocket with Hermione's, then rather than setting out for the kitchen where Cygnus would be resting, she made for the stairs to go to the library on the second floor.

The Black library was no misnomer; dubious Charms expanded the space far beyond what the walls should have constrained, making it a maze of dark shelves towering in the dimly lit space, crowded with more books than one could ever possibly read in their lifetime, or so it felt like to Elara. Hermione would've squealed with delight upon seeing a room like it. Elara, though she liked books and reading, found it was a bit too…eerie.

She turned the lever for the gas lamps and waited for the wan light to brighten, sniffling on the untold decades worth of dust and dirt as the shelves came into view. There were no windows, as the sunlight could damage most of the older volumes, and several of the upper rows Cygnus had told Elara specifically not to touch. The books whispered to one another, exchanging secrets, quieting only when Elara walked down their rows.

Squinting at the bindings, she wished she could use her wand and took a volume off the shelf to hold it closer to the light.

"What are you doing, girl?"

Elara flinched and almost dropped the book. Above the empty hearth, the portrait of a clever wizard with thin brows and a pointed beard watched as she clutched one hand to her chest and tried to slow her racing heart.

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't purposefully startle me."

The portrait scoffed. "Perhaps you should pay better attention to your surroundings."

Ignoring him, she popped open the book to a random page and squinted.

"Interested in animal husbandry, are you?"

Elara's gaze jerked itself back to the portrait. "What?"

The wizard smirked. "Well, considering you're perusing an eighteenth-century collection on Charms concerning the best ways to breed livestock, I thought you might have a passing interest in the subject."

Elara turned a page and, upon seeing a rather detailed sketch, realized she did indeed have a book on animal husbandry in her hands and snapped it shut with an embarrassed grunt.

"Now, because I so dearly love listening to my own voice, I'll ask again; what are you looking for, girl? I've had precious little to do in here but look at the bindings since my great-grandson thought to move me from the bedroom. I know where everything is."

Elara desperately wanted to snap that hanging in a bedroom shouldn't prove more exciting than hanging in a library but shut her mouth and swallowed the words. "I'm looking for a locater Charm, of sorts, for a letter. Something either I could cast or could ask to be cast at the postal office in Diagon Alley."

"Why?"

"To locate someone, of course."

The portrait gifted her an unamused look before jerking his chin in the direction of the southern wall. "Look there. Between the curio cabinet and the shelf bearing the Black crest. The collection of communication magic and indexes should still be there."

"Thank you."

Elara went to the bookcase in question and began scanning the heavy tomes. She had to pull most off the shelf and check one by one as few actually had titles printed on the binding, and most proved to be outdated editions on owl care. She did learn a great deal about how magical owls first came to be bred and used—apparently, the early wizards thought to breed eagles, and that ended with a few too many missing fingers—but Elara pushed on and searched more.

After dragging a particularly fat volume down, another, smaller book stuffed between its pages slipped out and hit the dusty floor. Elara frowned at it and picked the book up after setting the other one down, running her fingers over the leather cover stained a deep emerald, the silver snake gilt starting to flake about the edges.

"Golly, wonder if this belonged to a Slytherin," Elara said with a soft snort as she thumbed through the yellowing pages. The diagrams inside were not about owls or their migration patterns; Elara caught glimpses of moving models demonstrating harsh, slashing hexes and something called "Fire of the Fiend," strange, distorting animals bursting from the characters' wands in rolling swirls.

Elara stuffed the book into her roomy pocket and returned to the shelf. She eventually found what she was looking for, a simple Charm placed upon a letter that made it easier for the owl to find recipients traveling or moving abroad, and Elara copied the spell down on a piece of parchment before returning the volume to its proper place. She headed down to the kitchen.

Once there, Elara shrugged on the outer robes she'd hung by the hearth and straightened her skirt, then beckoned Cygnus over to her. "Kreacher?" she called as the owl settled on the crook of her arm. "Kreacher, I'm stepping out for a few minutes, and I—."

A small jar sat on the otherwise empty table and caught Elara's attention. It was an innocuous thing, really, and yet it hadn't been there when she'd come down for lunch earlier, so Elara paused

in her preparation to depart and picked the jar up. Like much of the house, dust coated the glass and the label was so faded the letters were almost illegible, but Elara managed to read, "Derma- Bond. For scars."

Elara stood, frozen, and stared at the jar without a word. The house-elf came sneaking into the kitchen through the slim door that led to the boiler room and sneered when Elara caught his eye.

"Thank you, Kreacher," she said with a small, stiff smile.

"Kreacher doesn't know what the blood-traitor's daughter is talking about."

"No, of course not." She stowed the jar away in her robes, given that her skirt pockets were already stuffed with letters and presents, an extra pair of gloves and the book out of the library. "I'll be back soon."

Kreacher sniffed and dragged himself back into the hot boiler room. Elara turned with Cygnus to the hearth and scooped a pinch of Floo Powder out of the silver jar on the mantel. Tossing it into the dying fire, she said, "Diagon Alley!" and disappeared in a whirl of soot and green fire.

home is nowhere

xlii. home is nowhere

In the southern parts of Oxfordshire, in between here and there, at a crossroads that didn't lead anywhere in particular, sat a bespectacled witch on an antique trunk and a large serpent lazing in a bed of bluebells.

Harriet Potter turned the crumpled map in her hands and squinted at the lettering, the paper made too bright by the cheery sunshine and the writing refusing to cooperate. She had little experience with mundane maps let alone magical ones, and this map did everything it could to confound the frustrated girl. She turned it again and huffed.

"Set?"

At her feet, the shadows peeled away from the thick patches splayed between the grass and bluebells to form a vague question mark shape.

"Could you—?"

The shadow lifted itself from the dirt like rain in reverse, coming together to form a nebulous umbrella of watery darkness hanging above the girl's bent head.

"Excellent, cheers," Harriet said as she went back to the map.

When term came to an end and Harriet arrived in London a month prior, she made no attempt to return to her relatives in Little Whinging. No, she had no desire to see Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon, or her cousin Dudley ever again, and she guessed they were be pleased to be shut of her anyway. Rather, Harriet disembarked from the Hogwarts Express and—at Set's prompting—returned to Diagon Alley.

At first, Harriet rather enjoyed her stay in the Alley. She ate lunch at Florean Fortescue's or Pofferton's Puddings on Toad Road, explored the many nooks and crannies of the varied shops, and fell asleep in her bed at the Leaky Cauldron. Diagon Alley and its adjoining streets comprised the biggest magical district in England—but the Wizarding community was really rather small, and it had a very long memory. While everyone didn't actually know everyone else, they at least knew of each other, or their families, or had a mate who knew someone who knew them. Anonymity was not really a thing for wizards and witches.

Tom, the landlord for the Leaky Cauldron, remembered Harriet from last summer—as did housekeeping, Florean Fortescue and quite a few of the shop owners about the district. She ran into Professor Sinistra once in the pub and had to dive behind a cart to avoid being seen by Professor Snape as he came out of the Apothecary. The manager at Flourish and Blotts always frowned when Harriet passed by his shop. They started to ask…questions, questions about why a scruffy kid was always out and about on her own without her guardians, and she soon began to worry they might write to the magical equivalent of child services. Harriet never wanted to be trapped with people like the Dursleys again.

So, she stayed two nights at the Leaky Cauldron, a third at the Niffler's Nest in Horizont Alley, a fourth at the Hopping Pot down Carkitt Market, and afterward Harriet visited Globus Mundi Travel

Agents to buy a map of Britain's Wizarding settlements and scrounged up an old, Charmed tent in The Junk Shop. Diagon Alley may have been the largest magical district in England—but it was not the only one.

From there, Harriet set out on an arduous journey of Floo hopping from Diagon Alley to the smaller district of The Cobbled Lane in Blackburn, then on to the Tarland Tavern in Edinburgh, where Harriet exhausted herself and had to spend the night. She'd thought traveling through the Floo Network would be a simple thing, but apparently a body as small as hers was subject to magical exhaustion, as the distance flickering between Floo to Floo to Floo took its toll. Harriet could barely keep her eyes open as she promised the witch behind the bar that her parents would be along later that evening, and she snuck out before dawn.

Afterward, Harriet spent one week on the Isle of Skye, camping in the fens and rolling hills and rocky tors, not far from the village of Giant's Rest near The Storr. The area was populated by some of the barmiest wizards Harriet had ever met, including a batty potioneer named Ernestine Elderberry, who claimed to be three hundred and fourteen years old and brewed with spit from the fairies she'd met near the Bruach na Frithe. The woman shoved a glass cauldron full of curious, light blue crystals into Harriet's arms one day—said it was a gift—then went off chasing a flying sheep toward the mountains. The crystals glowed softly whenever Harriet spoke in Parseltongue, and she had no clue what to make of that.

Harriet stayed another week at Elva Hill in Cumbria, where a night market popped into existence every evening after nightfall and one could buy all manner of strange local flora—though not with Galleons. The shopkeepers didn't look, well, human to Harriet, what with their glowing eyes and sharp ears, and they bartered with puzzling things like a sigh captured in a bottle, or a name, or two hops, or a joke. The stalls would appear in the shadow of the hill itself as the sun dipped into the horizon, and Harriet saw vampires there, and goblins and green-skinned hags, wizards with teeth like wolves, Centaurs and beautiful, white-haired women who the wizards chased after like hungry dogs.

After midnight, she could sometimes see distant lights outside her tent's walls, and sometimes she heard whispers asking her to come out and play and dance. Fortunately for Harriet, she was adept at ignoring cajoling little voices, and so she stayed cozy in her bed.

Now Harriet sat at the side of a road leading nowhere at all, in front of a sign with no directions, with hot sunshine pounding on the top of her head and Kevin, her snake-golem, coiled in her hair. A wizard at the Hopping Pot tavern with a beard longer than Dumbledore's had—in a thick, rambling brogue—told her about the Wizarding hamlet of Bantiaumyrddin, which was supposed to be somewhere in Oxfordshire, but Harriet was beginning to think that the old wizard had been a nutter.

Chewing her lip, she pulled her wand out of its brace and rapped the map. "Bantiaumyrddin!"

The ink swirled, searching, and hazy patterns of the path she'd trod appeared, but the way forward remained foggy. Little question marks blossomed from Harriet's stick figure like anxious sweat.

"Probably saying it wrong," Harriet grumbled as she stashed her wand away again and folded the map. Hermione would've pronounced it correctly, and Harriet wished she was there with her. "Sounds bloody Welsh anyway. Barmy wizard…."

Sighing, Harriet slipped off her trunk and laid in the cooler grass, shifting until a wispy tree branch blocked the sun from hitting her eyes. Livi stirred from his nap to investigate.

"Sss…do you know the way? " he asked as his tongue flicked and smelled the air, Kevin mirroring

the move against Harriet's damp temple.

"No, I'm not sure," she replied. Harriet took a Chocolate Frog out of her shorts' pocket, and though it resembled a melted lump more than an actual frog, she popped it into her mouth and chewed, flipping the card over for her inspection. "Dumbledore again."

"When do we return to the ssstone placcce?"

"Hogwarts? Not for a while."

The Horned Serpent hissed as he slithered through the plants and over Harriet's torso, raising himself so his snout hovered close to her face and Harriet blinked. His eyes burned a luminescent blue, black scales hot to the touch, the gem upon the ridge of his brow glittering in the sunshine. "Exxxplain."

"We don't go back until it's time for school."

"Why not now?"

"Because school doesn't start until September. We've been over this, you know."

Livi hissed and twitched as he did whenever Harriet tried to explain something he wasn't familiar with. Snakes didn't have much comprehension of school—or time, for that matter, since Livi referred to winter as "the cold time" and summer as "the warm time" with little distinction in between. He ate, slept, and drank as he pleased, be it day or night. "Humansss are ssstupid," he said, remorseless and uncaring of Harriet's scandalized expression. "Wasssteful. We ssshould ssstay at the ssstone placcce. The air…." The serpent paused and sent his violet tongue flickering once more. "The air isss besst there."

Harriet took that to mean he liked the magic at Hogwarts, since Livi didn't much approve of the Muggle places they passed through. They smelled "wrong" to him.

She didn't reply. Harriet went to stroke his scales and Livi reared back to inspect her hand, licking the smudges of chocolate from her fingertips. Truth be told, Harriet very much wished they could stay at Hogwarts year round too—but, unlike her classmates, she lacked anywhere else to go, so she supposed everyone else would be a bit peeved if they were stuck at the castle all the time.

Lost in thought, Harriet didn't spot the pair of owls descending on her until Livi hissed a warning, and she had barely enough time to sit up before Elara's bird, Cygnus, landed on her head. Kevin let out a sound of fear and she quickly tucked him down the front of her blouse before surly Cygnus decided to eat him. The other post-carrier—a spotted barn owl Harriet didn't recognize—landed a polite distance away, leg extended for her to accept the attached package.

"Ouch, Cygnus, geroff—."

The black owl pecked at Harriet's raised hand, then fluttered down to her knee, giving both Harriet and Livi an imperious look that dared them to object. The witch huffed as she rubbed her sore hand.

"And what's your problem, you daft bird? That hurt."

Cygnus hooted, louder than before, and held out his leg like the other owl did. Nervous of having her fingers nipped to ribbons, Harriet hesitated before loosening the twine binding the small package in place, but once it dropped, Cygnus took to the air without a backward glance, cuffing Harriet in the head for her efforts. The barn owl acted with better manners and stuck around for

Harriet to give him a piece of a Licorice Wand from her pocket.

"What's this?" Harriet wondered aloud as she opened the lumpy envelope from Elara. Two folded letters fell out, as did two parcels carefully wrapped in plain parchment and spare bits of ribbon. She unfolded the first letter, and grinned as she recognized Hermione's tidy handwriting. The bushy-haired witch went on at some length about the summer Defense assignment and even included a list of book references Harriet might want to include in her Charms essay, having correctly surmised the bespectacled witch hadn't finished all her assignments yet. The letter concluded with—

Happy birthday, Harriet. I do hope you like your present. I Transfigured it from a bit of silver I liberated from the Malfoys. Stolen silver is the only kind of metal that can hold the Honor Among Thieves Charm—which makes it so items in your possession cannot be Summoned from you. Your wand, for example. I do hope it's not needed, but it never hurts to be prepared. Stay safe, and don't go looking for trouble!

Love, Hermione.

"Oh," Harriet said, blinking. It was her birthday? She'd forgotten all about it, which wasn't surprising, given that Harriet had never had a birthday before she much looked forward to, last year's being the best in her memory. She opened up the parcel and found a thin, gleaming bangle with the adjustable ends shaped like a snake eating its own tail. The design was rather crude, but Harriet loved it and quickly snapped the bracelet into place on her wrist. "Lovely."

Grinning, she opened Elara's gift—and out tumbled a small white teaspoon attached to a long strip of leather. The handle was riddled in tiny runes and inscriptions, and the top bore a familiar crest of a skull and three black birds. Harriet turned the spoon over in her hand, puzzled, then checked Elara's letter.

Harriet—

I hope this letter finds you. I've had trouble sending the last few, and Cygnus has been put out that he hasn't been able to deliver.

"That would explain the biting," Harriet grumbled, reading on.

I've enclosed your birthday gift, along with Hermione's, who wished for me to send hers on. Mine is a bit odd, but I think you'll appreciate it. My ancestors proved to be a pack of highly paranoid individuals, most of them convinced the house-elves were out to get them. To that end, I think it was our great-great aunt Cassiopeia who paid the Bavarians to carve a set of cutlery from the bones of Erklings. However they came about, the set's Charmed to be self-cleaning and turns black in the presence of most known poisons.

Harriet studied at the strange spoon with new consideration. The misadventure with the poisoned tea last term had greatly turned Harriet off the food in the Great Hall, so it would be nice to have a smidgen of reassurance if she was worried. Harriet guessed both Elara and Hermione were still concerned about her if this was what they'd decided to get her for her birthday.

Kevin hissed as she looped the leather about her neck and dropped the spoon down her shirt before she kept reading.

I would like it if you came to stay with me for the rest of summer. If you want. Livius is welcome, too. I live at 12 Grimmauld Place, London—the Borough of Islington, to be precise. It's imperative to remember the address, or it's quite tricky to find.

Hoping to see you soon,

Elara.

"Excellent," Harriet said, grinning ear to ear. Livi began to nose the parchment, clearly wishing to know what had pleased her, so she told him, "Elara has invited us to come stay with her."

"At the ssstone placcce?"

"No, not Hogwarts. At her home. I've not been there before."

Displeased, Livi moved away, receding into the bluebells with a final utterance of "Fine." The Horned Serpent disliked when plans didn't coincide with his whims and had no problem letting Harriet know that, so she ignored him and opened her final gift, this one from Hogwarts' groundskeeper, Hagrid. Inside the torn paper she found a wood flute that appeared hand-carved, and when Harriet blew on the end, it emitted a loud hoot like an owl. She would have to send the half-giant a thank you note.

Harriet laid again in the flowers and folded her hands over her letters, holding them against her chest, as she gazed at the summer sky. A little over a year ago, Harriet knew nothing at all of magic; she had no friends, no prospects. She lived in a cupboard and served her relatives, always terrified the next time Uncle Vernon yelled, he'd start strangling her and wouldn't let go. One year ago, she traveled into the magical world and met Elara, and Livius. Hogwarts sometimes seemed a very distant dream, but now, in her hands, she held proof of the friendships she'd made, letters signed with "love," and "hoping to see you soon," and a "dear Harry" from Hagrid. People cared about strange, orphan Harriet Potter, and she didn't know if she'd ever get used to it.

"Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place," she repeated aloud. Her shadow lay still at her side, and Harriet half-fancied Set had his arms crossed over his middle and was staring at the sky, too. If shadows could do such a thing. "We'll camp out here tonight, then, and set off for London in the morning. I wonder if Elara has a telly?"

She shut her eyes and soaked in the sunshine.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed a glimpse into my world-building for the UK magical community! As for magical traveling, I've considered what their limitations would be, and I believe that 1) a portkey is an object connecting one space to another via a wizard/witch's magic. The

object thus absorbs the impact from the distance and uses the magic it stores as the inertia for travel. I consider this to be one of the reasons why they're illegal to create, because I'd say only powerful magical folks would be able to successfully create them. 2) In Floo traveling, the traveler is subjected to extreme velocity and pressure for a duration of time, that time being longer the farther you have to "flit" through the network. 3) Apparition is powered by an individual's magic. The more powerful you are, the farther you can propel yourself through time and space without your being disintegrating—aka, splinching. Sorry for the long note!

the house of malfoy

xliii. the house of malfoy

Dread filled Hermione's veins when she heard the approaching tap, tap, tap of his walking stick striking the floor.

It was such a pretentious thing, Hermione thought, his need to strut about with a walking stick like he was the bloody king of England himself. Or one of those white-feathered peacocks on the grounds. She often daydreamed about taking the blasted thing in her hands and cracking it in two over her knee, though these daydreams never moved past the act itself—never included the consequences such a move would reap. There would be consequences, too. Hermione guessed she probably wouldn't survive breaking Lucius Malfoy's concealed wand into pieces.

Across from her, Jamie Ingham, the Malfoys' older Muggle-born ward, heard the same tapping as Hermione and quickly straightened in his chair as he flipped through the text before him and lowered his head. Draco, at the head of the polished table, either didn't hear his father coming or didn't care, because he continued to slouch and play with the miniature broom in his hand, sending it sailing around paper obstacles, his school books forgotten on the side.

Mr. Malfoy entered the dining room through the far archway, dressed in his usual Wizarding garb, robes black and his vest royal purple with gleaming, golden buttons. He looked quite prim—puffed up and stuffy, Hermione's mind provided in a voice that sounded suspiciously like Elara Black— and as she watched him through her lashes, she saw his mouth curl into a sneer.

"Draco," he barked, startling the pointy-faced boy. "Sit up."

The younger Malfoy did as told, his cheeks flushed pink, and Hermione fought down her satisfied smirk. She must have not been as discreet as she thought, because Mr. Malfoy rounded on her and extended one long-fingered hand, waiting for Hermione to glance up and meet his unimpressed glower. "Your work, Miss Granger."

Hermione gave him her incomplete essay on Dr. Ubbly's Oblivious Unction, and Malfoy skimmed the topic, tutting under his breath.

"Pedantic at best. A shallow analysis reflective of a shallow mind. My, my. I must write the school and ensure you really are the best student of your year. I find that highly suspicious."

Color invaded Hermione's cheeks, but she didn't tear up. Draco snickered—and Mr. Malfoy rounded on him now, his cane striking the table with a heavy thump that caused all three students to jump. "If you've time to laugh, Draco, you've time to better your own assignment. I seem to recall you were sixth in your year, boy."

Draco paled and shrank as he fidgeted with his books, not quite meeting Mr. Malfoy's eye. "Yes, father. But it's not my fault!" he grumbled. "Two of them were Ravenclaws! And Nott. He's such a bookworm. And—." He glared at Hermione. "Granger and Black cheated."

Mr. Malfoy scoffed, a noise as pompous as his own appearance. Jaime sank farther into his chair like he wanted to disappear into it, and Hermione wondered what his rank had been. "Granger is a Muggle-born, and Black is a ridiculous, thoughtless girl who has little regard for the time and effort

of others," he spat, his tone as vicious as it ever was when Elara came up in conversation. That one of her best friends could hassle and aggrieve Malfoy so much when Hermione couldn't brought her private joy. "That you could be so easily surpassed by either shows your lack of conviction. If you don't prove yourself more capable, Draco, I will rethink my offer."

Draco instantly pulled his books closer, both horrified and elated, a look Hermione couldn't rightly understand. She looked to Jaime for assistance, but he hadn't lifted his head from his work and pointedly refused to acknowledge all of her friendly overtures. They'd exchanged a handful of greetings over the summer, half-heard grunts or vague, distrustful looks on Jaime's part that Hermione didn't understand—just as she didn't understand Draco's suddenly smug mood.

Sometimes, she wished Elara hadn't been emancipated, that she'd come to stay at the Malfoys as well so Hermione wouldn't be stuck alone for weeks on end. Elara—pure-blooded and proxy to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black—could've stood up to Mr. Malfoy, unlike Hermione. Draco's father never struck her or mistreated her of course, but…the revulsion became unbearable after a time.

Mr. Malfoy strutted—for it could not be called walking—out of the room again after verbally tearing Jaime's work to shreds, leaving the trio to study in peace. Draco shoved off the task once more with a broad grin.

"What has you so pleased?" Hermione demanded. "You've done nothing all summer but smirk and gloat, Malfoy. It's insufferable."

The blond boy lifted a brow and gave a smug, faux laugh Hermione had heard him practicing in his room before. "Oh, father's promised me a gift is all, Granger. You see, next year I'm going to be on the Quidditch team, and father's promised to buy the whole team new brooms." Malfoy studied his nails. "He's quite generous."

"You're not on the team," she replied, frowning. "Try-outs don't take place until the new school year." Really, Hermione had very little interest in Quidditch or any sport; she knew try-outs hadn't occurred yet because Harriet was looking forward to them. Attending Quidditch practice would cut into Harriet's study time, but Hermione thought the rambunctious witch would actually benefit from the exercise. She usually spent an hour of their free period pacing around the table in the library and would only sit when Hermione—or Madam Pince—snapped at her.

Malfoy scoffed and retrieved the toy broom from his pocket where he'd hid it from his father. "Don't be stupid, Mudblood."

"Don't call me that."

He mouthed the word again, and it took everything in Hermione not to hurl a tome at his fat head. The book didn't deserve that.

Mr. Malfoy returned soon enough with Mrs. Malfoy and the trio of students stowed their books and assignments in their bags to prepare for lunch. Draco relinquished the head of the table to his father and sneered as he sank into a seat by Hermione.

"Draco, don't make rude faces," his mother reprimanded.

"Yes, mother."

Mr. Malfoy leaned his walking stick against the table's edge as he took his seat and cleared his throat. "Dobby!"

A crack preceded the appearance of the stooped, green-skinned house-elf in his tattered pillowcase. "You called for Dobby, Master Malfoy sir?"

"Serve lunch."

Dobby disappeared again, and a few moments later he came tottering out of the adjoining kitchen bearing several plates of fresh salad, scones, cream, and jam. Hermione resisted the urge to reach out and assist the short creature as he passed her chair, bowls balanced on his head, his motions quick as he slid dishes before Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy, their son, then Jaime and Hermione. She'd tried to help before and had been promptly chastised.

"How was the Minister today, father?" Draco asked as Dobby poured tea. Again Hermione had to stop herself from offering thanks or gratitude.

"Minister Gaunt is well," Mr. Malfoy answered. "And busy, of course. He has little time for idle pleasantries, though he sends his greetings to you and Narcissa." He speared a water chestnut and placed it in his mouth, chewing thoroughly before continuing. "He assures me you will have a… most interesting term at Hogwarts this year."

What does he mean by that?

Hermione looked up and caught Jaime's eye, and though the older boy quickly looked away, they did share a single moment of disquiet at the pleased tenor in Mr. Malfoy's voice. Draco didn't notice and happily went about eating his food and taking a deep swig of pumpkin juice. "Really? How so, father?"

"Now, now, Draco. You don't want to ruin the surprise, do you?"

Just then, a saucer slipped through Dobby's spindly fingers and cracked in two upon the floor. Mr. Malfoy reacted without a word; the cane found itself in the wizard's hand once more and lashed out, striking Dobby's head, earning a squeal out of the poor creature and a sharp gasp from Hermione. Dobby cowered, cupping the the bleeding cut above his drooping ear, and Mr. Malfoy glared as he dropped the walking stick back into place.

"Clean it up," he spat.

Dobby snapped his trembling fingers and the saucer floated upward to the table after repairing itself. Hermione could feel her hands shaking, so she dropped them into her lap, balling them into fists as she stifled the need to shout and rail. She hated this. In any other circumstance, Hermione would have told Mr. Malfoy precisely what she thought of him and his heavy-handed ways—but Hermione couldn't insult him, couldn't give him a piece of her mind, because if Mr. Malfoy chose to do so, he could rescind his wardship and she would be forced back to the Muggle world. The Ministry would snap her wand. She would never see Hogwarts again.

It wasn't right—but what could Hermione do? She was a not quite thirteen-year-old witch with no autonomy in this society, no voice. She had to be practical and cunning, not bold and brash like a Gryffindor. Intervening with no plan of action would only reap consequences for Dobby and herself, and the last thing Hermione wanted to do was make life harder for the house-elves living at the manor. Quite frankly, she feared the end of Mr. Malfoy's cane as much as the servants —slaves—did.

Mrs. Malfoy noticed how pale the children had gone, including Draco, who hunched his shoulders and stared at his plate, not meeting his mother's eye. "Lucius," she reprimanded. "What have we said about punishing the servants at the table?"

Her husband's pale eyes narrowed at the rebuff, but Mr. Malfoy simpered and nodded. "Of course, my dear. Quite unseemly of me."

Lunch continued without conversation. Dobby shuffled back into the kitchen, muttering about being a "bad elf," and Hermione ate little of the provided food, her stomach too twisted into knots for her to force anything more than a few mouthfuls down. Mr. Malfoy excused himself first, and after Dipthy—another Malfoy elf—scuttled through and cleared the meal's remnants, Mrs. Malfoy set about lecturing them in manners and Wizarding history. Hermione kept her head down for the lesson's duration.

She could do nothing. She wasn't powerful or connected, didn't have the right name like Elara, or six feet of venomous serpent stuffed beneath her shirt like Harriet—but inaction had never sat well with Hermione. She wanted to change how things were, both for house-elves and Muggle-borns, because she knew some Muggle-borns in different families were treated just as poorly as Dobby. Hermione may have been powerless, and yet she refused to give in; one day she'd be able to tell wizards like Mr. Malfoy off. One day she'd be able to stand up and say, "That's enough!"

Later, the house-elves would find a little packet of Muggle ointments and first-aid items outside their pantry door, and Hermione would say nothing at all when she saw Dobby running about with pink and blue plasters stuck to his bruised head. She'd say nothing, but the sight would only further solidify her resolve.

an uninvited guest

xliv. an uninvited guest

Harriet looked down into the cauldron of foul smelling glop and wrinkled her nose.

"Er…." Sitting back on her haunches, she flipped through the open Potions book and fussed with her rolled sleeves. "I don't…I don't think I did this right."

A low, disinterested hiss emanating from beneath the bed answered her.

"Oh, wait, it's supposed to smell like that?" Harriet traced a line in the text and squinted. "Urgh. It says it's supposed to be 'golden in hue,' but mine's more like spring grass…wait it's darkening now…I guess it's not done?" Harriet peaked over the cauldron's rim again, frowning. Sure enough, the green steadily leached from the thick liquid and became mustard yellow. "Snape stupid summer assignments are just as hard as the rubbish he gives us in class."

The Girding Potion released a noxious smelling puff and Harriet recoiled, reaching for her mittens to lift the little cauldron onto the cooling rack, hoping yellow was a close enough color for Snape's discerning criticism. She sat in the middle of her tent's floor surrounded by open potion ingredients and a few wayward snack wrappers, a roll of parchment and a quill set to the side where she'd been writing her homework while the potion heated in its various stages. Livi had long since grown bored of watching Harriet and had retreated to his favorite hiding spot, though Kevin remained in her old shirt's breast pocket. Sometimes the golem-snake repeated what Harriet said, and she decided that made him a much better listener than Livi at the moment.

A cool breeze ruffled the magical tent's wall, making the seemingly solid interior ripple. The lantern sputtered and, after discarding her mittens, Harriet groaned, got to her feet, and wandered over to it. She tapped the lantern's brass base. "I think Muggles had the right thinking with electricity."

"What isss…electricccity?"

"It's like…lightning in wires, in the walls, and it makes lights come on."

Livi poked his nose out from beneath the bed's wobbly frame. "Thisss…sssoundss foolissh."

"Well, Muggles understand it well enough. I can't explain it like they could." The lantern sputtered a final time and went out. Harriet stumbled about in the dark until she found the Self-Lighting candles that she needed only to touch for the wicks to flicker into life. "In Hogwarts: A History, it talks about how magic and electricity and—and certain radio waves don't mix? I can't remember what it said exactly…but magic's like a second conduit or something, and it makes stuff inert or unstable. I can't help but be jealous of my Aunt Petunia just being able to flick a bloody switch sometimes. For adults it's not so bad I guess, because they can use spells. I hate being underage."

"Sss…." The serpent contemplated Harriet as she poked about her trunk in search of an oil globe she could insert into the bottom of the Charmed lantern. Dr. Filibuster's Fireworks on Carkitt Market had an Ever-burning Oil variant that would have solved Harriet's problem, but they wouldn't sell it to her, because—as a minor—she couldn't put the fire out if she spilled the oil by accident. Harriet knew they were simply being logical, though she still wished for light-bulbs

sometimes.

"Magic…isss not meant to be…easssy."

Livi retreated beneath the bed again, and Harriet puzzled over what he'd said. Magic is not meant to be easy. It certainly wasn't what Harriet would call easy, not now, at least. When she'd first discovered her heritage, she'd been under the mistaken impression that one could cast spells by flicking around their wand and mumbling funny words—and then she took one look at the diagrams inside her Transfiguration textbook and that theory imploded in her face.

Magic was difficult, and finicky, and wondrous and—at times—terrifying. Hermione once mentioned to Harriet that everything in nature had a balance, and perhaps the balance for witches and wizards who could turn desks into elephants or fly on broomsticks was forsaking things not made from magic or their own hands. Perhaps if you could flick a wand and create light from nothing, you didn't deserve light-bulbs.

Harriet, lost in thought, watched the candles burn and didn't hear when the crickets went quiet.

A sudden chime echoed from beneath the bed. Harriet started.

"Livi?"

The chime came again—and suddenly the Charmed flap over the tent's entrance was carelessly torn aside, and Harriet found herself staring down the lit side of a brandished wand.

A wizard stood in her tent, dressed in navy robes that, given the relatively plain cut and the insignia stitched onto the front pocket, must've been a uniform of some kind. The wide brim of his hat hid his eyes from Harriet, but she could still see his grim, self-satisfied smile, the black hair on his upper lip, and the nostrils left bloodless as they flared in anger.

"Finally—there you are, you little shit," he said in a biting Northern accent. "Been all over Hell's half acre looking for your stupid arse."

"Looking for—?" Harriet could do little more than gawk at the man—the intruder—who'd stomped into her tent in the middle of bloody nowhere and now held her at wand-point.

"Looking for you, bloody half-blood hiding in the fucking woods. No one said anything about that —."

"I don't know who you are!"

"I'm not here to answer your questions!" He took a breath and seemed to gather himself, the irritation festering behind a composed mask as he soothed his mussed hair. His wand never wavered. "Come along, Miss Potter, I've been sent to…collect you."

The chime came again and though the man ignored it, Harriet realized the sound came from her snake. Livi had made the same sound in the loo at Hogwarts before the troll came stampeding through.

"I'm—I'm not going anywhere with you!" Harriet knew she could be a bit naive and foolish at times, but she absolutely refused to leave with a strange wizard who came barging into her sanctuary in the dead of night. That was just common sense.

What wasn't common sense was forgetting to strap her wand to her wrist that morning. She'd grown careless gallivanting on her own, as the leather brace grew uncomfortable and sticky in the

hot summer sun while Harriet wandered—and she couldn't use the blasted thing while out of school, so she hadn't seen the harm in leaving both the wand and the brace on the rumpled bed.

She saw the harm now.

"You'll be going where I tell you, Potter. My Lord's not keen on waiting long—."

Harriet's eyes flicked toward her wand and she knew he saw the motion, because his mouth opened to incant a spell and his own wand rose.

"Now, now…don't be difficult, kid…."

She dove to the side just as a burst of red light came zooming at her, and though Harriet managed to dodge, the spell grazed her arm and she landed on the floor, gasping. It felt as if she'd been slugged in the stomach and kicked in the head, simultaneously breathless and dazed and more than a little confused with her glasses askew and one arm limp against her side.

The man approached, a new hex ready—and Set lurched from beneath Harriet, a single column of black darting out to strike the candles and douse the tent in darkness.

"What the fuck—?!"

A single hiss was all the warning the wizard received before Livi bolted from beneath the bed and Harriet felt warm scales rippling against her cheek as the wizard shrieked. He only got out one terrified cry and a half-formed spell that splattered on the canvas wall before his body fell, a heavy thud sounding in the sticky dark.

Harriet's strangled breaths broke the renewed silence.

"Li—Livius?" The spell's fuzzy remnants finally dissipated and allowed Harriet to sit up, though she very much dreaded what she'd find. Her hand trembled as it slid along the serpent's body until —.

Until she found a foot. An unmoving foot attached to an unmoving leg.

"Oh God—Merlin, sweet Salazar Slytherin's saintly left bollock—!"

The serpent's coils shifted, and Harriet smelled copper, Livi's tongue flicking against her cheek. "Misstresss."

Harriet staggered under his weight as she leapt upright and dashed to the candles, setting them alight one by one. The light only served to illuminate what she already knew; the wizard laid flat on his back like a dead beetle, black tongue lolling out of his open mouth, blood smudged about his upper thigh where The Horned Serpent had only needed to bite once.

Livi killed him like the troll.

Sick crawled up Harriet's throat and she vomited on the floor.

"Misstresss?"

Wiping her mouth, Harriet reached out to touch Livi's head, her fingers shaking so hard they skipped over his horns and along his scales. "I'm—I'm okay—."

The wizard just stared at the ceiling.

Dead. Dead, he's dead—.

Harriet's familiar had killed a man, a man intent on kidnapping her, but a person nonetheless. He hadn't said who he was or what he wanted, only that he was going to take Harriet with him whether she wanted him to or not. Livi had been protecting her—but would the Ministry see it like that? She knew their policemen were called Aurors because her dad had been one, so Harriet wondered if they'd send Aurors after her. They'd kick her out of Hogwarts. They'd take her to jail. They'd kill Livi.

Her heart raced in her chest.

Who was he? Why—where did he want to take me? She thought about Quirrell and the red spell he'd slung at her in the dungeons, the Mirror of Erised and the unrivaled horror of facing her own mortality as Voldemort shrieked for her death.

"I will let you share in that eternal life, Harriet…. You and your family could live forever…."

Shaking, Harriet straightened her glasses and tried to control her breathing. She couldn't look away from the wizard.

What if he wasn't alone? What if there's more?

As soon as the terrible thought occurred to Harriet, she moved and dashed around her bed to snatch up her wand and brace.

I have to get away, I can't stay here, I can't—.

Harriet kicked open the top of her trunk and snatched the Invisibility Cloak off the top of the jumbled interior. She was fortunate the purse she kept her exchanged Muggle money in fell out too, or Harriet would've sprinted off into the dark without a pound or a Knut on her person. Her fear thundered in her head until it seemed to echo, drowning every other thought out, a repetitive beat of go, go, go thumping her thick skull.

"Livi, we need to leave—!"

She hefted one coil around her shoulders and the snake managed the rest, sensing the urgency in his witch's tone. Kevin stirred in her pocket and Harriet poked him further down as she strapped her wand into place and threw the Invisibility Cloak over her head.

What if there's more, what if—what if he meant to take me to Voldemort—!

Harriet allowed herself one last look at the dead man before clutching Livi to her chest and running into the waiting night.

A/N: Which magical place would you be most interested in seeing in a future installment? Giant's Rest near The Storr? Or the Night Market near Elva Hill? I might include both at some point in the series, but I am curious!

penance for petunia

xlv. penance for petunia

When his arm started to burn, Severus wasn't surprised.

No, Severus was a man of routine and absolutes; the sun rose in the east, set in the west, fire was hot, ice was cold, and Harriet Potter would somehow, some way, wind up in imminent danger.

Before he'd known about the Vow chaining his life to the brat's, Severus had already come to expect the ever-present burning in the summertime. The searing and prickling always increased during the holidays, and for the longest time, Severus hadn't had a single idea why that was. Now, however, he knew why even if he wished he didn't, because Albus Dumbledore would never forgive him for killing Petunia Evans, even if the bitch was abusing her only niece.

Severus sat up from his slouched position in his armchair and the Potions journal he'd been reading when he dozed off slid to the rug. Air hissed through his clenched teeth as he tightened his hand around his wrist and lurched upright, sleep's muddled haze already disappearing, his body and mind trained to wake swiftly—though his heart raced and his footing was less than steady. He grabbed his cloak from the hook by his mantel and hesitated by the Floo.

He knew where he must go. Severus had made sure of that before term even ended; finding Potter's home address had been too easy for Severus' taste. What if Slytherin had gone looking for it? He'd waited all summer for the opportunity to catch Tuney or her fucking husband putting the girl in danger—in flagrante, as it were. Perhaps it was wrong for Severus to have waited at all, for him to gamble with Potter's safety, but he was a Slytherin, not a bleeding-heart Gryffindor; he needed to bring evidence before Albus. The Headmaster could be incredibly thick-headed in these matters.

Abuse, be it against a child or a partner, wasn't common in the Wizarding world, not like it could be among Muggles. Oh, wizards had their own fair share of emotional neglect going on, but pure- bloods had trouble conceiving. When the whole weight of your family legacy rested on a hard-won child's shoulders, you didn't beat that child, and you didn't beat your spouse when they were trained in curses and poisons and knew exactly where you kept your bloody tea. Without evidence, Severus doubted Dumbledore could even conceive of the idea that Petunia might hurt her niece.

Still, Severus hesitated. He hesitated because he feared he might not hold back if he witnessed Petunia hurting Lily's daughter.

"Fuck," he cursed when pain flared again. Severus took a pinch of Floo Powder and threw into the grate, snapping, "Number Eight, Wisteria Walk, Surrey!"

The fire blazed green and he braced himself for the dizzying, spiraling pressure of long-distance Floo travel. When he stepped out of the grate, he did so with a soft gasp, bringing in the smell cabbage and cats, the taste of soot heavy on his tongue and in his throat. A Kneazle perched on the back of a tatty couch growled at Severus, and he slipped his wand into his shaking hand.

The light flicked on, and he managed to not whirl about—though Severus did slowly raise his hands when confronted with an older woman wielding a Muggle handgun.

"Who're you then?" the old Squib demanded, dressed in a fluffy bathrobe with two cats at her feet. She squinted. "…Snape?"

"Madam Figg," he drawled, hoping the crazy bat didn't shoot him on accident. He knew Arabella Figg more by chance than anything else, a distant memory from a decade ago of passing in the Order headquarters, and she probably recognized him by notoriety. He'd been told by Albus years ago that the Headmaster had an agent in play near Privet Drive to watch over the girl, but Severus would've never guessed it was Arabella Figg until he searched the records for the nearest Floo contact to Potter's home. "I've received…intel that the Potter girl might be in danger and have come to verify her safety for myself."

The gun lowered, which irked Severus. Any Death Eater with half an ounce of brain power could buy or cook up a Polyjuice Potion and pretend to be him, but the woman did ask any identifying questions or for any of the old Order passwords. Instead, she appeared momentarily confused and scratched her face, a heavy frown deepening her wrinkles. "Danger? Shouldn't she be off in school?"

Severus lowered his hands and stiffened. "It is August, Figg."

"August?" The woman had the temerity to look at him as if Severus were the one out of his mind. "Oh, it is, isn't it? I remember now. I…I don't believe I've seen Harriet since last Christmas."

He stared. "What."

"When the Dursleys went on holiday. They always leave the dear behind, sweet girl…."

Sweet fucking Morgana, Albus. Did it ever occur to you to check that your nanny wasn't a few beans short of every flavor?

His wrist ached. Severus didn't have time for coddling nattering Squibs in the middle of the night, and so he swept around, whacked himself on the head with his wand to cast a Disillusionment Charm, and strode out into the muggy heat. He stumbled when he got his first look at the street, though he would've cursed any witnesses to his dumbfounded expression blind before admitting how the sight staggered him. Severus came from the back-end of Cokeworth, where the houses lined up like soot-stained gravestones in the shadow of the old mill, and yet he couldn't have prepared himself for the distinctly Muggle reality of Little Whinging.

Oh, yes, he could imagine Tuney living quite happily in one of these uniform homes with their uniform gardens and plain, ugly letterboxes. Tobias Snape used to watch reruns of The Twilight Zone on the telly when he wasn't too drunk to sit up straight, and Severus had seen images of places like this, surreal middle-grounds extending forever in all directions, the kind of places that could trap a man in his own mind for want of escape. Severus wagered Petunia hadn't realized it wasn't the fifties anymore and women could actually leave their houses if they wanted.

He came through an alley along Magnolia Crescent and stopped at Privet Drive's boundary, concerned the blood-wards Dumbledore swore up and down surrounded the house would push him back—but Severus' concern was for naught. He reached out, found nothing, and with each incredulous step forward along the tepid street he continued to find nothing until he stood on Tuney's walk staring at the brass number "4" on the door.

There are no blood-wards.

Swallowing, Severus dismissed the Disillusionment Charm and stomped up the rest of the path, bringing his fist down hard on the door. He had a difficult enough time keeping his right hand

clenched around his wand, so he beat the knuckles of his left raw knocking until the neighbor's curtains fluttered.

"Who in the blazes is that?!" cried a male voice inside the house, loud thumps descending a set of stairs. Lights wavered, and a moment later a corpulent man with a thick mustache, dressed in pinstriped pajamas yanked the door open. Severus was painfully reminded of Horace Slughorn— fat, mustachioed, red-faced—but he shoved that recollection aside as easily as he shoved the man back into his own house. Severus slammed the door behind him.

"What in GOD'S NAME—?!"

Severus flicked his wand in the direction of the man's face, and the Muggle went quiet, eyes never leaving the thin strip of wood. Ah, the Potions Master thought. So Tuney's been telling tales. I wonder what she learned from Lily about wizards like me….

The Headmaster would be furious when Severus told him he'd forced his way into a Muggle house, let alone Potter's, but the insistent burn in his aching limb didn't allow time for Slytherin subtlety. He'd expected the pain to cease once he arrived at Privet Drive, and yet it continued to build in intensity, a rising pressure biting hard into his seizing muscles and bones until he could barely stand it. "Where is the girl?" Severus demanded in a voice that could chill glaciers.

"What bloody girl?!"

Severus jabbed him with his wand and green sparks singed the Muggle's shirt. Light, rapid steps came down the stairs adjoined to the miserable little foyer, and he sneered as Petunia Evans—still horse-faced, whip-thin, and sour—came into view. The woman took one look at the darkly clad wizard in her home and shrieked.

"YOU!"

"Nice to see you again, too, Tuney," Severus said as the woman gawked, revulsion and terror competing for purchase on her narrow face. "But I am not here for pleasantries. The girl's life has been threatened and I am here to check on her."

When Petunia's face adopted the color of curdled milk, Severus' stomach tightened further in dread. Something in the house felt wrong, wrong beyond the lack of wards, something he couldn't place as he took in the cabbage rose wallpaper and the stink of cleaning products. He could taste furniture polish in his mouth. The pictures on the walls didn't move, and he felt as though he were surrounded by portraits of dead bodies. "She's—she's not here."

"Where is she?"

Petunia crossed her arms, her eyes flashing toward her husband, then behind her, toward the stairs. "She's—she's at a friend's."

Fuck this, Severus seethed as he sent a Stunner at the billowing Muggle in front of him and rounded on Petunia.

"Vernon!" she shrieked, moving forward, only to get caught my Severus, his hand curling into a fist on the collar of her nightgown, bringing her head up so he could meet her wide, frightened eyes.

"Legilimens!"

Muggle minds were not like the minds of witches or wizards, another marked separation between

mundane and magical. Magical minds had a thin membrane of sorts that, in the head of an accomplished Occlumens, projected a multi-dimensional barrier of the wizard or witch's choice, while Muggle's had no such thing. Severus pulled through Petunia's mind like a swimmer through water, and he detested the woman from the shallows of her being to the deepest abyss of her psyche.

Seeing him again stirred memories of her childhood, snatches of "Sev!" and "That awful Snape boy" flickering by, chased by a girl with apple-red hair and recollections marred by a green-eyed woman's fading laughter.

His own words echoed in Petunia's mind, "Where is she?", and her thoughts winged through a gallery of Harriet Potter's upbringing, a veritable haunted museum that set Severus' teeth on edge.

Dumbledore stood in a pink sitting room with a swaddled infant in his arms. "You must take her, Petunia, for your sister—."

"You're a freak, Lily, a freak!"

Petunia held a black-haired toddler at arm's length and couldn't breathe when curious green eyes stared at her—.

"Listen to me, Tuney! You have to be careful, Voldemort is—."

She couldn't stand it. Couldn't stand the judgmental staring. Out of sight, she needed the brat out of sight—and she saw the boot cupboard. She opened the door—.

"Get up, you worthless girl!"

A child in bedraggled cast-offs stepped out of the black cupboard and stared at the floor, unable to meet her Aunt's gaze anymore—.

Petunia listened to Dudley taunt the girl, flesh striking flesh, a pained cry, and disgust for her own bullying son filled her, twisting to hate because it was the girl's fault, it was always the girl's fault —.

Severus Snape stood in her pristine foyer like a black demon released from Hell, freak, he was a freak—.

"It's real for us, not for her—."

"Where is she?"

Petunia stormed down the steps because her purse had disappeared in the night, and if the girl had stolen it, she swore she'd wouldn't stop Vernon this time—.

Vernon's hands closed around the girl's neck. He'd kill Harriet, kill the green-eyed girl, kill Lily—.

"Should've left her at the orphanage, Pet."

The girl winced when Vernon yelled—.

"Should've drowned her the first night, Pet."

The girl cringed under a raised hand—.

"Should've beat the unnaturalness from her, Pet."

Blood dripped along the girl's chin—.

"Should've left her for the dogs, Pet."

"I want my letter! It's mine, and you have no right—!"

Familiar, swirling script marred a sheet of parchment in a young hand, "I must apologize, Miss Evans, but Hogwarts cannot be attended by non-magical persons—." Goddamn Dumbledore, goddamn the freaks who took her—.

An elderly man in a pointed hat stood in her pink sitting room with condemnation in his blue eyes, stating, "You must take her—."

Petunia stomped down the stairs. She screamed—.

Vernon held the girl off the floor and shook—.

Snakes filled her foyer—.

Severus Snape stood on her threshold like unholy vengeance and she knew this was penance because—.

She stepped into a snake-filled foyer and screamed because—.

The girl sobbed for hours behind the cupboard door and Vernon wouldn't relent. Petunia wanted to open the door because—.

She stared at the milling snakes and the open cupboard door and knew true guilt because—.

Severus Snape stood in her foyer demanding "Where is she?"

Petunia didn't know. She didn't know because—.

Because the girl was gone.

Severus wrenched himself out of Petunia's head and snarled, thrusting her away. Petunia collided with the wall at her back and a framed picture of her precious, porcine son fell to the floor, not that either of them or the obese bastard sprawled on the linoleum noticed. Severus and Petunia stared at one another and breathed heavily.

Of the dozens of photos and frames decorating the walls, ascending the stairwell, disappearing into the lounge, not one showed Potter's face.

"She found a way to that freak school, didn't she?" Petunia asked with a sniff as she broke the silence, one hand clutching the railing, the other on her chest. "You work for him, don't you? You work for Dumbledore—?"

Severus took one step closer, and Petunia silenced herself. He trembled with the need to scream. "It's been over a year. It's been over a fucking year since Potter ran away, and you never said a fucking word! Where is she, Petunia?! You let an eleven-year-old girl run out there on her own and told nobody!"

"That's all you care about, isn't it, Snape? Where your precious Potter is. Too bad she doesn't look much like Lily, eh?" Petunia bared her teeth like a cornered dog. "You couldn't have the mother, so you want the daughter now, is it?"

A muscle in his remaining eye twitched. "Are you trying to provoke me?" he asked, voice calm as arctic waters—though inside he howled, wordlessly furious, seeing again how the fat Muggle throttled Potter while Petunia did nothing, while Snape stood in a castle five hundred miles away staring at his own hand like a bloody fool—.

He'd never seen the girl look as small as she did when dangling from Vernon Dursley's squeezing grip.

Severus' wrist had stopped hurting, but the problem had become so much more complicated. He needed to get to Dumbledore. They needed to find Potter.

"That's not going to work, Tuney. Out of the two of us—not counting that useless lump on the floor there, he's only Stunned, you simpering moron—I think you're the pervert. Tell me; did starving an orphan child help relieve your…frustrations?"

Color rose in Petunia's cheeks and tears glazed her eyes. Wisely, she said nothing.

"Life must be so difficult for poor, average Tuney. An abusive simpleton for a husband rutting away at you, an even stupider son well on his way to incarceration, and here you sit in a mid-sized house smelling of mediocrity and aerosol spray. Is this—." Severus flicked a hand toward the house proper. "Everything you dreamed it would be? Is your life so dull you had to abuse your niece for kicks?"

"I didn't—."

"Save your excuses. I'm sure Dumbledore would love to hear what you've to say for yourself after I tell him what you've put his yearly stipend toward."

He hadn't thought it possible, but Petunia paled further and Severus almost laughed, almost let the scathing, incredulous guffaws come bursting out of himself because Petunia Dursley showed more emotion about the money than she did for her missing niece. The absolute gall.

"How could you do this to Lily's daughter?" he demanded, more to release the growing pressure in his chest than to ask for an answer. She didn't have an answer that could possibly satisfy him. "Had you and Vernon died instead, Lily would've—."

"She's a freak," Petunia spat as she straightened and pulled herself from the wall.

"I'm well aware of how you view my kind."

"No, she's a freak, Snape." The woman stepped forward and the Potions Master stepped back, if only to keep desired distance between himself and loathsome woman. "You've met her, haven't you? I can only imagine how that came about—."

"I teach at her school, you sick degenerative—."

"She's a nasty little freak worse than you or—or Lily ever were! Always sneaking about, always whispering in the dark—."

"An abused child locked in a cupboard whispering? My, how very sinister." Severus raised his wand again and as Petunia whimpered and he glared, he flicked it toward the boot cupboard. The lock burst off and struck the wall, the door scraping the obnoxious wallpaper when it flung itself open. The interior looked much as it had in Petunia's insufferable head: cleaning products, buckets, brushes, a hoover. In the back resided what Severus sought, and he kicked aside the bottles full of sterile chemicals as he ducked into the cramped space and yanked the dusty pillow off the cot.

He turned the ratty pillow, inspecting the fabric, and plucked off three black hairs between thumb and forefinger. He found an empty vial in his cloak pocket and stuck the hairs in there, then threw the pillow at Petunia. She caught it on instinct more than anything, and Petunia coughed when a cloud of white dust covered her.

Severus could see the flash of police lights through the covered window, and he grunted as he kicked the cupboard door closed, sealing it with a muttered, "Colloportus." One of the twitch- curtains must've heard Petunia's shrieking. He stared one last time at the bitter, spiteful woman in her nightdress and curlers, her corpulent husband asleep on the floor still. No matter how he tried, he could see nothing of her sister in Petunia—none of Lily's spirit, joy, her mischievous smirk or charming guile. Petunia existed in antithesis to everything Lily Evans—Lily Potter—had ever been.

He had to find Potter. He had to speak with the Headmaster.

"Tell them he fell down the stairs," he said, eyes flicking toward the front wall. "Dumbledore will be in touch. Pray we don't meet again…Tuney."

With that said, Severus turned and strode down the hallway, into the kitchen where Potter had served her family like a house-elf, and out into the private yard. He Disillusioned himself again, and—just as he began to Disapparate—a strange thought occurred to Severus.

If Petunia hadn't been the one to tell Potter how to reach Diagon Alley, who did?

A/N: to everyone wondering why Harriet ran off and left a tent full of her possessions behind; she's barely twelve, and terrified. Cut the poor little numpty some slack.

Yes, I gave Mrs. Figg onset dementia. The information she's been feeding Dumbledore has suffered from that.

I tried to reflect the nebulous quality of Legilimency, since Snape himself says it's not mind- reading. I think it should be rather confusing and scattered, which makes part of being a great Legilimens sorting the mess out into something intelligible.

in the morning

xlvi. in the morning

When Harriet finally stumbled upon Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, she was surprised.

She didn't know much about pure-bloods. What she did know she'd gathered from snatches of Draco Malfoy's incessant blathering, the typical behavior displayed by her dorm-mates, or Hermione descending into full-blown lecture mode. Harriet expected Elara—stiff-backed, well- mannered, and proper—to live in a house like the ones in Aunt Petunia's programs, somewhere flanked with columns and hedges and reflective pools. Draco Malfoy lived in a manor, and so did Pansy. Daphne resided in a castle, and Katherine Runcorn's family had a six-bedroom estate.

The townhouse in front of Harriet looked large but undeniably derelict, the kind of place one expected ghosts to come pouring out of like bats from a belfry. Light from Number Eleven and Number Thirteen on either side of the house illuminated defects in the walls, cracks marring the bricks, rust eating at the front rail, the stoop littered with years' worth of decaying leaves. Gargoyles leered from the upper balcony, and Harriet half-thought they might spring to life and attack her if she dared go knock on the door.

Well, the bespectacled witch thought to herself. Elara did mention the place was a bit rundown, and it's been in the family for generations. Looks like the kind of place a bunch of Slytherins would live—and it's not like I've anywhere else to go.

Swallowing, Harriet walked up the steps and knocked on the door.

It took several minutes before an answer came, during which Harriet continued to look over her shoulder and her heart raced, Livi wrapped tight about her torso beneath the Cloak's fluttering folds. The door creaked, the handle on the other side twisting, and Harriet let out a breath when Elara Black appeared at the threshold in her dressing gown, long hair falling past her shoulders, tired eyes squinting in the artificial light coming off Number Eleven's stoop.

Harriet yanked the Cloak off her head. "Elara!"

Elara gave one startled shriek of alarm when Harriet's head appeared out of nowhere and leapt backwards, tripping over her hem and landing in a heap on the rug.

"Oh, shite—!" Harriet divested herself of the Cloak and hurried to help the other witch to her feet. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to frighten you—."

She touched Elara's wrist, fingers moving over stiff skin—and her friend wrenched her arm back, stumbling on her own two feet. "It's fine," Elara said as she fixed her sleeve and cleared her throat. "I'm all right, but what are you doing here, Harriet? You scared me! It's barely past two in the morning!"

"Err, right…."

Harriet threw a harried glance out the open door before Elara shut it, plunging them both into the black, musty dark. She felt horribly claustrophobic suddenly, like the walls were inching nearer, or the high ceiling was coming down, ready to smash her into jelly. Sighing, Elara said, "Mind yourself. Come this way." Her hand found Harriet's, and she led the way through the dark,

stopping at the corridor's end, where a set of stairs plunged downward. Dim sconces flickered.

They descended, entering a large, dated kitchen with several attached doors and an archway leading into what looked like a dining room, though sheets had been thrown over the furniture, hiding most of it from view. Instead, there was a table in the kitchen, a clunky, ancient looking thing with knife marks on the surface and feet like an eagle's. Elara turned a switch and gas lamps in thick, crystal fixtures woke, shining more light on the weathered space. A hearth dominated one wall, mantel blackened by a hundred years or more of fire and soot.

"It's not much," Elara said, a faint blush in her cheeks. "The house has been basically sitting empty for over a decade, really, what with my older relations getting on and their health failing—."

"I like it," Harriet said. It was the truth; Harriet never felt comfortable in places that were perfectly proper and orderly and clean like Aunt Petunia's house. The cabinets at Privet Drive had been made of composites, painted a light, sickly yellow, the window festooned in lacy curtains, the air always tasting of lemon cleaner and bleach. The cabinets and cupboards here were made of real, solid wood, darkened by an aged patina earned from years of use. Being below ground, there was no window, only those black doors, one of them wreathed by scorch marks. It was spooky, dusty, and odd; Harriet would always be fond of odd things.

Elara gave a crooked smile, pleased, and gestured at the table. "Well, have a seat. I'll make tea."

Harriet sat. After pulling out a chair, she looked at her hands and saw them shaking, the motion strong enough for Elara to see from her place across the room by the ancient hob. Harriet tossed the Invisibility Cloak aside and, slouching, divested herself of Livi's coils. "You can get off now."

The Horned Serpent hissed, tightening himself, then lowered his body to the floor, slowly circling the legs of Harriet's chair. Kevin poked a curious nose from his pocket, and Harriet took him in her hand, letting the golem twine through her quivering fingers.

"…are you okay?" Elara asked, voice breaking the quiet whoosh of fire beneath the kettle. "I know I asked you to come, but I didn't expect you to arrive in the middle of the night, hiding under your Cloak."

Harriet swallowed. "I—." What could she say? Livi had killed a man; Livi—her pet, her familiar, her responsibility. That wizard was dead, and he hadn't hurt her, hadn't cursed her or struck her. How could Harriet plead self-defense? Would the Aurors come for her? Men like her father? Maybe they'd take her to prison. Maybe she'd wind up in a cell next to Elara's father.

She didn't know if she should tell her best friend or not. What if—what if Elara threw her out? Harriet didn't have anywhere else to go. Instinct had driven her to run to Grimmauld Place simply because she'd been thinking about it for much of the night, and because Elara was here, but maybe Elara didn't want a murderer in her house. Was Harriet a murderer? She hadn't wanted to hurt the wizard, honestly, but what had he been doing there? Would she be kicked out of Hogwarts? Would they snap her wand? Maybe they wouldn't send her to prison. Maybe they'd just hand her back to the Dursleys and let them lock her up in the cupboard, all alone, in the dark, with no escape. What was she going to do? "I—!"

Harriet burst into tears.

Elara jumped and, unsure of what to do, she hurried to finish up the tea and fish out cups from the creaking cupboard overhead. By the time she settled the cups and pot on the table, Harriet's sobs had subsided into hiccups and wet sniffles. The other witch poured the tea and sat, dragging her chair closer. Harriet stared at Elara's flowing hair, her patrician features, and snorted—perhaps

hysterically so—at how very pretty her friend was. Harriet was scrawny and more round- shouldered than she'd like, with unmanageable hair and crooked teeth and thick, ugly glasses. It almost seemed unfair.

"What's happened?" Elara asked, voice soft, yet urgent.

Again, Harriet swallowed, and when she found how parched her throat was, she forced herself to take a sip of tea—scalding her tongue in the process. The sting of it centered Harriet's mind as she forced herself to speak. "Livi…Livi killed someone."

Elara's eyes widened, and she glanced down at the snake in question, who was nosing her toes with interest. Harriet thought she might jump to her feet, might scream or demand Harriet leave, and though she braced herself for those possibilities, Elara did nothing. The Black heir drank tea and studied the saucer with a grim expression. "Was it…was it one of your relatives?" she whispered. "Did they hurt you? I can owl my solicitor, or I can find you a proper barrister, if you need."

It floored Harriet that the other witch could be so composed and rational. Sometimes she thought both Elara and Hermione were adults trapped in the bodies of preteens—until they did something to remind her of their own immaturity, like Hermione bickering with Malfoy, or Elara muttering insults behind Professor Selwyn's back. "I—no. No, it wasn't one of my relatives."

"Then who?"

"I don't know," Harriet confessed with a shrug. "I was—I didn't go back. To the Muggles. I…I ran away, I guess, last summer. I just—." She cleared her throat and fussed with her hands, irritating Kevin into sinking his small teeth into her thumb. "Ouch, pest, stop that."

"If you didn't go home, where have you been?"

"Well, I did a bit of traveling, stayed in some inns, maybe a night or two in a tent—."

Elara's hand came up, interrupting her rambling, and Harriet could see the mounting lecture behind her friend's colorless eyes. "What do you mean a tent? Have you been staying in a tent?"

"Yes, okay? I've been staying in a tent!" Harriet snapped, cheeks flushed. "And this bloke I don't know came waltzing in tonight, wand drawn, saying he's been looking for me and he's supposed to take me somewhere, and—and he tried to hex me with something, I don't know, and then Livi —."

He's dead. He's dead. He tried to kidnap me, and now he's—.

"He was looking for you?"

"Yes."

"What did he want?"

"I don't know." Harriet rubbed at her eyes and almost knocked her glasses off. "I was in the middle of the woods, miles from town, and he came in with his wand drawn. He—he was threatening, not that he threatened me precisely, but his whole manner and bearing, and—and he was swearing at me—." She lowered her voice. "He said something about his lord."

Elara paled. It could be nothing. It could be nothing more than the throwaway address of a pure- blooded wizard speaking of a Noble House's head, and yet it could have been everything. Harriet only knew of one wizard who creepy men trying to kidnap children might call "my lord."

Somewhere in the house, Harriet could hear a clock ticking—the low, deep ticking of a big grandfather clock—and portraits deeper in Grimmauld's confines murmured among one another. It was quieter than Harriet had expected. She'd been inside magical inns and shops and taverns, but she'd never been inside a magical home before, unless one were to count the tent—.

The tent.

Harriet leapt to her feet and banged her knee beneath the table, toppling her tea. Elara flinched.

"My things," the bespectacled witch gasped, horrified. "My things. I left all of there, with—. I didn't even consider—! They'll find the body, and they'll find my stuff and think I murdered him —." Maybe she did murder him. Maybe it was all her fault. "—and I'll go to prison—!"

She took two steps toward the door before Elara caught her by the arm, and when Harriet tried to shrug her off, Elara grasped the shorter girl's shoulders, holding her steady. "Harriet," she said, fingers biting down until Harriet stopped trying to run. "Harriet, listen to me. You said this wizard was looking for you, yes?"

"Yes!"

"He tried to take you somewhere against your will? To someone he called 'my lord?'"

"Yes, Elara, I need to—!"

Elara kept speaking, drowning out Harriet's out panicked blabbering. "Then who's to say there aren't more wizards out looking for you? You can't go for your things. It's not safe."

"But what do I do, then?! I'm such a bloody idiot—!"

"You stay here." Elara tapped her bare foot on the floor in emphasis.

"What if there are more wizards? What if they follow me here?" What if they want more than a quick word? What if they hurt you?

The taller witch shook her head. "They can't. The house is warded—I've mentioned this before. Just look how difficult it is for me to get owls, typically. No one can find you; you're safe, okay? You can't go for your things. We can—I can write my solicitor in the morning. Or the Headmaster. We'll write someone, and we'll figure this out. It was self-defense, and you're not going to be punished for that, Harriet."

"How can you be so sure?" she asked. Harriet felt tired—tired and miserable and scared. She would do anything for a measure of Elara's composure and confidence, when all she could do was lean into her friend's hands, swallowing the urge to sob again. I'm not a baby, she told herself, sucking in air, holding it in her chest until it burned. I'm not going to cry.

Hesitating, Elara pulled her into an awkward hug, and Harriet took advantage of the moment to squeeze the other girl tight. Elara wasn't one for casual touching, usually, and Harriet had found that she very much liked hugs. "We'll figure it out," Elara said once she stepped back. "We'll get some sleep, and in the morning we'll know what to do. It'll be better in the morning." She nodded, and Harriet nodded in turn, though she didn't think she agreed with Elara's assessment. She did not think morning would make anything better. "Come on, you'll have to sleep in my room. I haven't tackled any of the others yet."

Harriet followed her from the kitchen, back into the inky dark of Grimmauld Place, and as they tromped up the stairs beneath the leering gaze of strange, stuffed heads, she couldn't help but think

this year might be even more complicated than the last.

A/N: I take some creative license in Grimmauld's design and layout.

bury your secrets

xlvii. bury your secrets

Severus was going to kill Harriet Potter.

Dawn sat heavy upon the horizon, thick and as yellow as Dumbledore's perduring lemon sherbets, the heat already seeping into the earth and into Severus' covered shoulders. The sleepless night and several rapid Apparitions across the isle left the Potions Master somewhat listless; he paused in his hike through the desolate wood to catch his breath, glaring at the sprig of evergreen tied together with Potter's hair floating at eye-level. It continued on, and Severus jerked his cloak out of the leaves, stomping forward.

If he found Potter before the Headmaster, she was going to wish she'd never been born.

The Locater Effigy was, technically, Dark magic—albeit Dark magic Dumbledore turned a blind- eye to if it meant finding Potter before somebody less savory did, though Severus imagined he'd be receiving a rather harsh and tedious lecture later that evening. Breaking and entering, threatening Muggles, performing Dark spells—Severus felt sixteen again, terrified of what the Headmaster would do after he'd gone too far and hexed James Potter's nose off the bastard's fat face. Once the urgency passed, Albus would think upon his punishment, and Severus knew it'd be decidedly unpleasant.

Hugging a Weasley, he thought, dredging up the most ridiculous situations he could to keep his mind busy. Becoming chapter president of a Longbottom fan club. Tea with Trelawney—oh, hell, I'd pitch myself off the Astronomy Tower first.

Dumbledore had more concerning issues to attend to at the moment than Severus' misdemeanors. When the Potions Master had barged into the older wizard's office at an ungodly hour when any sane man would've been fast asleep, he found the Headmaster awake and reading—and surprised to see Severus. That surprise twisted into shock, then anger, then fear as Severus relayed his false tip about Potter possibly being targeted by his past associates and his subsequent trip to Privet Drive. Upon hearing the blood-wards had failed, Dumbledore soared to one of his shelves and pulled forward a silver instrument gone silent, dark, and dusty.

A branch caught the hem of his cloak and Severus slid on the leaves, grunting. What is the brat doing out here? Bantiaumyrddin was fourteen kilometers to the west, but had the girl been there, the Effigy would have brought Severus to the village, not here, not to the middle of the bloody forest with nothing around aside from a Muggle town roughly six kilometers behind him. The Vow let him know she'd escaped danger and yet lived, otherwise Severus would think someone had murdered the girl and dumped her body out here.

Severus was well and truly fuming by the time he crested the rise and stepped into a clearing, prepared to drag Potter back to Hogwarts by the ear if he had to. Slytherin would, hopefully, be preoccupied with some nefarious, long-winded project bent on corrupting impressionable youths, else Severus would have to bring her somewhere else, possibly the old Dumbledore cottage in Godric's Hollow, or—Merlin forbid—Spinner's End.

A tent resided in the clearing's middle. The Locater Effigy lazily drifted closer and closer, until the Charm ceased and dropped onto the canvas with a slight plop. A tent, Severus thought. The girl

who survived the Dark Lord's Killing Curse not once, but twice, is living in a tent. Marvelous.

He brought his feet down hard on the ground, breaking leaves and twigs beneath his boots to announce his presence. The tent's flap fluttered in the warm air.

"Potter!" Severus shouted, cursing himself for a fool when his voice echoed, and he glanced about the empty woods. "Miss Potter, present yourself, now."

With no answer forthcoming, Severus kicked the flap aside, stepped into the expanded space beyond—and found himself staring at a dead man.

He would have known the wizard sprawled on the floor was dead by the smell alone and didn't need to see the blood pooled beneath his leg and backside, nor the ghastly, mottled pallor of his swollen face. Wand in hand, Severus took two cautious steps forward and checked the area, finding no sign of a wayward Slytherin girl. Her possessions lay scattered about the tent: books and used clothes, an open package of Every Flavor Beans, a glass cauldron filled to the brim with rare Mermaid's Tears—though he had no bloody idea where she'd gotten that. A Girding Potion sat off to the side, congealing in the open air, and Severus glanced down at the summer essay he'd assigned half-completed on the floor.

Frowning, he crouched and laid the backs of his fingers against the cauldron, gauging the iron's temperature. "Cold," he murmured, glancing at the dead man. She'd been gone for hours at the least, and Severus guessed the wizard was the cause of the Vow's reaction last night. He must have threatened Potter, and the girl's Horned Serpent took care of the rest. "And she walks around with it like it's a scarf, insolent little fool."

Severus straightened, crossed the space, and used his foot to angle the wizard's face toward the morning light. He didn't recognize the man, but the crest on the front pocket and the robes were clearly Ministry issue. The man's wand rested in his rigid hand, which further proved he'd threatened the girl, and she'd been so terrified—or simply scared stupid—she left behind everything she owned and ran. Not that she would've been able to take the tent; legal Expansion Charms wouldn't close upon human bodies, living or dead. In fact, they were specifically engineered not to so kidnappers and killers couldn't go about lugging people about in bloody coin purses. He couldn't quite picture Potter dragging a dead man outside without the use of her wand.

Severus pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.

Footsteps moving through the underbrush without discretion jerked his eye's toward the loose flap where. Severus quickly Disillusioned himself and stepped back into the shadows, confident the dead body on the floor would distract from any discerning shimmers left in the air. Moments later, the flap again open—ripped aside, hanging by a few loose filaments—and another wizard entered the tent.

He was initially dressed as a Muggle, but with a muttered incantation, his navy robes fell past his knees and the hat on his dark head disappeared. "Morgana's knickers," he cursed upon seeing the dead man, and with a suspicious glance over his shoulder, the man turned his profile toward the light. Severus froze. He froze because he recognized the wizard.

Cloyd Dogbane had never been much of a Death Eater—though, he had managed to impress the Dark Lord enough to be branded, which, contrary to popular belief, was not a simple feat to attain. Dogbane had flitted through the various Dark social spheres, too stupid to be a researcher like Severus, too impure to follow Lucius, and not fanatical enough for the likes of the Lestranges. In the wake of Voldemort's downfall, schisms formed between the ranks, the old guard chasing Slytherin, those with a lust for influence falling into Gaunt's camp, while the sycophantic stood by

their defeated Dark Lord—and mostly went to Azkaban.

Severus didn't think he'd ever spared a thought for Cloyd Dogbane, not even when he gave the man's name to Dumbledore a dozen years ago. It figured he became a low-level Ministry grunt.

Lifting his wand, Severus summoned forth his will and hissed, "Imperio."

Yellow mist seeped into Dogbane's ears, freezing the wizard, who slowly turned to face a Disillusioned Severus.

"Why are you here?" he asked in an undertone, and though Dogbane opened his mouth to answer, the Potions Master disregarded whatever drivel he'd been about to spill and peered into his eyes. Dogbane's mind proved just as scattered as Petunia's, if not more so, scarred by Dark magic and the man's own perverse ideologies, throwing Severus from image to image like one of those Muggle pinball machines. No concrete reason for being in the middle of Oxfordshire existed in his head, only brief flashes of a familiar, dreaded silhouette barking orders that Dogbane was not to question. Those orders had led him—and the lout on the floor—to the tent, but not because of the locale.

Severus sucked air through his teeth as he freed himself from Dogbane's pitiful brain and stared at the wizard's listless, blank eyes. The dread that'd been twisting his stomach for hours intensified. He resisted the urge to be sick and drew upon his Occlusion, shutting his unease behind water and ice, letting the edges blur in the murky undertow.

"Obliviate," he muttered, flicking his wand by Dogbane's temple. The spell took, erasing the past several minutes from the wizard's head, leaving his consciousness soft and malleable. "You discovered nothing in these woods. You could not find your compatriot and wonder if he's decided to leave the country and abandon the Ministry. Having no success in finding Harriet Potter, you have the unquestionable urge to return home and drink yourself insouciant. When you awaken, you will make your report to your master."

Severus took a step to the side and Dogbane swayed for an instant, then shook his head as the Imperius dissolved, leaving the man disoriented and compelled to do as ordered. Severus sneered as Dogbane turned and headed out of the tent. He remembered little of the man, but he did recall Dogbane's proclivity for drink; the best compulsions centered upon objects, events, and scenarios the cursed person in question found pleasurable. Dogbane gave the dead man and the tent little thought, so focused on getting pissed, he Apparated from one step to the next.

Severus waited. A minute passed, then another, and he exhaled, letting the Disillusionment fall, appearing once more—dark, disheveled, and exhausted—in Potter's tent. He considered what he'd seen in Dogbane's thoughts as he lifted his wand, silver light flooding the space as a watery Patronus took form. "Headmaster. The girl's been attacked and has fled, leaving…matters for me to attend. Gaunt sent out a pair of wizards to find her." Severus paused. "Someone has informed him of what occurred in June. He is…intrigued."

The Patronus bounded through the canvas wall, taking the colorless light with it. Again, Severus waited with his arms crossed and his back stiff, listening to the birds sing and the breeze whisper, until silver light again blossomed into being, and a radiant phoenix burst through the wall, the sight just as ostentatious and eye-searing as its caster. "I believe I know where she has gone," the phoenix echoed. "Return to the castle so we may proceed."

Muttering about demanding old men, Severus dismissed the Headmaster's summons and turned his attention instead to the wizard upon the floor. Pitiful. Defeated by a scared twelve-year-old and a snake. Wrinkling his nose against the smell, the Potions Master crouched and used his wand to

slice the wizard's left sleeve down to the elbow. Parting the fabric revealed the anticipated Dark Mark, glamored to be inconspicuous unless a person knew it was there.

How does Gaunt know about her? How does he know what happened last term? Who told him?

A silent mobilicorpus sent the body outside, Severus scouring the bloody stains left behind until the floor was somewhat clean, or would at least pass Ministry inspection. Spotting the trunk left at the foot of the bed, he opened it and performed a cursory search for the Invisibility Cloak, releasing a breath when he failed to turn anything up. Either the girl had hidden it well or she'd had enough sense to take it with her.

Another flick of the wand sent Potter's possessions soaring into the trunk before he sealed it, lock clattering home, the Girding Potion vanishing and her essay—with her bloody name on it, left at the scene of a murder for Merlin's sake—was tucked into Severus' pocket. He followed the trunk out of the tent, and once standing in the open wood again, collapsed the structure and shrunk both it and the trunk so he could swipe them off the forest floor and stuff them into a cloak pocket.

Severus found it indicative of his life's wretched state that he knew the proper spells for digging a grave and had practiced them enough over the years to be proficient. He exhumed six feet of earth and levered the Death Eater into the new hole, the body falling down with a heavy, dull thump, before Severus muttered an incantation and purple flames consumed the dead man.

The smokeless inferno writhed above the grave's edges, the color reflected in Severus' blank, tired stare as he watched, his mind roving far from that quiet clearing and the morning-clad forest. He'd buried, burned, dismembered, and destroyed more than one body at the behest of the Dark Lord— be it Voldemort or Slytherin—or Dumbledore. He'd killed as well, though not with the same frequency, and those faces still haunted his unsuspecting thoughts from time to time.

The Wizarding community as a whole mistakenly assumed Death Eaters came into the Dark Lord's service under the assumption of being racists, kidnappers, rapists, and murderers. Had that been true, the Dark Lord would have had very few followers indeed, aside from maybe Bellatrix, the mad bint. The Dark Lord appealed to a man, or woman's, desires, and like a compulsion, he found all that was malleable in a person's mind, in their very soul, until he created something useful to him. He preyed upon pure-blooded fear of Muggle incursion, on a savage man's need to dominate, on a scholar's wish to learn. The Dark Lord could twist even those with the purest of hearts into his pawns.

Not that Severus considered himself pure of heart. He snorted at the very idea as the fire simmered and began to disperse. No, even as an angry, idiot teenager, he'd not been naive enough to mistake the Dark Lord for a man of good intentions. However, if Severus had known poison research and Potions mastery would turn into disposing of the bodies of families ruined by the Dark Lord's more brutal servants, he liked to think he wouldn't have been fucking stupid enough to kneel at the bastard's feet. Reality rarely matched expectations, which Severus learned well when he found himself ankle-deep in human viscera, sicking up his own guts, a hair's breadth away from being tortured mad if he didn't stop "disappointing" his master. The Dark Lord had no patience for those who disappointed him.

Severus shook himself. Exhaustion plagued him, dredging up pointless memories, which he dismissed and drowned in Occlusion as he rubbed his dry eyes and poured dirt into the grave. The fire died beneath the earth and what dirt the body displaced swiftly dispersed, leaving an innocuous stretch of ground in the forest Severus covered with kicked leaves and twigs.

"Appare Vestigium," he said, and blotches of color came into view, highlighting the traces of magic and residual human presence—the very same residue the Locater Effigy had followed to the

clearing in the first place, drawn to the most potent resonance of Potter's being. Severus lifted his gaze and traced the footsteps leading from the site back toward the Muggle town. Potter had gone that way. At least he knew she wasn't lost in the countryside somewhere.

The Potions Master went about obliterating the traces, hiding the grave and clearing from both magical detection and mundane sight. When finished, he tucked his wand away and exhaled. I've buried bodies for Death Eaters, for the Order, and now for Harriet Potter, Severus thought. Merlin save Lily's daughter if it's not the last.

With a final step, the darkly clad wizard Disapparated. Nothing remained but a lingering smell of burning flesh, and even that disappeared into the rising wind.

A/N: just to be safe, there were two chapters updated, both xlvi. and xlvii. Make sure you read both!

a most sullen house-elf

xlviii. a most sullen house-elf

Harriet woke to the ugliest creature she had ever seen poking her in the face.

The strength of its miniature glower could've matched Professor Snape's, had the creature been more than three feet tall, stooped, and covered in sallow, sagging folds of flesh. It wore a pillowcase of all things, the hem tatty and impatiently stitched, nose bulbous and red while white hair sprung from its large ears in thick bushels.

"It's awake," it croaked.

Harriet flung herself backward, away from the creature, and slammed her head into a solid wood headboard. Stars burst before her eyes. "Ow!"

The lumpy, hunched thing grinned nastily at Harriet. "The blood-traitor's daughter is telling Kreacher to check on the half-blood."

"Who—?"

He—or Harriet thought it was a he, a goblin of some kind, maybe? A very rude goblin—hopped off the bed and landed on the floor with a solid thump. Below, Livi stirred the bed skirt and hissed with menace, causing the creature to round his eyes and back away, glaring at the scaled tail poking out from the fabric. He disappeared out the door, leaving it ajar, and Harriet flopped back onto the mattress.

Right. I'm at Elara's house, in her bedroom.

She stared at the ceiling for a long minute and didn't move, didn't do much of anything aside from breathe and let the memories from the night before float through her head like gross, mucky water. Harriet felt like she was drowning in that water, so she squeezed her eyes closed, then opened them wide, taking in such a sharp breath her chest ached. It's okay. I'm okay. It's okay.

Harriet studied the room, the funny posters mostly hidden behind tacked up parchment and the garish Gryffindor colors, Elara's trunk open at the bed's foot with its tidy contents open for inspection. Harriet thought of her own trunk and cursed herself for an idiot as she sat up, pushing the pads of her fingertips into her shut eyes until she saw stars. How could she leave the bloody trunk behind?

Livius slithered out the open door after the creature, his scales creating the softest rasping sound as his belly rubbed on the old floors, and Harriet hissed, "Don't go scaring people."

"Sss…."

Sighing, Harriet wriggled her way out from under the counterpane and fumbled for her glasses on the nightstand, knocking her wand off in the process. The stick clattered on the floor and Harriet, swearing under her breath, dropped to her knees to look beneath the bed, pushing aside the blanket Livi had made an impromptu nest from so she could snatch up her wand and strap it and her brace to her wrist. She wasn't going to forget it again.

She glanced at the blurred edge of her shadow, softened by the weak light, and whispered, "Set?"

No response came, which didn't surprise Harriet, really; Set chose when to make his presence known and not a moment beforehand—typically manifesting just long enough to save her life or throw said life into mayhem. She wished he'd stop throwing things at Parkinson, no matter how loathsome she could be at times.

Rising, Harriet shut the door and shuffled out of her borrowed nightgown, pulling on her clothes from the day prior even as she shuddered and grimaced when the weight of the old shirt settled on her scrawny shoulders. She'd almost forgotten about Kevin until he poked his head out from the pocket and hissed his irked defiance.

Harriet sidled out of the room and into the dark hall, peeking about the gloomy space with hesitation before following the thumps of movement to the next door down. Elara stood by the hearth inside, going through a crooked dresser with what looked like an old fireplace poker, dropping moth-eaten trousers and ancient shorts onto the floor while watching Livi from the corner of her eyes. She seemed vaguely wary—and Harriet guessed she should be, given that Livi killed a man last night.

Livi killed somebody. What will happen to him when they come for me? Will they kill Livi? Should I tell him to run away?

"Harriet? Are you all right?"

Harriet blinked and found Elara had turned from the dresser to study her, poker hanging uncertainly from a sooty hand. "Yeah," Harriet said. "I—." She cleared her throat, swallowed, and tried again. "Morning. What—what are you doing in here?"

"Oh." Elara looked at the poker as if she hadn't realized she was holding it. "Well, you'll need a room to sleep in, yes? I thought you might like this one next to mine, though there are others, if you prefer. No offense; you kick like a horse in your sleep."

Harriet couldn't help but snort. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine." Elara went back to poking through the drawer. "The house is, um, old? I told you this before. My relatives were—well, frankly, most of my relatives were mad, or close enough to mad. There's a fairly good chance someone's either left a nasty hex laying about and it's gone to seed, or they cursed their pants to chew off your fingers."

Harriet stared at the dresser in horror. Not a moment later, Elara found something solid inside the drawer and flipped it out from under the musty clothes, an old shoes landing on the floor with a heavy thump. The leather split from the sole and shaped itself into little teeth before the shoe came flying and snarling at Harriet, who leapt back, banging her shoulder into the door. "Ow!"

With a grunt, Elara swung the poker and stabbed the shoe, pinning it to the floor. It struggled, so Elara hit it again, and the shoe gave one last gasp before quieting. Elara prodded it a few times to make sure it was well and truly defeated before shoving it off into her discarded pile. "Biting Hex."

A thump and a squeal came from the window, and the two girls turned to see Livi partially ensconced in the writhing curtains, from which a cloud of miniature blue men with wings came screaming out of. Livi, unabashed, peeked from behind the fabric, tiny legs disappearing into his maw.

"Livi!" Harriet hissed, worried her snake had just evicted some kind of pet, but Elara only smirked.

"Maybe the Doxies will stop tearing the curtains to shreds now. The repellent they sell in Diagon Alley does not work."

Livi swallowed the Doxy whole and flicked his tongue in Harriet's direction, clearly dismissing her concerns.

Elara finished clearing out one drawer and moved onto the next, seeming in no particular hurry, both girls lost in their own thoughts as they best tried to approach the events from last night. "Why don't you use your wand?" Harriet blurted out.

"Pardon?"

"Your wand." She waved at the mess. "Malfoy was bangin' on about how stupid he thinks some families are to adhere to the 'no magic' thing in the summers because the Ministry can't tell if magic's cast in a magical home or something? This is a magical house, so can't you use magic?"

Comprehension dawned in Elara's expression, and she muttered a soft, "Ah," as she kept on with the poker. "That's a ward; Uncle Cygnus told me about it, and not every family has someone who can cast it or afford the wardsmith to make it. The Ministry's Trace is always active on wands, but in places like Diagon or Hogwarts or other public areas, they don't follow the spells. They can't really tell whose wand did what. If you were to walk into the heart of London and start casting, the Ministry would be notified because it's a Muggle area. Private dwellings can have the Untraceable Ward sealed on them, but the ward has to be keyed to an adult's wand, and well—." Here Elara shrugged. They were no adults at Grimmauld.

Harriet remained quiet for a time, stroking a finger over Kevin's head as the golem continued to pout in her pocket. "Who was that earlier that woke me up?"

"Woke you up?"

"Yeah, he—it? He?—came in and poked me in the face until I got up!"

"Poked you in the—?" Elara's confused questioning cut off with an abrupt scowl as she slammed the drawer shut. "Kreacher."

A loud crack heralded the sudden return of the wrinkled creature, and Harriet hit the door again, swearing when her elbow collided with the solid wood. The creature leered at Harriet before turning his attention to Elara, who glared down her straight nose and met the sullen imp glower for glower. "I said to check on her, not wake her, didn't I?"

The creature—Kreacher? If that wasn't an apt name, Harriet didn't know what was—tilted his head back and sneered, the folds on his wizened face quivering. "Kreacher was just checking. He had to check if it was still alive."

"Don't call her it."

Kreacher sniffed. "Whatever the blood-traitor's daughter wishes. Kreacher lives to serve the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black."

"I mean it, Kreacher!"

The imp sneered. "Of course, Mistress."

Harriet had never heard Elara swear, but she looked very close to doing so as her face flushed an angry red. "Clean this up," she said, pointing at the pile of discarded clothes.

"Of course, Mistress." Kreacher snapped his fingers, and the pile disappeared. "Does the blood- traitor's daughter or the half-breed need anything else?"

"No."

He tottered off after that, Harriet carefully maneuvering around him until she came to stand by Elara. The door slammed on its own with a loud bang!

"He makes me so furious," Elara muttered as she dropped the poker back onto the hearth's rack. Her hand was left sooty, and upon spying the mess, Elara's lip curled and she pulled out a handkerchief from her skirt pocket. "If I didn't think he'd quite literally murder me in my sleep, I'd give him clothes and be done with it."

"But didn't you just give him clothes…?"

"No. It's more an expression than anything, since you have to hand a house-elf clothes to free them. That's why Kreacher wears that grubby pillowcase."

"That was a house-elf?" Harriet had heard of them before—they came up in conversation often enough in Slytherin House—but she'd never seen one before.

"Yes. Probably the oldest and most sullen house-elf in all of Great Britain, really." She stopped wiping her hand and let out a frustrated sigh. "We should have breakfast. Come on…."

Elara led the way back into the hall and down the stairs, seeming to know the path well enough in the dimly lit passage, pausing only once to mutter about a covered portrait that Harriet didn't quite hear before they moved on. The kitchen was much as it had been earlier that very morning, the sconces coming on with reluctance, Harriet's Invisibility Cloak slung atop the shifted chairs. Elara fished out a box of tea from somewhere, and Harriet went about picking ingredients from the cupboard Charmed to stay cool.

They didn't say anything to one another until they were seated at the table, a plate of breakfast before each girl, Harriet's stomach still too tense to manage much else besides a bite or two toast. Finally, she plucked up the courage to break the silence. "What am I going to do, Elara?"

The older girl—usually so much more composed than Harriet—bit her lip and chased a bit of egg with her fork. "I'm not…not really sure. Like I said last night, I can write my solicitor. He can at least find out if the D.M.L.E has…issued a warrant? Though I wouldn't think they'd do that. I think they'd be more worried about your safety. Most likely."

The uncertainty in Elara's voice did little to spare Harriet's dwindling spirits. Her face paled considerably as she dropped bacon crumbles into her front pocket for Kevin's benefit. "Do they send little girls to prison in the magical world?"

"Don't be preposterous." Elara didn't quite meet her eyes as she went about making another cuppa. "What kind of society would put little girls in gaol?"

"The kind of societies that have blokes calling themselves Dark Lords who go about trying to kill babies?"

"You really shouldn't be so flippant about that, please." Elara stirred milk into her tea, and when she released the spoon, it continued to spiral in lazy circles. "What happened last night was self-

defense."

"But what about Livi?"

"Perhaps…perhaps you could say it was a wild snake?"

"Would anybody believe that?"

Elara shrugged as she stood up from the table and gathered their dishes, bringing the lot to the sink. "They have the burden of proof, just like in the Muggle justice system."

"The what?"

"They have to prove your snake killed him. They have to prove you own a snake—and given that no one knows you're a Parselmouth, they're not about to believe you've kept a Horned Serpent around."

"Remember what Snape said at Halloween, though? That if he ever heard me say anything as 'brain dead' as needing proof, he'd have me dissecting cauldrons or something for the next six years?"

"Yes, well, Snape's a—." Elara dropped a spoon and it clattered against the cast-iron sink. "Not a very nice man. However, we have to worry about the Ministry, not Snape at the moment, so I think it'd be best if I wrote to Mr. Piers. He can probably tell us what to do."

Harriet hummed her assent, glumly kicking her feet back and forth as she gazed into her empty cup and tried to make sense of the lumpy tea bits left behind. Elara was a good friend—maybe even a better friend than Harriet deserved, as she hadn't slammed the door in her face when Harriet showed up at an indecent hour trailing all sorts of nonsense. Harriet's own flesh and blood would've never treated her half as well. They didn't even give her a bedroom.

Crackling from the hearth drew Harriet's attention. The cinders of old wood resting in its belly shifted and sparked, sending up a plume of green embers. She hadn't seen Elara light it, though she guessed it could have been that—Kreacher fellow, sneaking about.

"Elara," Harriet asked aloud, frowning.

From her spot by the sink, Elara answered with a preoccupied, "Hmm?", her hands slick with soap.

"Why's your fire green? I've only seen that in Diagon Alley."

"What?" Elara turned off the water.

"I said, why's your fire green—."

Elara whirled around. "Harriet, get away from there—!"

The other witch's shouted warning came too late, for she hadn't finished speaking before the flames burst high and licked the mantel—issuing forth the black-clad figure of a familiar wizard stepping from the simmering coals. Harriet knocked her teacup off the table and it shattered on the floor.

Severus Snape straightened to his full height, and, with a dismissive look at the mess, sneered, "Potter."

Harriet gulped.

A/N: Sorry for the late update! Real life is murderous.

dumbledore's decision

xlix. dumbledore's decision

Harriet had no words. Her mouth moved, and yet she couldn't make a sound come out.

The Potions Master stepped fully from the hearth and his robes settled about his lanky frame, the grim man fitting well with Grimmauld's less than chipper decor. Harriet couldn't begin to guess what Professor Snape did over his summers, but it certainly wasn't sunbathing; he was paler than ever and exhausted, black smudges marring his eyelids, oily hair windblown and sporting a few bits of leaves. The expression he wore was caught somewhere between vindicated and furious— which did not bode well for Harriet.

In an instant, Elara came to her side, dripping suds and water from her wet sleeves, a spoon held in her hand instead of her wand. "How did you get through the Floo?" she demanded.

Snape didn't answer. He sneered and took two steps to the side. Harriet wondered what he was doing—and then the fire sputtered again, flaring bright green, and a second wizard stepped past the grate as they swept into the kitchen.

Headmaster Dumbledore made for a far more impressive, if less terrifying, figure than Professor Snape.

"Ah, Harriet. There you are," the older wizard said with gentle smile. "You gave us quite a fright, my dear."

Harriet continued to gawk like a gormless fool. Elara came to her senses first.

"Excuse me, H-Headmaster? But how did you—?" Elara gestured at the fireplace with her spoon, then dropped the wet utensil on the table, cheeks turning pink.

"Of course. Pardon our intrusion, Miss Black, and rest assured, your home's formidable wards are still perfectly intact. You see, we suspected Miss Potter might be here and, worried about her safety, I asked a favor of a dear friend and old pupil working in the Department of Magical Transportation at the Ministry." Dumbledore gave a mild shrug after his explanation—which Harriet took to mean he asked a former student to help him and Snape do a little secret breaking and entering through Elara's protected Floo. Harriet, shocked and still a touch hysterical from her eventful night, choked on a laugh.

Snape glared.

"Forgive me for saying, Headmaster," Snape spoke in his most oily tone, the one he always used before verbally eviscerating Longbottom's worst potions. "But I believe Misses Black and Potter can overlook our intrusion, considering a man is dead and Potter here might well be guilty of his murder."

Both Harriet and Elara gaped. How does he know?! "I—I didn't!" Harriet cried, all thoughts of claiming ignorance escaping her head like bubbles popping one by one. Standing in front of her headmaster and professor, Harriet felt very much like a criminal about to be charged with the most heinous of crimes.

"No, it was that snake you insist on strutting about with! Wrapped around your insolent little neck —!"

"Severus," Professor Dumbledore said, lifting a hand. Professor Snape cut off abruptly and lowered his head, dark hair falling forward around his stiff face. "I believe our dear Potions Master is simply concerned for you, Harriet—." Elara stifled a snort. "You see, when we learned of a threat made against your person, Professor Snape went to check on you at home. He was surprised to learn that, not only were you not there, but you hadn't been seen by your relatives since last summer."

All eyes fell upon Harriet and she felt her face heat, the disapproval clear in Dumbledore's voice. "So?" she retorted. "That's not—. It doesn't—. You said someone threatened me?"

The quick misdirection didn't fool either wizard, but the Headmaster was content to answer her. "Yes. Indirectly, really."

"It didn't feel indirectly when he tried to curse me!"

Dumbledore's eyes sharpened. "And were you cursed, Harriet? Are you hurt anywhere?"

She flushed a bit more, eyes dancing between the two wizards. "He—I think he used the same spell Quirrell did in the dungeons. A red one. It—it grazed my arm a bit and I felt breathless and… dazed."

The older wizard nodded his head as if he'd expected as much. "Your attacker used a Stunning Spell, if I am not mistaken. We don't teach the incantation until your fourth year at Hogwarts."

"What's going to happen to me now, Professor? Am I…am I in trouble?"

Headmaster Dumbledore sighed and glanced about Elara's drab kitchen. "I believe we should have a seat and share a nice cup of tea before we have our conversation. So long as Miss Black doesn't mind our imposition?"

"Harriet's not imposing," Elara said with the faintest trace of 'but you are' lingering in her tone. Harriet didn't have a sliver of the kind of nerve it must take to stare down her nose at Albus Dumbledore like Elara could. "She lives here."

"Does she now?" Snape cut in, watching her with a derisive eye. "As far as the school records are concerned, Potter lives at Number Four, Privet Drive, in Surrey—or was it a tent in the middle of the woods? Forgive me if I have things…confused."

"Severus, would you see to making that tea?" Dumbledore said, and even Harriet heard the reprimand in that softly voiced order. Snape narrowed his eyes, but he jerked his head in a short nod and swept past the girls deeper into the kitchen. Elara looked somewhat alarmed by the Potions Master's presence as he started rifling through her cabinets, yet she said nothing to stop him.

Dumbledore ushered Harriet over to one of the chairs and she sat, Dumbledore taking a spot across from her, Elara sliding into the seat at Harriet's side. Snape was still making the tea—like a Muggle, which Harriet thought was the weirdest thing she'd seen today.

"You're not in trouble, Harriet," the Headmaster began. "The matter has been taken care of already, and you won't be hearing an inquiry from the Ministry. I would, however, ask that you not speak of what happened with anyone outside of this room—though, I will amend that request to include Miss Granger as an allowable confidante." He smiled as Snape set a cup before him, thanking the

dour wizard. Snape gave Harriet a cup as well—dropped it, really, flecking the table with dark tea —and she ignored it. Ever since Quirrell dosed her cuppa, she hadn't much liked tea not prepared by herself or someone she trusted implicitly, like Elara. "If someone were to bring up the topic with you, please feign ignorance and find either myself or Professor Snape. Is that understood?"

Harriet nodded. Elara was looking at her own tea as if Snape had spat in it, and the Potions Master had neglected to take a seat, opting to stand behind Dumbledore like a looming bailiff waiting for the order to drag Harriet off to the dungeons. "Yes, professor."

"Good. I must also express some concern about your familiar." Noting Harriet's instant alarm and opened mouth, Dumbledore lifted his hand—much as he had with Snape some minutes prior—and she fell silent. "Your Horned Serpent isn't in trouble either, but in light of these events, I worry your familiar may pose a danger to you or your classmates."

"Livi would never," Harriet argued, though a queasy feeling had started building in her middle. "He—he was only protecting me!"

"And what would happen should he feel you were threatened by a fellow student? If you, perhaps, became frightened by misplaced bullying? Your familiar, clever and loyal as I am sure he is, is still an animal, Harriet. Animals are a wonderful source of companionship, but they are wild at heart and we must remember for our protection and theirs that they are not human and not capable of discerning what we think is right and what is wrong. That is not their natural state of being. In a moment of stress, your Livi would act to protect you the only way he understands how, and we would be unable to help his victim. I doubt you'd want a classmate dead over what might be a schoolyard feud, and I wouldn't wish such a burden upon you, my girl."

She slouched, tired eyes coming to rest on the table and the full cup sitting there. "What am I supposed to do?" Harriet asked in a quiet, defeated voice. She could find no fault in the Headmaster's logic; Livi often did what Livi wanted with little regard to Harriet's wishes, though they usually could come to some kind of concession. Picturing a scenario wherein she might be in a fight with another student proved difficult, and yet Harriet knew Livi wouldn't hesitate to bite someone attacking her, even if their assault ended up being benign.

"You will need to order him not to attack a student under any circumstance, and I will ask you to leave your familiar in your dormitory from now on. I'm certain we can arrange supervised time with Hagrid, our game keeper, so you and Livi may venture out onto the grounds for fresh air from time to time."

Harriet didn't like it, but Dumbledore could have given worse ultimatums. She simply nodded, still staring at her tea.

The Headmaster took a sip from his own cup before setting it down again with a soft clink. "Why did you not return to the Dursleys this summer?"

The bespectacled witch stiffened and jerked her head just high enough to look at Dumbledore's beard, but she didn't meet his eyes. Instead of answering, she said, "I won't go back." She wanted to sound strong and mature, like a young woman who knew her own mind and had a rational point to make—but Harriet just sounded like a frightened little girl. "I won't!"

"Now, Harriet—."

"I won't!" She stood, knees wobbly as a newborn colt's, face gone ghastly pale in the kitchen's wan lighting. She kept thinking about the cupboard of all things, and Harriet wasn't sure why; the Dursleys had been wretched for her entire life, giving her plenty of more unpleasant experiences to

draw upon, and yet the cupboard haunted her.

"She doesn't have to," Elara said, sounding far more sure of herself than Harriet did, though Harriet noticed how pale her friend had gone, her eyes not quite meeting the Headmaster's either. "She can stay here, if she wants. I'm technically Head of my family, so she can stay with me."

"Technically you're nothing, Black," Snape said. "By law, your father—." Here he gnashed his teeth and looked somewhat mutinous, though Harriet couldn't say why. "—remains Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, and you, merely the proxy."

"My father's going to rot in Azkaban for the rest of his life," Elara retorted. "So the 'proxy' bit hardly matters at all, does it? Sir? And I'm emancipated."

Dumbledore interrupted them. "While I applaud your initiative in securing your independence, Miss Black, your emancipation does not extend to Harriet."

"Can I get emancipated?" Harriet asked, perking up.

A resounding 'no' came from all three corners, and Harriet looked at her best friend as if she'd grievously betrayed her. Elara shifted in her chair and explained in an undertone, "What Cygnus did wasn't all strictly…legal. Or repeatable."

"Oh."

"Which brings us back to the main topic of conversation." Dumbledore leveled a serious look in Harriet's direction and she stiffened her spine, chin up. "Returning to the Dursleys."

Before Harriet could say anything, Snape bent forward far enough to mutter, "Headmaster," and Dumbledore turned to meet his Potions Master's open stare. They continued to look silently at one another for a good minute or so while Elara and Harriet watched and waited, both befuddled. What are they doing?

Finally, Dumbledore broke away, face harder than before, his thoughts inscrutable in that mysterious way of his.

"Don't make me go back," Harriet softly pleaded. She wouldn't stay if he did, and she didn't want to deceive the Headmaster, not like that, but she wouldn't stay with the Dursleys. "Please, Headmaster."

Dumbledore didn't respond. He gazed at the table instead and stroked fingers through his beard as he turned thoughts through his formidable brain. Snape fidgeted—actually fidgeted—behind the man, flicking leaves from his oily hair. "Miss Black," the older wizard said at last, raising his eyes to Elara's level. "How earnest you are in your hopes of housing Harriet here?"

"Very," she responded, though the surreptitious tugging of her sleeves gave away her nervousness.

The Headmaster let out a sigh, then nodded. "Usually, if one of our esteemed professors discovers a guardian is incapable of caring for their charge, we reach out to the Ministry's Department of Welfare, and they either seek a relative better suited for child care or find a family willing to accept a new ward. However, your case is not…usual, Harriet."

Her mind flashed back to the last time she'd sat in the Headmaster's office, Quirrell's body covered in a white sheet, her scar still burning and itching despite Madam Pomfrey's topical cream on her skin, Dumbledore sad and remorseful as he told her just what really happened that Hallowe'en almost eleven years ago.

"Because…because you think staying with Muggles, with the Dursleys, makes me safer."

"Yes," he replied, watching her. Harriet had yet to retake her seat. "Forgive me, my girl; I expressed my wishes to your aunt and uncle that night you lost your parents and asked them to raise you as their own, providing them a stipend and explaining you would, no matter their arguments, be coming to Hogwarts when you turned eleven. The fault for your treatment at Number Four lies with me; I should have checked on your situation myself, or sent someone in my confidence. For that, I apologize."

Harriet stared at her shoes and awkwardly shuffled. She wanted to be angry at Professor Dumbledore, wanted to be furious that he'd sent her to live with the Dursleys, but she couldn't muster the feeling. Maybe she'd be able to if he decided she had to go back there, especially if he knew what happened, but truly she reserved that kind of emotion for Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon. It was their fault, not Dumbledore's.

"Your mother's sacrifice placed very powerful wards upon your blood, so long as you could call a place of your mother's family home. It is very complicated and esoteric magic—and by that I mean it is really only ever understood by those who devote their lives to its study. We spoke of it before, briefly, but I digress; Voldemort and his compatriots may not be able to reach you so long as you remain with your aunt and uncle, but I cannot accept their treatment of you, and I cannot ask that you return to a place where you are not safe and cared for."

Harriet was so relieved she started to tremble and probably would have ended up flat on the floor if Elara hadn't tugged her back into her seat. No more Dursleys, she thought. No more cupboard.

Dumbledore suddenly smiled. "Besides, I don't want you to lie to me, Harriet, and I understand ordering you to return and stay with your relatives would force you to do so. I have found in my long acquaintance with Slytherins, that the very best way to ensure a Slytherin tells the truth is to ask of them only things they do not the feel the need to lie about."

Snape, who'd gone eerily silent while Dumbledore spoke, snorted.

"For your safety, Harriet, we cannot go to the Ministry and ask for them to find you a suitable home. It would be best if only a select few were aware of your situation and knew of your whereabouts. So, again, I turn my attention to you, Miss Black. You are very gracious in offering your home to Harriet and I am sure she is immensely grateful; however, Harriet—and you, my dear, regardless of your emancipation—are children, and I cannot in good conscience abandon you to your own devices."

Harriet and Elara exchanged uneasy glances.

"Harriet may stay here for the summer if you accept a few of my conditions. If you cannot accept, we will have to come up with another solution."

"Headmaster," Snape drawled. "Do you think appropriate for her to stay in…this house?"

Harriet didn't know what the man meant by that, though maybe Elara did, because her cheeks flushed with color and Dumbledore ignored Snape yet again. "I would ask that you allow for a guardian of my choosing to room here in order to protect and watch over you both. I would also ask that you allow for certain objects in your home to be rendered inert or removed; you may be surprised to learn I have visited Grimmauld Place in the past, and I've known some of your family to collect harmful Dark objects not suitable to a house with children in residence. I would promise that only trusted individuals would be allowed access to or given knowledge of your home."

Uncomfortable, Harriet fought the sudden urge to bite her nails or fidget with the cold teacup. He was asking too much of Elara—way too much, considering she'd already said Harriet could stay here, that she'd opened the door when Harriet showed up in the dead of night, nattering on about wizards out to get her—.

"Okay, sir," Elara said, cutting off Harriet's wayward thoughts. She actually looked a bit relieved, then Harriet remembered the biting shoes and decided Elara would be pleased to have someone with a usable wand who could take care of nonsense like that. "That'll be fine."

"Excellent." Dumbledore gently smacked the palm of his hand against the table instead of clapping in approval. "I do believe that is all we have to discuss at the present, unless you have any questions?"

Harriet and Elara shook their heads.

"Very well, then." The Headmaster rose and straightened his robes. He turned with deliberate effort to the face the Potions Master, who froze when Dumbledore's blue eyes fell upon him. "I do hope you enjoy your stay, Severus."

"What?!" the three of them exclaimed at once—though not as loudly as Snape, who looked very near having some sort of fit. "Really now, Albus—."

"I can think of no one better suited."

"Albus—."

Elara's expression made it seem as if she'd swallowed a whole lemon and Harriet wondered if they'd survive the month until the train came to take them back to school. Snape was going to murder them both.

"You deserve a holiday, my boy." The words should've been pleasant enough, but something in the Headmaster's tone and his gimlet eye brought the three of them up short, Snape pressing his mouth into a firm, furious line as Professor Dumbledore stared him down. Harriet didn't know what Snape had done, but she didn't fancy being in his shoes at the moment. "Enjoy it."

He stepped up to the Floo, took a pinch of silvery powder from the dish on the mantel, and tossed it into the grate. Dumbledore said, "I'll be in touch," as the flames rose as green as writhing Slytherin curtains, and he called out, "Hogwarts, Headmaster's office."

In a flash, Professor Dumbledore was gone.

dinner with a dungeon bat

l. dinner with a dungeon bat

The fire barely had an opportunity to settle before the two Slytherin girls realized Professor Dumbledore had abandoned them in the kitchen with a fuming Severus Snape.

Harriet glanced at Elara as the Potions Master continued to stare at the hearth, expression blank, though Harriet thought he'd gone paler than usual, the outrage seeming to billow outward from his body like a humid cloud. Elara didn't look nervous like Harriet did; she looked more annoyed, which Harriet guessed the other girl was entitled to. The headmaster had foisted an unwilling house guest onto her.

Snape spun around and both girls jolted in their chairs as if he'd thrown a curse at them. He dipped a hand into one of his many pockets, and Harriet thought they were going to be hexed for sure this time—and yet, Snape didn't pull out his wand. Rather, he held out a closed fist toward Harriet, and when she did little more than stare at him like a frightened bird ready to fly, Snape sighed.

"Don't just sit there like a brain-dead fool—take this, Potter."

Hesitating, Harriet extended her hand, palm up, and Snape opened his fist over it, letting something about the size of a matchbook drop into her grasp. "Oh, hey!" Harriet exclaimed. "It's my trunk —."

She had only a second to move out of the way when Snape flicked his fingers and the trunk returned to its proper size, slamming down on the table with an almighty bang. Harriet glowered as Snape smirked like he was proud of himself, though the look disappeared as swiftly as it'd come when he looked to Elara again.

Both Harriet and Elara gulped.

Snape pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger and mustered some measure of patience—or most likely tolerance—before he dipped his hand back into his pockets, retrieving a battered pocket watch. He considered the watch with a baleful glare, then flicked his wand toward the mantel. The carriage clock there, covered in cobwebs and decidedly older than Harriet great grandparents, suddenly appeared from under its grubby coat and began to tick once more.

"I will return at seven this evening, at which point a bedroom had better have been set aside for my usage, Black."

Elara just glared.

"You will stay in this house—not one toe outside of it—until I've returned. Rest assured, what patience I have has been utterly decimated by the Headmaster, and I've none to spare on you two dunderheads today."

"Err," Harriet asked, still somewhat dazed by the Headmaster's proclamation and the sudden, overwhelming relief of not having to return to the Dursleys. "Where are you going?"

Snape gave her an incredulous look and didn't bother to answer; rather, he walked straight to the

hearth, scooped up a handful of Floo Powder, and said an address in such a quiet undertone, neither Elara nor Harriet heard what he'd said. The man disappeared as Dumbledore had—though with considerably more furious cloak snapping.

The soot hadn't had a chance to settle before Elara whacked Harriet's arm. "Ow, hey—!"

"What are you thinking, asking the great bat where he's going? Who cares?" She let out an aggravated sigh and sank into her chair again. "Our Headmaster's crazy. Or well on his way to senile; can wizards go senile?"

Harriet shuffled closer to her friend and, uncertain of herself, touched Elara's shoulder. "I'm… sorry," she muttered, eyes on the floor. The Headmaster asked too much of Elara; it wasn't fair for the other girl to not only open her home to Harriet, but to bloody Snape as well—and whoever else Professor Dumbledore deemed necessary to come ferret through the Black family antiques. Harriet didn't like feeling like this; still scared, anxious, unsure if she'd inadvertently destroyed or irrevocably strained the first friendship she'd ever made.

Elara blinked and seemed to drag herself from her darkening mood, meeting Harriet's downcast eyes. "No," she said slowly. "No—I want you to stay here far more than I care about Snape or whatever rubbish the Headmaster thinks needs to be gotten rid of. Honestly, my grandmother cursed everything right down to the nails in the floorboards."

Harriet smiled and the tense mood in the stuffy kitchen lightened. The horrid night prior was catching up with her, all the running through the woods in the dead of the night, tossing and turning in an unfamiliar bed, causing the bespectacled witch to slump against the solid table and let her head drop onto the top of her trunk with a heavy thump.

My trunk.

"Bloody hell," Harriet said aloud.

"If Hermione were here, she'd scold you for saying that."

"Never mind that—my trunk, Elara! I left it in the tent with—you know!"

"And?"

"And Snape just handed it to me! Which means he—he was the one who—!" Found the dead wizard. In the middle of the woods. Merlin.

Neither girl knew what to say to that sentiment, and so, by mutual assent, they ignored it. "Let's take the trunk up before Kreacher tries to help. He's not, um, very helpful, really, when he's in a mood."

The trunk wasn't heavy, not when one took it properly by the handle and thus activated the Featherlight Charm on it. Harriet dragged it up to the third floor where her bedroom and dozing snake waited, first door on the right, with Elara's just past it, the landing and hall also holding a linen closet Elara warned her away from, a study the older girl had been concentrating her efforts on recently, a bath and another bedroom. Harriet glanced at the empty bedroom, then at Elara, brow raised in question.

Elara shook her head. "There's three more bedrooms upstairs and quarters in the attic. He can take one of those—or sleep with Kreacher in the boiler room. Whatever he'd prefer."

Harriet snorted, though a strain of guilt plucked at her middle; Dumbledore said "the matter" had

been "taken care of," but what did the Headmaster mean by that? If Snape had her trunk, did that mean he had to…to take care of it? The sudden image of Professor Snape digging a grave with a shovel like in the movies filled Harriet's head and struck her dumb for a moment—not because it was terribly difficult to imagine Snape of all people digging a grave, but because he was doing it to hide a body Harriet's familiar had killed.

The headmaster never did say who had threatened her.

"Harriet?"

"Hmm?"

"Will you help me with…something?"

Harriet was already nodding before she asked what Elara needed her to do. In answer, Elara turned heel and they marched back out of Harriet's dusty bedroom and down to the second floor, entering a dim, hushed library.

"Be careful," Elara said as she turned the switch for the gas lamps. "Cygnus told me those volumes there, on the higher shelf, are dangerous."

Considering everything from the furniture to the shoes seemed to be dangerous in the house, Harriet paid particular attention to the shelves Elara indicated and stayed well away. Whatever those books did, Harriet didn't want to know. "What're we doing in here?"

The taller witch stopped in front of the hearth and sharply rapped on the frame of a portrait depicting a distinguished, snoozing wizard with a pointy beard and sharp, slanted eyebrows. A thunderous snort escaped him as he woke.

"Er—?! What's this—?! Brats! Don't you know better than to leave a man to his rest?!"

"Where are the family grimoires?" Elara asked of the wizard, her voice level but brooking no argument.

The wizard narrowed his eyes. "Now why would you be looking for those?"

"Because Uncle Cygnus told me they were in here and that they've been in the family since before we were a family." Elara sounded testy even to Harriet's ears. Today was already proving trying to them both. "I need to move them."

"And why's that?"

While Elara bickered with the wizard—a Black ancestor apparently—Harriet studied the portrait and tried to puzzle out where she'd seen the man before. It must have been at Hogwarts, considering the castle contained hundreds upon hundreds of old portraits and moving paintings, and yet Harriet could've sworn….

"Are you—," she interrupted, blushing. "Aren't you a headmaster?"

The wizard's distinct brow rose. "I was indeed," he sniffed, nose in the air, doing a close impression of Malfoy. "Phineas Nigellus Black—the most hated Headmaster to ever grace Hogwarts." He seemed particularly proud of that achievement.

Elara tutted. "I guess we've established how Professor Dumbledore knew you were here, Harriet."

Professor Black huffed but didn't deny the claim.

"The Headmaster wants to have someone sweep the house for Dark objects; I mean to move the grimoires somewhere safe," Elara explained, a hint of color in her cheeks as she admitted the less than legal state of her family's old magic. "The rest I don't care about, considering it either tries to eat, bite, strangle, or stab anyone who touches it."

"Strangle—?!"

"The curtains in the trophy room are strongly hexed."

"You've a trophy room—?"

"As enlightening as this conversation is," Professor Black drawled, doing a damnable impression of Professor Snape at his silkiest. "You're boring me. The grimoires are kept on the next aisle over, in a black trunk. Or so they were the last I saw them. Do be careful, brat—and if you're looking for a place to hide them, may I recommend the safe in the first floor lavatory? It is warded against… curious eyes."

The pair of witches found the trunk in question, though it proved far too heavy for them to lift off the shelf, let alone carry down to the lower level. Elara summoned Kreacher and he helped them levitate the heavy, sealed trunk down the stairs—though twice he leered at Harriet and muttered something about dropping the box on her feet.

It took the better part of an hour pressing and pulling and tapping about the cramped, dingy loo for Elara to find the large panel safe hidden behind a glamored section of tiles. Inside, they discovered a cache of Galleons, several snoring portraits of dour Black ancestors, what looked like three petrified heads, and a glittering centipede preserved in a jar. The girls spent another twenty minutes devoted to hefting the trunk inside the vault, followed by much sweating on Harriet's part and a bout of wheezing from Elara.

They tromped upstairs afterward and made a trifling attempt to clean Harriet's new room, though both witches were tired after their eventful evening and thus spent much of their time chatting and poking about through various cupboards. They broke for lunch around midday, then spent the remainder of the afternoon on the fourth floor, in a filthy game room smelling of mold and dead things. They played chess on a board where the enchanted pieces screamed bloody murder as they died. Elara soundly beat Harriet twice before they couldn't stomach the racket anymore.

At half-past six, Harriet and Elara headed back downstairs, walking side by side down the dim-lit hall to the creaking stairs.

"Where do you think Snape went today?" Harriet asked.

"I would guess he went to argue more with the headmaster," Elara replied, mouth twisting in a repressed grimaced. "I doubt he was successful."

Snape was not, in fact, successful with any further negotiations. At precisely seven in the evening, the carriage clock chimed and a heavy knock struck the front door loud enough to be heard in the kitchen basement. Both witches shared spooked looks, not quite forgetting Harriet's escape from the woods and the wizards chasing her, and so Elara sent Kreacher to open the door and let Snape in—if it was indeed Snape standing out on the porch. The wizard came stalking into the room some minutes later, a decidedly unhappy look on his severe face.

"Potter, what are you doing?" he demanded once he spotted the short witch standing at the cooker,

and Harriet—leaning over the pot with her sleeves rolled back past her skinny elbows—eyed him with a puzzled look.

"Err—making supper? Sir?"

"Black, is there a reason you've set Potter to work instead of using your house-elf?"

Elara, setting out bowls on the table, frowned at Snape. "You can eat Kreacher's cooking if you want. I wouldn't recommend it," she said. When Snape narrowed his eyes, she swallowed and muttered, "Professor," before hastily setting out the spoons.

"And where am I to stay in this mouldering ruin?"

"There's, um, some bedrooms on the fourth level not in use. Sir."

Snape dropped into the chair at the head of the table and Elara nudged one of the bowls closer to him. When the Potions Master didn't react, she added a spoon and a cup to his setting and retreated into the kitchen.

"Unbearable grump," she muttered as she dropped a cutting board onto the counter and set in on slicing apart a loaf of bread. Harriet snorted, and both girls ducked their heads when Snape directed a sour glare in their direction.

Supper was finished soon, and while Elara set out the bread, Harriet brought the pot to the table and dished herself some stew. Elara served herself next, and then Snape, the three settling in to eat in awkward silence. Harriet had seen Snape eat in the Great Hall, of course, but she found it rather disconcerting to witness the event at such proximity. It was hard to think that any of her professors did boring, normal things like eat, or sleep, or exist anywhere outside the confines of Hogwarts.

The silence broke when Livius—smelling food—nudged open the basement door and came slithering into the room, startling Snape and Elara so badly the latter knocked over her water glass. Snape flicked his wand and cleared the mess before she could react.

"Sss..." the serpent hissed as he raised himself into Harriet's lap and proceeded to sniff her food. "What isss thisss?"

"My dinner," Harriet replied, dunking a heel of bread into the stew. Livi nosed the bowl hard enough to slop some onto the table and she cursed around a mouthful of food. "Hey!"

Livi snapped up a piece of meat and swallowed it whole. "Sss…don't likesss."

"Well, it wasn't meant for you!" Harriet growled, tugging on his horn, earning a miffed hiss in reply.

"Potter!"

Snape's exclamation brought Harriet's attention back to her tablemates. Elara was paler than usual, and Snape sat stiffly in his chair, knuckles white around his spoon, and Harriet guessed watching her tussle with a large, venomous snake was a bit off-putting.

"What?" she asked. "He's being a brat."

"Tell your pet to leave while we are eating."

Harriet sighed, wiping her mouth on her stretched out sleeve. "The professor wants you to go while

we're eating."

Livi seemed disinclined to do as told and said as much, prompting a quick, furtive argument between witch and snake that ended with said snake leaving in a huff, though not before trailing over Professor Snape's boots. He stiffened and scowled at Harriet until Livi disappeared. Several minutes passed before the man moved.

"Regardless of the headmaster's mandate, I haven't the time—nor the desire—to babysit you two miscreants for the remainder of the summer. He's arranged for various minders during the day, and I will be here in the evenings. If you wake me, you had best be dying or prepared to do so. Am I understood?"

"Yes, sir," the two witches grumbled in reply, though the question was certainly a rhetorical one.

"You are not to leave this house without Dumbledore's chosen babysitter."

Elara scowled and opened her mouth, then thought better of what she meant to say when she caught Snape's eye. Harriet slurped her stew and their combined wordless condemnation prompted her to set the bowl back on the table and blush, fidgeting with her spoon.

Seeming to not know what else to say, the Potions Master curled his lip and strode from the room, leaving his half-eaten meal behind. The door snapped closed at his heels and Elara let out a puff of air, slouching in her chair. Harriet resumed her own dining.

"I can't believe we have to spend the rest of the summer with him," Elara muttered, head in her hands. "God help us both."

Harriet slurped her stew.

slytherin games

li. slytherin games

Hermione stared at the grim rocaille on the ceiling and released a gusty sigh.

Despite the Charms inlaid into the parlor walls, August's heat still seeped inside and filled most of the residents with a warm, sleepy lassitude. She said most and not all because Draco, like the majority of twelve-year-old boys, was an endless turbine of potential energy even on the hottest and stuffiest of days, and when Greg and Vincent couldn't come over, the Malfoy scion had taken to following Hermione around and pestering the daylights out of her.

Hermione huffed. I don't know why he can't harass Jaime, she thought. If I could get away with hexing him, I would!

She lay with her back pressed against the unyielding metal balcony, her robes bundled up in an impromptu pillow behind her head, a thick volume on topical potions open and forgotten against her middle. Frankly, Hermione was bored of studying. She loved reading, but the Malfoy library leaned toward dubious, dry tomes, and spending almost every day ensconced in the Manor with her nose buried in a ponderous book got dull even for a girl like her. There were only so many pages on the viscosity of pureed webcaps and speculations on orellanin viability Hermione could read before her eyes started to glaze.

It was lovely outside, if hot. She would rather swallow her own tongue than admit to any Malfoy how beautiful she found their home, the lush grounds hemmed in yew hedges, the gardens bursting with wild, delicate flora from remote locales, the antique furnishings all crafted by hand or wand by Wizarding craftsmen or Malfoy ancestors. She stared at the railing quite near her face and marveled at how all the fine, intricate whorls had been formed and set by spells instead of by hammers and fire.

The balcony itself was part of the library, though it extended past the library confines and above the neighboring parlor—the Yellow Room, Hermione thought it was called, though most of the walls were paneled in old, oiled oak with only small stretches of visible bricks painted pale chartreuse here and there. The Malfoys only occasionally visited the library itself as far as Hermione knew, and she'd never seen anyone aside from herself utilize the upper balcony. It made for an excellent, if boring, place to hide.

Hermione wrapped her arms around the book and huffed again. She'd had no letters from Elara or Harriet, not that she was terribly surprised by this, not when she could barely write to them herself, or to her own parents. She missed her mum and dad a great deal, and yet Hermione wished to speak with her friends more than with her family, veritably bursting with magical curiosity as she was, a curiosity her parents wouldn't—couldn't—understand.

Voices drifted in the distance. Hermione dozed, thinking about mushrooms and home, a Slytherin green dorm room beneath a lake and the cool common room lit by silver lanterns—until the voices drew nearer and Hermione shook off the daze just as the door into the Yellow Room popped open.

"—Draco, of course, is looking forward to Potions next year. He was tutored by Lucius as a boy, you know—and he speaks highly of your management style in the classroom."

"I imagine he's more enthralled by the idea of joining the Quidditch team than he is by my curriculum, Narcissa," a familiar baritone drawled. Stiffening, Hermione rolled onto her side and peeked into the parlor below, watching as Mrs. Malfoy—draped in summery, robin's egg blue robes—came sauntering in, followed by the ominous presence of Professor Snape.

What is he doing here?

"Can I interest you in something to drink?" Mrs. Malfoy asked as she sank into one of the armchairs and Snape sat on the opposing sofa, not bothering to remove his outer robes. Must not be here for long, then. "Tea? Or perhaps something stronger?"

"Tea would be adequate."

Mrs. Malfoy simpered and called for Dobby, ordering the nervous house-elf to deliver a tea service. He did so, and Draco's mother used two delicate swishes of her wand to pour the Potions Master's drink and levitate the cup into his long-fingered hands. Snape pressed the rim to his lips, but Hermione could tell from her vantage that he didn't drink anything.

"It's been too long since your last visit, Severus. I suppose the old fool keeps you busy throughout the holidays."

"Exceedingly so," the professor replied, setting his cup and saucer down upon the coffee table. "When other…individuals aren't demanding my attention."

The subtlest of ticks touched Mrs. Malfoy's face and she upturned her nose. "Indeed." She sipped tea with practiced grace. "One has to wonder whose business brought you to our door today."

"Allow me to be plain and allay your fears; I am here to ask you for a personal favor, Narcissa."

Hermione shifted, rustling slightly, and Snape's vaguely avian profile twitched in her direction, the sunlight coming through the window playing over his face, deepening those strange scars surrounding his left eye and brow. He moved again, ducking from the light, and Hermione held her breath until the wizard resumed faux-drinking his tea.

"A favor?" Mrs. Malfoy asked, her mouth tipping into a very smug grin. "Well now I am intrigued."

"A favor for your family, I should specify."

"For the family?" The witch quirked a brow and drank her tea, little finger extended with perfect ease. "How charitable. Are you certain you're not here for Lucius?"

"No, I'm certain Lucius' attentions are best spent…elsewhere."

Hermione frowned in thought as she peered down at the two Slytherin alumni, watching as they traded seemingly innocuous comments, all the while circling a point of conversation Hermione hadn't yet grasped. If Snape meant to ask for a favor for the Malfoys—a concept that confused the young witch in its redundancy—wouldn't he want to speak with Draco's father? But what was it he had said? 'A favor for your family.' That could mean the Malfoys, certainly, and yet it could mean something else entirely; after all, Narcissa had not been born a Malfoy.

Mrs. Malfoy set down her own cup on the coffee table. "Oh?"

"How often do you brush off your copy of Etiquette and Artifice?" Professor Snape folded his hands together and leaned forward.

"Often enough, I should say. Darling boy, my Draco, but Lucius lets him run wild—." She paused and considered the wizard. "Why do you ask?"

"I have been charged with two wards, so to speak. Scions of old families." He smirked when Mrs. Malfoy's interest visibly piqued. "As I've not the time nor the inclination to play nursemaid, other…minders have been arranged by invested parties. I simply mean to make certain at least one such individual is outside a certain purview and more amenable to a Slytherin mindset."

Hermione's brain whirred as quickly as Mrs. Malfoy's, the two people in the parlor falling into a stilted silence as the Malfoy matriarch turned over the Potions Master's words and Hermione did the same.

"And this would be a…favor for my family?"

"Indeed."

Black! The name pinged off the inside of Hermione's skull and she nearly gasped aloud. Of course! Draco's mother is a Black by blood, making them her family! If Professor Snape is talking about a pure-blood scion in the Black family, he must mean Elara. But why ever would he be minding her? And who is the second person he mentioned?

Mrs. Malfoy crossed her legs with an elegant flutter of silk and leaned into her chair, seemingly at ease in her own parlor, playing Slytherin word games like the conversation was little more than an afternoon jaunt on the lawn. "How very interesting. Poor boy, this hardly seems a favor."

"The favor would be asking you not to inform Lucius," he scoffed. "And to bring that bloody book."

Mrs. Malfoy laughed. "You must exaggerate, dear Severus. I've met the girl, you know, and she isn't so wickedly terrible."

"You've not met the other."

Who is he talking about? Hermione growled in frustration. Who besides Elara? A pure-blood heir —but wait! You're an idiot, Hermione Granger! He said old families, not pure-bloods! Is he talking about Harriet, then? Is Harriet with Elara? If they were speaking of that stuffy book on wizarding etiquette Mrs. Malfoy tutored her and Draco out of, then Professor Snape must mean Harriet. Hermione let out a silent sigh at the thought of the younger girl's table manners—all elbows and unwieldy knife action. Her relatives are horrid people.

"Hmm. Perhaps I will consider the arrangement."

Hermione rolled her eyes. Rubbish. It wasn't really a favor at all; Professor Snape was asking Mrs. Malfoy to mind Elara and Harriet like she minded Hermione and Draco, which would give the Malfoy matriarch influence over the current Black proxy, even if only a smidgen, though Hermione had serious doubts if Elara would allow even that much. The Malfoys were not a family who overlooked what clout they were afforded in any magical affairs, and Mrs. Malfoy wasn't going to pass up this opportunity, not when it could later reflect poorly on the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, and thus reflect poorly on Narcissa as well.

There were always layers upon layers to the interactions of Slytherins.

Her hands itched with the need to write a letter to her friends. What was happening out there in the wider world? Hermione hated feeling so stifled, kept isolated and ignorant, while events transpired beyond the manor walls. Something significant must have occurred if Professor Snape was

minding Harriet; had the Headmaster removed her from her relatives? If he had, then why had she been placed in Snape's care? Or, as she assumed, thrown into the man's hands and promptly shuffled into someone else's? Was Harriet staying with Elara? Were they in danger? Would she be foisted off into a pure-blood family for mentorship like Hermione?

No, the bushy-haired girl surmised. That's why the professor doesn't want Lucius to know. He doesn't want word trickling down to the Ministry, and the Headmaster won't want Harriet foisted into potentially dangerous hands.

"I'll have to consult my schedule. I'm terribly busy, especially in the summers, with Draco home— and I do mean to keep him close during the holidays. I wish Hogwarts would allow students to come home during the weekends. Surely you could slip a word to that old fool—?"

Mrs. Malfoy paused mid-word and gazed into the middle distance, snapping back to herself just as swiftly as she had drifted off, hand pausing above her drink. "Lucius is home." Hermione grimaced and guessed Draco's mum must have felt the wards shifting from her back to the head of the household. "I'll go and gather him. It really has been too long since your last visit, Severus. Lucius will be glad to see you."

She rose and disappeared with the sharp click of heels, and Hermione laid still on the upper balcony, watching the Potions Master's countenance slide from snide superiority to a tired grimace, then to nothing at all, his expression like opaque glass she could see nothing through. I should leave, Hermione decided as she nibbled on her lip. Before Mr. Malfoy shows up. Heaven help me if he catches me eavesdropping….

Another glance into the parlor showed that the dark wizard had vanished without a sound, which shouldn't have surprised Hermione, given how Professor Snape glided through Hogwarts' corridors like a sure-footed cat harrying his prey, yet did so all the same. Swallowing, she made up her mind and quickly rolled onto her knees, yanking her wrinkled robes on over her arms before plucking the heavy book up from the balcony floor. Hermione made her way through the open portal between the walls and hustled into the library proper, letting out a small breath of relief as she reached the iron ladder and started down.

I probably won't get to hear what happened until September, Hermione groused as she held onto the railing with her free hand and clasped the book under her arm with the other. It's not as if I could write and ask, even if I could send a letter. That'd be terribly irresponsible and, well, stupid of me if I went about probing into Elara's business and brought it to Malfoy's attention. I hope Harriet's all right. What could have possibly happened to have her removed from her family? Why would Snape risk Mrs. Malfoy telling her husband just to have her watch them?

Hermione hopped off the last step. She turned—and let out a breathless shriek when she found herself standing before the looming Potions Master.

"Oh, you—you scared me, Professor!" she said, blood draining from her face. Why was he in the library? When had he gotten there?

He smirked, the same half-crooked simper he delivered right before verbally eviscerating a misbehaving student in his classroom and Hermione felt her blood run cold. "Did you hear anything…interesting, Miss Granger?"

"I-interesting, sir?"

"Yes, interesting, girl. Do you hear anything you might…think to repeat?"

Hermione clutched the thick tome to her chest like a shield and shook her head. "N-no, Professor. I —I was just studying. I fell asleep in the rows. Didn't hear anything at all."

The wizard wasn't convinced of the lie, of course, but he did give a single, affirming jerk of his chin before he swept back under the mezzanine and to the parlor's closed door. Hermione didn't move until he disappeared from sight, and a moment later she could hear the faint drone of Lucius Malfoy's unctuous voice greeting the man.

She made good on her escape while she could and all but ran from the room.

the tree that flourishes

lii. the tree that flourishes

It took Elara a long time to fall asleep the first night Snape stayed in Grimmauld Place.

Though the wizard taught at her school, he was—for all intents and purposes—a stranger, a silent, sharp-tongued intruder whom Elara had threatened only weeks before, a stranger who now had unfettered access to her home. She didn't sleep well in proximity to strangers, those first few weeks at Hogwarts made less difficult by the presence of other similarly aged girls, but ever since the orphanage, ever since they came for her in the dead of night and dragged her from her bed, Elara had been a light sleeper. She stared at the ceiling every time the floorboards overhead creaked and didn't nod off until well after midnight.

As such, her mood was less than pleasant at breakfast, where she and Harriet ate food prepared by a Hogwarts house-elf named Rikkety, who'd been deputized by Snape to bring their meals from the castle. They saw no sign of the Potions Master that morning, and once the dishes were cleared and their familiars fed, they found themselves waiting restlessly by the Floo for their first minder to step through.

Said minder didn't so much as step through the Floo as come barreling out and collide with Harriet, collapsing into a heap of soot, swears, and bent elbows.

"Oh, shite! I'm so sorry!" the pink-haired witch cried as she leapt to her feet and dragged Harriet upright, nearly dropping the dazed girl again in the process of smacking ash from her robes. "I really did think I had it that time, but I must've turned at the last minute. Figures, I'm dead clumsy —but there you are! Good as new!"

Elara stared at the witch—Nymphadora, her second cousin, who hated being called Nymphadora— and right at her heels the fire blazed green again, admitting the familiar figure of Nymphadora's pretty mum, Andromeda.

"Hello again," the older woman greeted, entering the room with far more aplomb than her daughter. "It's nice to see you well, Elara."

Elara answered her with a tight-lipped nod, suspicious of Andromeda's presence, and wondered if the Headmaster had an alternative motive for asking her here. She introduced Harriet, and was again introduced to Nymphadora— "Tonks!"—before they migrated to the living room on the second floor.

Tonks proved as clumsy as promised, and Elara was surprised to learn that, as unlikely as it seemed, she was a promising new recruit in the Aurory. "I spend most of my time shadowing a mad bugger named Alastor Moody," she explained as they poked about through the ruined furniture. "Told him I had a family emergency today, so he let me off."

"He's going to be displeased if he finds out you lied to him, Dora," Andromeda said from her spot on her conjured chair.

"You'd get tired of him too, mum, if he kept shouting 'CONSTANT VIGILANCE!' at you through the loo door."

Harriet laughed outright and Elara smirked, settling farther into her spot on the dusty sofa by Andromeda. Tonks was invaluable in picking out what was and wasn't cursed in the room while her mum set the furniture back to rights, the witch proficient in the kind of household magic neither Elara or Harriet had seen at Hogwarts yet. It probably isn't taught there, she mused. It's probably something passed on from mother to daughter through the generations.

She felt a small pang of loss at that thought.

Elara watched as Andromeda drew her wand over old wood and torn cushions, returning luster and tying together loose threads as dust lifted into the air and vanished out of sight. Bit by bit, the room emerged from its own ruin; the afternoon wore on and the strange witches who'd invaded her home returned Elara's living space to something of its former glory. To be sure, the defunct wallpaper needed to be stripped, the floors refinished, and the antique chairs reupholstered, but she could see something livable in it now.

A tapestry of the Black family hung on the wall near the hearth, larger than any single tapestry really had the right to be, moth-eaten at the edges and riddled with charred holes, like someone had taken a cigarette to certain branches and burned them off. Andromeda came to stand before it, and when she shooed Tonks and Harriet from the room to see about lunch, Elara stood next to her, since the witch's ploy to get the others out of the room wasn't lost on her.

"Aunt Walburga was overly dramatic for most of her life," Andromeda sniffed, dark eyes flickering over the ruined tree. "She was fanatical about family, right up until they disappointed her. She took it upon herself to 'prune' certain people and keep our House…pure." Andromeda pointed her wand at one mark, whispered a spell and twisted her wrist, pulling back like a tailor threading a needle. Before their eyes, the burned edges spun new fibers, coming together until the name 'Andromeda Gallatea Black-Tonks' came into view. She spun her wand again, and two new branches crept from the scroll bearing her moniker, one for her husband and one for her Metamorphmagus daughter.

Andromeda turned to Elara, a soft, sad smile on her winsome face, and Elara blinked, unsure of what to make of her regard. "Muggles have an expression about being able to choose your friends, but not your relatives."

"I know," Elara replied. "I was raised with Muggles."

"Were you?"

"Yes." She said nothing more on the subject.

Andromeda nodded once, then corrected another flaw on the tapestry, revealing 'Marius Cygnus Black' between Pollux and Dorea Black. From Dorea spilled another cluster, expanding the tapestry, the tree growing and twisting like a living thing, making way for Charlus Potter, then Fleamont and Euphemia, James and Lily, and finally 'Harriet Dorea Potter.'

Elara brushed her fingertips over the name and if Andromeda noticed, she said nothing. She regrew other sections and the tapestry flourished, the whole of it shifting until one burned hole came to the center, to the head of the tree, and Andromeda returned Sirius Black's name, added Marlene McKinnon, and then Elara's own.

I wonder if everyone in the Black family knows how to do this. Do they have their own tapestries at home?

"Did you move the grimoires?"

Elara started, eyes wide as she faced the woman. "Excuse me?"

"You moved the family grimoires, did you not?" When Elara didn't reply, Andromeda nodded. "Good. I would recommend taking them to Gringotts. Dora or myself can accompany you, if you wish."

"…why?" Elara asked, confused. Dumbledore had said he wanted to remove or neutralize anything dangerous in the house, which would definitely include the grimoires. Why would Andromeda offer to help hide them? "Didn't Professor Dumbledore ask you get to rid of things like those?"

"Professor Dumbledore asked me to help watch over you and Harriet, with the warning that you were quite resentful of needing adult supervision because of your emancipation." Andromeda chuckled when Elara glared. "The Headmaster himself is a half-blood, but he understands something of pure-blood eccentricity and the nature of our…histories. The family may have descended into bigotry and madness, but it needn't stay there; you are the Head of the House of Black now, Elara, and under your direction it will either flourish and thrive in the new millennium, or it will die. That said, growing does not mean forgetting one's roots or destroying your beginning, and Albus understands that."

Andromeda reached out to tuck wayward strands of hair behind Elara's ear and brush dust from her cheek. Elara bore the touch, though she knew Andromeda must sense her hesitancy.

"I may have been disowned when I married a Muggle-born, but Ted is…gone now, because of the Minister's laws. The Blacks are my family, for all that I wished I could sometimes choose my relatives differently. I believe the Headmaster asked for me to watch over you and little Harriet because while he cannot condone our old magics, not in the presence of impressionable children, he doesn't wish to strip your identity from you—or from Harriet, who doesn't have any family left now, aside from you."

Andromeda twirled her wand, whispering the proper incantation, and the tree moved once more to bring the Potter branch of the family nearer her own, both Elara and Harriet nearer the top, like the fresh, new growth of a real tree, full of potential to bring the branches higher still, or break and splinter with rot.

"I'm not an official member of Albus'…group, but I have been informed something of Harriet's past and the hardships she faces. There's a lot of weight on her shoulders, and there's also a lot of weight on yours. The Blacks are the oldest magical family in the kingdom, and people will look to you to model how pure-blood families are meant to carry themselves in the coming years. It's a burden I ran away from, because while I love my husband and my sisters, I was also eager to marry outside the family and distance myself from the politics. You don't have that option. You will have to be strong, for your own good, for Harriet's, and for the rest of us as well."

Elara swallowed, lowered her eyes, and nodded. Strong. Elara didn't know if she was strong so much as determined, and that determination had gotten her away from St. Giles', had returned her to the House of Black, had seen her through Cygnus' death and her first year at Hogwarts. It had steadied her through the revelation that her father was a madman who'd betrayed her best friend's mum and dad, a man who'd made Harriet a target of the Darkest wizard alive.

She hoped it would see her through more trials yet.

Andromeda touched her again, a light pat on the shoulder, before she turned away. "I'll just go check on those two and make sure Dora hasn't broken what's left of the china."

Andromeda left, and Elara remained behind, lost deep in thought as she studied the restored Black

tapestry and considered the witch's words.

when opportunity knocks

liii. when opportunity knocks

The following days set a precedence for what Harriet and Elara expected for the rest of their summer. In the morning, they woke to a warm breakfast served by Rikkety, a house-elf whom Kreacher hated on principle and whom also doted on Harriet with a worried, frantic energy neither witch could properly guess the source of. After breakfast, they cleared their dishes, then waited to see who would be stepping through the Floo.

On the second day, they met Emmeline Vance, a stately looking Ravenclaw in her mid-fifties with an emerald shawl draped over her shoulders, and rather than staying in the house to clean, the witch snuck them out to watch a professional Quidditch game at the hidden arena in the Northumberland forests. Harriet didn't think Elara had much interest in Quidditch at all, but Harriet was enthralled, watching the players soar like hawks overhead, cheering on the Warwick Warriors against the Appleby Arrows for the sport of it.

Professor McGonagall came through the Floo on the third day, which made Harriet and Elara both uneasy at first. While the Transfiguration professor wasn't partisan like Professor Snape, she was more distantly polite with Slytherins than she was with other Houses, and the severe witch herself didn't seem to know what to make of them when she entered Grimmauld Place. Harriet doubted she'd ever been asked to babysit Slytherins before.

She thawed over the day's course, finding an easy camaraderie with Elara, who excelled in Transfiguration and had dozens upon dozens of questions about Animagi, while Harriet, with her general lack of off-putting Slytherin guile, earned softer affection from the stern professor. Harriet wondered if McGonagall had liked her parents, both Gryffindors, and if that residual fondness made it easier for her to like Harriet, too. Sometimes the bespectacled witch remembered the Hat had almost placed her in the House of Lions, and sometimes she wondered how her life would have turned out if it had.

They got Snape on the fourth day—or, rather, Snape was in the house on the fourth day, clearing out the potions lab in the basement, the one connected to the kitchen through the scorched, battered door, and he told them to leave him be unless they were poisoned, bleeding, on fire, or otherwise incapacitated. So, Harriet and Elara played chess and poked about the library, looking for tomes Elara might wish to hide away or anything Hermione would be interested in reading. Harriet found a book of jinxes she wished she could try on Pansy or Longbottom.

The fifth day saw them out in the magically enlarged yard with genial Professor Sprout, tackling the wild and—frankly—lethal foliage that had grown unchecked over the decades, the stone fountain choked with algae, the shed consumed by crawlers, the greenhouse bursting with the kinds of plants one needed a machete to tame. True to form, Elara killed half of what she touched, and Professor Sprout set her to pulling weeds, tutting all the while.

Headmaster Dumbledore came the next day and didn't stay for the entirety of the afternoon, only through lunch. Elara muttered about him probably wanting to comb through the house himself, but the venerated wizard expressed little interest in exploring and instead returned the kitchen to its pristine state with a flourish of his wand, inviting both girls to sit down for tea. He inquired after their time at Grimmauld and questioned Harriet further about the Dursleys, which she answered begrudgingly, and about the woods, the memory of which still terrified her. He asked to meet Livi,

and on the way upstairs to find the irascible serpent, the portrait of Elara's grandmother started screaming filth at the Headmaster when they passed her landing. Elara flushed a brilliant shade of crimson, but Dumbledore simply shrugged and conjured a pair curtains over her frame.

On the seventh day, both witches woke and tromped down the stairs together, wondering who they might meet or see today.

"D'you think it'll be another professor?" Harriet asked as they sat at the table and Rikkety came bobbing out of the kitchen, bowls of porridge and fresh fruit balanced on her head. They took their meals with quiet "thank you"s, which sent Rikkety into delighted squeals that didn't taper off until she disappeared.

"I would assume they're too busy to watch us," Elara replied after swallowing the first bite. "Term will begin in just a few weeks, and they need to prepare just like we do."

"Maybe Madam Vance will come back." Harriet perked up, remembering the match and the general excitement of being among so many other witches and wizards. "She was nice."

Elara smirked. "You just want to watch more Quidditch."

Grumbling, Harriet spooned porridge into her mouth, though she didn't deny the claim. She'd also be pleased if Andromeda and Tonks came back, since she thought stories from Tonks' job at the Ministry were exciting. "As long as it's not Snape again. It's not our fault that old cauldron attacked him. He knows most everything's bloody cursed in the house." Said cauldron left a livid welt on the man's jaw when the iron lid apparently flung itself at him like a discus. Snape had been absolutely foul throughout dinner.

"It might be Dumbledore again."

"Really? I thought he'd be more busy than anyone else."

"No one has touched the library yet. I know he wants to; where else would you find Dark magic if not in books about Dark magic?"

"You mean like that little green book with the snake on it that you hide in your journal? The one with the Ignis Monstrum spell in it?"

Elara glared. "Don't tell anyone about that."

"I'm not going to," Harriet replied as she raised her hands in surrender. "But seriously, that spells looks like it could burn down the bloody house."

"We're not allowed to do magic. You know that."

"Doesn't stop it from being dangerous, though."

Whatever comment Elara had in response to that would have to wait, because Kreacher came stumping into the kitchen with a bewildered raven tucked under his arm. He let go of the rumpled black bird and it soared over to Harriet, both witches staring mutely at the strange creature as it stuck out a leg and hopped closer.

"Harriet Potter," it croaked.

"It talked!" Harriet exclaimed, almost upending her breakfast when she jumped in her chair.

"Ravens are capable of mimicking speech," Elara informed her. For a second, she reminded Harriet of Hermione. "You can speak to snakes, but you're shocked by this?"

"Oh, ha ha," Harriet told her. She noticed the scrap of parchment attached to the raven's leg, and once she pulled it loose, the parchment resized itself into a proper letter and a thin, worn book. The raven vanished in a sudden puff of smoke. "…you're not going to tell me ravens can disappear into thin air on a whim, are you?"

"No, I can't say I am." Elara frowned at the letter in Harriet's hands. "I've never seen a raven deliver post."

"Me neither."

"Perhaps you should wait to open it—?"

Harriet pried the seal free, raising an eyebrow at Elara's miffed expression. "You said there's half a dozen wards on the house screening what gets sent here."

"Yes. Screening owls. Not ravens that are obviously Charmed or cursed or hexed to vanish when they've finished their deliveries."

Harriet hummed in acknowledgment as she peeled back the missive's top flap and began to read.

Chère Mlle. Potter,

I found myself surprised, yet delighted, to receive your letter this summer. The incident that occurred in regards to a certain object of my possession was an unfortunate event, and I cannot accept your apologies for its loss. I have been made aware of the particulars concerning the attempted theft, and must instead extend my own earnest regrets for what harm you came to whilst my possession was kept at Poudlard. Your defense of its acquisition is admirable, and I am humbled by the concern you have extended on my behalf. You need not worry for myself, or my Perenelle. All will be well.

Albus tells me you are a witch with a particular talent for Defense. Please, accept my apologies and the book I have enclosed with this letter. It proved invaluable to me in my boyhood, so many years ago.

Respectueusement,

Nicholas Flamel

Gran. Sorc., Prix de Flamel; Première Classe, Alch. Ma., Def. Ma.

"It's from Mr. Flamel," Harriet said, turning the book over so she could study the wrinkled spine.

"Nicholas Flamel?"

"Mhm." Harriet extended her arm across the table and handed the letter over. "I asked Professor

Dumbledore if I could write to him so I could apologize about the Stone, and though the headmaster said I didn't need to, I still sent him a letter at the end of term."

"And it took him this long to get back to you?"

Harriet shrugged. "I didn't think he'd reply at all. When you're six hundred something years old, I bet you move a bit slower, right?"

Shaking her head, Elara perused the missive from Flamel while Harriet opened the book and carefully pulled apart the papery vellum. "Un Guide…Sur la Connaissance des…Ténèbres. It's in French!" Harriet despaired, flipping through a few more pages, finding them all written in the same flowery, foreign language.

Elara wrinkled her nose in thought. "It's a 'Guide on….' Something. 'Understanding the Dark?' Maybe? I think."

"I didn't know you knew French."

"I don't. 'Ténèbres' is a common enough word in the old library books that I looked it up, and 'Connaissance' has a Latin root."

"You know Latin?!"

"Yes. I had to learn it at—. At the place I was, before. Professor McGonagall told us learning the basic forms becomes mandatory this year in Transfiguration. Latin really is imperative to understanding spells."

"God, you sound like Hermione," Harriet groused, slumping her shoulders as she set aside the book so she could concentrate on her breakfast. She felt more than a little stupid; the Nicholas Flamel had sent her a nice letter and a book—but she couldn't read it.

Elara considered the younger witch as she carefully refolded the letter and handed it back. "Hermione knows French," she said slowly. "She'd be delighted to translate it with you."

Glum, Harriet tucked the letter away and shoved a spoonful of porridge into her mouth. Elara was right, of course. Hermione would love to translate an old book that used to belong to Nicholas Flamel, but that didn't stop Harriet from thinking herself helpless and a bit dimwitted. Both Elara and Hermione had helped her study last term to achieve her good marks, and Harriet wished she was more capable on her own.

The Floo flared green, putting an end to her pitying thoughts.

"Two Galleons says it's someone new," Harriet muttered as she pushed her chair back and stood.

"I'm not betting, Harriet."

"Aw, you're no fun."

The fire rose, a sudden gasp of flames transposing from one Floo to the other, and suddenly a slender, unfamiliar witch in bespoke robes appeared before their hearth.

Elara jumped to her feet. "Absolutely not!" she said, brows furrowed. "I did not agree to—!"

"Do not be tiresome," the witch tutted in a posh tone Harriet had come to expect from pure-bloods and their children. "I've been told you're to accept any minder you're assigned, and Severus has

asked me here as a favor. My time is limited, and you will be on your best behavior."

Elara stiffened, color flaring in her pale cheeks. "I won't go back with you."

"I have not asked you to, impertinent child," the woman snapped. Confused, Harriet looked between the two and almost jumped when the witch rounded on her. The woman was tall and fair, her blond hair light as could be and perfectly coiffed, emeralds dangling on silver clasps from her lobes, gray eyes hard and calculating. Studying the elegant woman, Harriet thought she looked quite like—.

"Malfoy," she sputtered, causing the woman's eyes to narrow farther. "I, um, mean you're Mrs. Malfoy, right? You look like your son."

"Yes, quite." She proffered one dainty hand and Harriet, utterly at a loss for what else to do, took it in her own and shook with the woman. "I am Narcissa Malfoy, and I have been asked to teach you and Miss Black—." She cut a look to a still fuming Elara. "—etiquette. You are?"

"H-Harriet Potter, ma'am."

"Potter?" She lifted a perfectly groomed brow, though her face remained otherwise passive. "Oh, Severus is always so careful with his wording…very well. Miss Potter, is this how you dress to greet guests?"

Harriet glanced down at herself, taking in the rumpled school shirt and skirt, having dressed in them today after finding she had little else clean in her trunk. One sleeve was rolled to the elbow, the other left flat and unbuttoned, a bit of porridge on the sleeve, her hair its usual tangle of uncombed locks. "…yes?"

That was not the answer Narcissa Malfoy apparently wanted, and only two flicks of her wand later, Harriet's shirt was tucked in, buttoned correctly, and her wild hair tightly bound in a single plait. "Ow, hey—!"

"Sit down, Miss Potter."

Harriet didn't wish to sit down but she did so anyway, because pissing off a woman who referred to Professor Snape by his first name would only bring the unholy terror of a furious Potions Master down upon their poor heads. Obeying didn't mean Harriet didn't sulk, however.

"I don't need etiquette lessons," Elara snapped, arms crossed over her middle. "I don't want them."

"Don't want them? What a silly thing to say, Miss Black." Mrs. Malfoy smiled and it almost looked genuine. "I'm assured you need the lessons, as your greeting shows a distinct lack of manners, and I had come to expect better of you, cousin. As for wanting, what is the alternative? You don't want to know Wizarding etiquette? You would rather you—and Miss Potter, by default —both remained unsophisticated apes posing as the Heads of old families?" She lowered herself into one of the empty chair with considerable grace, crossing one leg over the other, soothing the skirt of her silk robes. "A good Slytherin knows to take advantage of the opportunities presented to them. Surely my father taught you that."

The muscles in Elara's jaw jumped, and Harriet thought she'd argue with Draco's mum, tell her to bugger off and get them in heaps of trouble with Snape—but then Elara reluctantly nodded and directed her sullen stare at the table as she sank into her own seat.

Again, Mrs. Malfoy smiled, all her teeth perfectly white and straight, her eyes the same gray as Elara's. "Wonderful. I do so love the chance to spend time with family. Now, for your first

lesson…."

A/N: I haven't seen the new FB film, which I'm told has Nicholas Flamel in it? I have my own characterization of him in my head that probably won't mesh with the film. That's more important later on. "Prix de Flamel; Première Classe" is my approximation of a French Order of Merlin, and then "Alch. Ma.," for Alchemy Master, "Def. Ma.," for Defense Master.

on the devil's shoulder

liv. on the devil's shoulder

Hogwarts' empty halls echoed with a yearning, desperate silence that reflected Severus' every breath and every step with exacting mimicry.

Severus himself yearned for the silence ten months out of every year, more than grateful for what simple measure of peace he could find in the time between the dunderheads' departure and his looming responsibilities. Hogwarts, in contrast, was barren and empty, longing for the return of her children in the fall, and when he brushed his fingertips against the stone wall, he could feel the sentience of a thousand years of magic saturation rippling under his touch, rising, trickling into his palm and mind.

Because Severus, to his chagrin, was very much still a child to a castle older than Merlin himself.

He stood for a time in the shadows between the sunlit cloister windows and drew strength from the castle and the quiet, his dark eyes closed, his thoughts and emotions and memories shifting in the black, frozen depths of his Occluded mind. He sunk some memories deeper into the morass and lifted others, some limned in ice and hoarfrost, decoys to the quiet recesses where dangerous recollections buried themselves deep. Only when the ice extended to the shores of his consciousness did he open his eyes again.

Severus would pay a price for the Occlusion later; all or nothing, Albus had said when he first taught his budding spy how to Occlude and read minds. One cannot simply shift and displace their mental landscape without exacerbating cause and effect; suppressing natural emotion only served to deepen it later, like a Muggle pressure cooker, worsening his predisposition for being a bastard. When his shields thawed, he'd more surly and short-tempered than ever, and Potter and Black would most likely suffer the consequences of his mood at dinner. He could theoretically Occlude through the evening, but should his mind not find equilibrium before sleep, the nightmares would come again.

Severus wagered the brats would rather deal with his usual vitriol than his night terrors bringing down the house.

Rolling his shoulders back, the Potions Master departed the castle's warmth and delved into the dungeons below.

Slytherin wasn't hard to find; he mostly kept to the House from which he'd stolen his namesake, and when the students were gone, he frequented the subterranean common room and sprawled in the same winged armchair by the main hearth, a glass of elf wine in hand, his eyes fixed on the painting of a rowan tree hung above the mantel.

Though the man's time as a student had been far before Severus' own, the Potions Master needed little effort to imagine the wizard had been exactly as he was now; recumbent in that unofficial throne ceded to the most feared or respected Slytherin, the best seat in the house, as it were, near the warmest fire with the rest of the common room in sight, a position of power in the petty struggles of adolescence. Severus, of course, never sat there—nor did he care to.

"My lord," Severus drawled as he entered the room and came to stand in the periphery of

Slytherin's vision. The other wizard waved him forward.

"Severus," he acknowledged. "Take a seat, won't you."

The Potions Master did as ordered, pulling his robes to one side with a practiced motion as he lowered himself onto one of the accompanying sofas. He studied the other wizard, jaw tight against recriminating thoughts, thinking that Slytherin was not so far removed in looks from the Dark Lord Severus had knelt to all those years ago. Slytherin was, after all, the same man, a clone of some kind, a homunculus perhaps—undoubtedly a creature of Dark magic, but essentially still Tom Riddle and maybe more Tom Riddle than Voldemort had been at the end. If such a thing were possible.

Time and hard-won wisdom had stripped the veneer and glamour from Severus' eyes; where he once saw pride, he saw only arrogance. Where he once saw power and prestige, he saw a well- dressed squatter, a malicious swindler, a liar, a thief. Neither Severus nor the Headmaster could roust the bastard from the castle, so he was an unequivocally powerful liar, but a liar all the same— a blight, a very slow poison taking root and rotting the magical world at its heart. The pernicious corruption of impressionable youths would be their destruction one day.

What a fucking moron he'd been to ever proffer his arm for Riddle's mark.

Slytherin said nothing for several minutes, content to take his time and finish his idle perusal of the painting and make the Potions Master wait. "Pleasant summer, Severus?"

"Yes, my lord. Busy, as well. The old man ensures I have little idle time on my hands."

"You know what they say about idle hands and the devil." Slytherin grinned and swirled his wine. Severus didn't tell him that expression was a Muggle euphemism. "He's just trying to keep you honest and on the path of righteous virtue, 'my dear boy.'" He laughed outright.

The corners of Severus' mouth quirked and he folded his hands together between his knees, the picture of relaxed and negligent, all thoughts of sneering and snapping and spitting at Slytherin kept well-hidden from the man and from himself. "Indeed. He did, however, happen to send me on a very…interesting errand the other day."

"Did he, now?"

"Yes, my lord." Severus drew his thumb over his knuckles, a calculated, thoughtful motion. "Forgive my impertinence, but I must ask if I've trodden on one of your many plans and haven't been informed."

Slytherin's expression sharpened. "Explain."

"The Headmaster sent me along to…clean up after a conflict between Gaunt's men and Harriet Potter's guardian." Not technically a lie, if one were to consider the chit's Horned Serpent in such a capacity. Of course, Severus wasn't about to tell Slytherin the girl was vulnerable, and it wasn't like Dogbane had the opportunity to report back on her whereabouts, thus eliminating the chance Slytherin had learned of her circumstances through a Ministry mole.

Slytherin set the wine glass down and leaned forward ever so slightly, and though he said nothing, his attention honed in on Severus like a snake spotting a juicy rat.

"It seems the Minister was curious to learn what had transpired with the girl in June."

The other wizard rose and stood over Severus, red eyes glinting. "And you believe I was foolish

enough to impart this information to Gaunt?" He sneered the name with particular venom.

"It is not my place to believe anything as such, my lord. It is your information to do with as you will; I simply wish to know if I should be suppressing knowledge of the event, or if I have been remiss in knowing your wishes regarding the matter." The Potions Master's smooth, unctuous tone never wavered even as the skin about his eyes tightened in increments.

Slytherin bore his teeth and the wine glass sailed into the hearth without him touching it, shattering, the painted snake entwined in the rowan hissing in irritation. "Of course I want the information suppressed, you fool!" The wizard began to pace between the armchair and the glass- strewn hearth, making no sound but for his snarling and the swish of rippling cloth. "I did not want the girl brought to his attention anymore than it has been, let alone the Minister's. I seek to secure the girl's potential for the Knights—sssomeone seeks to play us. Someone dares share my secrets with Gaunt!"

It was as Severus expected, then. He knew Slytherin would "seek to secure" any of his House for the Knights of Walpurgis—his chosen name for his Death Eaters—so his specific attention on Harriet wasn't shocking, especially not after the scene they discovered in Albus' office. He hadn't been certain, however, whether Slytherin had fed information to his Dark Lord counterpart for some heretofore unknown and undoubtedly dastardly plan, or if the man had a leak in his network of sympathizers and confidantes.

It seemed Slytherin had been betrayed.

"An unfortunate, but ultimately worthless event for a traitor to play his hand on, my lord," Severus murmured, watching Slytherin round on him with murder in his red eyes, the Potions Master modulating his every word. "Quirrell's own incompetence and weakened state led to his demise. I would not lay any claims of prodigal ability at Potter's feet; she simply benefited from pure dumb luck."

The bastard was listening to him now, focused instead of idly hearing Severus, and so the younger wizard pressed his advantage, taking care not to lay undue suspicion. "A useful tool, to be sure, but not more so than her year mates. The traitor has extended his reach for fool's gold."

Slytherin smiled then, all sharp teeth and no guile, and though Severus didn't know if the wizard believed him about Potter's supposed worthlessness, he had successfully redirected his attention— for now. Slytherin had intimated far too much interest in Potter after June; whatever happened in that office, whatever new secret Albus was trying to bury, whatever had made the Headmaster pale and morosely reflective, Severus did not want bloody Slytherin privy to.

Not for the first time, he wished the girl had gone to a different House. Severus didn't know how to keep her from Slytherin's clutches. He didn't know if he could.

The Dark wizard sat in his chair again, a veritable king in his throne—one who didn't need a crown to remind a man he could grind him into so much dust beneath his heel. "Leave me," Slytherin ordered, and Severus didn't hesitate, standing from the couch and bowing his head before he strode from the room.

He didn't breathe again until he reached his own quarters.

X

The migraine pulsed white-hot behind his left eye, wreathing itself like Devil's Snare about his brain, and Severus could only press the side of the cool vial to his temple and mutter invectives under his breath until the potion kicked in. The bitterness of willow extract on his tongue matched his mood, and he swallowed it, shoving away all thoughts of Slytherin and traitors, unwilling to brood more upon the potentially dangerous situation.

If one suspects their boat has sprung a leak, they will search for the breach. Upon finding and fixing that leak, the very first thing a wise person would do is check for another.

In this droll metaphor, Severus was the second leak—much finer, much harder to find, but he didn't need some bloody idiot hemorrhaging information to bring Slytherin's discerning eye down upon him as well. The harsh truth of having a double-agent was knowing that agent fed information, however selective, to your enemies, and then deciding at what point that agent crosses the line between obedience and dissension. Severus came perilously close to the line again and again over the years. Slytherin's last warning to him had been losing his eye. There would be no second warning.

He tucked the vial into his robe pocket and crossed the room to the Floo, throwing in a pinch of silver powder. It was very nearly seven in the evening. Severus spoke the address and the pass phrase Albus had lifted from the poor blighter in the Department of Magical Transportation, then stepped through the whirling fire to the kitchen of Grimmauld Place.

The smell of Earl Grey overcame the choking soot, and Severus looked around to find Minerva seated at the table with a cuppa, staring into the milky liquid with a distant eyes.

"Are you their minder for the day?" he sneered, flicking the last bit of ash from his robes. The older witch lifted her head and arched a brow.

"Good evening, Severus," she said, ignoring his jibe, gesturing to the chair across from her. A brush of magic jerked it away from the table. "Tea?"

He considered declining with his usual aspersive snark, but in the end simply grunted and dropped into the seat, accepting a conjured cup and pouring himself a serving from the kettle. The two professors drank in silence, the oppressive quiet of the house coming to rest on their shoulders until Severus could little stand the resulting stillness. "So…how did the old fool guilt you into watching brats during your holiday?"

Minerva snorted and sipped her tea. "They're well behaved girls, quiet and studious—hardly brats," she commented, smirking. "Neither came out very much like their fathers, did they?"

"You mean arrogant, destructive, or deranged? No, I can't say they did. But there's still time for those symptoms to present themselves."

She tutted and lifted her gaze, letting it rove past Severus to the china hutch bearing ancestral plates, to the ancient kitchen and its aged cupboards. Someone had spelled the room clean and returned vigor to the furnishings, but it remained dimly lit, old-fashioned, and touched by the Dark. "I can see why Sirius turned out as he did, being raised in this place. Sometimes, no matter how we try, it's impossible to escape our roots."

Severus didn't want to talk about Sirius fucking Black. He didn't want to think about his own roots —about Tobias Snape and the back-end of Cokeworth, because if a privileged prat like rich, pretty boy Sirius couldn't escape his fate, then Severus had no chance at all. He tightened his grip on the

teacup.

"I told Albus it's not right to keep the children here, even said I would house them at Elphinstone's old cottage in Hogsmeade, but the protections are sound and Miss Black is intractable."

You mean pig-headed and irritating. Severus wondered where Black had grown up, since it obviously hadn't been here. Potter once commented on Black's great-uncle, whom Severus knew for certain from Narcissa had enclosed himself in this wretched place after falling out with his remaining daughter, and so Black couldn't have been with Cygnus. Not for long, at any rate.

"An orphanage."

Blinking, Severus realized he'd spoken aloud—and Minerva had answered. "Pardon?"

"An Muggle orphanage in Wiltshire," she explained, lips pursed with her signature displeasure. "I checked the Book after Albus…." Pausing, Minerva seemed to struggle for the right word, a flush of anger in her cheeks, the Scottish brogue curling the edges of her voice. "After Albus told me about the Dursleys and asked for my assistance. I'm sure you know, but the letters that go out to incoming and ongoing students in the summer are automated by the Book and the Quill through a regiment of Protean Charms mimicking the first letter I write and the year's requirements set by the Board, and though I oversee that every letter goes out, I haven't the time to check and verify all the addresses."

"Perhaps you should make the time," Severus retorted with a measure of censure and anger, Petunia's memories rising like bile from the pit of his mind.

Minerva shot him a look, and yet didn't defend herself. "Yes. Perhaps I should. Miss Potter's address, as you've already learned, was listed for The Cupboard Under the Stairs. Miss Black's was listed as St. Giles' Institute in Wiltshire."

"And this didn't necessitate a visit from a representative?"

"No. She's a pure-blood; both her parents are magical, and the Quill noted her down as such. The same with Miss Potter. Only Muggle-borns are indicated as needing a representative from the school to deliver their missive—and to inform them of Gaunt's bleeding MPA law."

"The letter system is flawed." He made no mention of the MPA, as stating the obvious irritated him.

"Yes," Minerva acceded. "And I will be watching it more carefully from now on, though you know as well as I do that abuse in Wizarding households isn't at all common, and I can't very well go and strip the Quill or the Book of their Charms because they've made mistakes, no matter how wrong. The Board would have my head." She sipped her tea, frowning. "She wrote to me over the summer —Miss Black, that is. She was very careful with what she said, and while some of her questions struck me as odd coming from a pure-blood, her rhetoric…I assumed her guardian was coaching her to be more precocious and curious. I never suspected she'd been raised in a Muggle environment. She's very clever, Severus."

"Did Miss Potter write to you as well?"

"No. Why?"

The Potions Master glowered at his cup and tried to make sense of this mess. How in the hell did the girl reach Diagon Alley? Who told her? Who took her there? If Black was clever, then Potter was cunning, because for all that she seemed an affable, if odd, girl, Potter trusted little and played

her secrets close to the chest. "Never mind."

"Och, you sound like Albus when you do that."

"That's not a compliment." Severus set aside his empty cup. "Next you'll be expecting me to proffer a bowl of lemon candies. Maybe keep a tin of peppermints on my desk for the children?"

Minerva chuckled and poured herself another serving, doctoring the cup to her liking. "I don't think the students would eat anything you handed them, Severus."

He sneered. "Good."

The cat just rolled her eyes and moved the conversation onto other topics. "Speaking of letters," she said. "I've handed Miss Black and Miss Potter their school lists this morning. They'll be in need of a trip to Diagon."

"I assume, knowing Albus, I'll have the dubious honor of ensuring they get there."

"Most likely, yes. You are the closest thing we have to a real Head of Slytherin, and the girls are Slytherins, after all."

"Joy."

A prickling sensation began in his right wrist, creeping through the skin of his palm, and by the time Black came barging into the room, Severus had already regained his feet. "Professor—!" Black paused when she saw the Potions Master but she nonetheless continued, wringing her gloved hands. "Er—there's a chair in the parlor trying to eat Harriet."

Severus swept past the witch and climbed the stairs, hearing the thumps and muffled swearing echoing into the main corridor as he crossed below the leering elf heads and approached the front parlor. A chair had, indeed, made a go of devouring the bespectacled witch, seeming to have thrown her back into its cushions like a duck swallowing its meal whole, the seat raised to pin her in place. The girl's reading material had dropped on the floor when she'd attempted to sit, and her small fists balled and struck the furled arms while the chair growled.

Severus stared at the scene before him.

"Bloody, stupid, fucking—!"

"Miss Potter!" Minerva had come up behind the Potions Master and now clutched at her chest. "Where on earth did you hear such language?!"

By now the girl was more than a little red in the face, straining to yank her weight out of the ravenous seat, and Severus thought she may well started cursing at Minerva if no one assisted her. 'Well behaved' indeed.

Severus slashed his wand and the chair fell to pieces. Potter hit the floor with a loud, indignant thump.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, the Potions Master turned and strode back into the hall. Summer could not end swiftly enough.

A/N: "The Knights of Walpurgis" was Rowling's original name for the Death Eaters, based off of "Walpurgis Night," a Christian holiday wherein bonfires are lit to ward away evil spirits and witches.

alley brawlers

lv. alley brawlers

Harriet took a bite of blueberry ice cream and sighed.

Summer seemed heavier in the Alley than in the rest of London, burning hot and implacable, laying sticky perspiration on the back of Harriet's neck, melting her frozen confection almost faster than she could eat it. Diagon was crowded with witches and wizards getting school supplies for their kids or taking advantage of the summer's end sales, milling from the North to South ends, spilling out of Gringotts with varying disgruntled faces. She saw Professor Selwyn walking with boxes under his arm and Professor Sinistra swanned by holding half of a telescope like it was her first-born child. She thought Longbottom made an appearance, but it was difficult to see in the crush of bodies.

Harriet could little believe that she'd only known she was a witch for a year. Livi shifted under her shirt and Harriet patted his side.

"We still need our books from Flourish and Blotts, and Harriet needs more clothes from Madam Malkin's or Twilfitt's," Elara said aloud as she studiously checked her list, legs crossed at the ankles below her chair, a soft pink flush on her fair skin from the sun. She looked much too warm in Harriet's opinion, but she wore the same long-sleeved dress and gloves she always did, the buttons on the collar done all the way to the top. "I need to visit Madam Malkin's as well."

"Alright," Tonks replied, a dab of pistachio ice cream on her chin, her hair electric blue and eye- catching. "Malkin's is up by Flourish and Blotts, so we should probably wander down to Twilfitt's on the South end, then come back up."

"Harriet needs to visit Weeoanwhisker's on Horizont for a haircut."

"Harriet is sitting right here," the girl in question groused. "And I don't need a haircut."

"It'd be best to do it before term starts," Elara argued. "Or you'll have to have Madam Pomfrey do it and she's not fussed with making it look nice."

"As long as we're back to meet Snape at the Apothecary on time," Tonks said, leaning her chair on its back legs. "I don't much fancy making the bat wait."

Elara wrinkled her nose as she folded her list and placed it inside her robe pocket. Harriet wondered how she could stand all that black. "Is he honestly going to spend the whole day there?"

"He said something about doing the school account," Harriet put in, finishing off her ice cream. Yeah, he said that in between all the mutterings about meddling old fools and babysitting. They'd left that morning with Tonks and Professor Snape, the latter peeling off the second they'd arrived to go to Slug and Jiggers, saying he'd be there if needed and they should meet him at the store when ready to leave—which, incidentally, was no later than three. He also told Harriet and Elara that if they wandered off, he'd make sure they spent all of next summer locked inside Grimmauld Place.

Harriet grimaced at the thought.

"Alright, you lot!" Tonks said as she jumped to her feet and nearly trod on a bloke trying to reach his own table. "Finished with your lunch, yeah? Got all your packages still?"

Both girls obediently patted their pockets to ensure their shrunken parcels were still stashed inside.

"Good! On to Twilfitt's, then. And maybe we'll pop into Gambol and Japes right quick, love their Wet-Start fireworks…."

The trio of witches left the patio outside Florean Fortescue's and entered the fray, Tonks and Elara easily parting the way with their taller stature and Tonks' loping gait. Harriet, in contrast, found herself getting trod on more often than not and had difficulty keeping up. Somebody dropped a crate with a fire-breathing chicken inside and caused a mild panic.

"Excuse me, I need to—." She squeezed by a witch carrying a heavy cauldron and craned her neck in an attempt to see more than thighs and backsides. A flash of electric blue caught Harriet's eye and she headed after it, trapped behind a broad wizard and his darkly clad witch, neither inclined to jostle about and let Harriet through. The bespectacled girl let out an aggravated breath and contented herself with following the crowd in the direction Tonks had gone. Behind her, a bloke in maroon robes came stomping out of the crowd to yell at the man who'd been carrying the chicken crate.

"Sss…." Livi stirred beneath Harriet's loose shirt and laid his angular head on her collarbone, creating an odd lump she hoped no one looked at too closely. "Hungry."

"You have to wait," she hissed in reply, lifting her collar over her mouth. "I told you it'd probably be better to stay at the house with Kevin. Kreacher would've fed you."

"Muttering elf-creature isss annoying," the serpent grumped. "And Misstresss isss warm."

"So you've said before." Harriet sighed and gently poked his nose until he lowered it into a less obvious position. "I'll try to get you a snack before we go back."

The pair in front of Harriet finally turned away. Harriet lifted her head to get her bearings and—.

Stopped. She blinked once, twice, opened her mouth, and shut it again. She didn't know where she was.

Spinning in a tight circle, Harriet looked at the narrow, grubby brick walls and searched for a familiar landmark, something to orient herself, given that she'd spent a considerable amount of time in London's Wizarding district exploring its many recesses and should recognize where she was. Few shops dotted the row she stood in, and those that did had grubby, hard to read signs, some boarded up with their windows covered by old Daily Prophets.

Witches and wizards still crowded the street—but they were different too, rougher, a perfidious smell choking the air that Harriet didn't rightly have a name for, something thick and cloying, mixed with the odor of unwashed body and spoiled potion. Swallowing, Harriet ducked her head and turned on her heels, heading back the way she'd come.

The row opened into a warren of shorter passages through dimly lit and shadowed breaks in the high walls, men and women crowded in the mouths of seedy shops, leering at Harriet when they caught sight of her. The bespectacled witch had done her fair share of traveling to new locales over the summer, but that was always with a sense of direction and destination, map in hand and a set course in mind. This was different; Diagon Alley had vanished and Harriet hadn't a clue where it'd gone, where she was, or how she'd gotten here.

She felt the weight of eyes burning into the back of her neck.

"Okay," Harriet whispered to herself, heart beating heavy and wet in her throat, her hands sweaty. "Okay, don't panic, numpty. I couldn't have come that far. I must have taken a wrong turn—stay hidden," she added to Livius, who had begun to stir beneath her clothes, sensing her agitation. The last thing she needed was him biting someone out in broad daylight.

Pausing in her harried wandering, Harriet looked down at her feet and muttered, "Set." She waited, hoping he'd heard her, but when a repeated utterance of the name did nothing, Harriet cursed under her breath and stomped a foot. "Oh, you git. Where are you when I need you?"

She picked up the pace, and then Harriet bit her lip, stopping again, trying to recall what she could of the path here and wishing she hadn't been so distracted by Livi's peckishness and her own wool- gathering. Snape's going to bloody murder me.

"Ooh, there's a pretty lass," crooned a witch leaning in the doorway of Dystyl Phaelanges. Dusty bones cluttered the display window.

"Scrawny little bint," her wizard companion said, puffing on his pipe. He glared at Harriet while the witch smiled, sending shivers down Harriet's spine.

"Lost, little lamb?" the witch asked. "Need a hand?"

"Err—no," Harriet managed to say before scuttling off, the witch and wizard guffawing in her wake. She came to the next corner and took it, telling herself the sooner she found the end of this place, the sooner she'd be able to find the beginning. Gut sinking, Harriet became more and more certain with every step that she'd somehow managed to take that blighted archway into Knockturn Alley, the one place in the district she'd always stayed away from, as it was emphatically not for untended children. "Shite."

She backed out of a little leeway that dead-ended with a place called McHavelock's Wizarding Headgear, where a loitering wizard with a scraggly beard watched her too close for comfort, and continued instead up a set of short, broad stone steps. Harriet didn't remember taking any steps before so she knew she must be going in the wrong direction, but heading back the way she'd come seemed a terrible idea, and she remembered Knockturn opened somewhere along Toad Road just as it did Diagon. So long as she got out of Knockturn, Harriet could find her way back to Tonks and Elara.

She tried not to run; the fastest way to make herself vulnerable was to run about scared and lost, so Harriet forced her spine stiff and blanked her face, pretending she knew her own business and wouldn't be fussed with someone trying to interfere. She was a Slytherin, for Merlin's sake, and one thing the older Slytherins loved to do late at night in the common room was brag about their adventures in Knockturn Alley. Harriet guessed most of their supposed exploits were a load of dragon dung, but most had one common thread; the Floo Network connected to Borgin and Burkes.

If she could find the shop, she'd have another place to escape—exit—from.

She turned onto another passage, darker than the last, and she thought the lane ahead looked brighter and more open than any of the rest she'd seen so far. Harriet rushed forward—and hurtled headlong into the cobblestones when the bite of a Tripping Jinx caught her unawares by the ankles. Harriet threw out her hands to catch her weight, scouring her palms on the rough stones, saving Livi from the brunt of the impact even as her knees and elbows throbbed. Her glasses skittered away, thrown by her momentum, and Harriet cursed her bloody eyesight as she rolled to her back and yanked her wand free of its brace.

It was the wizard she'd seen before, the one with the scraggly beard and low cap, moving purposely toward her with his wand extended. Harriet readied herself to hex the bollocks off the bastard, when she felt the soft brush of robes against her cheek, and the approaching wizard backed off as if spooked. He walked backward until he reached the alley mouth and disappeared.

Harriet glanced up to see her savior—and decided she might not be saved after all.

Standing stiff and poised, Professor Slytherin looked down his nose at Harriet crumpled on the ground, several emotions flickering over his face one by one, like a man switching masks, trying them on until he had the one that fit best. His red eyes narrowed. "Miss…Potter."

"P-Professor Slytherin," she managed, scrambling to her feet on her own. A small gash bled on her right hand, stinging where dirt had gotten into the wound, and her bones ached from colliding with the stones. She squinted, searching for her glasses, but the light was low and the walls too textured —.

Slytherin snapped his fingers, and Harriet's spectacles came darting up from a groove in the lane, landing squarely in his palm. He curled his lip at the dirt and shoved them into Harriet's hand, who quickly put them back into place, wincing at the long, spidery cracks marring one of the lenses. "Thank you, Professor."

He made a noise of acknowledgment, half-hum and half-scoff, then said, "Far be it from me to discourage…extracurricular interests, but you're not meant to be down here on your own. Where is your guardian?"

"We got separated," Harriet rushed to explain. "I'm—I didn't mean to come down here."

"Hmm." He considered her for a long, uncomfortable moment, then Slytherin extended his hand, and though Harriet didn't much want to touch him, she reached out to take hold of it, Slytherin's fingers snapping into place around hers. His skin was ice cold and Harriet's neck hurt.

Without explanation, Professor Slytherin started off in a new direction and Harriet had to jog to keep up, lest the wizard drag her through the streets like an unhappy dog on a leash. Those people who'd sneered and watched Harriet from their shop stoops now quickly found other places to be or shrank into the shadows, eyes averted, all but jumping out of Slytherin's way. For his part, the professor simply looked bored, face slack and eyes half-closed, like his mind was a million leagues away from that dingy alley and the girl he yanked along by the arm.

Through the twisting byways they went until, from one step to the next, they came out from under a thick stone arch and once more entered the wider, louder congregation floating along the middle of Diagon Alley. Harriet barely had time to take in a relieved breath before they were off again, Slytherin towing her through the throng faster than before, heading straight into a dense cluster comprised mostly of giggling, middle-aged witches.

"Harriet!"

Professor Slytherin came to a sudden halt and Elara darted out of the crowd, colliding with Harriet, ripping her hand out of Slytherin's grasp. Harriet heard the older girl whisper, "Thank God," as Elara squeezed her tight and Harriet coughed. Livi grunted a complaint.

"Can't breathe, Elara—."

A wizard bellowed aloud when Tonks came careening into their little group, having elbowed the unfortunate man in a sensitive area to get him out of her way. "Merlin's balls!" the auror almost

wailed, clapping both hands onto Harriet's arms, narrowly missing Livi's coils. The serpent in question drew himself tighter around his witch's middle and hissed in warning, the sound going unheard in the louder hubbub. "Where did you go?! Are you trying to get me murdered? Because I swear, Harriet, there are kinder ways to go about it—."

Tonks choked when she caught sight of Professor Slytherin favoring her with a contemptuous look. "Miss Tonks," he said, his smile hard. "How very…surprising. Does the Aurory often order you to babysit?"

Pale and obviously spooked, Tonks quietly acknowledged him with a muttered, "Professor," and gathered Harriet nearer, away from the wizard.

"Do try to keep better track of your charges, hmm? You never know where they might…wander."

Tonks nodded, not meeting his eyes, and Slytherin bled back into the crowd the way they'd come, presumably to return to Knockturn Alley—though he did glance at Harriet once more before disappearing. Tonks exhaled and straightened once he was out of sight—then thumped the shorter witch on the top of her head.

"Ouch!" Harriet shouted, hands jumping to the sore spot. "What was that for?!"

"For giving me a heart attack!" Tonk replied. She still looked rather pale, Harriet noted. "Holy Helga, don't tell Snape. Please don't tell Snape; they won't find enough of my body parts for the coffin."

"That'd be a waste of perfectly good potion ingredients," Elara said in an eerily accurate imitation of the aforementioned Potions Master, and Harriet—relieved to be away from Knockturn Alley and her Defense professor—started giggling.

"You're not funny," Tonks said, scowling. A witch fighting her way to the front of the crowd jostled her, and Tonks looked around with a wince. "Hell—we don't have time for this lot. You still have that list of stuff you needed from Malkin's and Twilfitt's, cousin?"

Elara did, of course, still have the list, and she brought it out, handing it to Tonks. "Alright, then. I'm going to dash and get your clothes—don't worry, they have Sizing Charms, so everything should fit right—and you two are going to get your books. You're going to stay right here at Flourish and Blotts until I come back, right? Not a toe out line! And stick together! Buddy system!"

"We're not babies," Harriet complained, though she didn't protest when Elara took one of her hands, giving it a squeeze. "We'll stay right here."

"No wandering off?"

"I didn't wander off, I got lost in the stupid crowd."

Tonks snorted. "Yeah, well…. In case there's an emergency—." She lifted a hand and pointed out Slug and Jiggers only three doors down from Flourish and Blotts. Snape was supposedly there still. "But, like I said, only an emergency—."

After getting several more assurances they wouldn't let each other out their sights and would stay in Flourish and Blotts, Tonks took off at high speed, meaning to get the rest of their stuff before they had to meet Snape at the apothecary and leave. Elara didn't release Harriet's hand and started to bodily shove witches and wizards out of the way, her glare sharp enough to head off any protests, and they came to a stop before the shop's entrance.

"'Meet the author of Magical Me!'" Harriet read aloud from the glittering banner strung across the facia. "Who's the author of Magical Me?"

"Him." Elara jerked her chin toward the front display window, in which a teetering stack of purple books had been set up, a blond, smiling wizard's portrait blowing kisses at the witches pressed up to the glass.

"Er…?"

Harriet didn't know what to say to that, and instead let Elara pull her inside the bookshop like putty through a very tight tube, the interior hot and muggy, the skinny manager who'd frowned when Harriet passed through too often in the beginning of the summer looking quite harassed at the moment. The tables in the front where they'd put out the different year bundles last summer had disappeared.

"Where's the book?"

"They've moved them for the stupid signing, obviously. We can find them ourselves, come on…."

Elara and Harriet headed down an aisle, finding themselves among a few other Hogwarts students instead of a gaggling horde of twitter-pated, middle-aged witches. "D'you think we're going to be like that when we're older?" Harriet asked, earning a scandalized look from her friend. "I'm serious. Do our brains go wonky or something at a certain age? Turn to pudding—? Hey, Hermione!"

Harriet had been set to complain more about the buzzing witches when she caught a glimpse of bushy, brunette hair from the corner of her eye, flouncing around the corner from Autumnal Charms to Applications of Dactyliomancy. The hair in question came whipping back into sight when Hermione—balancing an absolute mountain of books—ran into their row.

"Elara! Harriet!"

A bit of awkward shuffling followed, the books having to be set down on the floor before the trio of witches could embrace, grinning from ear to ear. "Enjoying your summer, Hermione?" Elara asked.

"Well enough," she answered, pulling back to study her friends, tucking her frazzled hair behind her ears. "Oh, Harriet, what happened to your glasses? You're covered in dirt and—your hand! What have you done?"

She fussed over the bespectacled witch, muttering, "Oculus Reparo," as she tapped her wand against Harriet's glasses, while Elara pulled a handkerchief from her skirt pocket and wrapped it around her bleeding palm.

"Long story," Harriet said as her cheeks pinked. "I, um, well—I tripped." Which technically wasn't a lie.

Both Elara and Hermione gave her a look clearly indicating they didn't believe her, but instead of pushing the issue, Hermione shook her head. "Never mind. I haven't much time before the Malfoys come back for me. What have you been up to these past weeks? I might have, well, been eavesdropping a bit in the library, and I heard about you staying with Elara from Snape of all people…."

They shared an abbreviated and vague conversation on the events that had occurred over the last week or so, mindful of the potential ears listening in all around them. Hermione, for her part,

summed up her vacation in just a few words. "I've been studying. That's it, really. Mr. Malfoy quizzes us almost daily."

"Are you…enjoying it?" Harriet asked, not sure if she should. Hermione loved testing her knowledge, but the look on her face didn't look nearly half so pleased as Harriet would have thought.

"Not especially, no. You know I rather like learning, and I am learning so many things—did you know there's fifteen different schools of magic in Transfiguration alone? Professor McGonagall's mastery had an emphasis in eight of the fields, including Animation, Transmutation, and Golemnry, though obviously the professor's main emphasis was in Transformation."

"What the heck is Golemnry?"

"The production of golems—you know what a golem is, Harriet, you carry one in your shirt pocket half the time. Anyway; no, I can't say I much enjoy the testing. It's incredibly stressful."

Someone let out a put-upon sigh behind them, and the three witches turned to see Neville Longbottom standing in the middle of the aisle with his arms crossed. He stood with Ron Weasley and Dean Thomas as well, the latter pair busy chortling over a garishly colored book of joke jinxes. "Get out of the way, Slytherins," the Boy Who Lived grumbled.

"Bugger off, Longbottom."

"Harriet," Hermione reprimanded. "Really!"

"You're blocking the row," Longbottom snapped—which was true, once the witches considered Hermione's stack of books and their own bodies.

"Oh…." They shuffled over, moving the books with them, and Longbottom passed by. Ron and Dean barely spared them any attention at all.

Harriet hated the anger that swelled in her guts, that petty, envious feeling she got every time she had to look at Longbottom, especially after what Headmaster Dumbledore had said at the end of the year. He had parents, friends, fame—Harriet didn't much want fame, but she despised how her own family had been reduced to some footnote in a textbook when Longbottom hadn't actually done anything.

Gritting her teeth, Harriet shoved the feeling away and reminded herself she had much to be grateful for, and though her childhood hadn't been ideal, she had a home now—and a git of a pseudo-guardian who was going to be furious if they didn't get their textbooks together on time. At least he cared, in his own way. The Dursleys wouldn't have bothered with getting mad; they'd have just left her there.

"C'mon, we need our books…."

Hermione, having already gathered her own texts, helped Harriet and Elara find what they needed, and afterward Harriet wandered into the fiction section while Elara and Hermione argued over the reliability of a Transfiguration author. Harriet idly flipped through a few wizarding novels, her thoughts drifting toward Knockturn, wondering what Professor Slytherin had been doing down there. In the end, she decided she really didn't want to know and it would be wiser to keep her mouth shut.

Those people in the street were terrified of him….

By the time they found their way back toward the front of the shop to make their purchases, the crowd had become impossibly thick, and Elara had one hand fisted in the hem of Harriet's shirt so they wouldn't be separated. They paid for their school books, then allowed themselves to be swept aside like flotsam since none of the three young witches could leave the store without their guardian.

"Hermione, do you have anything to eat?"

"I think I have a Cauldron Cake in my robe pocket, why?"

"Can I have a piece?"

Puzzled, Hermione found the Cauldron Cake and peeled back the wrapper, handing over the allotted bite of sweet bread—which Harriet promptly stuck under the collar of her shirt. At first the older witch blinked, confused, and then her eyes narrowed. "Are you daft?" she hissed. "Really, Harriet. Why would you bring him with you—?"

"Potter, did you just stick Cauldron Cake down your shirt?" The smarmy voice of Draco Malfoy startled the trio tucked in the corner, and he came slinking over, primly dressed in silver-tooled robes, haughty smirk firmly in place.

Harriet scowled. "No," she lied, wiping her fingers clean on her collar, feeling Livi swallow the bit of cake whole with a satisfied huff.

Malfoy didn't believe her, but he only shook his head. "Merlin, you're a weird witch."

The gathered spectators chose that moment to burst into applause, and Harriet strained to see a blond, resplendent wizard with gleaming white teeth come swanning out of the employee lounge. "Yes, hello! Lovely—how lovely it is to be here! Thank you!"

He waved at the gathered witches and winked, earning more than a few delighted gasps and bursts of excited giggling. "Who is that?" Harriet asked, wrinkling her nose.

"Gilderoy Lockhart," Hermione said, breathless, and when Harriet glanced over, she found her friend's face had turned a startling shade of pink. "He's—quite brilliant, really. His books are fascinating—here, I'll lend you one of mine…."

"Brilliantly stupid," Malfoy quipped, frowning at Hermione as she slipped a shrunken copy of Gadding with Ghouls into Harriet's hands. "What's wrong with you Granger? You've gone all red."

"N-nothing!"

"You don't fancy that pompous git, do you?"

Hermione reddened further, and Elara intervened. "Deflecting a crush of your own, Malfoy?" she drawled. "How unexpected."

"Shut up, Black."

"Is your father here, Draco? Is it time to leave?" Hermione asked, shooting Elara a grateful look. "I assume that's why you're bothering with us."

"Yes, he sent me to fetch you. He's just over—father!"

Their small group managed to look around in time to witness Mr. Malfoy get slugged by a slightly balding, red-haired bloke in patched robes, and they toppled over into one of the shelves, books raining on them and the crowd. Witches shrieked, a shorter, red-haired woman screaming "Arthur!" louder than the rest while the harassed store manager burst into tears. Two boys somewhere in the thick of things started yelling, "Get him, Dad!" and a photographer from the Daily Prophet clicked away on his camera like mad.

Torn between running to his father's rescue and not getting punched for the effort, Draco stood frozen, mouth agape.

"Break it up, you two! Break it up!" boomed a familiar voice. Harriet smiled when she saw Hagrid squeeze his way through the entrance, nudging aside witches with little effort on his part to reach Mr. Malfoy and the red-haired wizard, yanking the pair apart by the scruffs of their necks. "That's 'nuff of that!"

Mr. Malfoy staggered on his own two feet and yanked his tailored robes back into place, his eye already purpling, pale hair splayed about his shoulders. It irked Harriet that, like his son, he still managed to look pretty even when mussed and angry—the git. "Unhand me, I'm on the Board of Governors and could have you dismissed in an instant—." Mr. Malfoy sucked in a ragged breath. "Draco! Hermione! We are leaving; I won't patronize an establishment that serves such… commoners."

Draco shuffled forward, one hand latched on Hermione's sleeve, and Hermione cast a final, despairing look at Harriet and Elara before she let herself be steered from the store. The witch who'd screamed was busy mopping the red-haired wizard's—Arthur?—bloodied lip, all while furiously berating him for brawling in public. Harriet spotted Fred and George Weasley standing nearby, and guessed the couple had to be their mum and dad.

As the book signing continued, and Lockhart went into raptures when he spotted Longbottom among the onlookers, Harriet caught Elara's eye and the other witch suddenly grinned, white teeth bright with plain humor. "Do you think it would be inappropriate for me to send Mr. Weasley a thank you gift?" she asked. "Because that was amazing."

Harriet laughed.

A/N: Random note I'll probably extrapolate more on later in the story, but I'm not going to magically fix Harriet's eye-sight. It bothers me when fics change that aspect of Harry right off, like it's some kind of horrid flaw. Magic has its limits, and I want to preserve that part that seems to quintessentially Harriet.

Poor Tonks. She was 99% prepared for Snape to murder her, no doubt.

summer's end

lvi. summer's end

Bang. Bang. Bang.

The noise resounded in the house's confines each time Elara's trunk came down hard on a step. Harriet, twiddling her thumbs in the kitchen, listened to the sound and was torn between amusement and being horribly anxious as she watched Snape—seated on the other side of the table —grow progressively more irritated.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

"Will you pick that up?!" the Potions Master suddenly bellowed, startling Harriet and, from the sound of squawking out in the hall, several of the Black portraits. Elara must have heard the man, but she did not, in fact, pick the trunk up, and continued her downward trek through the main corridor, the basement steps, and then into the kitchen itself. She dropped the trunk in question by Harriet's next to the Floo, and though she didn't quite meet Snape's eyes, Elara smirked as she took her seat.

She's going to land us both in detention as soon as school starts, Harriet thought, though she couldn't quite hide her own smile. 'Ten points for blinking, Miss Black. Is that air you're breathing, Miss Potter? Ten points.'

"If you two are quite done," Snape sneered, his arms crossed and expression stern. Harriet bit her tongue before she could protest that she had come down as soon as he told her to and hadn't been the one slamming her trunk on every step. "Term starts tomorrow. I expect you to have all of your things together and be ready to depart at precisely ten tomorrow morning."

"I don't understand why we can't Floo directly to Hogsmeade later in the evening," Elara said. "It doesn't make sense to me."

"Do you assume you're the first person to ever consider the thought?" Snape snapped. "You and every other pure-blood's get wishes to Floo directly into the village—which any Dark wizard seeking to extort money from an old family would know, wouldn't they? Do try to use your brain. Special dispensation is granted only to those living within a set distance of the village, otherwise all students are expected to ride the train for security purposes, whether they want to or not."

Elara crossed her arms and said nothing else.

"Your petulant attitude is tiring, Black."

The witch might have risen to the bait had Harriet not chosen that moment to cough, loudly, into her hand. Snape glowered at both of them.

"As I was saying…you will leave precisely at ten. Floo access opening onto the station is restricted as it is in Hogsmeade—again, for security purposes, not that I should have to explain myself to you. Access between Grimmauld and Kings Cross will be open for precisely five minutes. Should you miss that window, you are not to leave the house—and should your excuse for doing so be anything other than the spontaneous loss of a limb or an act of God, I will have you scrubbing cauldrons for the year. You will send your wretched bird to Hogwarts if you miss the train."

Said wretched bird scowled at the Potions Master, if birds could scowl. Cygnus and ancient Percival both perched on the metal bar above the Charmed ice chest, seeming to listen in on the conversation. "Yes, professor."

Elara muttered under her breath again, which Snape took exception to, and while they snarled at one another for their perceived insults, Harriet slipped out of her chair and meandered back upstairs. She had her pajamas and a change of clothes for the morning laid out on the foot of her bed, but otherwise her room at Grimmauld Place was empty once more, and it made Harriet a tad nervous. Would she be able to come back next summer? What about Yule?

Sitting on the mattress' edge, Harriet toed off her tennis shoes and Livi slithered out from his nest beneath the bed to investigate.

"We're going to Hogwarts tomorrow," she informed the serpent, watching as he inspected her shoes, then turned his attention to her, violet tongue flickering.

"The ssstone placcce?"

"Yes." Harriet scratched her chin and sighed. "Remember we talked about you having to stay in the dorm from now on?"

The frustrated noise coming out of Livi proved that yes, he did in fact remember that particular conversation and had not warmed to the topic since they'd first discussed it. Harriet and Elara had dug out a few old books on owl training that had Charms to prevent biting, and they planned on showing Hermione to see if the brilliant witch could figure out how to adapt the Charms to a snake —not that Harriet was thrilled about virtually muzzling her familiar. It would let her take him out of the dorm, however.

Professor Dumbledore worried about the students and Harriet knew Livi wasn't a pet, not really. He was a wild animal, magical enough to have 'equivalent human sapience' as Hermione would say, and the thought of cursing him—even with something meant to protect them both—sat heavy and uncomfortable in her middle. Livi lifted his head and Harriet reached out to rub the scales on his nose, small fingers skirting around the glittering gem set in his skull.

She wanted Livi with her. Harriet couldn't forget what had almost happened mere months ago, when Professor Quirrell—out hunting for any likely candidate who could get him the Stone—had nabbed her from the dungeons and dragged her to Dumbledore's office. She almost died. Livi could have protected her had she not left him behind. What she'd witnessed in the woods had been nightmare worthy, but she vastly preferred how things had turned out to being kidnapped or killed or—worse.

Staring at her shadow, wondering where Set had gone off to, Harriet mulled over the events of her summer and considered the approaching school year. Back to Hogwarts. She didn't know if she was excited or nervous.

The thumping returned, much lighter than before, and Elara came stomping into the room, throwing herself onto the bed next to Harriet with her arms crossed and her face set in a scowl. "I hate him," she declared.

Thinking of Uncle Vernon and the Dursleys, Harriet shrugged. "He's not so bad."

Elara turned her head to glare at Harriet, who smirked, and the older girl relented, returning her gaze to the ceiling. "No, I guess not. He is insufferable, though."

"I bet you even people who like Snape probably hate him a bit. It's a requirement."

They giggled, then settled, Harriet helping Livi onto the bed so he could curl into a heap against her side. Touching his scales again, she hummed in thought. "What d'you think this year's going to be like?"

"Normal, hopefully."

"D'you…." Harriet hesitated. "Do you think that—that I'll be in danger there? With all this stuff happening this summer? Is the Dark Lord behind it?"

"I don't know, Harriet, truly. I do know we'll need to be cautious and keep our eyes open. Nobody suspected Professor Quirrell, remember?"

"Yeah." Unnerved, the bespectacled witch pulled Livi closer and cuddled his coils as one might cuddle a puppy. "I don't like it. Wasn't the whole point of them making a spectacle of Longbottom to make sure I wouldn't get this kind of attention?"

"In theory. But like Snape said, you're a trouble magnet."

"Am not!" Harriet nudged Elara's side. "Wait, when did he say that?"

"After you left the kitchen. He gave me a lecture on keeping our noses clean and our heads down."

"That's odd."

"What? Him not wanting you to get into any mischief? He does that a lot if you've noticed."

"Well, now that you mention it—but, no. Trouble magnet. That's a Muggle euphemism, isn't it? It's odd that Snape would use it."

Elara's lips pressed into a line, her hand pushing Livi's tail away without thought so she could sit up. "Not really. He's at least a half-blood, so he might have a Muggle for a parent, or be Muggle- born for all we know."

"No," Harriet gasped, shocked by the idea. She suddenly had an image of Snape lounging in Aunt Petunia's house watching telly and found it absurd. "How do you know that?"

"There's no 'House of Snape,' either active or defunct. He could be foreign, of course, but I know he attended Hogwarts, since he was Head of Slytherin for two years, and only Hogwarts alumni are allowed to be Heads of Houses. The Blacks keep reams of logs tracking the different Houses through the years, going back past the Norman Invasion, and in 1544, when then the old Circles formed the Wizengamot, there were three hundred and thirty-three recognized Houses. Uncle Cygnus had me review or at least skim most of it, and I never saw a House of Snape. Logic dictates he's most likely a half-blood."

"You and Hermione read way too much," Harriet grumped, falling back into the bed, her legs hanging off the edge. It did make sense; she'd heard Snape say Muggle things before, little snippets she guessed he could have picked up over the years from his students. It was an interesting tidbit of information she tucked away to consider later.

"You read just as much as we do—just not the same content."

"I like Muggle fantasy novels. Wizard fantasy novels are weird—they follow these jumps in logic I just don't get and how they describe Muggle stuff is absurd."

They chatted for a while on inconsequential things, until Elara yawned and Harriet's eyes grew heavy, though she felt anxious and uneasy about their upcoming trip back to Hogwarts. The older witch returned to her room, leaving Harriet to settle Livi in the mess of blankets under the bed and change into pajamas. Once finished, she tapped the rune on the base of her dusty lamp, plunging the bedroom into darkness. Moonlight puddled around the curtain bottoms, and in the colorless glow she saw Set flick and curl.

Harriet glowered at the shadows as she flopped into her blankets, dropping her glasses onto the night table. "Fat lot of help you were yesterday," she snapped. "I almost got kidnapped and—I don't know—harvested for fingernails!"

Set continued to flicker and curl, remorseless, amorphous, and Harriet sighed. "Fine."

Pulling the sheet up to her chin, Harriet let her blurry gaze rest on the ceiling, splashes of light from the Muggle street and threadbare moonlight coloring the dusty boards. Set made shadow puppets in the blotches, and though Harriet wanted to stay irked, she smiled at memories of funny cartoons dancing on the cupboard's roof, her childish giggles earning Aunt Petunia's suspicion—and her fear.

Harriet fell asleep and dreamed she was at Hogwarts. She dreamed of making a potion in Snape's eerie classroom, her desk the only one there, the stirring rod clasped tight in her small hand as Harriet counted the turns. Someone banged on the door and snarled, "Let me in," but Harriet concentrated on her work, leaving the door alone.

She wouldn't remember the dream when she woke.

A/N: Finallllllly going back Hogwarts! The beginning of this year was not supposed to be that long, but it had a lot of very important exposition that sets up quite a few events for this year and the next few. Especially that little Wizengamot tidbit *cough, cough*

welcome back

lvii. welcome back

At precisely ten o'clock the next morning, Harriet and Elara stepped through the Floo at Grimmauld Place to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters and were both quite pleased when nothing went amiss. Harriet had expected something to go terribly wrong somewhere and thus bring the Wrath of Snape down on their heads.

"All right, Elara?" she asked as the dark-haired witch swayed in place, looking green.

"'Ine," she grunted—and Harriet wrinkled her nose when she spat out half a peeled ginger root. Elara tossed it in the bin to be Vanished and rolled her eyes. "It's for nausea, Harriet."

"Oh, right."

Given the train had another hour before departure, few students had arrived and most that had still mingled on the platform with their parents, going through their trunks to check if they'd missed anything or trying to calm fussy, caged familiars. Elara and Harriet went in search of a compartment and found one they liked in the back of the train, settling in to wait for Hermione.

It didn't take long for the final member of their trio to arrive; both girls saw Hermione walk onto the platform with the Malfoy family and Jamie Ingham, looking eager to be going back to school and also eager to escape her handlers. The bushy-haired witch nodded quickly to something said to her by Mrs. Malfoy, and then dashed off when the older witch turned her head.

Elara stood. "I'll go find her."

A few minutes later, Elara returned with Hermione in tow, the latter ranting in a low, furious undertone about how much she despised Draco Malfoy.

"—little toad uprooted half the Affable Azaleas in the greenhouse and has the gall to blame it on me! Me! Of course, Mrs. Malfoy didn't believe him for an instant, but he still earned us all an hour-long lecture on respecting the gardens—and in the middle of Malfoy Senior's tirade, he leans back and crushes the Highlander Ivy! I got told off for not stopping him—! Oh, hello, Harriet."

"Hi, Hermione."

"How are you then?"

Anxious. Nervous. A bit scared. "Err—good, I guess. Sounds like you've had better days, though."

Hermione let out an aggrieved huff as she sank into an empty seat. "It'll be a relief to get back to school. I've missed you both terribly. How was living at Elara's house?"

"Er, pretty great."

Elara scoffed as she sank onto the bench across from them. "Most everything is still cursed, broken, or otherwise out of order. Should it be visible to Muggles, I would fully expect to arrive home at Yule to find a condemned sign on the door."

"Surely it isn't that bad."

They chatted about the grim—and often fascinating—secrets to be found inside of Grimmauld Place while the train and the platform slowly filled, the volume of voices increasing as departure time neared. Harriet kicked her feet while Elara and Hermione argued, thinking about their trip to Hogsmeade last year. A lot, and very little, had changed since then.

The conversation eventually turned to the letter Harriet had received from Nicholas Flamel, and she pulled down her trunk long enough to fish out the French book for Hermione to flip through. The other witch went into instant raptures, rattling off fluid French paragraphs that fairly boggled Harriet's mind and earned a reproving tut from Elara. By then, the train had begun to move, and Hermione whipped out a Self-Inking Quill from her own satchel and a fresh roll of parchment to start translating the author foreword.

"It's about recognizing Dark magic, defining it and understanding its origins. Oh, books like these aren't really popular in England anymore—not after Grindelwald and, well, You-Know-Who. Fascinating. Do you mind if I keep this while I work on the translation? But you really should learn a few of these phrases—they come up in other branches of magic, and it'll be beneficial in the long run. I'll just be sure to make a note here…."

"Of course. Thanks for all your help, Hermione."

They subsided into a comfortable quiet wherein Harriet watched London disappear outside their window, Elara brought out one of her family's journals to read, and Hermione scribbled away on the parchment. The silence lasted for a handful of minutes before the compartment door clattered open and two girls stuck their heads in.

"Hey, do you mind if we sit here?" asked the first, her face heavily freckled and her ginger hair hastily tied back. "Everyone else is full."

"Of course," Hermione replied. She rose and quickly gathered her scattered things, making room on the bench next to her while Harriet stood to help the newcomers heave their trunks into the overhead rack. She proved a bit too short to manage on her own, and Elara had to stand and assist, trying her hardest not to smirk.

"Thanks," the red-head said as she sat, heaving a relieved sigh. She wore what looked like Muggle clothes, but Harriet—who'd had a bit of a fascination for wizard fashion ever since she first walked into the Leaky Cauldron and saw how very odd the styles were—could tell the threading about the seams had been done by hand or by wand, not by machine, and an animated Quidditch player flew on the shirt's front. Faded as he was, he still tipped them a wink and flew around a flaking, orange "CC" logo.

The second girl sat as well, blonde hair falling in haphazard waves past her thin shoulders. "Hello," she said, her wide, silvery eyes passing over the trio of dark-haired witches. She dressed in tights and a plum-colored dress, a spot of mulch on one knee, almost as if she'd knelt quickly in the garden for something before leaving home. She balanced a little wooden box in her lap as well as a folded newspaper. "I'm Luna."

"And I'm Ginny," the other girl added.

"Hermione Granger," Hermione said, extending a hand for the pair to shake. "How do you do? This is Harriet and Elara."

Feeling a touch sheepish in the presence of strangers, Harriet smiled, and Elara only gave a nod.

"I don't think I've seen you before. Are you both first years?"

Luna and Ginny nodded.

"We're second years. Are you excited about starting school? Do you know what Houses you think you'll be in?"

"Gryffindor," Ginny said without hesitation, shrugging her shoulder with affected ease. Harriet could tell by the way she nibbled her lip that Ginny wasn't as certain as she seemed. "My whole family's been Gryffindors for as long as anyone can remember, apparently."

Before Luna could answer, the compartment door slid open again, and Harriet groaned when Draco Malfoy sauntered in. He didn't get far, and there was little space as is, so Crabbe and Goyle loomed in the empty corridor, the latter sporting a smudge of chocolate on his cheek. "Granger, you ran off to find the House losers, I see."

"My friends." Hermione stuck her nose in the air. "If that's what you mean, then yes."

Malfoy scoffed and dropped onto the bench, forcing Elara over, which squished Harriet into the window. "Whatever, Granger." He seemed to realize the two younger girls were there and scrutinized Ginny in specific, nose wrinkling. "Red hair and hand-me-down clothes? You must be a Weasley. I didn't know that their brood had any girls in it."

"Don't be an arsehole, Malfoy."

"Harriet, really—."

"I thought you didn't like Weasleys, Potter?" Malfoy asked, interrupting Hermione. "Especially after what you did to Ron, the Gormless Gryffindor."

Harriet went to object, when Ginny blinked and let out a soft sound of recognition. "Potter. Harriet Potter? Aren't you the one who beat up Ron last year?"

Harriet blushed scarlet and sputtered. "I—! I didn't beat him up!" Malfoy started to laugh, and even Hermione looked very near cracking a smile. "Hey! I didn't! I just—punched him in the mouth a bit."

Expecting anger, Harriet was surprised Ginny smirked, tucking a bit of loose hair behind her ear. "He probably deserved it. Ron can be thick at times."

"Like the rest of you Weasleys," Malfoy sneered. He crossed his arms and ignored their pointed glances with a haughty scoff.

"Draco," Hermione said, her patience far outlasting Harriet's own, though she stressed the syllables of the boy's name like she wanted to hurl them physically at his head. "What are you doing here?"

"I was looking for Longbottom. I haven't seen him." When he mentioned Neville, Ginny's face lit up like a ripe tomato, and Malfoy snickered cruelly. "That's right, the Prat Who Lived was staying with your family for part of the summer at your hovel, wasn't he?"

"How do you even know that?"

"Read the paper, Potter—or can't you read with those ugly things you call glasses?"

Elara snapped her journal closed, the sound moving everyone's attention to her as she, in turn, directed a cold look at Malfoy. "You've been sufficiently irritating and can leave now. Perhaps I should write to your mother and mention your deplorable lack of manners in the presence of ladies."

The mention of Mrs. Malfoy had Draco rising and shuffling off, though not before his half-hearted utterance of "not seeing any ladies present" was heard. He stormed through the door, slamming it shut behind him and his goons, though the latch didn't catch, and it rattled open again.

"Merlin, he's annoying," Harriet muttered. "Was he like that all summer, Hermione?"

"Yes. I'm sorry about him. But never mind—what were you saying before, Luna?"

"Nothing in particular. Dad and Mum were both Ravenclaws, so I think I'd like to go there—but you never know where you'll end up until you get there, do you?" Her voice lilted in question as if she meant for someone to actually answer, and when no one did, Luna shrugged. Harriet wasn't sure, but she thought the other girl might have a sprig of mugwort tucked behind her ear. "Oh, well."

They chatted for a while—or Hermione mostly told the two what to expect from their first year and listed all the qualifications of the professors while Harriet tried to reel in her enthusiasm and Ginny just blinked, dazed by Hermione's zeal. Elara returned to her journal, and Luna, humming under her breath, brought out the paper—The Quibbler—she had and disappeared behind its pages. Harriet scratched her neck while Livi dozed beneath her loose shirt.

"What do you think that Malfoy bloke meant by not being able to find N-Neville?" Ginny asked at one point, her cheeks faintly pink. "He went through the barrier with my brother, right after me and my dad, and Luna and her dad."

"Maybe he's just avoiding Malfoy," Harriet said, shrugging. The trolley witch came around, and Harriet was quick to empty her purse, buying lunch for the compartment, and though Hermione frowned over the mound of sugary confections, she didn't reject the proffered package of Toothflossing Stringmints. "Like Hermione did last year. She came diving through the door and hid under the window until he passed by."

"I was tempted to the same this year, but I figured he would stop to harass you and Elara anyway."

"He seems very confused," Luna commented as she unwrapped a Cauldron Cake, licking her sticky fingertips. "His head must be full of Wrackspurts."

"Full of—what now?" Hermione gave the blonde witch a puzzled look. "'Wrackspurts?'"

"Wrackspurts. Tiny creatures that fly into your ears and make your brain go fuzzy."

Ginny winced and rubbed the side of her nose, though Luna didn't seem to notice. "Luna and her dad believe in some, um, different stuff than a lot of witches and wizards."

"So, they're imaginary."

"No, they're not."

"But I've never read anything on wrackspurts before."

"Just because you haven't read about them doesn't make them less real," Luna insisted.

"Malfoy's full of something, but I don't think it's Wrackspurts."

"Harriet, honestly."

"I didn't say anything."

Noise in the corridor paused their conversation as two older boys passed by the compartment's open door. "I swear I saw it!"

"Did you smuggle Butterbeer onto the train again, Cormac? McGonagall will find out and write your da if you can't keep it together."

"I'm not mucking about, I really did see it! There was a flying car, clear as day!"

"You're delusional, mate."

The pair drifted out of earshot, and Elara rose to slide the door shut. Harriet looked out the window —seeing nothing aside from the rolling green of the countryside and a fat plume of steam coming out the front engine—and then looked to the others. "Did he just say a flying car?"

x X x

Soon enough, the train rolled to a stop at Hogsmeade station, and a flock of black-robed students disembarked, their laughter and shouts echoing off the trees into the evening air and the neighboring village. Harriet pointed out Hagrid and Professor Selwyn to Ginny and Luna, who went to the half-giant and sour-faced History of Magic professor with the rest of the incoming first years so they could be shepherded across the lake. In contrast, Harriet and the rest continued along the platform to the line of waiting carriages and Professor Flitwick, who made sure everyone made it off the station and didn't wander into Hogsmeade.

Harriet glanced at the ghoulish Thestral drawing their carriage. She didn't mention it to Elara or Hermione.

The wheels clattered on the road as they out, passing through the gates flanked by large, winged boars on stone pillars, and through the trees Hogwarts came into view, just as brilliant and beautiful as Harriet remembered it, and her heart thrummed with anticipation. She loved living with Elara—but the castle felt like home, a home she'd never known before. After such an eventful summer spent traveling all over the magical settlements in Great Britain, it seemed to Harriet as if a knot in her middle loosened once she caught sight of the towers silhouetted against the spangled sky.

As second years, they followed the rest of the student body straight into the Great Hall and found seats at the four tables, the noise volume increasing as spots filled and professors filed in from the faculty door. Harriet spotted her Head of House as soon as he sauntered in and quickly looked away when his head snapped in her direction.

The Sorting took place, and Harriet clapped when Luna was placed in Ravenclaw and Ginny in Gryffindor, the latter hailed by raucous cheers from the Weasley twins and their prefect brother Percy. Harriet scanned their table, but she didn't spot Ron anywhere—or Longbottom. Where'd they go?

The clapping dwindled as Headmaster Dumbledore rose from his seat at the Head Table and lifted his arm for quiet. "Ah, how wonderful it is to see you all again—or to see you for the first time! Welcome to another year at Hogwarts!"

More applause came from the assembled students seated at their respective House tables, and Harriet watched as Professor Dumbledore smiled and waited for quiet again.

"Before we dig in to our delectable meals, lend me your ears for a moment longer so I may list a few start-of-term announcements. Firstly, I am delighted to introduce our newest member of staff, Professor Burbage, who will be teaching Muggle Studies." An older brunette witch with a tentative smile rose when acknowledged and bobbed her head. Clapping again ensued, as did a fair measure of muttering when students speculated on just what had happened to Professor Quirrell.

"At least this one doesn't look keen on murdering me," Harriet whispered to Elara at her side.

"Yes, but neither did Quirrell."

"True."

"—the first Hogsmeade trip for third years and above is scheduled to be in December," Professor Dumbledore continued. "And Quidditch trials will be held next week for the respective House teams. Please contact Madam Hooch with any questions—."

Across the table from Harriet and her friends, Draco straightened in his spot between Crabbe and Goyle, a smug expression Harriet didn't like one bit tugging at his mouth. "Slytherin will be taking the Cup this year," he asserted. "Father's made a rather generous contribution; he bought the entire team Nimbus Two-Thousand-and-Ones—much better than the Nimbus Two-Thousand, that shoddy twig Longbottom rides. I'll be the new Seeker, of course."

On the other side of Crabbe, the muscle-bound sixth year Marcus Flint grunted. "Not until I see you sit a broom, Malfoy. If you can't fly, doesn't matter what model you got."

"I can fly!"

A few upperclassmen shushed him when Malfoy's indignant outburst drew the heavy gaze of Professor Slytherin. Headmaster Dumbledore cleared his throat.

"Ah, well—I'll save the remainder of the announcements after the feast. For now, tuck in!"

The gleaming golden dishes and chargers filled with food at the wizard's words and the students wasted no time piling their plates high with scrumptious delicacies. Harriet didn't notice at first; she was too busy looking at Malfoy, a sinking feeling in her middle spoiling her appetite. She had wanted to try out as Seeker this year. It was no secret in Slytherin House that Terence Higgs, their current Seeker, was simply the best of a terrible situation, and Harriet had hoped that—though she'd never played Quidditch before—she would at least be able to try out. Apparently, there was no point.

Elara followed her attention across the table to the blond prat now listing broom specifications to Goyle, who honestly looked as if he'd heard all this a hundred times before. "Everything all right, Harriet?"

"Yeah," the bespectacled witch muttered, snapping out of her own sullen thoughts to reach for the mashed potatoes. "I'm fine."

They were halfway through the meal when Hermione pointed out that Snape wasn't present, and

indeed, his chair remained conspicuously empty between Professors Selwyn and Slytherin. Filch came slinking through the faculty door, dressed in his usual frayed housecoat with Mrs. Norris at his heels, and went straight to the Headmaster, muttering something in his ear. Professor Dumbledore nodded, wiping his mouth with his napkin, and leaned over to maybe repeat what Filch had said to Professor McGonagall—whose lips pursed in a thin, disapproving line before they both stood and followed Filch from the hall.

Harriet wondered what that was about.

The professor returned before dessert finished, and Headmaster Dumbledore issued his cursory warning against magic in the corridors and noted any products from Gambols and Japes or Zonko's would be confiscated by Filch if found in their possession. He left off the warning against certain death if they wandered on the third-floor corridor, which was nice, and then dismissed them off to bed. Harriet gladly stumbled to her feet and trailed Prefect Farley down to the dungeons.

In the cold, subterranean shadows beneath the lake, the silver lanterns glowed like soft stars in the dark of space, shapes flickering in the murky tide beyond the common room windows, the air in their lungs smelling of earth and salt, wood smoke and green things. Harriet gave half-hearted greetings to her other dormmates—Parkinson, Bulstrode, Greengrass, Davis, and Runcorn all accounted for—and fell into her bed, Livi hissing in her ear as he tightened his slipping coils.

She listened to the water sigh, the other girls whispering among one another, and fell asleep in minutes.

It was nice to be home.

A/N: *Harriet arriving like a nice, normal student* "Golly, I hope this year's nice and average." *distant cackling ensues*

I also brought Luna into the story earlier (like I did with Tonks). In canon, the Lovegoods live near Ottery St Catchpole, and given how small the wizarding community is, I doubt the Lovegoods wouldn't be friendly with their neighbors, the Weasleys. I find it likely two witches of the same age living in the same area would be friends, and that the Weasleys would be quick to offer their support for Xenophilius and Luna after her mother died only a year or so before she was set to go to Hogwarts. Anyway, that's just my theory.

strike a king

lviii. strike a king

In Hogwarts, rumors circulated with the kind of practiced efficiency the professors direly wished the students would portray in their classwork, and so by the time Harriet sat down to eat breakfast the next morning, she had already learned the newest bit of scandal involving Neville Longbottom.

"A flying car? Really?" Harriet asked Hermione as she picked over her eggs.

"According to Pansy, who heard it from Parvarti," she said with a delicate sniff that portrayed her regard for idle gossip. "But that's all hearsay. I would imagine that if they had truly crashed a flying Ford Anglia into the Whomping Willow, they wouldn't be here this morning."

They both glanced toward the Gryffindor table, where they found Longbottom and Weasley seated with Finnigan and Thomas. None of the four second years looked up from their plates, even when their classmates jostled and pestered them for information.

"He is the Boy Who Lived," Harriet said, old anger prickling along her nerves. "I doubt he could get expelled for anything, short of murder. The Prophet would never let the Headmaster live it down."

Snape came down along the table and passed out schedules for the Slytherins. Harriet took hers and could barely hold back a groan. "Look at this!" she complained once the Potions Master moved off. "Defense and Potions right in the morning! And Astronomy tonight!"

A furrow appeared between Hermione's brows. "And Charms and History of Magic after lunch." Her eyes flickered toward the Head Table, where Professor Selwyn was doctoring his English breakfast tea to his liking. Harriet winced in sympathy.

Elara—eyes scrunched, mouth set in a hard grimace—arrived, and Harriet slid down the bench to give her room. Snape returned, her schedule in hand, and he glowered at the half-asleep witch in warning before he let her take it from him. Elara glanced at the listed classes, grunted, and lowered her head to the table, bumping a platter of sausages. None of the other second years looked pleased either; the Slytherin professors were notably more difficult to handle, even to their own House, and having all four on their first day was dreadful.

Sighing, Harriet managed a few more bites of breakfast, then pulled her school bag onto her shoulder. "I'm going to go now. I don't want to be late." Not after what happened this summer with Slytherin.

"All right. We'll catch up with you in just a few minutes."

Harriet departed the Great Hall and climbed the marble steps, finding her way to the corridor where the Defense classroom and Slytherin's office were kept. The professor never opened the door early —never opened it until he was good and ready to do so—so she sank to the floor by the entrance and leaned on the wall, fishing through her bag until she found Hermione's copy of Gadding With Ghouls. She flicked past the bulky author foreword.

Hermione appeared soon, as promised, walking with a marginally more alert Elara, who was listening to something Daphne Greengrass was saying. The rest of the Slytherins arrived before the

Gryffindors—the latter of whom descended with their usual loud raucous centered around L0ngbottom. The Boy Who Lived grinned when Seamus mimicked driving a car and laughed.

"Longbottom," Draco said, narrowing his eyes at the taller boy. "Did you and the Weasel really crash a car into the Whomping Willow?"

The Gryffindors snickered as if in on a good joke, and Longbottom shrugged, the corner of his lips quirked. "Even if I did, why would I tell you anything, Malfoy?"

Draco flushed and mouthed off while Crabbe and Goyle scowled. Harriet, still sitting on the floor with her book, was tempted to tell Malfoy he shouldn't try to be clever since it never seemed to work out for him—but she opted for Slytherin solidarity and said nothing. Elara offered her hand, and Harriet used it to get to her feet.

The classroom door slammed open, putting an effective end to the squabbling in the corridor. Neither House was inclined to go inside; Hermione proved the bravest of the lot by crossing the threshold first, though she did take hold of Harriet's sleeve and drag her in after her. The ill-lit room was as eerie as she recalled, the bones of skeletal creatures casting patterns on the walls, the professor standing still as stone at his lectern with his black robes gleaming in the torchlight like a snake's skin.

Harriet gulped.

Professor Slytherin said nothing as they hurried toward their desks, though his red eyes followed their movements easily enough, a small, cold smile fixed over his mouth. Harriet stuffed Gadding With Ghouls away into her bag and took out her wand, laying it on the desk before her. She missed the weight of Livi's coils and wished she was back in the dorm with him, still sleeping.

Slytherin stepped out from behind his lectern, and a hush fell over the room.

"Welcome to your second year of Defense Against the Dark Arts," he said, lacing his hands together before himself. "You know who I am. Again, I will be your instructor, your guide, into the enticing and perilous realm of the Dark Arts—and ensuing protections, of course. You have been under my tutelage for a year; some of your number have learned well, others…." He sneered, eyes flicking toward the Gryffindor side of the room. "No matter. You have another chance to prove yourselves competent. Last year, we concentrated on the manifestation of shields. This term, we will venture into the use of offensive spells."

"Like dueling?" Dean blurted out.

"Two points from Gryffindor, Thomas," Slytherin said, barely tilting his head to acknowledge the question. "No, not 'like dueling.' I will not be instructing you in dueling. I do not waste my time with ineptitude."

Harriet wrinkled her nose as she watched the wizard idly pace. Why wouldn't he teach them dueling? That seemed strange to her.

"You have been taught the theory and basic use of the Knockback Jinx and have witnessed its use prior in this class. Today, you will learn its practical application. Longbottom!" Slytherin swished his wand toward the opposing end of the aisle, summoning the familiar crimson lion marker. He smirked. "To your mark."

The Boy Who Lived scowled, but showed better restraint than Harriet thought someone else might have when he nodded, rising from his desk to go stand at the glowing lion.

"You have already had experience, Longbottom, and so I expect some semblance of competency from you. Demonstrate the Knockback Jinx upon me."

A few students shared curious looks, and most of the Gryffindors leaned forward in their seats, eager to see their top student jinx the Head of Slytherin. Even Neville grinned, though he was quick to hide the expression when he lifted his wand and faced the professor. "Of course, sir. Flipendo!"

The jinx came quick, like he meant to take the wizard off guard, but Professor Slytherin merely flicked his own wand, and a wordless shield appeared before him, absorbing the spell. "Again."

Twice more Neville fired the Knockback Jinx, and twice more Slytherin deflected it with nothing more than a twitch of his arm. "A passable effort. Sit down, Longbottom."

He did as said, and Professor Slytherin called on Zabini, who took his place at a green snake marker and proceeded to throw spells at their instructor. Harriet could tell the difference in Zabini and Longbottom's casting as soon as he began; Neville's jinxes, when they connected with the barrier, sent ripples through the opaque distortion, whereas Zabini's seemed to strike a solid obstacle. She guessed their spells had differing strengths.

He called on Goyle next—who managed nothing at all—and then Dunbar, who made an acceptable effort, though her third jinx fizzled out before it could actually hit Slytherin's shield. Elara did better, but she didn't show the same competency as Longbottom, and Weasley's wand seemed to be malfunctioning, since it backfired and turned the boy's hair blue.

Harriet watched like the rest of her classmates, but as she watched, her mind drifted back to a chapter she'd read in the "Compendivm" Elara had given her at Yule. The book was thick, and much of it proved beyond either Harriet's comprehension or attention span, but she did recall a section that spoke on magical control. She'd been interested at first because she hoped it might share a few tips to ensure her Transfiguration attempts went less awry, but instead Harriet had read about the importance of stance and movement, how the body acted to build a kind of momentum and applied additional force to outgoing spells.

Magic really was much more complicated than she would have guessed a year ago.

"Miss Potter. You're next."

Harriet blinked, then scrambled to her feet—nearly forgetting her wand on the desk. She snatched it up, then hurried over to the waiting mark on the far end of the aisle, her stomach flopping about in her middle when she faced the waiting wizard. Professor Slytherin arched a brow. "Anytime now, Miss Potter."

Feeling the impatient eyes of her classmates upon her, Harriet shoved aside her thoughts on the Compendivm and did just as she'd seen the others do, flicking her wand at the wrist, calling out, "Flipendo!"

The jinx flew down the aisle. In an instant, Professor Slytherin summoned yet another non-verbal shield, and Harriet's spell dissipated against it without anything more than the slightest of ripples. Neville, on the Gryffindor side of the room, snorted, and his cohorts grinned as if half of them hadn't already failed the bloody exercise. He's like Dudley, she fumed, heat suffusing her cheeks. Every time I went up to the board in class to spell a word or solve a problem, he laughed—no matter if I was wrong or right.

Grinding her teeth, Harriet lifted her wand again. Instead of merely flicking it, she stepped into the

motion, brought her arm forward, and shouted, "Flipendo!"

The jinx shot across the space between her and the professor just as it had before. However, when it impacted the summoned shield, the barrier shuddered, the resulting thwack! loud enough to hurt their ears, and Professor Slytherin's eyes widened a fraction as his feet slid several inches on the stone floor. The class gasped.

Emboldened, Harriet lifted her wand again. "Flipendo!"

She couldn't say how she knew it, given that the wizard was using only non-verbals, but the moment he threw up his shield, she knew it was different from the simple one he'd used before. This time, his feet didn't slide and the barrier didn't ripple; Harriet's jinx struck the shield—and then it came flying right back at her. She didn't have time to do anything more than flinch before it hit her, and she slammed into the floor.

Harriet must have passed out, because next she knew, she blinked open bleary eyes to find Professor Slytherin leaning over her, a cruel scowl fixed on his face. For a moment, she felt as if she'd seen those glinting red eyes somewhere else, leering at her in her dreams from the thick shadows of the cupboard, behind every nightmare vision of Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, reflected in the Mirror of Erised. She felt cold and terrified.

"Shite," Harriet wheezed when the ache in her back and neck became apparent. He changed spells. He knew that would happen. Why would he do that?!

"Be prepared to catch whatever you throw," Professor Slytherin hissed, straightening. He turned away, robes flaring, and returned to his place at the head of the room. "Five points from Slytherin. We don't curse like Muggle filth in my classroom, Potter."

Trembling, Harriet returned to her seat.

leaves of green

lix. leaves of green

When Friday finally arrived, Hermione—for all her love of lectures and learning—was looking forward to the weekend.

Their first week back had been…trying. Not for any specific reason, but rather an annoying culmination of many small, frustrating reasons. Elara, dealing with an influx of legal letters concerning the House of Black estate, stayed awake late into the night at her carrell in the dorm and was noticeably shorter with the rest of them—mostly Pansy, who had recently taken to wearing floral perfumes that triggered the Black heir's allergies. Katherine had acquired a new cat who did not get along with Millicent's, prompting several arguments between the two witches, and more than once they ended up with Prefect Farley in their dorm, chastising them for acting like naughty children.

Draco had taken to continuing his summer behavior, namely irritating and nagging Hermione until she felt very near hexing him just for a moment of silence. He harped on and on about the new brooms his father had ordered, the ones that would be arriving just in time for the tryouts next week, his unveiled enthusiasm pestering not only Hermione, but several of their upperclassmen and their unfortunate peers. Somehow, he always seemed to be there, trailing along behind her in the corridors with Gregory and Vincent, the two larger boys long since inured to Malfoy theatrics. His voice grated on her nerves.

Harriet was especially annoyed by Draco, and each time he started in on another meandering "my father did this, my father did that" spiel, she made an inconspicuous exit from whatever room the Malfoy heir and his goons were inhabiting. Hermione knew Harriet wanted to play Quidditch and didn't think it even remotely fair she would probably be denied trying out simply because Lucius Malfoy could throw away gold on racing brooms for the whole team. It wasn't fair, and yet the insidious social hierarchy in Slytherin House they'd thus far been spared from couldn't be bucked, and Hermione imagined they'd run into problems with it again and again as they grew older.

Elara was aware of the silent hierarchy as well. That was why both Hermione and the severe witch would subtly turn themselves and Harriet away from certain couches in the common room, away from places at Slytherin's table, why they paused and let specific students walk before them in the halls. There was an unspoken rule in their House about showing respect to your betters, and for all that Hermione fumed at the notion of having betters, she picked her battles and kept her head down.

The philosophers knew change did not occur overnight, even with magic. The most potent potions brewed for months or years, and they always had the best results.

The Slytherins left Defense on Friday eager to reach the greenhouses out on the grounds for Herbology. The first breath of fresh afternoon air invigorated Hermione after spending the last hour trapped in the dark classroom with Professor Slytherin and their surly Gryffindor peers. Harriet mumbled invectives as they walked from the castle into the warm sunshine, and even Hermione didn't have the heart to chastise her language after watching the girl be put upon by their cold professor.

Hermione was aware the bespectacled witch had seen their Head of House over the summer in

Diagon Alley, and while Harriet had insisted nothing had happened in their meeting, whatever had occurred had shifted Professor Slytherin's behavior from indifferent to almost malicious. He pushed Harriet harder than any of them, and Hermione couldn't say why. He never incanted aloud during their lessons, but she knew he changed his shields from the basic Protego form simply to throw Harriet off—or to literally throw her, as was the case today.

"He's a foul git," Harriet whispered so others wouldn't overhear, one hand rubbing the small of her back. She uttered these words without the same begrudging admiration she held for Snape, who was also often denounced as a 'bloody git' for his sarcastic tongue and keenness for detention. "He almost squished Kevin."

"Aren't you supposed to leave him in the dorm?"

"No, I'm supposed to leave Livi in the dorm. Kevin is harmless." She lifted her other hand from her pocket, revealing the Transfigured golem wrapped about her fingers, his tiny fangs sinking into her knuckle. Hermione lifted a brow and Harriet blushed. "Well, he's upset because he almost got squashed, Hermione! He's usually harmless—ow, Kevin!" Her voice curtailed into intelligible hisses.

Hermione just shook her head and pondered Professor Slytherin's curious behavior as they crossed the courtyard and came upon the section of grounds given over to the greenhouses and Hogwarts' other agricultural pursuits. Plump Professor Sprout waited for them there with a box of earmuffs under her arm, and she smiled at the mingling Slytherins and Ravenclaws as they approached. "Good afternoon, lads and lasses! First class of the year, and I've something exciting lined up for us."

Next to Harriet, Elara paled, her face decidedly pinched.

"We're in Greenhouse Three today. This way!"

They trailed after her like ducklings, Harriet snickering as she poked Elara's arm. "Don't murder anything too rare today, Elara."

"Be quiet, brat. I just need gloves."

Hermione shook her head again and rolled her eyes as they entered the humid greenhouse, the smell of flowers and earth filling her nose. Several tables with barren pots encumbered the middle of the space, and Professor Sprout took Elara by the arm without a word, positioning her away from what looked like a valuable Venomous Tentacula. Elara flushed but didn't protest the move, Hermione and Harriet coming to stand with her.

"Oh, hello Terry, Anthony!"

The two Ravenclaws found places across from them at the table, and both greeted the three Slytherin witches with pleasant grins. "Hi, Hermione. How's your first week back treating you?" Terry asked as he pulled on a pair of gardening gloves.

"Well enough," she replied, hesitating. "Defense has been a bit…."

Anthony snorted. "Brutal?" Hermione nodded, and he and Terry exchanged knowing looks. "We've heard from a few upper years that Professor Slytherin's classes grow more intense with every year you matriculate."

You mean it's worse than it is now?

Next to her, Harriet frowned as she adjusted her glasses, her gaze unusually intent upon the empty pots before them. "He told us he wouldn't be teaching us dueling. Does he ever teach dueling?"

"No," Terry responded, shrugging. He accepted the bag of mixed soil for their table from Professor Sprout, wrinkling his nose at the odor. "He was adamant on that point in our class."

"Why though?" Harriet asked with exasperation. In truth, Hermione was curious as well; she'd thought dueling a significant part of defense, if a bit specialized, but Slytherin restricted them to theory and relative application in his classroom. He'd claimed he did 'not waste his time with ineptitude,' but that was hardly an excuse in Hermione's opinion. All students were inept until taught!

"It's obvious, isn't it?" Anthony said with a raised brow, showing a hint of that Ravenclaw shrewdness. It wasn't obvious to Hermione—a fact that rankled to no end—and so she barely stopped herself from pouting when Elara, spilling manure into her pot, answered.

"He doesn't want others to observe and disseminate his weaknesses. Students often share the strengths and weaknesses of their masters in any subject; in dueling, learning the soft spots in an apprentice's skill can reveal soft spots in their master's."

"Quite right." Anthony grinned, but then quickly sobered. "My great-aunt told me he's the reason that Dumbledore, you know—." He waggled his right arm—indicating the Headmaster's lack of said limb. "And that's Dumbledore, the wizard who fought and took down Grindelwald! Old Slytherin probably has enough enemies, you know? Doesn't want them getting the drop on him."

"That's preposterous," Hermione snapped. "If he was the one who—who mutilated the Headmaster, I highly doubt Professor Slytherin would be teaching here!"

"I'm just telling you what I was told. My great-uncle's good friends with Dumbledore—Newt Scamander, he is. He was there when Dumbledore dueled Grindelwald, and he says he can't imagine the kind of skill or power that could best the man."

Hermione couldn't imagine it either. For all his dotty ways, Professor Dumbledore radiated competency, and was quick as a whip with his wand—even while using his left hand. No one truly knows what happened to his arm. The rumors say he lost it seven or eight years ago now, but if he HAD lost it in a duel with Professor Slytherin, he wouldn't have allowed the man to teach here, would he? Or did the Board override him? No, no, Hermione, that's…that's mad. Highly improbable.

She refused the thought of how 'highly improbable' she found most of the wizarding world.

"That's enough chatter now, quiet down! Take a pair of earmuffs from the box coming around." The box in question landed on their table last of all, and the two boys quickly dove in to avoid the pink, furry pair floating near the top. Elara ended up with that pair, much to her apparent displeasure. Next came the smocks, which they shrugged on over their arms to protect their robes from whatever activity they'd be doing today.

"Now," Professor Sprout said, flicking her wand, bringing forward a grubby cart burdened with heavy clay pots. Hermione studied the spiked tops of the plants inside those pots—and suddenly the earmuffs made much more sense. Mandrakes. Of course! "Can anyone tell me what we have here?"

Hermione's hand shot up, as did a few of the Ravenclaws', and Professor Sprout nodded to Hermione with an indulgent smile. "Mandrakes," Hermione said, feeling smug. "Specifically

Mandragora Offininarum, as evidenced by the curvature in the leaves, not to be confused with Mandragora autumnalis, or Podophyllum pataltum, an American variant."

"Excellent response, Miss Granger! Take five points for Slytherin."

Hermione smiled—until she heard Draco hiss at the table next to theirs, his mouth twisted in mockery, though the sentiment fell flat, as ridiculous as he looked in his overlarge gloves and stained smock. "Do you have to regurgitate a textbook every time you open your mouth, Granger?"

"Bugger off, Malfoy," Harriet snarled too low for Professor Sprout to hear, the witch carefully placing mandrakes before everyone with stern warnings not to touch them yet. "Anything's better than listening to the shite that comes out of yours."

"How crass. You'd best watch yourself, Potter."

"Or what? Are you going to tell Crabbe and Goyle to punch a girl?"

"I'm not gonna punch a girl," Crabbe grunted.

"My mum would box my ears," Goyle added.

Malfoy glowered. "You two are worthless."

Professor Sprout reached their side of the greenhouse and set out more mandrakes. Going by the chastising glint in her eye, Hermione guessed she'd heard some of what had been said. "No mucking about today, am I understood? You're second years, and that means we'll be dealing with finickier flora from now on, and my plants deserve your full attention. Understood?"

A low chorus of "Yes, Professor Sprout," echoed from the accrued students.

"Miss Granger, can you tell us why we'll be needing our earmuffs today?"

"Because the cry of a mandrake is fatal to any who hears it." The class took perceptible steps back from their tables and the waiting plants. "The cry of a full-grown mandrake is fatal, I should say. Sorry, Professor."

"Very good, Miss Granger. Take another two points for Slytherin. Now!" She clapped her hands together, bits of dry clay flaking from her worn gloves. "These mandrakes here are still toddlers, but they've outgrown their current pots and need to be replanted. Their cries won't kill you, but they will put you out for a good few hours, so when I give the word, I want you all to put your earmuffs on and make sure they're snug. I'll demonstrate with this first one, and then you'll be working with your own—gloves on, Miss Black."

"Yes, Professor Sprout."

The older witch nodded, then gestured for them to don their earmuffs, Hermione fussing with her hair until the padding lay flush against her skin. A Dampening Charm on the earmuffs further reduced noise, until all she could hear was the thump of her own heart and the faint whistle of her breath. Professor Sprout grasped the base of the green stalk, and then yanked upward.

Hermione had seen the illustrations before, but nothing could have quite prepared her for the reality of seeing a squalling, lumpy, hideous and infant-like root being pulled from the dirt.

Professor Sprout plopped the displeased mandrake down into the larger pot already partly filled with soil, then used what was left in the sack to pour more around the mandrake until it disappeared

underneath. She gave the class a wave, then took off her earmuffs, signaling for the others to do the same.

"There! Not so hard, right? Once earmuffs go on again, no removing them until I give the signal. Everyone ready? Okay! Earmuffs on!"

The next forty minutes of class passed in silence as the second-years fought and struggled with their temperamental mandrakes. Truly, Professor Sprout made it look easy, when the planting in actuality proved much more difficult. The mandrakes flailed, kicking and punching, tiny, toothless mouths biting hard through their padded gloves. Roger Malone's plant put up such a fight, it knocked his earmuffs askew and he ended up sprawled on the greenhouse floor, out cold. Professor Sprout hurried over, gesturing for the rest of them to continue their tasks.

With half of her mandrake submerged, Hermione paused to wipe sweat off her brow—and happened to glance up just as Elara nipped off a few of her own mandrake's leaves, carefully folding them into a piece of parchment before sticking that parchment into her robes. Their eyes met, and Hermione mouthed, "What are you doing?"

Frowning, Elara shrugged, then pretended she didn't see Hermione's questioning stare.

What is she up to? Hermione wondered—though, she did have an inkling as to what the taller witch might want mandrake leaves for. But she wouldn't do THAT, would she? Oh, she could get in so much trouble!

Hermione's eyes flickered to Harriet—Harriet, who kept a magical snake as large as a python under her bed, and sometimes under her shirt.

Hermione was not reassured.

When class ended, they stripped off their gloves and grubby smocks, sweaty and tired and more than ready for dinner to commence in the Great Hall. "What are you on about?" Hermione demanded of Elara, careful not to be overheard. Draco made as if to follow them—but one look from Professor Sprout had him, Crabbe, and Goyle going on ahead, leaving Hermione, Elara, and Harriet to trail along behind the departing students. The sun shone warm and golden still, though evening was not far off.

"Nothing."

"Don't nothing me, I'm not thick." Hermione pointed at the pocket Elara usually kept her old, worn journal in. "You're not thinking about—about doing that, are you?"

"And if I was?"

"Well, I'd have to say how utterly reckless it'd be! You could get arrested, or die, or be expelled—!"

They came to a stop when Elara raised her hand and pointed to Harriet, who'd stepped from the path and left the courtyard, walking down the grassy slope toward the lake. Unease pulled at Hermione's heart; of course, she knew it was silly to get worked up over such a simple diversion, but Harriet had nearly died several times over the last year alone, and seeing her suddenly stroll away from the castle where the professors dwelt had Hermione's pulse jumping. Where is she going?

They followed, and Harriet headed to the bottom of the hill, one hand on her bag, a familiar blonde standing barefoot at the water's edge.

"Hey, Luna!" Harriet called, drawing the attention of the new Ravenclaw witch. "Whatcha doing?"

Luna blinked, and looked first at Harriet, then at Hermione and Elara, before turning her gaze once more to rippling shallows. "Oh. I was looking for Plimpies."

"For what?"

"Plimpies. Little round fish with long legs and webbed feet."

Harriet looked in the water too, then shrugged. "I've never heard of those before. You should probably come back and look on the weekend. It's almost dinner time, and curfew for the first, second, and third years is just after that. We're not supposed to be on the grounds once it starts getting dark."

The grass crunched under approaching feet, and a burst of red appeared in the corner of Hermione's eye. "Luna!" Ginny Weasley shouted, relief evident in her voice. "Why'd you wander off without saying anything?"

"Hi, Ginny," Luna said, seeming oblivious to the other girl's distress. Ginny gave Harriet a considering look as she went to Luna's side—and Hermione wondered if it was because of their House, since she hadn't displayed the same reticence on the train. Gryffindors proved rather intolerant of Slytherins—and vice versa, typically. "They're quite nice, you know. Especially for Slytherins."

Hermione bristled. Elara didn't react, but a flash of hurt flickered through Harriet's face before her expression stilled.

"Yeah?" Ginny commented as if she didn't believe what Luna said. For Slytherins. "Well, c'mon, let's get to dinner…where are your shoes this time…?"

The pair moved off, and Harriet rejoined Hermione and Elara, her face blank, eyes on the bent blades of grass. She stuck her hand into her robes and brought out Kevin, fiddling with the Transfiguration golem until he was coiled about her fingers—shiny, freshly scabbed bite marks on her knuckles from his tiny fangs.

"Harriet…."

"We're going to miss dinner," the bespectacled witch said, speaking softly. "Let's go."

She set off at a fast clip before Hermione could say anything else. The breeze rustled in the forest's eaves, and the lake moved at their backs, the Giant Squid a distant spectator on the gleaming surface, basking in the late afternoon light.

"It bothers her," Elara spoke first.

"What does?"

They started walking again, one of Elara's hands in her robe pocket. "People's perceptions of Slytherins."

"I don't think Luna or Ginny meant anything by it, really. It—with people like Malfoy around, misconceptions are bound to arise."

"But it still bothers her."

Hermione pursed her lips, recalling the hurt in Harriet's eyes and her own irritation when hearing that qualifier, "For Slytherins."

She noted how Elara kept hold of the parchment concealing the mandrake leaves, and instead of broaching the subject again, Hermione bit her tongue. No, she wouldn't say anything. Friends supported one another—even in their most reckless ambitions.

If her friend wanted to dabble in Animagus transformation, who was Hermione to argue?

mischief

lx. mischief

"Of course, the Two Thousand One blows the Two Thousand model out of the water, both in speed and in handling. Normally, I wouldn't claim there's much of a difference between models—but Nimbus Racing really outdid themselves this time. The oh-One is a complete departure from its predecessor. It makes Loser Longbottom's twig look like—."

Elara snapped her Charms text closed and shut her eyes, searching for the patience she used to employ to get through Father Phillips' worst Sunday sermons, when she'd sit between Matron Fitzgerald and Kaleb Sanders on the pew, the latter calling her the devil under his breath, the former pinching her side every time her attention wandered. She could still hear his voice like the bang of a hammer on a stubborn nail, "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name cast our devils? And in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from ye workers of iniquity."

Workers of iniquity, Elara hissed in her thoughts, eyes squeezed shut. Like he would know iniquity if it came and smacked him in the face.

Draco blathered on, leaning on a wing chair by the main hearth, chatting in the ear of the sixth year Hubert Fawly, who didn't much care for the sport itself as he did the money to be made off of it. The longer the blond boy waxed poetic about the broom, the more tempted Elara was to write his mother. Oh, for certain Mrs. Malfoy thought the world of her boy and Draco could do no wrong in her eyes, but boasting like this was grossly uncouth. Narcissa would chastise him.

Despite her misgivings, Elara found she didn't dislike Mrs. Malfoy—or, at least, the etiquette lessons she gave her and Harriet. Elara had nice manners. She had to, given the sisters in St. Giles' were quick to swat elbows off tables and nag anyone who lifted a cup of tea with all five fingers braced on the tableware. Mealtimes were always stressful there, but Elara had learned, unlike Harriet, who'd admitted—after much interrogation—that she'd never been permitted at the family table like a person before Hogwarts. She hadn't been struck like Elara, but in many ways the neglect Harriet experienced seemed worse.

Etiquette lessons gave them both a way to better immerse themselves in wizarding society, so no matter how boring Elara thought the revision, she…appreciated the time Narcissa Malfoy spent teaching them. Half the clergy had been of the opinion women and children should stand about silent as halfwits, so at the very least Elara was happy to know witches were not usually considered idle trophies for chauvinists.

It wasn't very ladylike to hex prats, however, no matter how they ran at the mouth, and Elara didn't want to cross Narcissa. She had enough trouble with Lucius poking and prodding and stirring up issues for her with the Ministry. She was twelve for God's sake, and she had to spend far too much time cross-referencing Mr. Piers' letters with the dictionary just to understand what her solicitor was doing to secure her House and complete due diligence.

A quiet snap stirred Elara from her deeper ruminations, and she glanced across the table to Harriet. The bespectacled witch was staring very hard at her splotched Potions essay, which she'd have to rewrite, since Snape didn't accept messy work. Her hand formed a fist around her broken quill— and, in the background, Draco continued to talk as if he'd already made the Quidditch team.

"Harriet…?" Hermione asked, pausing in her discourse about the Guild of Ethical Potioneering and Standards and their stance on the Shrinking Potion, the subject of Harriet's essay.

"Sorry," Harriet said, letting go of the quill. "Sorry, I—I think I'm just going to go to bed." She pushed her things into a messy pile and shoved it into her satchel before flinging that over her shoulder, leaving behind nothing but the broken quill and a decided air of frustration. Hermione, lips pursed, watched her go, and then glanced toward the common room's main hearth.

"It isn't fair," she whispered, glaring at the blond boy, but given how far their table was situated from any of the hearths, Elara doubted anyone could see them beneath the silver lanterns. "It's ridiculous. There must be someone we can go to."

"He's not doing anything wrong, technically. Bribing is so prevalent because it is difficult to prove, Hermione." Elara rubbed her temple, exhaling. "Besides, if we threw a fit over this, it'd deprive the whole team of new racing brooms. We're hardly popular as is; Harriet would have no chance at the team then."

Hermione scowled but didn't seem surprised, having undoubtedly considered the idea before. Elara spent another ten minutes sitting there, tracing the bent corners of her Charms text, during which Tracey Davis—who was horribly stuck up for a half-blood without an actual House—came over and started asking Hermione about the Potions essay. Elara excused herself and headed toward the dorm.

"—just prove you're halfway decent, Malfoy," Flint was saying, slouched over on one of the better couches. "Old Hooch is already suspicious, and I ain't starting the year out with a penalty again. Slytherin would be right pissed."

Malfoy scoffed and tossed back his head, adopting a low timbre in an ill-attempt to disguise his prepubescent voice. "Don't be absurd. I've been flying since I was a baby—we even have our own pitch at the manor, you see. Not regulation, but good enough—."

Elara sucked air through her teeth as she entered the corridor housing rooms for Slytherin's female population, lost in thought. The dorm she shared with the others was empty despite the encroaching curfew for the younger years—aside from Harriet, who sat at her messy carrell, hunched over and scribbling with her quill.

"What's that?" Elara asked.

"Working on a letter to Mr. Flamel," Harriet grumbled in reply, clearly still irked by Malfoy's behavior. She scribbled out a line on the parchment, leaving behind inky streaks. "Hermione's translated the first few chapters for me—y'know she found a translation Charm in the library? It's a bit finicky, but it's really useful."

"I know, she showed me."

"So I can read enough of the book now to thank him. It's interesting." Harriet scratched out another line, concentrating. "I was going to ask if he knew any curses I could use to throw prats off their fancy broomsticks, but I decided that probably wasn't my brightest idea."

Elara snorted as she leaned on the shelves next to Harriet and picked a discarded sweet wrapper from the desk, flicking it into the bin. "No, probably not. I'm sure we can find something on our own anyway. I do own a library full of dubious Dark books, remember?"

Scoffing, Harriet discarded her draft, crumpling the parchment in her fist. "Yeah, I remember.

Elara…do you think I'm making a fuss for nothing? I mean, it's just Quidditch, right? I don't need Quidditch—and I could always try out later, for Chaser or something, when the Chasers leave." Even as she spoke, Elara knew Harriet's heart wasn't in it. She'd been excited to try for Seeker. "I should probably just be happy the team has new brooms."

Elara opened her mouth—and paused, thinking, remembering. She recalled wanting to be in the choir at St. Giles', not because she could sing, but because everyone else had been part of it, and the Matron relegated her to the piano. She thought of all the similar times she'd been told to be thankful for what she was given and to not want, and Elara imagined Harriet's own childhood had been riddled with identical circumstances. She was thankful for so much in this life, but it wasn't a crime to want, and to be upset when what one wanted was taken away so unfairly.

Be thankful, Matron Fitzgerald used to snap. In some places of the world, girls like you still get stoned to death, Miss Black.

"…Are you going to the tryouts tomorrow?" she asked, staring at the silver lantern overhead, brow furrowed.

"Not much point, is there?"

"I think you should go."

"Really?"

"Yes. Malfoy still has to sit a broom; if he can't, then you'll have your chance."

Harriet heaved a sigh, but didn't argue. Instead, she changed the subject. "What d'you think Tonks would like for Yule?"

Elara dropped her gaze from the lantern, puzzled. "Yule?"

"Yeah, I was going to get gifts for our minders. It seemed like a good idea." Harriet shrugged, then gave her a cheeky grin. "I was going to sign both our names, of course, so if they hated anything, I could say it was your idea."

Elara scowled, and Harriet laughed. They argued over prospective thank-you gifts, noticeably skirting the subject of potentially having to give Snape something, until the other girls filtered into the dorm, yawning and dragging their feet. Elara got ready for bed, but once she slipped behind her hangings and laid down, she didn't sleep. Instead, she listened to the muffled movements of the other Slytherin girls, the lights dimming when Prefect Farley came to make sure they'd settled in, though the moonlight still threw weak, watery ripples on the ceiling through the windows.

She didn't know exactly how long she stayed there, unmoving, though it was certainly long enough to doze for a time and for Millicent's snoring to interrupt the Black Lake's gentle roving. Elara peeled open heavy eyelids and, grunting, sat up, feeling about in the dark until she laid her hand on her wand, and then the slim, leather-bound book she kept hidden in her nightstand drawer.

The dungeon floor nipped at her feet when Elara stood. Still, she forewent her slippers and shrugged on her dressing gown, wand and book in hand, pulling back the hangings inch by inch so the rings wouldn't drag on the rail. It was quiet—aside from the snoring, and the soft, low breaths escaping the sleeping girls, though Elara did hear Livius rustling about in his nest below Harriet's bed. Pocketing her spellbook, she was quick to move on before anyone woke.

Out in the corridor, Elara stopped before she could step into the common room, hanging back out of sight as she peeked around the corner. No one was about, having wandered off to their own beds

hours ago, leaving the hearths to smolder and shed guttering light through the cavernous space. Elara squinted in the gloom at the painting above the mantel; Harriet had warned both her and Hermione against the watching snake depicted therein, but Elara couldn't see the creature at the moment. Good.

"What are you doing?"

The furious whisper coming from behind her almost killed Elara. She dropped her wand and whispered "Jesus Christ," before she could catch herself, clutching at her hammering heart as she whirled about to see Hermione standing there in her night things. "You scared me!"

"Never mind that!" Hermione whispered as Elara picked up her wand again. "What are you doing, sneaking out of the dorm? If any of the teachers catch you out in the castle after hours—!"

"I'm not leaving the common room."

"Not leaving the—?"

"Shh!"

Elara hurried quietly across the main floor to the opposing corridor, keeping her eyes open for movement—either painted or corporeal. To her credit, Hermione didn't hiss her name again, though she did follow closely at Elara's heels, her face set in grim condemnation. That condemnation twisted into confusion when Elara stopped before the door to the second year boys' dorm and withdrew her book from her gown's pocket.

"Elara—."

"Just keep a lookout." Elara lit her wand with a muttered Lumos, bringing the book closer to her nose. She found the proper spell and, pointing her wand at the door's handle, whispered, "Colloportus."

The lock gave a small click when it closed, and both witches held their breath, waiting, listening hard enough for their heartbeats to sound loud and threatening in their own ears.

Hermione didn't need further explanation to realize what Elara was on about. "They'll unlock that in no time," she said. "It won't stop him from going tryouts."

"No, but this will." Elara flipped a page and studied the depicted diagram, watching the little wizard move his hand. "Epoximise."

Nothing happened.

"Is that the Permanent Sticking Charm? Where did you find that?"

"It's not," Elara whispered, darting a quick look around the narrow corridor. "There's a counter for this one, but it's obscure. It will take time to undo. Epoximise!" Again, nothing happened. Elara sucked in a miffed breath through her nose and tightened her hold on the book.

Hermione, for all her misgivings on their current situation, rolled her eyes and whipped out her own wand. "You're doing it wrong."

"No, I'm not, I'm doing it just as it is in the book—."

"Watch." Hermione flicked her wand and gave it more of a swish than Elara had. "Epoximise!"

The door's wood groaned as it adhered itself to the frame. Elara ignored Hermione's smug grin, and the bushy-haired witch flourished her wand again. "Silencio! That should hold through practice. Hopefully. I haven't practiced it much."

"Yes, but you're brilliant. It'll stick." Elara and Hermione shared mischievous smiles, then turned back to the common room, dismissing their wand light. It was still silent but for the lake's movement and the gentle tapping of their cold, bare feet on the stone floor.

"You don't think we should tell Harriet, do you?"

"No. She won't like it."

"It's not cheating. Not—not precisely."

"Of course not," Elara murmured, lowering her voice more as they entered their own dorm again. Millicent continued to snore. "Like Flint said, Draco needs to sit a broom to secure his spot. It's not our fault if he doesn't show up, is it?"

A/N: Elara - "Nice dreams you got there, Draco…be a shame if someone…" *dramatic closeup* "RUINED THEM."

flightless bird

lxi. flightless bird

The summer breeze came warm and unexpected over the loch, filled with newly curled leaves already falling for the autumn not quite upon them, though hints of it lingered at the Forest's borders. Out in the sunshine, however, it grew hot, and Harriet welcomed the breeze as she leaned on the stands at her back, elbows propped on the seat. Her legs swayed back and forth, toes barely skimming the grass, and out on the pitch the Slytherin team ran their drills.

Harriet shut her eyes and soaked in the warmth like a lounging reptile. She missed Livi, and made a mental note to ask Hagrid that afternoon if she could spend time on the grounds with him. Of course, she didn't think Hagrid would say no, but if he did, she would probably bring Livi out anyway, and avoid Snape like the plague. He'd ignored her and Elara for the most part, concentrating his vitriol on Longbottom and the Gryffindors—but Harriet knew it wouldn't take much for him to remember all the times they'd been impertinent over the summer hols, and then they'd really be in for it.

Despite the heat, Harriet shivered.

Adrian Pucey and Graham Montague whipped by overhead, voices jubilant, chased by one of the team's Beaters, Peregrine Derrick. Other Slytherins dotted the length and breadth of the stands, watching the team enjoy their new brooms, or just using the tryouts as an excuse to get out of the castle for a bit. Terrance Higgs stood next to Marcus Flint, their heads bent together, deep in discussion.

She was the only person to show for the Seeker position, given Malfoy's rambling had scared off anyone else's interest. Harriet kept expecting to see the pointy-faced bastard come swaggering onto the pitch, but the longer she waited, the more mystified she became. He knows he's supposed to be here, Harriet thought. What's his game now?

Flint crossed his sizable arms and suddenly kicked the chest containing the Quaffle and Bludgers. The latter banged against the trunk's lid, and with a shouted word to Derrick and Bole, the Beaters flew down to release the balls. Pucey and Montague quickly scooped up the Quaffle when it was thrown into the air, and Bole batted both Bludgers away as he and Derrick took to the skies again.

Higgs shook his head again and Flint hit the trunk a second time.

Harriet stopped kicking her feet and, for wont of anything else to do, took out Gadding With Ghouls from her robe pocket, finding her last bookmarked spot. Gilderoy Lockhart was about to confront Perry Fidious, who'd been using ghouls to terrify Muggles into leaving a village so he could purchase the land on the cheap. Gilderoy bounded into the locked barn housing the captured creatures and said, "You have become a fool, Perry Fidious, and yet pitiable. You might still have turned away from folly and evil, and have been of service. But you choose to stay and gnaw the ends of your own plots."

Harriet paused, rereading the last line.

Gnaw the ends of your own plots.

That…that was familiar, but where had she heard it before? Harriet was certain she'd come across the line, and it hadn't been in Gadding With Ghouls—which, in all honestly, read suspiciously like the cartoons Dudley would watch in the morning, all very showy and unsubtle. Where had she seen the phrase before?

An hour passed, then two. The Chasers landed, as did the Keeper Bletchley, the three huddling close with Flint and Higgs as the team had some kind of secret meeting.

Feet thumped on the wooden steps, and Harriet looked up to see Elara and Hermione walking over, the pair sharing a brief, furtive argument before they straightened, finding seats next to her. Elara didn't look much different in her monochromatic weekend attire, which Pansy loved to deride, though Hermione wore a pretty green tartan skirt and a new blouse. "Is practice over?" the latter asked, glancing toward the assembled team.

"I dunno," Harriet said, brow quirked at the obvious attempt to shift attention back to the pitch. "Malfoy hasn't shown up yet."

Hermione and Elara both looked straight ahead. "Oh, well. How unfortunate."

"Unfortunate…?"

A commotion on the field interrupted Harriet. "What is the problem, Mr. Flint?" Harriet hadn't realized Madam Hooch was here, but the hawk-eyed instructor strode out toward the Slytherin team all the same, clearly irritated about something. "I'm here to supervise tryouts for your new Seeker—and though I've been here twiddling my thumbs for more than two hours, I've yet to see a single candidate!"

"Our, err, main hopeful isn't here yet, ma'am."

"Oh? Would this be the hopeful who so charitably donated all these new brooms?" she demanded. Flint flushed despite himself, a furious glint in his hard, beady eyes. "I don't put my nose in House business, Mr. Flint, but I will not stand aside and allow such a blatant display of bribery come to fruition when your hopeful cannot even deign to attend their own tryout!"

"It ain't bribery, Madam Hooch!"

"No? Then observe one of your other hopefuls." With that, the flight instructor whirled about and jabbed a sharp finger toward Harriet, who flinched like the witch had chucked something at her. Dressed in trousers and a plain green shirt, she was obviously the only one dressed for flying. "You! What's your name, girl?"

"P-Potter, ma'am."

"Potter. You're here to tryout for Seeker, yes?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Then get over here."

Harriet hopped to her feet—dropping Gadding With Ghouls—and scuttled onto the pitch, moved by the force of Hooch's voice. The older witch sent one final warning glare in Flint's direction before she stomped over back to her position on the shaded bench. Coming closer to Flint, Harriet found herself craning her head back to meet the towering boy's glower.

"You better not be mucking about, Potter," he seethed through crooked teeth. "Hooch is brassed

off enough without you fucking about."

"I'm not."

"And I guess you don't know where that prat Malfoy is at either, do you?"

"No." Though Harriet had a sneaking suspicion Elara and Hermione might.

"Then get on a broom and take a lap."

Harriet hurried over the empty chest, by which lay two new, gleaming brooms—one for Flint, and one for the prospective Seeker. The team towered over her, all a good head and shoulders above the short witch in height, sneering at the nervous girl as she passed through them and stuck her hand out above one of the brooms. She didn't need to say anything; it leapt into her palm, and Harriet clasped her fingers about the handle.

She threw one leg over the broom, feeling the Charms hum to life with tangible heat against her skin, Charms far stronger than the ones she'd felt on the old school brooms. In hindsight, she should've expected the speed of it—but Harriet kicked off a little too hard, compensating for a lack of mobility not present in the Two Thousand One, and almost went arse over elbow into the sod. Snickers rose from the Slytherin team as Harriet blushed scarlet, ears burning as she re-situated herself on the broom and tried again.

The second attempt went far smoother, and as Harriet leaned her weight into the flight, shifting on instinct, she picked up speed and relaxed her nervous grip. The wind howled in her ears, sliding through her hair, cold after sitting in the sun for so long, her cheeks pink with a sunburn Hermione would chastise her about later. She completed her first lap, and then went on into a second, pushing herself faster, enthralled with the effortless speed and smooth, sinuous glide. Malfoy hadn't been bluffing about the broom's qualifications.

The Slytherins were far less inclined to mocking when she slowed by them, though they didn't look entirely pleased, either. "I'm lettin' the Snitch out," Flint snapped. "Give it a minute head- start, then I'm timing how long it takes you to catch it, Potter!"

She did as instructed, and it took her only a minute to spot the wayward sparkle of gold in the corner of her eye and dart after it, returning to Flint with the Snitch struggling in her small hand. He set it free twice more, and both times Harriet found it, smirking at the Chaser torn between being miffed and excited. "Derrick, Bole—get that bag of—what're they called? Dolf balls?—get that bag and start hitting em' up there!"

The golf balls—and honestly, Harriet wondered how Flint didn't know about golf of all things, the blinkered idiot—were soon whizzing through the air, the loud smack of the Beater bats striking the little balls echoing across the pitch. Harriet flew after the balls, catching each one, tossing them back toward the watching team. They didn't let up until Harriet dipped too low in a dive and ended up skinning a knee against the ground, at which point Hooch intervened and told Flint to end practice.

She landed by the team, weak-kneed and winded, Hooch and her friends crossing the grass to join them. "Well! Excellent flying, Miss Potter. Truly exceptional," Hooch said, clapping her gloved hands together before taking out her wand and pointing it at Harriet's knee. The shorter witch jolted at the answering sting as the scrape healed, but she nonetheless muttered her thanks. "It seems to me you've found yourself an excellent Seeker, Mr. Flint."

Marcus pursed his lips. The rest of the team exchanged uneasy looks, gripping their new

broomsticks tight, before they all shrugged. "Yeah," Flint grunted. "I guess you're right, Madam Hooch."

Tired as she was, Harriet still grinned from ear to ear.

"Excellent."

Madam Hooch made to leave the pitch, which also left Harriet standing under Flint's harsh, unhappy scrutiny. The Quidditch captain took the Nimbus from her and laid it with the others. "All right, Potter," he snapped. "You've got potential—but this ain't like a real match, and you know bugger all about our strats. You won't be late to a single practice, you hear me?"

"Yes."

He scoffed, thick brow furrowed. "Bloody Malfoy," he muttered, heaving a heavy, bothered breath. "There's a track out by the lake we're allowed to run on, and I suggest you use it, half- blood. You're the right build for a Seeker, but you're too scrawny for a long game. One blow from a Bludger and you'd be out, and the winds during the winter storms we play in aren't to be arsed with. You need more stamina than you have now. You got it?"

"Yes," Harriet said again, because she'd say anything at this point, all but bouncing on the balls of her feet. "I understand."

"Fine. Welcome to the team, Potter."

The rest of the players echoed Flint's sentiment, some with more enthusiasm than others, and the captain called an end to the tryouts. The balls went back into the chest, and Harriet could barely wait for the older Slytherins to wander off before throwing herself at Hermione and Elara, arms going about their necks, very nearly bringing Elara's head down hard on Hermione's.

"Yes!" she crowed, laughing. "I can't believe it. I really can't. Malfoy was going on and on about how much he wanted this—but where is he? Flint told him to show up half a dozen times with most of the House listening, so what's he playing at? He—." Harriet paused, drawing back to spy Elara and Hermione's passive, innocent faces. "…what'd you do?"

"Do? Do what?" Hermione asked, fussing with her hair. "No need to be paranoid, Harriet. I'm sure Draco is just—." She looked to Elara for help.

"Detained."

"Yes, detain—no, not detained, not really—."

Harriet laughed again before she could help herself, too pleased for much else, giddy with expectation. She was fairly sure practice would prove harder than she expected, given how peeved Flint was with Malfoy skiving off tryouts and forcing him to accept Hooch's appointment of Harriet. She would work hard despite whatever her teammates threw at her, however, because nothing beat the feeling of wind against her face, the world falling away below her feet. It was exhilarating.

"D'you think lunch is still on? I'm famished."

"No, lunch will be over by now. Honestly, Flint kept tryouts going far longer than he should have."

"I didn't even notice."

"Madam Hooch did, which is why she forced him to make a decision."

Harriet hummed low in thought as she gathered Gadding With Ghouls from her spot in the stands and they set off out of the stadium, her heart considerably lighter than it'd been on the way down. She'd done it. She'd made the team. "Thanks for convincing me to come, Elara."

The taller girl smiled slightly, the corner of her lips hitching upward. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained, as they say."

"John Heywood said that," Hermione put in. They came out from under the stadium's shadow, beginning their uphill hike toward the castle. "In his 'Dialogue Containing the Number in Effect of All the Proverbs in the English Tongue.'"

"Of course you'd know that, Hermione. No other rational human being would."

"He said 'Noght veter noght haue spare to speke spare to spede.' I remember it because the translations in that passage argued about whether Heywood actually said the phrase, or if he stole it from an earlier French proverb."

Harriet glanced at her. "Well, that just sounds like gibberish to me."

"It means 'nothing ventured, nothing had; if you don't speak, you don't advance—.'"

"POTTER!"

All three witches paused, halting Hermione's impromptu and somewhat anxious lecture on John Heywood's blathering as Draco Malfoy came storming out of the upper courtyard in a high fury, Crabbe and Goyle struggling to keep up with his stride. Color flushed his normally pale face, his tidy hair in a terrible disarray, robes disheveled and wrinkled.

"This is your fault!" he howled, balled fists trembling as he marched down the hill. "You lying, scheming little half-blood! You bloody well cheated, you foul—."

"What are you on about?" Harriet demanded, scowling. "I haven't done a thing to you."

He stopped about a yard from them, sneering. "If it wasn't you, then it was one of your dirty blooded cronies—."

"Your accusations are totally baseless, Draco," Hermione interrupted, voice gone high—which, Harriet noted—was a sure sign the girl was lying. What did they do? she pondered to herself, not entirely sure if she should be pleased with her friends. She wanted to play, yes, but what type of trouble would Malfoy stir up? Was it worth it?

"I wasn't talking to you, Mudblood!"

"Don't call her that!" Harriet shouted.

"I'll call her whatever I like—."

During their argument, which had only grown in volume, Elara began smirking, and when Draco's flashing eyes suddenly darted to her, the taller witch grinned fully—a harsh, victorious grin that set Malfoy off. "Did you have trouble getting out of bed today, Draco?"

Enraged, he grappled for his wand, pointing it at them, snarling, " Flipendo!"

Harriet had her own wand in hand before he could incant his spell, and her shield sprung to life,

hurling the hex right back into the blond boy's pointy face. There was a loud, sudden crack! and Malfoy hit the grass, sliding a few centimeters, blood gushing from his busted nose.

Of course, this was the part at which Professor Snape came wheeling out of the courtyard, black robes billowing behind him, only to find Harriet standing over a bloodied, whimpering Malfoy with her wand drawn.

The expression on the severe wizard's face could have withered thunderclouds.

"Detention, Potter," he said, voice cold, furious. "For a week."

Harriet's jaw dropped. "But I—."

"Sir, it wasn't Harriet's—."

"Do not make me repeat myself," Snape hissed as he loomed over their quivering group. The sunshine and warm, balmy air seemed to crawl away from him, and Harriet had to wonder if there really was some merit to those rumors about him being a vampire. The great ruddy bat. "Go to the common room. I will see to Mr. Malfoy."

"But—."

"Go!"

Harriet and the others didn't need to be told again. The three witches—plus Crabbe and Goyle— tromped into the castle proper and delved into the dungeons' waiting dark, leaving behind the blissful daylight and laughter drifting up from the grounds. Harriet didn't dare look back for fear of seeing Snape following in their shadow.

It was a wretched end to an otherwise great day.

A/N: Sorry for the wait. Had finals and I'm graduating. *throws confetti.* So here's a chapter!

nameless thing

lxii. nameless thing

Harriet took each step down into the dungeons with a heavy, indignant huff.

This detention wasn't fair. It wasn't her fault Malfoy was a prat, it's wasn't her fault he couldn't show up to tryouts on time, and it most certainly wasn't her fault he wound up bloodied on the grass; Snape couldn't blame her for the berk's own spell rebounding off her shield and smacking him in the face. No matter where the blame lay, however, Snape seemed determined to ruin Harriet's mood, and upset anger heated her face.

It's not fair.

Her knuckles hit the Potions' classroom door with unnecessary force.

"Enter."

Harriet did as bid, knowing better than to throw the door open and let it bounce on the wall like Snape did, because she'd been cuffed upside the head enough times by Uncle Vernon to understand slamming things about wouldn't win her any points. She thought it might make her feel a bit better, but the detention hadn't even started yet, and the great bat sounded like he was already in a mood.

She found Snape standing behind his own desk at the head of the room, the space lit by the eerie, sputtering green flames coiling beneath an active cauldron, the sharp angles of the wizard's face rendered gruesome and grim as he leaned over the rim. He didn't look up at Harriet, instead concentrating on his work, two bottles Charmed to hover overhead and tip their contents into the bubbling stew at even increments as Snape stirred with one hand and incanted spells with the other.

Awkward, Harriet stood at the side of the desk, and her anger deflated without anywhere to direct it. "Err, professor—?"

He flicked his wand toward the entrance. The door crashed shut, stealing what little light from the corridor managed to sneak inside, and Harriet's heart kicked the inside of her ribs. The professor moved again, and a few of the torches bracketed to the walls sputtered into life.

"Sit, Potter."

Harriet sat at the closest desk, which—given the ink, quill, and parchment laid out on its surface— had been prepped for her arrival. Guess I'm doing lines tonight. She unfurled the parchment's top, and let out a huff as she read the first sentence already written in Snape's spidery script.

I will think before I act like an imbecile.

Snape looked up from his cauldron. "Problem, Potter?"

Glowering, Harriet met the man's black stare and said, "Not at all, professor."

"Then you had best reassess your attitude, as I will not accept any disrespect from you in my classroom."

Her anger sparked again, and before she could stop herself, Harriet blurted out, "It's not fair!" Knowing Snape's stance on fair, she rushed on to explain, "I didn't do anything! Malfoy attacked us!"

Snape sneered, the green light of the flame catching on his crooked teeth. "Oh? You did nothing? Nothing at all?"

"Nothing!"

"Then how is it Mr. Malfoy wound up on the ground with a broken nose, hmm?"

Harriet hesitated. Technically, she had done something, hadn't she? If not exactly what Snape thought, she still took out her wand and cast a spell. "Well, I—."

"Exactly," Snape said without letting Harriet finish her thought. "You did something, and for that something, you are in detention. If you think Mr. Malfoy escaped without his own form of punishment, then you are mistaken, and it is not your place to second guess how I discipline my students—be it you, or him."

"I didn't do anything wrong!"

"Miss Potter—."

"It's not fair!"

"Silence!" the professor snapped, his hand stilling on the cauldron's ladle. Harriet realized she'd been shouting, and color flushed her cheeks. All the same, she refused to lower her gaze from Snape's. "I told you, I will not tolerate disrespect in my classroom. Write your lines."

"But—."

"Write."

Biting back an irritated sigh, Harriet snatched up the quill, dunked it in the inkwell, and began to messily scrawl out the bloody line she was meant to copy. The first copy, and the second, resembled chicken scratch more than actual words, but by the time Snape returned to his potion and she reached her tenth repetition, the prickling in her neck subsided, color fading, and all that remained was the day's exhaustion. Harriet dabbed at her parchment, grousing over Snape, over Malfoy, over his stupid fat head and his stupid father buying the whole team brooms. All this drama, simply because he wouldn't try for his spot like a normal person.

"I didn't attack him, sir," Harriet said into the quiet, speaking softer than before. "I just used a Shield Charm."

The ladle made a solid thunk as it came to a stop against the rim, and Snape straightened, flicking his hair back with a negligent jerk of his head. He placed both hands on the edge of his desk and leaned forward as if he, too, was tired. "You are not in detention for attacking a student, girl. You are in detention because you did not think."

"I don't understand."

Snape's eyes narrowed. "Don't be an idiot. You have been at Hogwarts long enough to know there is a certain bias against our House, Miss Potter. You are not a Gryffindor; you do not have the luxury of acting first and begging forgiveness like those in the saintly house of red and gold. This time, it was an inner-House feud, and I was the one to come upon the scene; next time, it might be

Longbottom you throw in the dirt, and it won't be me, but rather someone who goes running with the story to the Daily Prophet, smearing your name and reputation over a pointless schoolyard tiff."

"But I—." Harriet paused, fiddling with the quill. The Potions Master had a point, she knew. Sometimes, in primary, Dudley would chase her somewhere out of bounds, using his ruddy friends to herd her in, and by the time a teacher found them, it'd be her that was in trouble yet again. No matter how she argued, it always stood that Dudley was in the right, and she'd been caught red- handed. Perception was an important tool in learning to get along. "I didn't even mean what I did, though. It was just—an instinct."

"Which is all well and good in dueling, but you are not an animal, and you are not controlled by those instincts. You must hone them to obey your whims, not the other way around. I have no plans to stand as a character witness at your Wizengamot trial when you're charged for accidental murder simply because you acted on instinct." He snapped his fingers and a cutting board popped into existence, clattering on Harriet's desk, followed by a knife and a bundle of knotgrass. "Dice. Three-fourths of an inch."

Harriet took to her new task with better spirits, since dicing a plant beat scrubbing cauldrons or writing lines or whatever other unpleasant tasks Snape could whip out of his sleeve. "What was I supposed to do, professor? Just let Malfoy attack Elara?"

"Yes." Harriet wrinkled her nose and, without glancing at her, Snape rolled his eyes. "Black is an emancipated, proxy-Head of her House, and—to be frank—a girl. Draco would have come out much worse in this idiotic confrontation had she been the one with the broken nose and not him. After you and your little friends pulled your Quidditch coup—." A pointed look stopped Harriet from arguing. "Mr. Malfoy will be searching for ways to undermine your privilege and see you removed from the team. Him bloodying Black would have brought censure upon Mr. Malfoy."

Harriet chopped at the green shoots in front of her with more vigor. Stupid blond prat.

"I said dice, not pulverize, Potter…."

They worked in silence for a while, interrupted only by the cauldron's lazy bubbling, the study tapping of the knife on wood, and the occasional, soft winnowing of Snape's magic as he spelled diced knotgrass into the forming concoction. Harriet mulled over everything he'd said about Malfoy, and found she had very little taste for such things; honestly, she'd much rather just hex him and get it over with than muck about with mind games, but Professor Snape wasn't wrong. Hadn't it been instinct that threw her fist into Ron's mouth last year? Snape told her off then, too, and she'd been stuck elbow-deep in mucky cauldrons for most of the night.

No, Harriet didn't believe she'd be able to stand aside and let Malfoy curse her friends, but she could be smarter about it, couldn't she? She always lamented not being as clever or quick-witted as Hermione or Elara, but she didn't want to be a twit like Goyle or Crabbe, who always acted with their fists instead of their brains.

Sighing through her nose, Harriet kept dicing, pausing only to scratch at her neck and rub her tired eyes. "Professor?" she asked.

"What?"

"Why are there so many different Shield Charms? And why do they act funny against different spells?"

"Define funny, Potter."

"Well, I mean, I read books that talk about different Shield Charms, yeah? And they all say different shields react in certain ways against different spells, how some are better used here instead of there, and I don't understand how people know when to use those shields, cos' your opponent's not going to announce their attack, are they?"

"Some fools do, or as good as," Snape muttered. Pausing in his brewing, the Potions Master straightened and considered her question, tracing a long finger against his chin in thought. "Dueling tests not only your knowledge of spells, but how you read your opponent and interpret their spellcraft. In competitive dueling—or in true battle—many spells are incanted silently, and it is up to you to understand your opponent's body language, and consult Birch's Law."

"Birch's Law?"

Professor Snape jerked his head in a nod, then picked his black wand up off the desk to wave over his cauldron, a still, blue mist settling atop the liquid, bringing it to stasis. "Slytherin doesn't teach proper dueling, so I doubt he touches upon the principle much in his classes, but I know Professor McGonagall will be instructing you about the theory in your fourth year or so, if you dunderheads prove receptive to the concept. Birch's Law, also known as a spell's V.E.R.D, encompasses the properties of viscosity, elasticity, refraction, and density." As he spoke, Snape flicked his wand at the blackboard behind him, and his familiar handwriting crept across the dusty expanse. Harriet wriggled her spoiled parchment out from under the cutting board and started taking notes.

"Viscosity examines the magnitude of a spell's internal friction. Elasticity, simply put, examines a spell's propensity for bouncing, and is not as vital in rough dueling as a full comprehension of refraction, the dispersion of VIBGYOR—violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red— light. The colors descend the refractive index; violet spells are incredibly difficult to deflect, whereas red spells are not. Density, or the compaction of a substance, measures the energy amassed within a spell, and in relation to its viscosity and elasticity, affect its deflection. Spells of incredibly low density with a high refraction index and little elasticity can rarely be reflected and thus need to be dodged or intercepted."

Harriet scribbled as fast as she could, not interrupting, because Snape seemed lost in his own lecture, and Harriet didn't want him to change his mind about giving her this information—even if it did sound impossibly complicated.

"Different variations of the Shield Charm exist to reach and counter the various VERDs of dangerous spells, but reaching the higher refection index requires a faster vibration of energy, and thus tires the witch or wizard out faster should they continually incant powerful shields against meaningless assault. On the inverse, a witch or wizard on the offensive would be best served by an arsenal of spells relatively low on the refraction index and thus less powerful, but less likely to wear on the user before they can break their opponent's defenses. The ENT, or Elemental Negation Transformation, can supersede a spell's VERD, which is how a water shield low upon the refraction index can neutralize or counter a more powerful fire spell—." Snape paused, coming back to himself, and turned on Harriet, the muscle in his jaw working. "Is any of this penetrating your thick skull, or am I wasting my breath?"

"Some," Harriet admitted, stifling a tired yawn, still copying the information he'd thrown onto the blackboard. "I don't understand how anyone could think about all this during a duel, though."

"The key is memorization, Potter—and, should that fail you, knowledge of stance and color theory. Magic travels in certain ways through the body depending on the desired spell and its effects. Wizarding societies to the east refer to the various chakra points in the body, from which they

theorize different spells originate, depending upon their elemental base. Harnessing these spells is done with different gestures and manipulations of the wand or hand."

Harriet scratched her neck, smudging ink on her collar. "Hermione once told me most Charms are tossed and hexes are thrown."

"A simplistic explanation, but suitable for your purposes. Charms are 'underhand,' whereas many curses and heavier spells are 'overhand,' yes." Snape exhaled and rubbed his forehead. "In simple terms, dodge spells colored green, blue, indigo, or violet. They will be more difficult, or impossible, to counter."

Harriet scribbled this final note at the bottom of her sheet, wanting to ask "What if you can't dodge?", but she guessed that's what the rest of his theory spiel had been all about. Maybe she could write to Mr. Flamel and ask him about it. He could probably explain with more patience than a tired Snape.

Setting the quill aside, Harriet folded her notes up, the ink quick to dry. Snape wasn't paying attention to her; he balanced a hip against the desk's solid lip and leaned upon it as he studied the board, lost in fathomless thoughts far beyond Harriet's comprehension.

"Professor Slytherin always throws my spells back at me," she commented, continuing with the rest of the knotgrass. Shifting, Snape returned to the cauldron and set about clearing his station. He waved a hand over the flame and it went out.

"Obviously."

"He does it on purpose. No matter how—how hard I throw my spells, his shield proves stronger."

The wizard produced several crystal vials from his robe pockets, then used the ladle to dribble the sickly mixture into each one until the potion was gone. "We did have a discussion about you using your head, did we not? Think, Potter. What would you have to gain by getting past Professor Slytherin's shield? Nothing."

"I am thinking! I just want to do it once. Just to prove to myself that I can." Harriet squeezed the knife's handle, remembering the utter terror that seized her when Slytherin had leaned over her the first time, hissing "Be ready to catch what you throw." She knew nothing good could come of besting her proud Defense Professor at his own game, and yet….

Snape considered her as he dismissed the cauldron back to the counter by the dripping sink. He appeared to be having a silent argument with himself, a losing argument, one he finally settled with an irritated grunt. "Don't concentrate on breaking through his shield. You haven't the repertoire to breach his defenses, even on a negligible level, but he will underestimate you. Part of dueling—not that Slytherin would ever engage in an honest duel with a student, Potter—is controlling and manipulating your environment, as well as your opponent. What is the floor in the Defense class made of?"

"Um?" Baffled by the strange question, it took Harriet longer than it should have to say, "S-stone? I think."

Snape pinched the bridge of his nose, then manually wrote the numbers "2.5" to "3" with the abbreviation "g/cm" and a little floating three on the board. It looked suspiciously like maths to Harriet. "Use Granger to help you find a spell whose elasticity reacts with this density. Aim for the floor at Slytherin's feet. Most variations of the Shield Charm protect only the torso and head, but his barrier will be powerful and extend to his ankles. Should you succeed in finding the proper

spell, it will ricochet off the floor, dip below his shield, and hit him." Snape's eyes hardened again. "If you go through with this fool's errand, be ready to face the consequences of his displeasure."

Harriet took out her notes again, printed the numbers, and underlined Hermione's name twice, knowing that her friend could make much more sense of Snape's information than she could at the moment. Apparently, some spells bounced and some didn't, some were sticky and some weren't, and different shields blocked differently colored hexes and curses because of something called refraction. Her nose wrinkled as she considered how much more difficult dueling was than just pointing your wand at someone.

Well, it'd have to be, she thought, stuffing the parchment away again. Sure, I could block Malfoy easy enough—but he's twelve and doesn't know anything yet. If everyone could get by with a simple Shield Charm, I doubt Voldemort would have gotten anywhere at all.

Snape gathered the completed vials together, levitating several when his hands were filled. "Finish the knotgrass," the wizard instructed before swooping away, heading toward the storage cupboard on the opposite side of the room. Harriet heard the cupboard door swing open on its decrepit hinges, then swing shut—and she took the opportunity to quickly dice the rest of the grass shoots, doing a shoddy job, but finishing the task in seconds. She wanted to get back to the dorms and talk to Hermione before she went off to bed.

He won't notice if they're not all three-fourths of an inch, right? Right? He probably would, but hopefully not until Harriet was several corridors away.

Spotting a cleaning rag left on the professor's desk, Harriet hopped to her feet and went to grab it, thinking she should tidy her workspace before Snape returned—when a sound stopped her cold.

"Sso hungry…sso hungry…." A voice breathed, tickling at her ears, seeming to come from nowhere and everywhere—from Harriet herself, even. "Let usss kill…let usss rip…blood, yesss… let usss tasste—."

"Potter?"

Jolting, Harriet spun too quickly on her heels and fell against Snape's desk, bruising her back on the hard, unyielding wood. Surprised by her reaction, Snape did little more than stare at her, brow raised. "…Potter?" he repeated, voice less stern.

"I—. D-did you say something?" she asked, voice gone high, eyes wide. What had that voice been? Had she imagined it? Surely if Snape had heard someone whispering about killing someone he wouldn't be so composed. It was getting late, and though Harriet had never been one to hear voices before, Quidditch had tired her out, and stressing over her detention for the remainder of the afternoon had wrung her of what energy remained. The voice reminded Harriet of that nameless, terrifying thing in her nightmares, that harsh crooning clawing at the inside of her head, oozing from the dark places in the cupboard and between the floorboards at Grimmauld and from behind Professor Slytherin's every barbed word—.

It's not real, Harriet told herself, swallowing. It's never real.

She strained her ears, but she heard nothing aside from her heart's rapid beating and the very slight rush of Snape's breathing.

"Yes, I told you to leave your mess and get out of my sight." Snape furrowed his brow. "…what are you doing?"

"I—tripped," Harriet stuttered, as if the man hadn't just witnessed that for himself. "Do I—do I have detention again tomorrow? Professor?"

Scowling, Snape said, "No. I have better ways to spend my evening than minding disrespectful brats. I will forget the rest of your detentions for this incident. Don't make me regret my leniency, Potter."

"I won't." She scrambled to her feet, straightening her robes and glasses. "Can I go? Sir?"

The suspicion hadn't left his face yet, but Snape just frowned and crossed his arms, black robes falling around him like a bat's wings closing for the night. "Yes. Leave."

Muttering good night, Harriet bolted for the door—and she didn't stop running until she was safely shut inside the Slytherin common room, leaving behind the sullen Potions Master, the sickly smell of knotgrass, and all creepy, imagined voices whispering in her ears.

A/N: Harriet - "…You mean I can't just yeet the wand out of their hands?" Snape - "…no." Sorry for the gratuitous magical theory.

apology

lxiii. apology

When the morning light came creeping through the lake's shallows and Harriet opened her eyes to the dappled green glow warming her bedsheets, she could little remember the eerie voice she'd heard in the dungeons the night before. Indeed, the whole evening felt fuzzy to Harriet, and if it weren't for the rumpled sheet of parchment she unearthed from her used robes, she would have thought it all just another strange dream.

She stared down at the page, touching the spidery letters at the top, and thought, Snape was in an odd mood.

Being a Sunday, Millicent and Pansy still slept, the latter snoring into her silk pillows, but the rest of the beds were empty and made, leaving Harriet to make her way into the washroom on her own, getting ready for the day. Livius stuck his nose out from under the bed's skirts when she returned, but he otherwise remained quiet, content to remain in his nest, the Warming Charm thrown over his blankets by Hermione. Kevin went into his favored pocket in her robes.

Once washed and dressed, Harriet grabbed her school bag and headed into the common room, but found neither Hermione or Elara there. She continued out of the dorms into the castle itself, and— yawning all the while—meandered to the library.

She ended up taking the wrong corridor twice, passing a bust without a face three times, and each time she did, it asked her odd, raspy questions. Finally, she found a portrait of a witch herding geese who was kind enough to point out the proper path—interrupted by loud, obnoxious honking every other syllable—and Harriet managed to get to her destination.

"There you are, Harriet," Hermione said, lifting her head from a yellowing tome as the bespectacled witch wandered over to the table. Others sat with Hermione, including Elara— slumped in her seat and half-asleep—the Ravenclaws Terry Boot and Anthony Goldstein, and— surprisingly—Ginny Weasley and Luna Lovegood. The two first years looked up when Hermione spoke.

"Hello, Harriet," Luna said, pale eyes wide as they faceted on the other girl.

"'Lo," Harriet replied to Luna and the table in general, taking the seat left open at Elara's side. The taller witch dragged her own bag off the chair with a tired grunt. "Bit keen for studying on a Sunday, aren't you all?"

"You missed breakfast," Hermione informed her with an imperious arch of her brow. "So no, it's not early at all, really."

Elara and Weasley seemed to disagree, but neither chose to say anything. The latter had dark circles under her eyes and appeared paler than usual behind her numerous freckles, and though her bias against Slytherin still stung, Harriet asked, "How are you, Ginny?"

Ginny shrugged.

Madam Pince made her rounds, lurking like an angry, well-read vulture, and so their conversation subsided, the two younger students consulting what looked like Hermione's Transfiguration notes

from the year before while Hermione tackled a Charms project with the Ravenclaws and Elara paged through a Herbology text, working on a supplemental essay for Sprout.

Harriet took out her notes from the evening prior and, smoothing the sheet against, neatly tore off the bit holding her lines, leaving behind her hasty scribbles about Birch's Law.

"Hermione?" she asked, getting the other witch's attention. "D'you know anything about Birch's Law? Or—VERD?"

"VERD?" Anthony said before Hermione had the chance. "Professor Flitwick told us we won't touch any of Horwell Birch's theorems until well into our fourth year—and only in Arithmancy, after we cover Agrippa."

Hermione clicked her tongue. "Birch's theorems aren't strictly Arithmancy. VERD, in particular, is covered in other subjects beyond Arithmancy, Anthony. Especially in Defense."

Terry snorted. "No. Too close to dueling practice, and the older Ravenclaws tell us Professor Slytherin doesn't teach anything resembling proper dueling."

"Why do you ask, Harriet?" Hermione said, ignoring Terry, who shared a smirk with Anthony. "Is this for class?"

"…You could say that." Harriet slid the parchment to Hermione, who reached over her amounting stack of texts to pick it up and bring it closer to the light coming through the open window.

"Merlin, your handwriting—."

"I know," Harriet interrupted a bit testily. "I rushed to write all I could."

"Was this in—?"

"Yes," she interrupted again, eyes flicking toward the Ravenclaws, then away. "We got onto a bit of a tangent."

"I'll say." Hermione squinted and brought the parchment closer to her nose. "You're looking for a spell that will rebound against a density two point five to three grams per cubic centimeter. You're going to need an equation for that—." With a lazy gesture, Terry reached and snatched the parchment from Hermione. "Boot!"

"It's stone," he said—also squinting when he tried to decipher Harriet's smudged words. "A non- porous stone. Granite, mayhaps. You're looking for a spell that'll bounce on the castle's floor or walls."

"You don't need an equation for that," Anthony supplied, grinning. "After all, experience is the best teacher, isn't it? I say, most of our first-year curriculum should rebound, shouldn't they, Terry?"

"Theoretically. It also depends upon a spell's inertia. A flipendo usually dissipates upon hitting a solid obstacle, but I've seen it ricochet when it hits with enough force."

"Don't encourage her to go throwing hexes at the walls hoping they bounce back." Hermione took the parchment back, scowling, and handed it to Harriet. "What's this for, anyway?"

"Just some, um, extra credit?" Harriet winced at the weak excuse. "I'll show you the assignment later."

Clearly there wasn't an extra credit assignment under the sun Hermione hadn't heard about and completed, and so she opened her mouth to question Harriet—when Elara nudged her chair with her foot, expression flat, knowing. Hermione's mouth snapped shut, lips thinning.

"There should be books on Birch's Law over there," Elara said, tipping her chin across the library toward the far stacks. "If you're interested."

"Thanks."

Harriet stood and wandered in the direction Elara had indicated, though she shied away from the idea of unearthing some thick, overzealous book from the Stone Age filled with maths and equations and a thousand other things that would make her head hurt. Reading something like that was always a chore, but if she wished to write Mr. Flamel, she needed a better grasp on the subject, lest she sound like a bumbling fool wasting his time with simple nonsense. With that thought in mind, Harriet entered the dusty section devoted to Magical Theory and Laws.

Ten minutes of searching provided little insight, and Harriet slid a dusty scroll on Abu Musa Jabir's nonsensical ramblings back onto the shelf, reaching for another.

"Harriet?" Startled, the bespectacled witch turned to find Ginny standing a few paces away, looking uncertain about what she was doing there exactly. She fiddled with the ends of her red hair and waited for Harriet to look at her before speaking again. "Listen, I just wanted to say I'm— sorry, about what happened at the lake before. It wasn't right, I know. Ever since I was little, my brothers have always filled my head with all these stories about Slytherins being terrible and liars and—." Ginny paused, fiddling with her hair again, tugging hard on the edges. "Did you know our mums got on?"

Harriet didn't know that, and she didn't know why Ginny brought it up. What's her angle? "No," she said slowly, choosing her words and another book. "I don't…I wasn't told a lot about my parents." Nothing at all, if it wasn't a bunch of lies.

"My uncles were Aurors who worked with your dad supposedly, and so the—Potters were invited over a lot. My mum was gonna have Ron and your mum was gonna have—well, have you—and so they became friends." Ginny colored. "I wrote a letter home, and I…mentioned you. Mum told me about being friends with Lily Potter. I just—felt silly, after she told me that. You, Elara, and Hermione were really nice to me and Luna, and I should've known my brothers were having me on. So I'm sorry."

"I understand," Harriet said, because she did understand—but she did not say it was alright, because it wasn't. Why did she always have to apologize for her House? People always liked to whip out the fact that "Merlin was a Slytherin" when defending Slytherin's honor—but the bloody wizard hadn't been at Hogwarts for a thousand years! Harriet didn't like that Slytherins always had to make up for some slight, some perceived injustice done by others in their House, how the Dark Lord's shadow seemed to stretch wide and sully those who didn't have a thing to do with him. It wasn't Ginny's fault, and yet it irked Harriet all the same.

The feeling sat heavy and convoluted in Harriet's stomach, but she shoved it away, because she appreciated the image Ginny painted; her dad and mum with friends, being invited over for dinner, enjoying life. She did, however, change the subject. "You look tired, Ginny," she told the other girl, reading the spine of another tome. She couldn't make heads or tails of the language. "Are you liking Hogwarts?"

"Yes," the other girl said, perhaps a bit too quickly. "I do miss home, though. I haven't been getting enough sleep."

"Doesn't Gryffindor have a curfew? Our prefects are strict about it."

"We do, but the prefects don't seem to care much. My brother Percy tries to bully us off to the dorms, but he forgets to get to bed himself with all his studying. The common room's loud because —." Ginny suddenly flushed a darker red than her hair, and Harriet thought steam might come flooding from her ears at any second. "…because of Neville Longbottom."

The last words came out in a worshipful hush, and Harriet didn't fight the urge to roll her eyes, though Ginny couldn't see, not with her face pointed at the shelves. Bloody Longbottom.

"He's…he's not really how I'd thought he'd be," Ginny admitted, quietly, as if she didn't really mean want to. "He's great, of course! But he's…."

"People rarely live up to their reputations, good or bad." Harriet took down another scroll, checking the title. She had no desire to hear Ginny Weasley wax poetic about the Boy Who Lived. Not after what she learned at the end of last term. "If he's keeping you up, tell the prat to be quiet."

Ginny's eyes grew round as Galleons. "He's—he defeated You-Know-Who. You can't call him a p-prat."

The Headmaster's voice came back to Harriet, echoing "he is no more the cause of Voldemort's downfall than myself or this candy dish," and though the absurd imagery peculated a kind of quiet hilarity in her head, Harriet didn't find the sentiment very funny. She was still bitter over the years she spent in the cupboard while Neville Longbottom had lived the kind of life she still couldn't properly imagine.

"I'll believe it when I see it," Harriet muttered.

"What?"

Harriet cleared her throat, pretending she didn't hear the question. "Listen, Ginny. Neville and I don't get on. I mean, you probably don't want my advice, yeah? But, you should form an opinion based on who he is, not what he's done." Supposedly done. "He's just another student. I can't speak for him, but he'd probably appreciate someone trying to see him for who he is."

Harriet left then, walking from the stacks empty-handed, ignoring her friends' questioning looks as she resumed her seat and dug out her own Charms essay instead. She'd continue her research later, when she had time to tell Hermione and Elara exactly what happened in detention, and when she had the opportunity to do as Anthony said, and test which spells would work best for getting past Professor Slytherin's shield.

Across the table, Luna smiled—a vacuous, if friendly, gesture—and though Harriet tried to return it, her heart wasn't in it.

kill a king

lxiv. kill a king

"This has got to be the worst idea you've ever had."

Hermione, Elara, and Harriet stood clumped in the sunlit corridor beyond their Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, waiting for the door to finally open. Hermione spoke the thought aloud, just as she had for most of the morning, and for most of the Monday prior to today, shaking her head each time Harriet discreetly took aim at the hard, stone floor and fired another low-level hex at it. They were late for Transfiguration yesterday, having to stop by the infirmary after a forceful furnunculus struck Harriet in the face, and Hermione's best efforts to reduce the swelling proved fruitless. Madam Pomfrey didn't believe their excuse about a misfired spell, and Professor McGonagall gave them a tongue lashing for their tardiness.

Elara—who was not as opposed to the occasional spot of mischief—kept frowning.

"I can't believe Professor Snape would encourage this," Hermione whispered. "This is exactly the kind of thing he usually tells us not to do!"

"He might have a reason," Elara muttered. She eyed Draco, who stood nearest them, and though he kept sending murderous glances in Harriet's direction, he otherwise remained deep in conversation with Nott. Hermione knew he'd sent several letters home, and given how sullen his mood had been on Sunday and Monday, she gathered Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy weren't overly impressed with his whinging—or his being bested by a bunch of underage witches.

"How so?"

Elara shrugged, attempting nonchalance, though she kept wringing her hands inside her sleeves. "We know Professor Slytherin has…favorites." This was true. Several of the older Slytherins often boasted about earning their professor's regard, and though Hermione admitted to preening whenever professors praised her work, compliments from Professor Slytherin always carried a double-edged bitterness, scarcely given, and yet just as cutting as his insults. "Maybe this is Snape's way of making sure Harriet doesn't become a…favorite."

"Maybe this is his newest attempt to get Harriet murdered."

The witch in question huffed, readjusting her glasses, shifting her weight from foot to foot. "You know it was Quirrell who tried that, Hermione."

"Quirrell's actions do not preclude Professor Snape's." Not that Hermione truly believed Professor Snape meant Harriet harm, but a healthy dose of wariness would serve them all well—and honestly, what was the Potions Master thinking, helping Harriet find a way past Professor Slytherin's protego? It was idiotic. Did he mean to have her murdered? Expelled? Because Hermione thought both options a possibility when dealing with their inimical Head of House.

"He warned me against doing this, you know," Harriet said. "I think he called me a fool, and then said something about being ready for the consequences."

"Why are you doing this?" Hermione had asked before, naturally, and she received the same answer now as she had then.

"I just have to."

Hermione didn't understand. Trouble invariably found Harriet with startling frequency, but it was unlike the bespectacled witch to cause her own problems, and Hermione couldn't wrap her head around her reasoning. She didn't have to do anything; indeed, it seemed more imperative she do nothing, and should this risky plan work—which, Hermione wasn't convinced it would—Harriet would more than likely regret her actions. Purposefully seeking a way in which to strike a professor, even in a scenario where such a thing became plausible, would get her in so much trouble.

I just have to.

Why, Hermione wanted to demand, but she didn't, knowing how her temper rose when presented with a vexing problem. No answer was forthcoming, either because Harriet didn't want to explain, or couldn't. Perhaps, instead of Hermione simply not understanding, she couldn't understand; in contrast to Harriet, Hermione grew up well-loved and sheltered, hungry for knowledge but otherwise fed, safe, comfortable. If she'd been raised as Harriet had, questioning when her next meal would come, terrified her beast of a relative might turn around one day and make good on their violent threats, Hermione might want to prove she could best someone like Professor Slytherin too, if only to know she could. There was a powerful sense of security in knowing someone you found threatening could be—theoretically—defeated.

Lost in thought, nibbling her lip, Hermione almost missed when the door eased open, assisted by magic and a strong, sudden breeze. The students dressed in green and silver entered first—though Elara snagged Harriet's sleeve and held her back, whispering low and furious, saying something Hermione couldn't hear. Whatever she said, Harriet shook her off and marched into the classroom, shoulders rigid and head held high, taking her accustomed seat near the front. Hermione and Elara followed her, sharing apprehensive looks.

Professor Slytherin stood before his lectern, dressed in his ever-present robes of black with the fine, emerald lining hemming the inside. He waited, silent, wand in hand, for the final Gryffindor straggler to make it past the threshold, then he brandished his hand, slamming the door shut in their wake. The sudden, hard bang! stifled what little conversation had endured the transition from the hall to the classroom.

"Good afternoon, students."

"Good afternoon, Professor Slytherin."

He smiled, a bleak, ominous bearing of straight, white teeth. "Take out your essays on the etymology of the Conjunctivitis Curse. I will be Summoning them to me."

Papers crinkled and bodies shifted as Slytherins and Gryffindors alike shuffled through their bags to find their rolled-up essays. Professor Slytherin waited thirty seconds at the most before snapping his fingers, sending twenty or so scrolls sailing toward his desk at the far corner of the room. They settled in a tidy pyramid. "Now," the wizard said as he drifted from behind his lectern, robes rippling, the torchlight glinting on the shined silver buttons of his waistcoat. "We will be continuing with our practical studies, today examining the proper form and usage of the curse I had you write your essays on. If you did your research, performing the curse should be a simple task." A few students mumbled under their breath, uneasy, and Slytherin smiled all the more. "Let's see. How about…Longbottom. Yes, Mr. Longbottom, you're first. To the mark."

The Boy Who Lived made his way to the lion mark, and as he began what had become a standard ritual with the Defense professor, Hermione turned ever so slightly in her chair, looking at Harriet.

The green-eyed girl glanced in her direction, and then away, watching Professor Slytherin and Longbottom, so Hermione looked to Elara instead. The Black witch didn't look away, but she always held her face so stiffly, Hermione couldn't tell what she was thinking.

Oh, I hope Harriet changed her mind, Hermione moaned in her own head. She prayed the reality of being in the classroom in front of the Defense Master had swayed Harriet from her path, and yet Hermione acknowledged the futility in such thinking. Harriet was not one to frighten easily. She carries around one of the world's deadliest magical serpents under her shirt, for Pete's sake.

Parkinson followed Longbottom, then Bullstrode, Finnigan, and Goyle. Hermione's turn came before Harriet's, and her concentration suffered to such an extent she could only make a half- hearted attempt at the curse, earning herself a snide comment from the professor and a few low snickers out of the Gryffindors. Elara went, putting forth a better—if no less disinterested—effort. Slytherin wiled his way through the accrued bodies, until finally—.

"Miss Potter," Professor Slytherin called, grinning again. "Our last participant today. To the mark."

Harriet stood, straightening her skirt. If she hadn't been looking for it, Hermione would have missed how the other witch's hands shook.

This a bad idea. A very bad, very, very, bad idea—.

The short walk to the green marker seemed to take an age, when in reality, Harriet found her place a few short seconds later and turned to face Professor Slytherin, her wand already drawn. Oh, but how she looked so small standing there, half her hair escaping the quick plait Elara had finished for her that morning, cardigan a size too big, robes slightly askew—and yet, Hermione couldn't deny a certain fluidity to her movements, an instinctual grace no one else in the class could quite mimic. Harriet just seemed to know where to put her feet on instinct, bending her knees, raising her arms. Hermione always felt awkward when she took the mark; if Harriet did, she gave no indication.

Without warning, the short witch took a breath and lunged forward, shouting, "Oculi irritare!"

A quick burst of mustard yellow light flew toward Professor Slytherin, who waited with his shield already raised. Hermione noted how his wand hand twitched inside his sleeve, and she knew he'd wordlessly adjusted his spell again, strengthening it against Harriet's oddly powerful attacks. Indeed, the Conjunctivitis Curse struck his shield, immediately slinging itself back at the witch, and Hermione held her breath, waiting for it to hit Harriet, when—.

Harriet dodged.

In the split second of time between the spell hitting Slytherin's protego and firing back at her, Harriet dipped below the curse, eyes bright, lit up in the ugly glow, and her arm darted forward, wand out—.

"Locomotor Mortis!"

The purple curse burst forth, the angle low, losing momentum against the platform, until it caught the stones properly, rocketing upward just as it dipped beneath the defined edge of Slytherin's transparent shield.

The wizard's legs snapped together, and in that instant, as he swayed, Hermione saw sheer, incredulous disbelief in the wizard's red eyes.

And then, fury overcame him.

The Leg-Locker Curse didn't even last a full second before Professor Slytherin broke it, stepping forward, into his next spell, and the whole of the classroom held its breath in shocked terror. The wizard's arm whipped down—not toward Harriet, as Hermione had expected, but rather to the side, the familiar light of a flipendo skidding right, spiraling, catching the stones just as Harriet's curse had so it could sail around the hasty shield the bespectacled witch had thrown up, striking her right in the side. The force of the spell threw Harriet off her feet and into Lavender Brown's desk.

"Harriet!" Hermione screamed, unable to help herself. How did he do that?! Is she okay?! Harriet tried that spell half a dozen times, but she couldn't get it to ricochet; how could he do it?!

"Sssilence!" Professor Slytherin hissed. It wasn't necessary; the whole of the classroom had descended into a deadly, terrible hush broken only by Harriet's short, quiet panting. She was quick to rise, mumbling a quiet apology to Lavender as the stunned Gryffindor picked her glasses off the floor and handed them over. "I do believe we are using the Conjunctivitis Curse today, Potter. Not the Leg-Locker Curse."

Professor Slytherin's voice hit Hermione's ear like oil, cold and slick and moments away from being ignited into a fiery cataclysm. The professor had his arms at his sides, pale hands clenching and unclenching in tight, furious fists.

"Well, girl?"

All eyes waited on Harriet as she swallowed, head down, eyes on the floor. "Sorry, Professor," she lied. "I didn't mean to. It was an accident."

"An accident—." The wizard took a silent step closer and Hermione stiffened. "An accident. Ah, yes…how very…unfortunate. An accident. Thirty points from Slytherin."

To their credit, none of Harriet's housemates batted an eye. Neither did the Gryffindors.

"Allow me to make one thing very clear to you all; I will not tolerate another…accident in my classroom. I am gracious in allowing you children to practice your craft upon a superior wizard such as myself, but I will not submit to being your practice dummy. You puling little—." He stopped himself, taking a breath. He ran a hand through his hair, straightening the mussed curl that fell across his furrowed brow. Hermione had never seen him come so close to losing his temper; the professor's constant, falsely genuine mask cracked enough to show a truly alarming visage behind it. "Do I make myself clear?"

Everyone nodded.

"Do I?"

"Yes, Professor Slytherin!"

Harriet said nothing. She looked like she was having difficulty breathing, one hand folded over her neck, the other arm wrapped about her ribs. Professor Slytherin flicked his wand at the classroom door, and it crashed open again, two of the torches going out in the draft. Smoke tinged the air. "Class dismissed."

The students hesitated, caught unprepared, but they moved a moment later, rushing to gather their things and get out of the room. Elara snatched up Harriet's things, seeing as the shorter girl had been the first one out the door, Professor Slytherin's gaze never leaving her until Harriet vanished into the corridor. Hermione and Elara rushed after her, and they needed only descend the stairs to the first floor, finding Harriet slumped alone on the steps, out of breath and sweating profusely.

"Are you all right?" Hermione asked as she knelt, worried. "He didn't break your ribs, did he?!"

"No," Harriet wheezed. "It's—. My neck."

Her neck?

Slowly, Elara set down their satchels and reached out, tugging Harriet's collar to the one side. The old curse scar was livid, skin raised, red, the white veins as stark as real lightning against her flesh.

That doesn't make any sense. Did the scar have some sort of reaction with the Knockback Jinx? It hasn't before, but then, Slytherin wasn't the one casting it then. It was Harriet herself, the spells coming off his barriers.

Groaning, Harriet lifted the edge of her shirt, displaying just enough of her side to reveal the fresh bruises already forming. They looked painful, but not serious. "Merlin," she grunted, jerking the fabric back into place. Her breathing leveled out as the pain faded in her eyes, color leaching from the raw, angry tissue about the curse scar. They could hear the rest of their class descending the stairs now, so they rose, Hermione keeping a hand on Harriet's elbow, making sure she didn't stumble. "Consequences be damned. He's such an arsehole."

"Honestly, Harriet."

Elara started to laugh.

serpent charmer

lxv. serpent charmer

Cold morning air cut into Harriet's lungs and she savored the burn, holding it in, until she let it go with a hard, shuddering exhale.

Her sneakers hit the ground under her with steady thumps, the earth unyielding, chilled, compacted by a thousand years of a thousand feet following the same trail along the edge of the Black Lake. Cliffs overshadow part of the path, the natural divots and shelves bearing evidence of forgotten parties thrown by the upper years, initials and hearts carved deep into the rocks. Ahead, the Forbidden Forest crawled up from the shore, and the path loped away from the water into the trees, skirting the deeper woods, passing the far Gagwilde Tower on its final curve to the North Gate.

Harriet paused below the cliffs to study the hundreds of names left behind from previous generations. The low waves lapped at the sand, and the sound echoed here, sparse sunlight reflecting upward from the water, casting incongruous lines on the rocks. Behind her, Harriet could hear Hermione and Elara trying to keep pace.

"You wouldn't have to do anything else," Elara told Hermione, words choppy and breathless. "You would only have to mix the potion. I've already gathered the dew, the moth, and will have the leaf soon."

"You need more than that," Hermione retorted, flipping her frizzy hair. "What about a place to store it, hmm? What if someone tampers with it? Or it gets disturbed? It's very finicky, according to the books."

"I've a safe box with a Stabilizing Charm on it prepared."

"Did you get that out of your precious journal too?"

"Yes, actually."

"What are you two arguing about?" Harriet asked as the pair drew level with her, and both immediately slowed their speed, red in the face, breath escaping in sharp bursts. All three witches wore shorts, high socks, and their school sweaters, though Hermione had managed to smuggle in a Muggle track jacket with a zipper somehow. They'd only been jogging for ten minutes or so, and already felt winded at best and outright exhausted at worst.

"Elara—." Hermione began, balancing one fist on her hip. "Wants me to make her an Animagus Potion."

"Animagus? Like Professor McGonagall?"

"Yes, exactly like Professor McGonagall."

Harriet wrinkled her nose in thought, knocking sediment from her sneakers. They weren't due to cover Animagi for quite some time, but Harriet had skimmed ahead, thinking it'd be awesome to change into an animal—until she read how devilishly difficult the whole process was. "Isn't that illegal?"

"Technically," Elara managed before Hermione could, scowling at the bushy-haired witch. "Just as that Horned Serpent you keep under your bed is technically illegal, too."

"I was just asking, Merlin. Leave Livi be."

"It isn't illegal to try," Elara continued, some of the tension leaving her brow. "There is nothing written in the school bylaws or Ministry edicts that prohibits trying; only success."

Harriet snorted. "Seriously?"

"Yes. I've checked."

"Just because it isn't illegal doesn't mean you should do it," Hermione insisted, both hands on her hips now, a lecture looming like a storm cloud in the distance. "Amateur Animagi transformations are incredibly dangerous—especially given your age!"

"At Uagadou, they learn when they're fourteen or so. A year is not a large difference, and there's no guarantee I could even attempt a transformation until next year, anyway."

"It doesn't matter! In 1962, Gail Patt attempted the transformation for her Transfiguration N.E.W.T extracurricular project and wound up getting stuck as a canary! A canary! They couldn't ever change her back, because she lost her humanity! The conversion between human and animal psyche is temperamental!"

"Will you lower your voice?" Elara snapped. "I understand it's dangerous, Hermione. I'm not a fool. For every failure, there's a story of success. It's something I wish—need—to do, no matter your feelings on the subject."

"You don't need to do it—just as Harriet didn't need to curse Professor Slytherin!"

Harriet winced. A week had passed since their disastrous practical assessment, and their Head of House still glowered at Harriet whenever he saw her. They hadn't had another practical—no one had, in any year, and Draco had been quick to blame Harriet for their increased theoretical course load, bringing down the scathing attention of the upper years on her head. Two sixth years almost tripped her down the stairs the evening prior.

"Don't drag me into this."

"I'm just asking you to make the potion," Elara said. "Not to attempt it with me."

"Well, I won't." Hermione stuck her nose in the air and crossed her arms, turning to the water. Elara let out a harangued sigh, and suddenly rounded on Harriet.

"Harriet will make it, then."

"Wh—? Hold on—."

"If Hermione won't, you will, won't you?" Elara arched a brow, the corner of her mouth twitching upward.

"Wait—I don't—I don't know anything about the potion—."

"Oh, that shouldn't matter," Elara said, and Harriet saw how Hermione's shoulders stiffened. "After all, the efficacy of the potion isn't important at all."

An incredulous grunt left Hermione, and she whirled around. "I do not appreciate being blackmailed, Elara Black!" she snapped. "You know very well the potion's quality directly affects the success rate of proper transformation!"

Elara's widened her eyes, expression falsely innocent. "Does it, now?"

"Have you given any thought to what might happen if I messed up in making the potion? What would happen then?"

"You won't," Elara asserted, her answering smile softer, more genuine. It punctured Hermione's rising frustration, and her posture loosened. "And for the record, I believe Harriet could brew it as well—but, she's not familiar with the potion like you are, and if I brewed it, it'd be an absolute nightmare."

Sour, Hermione picked up her feet and started on the path again, urging them to follow along. "I'll think about it. That's all I'm promising."

"Thank you."

They walked for the remaining stretch by the shore, and when the steps led into the forest's skinny saplings, Harriet took the lead again, leaning into a slow jog. Flint and Boyle passed them at a considerably faster clip, both nodding their heads at Harriet, ignoring the other witches, and they saw Hufflepuff's Seeker, Cedric Diggory, as well. He was far friendlier, and actually matched their pace for a few minutes, chatting about Quidditch and classes and the Giant Squid, whose conspicuous presence loomed on the Lake's surface at their backs. He left soon after, though not without telling Harriet he looked forward to playing against her in their first match.

Thinking about having actually play Quidditch made Harriet queasy, and she pushed herself to run faster, Hermione and Elara chasing after her. What if she failed? What if she fell off her broom? Or froze in the air? She'd be the laughing stock of the entire school.

They hadn't even reached Gagwilde Tower, the school's farthest outpost, when the three witches stumbled to a halt, Harriet holding on tight to her side.

"Harr—Harriet, are you okay?" Hermione panted, bent over, hands on her knees. "Oh, I—I know I said exercising with you would be a good idea, but I forgot—forgot how exhausting it is—."

"My bloody ribs still hurt," Harriet complained, trying to rub the pain out of the offending injury. She knew nothing had been broken—since, thanks to Dudley, she was intimately familiar with the feeling of broken ribs—but the healing bruises ached, showing the outline of where her body had struck Lavender's desk. Honestly, Harriet had been convinced the wizard had killed her for a second after his spell landed. She'd never encounter a flipendo that powerful before.

Is that how he got it to bounce? she wondered. How did he manage to circle my shield? I didn't know that was possible.

"I told—told you to go to Madam Pomfrey."

"Madam Pomfrey reports all injuries to our Head of House."

"You're being ridiculous."

"Am I? Professor Slytherin would probably chuck me off the Astronomy Tower if he found out I went tellin' tales."

Elara suddenly sat in the grass, one hand to her chest, head down between her knees.

"Elara? You alright?"

The taller girl waved them both off with a hoarse, "Give me a moment," but when that moment passed and Elara continued to gasp for air, Harriet touched her shoulder. "I can't—can't catch my breath." Her face had gone deathly pale, almost blue, and her hand ran from her chest to her throat as if trying to coax the air back into her lungs.

"I think we should get her back to the castle," Harriet said. She grasped Elara's arm, and when the other witch didn't jerk away, she levered the arm around her shoulders and pulled. Harriet almost wound up in the dirt too, and would have fallen if Hermione hadn't hurried to catch Elara's other arm. Between the two of them, they got their friend upright, and set off as fast as they could across the grounds.

Running pell-mell on the dew-streaked grass proved more difficult than traversing the worn path, and by the time they came in sight of the castle's entrance, all three witches could hardly breathe, and Harriet felt as if a lead weight hung from her shoulder, yanking hard on the limb. Blood pounded in her bruises, and she wanted nothing more than to lay on the cold earth and pass out.

Sweating and wheezing, Harriet and Hermione managed to drag Elara—growing bluer than before —through the doors into the entrance hall. Given the early hour, no one was out and about to witness their graceless staggering, and Harriet couldn't decide if that was a good thing or not. They still had half the castle left to traverse to reach the infirmary.

"What in the blazes are you three doing?"

Harriet jumped, and from the lower dungeon corridor came Professor Snape, slinking up from the depths like a foul-tempered bottom dweller, skin sallow and eyes ringed in black as if he hadn't gotten a second of sleep last night. He brought with him the smell of bitter herbs and brine—which only reaffirmed the ghoulish imagery in Harriet's head.

"It's not even an hour past dawn, and you're already up to no good, Potter?"

"It's Elara, Professor," Hermione said before Harriet could argue. "I think she's having an asthma attack."

The wizard lost his sneer and his eyes snapped to the witch in question, taking in her stark complexion and short, wheezing breaths. He stepped nearer, and his black wand appeared from his sleeve, Snape levering it at Elara's throat as she looked at him with wide, panicked eyes. "Anapneo."

Elara wheezed and coughed, but she did manage to breathe somewhat easier than before, the pained, pinched expression on her face smoothing.

Snape's wand disappeared back into his sleeve. "Bring her along. Quickly now."

"But, Professor—."

"Quickly and silently, Granger."

Elara leaned on them for support, and they descended into the subterranean dungeons, chasing Snape's black cloak cutting through the sputtering torchlight. He led them straight to his office, a place Harriet had had the misfortune of visiting once or twice for detention, though Snape usually conducted those in the classroom. He waved a hand to dismiss the wards and opened the door, leaving the three witches to follow after him into the cluttered space, pointing at the stiff, worn chair set before his desk. "Put her there."

They dropped Elara into the seat, and Harriet rubbed her sore shoulder with a groan of relief. The

smell clinging to Snape thickened here, emanating from a little iron cauldron set on a narrow counter between an overburdened shelf and a rickety cabinet. She hadn't a clue what he'd been brewing. The professor himself stopped before a large portrait showing a turbaned man and two cobras, the painted wizard playing a low, winding tune on a carved flute— "A pungi," Hermione supplied in undertone, seeing where Harriet's eye had wandered. Snape touched the portrait's frame and it swung inward, revealing a second room larger than the office itself.

"Those must be his private stores," Hermione muttered, watching as Snape dismissed another ward and opened a thick-paned cabinet door, revealing several shelves stocked with all manner of potions. "I can only imagine what he has tucked away in there. Look, those are Hungarian Horntail scales! Those are highly regulated. And there—that's a jar of Banshee screams."

"Banshee screams? Isn't that just—air?"

"Don't be silly, Harriet."

Harriet didn't think it a silly question, but she nonetheless shrugged and let Hermione continue peeking inside Snape's storeroom while the man's back was turned. She let her attention drift instead to the portrait door, hanging not quite open and not quite closed, the charmer taking a break from his music to lounge on a reed mat. The snakes hovered at the edge of their basket, tongues flickering. One cobra turned to the other and hissed.

"The dark one isss having visitorsss, he isss."

"Hatchlingsss, they are."

"What doesss he want with them, we wondersss? "

The second, more cohesive cobra bobbed its head, peering at them. "The Mudblood and the mad one and the whissspering hatchling, yesss."

Harriet stiffened.

"What isss they doing here, we wondersss?"

"The Massster will want to know, he will."

"Yesss, yesss."

Snape shouldered his way into the office again, and the snakes quickly dipped into their basket, out of sight. 'Master,' the one had said. Harriet knew enough about snakes to understand the way they addressed people; their species shared a keenness for adjectives, the "loud one" and the "fat one" and the "dark one" common enough in their speech, while they referred to Parselmouths as "Speakers." Harriet had never heard the term "Mistress" until she chose to step past the Dursleys' threshold and follow Set into the unknown. She couldn't be certain, but she believed the difference in address came with allegiance—and she was damn sure the only Speaker in the castle who could be called "Master" was Professor Slytherin.

Professor Slytherin had snakes watching Snape.

The Potions Master tipped Elara's head back and all but dumped the contents of a slim, slightly orange vial down the witch's throat. Sputtering, Elara shoved his hand away and retched.

"Hold your breath, Black. Do not vomit in my office."

Harriet frowned as Elara did as told, pressing a trembling hand to her mouth. "You could have warned her."

Snape narrowed his eyes.

"Err. Sir."

A tense moment passed them by, and finally Elara began to breathe without difficulty, her first inhalations raspy and stilted, but soon smooth and quiet, the blue color fading from her lips. Snape asked her questions in his bored, tired drawl—did her chest feel tight, did she feel the urge to cough, had her lungs cleared—and as Elara answered, Harriet thought about the portrait. Did Snape know about the snakes? She could admit he was bloody clever, but even clever people overlooked obvious things. Snape walked about in a part of the castle filled with snake totems and memorabilia; Harriet thought it plausible he might not realize just what he had hanging on his wall.

"You're fine," Snape grunted, banishing the empty vial back into his storeroom, slamming the portrait closed with a swish of his wand. "You do realize the track is out of bounds for first and second years, do you not? Don't lie to me, I know exactly where you were, girl. Did you dunderheads never think to consider this situation is precisely why you are not allowed out on the grounds before decent human beings have rolled out of their beds?"

He continued on in that vein for some time, and Harriet tuned the professor out, deciding he was exaggerating—or lying outright. She'd seen other Quidditch players out running, after all, and nothing in the rulebook said she couldn't go out simply because she was younger.

"Potter, are you listening?"

"Yes, sir," she replied, blinking. Snape did not look convinced, but the man had obviously had little sleep and couldn't be arsed with her attitude this morning.

"Black, do refrain from doing anything too strenuous in the future, lest you choke and expire." His tone implied he wouldn't be terribly upset if that happened, and Elara scowled, the haughty lines of her face sharpened with derision. "Get out, all of you. Breakfast is soon, and I mean to enjoy what's left of my morning before you pester me again."

Hermione hurried from the room, followed by Elara, who shot Snape one final withering glance the Potions Master ignored in favor of staring Harriet down, who lingered overlong by his desk, fidgeting with her sleeves.

"What is it now, Potter?"

She almost left, hating how he'd taunted Elara even as he assisted the witch, but Harriet's ribs kept throbbing, a stern reminder of Professor Slytherin's hateful, mocking teachings, and so she squared her shoulders and remained. "Sir? Can I have a bit of parchment? And a quill?"

"…why?"

"To write down those notes you wanted. From class, you know."

Snape and Harriet stared at one another, the former suspicious, the latter keeping her back to the storeroom, a fierce expression holding her young face. If he scoffed and tossed her out, then Harriet would go, and would keep what she knew to herself—but Snape didn't scoff. He held her gaze, searching for something, and though he looked wary, the Potions Master wordlessly slid a sheet of parchment and a tatty, prepped quill toward her.

It all seemed so very dramatic to Harriet, this cloak and dagger game, and she was certain any other professor would've demanded she drop the pretense and be frank, but Snape didn't. Harriet leaned forward and scribbled out a line on the page.

"Thanks for helping Elara, sir."

"Out, Potter."

She went, and after the door swung softly shut, Harriet didn't see how Snape took the parchment in hand and read the untidy line. She didn't see him hold the parchment over an open candle and watch the words burn.

The serpent charmer has watchful friends, professor.

A/N: Some random factoids! According to Rowling, the bit about Uagadou students becoming Animagi at fourteen is canon. Elara's birthday is January 17th, making her roughly seven months older than Harriet, and about three months younger than Hermione.

Harriet: "I have to run for Quidditch."

Hermione: "We should all do it!"

Elara: *literally dies*

the door opens

lxvi. the door opens

September gave way to October just as it did every year: slowly, reluctantly, and then all at once. The last vestiges of summer released their earthly hold and the Hogwarts populace bid farewell to warm, sunny days spent idle on the castle's lawns. Iron-clad clouds became commonplace outside their windows, and Harriet often bemoaned the shift in weather as the clouds thickened and October skipped by. It was going to be a long, cold winter.

Their classes were more difficult than they'd been the year before, the professors already keen to prepare them for their third year, when their magical study would become "serious," new electives added to their schedules, nascent plans for future careers and exploits formed. Professor Slytherin resumed their practical lessons, though he didn't stop fixing Harriet with a gimlet eye each time he saw her, as if the bespectacled witch were a particularly vexing issue he hadn't yet decided how to handle. Some days, he stopped her in the corridors and asked how her studies were progressing. Other days, he heckled and belittled her, finding excuses to dock points or assign grueling detentions with Filch.

Harriet wished he'd make up his mind.

She exchanged several letters with Mr. Flamel, who she learned harbored a fierce passion for magical theory in all its shapes and forms, and thoroughly enjoyed expounding on his thoughts and ideas, so long as he had an attentive, interested audience. Harriet wrote to others as well: Madam Vance, Tonks and her mum, and even Narcissa Malfoy, the latter of whom reprimanded Harriet to improve her penmanship and to get along with Draco. Tonks wrote about her day to day at the Aurory, and Harriet always looked forward to reading her funny anecdotes.

On Hallowe'en, a day Harriet—unlike the majority of students—dreaded, she woke to find a different kind of letter left on her nightstand.

Yawning, Harriet searched the blankets for her glasses—poking and prodding at Livi to shift him about—and picked the letter up, peeling back the familiar, sticky wax seal.

Dearest Harriet,

It has been brought to my attention that I—and, by extension, your relatives—have been negligent in considering your welfare on this inauspicious anniversary. Again, I must beg your forgiveness for an old man's wandering mind, and ask you to allow me to make up for your aunt and uncle's remiss behavior. I have requested your professors allow you to skip your morning classes, and should you desire it, I will be available at nine o'clock in my office to take you to visit your parents.

Yours in sincerity,

Albus Dumbledore.

- P.S., I enjoy Tangy Toffee.

Harriet stared at the short missive after she finished reading it, gaze distant, looking at something she couldn't rightly see. Her stomach twisted, and she felt—strange. Visit your parents. It was a nice euphemism, considering her parents had died eleven years ago today, interred in the earth sixth feet under and yet inexorably out of reach. Harriet didn't know if she wanted to see their graves, if she wanted to ignore the whole holiday, or if she wanted to just stay in bed and forget she was an orphan raised in a cupboard without a real guardian to talk to.

"What's that?"

Elara stood at the side of Harriet's bed inside the curtains, though for how long, Harriet couldn't say. Livi nosed the other girl's dressing gown, searching for treats, and without missing a beat, Elara reached into Harriet's nightstand and withdrew a Snake Snack, carefully handing it over to the excited serpent so he'd leave her be. Harriet watched this transaction without thought, giving Elara the letter. She read it, then sighed.

"Are you going to go?" she asked, and Harriet shrugged one shoulder, unsure of what to say. Elara tucked a hunk of Harriet's wild hair behind her ear, and the younger witch looked up at her friend. "You should go with Professor Dumbledore. I think it'll be good for you to have something… concrete, tangible. Something you can actually remember about them, even if it's not really the memory you want to have."

"Maybe you're right."

And so, when Harriet dressed for the day, she forewent her school uniform and dressed in the trousers, sweater, and casual robes she usually saved for the weekend, though she did throw her Slytherin scarf around her neck. She skipped breakfast, and when the hour approached nine, she left the near-silent dorms and walked to the Headmaster's office, listening to her own footsteps echo in the empty halls.

She gave the password, Tangy Toffee, to the gargoyle, and climbed the spiraling stairs, ignoring the tight, nervous sensation gripping her middle when she knocked and stepped inside the waiting office. The door to the closet where Quirrell almost murdered her was firmly closed.

"Harriet, my girl. You're right on time."

Professor Dumbledore sat behind his desk with an open book on its surface, a heavy, flat bauble kept on the page to mark his place. He smiled, though the gesture lacked its usual brightness, and even his attire appeared less luminous, Professor Dumbledore dressed in darker, Gryffindor crimson robes with a gray cape that looped over his right side, hiding his lack of an arm. "Ready to leave?"

"Yes, sir," Harriet said, uneasy. She didn't wish to be ungrateful—after all, how many other people got half the day off and a personal escort by the Headmaster?—but she couldn't quite blunt the frazzled edge of her unsettled mood. If Dumbledore noticed, he chose not to say anything. He gestured for her to come closer, then stuck his hand into his pocket to retrieve an empty lemon sherbet wrapper. Harriet glanced at it, then at the Headmaster, brow quirked.

"It's a Portkey. Have you traveled by Portkey before, Harriet?"

"No, sir."

"Oh, it's easy enough to do. Just hold on to that edge there—tightly, make sure not to let go.

Usually, the wards won't allow the use of Portkeys within the grounds, but I've tweaked them just for this morning." He chuckled. "Now, Portkeys are often set to timers, but I've given this one a password. Are you certain you're ready? Do you have a firm grip?"

Harriet pinched her side of the wrapper harder. "Yes, Professor."

"Good! Here we go, then." Dumbledore cleared his throat. "Ariana."

In an instant, it felt as if Harriet had swallowed a large fish hook, and it tugged sharply behind her navel, throwing her forward, but not into the desk. There was a great, flashing whirl of color and pressure, her head gone light and woozy, and Harriet didn't think she could've let go of the wrapper even if she wanted to. Her hand simply froze upon the paper—until her feet hit something solid, knees buckling, and only Professor Dumbledore's hand tight upon her elbow kept Harriet from sprawling on the ground.

"Here we are," he said, and Harriet straightened with a gasp, pushing her hair back from her eyes.

They stood in a quiet lane bordered by tidy cottages and thick, old-growth trees, the sun overhead blocked by dense holly branches. It was a quaint village; Harriet spotted a post office and a corner shop across the square where a stone church and a graveyard lay in quiet repose. The church's bells chimed the hour—nine, deep-bellied gongs—and the sound echoed, chased by the wind and the occasional distant voice. Not far beyond the church, the country sprawled wild and stark in the morning's crisp, unremitting light.

"Where are we, professor?" Harriet asked.

"Godric's Hollow. Though technically a Muggle establishment, wizards and witches have been settling en masse in the area for a thousand years." He retrieved his wand, shortening Harriet's robes into a coat, changing his own attire into a suit with a checkered tie. "That said, it's best we blend in, my dear."

A strange frisson went through the young witch as she studied the village she knew her family had lived and died in eleven years ago. She'd avoided the place on her English tour that summer, though before her travels came to an abrupt end outside Bantiaumyrddin, she'd considered visiting, just once. "…I didn't know they were buried here."

"It was James' wish. Though the Potters have a sizable plot at the Stinchcombe Estate, James and Lily grew to like Godric's Hollow very much. James stipulated in his will that, should the worst come to pass, he and your mother wished to be laid to rest here."

Harriet didn't know what to say to that, so she looked down at her shoes. Professor Dumbledore held out his hand, and Harriet took it, her fingers dwarfed by his long, wizened ones. "It's just over here."

She followed him to the graveyard, passing through the iron kissing gate into the rows and rows of rising tombstones. Cracks and moss marred some of the ancient plots, devouring old markers, time and the elements wearing away names, dates, and faces until nothing, not even a memory, remained. The magical headstones held up better than the Muggle ones, but they too suffered in the passage of years, Charms wearing thin, letting rust and decay nibble at the graves' edges.

Her parents had been interred beneath a shared marker neatly placed between the others, the spot inconspicuous but clean, the stone a bright, gleaming marble. Someone left a bundle of red spider lilies resting against the stone. Harriet could scarcely bring herself to read what had been engraved.

IN LOVING MEMORY

of

James Fleamont Potter Lily Anne Potter

27 March 1960 - 31 October 1981 30 January 1960 - 31 October 1981

"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."

"I—what does that mean?" Harriet asked, voice gone thin, strained. "I don't understand."

"It's a quote from Corinthians," Dumbledore softly answered. "Some interpret it to mean there is life after death, and others believe it means we should not fear our end, that death is but an enemy for us to conquer and accept, another part of life."

Harriet still didn't understand very well, but she understood very little at the moment, the world at once too big and too small, thoughts in disarray. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do."

"How so, my girl?"

"I don't—I don't know what I'm supposed to think. What I'm supposed to feel." Harriet swallowed. "I never knew them. I—it's silly, isn't it? To miss something that never was? I miss them so, so much sometimes, and I've so much to be thankful for—Elara giving me a place to stay, and everyone who helped watch over us this summer, but I…. They'll never be there. I'll never have that house I grew up in, with my mum and dad waiting for me to come back from school. They'll never send me a letter, never say they're proud of me or disappointed or—I'll never get to chat with my dad about Quidditch, and I'll never get to ask mum about girl stuff." Harriet let out a short, breathless laugh. "They're just a footnote in a wizarding history book now, and I just feel… so sad, Professor. Especially today. It's been years; I should be over it, shouldn't I? Am I weak for being so miserable?"

The Headmaster touched her shoulder, and Harriet kept her stinging eyes on the ground, tracing the lines of the spider lilies. Who left those here? She would most likely never know; her parents, after all, had lived entire lives before her, lives she could only learn about in half-remembered snippets and vague, side-comments given by strangers.

She didn't have flowers. She should have thought to bring some.

"You're allowed to grieve for what might have been, Harriet. Tears are not an evil thing; it is, perhaps, worse to deny them. Your mother's love saved you that night so very long ago, and it does not make you weak to mourn losing that love."

Harriet nodded and sniffled, swallowing again.

They stood side by side in silence for several minutes, each lost to their respective thoughts, Harriet's gaze on her family's graves, Dumbledore's eyes drawn somewhere else in the cemetery, to another plot and another marker Harriet couldn't see. He allowed the young girl another moment of introspection before emitting a low, thoughtful hum. "Your father was quite the prankster in school, you know."

Harriet looked up. "Was he?"

"Oh, yes, most definitely. He and his cohorts once managed to smuggle a whole quart of Nettle Itching Powder into my sock drawer."

"How on earth did he manage that?!"

"I believe he convinced one of the school's more impressionable house-elves to assist him." Dumbledore shook his head, beard twitching. "At the time, neither I—nor my poor feet—found their antics very funny. They received a whole week of detentions for that."

Harriet laughed.

"And your mother—." Dumbledore paused. "Your mother had a way of inspiring the best in people, not unlike yourself, my dear girl."

"I don't think I inspire anyone, Professor."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that." He retrieved his wand from his pocket again, then used a spell to conjure a bouquet of white carnations, levitating it over to Harriet so she could lay the magical flowers down next to the fresh lilies. Tucking his wand away, Dumbledore extended his hand, and Harriet took it once more in her own, allowing the elderly wizard to slowly urge her away.

"I once knew a boy who was, in many ways, similar to you, Harriet."

"How so?"

"He was an orphan who never got to know his parents. He was a brilliant wizard, just as you're a brilliant witch, a Slytherin—a lad of immense promise. Yet, for every similarity you share, there are innumerable differences. He was cruel, motivated by anger, bitterness. Where you feel grief and love, he felt only betrayal and hate."

They walked from the cemetery and passed the church, crossing under a tree's thick shadow. Harriet shivered.

"You're talking about…about him, aren't you, Headmaster?"

"Yes."

"…are we really so similar?"

Professor Dumbledore shook his head and looked down at Harriet, his blue eyes dim in the brighter sunlight. "No, Harriet. I once told you Lord Voldemort is many, many things, a man of infinite evil, but he was once just a boy, as you are just a girl. The Dark has led many souls astray; grief and sadness can so often turn to anger and corrupt impressionable hearts. Your parents wouldn't have wanted that for you."

They passed by an empty lot where the grass grew high and swayed in the cold breeze. It was a lovely village; Harriet could see why her parents had grown so fond of it. She liked to imagine them living here; maybe they shopped at that corner market, or went to that pub, mingling with the Muggles. Maybe they sat on that bench there, below that maple's creaking eaves, arm in arm.

She knew the professor's words to be true; so often anger crept up on her, hot surges of prickling frustration directed at Longbottom for living, her parents for dying, at Voldemort, the Ministry, Dumbledore, the world. Two hours. All it took was two hours for a war to end, two hours between

their deaths and Longbottom's supposed ascension—though, in the end, it hadn't been Longbottom at all. It had always been Lily, as if she'd simply been fated to die that night, regardless of her daughter's fate.

"Why did he come, Professor? Why did he come for us?"

"That's a story for another day, I fear."

She squeezed his hand, and didn't question the wizard further. "I am angry sometimes," Harriet admitted, not meeting his eyes. "But I—I know I'm not alone. I'm angry they were taken from me, but I know I still have people like Elara and Hermione who love me, and that's what really matters, right?"

Professor Dumbledore smiled. "I couldn't have said it better myself."

"Thanks for bringing me today, sir."

"You're very welcome, dear girl."

x X x

After returning to the castle, Harriet did not resume her classes. Rather, she spent the remainder of the day in her dorm with Livius and Kevin, the former pleased to have her attention, the latter too scatterbrained to notice a difference. She thought hard on what the Headmaster had told her, staring at the canopy of her bed, stroking Livi's smooth, warm coils. She tried to imagine the Dark Lord as Dumbledore had described him—a clever orphan boy in Slytherin—but she couldn't picture him as anything but that half-formed monstrosity stuck to the back of Quirrell's head.

You're clever too, aren't you, Harriet? A Slytherin, like me.

Harriet rolled onto her side, frowning.

I can give them back to you, silly girl. What Voldemort takes away, he can return….

The oddest remembrances about that day always struck Harriet at off moments; she best recalled how the Mirror of Erised had shattered, green light lurid on the glass, Set's shadow swelling higher and higher as if he meant to consume Quirrell whole, the Ravenclaw alum crumpling into a dead, motionless heap. Harriet had been most terrified by the temptation she'd felt in that split second, thinking of her mother's hand in her hair, her father's crooked smile, the warmth of unequivocal, parental love.

I will let you share in that eternal life, Harriet….

"No one lives forever," the bespectacled witch softly whispered. Not her parents, not her, and not Lord Voldemort.

Livi hissed in affirmation.

"Harriet?" A gentle knock landed on the door before it creaked open, Hermione sticking her head inside. "Harriet, are you all right? The feast is due to start soon, and you've not had a thing to eat all day."

"Yeah, I'm okay," Harriet replied, sitting up. "Lemme grab my robes and I'll be there in a tick."

"Okay." Hermione went to leave, then hesitated. "Elara…told me you went to see your parents' graves today."

"Mhm."

"Are you—? Well, if you want to talk about it…."

"I'm fine, Hermione." Harriet smiled, the gesture not as forced as it might have been had she not visited Godric's Hollow. Elara had been right; having something concrete of her parents, even something as grim as a plot in a graveyard in a village miles and miles away, helped. "Let's go to the feast, I'm starved."

They left the dorm together, finding Elara waiting in the common room, chatting with Daphne Greengrass. They picked up Bulstrode and Parkinson on their way to the Great Hall, the benches and tables already crowded despite dinner not being due to start for another ten minutes. Harriet and her friends found spots closer to the Head Table than she'd like, but they nonetheless sat, ready for the festivities to begin.

"Where have you been all day, Potter?" Malfoy spat as he shoved a first year out of the way and took the place on the other side of Hermione. The bushy-haired witch frowned, decidedly unpleased with this arrangement. "Must be so difficult, being the teacher's pet. Did you get told off at all for playing sick?"

Elara scoffed. "You're just jealous no one likes you enough to keep you as a pet, Malfoy."

The blond boy flushed. "Why are you always butting in, Black?"

"Apologies, you speak so loudly, I'm sure there's someone across the hall who doesn't think you're talking to them."

Harriet laughed, and so did Blaise Zabini, seated next to Draco, and the older Carrow twins, whom Harriet didn't know very well. Defeated for the moment, Draco settled on the bench, scowling at Zabini, who just shook his head and changed the subject.

The professors arrived, trickling inside alone or in pairs, some more enthused to be there than others. Snape paused long enough to tell off a couple of Hufflepuffs who got too rowdy, and Slytherin sauntered by his House's table, expression placid, his presence dimming the conversation until he moved off. The Headmaster had changed into a pair of eye-searing orange robes with moving bats on the hem, and Professor McGonagall had on a traditional witch's hat. Dumbledore announced the feast with little fanfare—a miracle, really—and the empty platters stretched across the tables filled with all manner of delectable treats and desserts.

"You'd think they'd make a passing effort to provide something healthy, wouldn't you?" Hermione sniffed, glaring at an iced tart that glared right back at her. "Tarts before dinner, honestly!"

"You sound like my grandmother, Granger," Pansy complained. "Why don't you go sit with the other old hags?"

"That's incredibly rude."

"So's eating with your kind at the table—ouch!"

Harriet tossed a mild Stinging Jinx—a favorite of Mrs. Malfoy—under the table, feigning innocence, though Hermione wasn't fooled. Smirking, she pushed another tart onto Harriet's plate.

They dined on whatever took their fancy, and even Hermione—notorious for her dislike of sweets —found a suitable platter of savory pastries to suit her appetite. The Gryffindors devolved into a raucous mess not ten minutes into the meal, and Professor McGonagall had to leave her own meal to sort them out, the Ravenclaws debating hotly about the location of the school ghosts, the Slytherins keeping their own conversations under a respectable decibel. Accipto Lestrange, a fourth year, kept spiking people's drinks with some fancy, foreign Firewhisky, until Snape came swooping down from his seat and confiscated it all.

The first course ended and the second course began— "More dessert?"—and Harriet let out a content sigh, rubbing at her tired eyes. Around her, many of the other students yawned and leaned against one another's shoulders, burning through what little energy the sugar gave, so she guessed they didn't have long before the Headmaster dismissed them for the night. At the Head Table, Professor Dumbledore fixed himself a cup of tea while lending an ear to Professor Flitwick, the shorter wizard standing on his seat to make himself heard. Professor Slytherin's brow was furrowed as he looked about the Great Hall, and Snape had already disappeared for the evening, as had a few of the other professors Harriet didn't know. Madam Pomfrey watched her charges eat their confections with a kind of grim acceptance. The sight made Harriet grin.

Given the volume in the hall and her own distraction, Harriet almost didn't hear the murderous whispering—but when she did, it was all she could pay attention to.

Time to kill…kill…kill…Blood…BLOOD….

Her goblet fell with an unheard clatter, splashing pumpkin juice over a tray of pudding, a jack-o- lantern going out with a stifled hiss. "What the hell, Potter!" someone said, but Harriet didn't pay them any mind. She gulped, mouth terribly dry, her heart racing in her chest as she slowly turned her head, searching for the source of the voice, looking at the happy, sleepy faces surrounding her, finding nothing suspicious. No one else seemed to have heard what she did.

I didn't imagine it, Harriet thought. Once was a coincidence—but twice? Why did no one else hear it? Was someone having a laugh? Was she—was she going mad? Did the voice exist as some kind of manifestation of her nightmares clawing its way out of her subconscious? What did the wizards do to people who heard bloody voices in their head? It was bad enough her shadow moved on its own—they'd lock her up and throw away the key if she started hearing things.

"Harriet?"

"I—I don't feel well," she said, which was true enough. Her stomach twisted with nerves and her gorge rose, the taste of bile on the back of her tongue, so Harriet stood and hurried from the hall, one hand on her wrist, clasped tight over the wand sheathed there. Someone was taking the mickey out of her—they had to be. Perhaps an older Slytherin, paid off by Malfoy, still sour over losing out on his Quidditch spot. They wanted her to think she'd cracked—.

It's bloody working!

Trying to steady her racing pulse, Harriet forced herself to slow as she crossed the entrance hall, leaving the bright glow of the festivities behind her, squinting in the softer lighting of torches and dimmed braziers. The main doors had been shut tight for the night, the wind rising in the dark beyond the diamond-paned windows, buffeting the aged glass, howling where it managed to sneak through the cracks. Water dripped against stone—a measured, rhythmic splash—and Harriet looked about for the source—.

On the far wall, at the foot of the main stairs, words gleamed dull and red in the light, splattered across the surface in a liquid Harriet swore must be blood.

The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir, beware.

The blood dripped into a puddle at the base of the wall, and the rising wind screamed louder than the white noise echoing in Harriet's skull. There, by the words, something hung stiff and limp from a bent torch bracket, something brown, furred—.

That's Mrs. Norris. Filch's cat. Someone killed—.

Harriet's hands shook as she stared, speechless, confused—terrified. She didn't stand there a moment longer, didn't wait for someone to find her here. Harriet turned heel, and ran.

voices

lxvii. voices

It took Hermione and Elara longer to find her than Harriet had expected, but it was only a matter of time before they came rushing into the dormitory.

Elara needed only jerk aside the curtains to spot the bespectacled witch sitting cross-legged in the middle of her bed, pale and wide-eyed, and she nodded. "So you did see it, then?"

"Of course I saw it!" Harriet hissed, eyes darting about the room to ensure they were alone. "I might wear glasses, but I'm not blind."

"Why didn't you come back to the hall?" Hermione asked. "What if someone noticed you were gone?"

"I couldn't have returned to the hall. I looked like I'd seen—." A ghost, Harriet's mind supplied, but no, that was a Muggle euphemism, one that didn't make sense in the magical world. "—well, like I'd seen a dead cat hanging off the bloody wall! And I wasn't going to just stand there, like a loon."

"She's not dead," Hermione corrected, laying a comforting hand on Harriet's arm. "Professor Dumbledore said Mrs. Norris has been Petrified."

"Petrified? How?"

"He wasn't sure—."

"Or he just didn't say," Elara added, sitting at the foot of the bed.

"Or that, yes. But he did say she could be un-Petrified, eventually."

Eventually? "Do they know who did it?"

"No—did you see anything?"

Harriet glanced at the door again. "…no."

Just then, a loud bang struck the wood, and all three girls flinched. "Professor Slytherin wants us all in the common room in five minutes!" Prefect Farley shouted before moving off to the next dorm. They heard her repeat the message to the first years, her voice dwindling into the distance, trailed by footsteps and muffled muttering.

Harriet exchanged uneasy looks with the others. "Is it just me," she asked. "Or is this suspiciously like last Hallowe'en?"

"If Snape starts threatening us with detention, it'll be exactly like last Hallowe'en." Elara stood and tugged on her cuffs. She seemed unflappable, but Harriet saw the twitch in her restless fingers. "Let's get this over with."

The three said little else and exited the dorm, filtering into the common room with the rest of the Slytherins, who stood below the silver lanterns furiously whispering with one another like a bed of

snakes curled under a heat lamp. Apparently, Filch had a near-breakdown in the hall when he saw his cat, only coming to his senses when Dumbledore arrived and reassured the caretaker. Harriet had little fondness in her heart for the man— "the Squib" as many upper-year Slytherins referred to him—or for his despicable feline, but that didn't mean she thought he or his pet should be attacked.

Who would do something like this? And what did their message mean?

Professor Slytherin entered the common room with Snape at his back, the latter dark and looming, stripped of his robes and cravat as if he'd been caught preparing for bed, while Professor Slytherin floated on a slowly simmering tide of his own ire, cold in his fury, the same look in his eyes Harriet had seen a second before he hexed her into Lavender's desk.

Harriet drew back farther into the shadows, resting her shoulders on the cold stone wall.

"Here we are again, another year—another Samhain wasted, squandered by some puerile fool's absurdity. Again, I am forced to waste my time," Slytherin hissed, teeth clicking hard on the elongated syllables. He took another step into the room, and those Slytherins nearest their Defense instructor edged away, leaning deeper into their seats, heads lowered. "I am unclear of the reasoning behind this pathetic display, but if you are the perpetrator of this…prank, you are going to want to listen very closely." Slytherin's voice dropped and nobody dared breathe. "This ceases now. If I discover who you are, there are far worse consequences to fear than mere expulsion." He met the gazes of his watching students one by one, and for the second his eyes flicked to Harriet's, she felt…chilled, like she was pressing her face into thick, frozen slush, the feeling pricking against her cheeks, her eyes, along her chin, down her neck—.

It lasted for only a second, then Professor Slytherin moved on, uninterested, and Harriet blinked. What was that?

He gave a few more scathing, carelessly veiled threats before re-numerating the House rules with heavy emphasis on curfew, while Snape did a silent headcount, thumb tapping a fingertip until all students were accounted for. "Any Slytherin caught out after curfew will suffer the consequences —unpleasant consequences. This will be your only warning."

He turned then and left the dorms, Snape following in his wake without uttering a single word. No one found their voice at first, sharing brief, furtive glances as if expecting the wizards to come back. Then, a seventh year—Sven Rustwing—broke the silence when he started to laugh.

"I never thought Slytherin would get so bent out of shape over a Squib's cat!"

Everyone started talking then, harsh laughs and squeaks of disbelief, outrage, amusement. It sounded like a flock of well-mannered, aristocratic birds flustered over their feathers to Harriet, but she ignored all this in favor of dragging both Hermione and Elara to their favored corner in the common room, the one farthest from the main hearth and its waiting, watchful serpent.

"What was that all about?" she asked, gesturing at the entrance. "And what's the—Chamber of Secrets?"

For once, Hermione didn't have an answer for Harriet, her mouth forming a tight-lipped moue as she scowled at the floor. "I'm sure I've read the name somewhere before, but I…. I know for certain it's in Hogwarts: A History, but I don't have my own copy—."

"Harriet does."

Hermione blinked, clearly surprised. "You do? Have you read it?"

Harriet didn't know if she should be insulted Hermione sounded so astonished. "Yes, most of it. Bit dry."

"A bit dry?! But it's so fascinating—!"

They hurried back into their dorm, Pansy, Daphne, and Katherine already inside, deep in their own speculations. Harriet strode up to her trunk and unlocked the top, bypassing the higher drawers in favor of the lower compartment she didn't have a chance to use very often. The trunk's innards were replaced with a rickety wood ladder leading down into a dark hole.

Neither Hermione nor Elara made a move to enter.

Sighing, Harriet took out her wand and muttered, "Lumos," holding it between her teeth as she threw one leg over the trunk's lip.

"What—what are you doing, Potter?" Pansy—having glanced up to sneer when they entered—saw Harriet standing on the top rung of her ladder inside her trunk, and Harriet—mouth full—threw the other girl a rude hand gesture before continuing down.

"You're such a bloody gremlin, Potter, seriously—and aren't Extension Charms illegal?"

"Not on family heirlooms," Elara breezily replied. "You'd know that if the Parkinsons had anything worth saving."

Whatever Pansy's remark was, Harriet didn't hear it, the witch's voice distorted once Harriet dropped the last few feet into the trunk's bottom. Her friends followed, and Elara shut the lid after, sealing them inside the stuffy, semi-darkness permeating the trunk's extra room.

Harriet spat out her wand. "Err, lemme find—."

She fumbled for the lantern sitting on the worktop, tapping her finger against the base to ignite the magical light. It was by no means a large space; the expanded room held little more than a half- dozen shelves above a chipped counter, a worktop varnished in aged patina, and an old cabinet with the Potter crest fashioned on the doors. Harriet kept the books she wasn't using often— like Hogwarts: A History—on the shelves, making for a tidy, if modest, library.

"I didn't know you had this place," Elara said, glancing at the paneled walls stained by spots where frames once hung long before Harriet's birth. "Pansy can't lock us in here, can she?"

"No. It can't be locked with people inside." Harriet tugged a step out from under the worktop, using it to kneel on the counter and reach the higher shelf.

"Is that—is that a terrarium?" Hermione, puzzled, glanced over the glass tank where it sat on the floor by the cabinet.

"It's Livi's."

"Why is he always under your bed if he has a tank?"

"Because he's snooty, Hermione, and he doesn't like going in unless he has to. Here, help me with this…." Hermione lifted her arms to brace Harriet as she tugged the thick volume free and lowered it with a loud thud. "D'you remember where the bit about the Chamber would be?"

"I think so, yes. Oh, this is the collector's edition! I heard it's has a whole extra chapter about—but never mind that right now. Bring the light closer, please? Yes, just like that…."

Hermione flipped through the sections, scrutinizing the title pages, muttering under her breath as her finger trailed down the paragraphs. Waiting, Harriet sat on the counter and kicked her feet, while Elara peered into the empty terrarium and at the little chipped teacup Kevin enjoyed napping in.

"Here it is: 'the Chamber of Secrets is the most enigmatic of all tales concerning the establishing of Hogwarts. It is said to be the parting legacy of the founder, Salazar Slytherin, a powerful wizard famous for his dislike of Muggle-borns. Slytherin left the school after arguing with his fellow founders, and the legend of the Chamber arises in its eponymous secrecy, for Slytherin never shared its location with another. That hasn't stopped the student body from carrying on the Chamber's rumor for centuries, stating only Slytherin's alleged 'true heir' could open the Chamber and use what magic lies within to purge Hogwarts of its Muggle-born population. Exhaustive searches have never discovered such a place, and it is believed most likely fictional.' That's it?" Hermione glowered at the book as if it'd let her down. "But that doesn't give us any information!"

"It does explain why Draco shouted, 'You're next, Mudbloods!' before the Headmaster arrived. How does he know about the Chamber?"

"That prat said what—?!"

"His father knows everything," Hermione said, flinching at the inadvertent compliment paid to Mr. Malfoy. "He's very informed, I should say. This is exactly the kind of thing he'd make it his business to know."

"Malfoy's juvenile, but do you believe him capable of Petrifying Mrs. Norris?"

"No…Draco's a wretched little beast most of the time, but not—malicious enough, or clever enough, to come up with a plan like this. Besides, he was at the feast…."

As Hermione and Elara spoke, Harriet reread the passage—just a paragraph really, listed among other far-flung memories and urban legends, cursed vaults and hidden Ravenclaw libraries, a singing toilet and long-lost reliquaries. "That's why Slytherin is so angry, isn't it? It basically says Slytherin's heir would come and kill all the students with non-magical parents. He's the Heir of Slytherin."

"Well, him or Minister Gaunt," Hermione corrected. "Neither have children and both claim to be Slytherin's final living heir—and it's like Rustwing said, Professor Slytherin reacted rather…oddly, considering."

"Or not oddly at all."

"What do you mean, Elara?"

The taller witch crossed her arms and leaned a hip on the worktop. "Supposing the Chamber is rubbish, someone still attacked Filch's cat and said 'beware the Heir.' Everyone knows, or thinks, that's Professor Slytherin. It could possibly be someone trying to.…" She flipped a hand, searching for the right word. "Please him? Get his attention? He does earn a lot of fanatic regard from a few of the upperclassmen. Maybe they thought this would make him happy."

"You're right. Hmm…do you think it was an upperclassman, then? Maybe Rustwing. He was

quick to express disbelief in Professor Slytherin's reaction…."

Harriet carefully closed Hogwarts: A History and took it in her arms, holding the thick book to her chest. "I…." She had to tell them. No matter how mad they thought her, Harriet needed to tell her friends what had happened in the Great Hall. "I, um, heard something. At the Feast."

"What do you mean? Is that why you left so suddenly?"

"Yes." She ran her fingers along the book's edges, then sighed. "I heard a…voice." An inadequate summary, in Harriet's opinion; she couldn't describe how the words had crawled through her ears, how it felt like…like madness, all that bloodlust and hatred and need—.

A furrow appeared between Hermione's brows. "Whose?"

"I don't know."

"Given we were sitting with over two hundred other people, what was different about this particular voice?" Her mouth popped open. "Oh! Were they talking about what was going to happen to Mr. Filch's cat?"

"Not exactly?" Harriet returned the hefty tome to its proper shelf, turning her back on the other witches, attempting to order her thoughts. The lantern flickered, and she thought she saw Set moving on the wall behind Elara, but her friends didn't notice. "They…they said it's 'time to kill' and something about 'blood.' They didn't mention Mrs. Norris." She faced the others again, not missing their disturbed expressions. "Did either of you hear anything?"

Mute, Elara and Hermione shook their heads. Having expected as much, Harriet shut her eyes.

"Harriet…."

"I'm not mad."

Hermione huffed. "I wasn't going to say you were," she snapped. "But it's been a very long day for you—for all of us. Is it possible you misheard? Or perhaps picked up on one of the others talking? Like Professor Slytherin pointed out, it is Samhain, and some older students—like the Weasley twins—always use it as an excuse to scare the younger years."

Of course, it was possible; Harriet had to acknowledge the feasibility of Hermione's suggestion because it had been a long day and she was rather exhausted. Anything was possible, and the more time that passed, the more intangible the words became, muddled and fuzzy, distant from that cramped trunk smelling of cinnamon and cloves. It seemed as if hours and hours had passed since Harriet sat eating supper.

"I didn't mishear," she said, decisive. "Because I heard it before, when I had detention with Snape."

"Professor Snape?"

"And no, before you ask, he didn't hear anything either. He was in the storeroom."

Hermione suddenly looked uncertain, biting her lower lip and fiddling with her hair. "…Professor Snape did leave early this evening…."

"So?" Harriet frowned—and then considered Hermione's words, a breathless snort escaping her. "Come off it. You don't really think Snape's—?"

"I don't know what to think, now do I?" Hermione interrupted, eyes bright. "You said yourself, you've encountered this voice twice—once while alone in his company, and then again when he serendipitously left the feast early. Whoever attacked Mrs. Norris couldn't have been in the Great Hall, and they needed an understanding of Dark magic to Petrify her. Professor Snape is an ideal suspect."

Harriet scoffed again, ready to argue—when Elara shook her head. "No. Harriet's right."

"No? Elara, you hate Professor Snape more than either of us!"

"Hating the man has no bearing on his status as a suspect. After spending half a summer trapped in the same house as him, I can honestly say it's doubtful Snape would do something like this."

Seeing Harriet bob her head in agreement, Hermione demanded Elara explain what she meant.

"He thrives on solitude and quiet. On the days he was meant to mind us, he sequestered himself in the potions lab and we wouldn't see him until dinner time. It's the same reason he's always going after us to obey the rules; surly as he is, Snape just wants order."

Harriet nodded again. "He's a bit…high-strung for all this."

"Exactly," Elara said. "I wouldn't write Slytherin off, despite everything he said. I think it's a student, but Slytherin usually enjoys games like this."

"It's not a game," Hermione replied. Her eyes fell to the floor, the lantern's light touching upon their glassy surface. "Especially not at the expense of Muggle-borns."

"I didn't mean it like that, Hermione."

"I know, I know."

With nothing left to say, the three witches climbed from the trunk, and were greeted by Pansy's ill- spirited taunts and Millicent's loud, unbothered snores. Harriet got ready for bed, and as she slid between her cool sheets, she tried to make sense of what she'd seen, and what she'd heard, wondering what would drive a person to paint that kind of madness on a wall. The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir, beware.

Who did it? Why? And what was going to happen now?

Harriet had no answers to any of these questions. She buried her anxious, tired head in her pillows, and tried to get some sleep.

history, legend

lxviii. history, legend

Rumors abounded in the week following Mrs. Norris' attack, and though it took a few days, everyone came to the same conclusion the House of Serpents had decided on Hallowe'en; Professor Slytherin was the only known Heir of Slytherin at Hogwarts, and thus the most likely candidate to have opened it.

The Defense professor was never pleasant; he came across more genial and welcoming than other Slytherin professors, like Snape or Selwyn, but his tone always carried venom, menace and retribution paid in equal measure with his compliments and advice. After Hallowe'en, Professor Slytherin's previous disposition became a fond, summery remembrance, replaced by a cold, suspicious attitude he didn't bother to hide from his students. Though Harriet didn't have Defense the following Monday, they heard complaints traded by the other Houses and years about Snape and Selwyn overseeing all of Slytherin's classes. The professor returned by Tuesday—and most everyone wished he'd stayed away longer.

On Wednesday, the second year Slytherins dragged their weary bodies out of bed and tromped off to Defense first thing in the morning, only to be assigned a lengthy essay and told to get started during class. Professor Slytherin sat at his desk for the duration of the lesson, engrossed in a thick, dusty scroll, turning all questions back upon their askers with unsubtle disdain. He deducted points from anyone who spoke, and so they sat in stifling silence, quills scratching at their scrolls, Slytherin's red gaze sharp and punishing each and every time he looked up.

Attending their following Potions class with an overworked Snape proved just as—if not more— difficult.

"Partner with Granger, Black," Snape ordered before Elara had a chance to get out her potions kit. "I haven't the time nor the patience to scrape your mess off the ceiling today."

The Gryffindors snickered.

"Ten points for disrupting class, Longbottom."

The snickering died out in an instant. "Seriously?"

"Ten more points."

No one was inclined to say much of anything in class after that, and Harriet kept her attention on her cauldron, lest she wind up in yet another detention. Elara and Hermione traded off tasks, Elara keeping her hands away from the potion or the ingredients themselves, attempting to look busy while Hermione did most of the work herself. Dean Thomas splashed Shrinking Solution on himself when class was nearly over, resulting in a very strange, pudgy baby arm flapping about in his sleeve and an irate Snape. The Slytherins escaped the dungeons while the Potions Master berated Dean and his friends.

"Foul bat," Elara muttered as they walked toward the Great Hall for lunch. "McGonagall is going to be furious about him taking all those points from Gryffindor."

"She'll make up for it in Transfiguration tomorrow, just you wait. 'Breathing, Mr. Longbottom?

Excellent technique. Forty points for Gryffindor." Elara snorted and though Hermione tutted, Harriet caught the small smile tipping the edge of her mouth. "Last night at Quidditch practice last night, Flint and the others commented that all the essays they got back for Defense had Snape's handwriting on them—his handwriting, and apparently a lot of scathing remarks."

Hermione gaped in horror. "Professor Slytherin wouldn't pass off his duties as a teacher!"

"It would explain Snape's mood today," Elara said, ignoring Hermione's indignation. "I couldn't imagine the terror of having Snape in Defense as well."

Harriet's thoughts flashed to an early evening in the Potions classroom, remembering Snape standing at the board, writing out numbers and theories while Harriet rushed to copy every word. "You know," she said. "I don't think Snape would be a terrible Defense professor."

"All the more reason to discredit Professor Slytherin," Hermione murmured as they came upon the entrance hall. Longbottom and his cronies came rushing by, keen to put as much space between themselves and the dungeons. "He's a Potions Master with distinctions in all five branches, but he also received a distinction in Charms—Defense, specifically, and he initially applied to Hogwarts as a Defense instructor before taking the post for Potions."

"Hermione, I know you've told us a dozen times you've looked up the professors' qualifications, but how on earth do you know that?"

"Well, that last bit might just be gossip from the older students—but it makes an awful lot of sense!"

Harriet and Elara ribbed Hermione over her less than stellar sources all throughout lunch, until Hermione was quite cross with both of them and chose to sit with Sally-Anne Perks in Charms instead of at their table. Harriet kept levitating little apology notes over to her desk, and Hermione turned all of them to ashes, much to Elara's amusement and Sally-Anne's anxiety. They eventually grew bored with their game and turned their minds to their studies, listening to Professor Flitwick lecture on the etymology of the spells 'Rennervate' and 'Enervate,' and why you should never ever mix up the two.

Hermione joined with them again on the way to History of Magic, readjusting the strap on her bag. "Did you finish your essay, Harriet?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"You've been busy with training in the morning and practice at night. You need to have enough time for your homework."

"I finished it in Slytherin's class."

"What! You could get in so much trouble for that!"

"It wasn't as if he was paying attention to us anyway, for Merlin's sake…."

They stopped in the corridor outside the dusty chamber used for History of Magic, standing with several Hufflepuffs from their year who gathered together, murmuring, tossing furtive looks in their direction. What's their issue—oh.

Despite all the rumors and Professor Slytherin's strange behavior, the Chamber of Secrets business had been pushed to the back of Harriet's mind, displaced in favor of Quidditch practice, training in the morning, and keeping on task with her studies. She kept listening for the ghoulish voice, but

she heard nothing suspicious over the last few days. Professor Sprout was waiting for her Mandrakes to mature, and Professor Dumbledore assured everyone Filch's cat would be good as new when the plants grew and Snape made the Mandrake Restorative Draught. She'd almost forgotten the negative attitudes the rest of the school had taken toward Slytherin students.

The chamber door swung open. "Get in, find your seats," Professor Selwyn said from the threshold, one hand still on the door, eyes narrowed behind his spectacles. "Entwhistle, you had best not be bringing food into my classroom, boy…."

The three Slytherin witches found seats in the back, letting the Hufflepuffs fill the middle while the rest of their year took up the front. It was the only class Hermione didn't insist on grabbing a spot closest to the board, but neither Elara or Harriet questioned her about it, especially after Hallowe'en last year. Harriet didn't much like History of Magic; Professor Selwyn took what could be a fascinating subject and made it tedious, snarking about Muggles and Muggle-borns, interspersing rants about the superiority of magic that had nothing to do with magic and everything to do with his own fat head. He hated Hermione and Harriet for their Muggle blood, and hated Elara for being from the "Most Ancient" House of Black, a title he fully believed belonged to House Selwyn.

It was all pointless to Harriet and her friends, who sat in the back and did their best to learn something.

The rest of the students dribbled inside, and the door closed with a muted thump, Professor Selwyn ordering them to pass their essays up to the front for him to collect. "Now," he said, snatching the final scroll from Runcorn's desk, transferring them in an awkward shuffle to his own larger desk. "Today, we'll be turning our attention from the Battle in the Black Forest to the International Warlock Convention of 1289, which arose as a direct result of the Battle's outcome—."

Professor Selwyn came to a sudden halt when someone raised their hand. "What is it, Macmillan?"

Harriet didn't know Ernie Macmillan well. She didn't know much about any of the Hufflepuffs truly, given how they liked to keep to themselves, sharing nothing but polite greetings and the occasional bits of chatter with the other Houses. She knew from Hermione that the Macmillans were pure-bloods, their House fairly prestigious, and Elara told her once she was distantly related to the family. Harriet's limited interactions with Ernie led her to believe he was rather pompous, for a Hufflepuff, posh, and apparently Gryffindor enough to interrupt Professor Selwyn mid-lesson.

"Sorry, Professor, but given what happened just last week, could you tell us more about the Chamber of Secrets?"

Everyone stared at Ernie, including Professor Selwyn. Wayne Hopkins' mouth opened with an audible pop! And Oliver Rivers knocked his inkwell off his desk, splattering Pansy's bag—not that she noticed. "We're here to discuss the history of magic, Mr. Macmillan. Not the 'fantasy.'"

"I know, sir—but I read about the Chamber in Hogwarts: A History, so doesn't that make it history?"

Harriet had the sudden and inexplicable urge to laugh, one of those inappropriate giggles that rise up in one's chest at the worst, most tense moments. Professor Selwyn was more nasty than intimidating, really, but the silence following Ernie's question hung in the air, prickly and unpleasant, stretching on. Had Hermione asked a question like that, Harriet knew Professor Selwyn would've scoffed and mocked her for it—but not Ernie, a pure-blood from a good family. Professor Selwyn sniffed, lifted his nose, and began to speak.

"I'm sure you've all read the entry in Bagshot's book by now, though much of that tripe can little be called history so much as an old woman's gathered gossip. The Chamber of Secrets is reputed to be a clandestine area of the castle created and hidden by the greatest of the school's founders, Salazar Slytherin." He sniffed again, pushing his spectacles higher on his nose. "The legend states that Slytherin, before leaving Hogwarts, encapsulated a means of purging the school of the unworthy—." His eyes snapped toward Hermione, a small smirk on his lips, and Harriet bristled. "And that his supposed heir would one day return to the school and unleash this purging magic upon us."

"So is there any truth to it, Professor?" Ernie asked as scared murmurs rustled through the Hufflepuffs. Draco turned in his seat as if he meant to say something snide, but one glimpse of Harriet and Elara's foreboding glowers had the prat straightening around again. "Is there a Chamber? Does it exist? Has it been opened?"

"You children need to learn the difference between fantasy and reality." The professor turned to the board. "Now, as I was saying—."

"But, sir—!"

"Three points from Hufflepuff, Macmillan," Selwyn snapped, growing frustrated. "Now, if you don't wish to learn, I don't care, but I will be completing this lecture, even I must hold you all through dinner." Threat given, he retrieved his wand, and with a muttered incantation, the words 'Warlock Conventions' sprawled across the blackboard. Harriet thought that would be the end of the conversation, but Professor Selwyn turned to them all with a mocking smirk and said, "It's pointless to speculate if the Chamber has been opened again. If you're so interested in the topic, why not go ask Professor Slytherin? I'm sure he'd love to have a long chat about the Chamber and his ancestor with any of you."

Of course, no one in their right mind would do any such thing, and so the subject dropped and Selwyn began his winding monologue on a bunch of oddly named wizards who lived hundreds of years before any of them were born. As she started to take notes, Harriet felt something scratch her elbow, and she glanced down to see Hermione prodding her with a bit of parchment. Puzzled, Harriet took it—mindful of the professor—and unfolded the note.

He knows more than he's letting on.

Harriet flattened the note and grabbed her quill, scratching out a reply. What do you mean?

Exactly what I wrote! He knows more than he's telling us!

How d'you figure that?

Because he recited what's written in Hogwarts: A History, but refused to give more information! By telling us to go to Slytherin, he's essentially warning us away from the topic! She punctuated her lines with heavy ink splatters that smeared on Harriet's fingers. He said 'again.' Again! As if the Chamber's been opened before!

Even if he did know more, it's not like he'd ever tell us. Hermione scowled at Harriet's answer and shoved the parchment back without writing anything. Harriet sighed. Being a professor, though, he and the others must've discussed the Chamber after what happened to Mrs. Norris, and if anyone knows anything, it'd be Dumbledore.

Or Professor Slytherin.

Slytherin wouldn't tell anyone anything. He won't even teach us how to duel.

Hermione read Harriet's reply—and Professor Selwyn's head jerked in their direction, eyes narrowed. "Passing notes, Potter? I'll take that—."

He Summoned the parchment out of Hermione's grip and it went sailing overhead—only to burst into flames, students gasping, the page burning to nothing just like all the notes Harriet had floated to Hermione during Charms earlier that very day. A muddled pile of ash and charred bits landed on the floor before Professor Selwyn, and he looked at Hermione, who sat with her wand extended, face pale but set in a determined expression. Selwyn scowled.

"You're earned yourself a detention tomorrow evening, Granger. With Filch."

"Yes, Professor Selwyn."

Harriet and Elara stared at their friend with shared incredulous expressions as Professor Selwyn Vanished the mess on the floor and Hermione raised a brow, refusing to meet the eyes of anyone looking at her. "What was that about?" Elara asked in an undertone, and Harriet shook her head, returning to her notes once Professor Selwyn resumed his lecture.

Hermione had a point; the professor had said again, implying that the Chamber—legendary or not —had been opened before. When? Why? And by whom?

As the evening grew dark beyond the classroom's windows, Harriet kept her eyes on her half- written notes and wondered what new dangers lurked at Hogwarts this year, and what it meant for her and her friends.

blackbird

lxix. blackbird

The excitement ebbed and flowed around him, eddying higher and higher like the morning sun and the brisk November wind. All Severus could think about was his bed, a dram of Dreamless Sleep, and the allure of a Saturday lie-in.

He'd liked Quidditch well enough as a boy and still enjoyed betting on the sport with Minerva, if only to raise the cat's hackles, but the veneer had long since worn for Severus, leaving him tired and irritable as he climbed the steps into the staffing section, wishing he could cast something to deaden the sound about the space, but he assumed the rest of the professors would take exception to that. He slid into a seat on the far row and leaned back, out of the sun, letting his eyes slide shut.

Perhaps a minute later, the smell of Earl Grey filled his nose.

Severus cracked open his eyes to spy a thermos of tea hovering before him. Minerva, having come up the stairs as well, stood with her wand in hand, smirking.

"I prefer Breakfast blend in the morning," Severus grumbled as he folded his fingers about the thermos and it stopped floating, weight settling in his hand.

"Good thing it's not all for you, then, Severus."

The Potions Master conjured himself a cup and poured hot tea into it regardless of his preferred flavor, sending the thermos back to McGonagall. "Have you come to watch your precious Gryffindors lose?"

"If you mean win, then yes, of course." She perched on the edge of the bench next to him, tugging her tartan cloak tighter about her shoulder. "Och, it's cold in the shade. It's a wonder you don't freeze to death."

"One can only hope. Go sit in the sun if it bothers you."

"I will, once Jordan graces us with his presence," Minerva replied, a weary sigh leaving her lips.

"He's by far the worst commentator you've ever allowed up here."

"Oh, I don't think so. Do you remember the game Black commentated in your school days?" She let out a sound that was still incredulous all these years later. "Now that was the worst commentary I've ever heard."

Severus' fingers tightened on the cup, and in a single motion, he downed the remnants of his scalding tea and grimaced. He dismissed the cup without taking out his wand. "No, I don't remember. I was in the hospital wing that weekend." Having a particularly stubborn pair of antlers —courtesy of the Marauders—removed. Perhaps it was for the best, as it did spare him having to listen to whatever inane shite Sirius Black's had said.

"Have you seen your new Seeker play yet, Severus?"

"No."

Minerva pursed her lips, eyes moving across the pitch to the far side of the stadium, all decked in

silver and green. "For my Gryffindors' sakes, I hope she doesn't have James' talent."

The muscles in his jaw jumped as Severus grit his teeth, reminded now of two of his least favorite people, and it was not yet noon. "A troll taped to a broom would have more talent than James Potter ever did."

Minerva went to argue, a flush of anger in her cheeks, but Jordan finally arrived, and the bitter cat moved on—treading on Severus' feet as she went, much to his displeasure. He was cleaning the scuffs off his boots when he caught a glimpse of something pale in his peripheral vision, and forced himself to swallow a groan.

"Severus," Lucius greeted, hair riled in the breeze, spilling like threads of platinum over his cheek and brow. That the wizard managed to look stately even at this Merlin-forsaken hour irritated Severus to no end, but his face remained placid, genial—or what passed for genial with the Potions Master.

"Lucius," he replied. "I must admit, I didn't think to see you here this morning."

The Malfoy patriarch simpered, taking the seat Minerva had vacated, flicking imaginary lint from his robes before resting his walking stick across his knees. The snake head glinted in the sunlight. "I simply had to come and see the girl who usurped my son's position on the team for myself. If her performance is lackluster, I do trust you'll see the benefit in having her replaced?"

"I can make the recommendation." Not that it came down to Severus' decision in the end. He had no say over Quidditch placements and could only recommend a player for removal if their marks in Potions proved poor. Even if Potter proved a piss-poor player, Slytherin would probably let her stay on the team just to spite Lucius.

"Usually I would leave such a childish dispute to children, but Draco's letters have been incessant, and I can little stand his complaining. Narcissa has told the boy arguing with a witch is unseemly, but he…."

Severus turned a deaf ear to Lucius, wondering what fate decided to curse him with the man's presence today. Most of the seats in the lower stands had been filled, students keen and eager for the first game of the season to begin. Severus watched the pitch, catching movement at the gates as the teams were allowed out, and the volume in the stadium increased to something near riotous. The other Houses snickered, laughed, pointed; Potter was an incongruous addition to the hulking Slytherin team, her head barely reaching Bole's shoulder, who happened to be the shortest brute in the bunch. Even at the distance, the girl radiated nerves, face pale, and Flint bent to her ear, muttering something that did nothing to change her hunted expression.

"Lucius, what a surprise."

Slytherin stood at the end of the row, a smile plastered on his young, winsome face, Selwyn standing sullen at his elbow. Wordless, Severus rose and offered Slytherin his seat, but the wizard waved him off and sat on his other side, pushing Selwyn on to sit by Lucius. Malfoy stiffened, his drawling monologue interrupted, and inclined his regal head.

"Good afternoon…Professor."

From the corner of his eye, Severus saw Slytherin's lip curl. "How are things at the Ministry? I assume Minister Gaunt has been keeping you busy."

Lucius' fingers clasped his cane and released, the only outward sign of his distress aside from the

lines about his eyes and the stiffness of his spine. "Naturally. The Ministry and the Minster are always busy working for the betterment of our society."

"You needn't feed me the party line, Malfoy. You know better than that."

Lucius swallowed. "Yes, of course, my—of course."

Inwardly sighing, Severus diverted his attention from the meaningless posturing happening around him. Hooch stood in the middle of the pitch now, bringing the two team captains together. As usual, Flint and Wood did their best to break one another's fingers while their teams looked on, prolonging the moment until a sharp look from Hooch broke them apart. The teams mounted their brooms, and Severus narrowed his eyes at Potter, waiting to see what she would do. If the jeering reached her ears, the girl gave no sign; she stared straight ahead, goggles in place, grip tight, face grim but determined.

Bull-headed, Severus thought. Should have been a bloody Gryffindor.

The whistle blew, the players kicked off—and the girl soared, quick and furious like spellfire in the sky, going higher and faster and farther than any of the others as the game began and the Snitch disappeared with a spark of gold. Spinnet—Gryffindor's Seeker—made to follow, but Potter was already gone, hurtling skyward—and then down again, breaking through the players, a divisive tactic even Severus recognized meant to split apart the Chasers. She flew reckless and hard—not graceful, not like a hawk on the prowl, but rather a scavenger, a black-feathered crow spiraling and swooping, pestering, her eyes kept keen for the sparkle that would end the game in their favor.

"Here we are, first Quidditch game of the season, both Houses ready to give it their all! For Slytherin, we have Flint, Pucey, Montague, Bletchley, Derrick, Bole, and Potter! For Gryffindor; Weasley, Weasley, Wood, Johnson, Bell, Spinnet, and—of course—Longbottom!" The part of the stands draped in crimson and gold hollered their approval. "The Slytherin team this year is riding the new Nimbus Two Thousand and One; marvelous broom, bit of an unfair advantage in my opinion, but what can you expect from their team—?"

"Jordan."

"All right, Professor, all right. Gryffindor in possession already with Longbottom leading the charge—beautiful shot there with a Bludger from Fred Weasley—or George, I can never— anyway, Longbottom has the Quaffle, now Johnson. Watch out, Angelina—excellent evasion! That girl can fly! Longbottom, Johnson, and Bell in formation, Longbottom in possession again. Bletchley doesn't have a hope of blocking this—."

It happened fast. Unseen from above, Potter dove, swift and unrelenting, shouting something at Longbottom, because he looked up and swerved out of her way—right into Flint. Potter was a small girl with the build of a Bowtruckle, but Flint had the stocky solidity of a troll, and Longbottom collided into him with an audible thud, almost as if he'd hit a brick wall. Unruffled, Flint snatched the Quaffle from Longbottom's stunned fingers and bolted in the opposite direction.

"Ooh, nasty tricked played there by Slytherin's new Seeker, second year Harriet Potter. Bad luck, Neville…."

Slytherin guffawed, watching the girl far more closely than Severus thought necessary. Fuck, I should have never helped her fight him. "My, I didn't think little Potter had it in her to fight dirty. Always full of surprises, that one. It seems your boy won't be playing Quidditch this year, Lucius."

Malfoy said nothing.

Severus laid his hand on his opposing wrist, his thumb idly running over the space between the edge of his hidden wand holster and the protruding bone, his eyes still following the game. The Vow had been silent for weeks, suffering only the occasional prickling or numbness. Severus found it curious, considering Quidditch was dangerous, no matter how one looked at it. The Vow reacted to intent and primal understanding; it didn't care about rules or Charms on brooms or watching professors. Severus himself tensed whenever the girl threw herself forward or dropped recklessly; the danger was controlled but indisputably there, and yet the Vow did nothing.

As Severus contemplated the issue, he theorized it had a direct connection to the girl's conception of danger, rather than his own. After all, when Quirrell grabbed Potter last term, Severus' wrist hadn't started to burn until she apparently woke in front of the Mirror of Erised. The magic of the Vow had been perplexing wizards and witches for centuries, and Severus doubted he'd live long enough to ever truly grasp its full implications.

"Hmm…it appears the Boy Who Lived is having difficulties."

Indeed, Longbottom had broken formation and flew in erratic circles about the pitch, trying to shake off a persistent Bludger. The Bludger chased the boy, and though the Weasley twins whacked it away several times, the ball flitted away from other prospective targets and came shooting at Longbottom again.

Severus grunted. "It's been tampered with."

No sooner had he spoken, the whistle blew and Hooch grounded the players, the stands erupting in confused shouts and discontent booing. Minerva stood for her place by Jordan, and seeing as Slytherin wasn't about to make himself useful, Severus rose as well, stretching his sore back. "I guess will see what has occurred."

Left with Slytherin, Lucius paled. Serves the git right.

He trailed the Head of Gryffindor down from the staffing section back onto the grounds and through the gates to the pitch itself. The wind lowed through the expanse and carried with it the shouting voices of the two teams, a mixture of green and red players taking advantage of Hooch's distraction to yell and throw accusations. Potter had enough sense to stand out of the way behind Montague; Wood grabbed hold of Flint's uniform, his face flushed, and the Weasley twins eyed Pucey as if contemplating how best to hit the thick-headed boy.

"—nothing by slimy, underhanded Slytherin cheaters—."

"—don't know what you're talking about, Wood—."

"—blatant tampering! It's bad enough you've taught your Seeker how to cheat, too—."

"—scared of short runt like Potter, are you? Pathetic—."

"Wood!" McGonagall interjected when the fool made to strike Flint. She hurried over, one hand braced on her hat, keeping it in place. "Mr. Wood, release him this instant, this is highly improper —."

Severus sneered. "Ten points from Gryffindor for improper conduct, Wood." Minerva bristled.

"Professor Snape, I do think we can be lenient, considering—."

Moving on, Severus ignored the witch's annoyed glower and strode over to Hooch, the wind catching and throwing his hair into his eyes, cloak billowing. The referee had the rogue Bludger

pinned to the grass with magic, containing it, though the ball did its damnedest to break her spell. It thrashed and rolled, tearing at the sod in its attempts to go after Longbottom.

"Oh, it's been tampered with, all right," Hooch said before Severus could speak. "Stunned it twice, and the blasted thing won't do as it's supposed to. The other one seems just fine."

Frowning, Severus flicked his wrist, wand sliding down into his hand. He spoke a basic counter- curse, and when nothing occurred, tried another. A third yielded similar results, and a fourth— meant for Dark spells—did nothing at all. "Where did you keep these, Hooch? Your office?"

"Aye. No students have been in there, not unless I've been there, too."

"This isn't a student's doing. None of the dunderheads at this school could overpower the Charms on a Bludger." And, Severus supplied in his own head, none of them could use something creative enough to thwart me. Who, then? And why? If they meant to maim or kill the Idiot Who Lived, there were far simpler ways to go about it, and Severus doubted anyone with the skills capable of overriding the Bludger's magic would bother with rigging a bloody school Quidditch match. What a waste of time.

"Watch out!"

Hooch's spell wavered, and the Bludger rocketed from the ground, nearly taking Severus' head with it. "Fuck—."

"Severus—!"

He whirled about, wand raised, and snarled, " Expulso."

The Bludger exploded. The Gryffindors screamed as small bits pelted their heads. They turned wide, fearful eyes to their Potions Master with his wand still extended, and Severus grinned, the look only serving to terrify them further. Bloody cowards. He stuck it wand back in his sleeve. "Find a spare," he said, turning heel and marching off the field.

The game resumed soon enough. Hooch retrieved a new, acceptable Bludger from her locked office, and though the players took to the skies again without further mishap, Severus remained at the gate, standing in the tunnel's shadow with his shoulder leaning on the wall, listening to the intermittent groan of wood and formless cheering. Minerva stayed as well, hands together, knuckles white with controlled concern.

"You don't think it's like—last term?" she asked in an undertone, placing special emphasis on her words. Above, the students roared as Gryffindor managed to make a goal. "You don't think it's him again?"

"Doubtful, but who are we to guess his whims?" Severus muttered. Bitter, he clenched his teeth and thought of how easily that Bludger could have gone after a different student, how easily it could have broken the bones of a girl no bigger than a bird—. "Where is Albus?"

"At the Ministry. Gaunt has taken a special interest in recent events here at Hogwarts and has been calling Albus in to account more often than usual."

Silent, Severus thought about this—and about Cloyd Dogbane and a dead Death Eater on the floor of a tent, Slytherin hissing "Sssomeone seeks to play us!" and probing Lucius for intelligence on Gaunt's movements. The strange game played between Gaunt and Slytherin was not new; for a decade, they delighted in undermining one another, and Albus had long theorized Gaunt would eventually make a more blatant move against the Defense instructor. Was this the Minister's

doing? Was he interfering at Hogwarts?

The crowd screeched, howled, feet bouncing on the stands as the two Seekers dove, and Potter rose first, fist held high with a glimmer of gold sparkling between her thin fingers. Slytherin House cheered. From his place in the shadows, Severus hardly noticed.

A/N: As part of the Slytherin team, I totally believe Harriet would learn how to play dirty— especially since that seems to be their default play style.

madman muttering

lxx. madman muttering

For once in her life, Harriet enjoyed receiving attention.

After being poisoned last year, Harriet spent the latter part of the term subjected to rumors and curious, watchful gazes, most everyone wanting to know just what had happened, and who had wanted to off a little first-year Slytherin. The eyes following her now held none of that sharp pity; her housemates looked at her with triumph, with something akin to appreciation, and Harriet felt proud.

"I honestly can't believe you can fly that well," Hermione remarked as she sipped her Butterbeer, fresh from Hogsmeade, smuggled in by an older student who knew a secret way out of the castle. Around them, Slytherins celebrated their win over Gryffindor with less restraint than they usually exhibited, and every so often one of them would wander over to their table, clap a hand on Harriet's shoulder, and congratulate her. "It was unexpected."

"Gee," Harriet replied as she broke apart a Chocolate Frog. "Thanks, Hermione." Elara snickered.

"You know I don't mean it like that." Hermione scowled, and Harriet grinned, offering her a slightly melted leg. "No, thank you—those are so morbid, it's still kicking! Anyway, I thought there'd be a bigger learning curve in Quidditch. Obviously you're talented, but you flew just as well as any of the others, and they've been playing for years or were raised with brooms in their childhood."

"I don't know, I think it's easy."

"Easy for you."

"No! You're just too—tentative. The broom can tell you're nervous and it makes the broom nervous, too."

Hermione groaned and lowered her head into her arms. "It's Defense all over again."

"What d'you mean?"

Hermione straightened, blowing stray curls out of her face as she jabbed a finger in Harriet's direction. "She's a prodigy, and she doesn't even realize."

"It's not surprising," Elara agreed, savoring her tea.

"Hey!" Harriet protested. "It's not hard. You just—you take the broom, right? You, err, you sit on it and you—you just fly!" Hand motions accompanied her vague explanation, and Hermione's face turned pink with her effort not to laugh. "You sit, and—don't laugh, blimey. It's not hard, I promise!"

"It would have to be simple for Potter to manage it."

Biting back a groan, Harriet turned in her seat and scowled at Malfoy, the lone Slytherin in the bunch not celebrating their win. He wore a sullen expression, even if he did have one of the

Butterbeers in hand and had been pleased enough earlier to see the Gryffindor team in low spirits. He strode over alone, Goyle and Crabbe both off having a laugh with one of the older Slytherins.

"Go away, Malfoy."

"I have just as much right to be here as you, precious Potter."

"Then go over there and be fat-headed and entitled, not here."

"If it weren't for the brooms my father bought the team, you'd be worthless," Draco snapped, cheeks flushed with anger. "As worthless as Longbottom!"

"Would not," Harriet retorted, unable to help herself. Arguing with Malfoy had little point, but she hated the prat's accusation. It fed on her own niggling self-doubt. Maybe it was all the broom. Maybe she'd be rubbish on the slower brooms owned by the other teams—and what would happen if she didn't play as well the next game? Or the next? How quickly would her House's admiration turn to scorn?

Her stomach flipped in her middle, and she shoved her Butterbeer away.

"You're not special, Potter." Malfoy got in her face, and Harriet refused to back down, though she wished she was standing instead of sitting. Draco wasn't overly tall, but the difference in height itched at her nerves. "Just you wait until father buys me my own broom. Next year, you won't stand a chance."

"I'm gonna write to your mum and tell her you're being a berk again."

"She's my mother, Potter, just because you're a rotten little orphan doesn't mean—."

Behind him, a seventh year most definitely not drinking Butterbeer stumbled toward their table and tripped over a chair—or his own two feet. He crashed into Malfoy, throwing the second-year forward…right into Harriet.

Wham! Their heads collided, and she fell out of her chair with the pointy-faced bully sprawled on top of her.

"Harriet!" Hermione exclaimed as she and Elara jumped to their feet, the latter having to step over the older boy sprawled on the floor. Malfoy rolled off Harriet, dazed and disheveled, holding his sore head, and Hermione helped Harriet sit up. Her glasses clattered to the floor, split at the bridge.

"You broke my glasses!" Harriet exclaimed, reaching for the pieces. Her face burned, and when she touched her nose, it twinged beneath her fingers, red dripping against her lip. "And my nose! You broke my glasses and my nose!"

To his credit, Malfoy paled when he saw the blood on Harriet's hand, and his voice rose several octaves. "Wh—? Why didn't you move your stupid ugly face, Potter!"

"Your head's so fat with your ego, I couldn't dodge it!"

"Ah, shite," slurred the seventh year getting to his feet. Harriet couldn't recall his name, and she couldn't see him well enough at the moment to guess. "My fault, my fault. Here—lemme jush, lemme jush fix it real quick like—."

"No!" Harriet squawked as the tall boy pulled out his wand and started waving it in her direction. She wasn't about to let him try magic on her!

"Oi, Abelard!" said one of the boy's friends, coming over to grab the boy's arm. "Let off the second-years! You've banged up our Seeker!"

"C'mon, idiot, you're pissed—," said another.

Harriet used her chair to help herself stand, sniffling against the blood trickling faster from her throbbing nose. Tears stung in the corner of her eyes, but she'd had worse from Dudley and wasn't about to cry. The other Slytherins offered to fix her up, but Harriet continued to shake her head. "I'm going to go to Madam Pomfrey."

Hermione nodded. "We'll come with—."

"No," Harriet protested, voice thick. "You heard what Slytherin said about curfew. I'll go and get a pass from the infirmary."

"If you're sure…."

Harriet couldn't say she was sure, but she wasn't about to let one of the older, sloshed Slytherins have a go at healing her, and if she was quick, Slytherin himself would never have to know. She bundled her ruined sleeve up to her nose—lamenting the fact she'd have to owl Madam Malkin's and get a replacement—and headed off out of the common room. She was almost through the opening when she heard a sharp smack, followed by, "Ow! Bloody hell, Granger, I didn't mean to do it—!"

The portal closed, sealing the drunken laughter and Malfoy's protests inside. Alone in the dungeons, Harriet picked up her feet and hurried forward with her head tipped back and her nose pinched closed, though she still felt the warm, sluggish trickle of blood moving along her cheeks and jaw. She crossed the entrance hall, footsteps echoing, chased by the soft crackling of torches dimmed for the night and snoring portraits. She could taste copper when she breathed in, her head woozy, face aching where Malfoy's thick skull whacked the bones. Prat.

"Kill…."

Harriet came to a sudden halt. Dread welled in her middle.

"Filthy blood…kill…kill…."

"No," Harriet whispered, trembling, turning where she stood as the voice grew louder. Blood dripped from her sleeve and her chin, pattering on her shoes and floor. There was something terribly familiar about that heinous whispering—and she wasn't imagining it. She wasn't. Her bloodied fingers fumbled at the brace on her wrist until she grabbed her wand and held it out, heart thumping loud and incessant in her chest. There was nobody there. She stood in the middle of a long corridor, doors shut along its length, walls bare—and she was alone. "Show yourself!"

Her shout echoed into the distance. The voice disappeared with it, leaving the pale witch with nothing but her racing pulse and haggard breath. A minute passed.

Harriet didn't think she wanted whoever that voice belonged to come forward—not really. Images of Quirrell and his grotesque, deformed head popped up in her thoughts like scenes from a horror film, and Harriet would do anything to never see something like that again. She didn't know what to do. She was almost to the infirmary; returning to the dungeons would lead to questions about her un-healed face, and Harriet couldn't very well go running to a professor in the dead of night, talking about invisible voices in her head, covered in blood and half-blind without her glasses. They'd think she was a nutter!

Maybe I am a nutter.

Scared, Harriet continued on, wand still clasped in sticky fingers, running until she slipped inside the hospital wing proper and breathed a sigh of relief. She found a bit of luck when she knocked on Madam Pomfrey's office door and the medi-witch appeared, still awake, though she wore her long dressing gown and a distinctly weary expression. She glanced down at Harriet and jumped.

"Gracious Rowena—Miss Potter! You scared me half to death, girl! What have you gotten yourself into now?"

Harriet realized her running about had done little to help her broken nose, and blood ran freely down her front. "I—tripped?"

The older witch obviously didn't believe her, but she simply tutted under her breath and ushered Harriet into the ward, helping her sit on the edge of the nearest bed. Madam Pomfrey raised the lights before turning to Harriet again. "All right, look this way, Miss Potter…yes, definitely broken. Now, hold still, lest you want a crooked nose. It'll hurt for just a second…episkey!"

Harriet flinched, but otherwise didn't react as the medi-witch fixed her injury. Madam Pomfrey used her wand to siphon some of the blood from Harriet's skin, then paused, frowning at how peaky the young witch looked and the obvious swelling darkening her eyes. "Wait here a minute, Potter."

"Okay."

Madam Pomfrey bustled off to her office again, and Harriet sat tensely on the bed, listening, both hoping she would and wouldn't hear that voice again. There had been something…familiar to the sound, something Harriet couldn't quite put her finger on, but had nonetheless recognized. It kept poking her in the back of the head, and if she could only wrestle down her panic for a moment, she knew she'd figure it out! Was their someone moving about the castle in an Invisibility Cloak like Harriet's? But why could only she hear them? Was it the same person who wrote those words on the wall and hurt Mrs. Norris?

The doors to the ward parted, edging open to admit Professor Dumbledore. Puzzled, Harriet froze and watched her headmaster shuffle into the ward backward, his reason for doing so becoming apparent when Professor McGonagall followed him, a student levitating in the air between them. The student held their hands stiff before themselves, their whole body immobile, and even at the distance, Harriet could just make out the blur of crimson and gold at their neck.

Looking up as she entered, Professor McGonagall caught sight of the Slytherin witch and sputtered. "Miss Potter! What are you doing here?!"

Harriet thought it obvious what she was doing there, but she didn't sass the professor, given the woman was now settling one of her own unmoving students onto a bed. "I—I tripped," she stuttered, staring at the boy. He was small, smaller even than Harriet. A first-year? "Or—well, some bloke named Abelard tripped, and—well, my nose got broke."

"Minerva," Professor Dumbledore interjected. "If you could retrieve Poppy and inform her of the situation, it'd be much appreciated."

Professor McGonagall did as he asked, and Harriet carefully placed her feet on the floor. She still felt lightheaded as she came to stand by Professor Dumbledore, and she had to blink black spots from her vision as she peered at the Gryffindor settled on the bed. The boy didn't move, didn't shift, didn't even appear to breathe. "Is he…Petrified, Professor?"

"I'm afraid so, Harriet."

The young witch swallowed, her heart once more striking an uncomfortable rhythm against her breastbone. Petrified. She'd heard the voice, and now a boy laid in the infirmary, stiff as stone. She should tell Professor Dumbledore, she knew, and as Harriet glanced up at the elderly man, her throat tightened. I should tell him what I heard…but what if he doesn't believe me? she wondered. It sounds barking, even to me. What kind of invisible, whispering madman could I hear that a wizard like Professor Dumbledore couldn't? What if—what if he thinks I'm a liar? What if he makes me go back to the Dursleys? What if…what if he thinks it's me?

"Harriet?"

"Y-yes?"

The Headmaster studied her for a moment, then asked, "Could you lend me your assistance, my girl?"

He gestured at the object the boy clutched to his face—a camera, Harriet realized when she bent closer and squinted. An old Muggle camera, probably one of the few bits of Muggle tech that would actually work inside a magical place like Hogwarts. Harriet edged her stained fingers between the camera and the boy's palms and shivered at the cold, clammy feel of his skin. She slowly edged the device from his frozen grip. "D'you think he got a picture of who did this to him, Professor?"

"That is my hope. Young Mr. Creevey is passionate about his photography, and it appears he chose the wrong night to indulge in sneaking out of his tower." Dumbledore gently laid the camera lens- down on the bed so he could use his one hand to free the cover on the film compartment. It clicked open—and smoke spilled from the crevice, Harriet grimacing against the smell of melted plastic as Professor McGonagall returned with Madam Pomfrey and gasped aloud.

"Oh, the poor dear," McGonagall whispered as she looked down at Creevey and touched the Petrified boy's forehead, smoothing his mousy fringe. "Albus, it could have been so much worse —."

Professor Dumbledore held up his hand. Harriet narrowed her eyes—and winced. What does she mean by that?

"Over here, Miss Potter," Madam Pomfrey ordered as she set down an open jar and a glass vial. Harriet went, rounding the bed to stand before the fussing matron. "It's too much. This can't be allowed to go on, Albus. It's attacking students—."

"The Aurory, at the very least, needs to be notified—."

"The Aurory received my petition, as did the Minister. I can only wait for their response, as you well know." Dumbledore pointedly interrupted the witches again when they began to argue, and Madam Pomfrey went back to rubbing stinky bruise cream on Harriet's face. The young witch thought the wizard sounded…bitter, or as bitter as Professor Dumbledore ever could sound.

"Does this have to do with the Chamber, Professors?"

"Don't ask questions, Miss Potter. This is nothing for you to worry about." Madam Pomfrey uncorked the vial, the motion rushed. "That's a Blood Replenishing Potion. Merlin knows you've lost enough down the front of your shirt."

Harriet drank the potion—and though she wanted to kick a fuss at being ignored like a child, she

didn't. Instead, she stored away the conversation so she could tell Hermione and Elara what she'd learned. Maybe Hermione was right. Maybe the professors did know more than they were letting on.

"Back to the dormitories with you, Miss Potter," Professor McGonagall said, her tone brusque. She shared a final, lingering look with Professor Dumbledore, who nodded slightly. "Come along."

Harriet went. Despite the presence of a mature witch at her side, she grew anxious in the cold, poorly lit corridors, sticky with blood and chilled to the bone, shirt clinging to her collarbones. Professor McGonagall set a brisk pace, and they had almost reached the entrance hall when Harriet swore she heard the voice again and stopped dead, her mind whirling in a thousand directions, wondering if someone was going to appear from nowhere, if they'd attack, if Harriet and the professor would be nothing more than rocks like that Gryffindor boy—.

Pain prickled through her neck just as Professor Slytherin stepped around the corner.

He paused upon seeing them standing there, and when he recognized Harriet, the wizard's eyes hardened. "It appears Potter needs to be reminded of my curfew rule," he hissed as he strode forward. Harriet shivered.

"Miss Potter was in need of an escort to the infirmary," Professor McGonagall told him, her voice as cold as the look upon her face. "She may be missing her glasses, but I assume you can see the blood plainly enough, Professor Slytherin."

He sucked air through his teeth and didn't reply, flicking out the edge of his robes in dramatic fashion as he spun on his heels. "Very well. I've no time for this. Come, Potter."

Being ordered about like a misbehaving dog was growing old for Harriet, but she nonetheless fell into step behind Professor Slytherin, and the wizard rushed her back into the dungeons, all but shunting her into the common room without going inside himself. The party had wound down in her absence, fewer Slytherins milling about the shared space, and so Harriet continued on into her room, finding Elara and Hermione waiting for her there. Hermione handed over her repaired glasses, and Harriet was so exhausted from Quidditch and the after-party, she wrote herself a note to speak with her friends about what happened in the morning. They got ready for bed.

It was several hours later, long after the last of the smuggled Firewhisky had been drained, the silver lanterns doused, and sleepy Slytherins folded themselves into their blankets, that Harriet woke from muddled nightmares and sat upright, gasping, the warm coils of her Horned Serpent wrapped about her bare legs. She remembered. She knew why the voice was familiar, why she thought she heard it in the hall when Professor Slytherin appeared. She knew.

"It's a ruddy snake!"

skulduggery

lxxi. skulduggery

Midnight revelations, Harriet learned, rarely prove as crystal clear in the morning as they do in our dreams.

She told Hermione and Elara about the conversation shared between the professors in the infirmary, and she also informed them that the voice she heard was, as far as she could tell, a snake. They had difficulty proving her epiphany, however, because though Harriet swore to Merlin she heard a snake, they still had no idea how the blighted thing seemed to be invisible, and doubt grew in their uncertainty.

"Parseltongue doesn't sound different from English to me," Harriet explained as they huddled together in the library. Being a Sunday, there weren't many other students about, but Madam Pince still haunted the place and they didn't have an explanation for the kind of literature they'd accrued at their table, so the trio kept a low profile. Livi poked his nose out from her collar and Harriet gently prodded him back out of sight. "It doesn't even feel different when I speak it."

"That's because Parseltongue is an innate, hereditary anomaly—a dominant phenotype in the magical allele." Met with puzzled looks, Hermione sighed. "It's magic DNA. It's like—having red hair. To a redhead, it's just hair. They couldn't describe how it feels different on their head, now could they? Maybe that's not the best example, but it's magic like the Metamorphmagus gene in the Black family, or the inborn Occlumency of the Sangfort family—but Parseltongue is rarer, and cannot be taught. The only known Parselmouths in Europe were from the fens, and they married into the Peverell family, descended into the Slytherin family, and eventually dwindled to the Gaunts. It gets a bit muddled in the genealogy texts, but both the Minister, Marvolo Gaunt the second, and Professor Slytherin, claim to be Salazar Slytherin's final living descendant. Both are Parselmouths."

"…and then there's me."

"It's odd," Elara remarked, idly flipping through a text. "Because while most every family in magical Britain can somehow trace their lineage back to a Peverell, none of the Potters have ever been Parselmouths. You're more closely related to the Blacks and would have had a better chance of being a Metamorphmagus. As far as I know, there's never been a recorded example of a Muggle-born Parselmouth—or Metamorphmagus, for that matter."

Elara and Hermione shared a significant look—and Harriet stiffened, catching the unspoken implication. "I swear, if one of you suggests my mum had an affair with Professor Slytherin's dad or something, I'll bloody hex you."

"What if Professor Slytherin is your dad?" Elara smirked.

"I'm getting my wand!"

"Shh!"

The three witches paused to look about for Madam Pince, not realizing their voices had risen. "No one is suggesting any such thing, Harriet. We're getting off-topic; you said Parseltongue doesn't

sound different from English. So, how do you know it's a snake?"

Harriet finished glowering at Elara and turned her attention to Hermione. "Snakes have a bit of an accent to them—I don't know how else to explain it. It's like…." She grappled for an example, biting her lower lip. "It's like Snape."

"Professor Snape?"

"Over the summer, if we saw him really early in the morning and he was tired, he sounded a bit like a Manc when he was telling us off. He doesn't usually sound like that, but you can tell, if you're looking for it."

Elara frowned, considering, and then nodded. "She's right. I hadn't realized it before, but he does sound somewhat Mancunian when he's irritated."

"That's like Parseltongue. I can't usually tell the difference unless I'm really looking for it, and— well—I wasn't looking for it at first."

"It still makes no sense," Hermione said. "Either way we consider it, snake or wizard, how are they getting about the castle unseen? How are they Petrifying people? For what reason?"

"Livius can be invisible," Elara pointed out.

"Yes, but last I checked, Horned Serpents can't Petrify people."

Harriet glanced at the lump snoozing on her chest and pulled her collar out, peeking at Livi. "Hey," she hissed. "Can you Petrify people?"

"What isss Petrify?"

"Make them like stone."

"Ssstupid. Ssstone isss not good for eating."

Harriet smoothed her collar again and glanced at her friends, who watched the exchange with raised brows. "He says stone people would be gross, so I'm guessing that's a no."

"How very reassuring."

Hermione slammed a thick tome closed. "I can't find any mention of any invisible snakes aside from a few vague notations on Horned Serpents." Hermione's gaze dropped to Harriet's shirt with a displeased grimace. "And they're very rare. The Magical Menagerie is still offering a reward for Livius' return."

"Really? Maybe I'll sell him back—because the joke's on them, he does what he wants."

Elara snorted and Harriet giggled, but Hermione's frown intensified. "This isn't funny," she said. "I heard from a Gryffindor at breakfast that Colin Creevey is a Muggle-born. I'm a Muggle-born. This is directly related to the Chamber, and whoever opened the Chamber did so to hurt Muggle- borns!"

The younger witches sobered. "I apologize, Hermione. You're right, it's not funny—but the Chamber itself might be a rouse. Someone with a grudge against Muggle-borns—and Professor Slytherin, apparently—might be claiming they opened the Chamber to discredit his name and detract attention from themselves."

"What if the Chamber has one of these in it?" Harriet said, spinning around her opened text to point out a picture of a serpentine woman who didn't seem to appreciate being pointed at very much. Vipers and cobras adorned her skull in an intricate weave of scales and fangs, the woman's golden eyes wide and furious, her mouth too wide and filled with far too many teeth. "A Gorgon? They Petrify people!"

"Gorgons are a Dark creature, and the only time one has ever been seen outside of Greece was in the fifteen-hundreds, when they brought one as part of a school tournament."

"Wh—what type of bloody tournament is that?!"

Hermione ignored the question. "It's true they Petrify people, but they have a notorious hatred for all wizards and witches alike—pure-blood, half-blood, or otherwise. It wouldn't explain how it's getting about, or why we haven't seen a dozen other people get Petrified as well."

"…a Gorgon in an Invisibility Cloak?"

"Honestly, Harriet."

The bespectacled witch took back Most Macabre Monstrosities with a sigh and turned the page. The next entry depicted a large and ghastly looking creature not unlike an eel—a basilisk, the proclaimed "King of Serpents." Harriet skimmed through the text, and though she noted some speculation on the serpent's extreme longevity and hatred for poultry, nothing was noted about Petrification. They were monstrous in size, and Harriet thought someone would be dead if something as terrifying as a basilisk was loose in the school.

"The professors know something they aren't telling us," Hermione muttered with a mutinous glance toward the library's entrance, making sure Pince wasn't about. "I think they know where the Chamber is, and they know what's been let out. It would make sense, it being Slytherin's chamber, if a snake of some kind came slithering out of it."

"It's been a thousand years, Hermione. Snakes don't live that long."

"Perhaps he left a colony of some kind behind, and they've reproduced."

"That's possible."

Hermione had a fervent look in her eyes as she leaned over the table, her voice lowered. "I don't think it's right they're keeping information to themselves, especially when it pertains to Muggle- borns. I want to know what they know. I…I want—." She licked her lips, visibly anxious, and whispered, "I want to spy on them."

Elara was the first to break the answering silence. "No thanks, I'd like to live."

"Elara!"

"I'm serious. You say them, but you clearly mean Slytherin, and anyone willing to spy on the man must be cracked."

"This is something I have to do." Elara opened her mouth and Hermione cut her off. "You had to have me make that potion for you, regardless of legality, and you—." She pointed at Harriet, who froze as if Stunned. "You had to hex Professor Slytherin to prove a point, so I assume you both understand when I say this is simply something I cannot drop or ignore. I'm going to pursue this, with or without you."

"All right, all right," Harriet placated, calming her friends down. Hermione was beginning to look like a furious, puffed up cat. "We'll help—we will," she added with a kick to Elara's chair. The Black heir grimaced. "But I don't see what we could do."

"You have your Invisibility Cloak."

"You mean the one Snape can see through with his funny eye?"

"That—that is a valid point, actually." Hermione deflated, scowling at the books as if they'd betrayed her. "There has to be some way…."

She devolved into a muttering fit, and Elara glanced at Harriet, whispering, "This is mad, you know."

"I know."

"She wants us to eavesdrop on professors."

"I know," Harriet repeated, shrugging. "She's right about them not telling us something. You can't say you're not curious, too—and this is Hermione. If she has a plan, it'd be brilliant."

Elara grumbled something that sounded suspiciously like "Brilliantly stupid," and Harriet kicked her chair again, bruising her own toes. It was about that time that Madam Pince came around, shooing lingering students out of the library, ordering them off to supper. The trio of Slytherin witches stacked their books together and hurried them back to their respective shelves, then wandered back into the school.

"If we can't be invisible," Hermione said, speaking slowly, gathering her thoughts. "Then we could, perhaps, alter our appearances."

"Is there magic that does?"

"Oh, there's plenty of minor and major glamors—but I hazard a guess that Professor Snape might be able to see through them. Most of the staff can at least detect them, and most are very complicated—. Anyway, any kind of disguise we wanted to use would have to be physical." She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and nibbled at it, lost in thought. "The best solution I can envision is the Polyjuice Potion."

Harriet didn't know what a Polyjuice Potion was, but Elara did, because she looked askance at Hermione and asked, "Do you actually have the recipe for that?"

"Well, no. It's in Moste Potente Potions, isn't it? It's kept in the Restricted Section, and only N.E.W.T students—or someone with a teacher's note—can check it out."

Elara sighed and glanced heavenward. "Do you honestly think you can brew the potion?"

Hermione bristled. "What kind of question is that?"

"Then I'll get the book," Elara said, ignoring Hermione's hurt look. "I'm not doubting your ability, I'm asking you honestly. If you think you can brew it, then I will get the book."

"How are you going to manage that?"

"You'll see."

Harriet just shook her head. She really didn't like the sound of this spying stuff, but Hermione

helped her all the time, and if this was something the other witch needed, then Harriet would do whatever she could for her. Even if it meant participating in some dodgy eavesdropping.

Journeying on toward the Great Hall, she realized the volume of voices grew louder and louder, loud enough to warrant a puzzled glance between the three friends.

"What d'you think's going on?"

"…Perhaps someone else has been Petrified."

Hermione stole a sharp breath. "Hurry, let's go."

As it turned out, no one had been Petrified; instead, the commotion arose from the presence of a new person seated at the High Table next to Professor Dumbledore.

"Is that—?"

"That's Gilderoy Lockhart!" Hermione said, cheeks glowing pink. "Holy cricket, why is he here?"

Harriet didn't know, but as they found their seats at the Slytherin table, she studied the blond wizard speaking rapidly to the Headmaster. Every so often he gave his hand an airy flip, and he used his blinding white smile to maximum effect. It seemed almost every girl in the hall was staring at the bloke, and when Professor Dumbledore rose from his chair, it took several minutes and a rather fierce reprimand from Snape to quiet everyone down. "Good evening! Before we partake in our excellent dinner this evening, I have an announcement to make. Please join me in welcoming Mr. Gilderoy Lockhart, who has been sent by our esteemed Minister for additional security while we investigate threats made against our students' safety. Welcome, Gilderoy!"

Professor Dumbledore started clapping, followed less enthusiastically by the staff—but notably not the majority of the Slytherin staff. Professor Slytherin himself watched Dumbledore and the gaudy wizard in robin's egg blue robes from the corner of his red eyes, his posture stiff and unwelcoming. Both Snape and Selwyn sat grim and upright like naughty children waiting for the other shoe to drop, and the other professors, though polite, brought their hands together and didn't look at all relieved.

"Thank you, Headmaster!" Lockhart said, reaching out to clap a hand on the older man's shoulder. "Nothing to fear now, I must say! The Minister himself chose me to deal with this Chamber nonsense, and you can be sure, with me on the watch, this will be sorted in a trice! I'll be on patrol, and if any of you have anything suspicious to report—or maybe just want an autograph from yours truly—." He tipped them all a wink, and Harriet saw a Hufflepuff seventh year fan herself, giggling. "Don't be afraid to come find me."

Harriet remembered then a bit of conversation between Dumbledore and McGonagall, talking about petitioning the Ministry for Aurors. The Minister sent…Lockhart? Lockhart wasn't an Auror, was he?

The older girls tittered and whispered, boys looking at them like they'd gone out of their gourds. Harriet didn't understand. The bloke was pretty, but he was also very…shiny, offensively glittery —and, after making her way through Gadding with Ghouls, Harriet was almost entirely certain Lockhart ripped off Muggle literature to write his books. It was made-up, fantasy stuff. She couldn't be the only one who knew that—so why would the Minister send Lockhart when Professor Dumbledore asked the Ministry for Aurors?

They ate their dinner amid excited chatter, finished, and though they needed to be in their dorms

soon, Harriet urged her two friends out to one of the outer courtyards first. In the cold, low light of the gloaming hour, Harriet pulled Livi out from under her shirt, and the serpent complained bitterly of the chill before he moved off—invisible—into the sparse woods abutting the courtyard for exercise and something to eat.

"He's getting too big to be under your clothes," Elara remarked after several minutes of silent contemplation, her arms crossed and her gaze speculative.

Harriet sighed. "Hagrid's been encouraging me to make him hunt more and not just feed him off the table. You'd think he'd be getting less food, right? But he's gotten bigger."

"Perhaps it's an intrinsic trigger of his magic," Hermione said, coming out of her blush-fueled daze. "A survival mechanism encouraging growth to capture larger and more fulfilling prey."

"Maybe."

Hermione changed the subject. "That was…an interesting dinner. You did say Professor Dumbledore requested someone come from the Ministry?"

"Yeah, but I thought he wanted an Auror or someone better."

"Better? Mr. Lockhart is—! Is very qualified! And—!"

"Pretty?" Harriet guessed, smirking when Hermione's face flamed again.

"Looks have nothing to do with it!" she barked. "Just look at all he's done!"

Elara, still gazing into the distance, had a puzzled look upon her face and didn't join in on Harriet's teasing.

"Hermione, that stuff he writes is all fiction, y'know?"

"It couldn't be. There—. Someone would have noticed, Harriet."

Harriet shook her head and crossed the courtyard, hissing until Livi chose to come slithering back, unsuccessful in his hunt and peeved for having been made to rouse his lazy bones. "I noticed, didn't I?"

Her comment gave Hermione something else to stew over besides wondering what information the professors meant to keep from the school and students. Harriet hid Livi away again, tugging her cloak about her shoulders, and they returned to their common room. The trio brought out their homework, pushing aside dark, anxious thoughts about possible monsters in the castle—and though she was comforted by the familiar glow of the silver lanterns and the lake's deep murmurs, Harriet couldn't quite forget the feel of Colin Creevey's Petrified skin against her own.

Danger lurked somewhere in Hogwarts—danger that Harriet feared she and her friends might escape unscathed.

A/N: I highly doubt anyone knew that indirect eye contact with a Basilisk only Petrified a victim. There'd be no feasible way for wizards to test what would happen, and according to Newt Scamander in the Fantastic Beasts text, Basilisks hadn't been seen in England for some 400 years. There wasn't anything about Petrification in the Most Macabre Monstrosities

entree.

Anyway, some other notes real quick: I've had a few reviewers comment about Set and why I don't include him more. No, I haven't forgotten him (I promise). He's just not a major character, honestly, and his significance doesn't get explored until later in the series. I'll work on including him more simply as a point of interest, but for the most part, if Harriet's around people, he's not there. Another note, I've had some requests for a summary of events, and I've decided I'll make sure to include one at the beginning of each new part/year. So, we won't see it for awhile, but I hope it will be helpful! Thank you all so much for your reads, time, and reviews!

blithering idiot

lxxii. blithering idiot

Two weeks passed the students of Hogwarts by, and in those weeks it wasn't uncommon to hear Mr. Lockhart's loud, officious voice careening through the corridors whenever they headed off to class. He seemed to pop up everywhere: outside on the grounds when they strolled to Herbology, telling everyone who'd listen about the herd of Centaurs he befriended in Germany; in the Transfiguration corridor, strutting about in a cloak with literal peacock feathers on the hem; trailing Professor Flitwick, who couldn't walk fast enough to escape the man's lengthy stories. Harriet saw him try to give Snape advice on potioneering and she thought the poor blighter was going to lose a limb.

Annoying or not, however, there were no new spooky messages on the walls, instances of hissing voices, or Petrifications while Lockhart bandied about, and so Harriet assumed he was either brighter than he let on or was making such a nuisance of himself the invisible not-a-Gorgon couldn't keep on with their dastardly scheme. Sometimes the wizard trailed Longbottom, rambling about managing fame and expectations, trying to wrangle the Boy Who Lived into a book deal. "A seventy-thirty split in profits, of course, being my idea," Harriet heard Lockhart say one day, bracing herself against the need to roll her eyes. Used to the attention, Neville formed an easy camaraderie with the wizard, and managed to divert his attention back toward his other doting fans or the Chamber itself.

Harriet had never been so glad Professor Dumbledore decided to keep the truth of Voldemort and her scar a secret whenever she saw the pair together.

Though nothing of note happened for a fortnight, Hermione was still determined to brew a Polyjuice Potion and learn what the professors knew. Where that sudden, intense distrust came from, Harriet couldn't say—but she considered it possible Professor Quirrell's betrayal last term had shaken Hermione more than any of them knew. Certainly, Harriet had been terrified, but she'd never trusted authority figures to the extent Hermione did; her grade school teachers never took her side against Dudley, always reprimanding her to quit telling lies when she said he hit her. Being confronted with stark evidence of a professor's frankly evil personage probably unsettled Hermione greatly.

It was a Thursday, an hour or so before class let out, and the second year Slytherins had their weekly free period. Harriet hurried along, already late to what was supposed to be a clandestine meeting with her friends…in a loo. Every witch knew the toilets on the second floor were bloody atrocious, what with Moaning Myrtle in residence, the ghost of an old student who haunted the place and popped through the stalls while you were trying to do your business. Of course, Harriet never had that issue because the ghosts always avoided her—which she suspected had something to do with Set, who was also the reason she was running late.

Why he felt the need to knock everything off of Runcorn's carrell like some prissy cat, Harriet would never know.

She hurried along, fidgeting with her robes until they laid flat, one sock shorter than the other, her hair more of a nightmare than usual after waking from an overlong afternoon nap. Harriet yawned as she hopped up the steps to the second floor—and paused, seeing Mr. Lockhart peeking into a broom cupboard. He didn't seem to be up to anything nefarious; rather, he looked peaky and

nervous as he peered into the cupboard and fiddled with his wand as if trying to buck up the courage to open the door fully.

Harriet came up next to him, and though she didn't hear any suspicious snake voices, she pulled out her wand as well. "What're you looking for?"

Mr. Lockhart jumped half a foot in the air and nearly whacked Harriet in the face when he whipped his wand about and dropped the bloody thing on her head. Rubbing her scalp, Harriet scowled at the wizard and bent down to pick it up.

"You gave me a fright there!" Lockhart said with a weak attempt at a laugh, one hand on his chest. His blond hair flopped over his brow like the wet down of a half-soaked duck, the hem of his gaudy robes crooked as if he'd tripped over them a time or two. He accepted his wand back from her and pointed it again at the ajar door. "I say—what, what are you doing out of class at this hour?"

"Free period," Harriet replied, shrugging. She edged around him to see into the dark cupboard. "Is there something in there?" Harriet swore if Lockhart got her eaten by a cursed mop, she'd come back and haunt him.

"Ah—well, I'm on patrol—looking for ne'er-d0-wells, protecting everyone, as you like—and I heard a, uh, suspicious noise…."

Lockhart's normally blinding smile flickered, and he looked very near passing out when Harriet— growing impatient—nudged the door open fully with her foot. A sudden buzzing filled the air, something black and glittering darting toward them, and Lockhart shrieked as Harriet flicked her wand. "Petrificus Totalus!"

The wizard's shriek still echoed in the corridor as the two Doxies bounced off his head and fell, stiff as boards, to the floor below. Harriet gave Lockhart another harsh, disbelieving look, then bent to pluck the Doxies up and stuff them into a pocket. Livi had developed a taste for the gross things while at Grimmauld, so he'd appreciate the treat.

Meanwhile, Lockhart was quick to prevaricate, though the bloke sounded like he'd nearly had a heart attack, his voice warbling several octaves too high. "Thank you for the assistance—though I had it all under control, of course! Very dangerous, Doxies. Venomous, you know."

They were not, in fact, venomous in the slightest, but Harriet said, "Uh-huh," anyway. They stared at one another in awkward silence.

Harriet honestly couldn't see why the others were crazy over the wizard. She didn't understand. Was that what growing up did to you? The third year girls had attended a special class with Madam Pomfrey and had come back to the common room whispering about hormones and periods and changes—all things Harriet did not like the sound of in the slightest, but unfortunately she'd have to deal with it sooner rather than later. Was that what made Hermione, the smartest witch Harriet knew, act like such a numpty whenever Lockhart came strutting by?

Harriet huffed. "You should write fiction."

"P-pardon?"

"Your books. You should write your own fiction, considering there's not a lot of other wizarding fiction writers out there, and yours isn't half bad. Then, you wouldn't get sent by the Ministry to do

these kinds of things and make a total hash of it."

Lockhart paled, then goggled at Harriet like she'd shouted something vaguely obscene and highly offensive. He didn't say anything in response, and so the bespectacled witch took the chance to scurry off, leaving the fancy wizard gobsmacked in the hallway. She made it to the loo without further incident, pushed in the door—and found Elara and Hermione inside, staring at a wall.

"Err—what are you doing?" She felt like she was asking that a lot today.

Hermione blinked and stirred. "You're late," she said, more from reflex than a need to chastise. "Myrtle was here a moment ago, complaining as she always does—and then she stopped mid- sentence, gasped, and flew through that wall there."

"I told you it meant Harriet was almost here," Elara commented.

"I always thought it a coincidence the ghosts never appeared around her, but now I'm not as certain. Maybe it has something to do with your curse scar? Ghosts are highly sensitive to magic and might be repelled by it."

"Mmm," Harriet replied. Hermione might not have noticed the evasion, but Elara did, her gaze sharpening as the shorter witch quickly cleared her throat and changed the subject. "Anyway, sorry I'm late. Got distracted out in the hall—so why d'you want us here?"

Shaking her head, Hermione returned her attention to the matter at hand. "I thought this would make an excellent place to begin brewing the Polyjuice; no one ever comes in here because of Myrtle."

"Yeah? Well, what about Myrtle? Will she tattle on us?"

"I couldn't say, honestly. According to Hogwarts: A History, the ghosts are under no obligation to report on the students to the staff unless they're injured or a threat to others—but they're also under no obligation to keep silent, either. I believe Myrtle's just bored and lonely enough to not go reporting us to Professor Dumbledore."

Harriet nodded along, though she had a queasy feeling in her stomach at the thought of brewing a potion in a ghost's loo. It didn't sound very sanitary to her.

"Did you manage to get the book, Elara?"

The taller witch inclined her head and reached into her robe pocket, revealing a book loosely bound in brown paper she quickly shed.

"That's not from the library," Hermione said slowly.

"It's from a library. That library being my own." Elara held the book out to Hermione, and Harriet could see the familiar crest on the bottom of the spine as the witch impatiently waved the tome about when Hermione failed to grasp it. "I had Kreacher send it to me from home. Mind, I'll probably return for the hols and find out he's tossed the whole library searching for it, but this is still much simpler than trying to bribe a teacher into signing a permission slip for the Restricted Section."

Grumbling, Hermione took the book and cradled it gently in her hands. "Oh, gross."

"Gross?" Harriet asked.

"It feels—." Her nose scrunched, handing the text over. "Not pleasant."

Indeed, when Harriet's fingers brushed the cover, she was almost overcome with the sudden desire to hurl the book as far as she could. It felt as if she'd taken hold of something not quite solid, a half-frozen gelatinous thing that sent a sharp prickling alighting through her hand and danced in her skin like tiny little feet. It felt—familiar, but uncomfortable, like the stuffy dark of the cupboard at Privet Drive. Harriet did not like it and quickly shoved it back to her friend.

"It's a text of Dark magic that's sat in a Dark house for decades, Hermione. Of course it's not pleasant."

Shivering once, Hermione lowered herself to sit on the damp floor in front of the sinks and Elara and Harriet did the same—though Elara opted for perching on her bag, folding her hands together on her knees, curling her lip slightly. As Hermione parted the book and began looking through the pages, Harriet peered at the room itself. Everything was slightly off-color, drab with dust and age, the floor stained by years of water damage, cobwebs bearding the ceiling like fungus under a log. All the mirrors had long since been broken, the window itself obscured by limescale as thick as Harriet's finger. It was a distinctly unsavory place, exactly where someone might find illegal potions brewing going on.

"Here." Hermione spread the book open in her lap, running a single fingertip down a page crammed with tiny print and gruesome drawings. "This is it here. Hmm…" She turned the page, frowning. "…it's a tad more complicated than I'd hoped, what with the leeches needing to be bled as to not contaminate it, and it'll take twenty-one days for the lacewing flies to stew. The knotgrass also presents a problem, as it needs to be harvested under a full moon. Some of the rest will be difficult to procure."

Elara's brow rose, and she craned her neck to look at the book without scooting closer on the grubby floor. "Could we buy the flies? I don't know if Slug and Jiggers would take the order, but there are other apothecaries."

"No," Hermione said, still reading. "The fee would be exorbitant, and I wouldn't trust whoever filled the order to stew them properly. Besides, not many potions call for stewed lacewing flies; any potioneer with half a brain would know what we were up to." She sunk her teeth into her lower lip as she carefully closed the book again, a small furrow appeared between her brows. "We should be able to start right away. I have my kit and spare cauldron, and the flies themselves are used in standard potion making. The second part of the brew will be a bit…difficult, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it." She smiled, shaking out her bushy hair as she climbed back to her feet. "In the end, I hope all this is unnecessary. Mr. Lockhart should be able to catch whoever is causing this chaos, and we can get back to studying without worrying about being Petrified…."

She said the words, and yet Harriet knew Hermione didn't feel them; they rang hollow, empty, and the other witch wouldn't quite meet their eyes as she tucked Elara's smuggled book into her satchel and brought out a collapsible cauldron so she could start on the flies. Elara took the opportunity to leave, muttering about Snape and making sure no one went looking for them and caught them out making mischief. Harriet helped Hermione begin prepping ingredients, working in companionable silence, and once they moved the cauldron into one of the stalls, she leaned against the partition and stared into the dark, bubbling water.

Hermione hoped all this wouldn't be necessary, but it would be, because Gilderoy Lockhart was a fraud, and Harriet suspected the adults were well aware of that fact. Why, then? Why bring him? Why would the Minister send a blithering idiot to Hogwarts in their time of need?

Grim, Harriet didn't think she would like the answer to those questions.

dueling club

lxxiii. dueling club

"A Dueling Club?" Elara muttered as Daphne Greengrass nodded her head. "He can't be serious."

They sat together in Transfiguration, a pile of glossy patterned buttons on the desk before Elara, several tired beetles fleeing the idle motions of Daphne's absentminded wand. "It was officially put on the board this morning in the common room," the blonde girl said. "It's going to be held at the beginning of the month, and apparently Lockhart's got an assistant helping him with actual demonstrations."

Parkinson, seated in front of them, turned in her chair when McGonagall walked away and leaned her elbows on their table. "Are you talking about the Dueling Club?" she asked in an undertone. Again, Daphne nodded. "It's so exciting! Who do you think is going to assist him?"

"Not Professor Slytherin," Daphne said, poking at a beetle. "I heard from Morag MacDougal in Ravenclaw that she heard Mr. Lockhart talking with Professor Slytherin after their lesson on Tuesday, asking if he'd be up for supervising the club—and Slytherin apparently all but threw Mr. Lockhart out of his classroom."

"Can you blame him? Anyone who has to assist the Gilderoy Lockhart is going to be humiliated." Pansy sighed, and Daphne did the same. Elara just stared at the pair.

Not for the first time, Elara wondered if there was something wrong with her—because she felt none of the nervous, twitterpated energy the other girls did when discussing Lockhart. She knew Harriet didn't either, but that was because Harriet was one of the youngest in their year, and far more interested in adventure stories, snakes, and curious bits of magic. Elara was aware of Lockhart in a way Harriet was not, but only in so far as to recognize him as a wizard, a dunce, and a source of constant, gibbering gossip.

It seemed almost every girl near enough to thirteen and above turned into a moon-faced fool whenever Lockhart came up in conversation, and it baffled Elara, who felt very much like the only person at a party who hadn't sipped the spiked punch.

"Miss Parkinson," Professor McGonagall snapped as she paced up the aisle again. "I'm sure you're only discussing the best way to go about turning your beetles into buttons, but turn your attention back to your own desk now."

Pansy grimaced, then wiped her face clean as she sat forward. "Yes, Professor McGonagall."

The professor narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips in a thin line as if contemplating a point deduction, but she eventually moved on to the desk behind Elara, where Harriet had managed to turn her beetles in buttons about the size of dinner plates. She quickly tried to fix the problem with a Shrinking Charm. "I saw that, Miss Potter. You should be getting the spell right on the first try, not correcting it with another."

"But what does it matter, professor?" Harriet complained. "So long as the buttons are the right size in the end?"

"Because I would be remiss in my teaching if my students had to supplement all their half-baked

Transfiguration attempts with Charms, and in the future you will come across far more complex magic that cannot be hedged in such a fashion. Now—." She flicked her wand, and the buttons turned back into regular-sized beetles. "—try again, Miss Potter, and concentrate."

xXxXx

Classes continued as they always did, and December descended upon the castle with subtle morning frosts and thick storm clouds lingering just beyond the mountains. Soon everyone knew about the Dueling Club, and it was impossible for go anywhere without hearing someone whispering speculation on what they'd encounter. No one knew for certain what kind of talent Lockhart truly had for dueling since his books only held vague references to any actual battles between the wizard and the forces of darkness, but the more Lockhart toted his skills, the more Elara doubted he had any at all.

She was certain Professor Slytherin was going to hex him bloody any day now.

By the time the first meeting arrived on a cold, brisk evening at the end of the first week, Elara had grown tired of hearing about it, and only conceded to attending because Harriet—for all her disdain of Lockhart—was eager to learn more about dueling. She and Hermione dragged Elara out of the dungeons by the arm, joining the flood of students headed toward the Great Hall.

The room had been adjusted to suit the meeting's needs. The House tables hemmed the walls, a long, narrow platform now occupying the middle of the hall, around which everyone pushed and jockeyed for the best viewing position. The watching portraits squawked in indignation as neighbors and other painted people squeezed into their frames, a woman beating a pushy knight over the head with her washing board after he nudged her into the tub of sudsy water. No adults had arrived yet.

The trio of Slytherin witches looked for good spots but found themselves shuffled toward the back with the other first and second-years. Harriet grumbled when she ended up stuck behind a sixth- year almost double her height.

"Here, Harriet, stand here…."

Hermione and the shorter witch switched places, and more students came trickling into the hall, jostling the others around. Elara turned to look deeper into the hall itself, and so she didn't see who Harriet bumped into before she heard her let out a brief, pained hiss.

"Oh, hello, Luna and Ginny," Hermione said to the pair of first-year girls, frowning at Harriet. Ginny followed Hermione's look with a nervous smile.

"Hey," she replied. "Sorry about that, Pot—Harriet."

The bespectacled witch waved the apology away, though she had a bit of a pinched expression, scratching at her shoulder.

"How are you both doing?" Hermione asked. "Are your classes going well?"

They exchanged brief chatter—well, Hermione and Ginny did, while Luna hummed softly and Elara gave the girl a skeptical look. She was…odd. They were related through Elara's mother, the McKinnons and Lovegoods being cousins, close enough that Elara sometimes wondered why she

hadn't been sent to them when she was an infant. She often ruminated on all the possible reasons she'd landed in a Muggle orphanage instead of with a magical relation. Uncle Cygnus never gave her a clear answer beyond thinking she had been dead.

Maybe they just didn't want to house the madman's daughter.

"Hello, hello!" Elara jerked herself out of her wandering thoughts as Mr. Lockhart came bounding up the steps onto the platform. She said bounding because that was exactly what he did; the foppish wizard lifted his knees high and affected a slightly breathless air, dressed in a high-collared duelist's coat, a frilly pattern printed into the light fabric, his boots heeled and buckled along his narrow calves. He looked something like the Christian knights in St. Giles' nursery stories, golden and boisterous and clean, chest thrown out, smile bright. The inadvertent comparison made Elara uneasy. "Can you all hear me? Good, excellent! I'm so glad you could attend this little Dueling Club of mine the Headmaster and the Ministry have allowed me to set up!"

By now, most of the student body had filtered into the hall, and though the few hundred students usually fit quite well in the space, the platform crowded the room's middle and everyone jostled for better spots close to the front. Claustrophobia needled her, and Elara forced herself to stand up straight and stop wringing her gloves, breathing in a sharp, quick breath. Harriet glanced at her, curious.

A flicker of black in the corner of her eye turned Elara's head. True, the majority of the crowd wore their dark school robes and so a bit of black cloth shouldn't have held her attention, but no one could match the seething pillar that Snape resembled as he came gliding up the steps after Lockhart, still dressed in his teaching robes and wool coat. He stood there in stark contrast to Mr. Lockhart, looking very much like the celebrated author had dragged him out of his dungeons just for this event, and Snape had gone unwillingly.

Lockhart continued to prattle, and Elara heard him say, "And of course you know my assistant! Professor Snape has gallantly offered his services tonight, but never fear! I'll leave your professor in one piece, I swear it! Thanks for being a good chap, Severus!"

Snape—the wretched misanthrope—fairly oozed discontent, his arms crossed, eyes glinting, though Lockhart either didn't notice or didn't care. Elara could think of a few things to call the wizard, and none of them were "good chap."

"Can Professor Snape duel?" whispered a first-year Hufflepuff, turning her head toward her friend, who shrugged.

Expression grim, Ginny muttered, "He'd have to."

"Why do you say that?" Hermione asked.

"Because he was suspected of—you know."

"I know what?"

"That—err, never mind."

Elara blinked, curious but unwilling to follow through with their conversation. Know what? Harriet, for her part, acted as if she hadn't heard a word spoken, and was peering intently at Snape and Lockhart, craning her neck to see between the bodies of the taller students in front of her.

"Now! The first spell I'll be showing you is an absolute necessity in a master duelist's repertoire:

the Disarming Charm. The incantation is expelliarmus. Everyone got that?"

A few of the older years scoffed, obviously knowing the spell already, while others repeated the word to various success under their breath. Snape continued to stand immobile at one end of the platform, jaw set, and Elara would have thought him Petrified if not for the impatient tapping of his index finger against his arm. Lockhart pranced—pranced, honestly, even Hermione with all her infatuated hero-worship was beginning to look chagrined—to his own side of the platform and spun about, yanking his wand out of the blue sash slung about his hips. Striking a pose, he pointed it at Professor Snape.

"Are you ready, Professor?"

Snape didn't look ready, since he hadn't shifted from his stiff, indolent stance with his arms crossed. He hadn't even taken out his wand. He sneered, and in the answering hush, softly said, "Get on with it, Gilderoy."

Mr. Lockhart faltered for a moment, an uneasy shift pulling at his arms and causing him to shuffle his feet. Snape did nothing. "Ah, all right, then. If you're certain. Prepare yourself! Expelliarmus!"

He gave his wand a jaunty little jab and it expelled a burst of crimson light. The spell moved… not slowly, but Elara had anticipated something quicker than what she saw, something worthy of being a disarming Charm. It flew toward Snape at a steady clip—and, without ceremony, Professor Snape simply stepped to one side, like a vulture shuffling over on its branch, and the spell continued until it hit the Great Hall's doors with a light smack. Lockhart blinked, dropping his pose. "I, uh—?"

Snape's sneer morphed into a smirk, and the wizard finally uncrossed his arms, his black wand descending into his pale fingers when he flicked his wrist. From one second to the next, he stepped forward, lifted his hand, and snarled, "Expelliarmus!"

The red light streaked down the platform and Lockhart didn't have time to blink before it struck him in the chest, throwing the wizard back and right off the edge of the platform into a group of watching witches. They shrieked and squealed, but they did manage to break Lockhart's fall before he split his head like an egg on the stone floor. Dazed, winded, and disheveled, Mr. Lockhart stumbled to his feet with the help of his overeager audience, and his voice came out in a thready whine when he spoke.

"Yes, yes—thank you, Professor Snape! Of—of course, I knew what you meant to do, and I could have easily countered it, but it's always good to give a demonstration."

"Oh?" Snape lifted a brow. "Shall I demonstrate it again, then?"

Lockhart's eyes widened, and he finally noticed the other wizard meant him sincere bodily harm, because he chortled a rather high-pitched laugh and shook his head. "No, no! That won't be necessary, Severus. Ah—why don't you all split into pairs and practice now? Yes, that'd be good…."

The students in the hall turned to their friends with excited grins, finally putting distance between themselves and the overcrowded edge of the platform. Malfoy oozed out of the crowd like the irritating pond scum he was and challenged Harriet to a duel, but the bespectacled witch merely rolled her eyes and turned away. Annoyed by the lack of response, Malfoy focused his attention on Longbottom—who was near enough with his Gryffindor friends—instead. Luna and Gina paired off, as did Crabbe and Goyle, Finnigan and Thomas, leaving Elara to face Hermione and Harriet with Ronald Weasley.

The redhead shrugged, then lifted his wand. Elara narrowed her eyes when she noticed the Spell- O-Tape wrapped about it in clumsy, uneven layers, the tip crooked, and a fission of alarm went through her when sparks dribbled from the wrong end. She'd seen his dismal work in Defense all term, of course, but she hadn't seen his wand from this proximity before. It looked liable to burst into flames at any second. Is that unicorn hair poking out of the side?!

Elara didn't have a chance to say anything, because Snape came swooping over and snatched Harriet back from Weasley by the scruff of her neck. Harriet balked and probably would have lost her balance if Snape hadn't held her upright. "Put that worthless stick down before you blind someone, Weasley," he snapped, shunting Harriet over to a single, first-year Hufflepuff, who paled when confronted with an irked Slytherin witch. "Have you even written to your mother yet about having that replaced, boy?"

He harangued Weasley for a bit, the boy's ears going red, and Elara let her attention wander back to Hermione.

"Is everyone prepared?" Lockhart called from the platform, his hands on his hips and his attire returned to order, though a fresh bruise colored his cheek. "Excellent! Now, on the count of three, you will attempt to disarm your opponent! One, two—."

Loud bangs and shouts drowned out the remainder of Lockhart's count as students fired spells at one another. "Expelliarmus," Hermione said with perfect pronunciation, and Elara's wand slipped from her fingers. She fumbled for it while all around the Great Hall different hexes and jinxes bounced against the walls and floor, portraits fleeing, a paltry yellow haze spilling into the air, and Lockhart had to duck before a stray spell could clip his head.

"Stop—stop!" he cried.

Snape's eyes flicked toward the other wizard and narrowed. Though Elara couldn't hear it, she saw the man take in a visible, aggravated breath before shouting, "Finite Incantatem!" louder than she'd ever heard him speak before. The various bursts of light and sound died when Snape swept his wand around the hall, nullifying the active hexes and jinxes and banishing the ugly haze. His glare alone proved sufficient enough to part the Weasley twins, whose duel had quickly devolved into a wrestling match. Silence descended, uneasy eyes turned to the professor.

"Perhaps, Gilderoy," Snape said as he slid his wand back into his sleeve. "It would be best if you selected a single pair for another demonstration instead of unleashing the ill-behaved horde upon one another."

Lockhart cleared his throat and nodded along with what the Potions Master said. "Yes, of course— splendid idea. Took the words right out of my mouth! Let's see here—ah, yes! Neville! Why don't you and your partner come on up here and show us how it's done?"

Longbottom shot Mr. Lockhart an easy, practiced grin, and replied, "Sure, sir," before starting toward the steps. Draco, his partner, followed after the Boy Who Lived with his pointy nose in the air, though he looked less confident than he had earlier once he found himself on the platform facing his opponent. Neville, for all that he was a fake, exasperating twit, was still second in their year for Defense, lagging behind Harriet alone—who was currently on her knees apologizing profusely to the teary-eyed Hufflepuff she'd thrown off her feet with the Disarming Charm.

Stepping off the platform and out of the line of fire, Lockhart called out, "All right, gentlemen! On the count of three, you will attempt to disarm each other! Disarm only, now! Nothing else! One, two—!"

"Flipendo!" Malfoy yelled before the count came to an end, hoping to catch Longbottom unprepared, but Neville was quick to use a Shield Charm. His feet slid a few inches from the impact, and then he retaliated.

"Locomotor Wibbly!"

The Jelly-Legs Curse clipped Malfoy when he tried to dodge, and the blond collapsed onto his backside among loud cheers from the Gryffindors. Longbottom smirked, bowed, and the cheers became laughter. Growing red in the face, Malfoy canceled the curse on his lower half and scrambled upright, scowling something fierce as he thrust his wand toward the bowing boy's back. "Serpensortia!"

A collective gasp went through the students as a blur erupted from the tip of Malfoy's wand, and that gasp morphed into spooked shrieks when the blur solidified into three feet of hooded snake, the creature landing on the platform as Longbottom whipped around, his eyes wide and frightened. The cobra hissed and coiled in upon itself. Neville didn't move.

Scoffing, Snape yet again found his own wand and waded forward, shifting aside students so he could reach the platform's edge. "Allow me, Longbottom—."

"No, no! I have it!" Lockhart called, and Elara didn't quite hear what spell he used, but she flinched like everyone else when the snake ascended several yards into the air, then came down with a loud thwap! The cobra writhed, body rolling—and it abruptly rose, hood wide, hissing with menace as it looked at Neville and bared curved fangs.

Eyes locked on it, Harriet stepped forward—and dread filled Elara's heart.

Sometimes she pondered why Harriet had landed in Slytherin. The bespectacled witch had all the qualities upheld by the House of Serpents, certainly—but what Elara thought most people failed to understand was that everyone had all the qualities of every House to varying degrees, and the Sorting Hat sought that which would best define and complete its wearer during their years at Hogwarts. For all her cunning, her perseverance, pride, and those spots of gleaming ambition, Elara often couldn't understand how Harriet didn't wind up in Gryffindor when she could be so utterly, completely, and stupidly reckless.

Reckless as she was being right now.

Elara didn't think; she pushed past Snape, grabbed a handful of Harriet's robes, and yanked the shorter witch back while everyone else stared at the scene unfolding on the platform. A sound of protest escaped Harriet, and Elara slapped a gloved hand over her mouth, dragging her until she brushed the stone wall. "Don't you dare!"

The cobra darted toward Longbottom—and Snape lunged, snarling "Vipera Evanesca!"

The Boy Who Lived shouted as he fell back, and the snake vanished in a whisper of smoke and ash.

Harriet pulled Elara's hand away from her face and spun on her heels, real anger in her green eyes as she glowered at her friend. "What the hell, Elara!"

"I only stopped you from being an idiot," Elara retorted, her own temper prickling in her tone as the volume rose in the hall and the so-called Dueling Club started to dissolve. Lockhart had no control now, and no one else wanted to get on the platform after watching Longbottom almost get bit by a venomous snake. "You need to think before you act sometimes, Harriet!"

"He could have died!"

Snape—having witnessed Harriet's lapse in judgment—set upon them immediately, bending at the waist to bring his furious face lower and speak for their benefit alone. "What part of your imbecilic little brain doesn't understand the concept of keeping a secret?" he demanded of Harriet, baring crooked teeth. "Do you have any idea the kind of retribution that would have been unleashed upon yourself had you revealed that ability in the school's current climate?"

Elara knew. Had Harriet exposed herself as a Parselmouth, the school would have turned on her in an instant. She couldn't be certain what Professor Slytherin would do, but merely imaging his possible reactions made Elara queasy.

"I was—I just wanted to help!"

"He was in no danger and did not need your bloody help!" Snape spat. Both girls jumped when he swore. "You would have been ostracized—targeted by simpletons and those of superstitious minds, and Merlin only knows what would have occurred when—when, Potter, not if—the Ministry caught wind of this! They would have hauled you in for an inquiry, twelve-years-old or no! They would have turned your dorm upside down and found that wretched serpent of yours. They'd throw you in Azkaban, Potter, Azkaban!"

By now, people had started filtering out of the Great Hall, but some paused and looked back as Snape's voice rose in volume. The Potions Master noted their audience and forcibly calmed himself, seeming to count under his breath while Harriet's face reddened and she swallowed the urge to cry. Guilt and rage and fear flickered across her scrunched features, and Elara reached out to touch her arm, wanting to comfort her—but Harriet jerked away.

"I didn't! I didn't mean to!"

Snape straightened to his full height and crossed his arms, not a single ounce of pity in his harsh expression. Hermione still lingered, but she didn't approach, as she hadn't seen what Harriet did and didn't understand what was happening. Longbottom—shaken and sweaty, leaning on Ron's shoulder—was still in the Great Hall as well, and he cast a suspicious look in their direction that Elara met with a foreboding scowl until he moved away.

"And have I not told you time and time again you must master your instincts, girl? Whether or not you meant it is immaterial. Does a disaster need to occur before it sinks in that you are not expected to act in these situations? That your responsibility is to yourself first? Have a care with your damn safety, Potter!"

Harriet stared at her shoes as she trembled and tried to hide the tears welling behind her lashes. Snape gave no mercy.

"Go back to the common room. Get out of my sight."

Elara tried to grab Harriet's hand again, but the other witch bolted before she could, disappearing into the dwindling throng without a backward glance. Snape turned his simmering attention to Elara and flicked his hand after the fleeing girl. "Go. Find her before she lands herself in more trouble than she already has."

"You didn't have to be so cruel," Elara muttered in response. Snape's lip curled.

"You're just as thick-headed as she is, Black. You and your cohorts must keep your heads down and think. Given you stopped her before she could make such a monumental mistake, I assumed

you cared more for the ungrateful brat's well-being than my perceived cruelty. Maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps you can both find a nice cell in Azkaban near your father's if you carry on with this negligent attitude."

The Potions Master departed with those cutting words, his robe billowing in his passage, leaving Elara to stand enraged and frustrated with what few students remained. Lockhart sat on the platform's edge fielding comments and questions from his fawning admirers, and the sight only served to further irritate Elara. Several of the nearest floating candles guttered and dribbled wax before going out. She clenched her jaw and tried to stop her fists from shaking.

Hateful git.

"Elara…?" came Hermione's tentative question. "What was that all about? What happened?" She bit her lip. "Is Harriet all right?"

Letting the anger go, Elara breathed in, and the candles stopped burning themselves to nothing. "We should go back to the common room and find her," she said. There was nothing else they could do, really. Everything Snape said was true, whether or not Elara or Harriet wanted to believe him. Hogwarts was not safe at the moment, especially not for a Parselmouth Slytherin in possession of an illegally obtained Horned Serpent, an inquisitive Muggle-born, or the Heiress of a Dark family with far too many dubious journals tucked inside her school bag. They needed to be careful. They needed to think. "Come on, I'll explain on the way…."

A/N: I can't remember exactly how the Dueling Club went and I haven't got my books with me, but oh well xD I don't like repeating canon scenes verbatim anyway. I know Snape's a bit of bastard at the end, but he probably had a mini-heart attack when Harriet almost outed herself as a Parselmouth in front of the whole school. That would have been very, very bad.

Hope everyone stays healthy and safe out there!

thief's honor

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

lxxiv. thief's honor

In the wake of the Dueling Club's first—and most likely last—meeting, Hermione had come to two conclusions.

One, Gilderoy Lockhart was not nearly as talented and successful as he presented himself, and the realization punctured Hermione's budding infatuation like a lance through a balloon. Not that she'd ever admit to that infatuation, of course; it was embarrassing enough to think she'd found him so riveting and gallant when the wizard couldn't defeat an opponent not holding their wand or Vanish a golem before it attacked a student. How absurd.

Secondly, Harriet Potter had a problem with impulse control.

She wasn't thoughtless, no matter what Professor Snape said. No, if anything, Harriet was quite thoughtful; she always answered her letters in a timely manner, asked after people's welfare, helped first-years who needed assistance with directions or homework, and lent a hand when Hermione cleaned up her texts in the library. What Harriet lacked was faith in authority—and Hermione didn't mean the Ministry or the Headmaster. Subconsciously, the other girl simply had far too much difficulty understanding she didn't need to always act, whether to help someone or protect or attack another, because she'd never had someone to depend on in her life. The thought of it wrenched Hermione's heart.

If Elara hadn't noticed her that evening, if Harriet had stepped up and commanded that cobra away from Longbottom—oh, Hermione could visualize the resulting chaos with ease, and it sank heavily in her middle like a stone. Soon enough, rumor would have twisted Harriet into some sort of terrible, bigoted monster, and witnesses would have sworn they saw her egging the snake on, urging it to attack Neville or even Lockhart. Azkaban hadn't been an idle threat given by the Potions Master.

Hermione had several hypotheses on how Professor Slytherin would react if he discovered Harriet's ability, and few had favorable conclusions. Elara once made the joking comment that Professor Slytherin and Harriet might be related, and naturally Hermione disagreed—but, in the privacy of her own thoughts, she did have to wonder if Lily Potter had been indiscreet with Slytherin's father, Slytherin himself, or perhaps Minister Gaunt. Parselmouths didn't appear out of nowhere—not in Britain, at any rate. There was a connection between Slytherin and Harriet, though the exact nature of that connection had yet to be revealed.

Harriet spent much of the weekend quiet and withdrawn, sitting with them at their favored table in the common room but contributing little to the conversation. Truly, Hermione wished she had the right words to comfort the other witch, that she was as empathetically competent as others and could inherently know what Harriet needed—but Hermione found herself far too distracted by thoughts of the Chamber and their maturing Polyjuice to give Harriet her full attention.

It never strayed far from her mind. There hadn't been an attack for almost a month, but Hermione little doubted the perpetrator was still at large and simply biding their time. Harriet and Elara tried

to understand her urgency—but they couldn't, because they were of magical blood from magical families, and they didn't feel the same sting of revolted eyes on her person, didn't hear upper years like Accipto Lestrange and his cronies whisper, "Hopefully the Heir does a bit of House cleaning for us." The first time Hermione heard the word Mudblood she'd thought it absurd sounding, and yet with each spat repetition, the word started to weigh heavier and heavier upon her, as if by the mere fault of birth, she carried with her all of magical society's problems, and couldn't wipe the stain off.

Mudblood.

Hermione shook herself and forced her mind back to the present. She, Elara, and Harriet stood cramped together in the stall in Myrtle's loo, looking down at the softly simmering potion perched on the toilet—the clean, empty toilet Hermione purposefully disconnected from the pipes so Myrtle wouldn't flood their brew. Harriet still looked queasy at the idea of drinking anything concocted in a loo, though Hermione assured her she came by every day during lunch and after dinner to make certain nothing fell in or disturbed it.

"We have a…bit of a problem," Hermione said as she nibbled her lip and fussed with the ladle, making sure the wings didn't clump and burn at the bottom.

"Is there something wrong with it?"

"Not at the moment, no." She lowered the ladle, hooking the curved end on the cauldron's lip to keep it in place. "Right now, everything is coming along perfectly. It's the next step that will prove —difficult."

Elara and Harriet grimaced in unison.

"We need bicorn horn and boomslang skin—male boomslang skin, I should say, as the text specifies the green coloration—." Hermione breathed out, frustrated with her own urge to prattle. "Boomslangs aren't rare, per se, but they aren't exactly thick on the ground in the Scottish highlands."

Harriet snorted.

"The skin has to be imported from Africa and isn't readily available to the public. It has to be ordered through shop inventory catalogs, issued against a registered license to an apothecary, alchemist, researcher, Healer, or Potions Master. We could, potentially, attempt to attain some through the Muggle world—but we haven't the contacts for that, honestly, and it could take—."

"Months," Elara finished for her, folding her arms against her middle, eyes downcast in thought. Harriet leaned on the stall's partition, but Elara steadfastly refused to touch anything in the loo, even with her gloves on. "We'd also run into difficulties getting the skin here, since it's not like Muggle post can be delivered to any of our homes, is it?"

"Exactly—and the bicorn horn is a restricted substance. Demand often outweighs supply because it's needed in so many different potions, and the Ministry has issued several mandates against bicorn poaching—or so I saw in my research."

"I don't know what a bicorn is, but do you think Hagrid has one?" Harriet asked. "If he does, will he let us have a horn? We don't—err—have to kill it for that, do we?"

"No, a bicorn sheds its horns, but only once a year, and only in the spring. Even if he has a bicorn, he won't have kept the horns himself."

The trio shared worried glances. "What d'you think we should do, Hermione?"

"Well…" the eldest witch hedged, uncertain how her idea would be received. "We're in luck, because we have all the ingredients we need right here at Hogwarts. We simply need to—erm —borrow them from…Professor Snape's private stores."

Harriet turned green and Elara shut her eyes. She grimaced.

"Hermione, the wizard knows where Harriet and I live during the summer. He sleeps in the bedroom above mine. On the off-chance he didn't have us expelled, he would make our lives very, very miserable if we were caught."

"You won't get caught," Hermione asserted. "None of us will get caught—and I will do the stealing."

Elara's brow rose as she opened her eyes again. "Are you certain this is worth the risk? The chance we'll find out anything worthwhile is already slight, and this complicates things, Hermione. A lot."

"I will do it without you if I must. It's important," Hermione replied, squaring her shoulders. Harriet had yet to say anything, and Hermione knew by the look on her face that stealing from Professor Snape might prove more than she could stomach. "We won't get caught," she reasserted, speaking softer. "I promise you. But, you needn't do anything you're uncomfortable with, Harriet. I won't ask that of you."

Harriet gave a weak smile and fiddled with her spectacles, pushing them farther up her nose. "It's okay, Hermione. I'll do what you need."

A wash of gratitude went through Hermione and she squeezed Harriet's arm in thanks. "Now, we just need an idea of how to break into Snape's stores. He keeps them in his office, warded—you remember, don't you? We saw the room some weeks ago, and I specifically remember seeing bicorn horns in a wire basket by several other keratin-based appendages. The shape of them is quite distinctive"

"Err…'keratin-based appendages?'"

"Hair, horns, scales, fingernails."

"Oh, gross."

Hermione dragged a hand through her errant curls and tucked the worst offenders back behind her ears. "Really, the problem we have is opening the portrait. Professor Snape didn't use any magic when he pulled the portrait aside; I assume the wards are simply keyed to his touch. If we mean to get into his stores, we can't simply try to break in at night or even while he's busy in classes, not unless we can figure out what type of ward he's laid on the portrait, and I doubt we'd be able to figure it out without extensive experimentation—the kind of experimentation that would be impossible to undertake without his noticing."

"So…what you're saying is, we need Snape to open the door first."

Grim, Hermione nodded. She knew how ridiculous that sounded. "It's the only way."

"Bloody hell. We might as well just ask for the detentions now."

A small, despondent part of Hermione agreed and thought she'd bitten off more than she could chew with this aspiration. Though she didn't have the same experience with the wizard as Elara

and Harriet, she recognized enough of Professor Snape's character to understand he was not careless enough to leave his stores open, or his office unattended. Careless was perhaps the very last word Hermione would use in describing the Potions Master—right alongside forgiving, kind, or merciful.

"What do you expect us to do, then? Hex him?"

"Oh, nothing that drastic, Harriet. Really."

Elara made a thoughtful noise, a furrow forming between her dark brows as Hermione watched her think. "I believe…I have an idea."

Harriet perked up. "Yeah?"

"Yes." She smiled the kind of narrow, secretive smile that both worried and filled Hermione with anticipation. "I think I fancy a bit of run…."

x X x X x

Three days later, the morning dawned cool and gray, thick mist crawling over the grounds from the lake's shores to lay heavy and indolent against the grass. Bird calls echoed in the Forbidden Forest, the perennial, mundane avians drowned out by the louder and far more sinister Augurey cries. If one listened closely and turned their ear toward the dirt trail meandering near the tree line, the sound of three pairs of feet striking the wet earth could be heard, as could the short, asthmatic breathing of a witch very near passing out where she stood.

"We're almost there," Harriet muttered as the trio traveled along the final stretch, the cold air searing in their lungs, the main courtyard waiting just ahead. The shorter witch barely panted and had yet to break a sweat, while Hermione herself felt clammy and overheated despite the chill weather, and Elara had long since subsided into strangled wheezing. "I really don't like this bloody idea."

Hermione couldn't say she much liked it either. Success pended on far too many variables—like Professor Snape's disposition, placement of the items they intended to st—borrow, and whether or not he left the portrait open when he turned from it. Elara asserted the simplest plan of action would work best of all, and she wasn't wrong, at least not entirely so, because they had already witnessed Snape opening the storage room before. That was how Hermione saw the ingredients in the first place. They needed to replicate the situation, which was why the trio now came stumbling up toward the castle far too early in the morning with Elara half-supported by Harriet and Hermione's anxious hovering.

Professor Snape was in his office, they knew. They had checked—discreetly, or as discreetly as they could—for the past few mornings, and this was the first time they'd heard the rustle of cloth and scritch of a quill beyond the shut door. Elara tripped once they'd slipped over the entrance hall's threshold, and Harriet—being shorter and already holding much of the other girl's weight— went down in a tangle of cursing limbs.

Hermione almost cursed as well, jumping forward to drag a very pale and woozy Elara upright while Harriet jumped to her feet sporting a red mark on her chin and lopsided glasses. Footsteps echoed down the far corridor toward the main stair vault, someone undoubtedly coming down to

see what all the noise was about, and so the three witches scrambled away from the entrance hall as fast as they could manage, plunging down into the dungeons once more.

Once they reached their destination, Harriet took the lead, sending Hermione one final, anxious look before she banged her knuckles against Snape's door. She had to knock again before it was jerked open, and the Potions Master stood looming in all his dour glory, the heavy smell of mysterious brews seeping into the corridor from the open door.

"What—," he began, voice gone quiet and cold like a knife slicing through the otherwise somber hush of the dungeons. His gaze landed on the fresh bruise forming across Harriet's chin and narrowed. "Do you think you're doing?"

"Err—."

Elara, blue in the face, started to cough, and Hermione couldn't say if she was doing so for theatrical effect or not. Snape instantly realized what had happened, of course. He hissed and grabbed the witch by her shoulder, jostling Harriet out of the way as he dragged Elara to the nearest desk and all but threw her into it. Unavoidable, but not ideal; they'd hoped she could sit at a desk farther into the room and farther from the portrait, but there was nothing they could do now. Hermione shrunk back, remaining as quiet as could while Elara gasped and Harriet, standing against Snape's shelves, eased her weight from one nervous foot to the other.

The portrait had changed. Where the serpent charmer once played now hung a painting of a quiet library, a single bearded wizard dozing at a reading desk while books flickered by over his head and a candle guttered in the resulting breeze. Hermione didn't have long to consider the change before Snape slammed the portrait open, ducked into the storeroom, and returned holding a vial and a shorter, opaque canister. He dropped both onto the desk next to Elara, and slowly Hermione edged toward the open storage room. She could barely think over the roar of blood in her ears.

"What did I tell you?" Professor Snape barked at Elara as he grabbed her hand and twisted it, studying the bluish tinge staining her nail beds. "I assumed I had used small enough words when I told you not to overexert yourself, Black! Did I overestimate your vocabulary, or just your own self-awareness?"

"Too cold," Elara choked out. "It's too cold. It made it—worse. Worse than normal."

Hermione's heart raced in her chest as she stepped into the storage room, torn between watching Professor Snape's back and searching for the necessary ingredients. In a rush, she had a moment of doubt; what were they doing? This was so, so foolish. She was terrified of what was happening with this Heir of Slytherin nonsense—but Elara had induced her own asthma attack, for goodness' sake! They knew help was only a few minutes away, but still! What if they hadn't have gotten back to the castle in time? What if they were delayed? What if she'd really hurt herself?

Hermione's hands shook as she found the basket of bicorn horns and quickly grabbed one.

Professor Snape had the orange potion vial pinched between his thumb and forefingers as he held it out to Elara, who hesitated, visibly trying not to glance over the wizard's shoulder in Hermione's direction. "Black—."

They were running out of time. Oh, Hermione hadn't considered how quickly everything would pass once they got inside the office, every second seeming to come faster than the one before as she scanned the shelves in search of his boomslang skin. The professor had very few labels, and if he had a system of organization, Hermione couldn't decipher it. All her knowledge of potions seemed to ooze from her ears and she couldn't recognize anything at all. The names of everything

blurred in her head.

How does he find anything?!

The bicorn horn poked her ribs as Hermione stuck it inside her Muggle zip-up jacket. Elara and Snape bickered, but Elara's voice was failing her, and the Potions Master was running low on patience. Hermione's eyes flicked back and forth over the shelves, searching, panic building as she failed to find anything remotely snake-like in appearance. What if he didn't have any? What if—?

Why doesn't he keep the skins together?! That's infuriating!

She jumped when the now empty potion vial came sailing past her, slotting itself neatly in by other used bottles and jars sitting in a grubby tub waiting to be cleaned. Oh no. Hermione swallowed, knowing Snape would turn at any second, would find her standing here half-frozen with nerves—.

"Professor!" Harriet stuttered as the wizard stepped back toward the open portrait.

Snape paused and flicked loose hair from his eyes. "What is it, Potter?"

"I, uh—. I, I feel a bit—dizzy!"

"What—?"

Before the question could fully form, Harriet's legs went out from under her, and she fell hard into the shelf behind her, knocking over books and ghoulish canisters as she collapsed. Jars split and shattered on the stones, hideous smells escaping the broken glass. A loud—and surprising—yelp left Professor Snape, and he hurried to bend over the slumped witch while Hermione renewed her frantic search.

Her fingertips skated over something leathery—there!

Hermione yanked a folio from a shelf holding preserved specimens and found various cut and dried pieces of reptilian epidermis separated by wax dividers. There were spaces for labels on the pages, and yet Snape still didn't write the name of the skins. Hermione knew she could figure out which was which—if given enough time, and just a touch of light, and—.

Before she could reconsider, Hermione shoved the whole folio inside her jacket and did up the zip, hoping the padding disguised the irregular edges pressing into the cloth. Hands shaking again, she darted out of the storage room—almost tripping in her haste—and latched onto Elara's arm just as Professor Snape levered a disheveled Harriet upright once more.

"Merlin only knows what I did to be cursed with you three," the professor snarled, his insult clipped and rather tame for the amount of frustration evident in his harsh, lined features. He vanished the ruined glass scattered about Harriet's feet, then flicked his hand at the desk, summoning the opaque container he'd grabbed earlier.

"Sorry, sir—urgh!" Harriet complained as Professor Snape slapped a generous glob of smelly gel onto the witch's bruised face.

"Rub that in," he barked as he screwed the lid back into place and checked on Elara. His black eyes flickered over Hermione and narrowed, then moved to Harriet, who gave him an angry look as she smeared bruise cream off her chin. "Whatever foolishness you three intend to perpetuate at this hour stops now. You're not to use the track for the rest of the year. That includes you, Potter."

"What!"

"Ten points from Slytherin."

"Wh—? Why? We're not doin' anything wrong! It was an accident!"

Hermione's fingers clenched tighter on Elara's arm, and the folio inside her jacket suddenly felt as if it weighed a hundred stone. She had never stolen anything aside from Harriet's birthday present before—and that hardly counted. If anything, stealing from the Malfoys was a good deed, not a bad one.

"Once is an accident, twice is idiocy!" Professor Snape dismissed the bruise cream into the potions' storage and slammed the portrait closed. Hermione swallowed. He rounded his desk and sank into his chair, scowling at the three witches in turn before coming back to Harriet. "Stay inside the castle."

"What about Quidditch, sir?" Harriet retorted, nose in the air. Hermione and Elara elected to slowly edge toward the door. "And Herbology? Should we stay inside the castle then, too?"

"That's another ten points, girl."

"Harriet," Hermione hissed when she opened her mouth to reply. "Let's go."

"Listen to your interfering friend, Potter, before you further aggravate me." Professor Snape sneered and leaned upon his arm. "Get out of my office. All of you—and next time, faint in the Transfiguration corridor so you become Minerva's problem, not mine."

The three witches did as told, and they didn't miss how loud the door was when it slammed shut at their backsides, the sound echoing deeper into the dungeons' confines. "Why did you antagonize him?" Hermione demanded as she dropped Elara's arm. "He's going to be furious enough when he realizes he's missing ingredients!"

"Because if he's brassed off with me, then he won't be thinking about what you were doing while we were in the office," Harriet muttered in reply. "Ugh, I think I stepped in dead squid or something. That's disgusting."

They continued until they reached the entrance to the dorms, at which point Elara—breathing normally but still somewhat pale and sweaty—stopped and said, "I'm going to go lie down."

"Oh, Elara, do you need anything? Are you all right? I know this was your plan, but—."

The taller witch shook her head, forestalling Hermione's well-meaning diatribe. She dragged a hand across her brow and swept back the few untidy strands stuck to her skin. "I understood perfectly well what I was doing, Hermione—and I won't be in a rush to do it again, I assure you. I'm fine now. Go, hurry before Snape or Slytherin catches you loitering about."

They parted ways, Hermione and Harriet leaving the dungeons back toward the entrance hall. Other students were up and about at this hour, but not many, mostly studious older years or Quidditch players like Harriet heading out to practice on the pitch, so the two Slytherin witches kept their heads down and hoped they wouldn't be noticed by any professors. Harriet wished aloud for her Invisibility Cloak, and Hermione agreed that even if Professor Snape could see through it somehow, the other teachers couldn't. Stewing lacewing flies wasn't illegal, but embarking on the next part of the potion would be; the Cloak could prove invaluable for discretion.

Water dripped somewhere in the loo when they entered, echoing in the vacant confines, morning sunshine struggling to illuminate the grungy window set high on the far wall. Hermione locked the door, then went to their commandeered stall housing the simmering potion and the spare kit she'd

hidden and Charmed behind the water tank.

"You did manage to get everything, didn't you? If we have to go tell Elara we missed something, I think she might murder us in our beds."

Hermione laughed the kind of breathless, incredulous laugh she'd heard people make after waiting and stressing over an important phone call or interview or meeting. The relief came in a burst, like fizzy water in her middle, and though apprehension and fear still tingled in her limbs, Hermione felt leagues better once they'd escaped Professor Snape's vicinity. "I'm almost positive I did."

"Almost positive? What does that mean?"

With a guilty shrug, Hermione unzipped her Muggle jacket and brought out the horn and the hard folio. "Well, I might have taken a bit more than just the boomslang skin. I was running out of time, and the infuriating man doesn't label anything! He's hundreds of ingredients in there! Honestly, how does he remember it all? Anyway, I…panicked."

"You panicked?" Harriet's eyes grew as round as Galleons when Hermione opened the folio to display the carefully preserved sheets of snake and lizard skin. "Holy shite. If he figures out we took all that, Snape might really expel us."

"It's not as if I can return what we're not using. I'm sure he'd find some way to trace it back to us, and at least now Professor Snape can't be certain of what we're brewing. If he discovered someone was making Polyjuice, he'd be more paranoid than usual. Ah—there!" Hermione let out another one of those relieved-beyond-words breaths as she extracted the glistening green boomslang skin from the folio and transferred it to the spare potions kit with the bicorn horn. They had everything now. The potion would be finished before they knew it.

Hermione stared into the murky water settled within cauldron's belly. She considered again the sheer absurdity of what they would attempt in just a few short weeks—the sheer absurdity of what they'd already done, and Hermione felt…uncommonly blessed. She wasn't one for religion really, having always ascribed more worth to science and academic study than to legends and theocracy, but as she stood in that stuffy loo lost in her own thoughts, she pondered the possibility of a heretofore unseen deity giving her a boon—because for all the fear and uncertainty currently burdening Hogwarts, Hermione had Harriet and Elara. She had friends who were willing to steal from terrifying men like Professor Snape and risk their own health simply for her state of mind.

She didn't know what she'd done to deserve them. Bigotry plagued Salazar Slytherin's House like a particularly persistent and nasty case of boils, but how bad could the wizard have been if the Sorting Hat imbued with a part of his personage looked into the heads of people like Elara and Harriet and decided they belonged there?

"Hermione?"

"Hmm?"

"We should probably return to the dungeons. Let's find Elara and go get some breakfast."

"Yes, of course." Hermione closed the potions kit and Charmed it back into place behind the tank, hidden from view. She took Harriet's hand in her own and, smiling, said, "Let's go."

A/N: Breaking News - Three tiny witches rob poor, unsuspecting Potions Master blind. More at eleven.

Chapter End Notes

Here's some fanart by LadyGranite : McDonald's (I'm so excited, I've never had fanart before, and I've been writing for years, aha).

So the story behind that is Harriet, Hermione, and Elara being the perfect golden ratio of personalities--like in that McDonald's alignment triangle! Children in the backseat: "McDonald's! McDonald's!" Hermione: "We have food at home." Elara: *pulls into drive-thru, orders one black coffee, leaves* Harriet: "McDonald's! McDonald's!" See, it totally works./users/LadyGranite/pseuds/LadyGranite

https//farsaturn/art/MCDONAAAALD-S-834791116

like the storm

lxxv. like the storm

Even hours after the game ended, Harriet could still feel the gentle struggles of the Snitch's golden wings fluttering against her palm.

Slytherin's second Quidditch match passed with little ceremony. In comparison to the bigger issues circulating inside the school, Quidditch seemed a small thing—at least for Harriet and her friends. Perhaps others still felt the tension and the rivalry, but for Harriet, the match barely sparked any of that nervous, twitchy energy she'd experienced before her first game, and she hadn't been anxious until she'd dragged her uniform on and found herself standing with her giant teammates on the pitch.

Really, the match hadn't been much at all, finishing before it began. Barely five minutes in, Harriet spotted the Snitch hovering by one of Ravenclaw's Beaters and snatched it up. The phantom touch of metal wings pressing into her skin reaffirmed the surreality of it all. She kept glancing at the hand, and her thumb rubbed against the side of her index finger where the feathers had left their red indents. The marks had long since faded, but Harriet swore they were still there.

"Longbottom looked particularly upset," Hermione reported after Harriet returned from changing out of her uniform in the locker room. "Almost as upset as Malfoy. You would think Draco would be pleased his House's team is performing so admirably, but I believe seeing you play only reminds him that he hasn't an ounce of your skill and won't have a chance of playing next year."

Harriet snorted at the memory, her breath escaping in a plume of steam. They stood now on the covered bridge halfway between one of the courtyards and the Sundial Garden, the open ravine yawning wide below the bridge's wooden slats, the struts groaning when the breeze rose and rushed by. It made for a curious choice of meeting places, but Harriet enjoyed the bracing air and the general solitude, especially after experiencing the noise down in the common room. Sunlight reflected off the distant lake, and Harriet squinted against the light, leaning her folded arms on the crooked rail.

"Are you all right, Elara?" Hermione asked in the sudden lull. "It's a bit chilly out here. All this cold air isn't good for—."

"I'm fine," Elara replied with a put upon sigh, her colorless eyes glinting below her dark lashes. The green and silver scarf wrapped about her neck muffled her voice. "Leave off, I'm not made of glass."

Relentless, Hermione kept fussing over Elara, just as she had done without end since their successful potions ingredient caper. Snape had been furious all week, glaring at anyone and everyone with blatant suspicion welling in the bottomless black oubliettes of his eyes. "Are you sure? We can go back inside where it's warmer if you want—."

"Hermione, if you don't stop asking if I'm all right, I will pick you up and throw you off this bridge. Don't test me on this."

Harriet snickered as Hermione huffed and Elara scowled at them both. "Don't be silly. You couldn't pick me up. I'm far heavier than you."

"I'm several inches taller than you, Granger."

Sizing the pair up, Harriet said, "You're both heavy," and earned a sharp swat on the arm and a pinch to the cheek. "Ow, ow, ow—my face!"

"Don't be cheeky, then."

"You're cheeky enough for both of us—ow! I'm just having a laugh!"

Elara let go, and Harriet did laugh as she rubbed her tender skin and the other witch made threatening shooing motions. They continued on their way, the bridge complaining all the while, until they stepped off onto solid ground. Crooked gray stones towered above them, eclipsing the view of the forest as they painted long, stretched shadows across the grass. The first time Harriet visited this place last year, Hermione had delighted in telling her the Stone Circle—or the Sundial Garden—was thought to be the oldest place at Hogwarts, predating the castle itself, making it an area of very old, mysterious magic.

Harriet just thought it was a nice place to linger, barring any irate Potions Masters who might come by, shrieking at them to go back to the castle. She shivered, and it had nothing to do with the cold. If he ever figures out it was us, he'll chuck all three of us into that ravine there and make it look like an accident.

"You know, Harriet," Hermione commented as she perched on a large bit of rock protruding from the earth. Harriet sat next to her—then saw there wasn't anywhere else nearby to sit, so she slid to the damp grass and gave up the spot to Elara. "I thought you enjoyed the party they threw after the last Quidditch match. Why were you so eager to get away this time?"

Shrugging, Harriet replied, "I liked it well enough before Malfoy broke my sodding nose. And, I dunno, the—the upper-years get loud. I can't say I like that very much." What Harriet didn't say was that the pissed sixth and seventh years started sounding as loud and belligerent as her Aunt and Uncle, and though she knew the comparison was ridiculous, she still felt…uncomfortable around them. "I like Quidditch for the flying more than anything. It's amazing!"

Hermione and Elara wore matching incredulous expressions as they looked down at Harriet.

"It's like—everything else disappears once I'm in the air, I'm weightless and floating and— peaceful." Sighing, Harriet turned her back, getting mud on her socks, and leaned on Hermione's legs, nudging Elara's feet over. She could see the lake better from here, a thin trickle of smoke rising where Hagrid's hut sat just out of sight. "It was nice to fly, considering how stressed Potions had me this week. I wish the match had been longer."

Hermione's hand settled on Harriet's head and gave an idle attempt at flattening the rogue cowlicks. "You needn't worry so much. He won't know it was us, Harriet. I left the folio with most of the samples in the staff room, so either another professor took it, or he found it and has to assume one of the other teachers borrowed from him without asking. Either way, someone's going to be caught red-handed, or he'll have to interrogate professors—and I can't see Professor Snape wanting to bother with that, honestly."

"Hmm," Harriet acknowledged, fidgeting. It was a clever bit of misdirection on Hermione's part, and it hadn't even been difficult, considering she went to the staff room all the time to ask professors questions about lectures or homework assignments. Still, in her own thoughts, Harriet admitted stealing from Snape didn't sit well with her. If it had been some other bloke, she probably wouldn't have minded as much and certainly wouldn't have dwelt on the issue. Undeniably, Snape was a git of the highest order—but he was a git who looked out for the Slytherins and had healed

Elara twice. Taking his things seemed a shite way to repay the wizard.

A sudden, soft thump startled Harriet and she looked around, frowning at a familiar raven hopping by her knee, its leg extended to hold out the tied off twine. "Harriet Potter," it croaked.

Seeing the bird, Hermione brightened—and almost kicked Harriet in the spine. "Oh! Were you expecting another letter from Nicolas Flamel?"

"Mhm." Harriet freed the raven of its burden, and it clicked its beak as if expecting a reward—then squawked in dismay when Harriet showed it empty hands. The raven vanished in a puff of smoke, leaving Harriet to readjust her glasses and inspect her letter. She recognized Mr. Flamel's sprawling copperplate right away.

Chère Harriet,

I hope this letter finds you safe, well, and warm in Poudlard's frozen mountains. It is with no little amount of smugness that I tell you I am writing in the gardens, thoroughly enjoying the sunshine and the lingering late autumn blooms. My Perenelle tells me I should not be so pleased with myself, but I have always thought it healthy to inspire a spot of envy in others now and again. What is life if we do not enjoy what we have, non?

I have heard of the difficulties happening at the school, and again hope you and yours are staying safe and out of mischief. In your last letter, you asked if I knew anything of this Chambre des Secrets, and I cannot say I know more than you must at this point, petit oiseau. I am not an Englishman and did not attend Poudlard, but I do remember first hearing about this Chambre in the forties—the nineteen-forties. A student died, and the shock of the loss resonated even in France. I could not say what it is or what happened; I will not hazard a guess, for though I may know many things, there is much that I do not and cannot understand. Poudlard is old—older than me! Quite an accomplishment—and the witches and wizards alive during its creation were different creatures. You ask if I believe it possible Salazar Slytherin left a monster or curse within this Chambre of his? Oui. Do I think he left such a thing to kill Demoyennes? Non. A wise witch once said, "Magique is but an extension of your arm, and you cannot hold that what you cannot reach." If you would indulge my rambling, understand that I say whatever Salazar Slytherin's motivations, be they bigoted or not, he was said to be a very smart and calculating man; leaving behind something that he could not control, that lay outside his reach, something that could potentially destroy Poudlard, his true legacy? Non. I do not believe it.

On a lighter topic, the questions you pose on Birch's Law are complicated ones. You will find that the theories they teach in your lessons become more malleable once you experience magic outside of the classroom for yourself. This Prof. Slytherin is—. How do you say? A different story? Dangereux, Harriet. Moyenne science teaches how certain, inarguable facts of nature cannot be changed, but for us, magique is not so fixed. It bends to emotion. It is chaotic. Like the storm— beautiful, oui, but often unpredictable, and we could study it for a million years and still find ourselves surprised. Modern spellcraft arose from a need to create fixed incantations with measurable, constant results, but when I was a boy, magique was a primal thing, and my professeurs taught it was a skill more of the heart than of the mind. What is possible for one wizard may not be possible for another. But I am rambling again. I have some lovely texts on the subject I will have to dig out of the library and send to you.

Be safe, and careful. Your Defense Master is more than he appears.

Jusqu'à la prochaine fois, petit oiseau,

Nicolas Flamel.

Well, then. "Hermione? What's petit oi—? Ois—?" Harriet grumbled and spelled the word out one letter at a time. "What's that mean?"

The bushy-haired witch had a funny look on her face, and when Harriet twisted in place to see her, the corners of her lips jumped, repressing a grin. "It means 'little bird.'"

Harriet scowled, pink tinging her cheeks, and Hermione started laughing. Elara buried her own smile in her scarf.

"Yeah, yeah, very funny." The bespectacled witch scanned through the letter again, then handed it off to her friends, Hermione and Elara putting their heads together to read it at the same time.

"Interesting. What did you write to him about?"

"I dunno specifically. I asked him a bunch of questions about Un Guide Sur la Connaissance des Ténèbres, you know that book you translated for me? And then I asked about the spell Professor Slytherin used, how he managed to get it to bounce when I couldn't. I also asked about the Chamber, but I didn't know he didn't attend Hogwarts—or Poudlard. What does that even mean?"

"It's what the French call Hogwarts."

"Where d'you think Mr. Flamel went to school, then?"

"Oh, it's well-known he went to the Académie de Magie Beauxbâtons. He's undoubtedly the reason the school is purported as the richest magic school, as he's its biggest patron."

Harriet hummed in answer.

"It appears he knows something about Professor Slytherin but isn't willing or can't say more," Elara pointed out, easing the parchment from Hermione's hand before folding it and returning the letter to Harriet.

"It's probably because of Dumbledore."

"Dumbledore?"

"Yeah. He knows I write Mr. Flamel, so the Headmaster probably asked him not to mention something about Slytherin." Harriet traced a finger over the creases pressed into the parchment, wondering what the alchemist meant by calling Professor Slytherin dangerous. She knew he was dangerous, abstractly at least, and she'd suffered from more than a few bruises at the end of his wand. She didn't think that was what Mr. Flamel wanted to warn her against, however.

"Master Flamel."

Harriet blinked. "What?"

"Master Flamel, Harriet, not Mister. That's his proper title."

"Well, he hasn't corrected me in any of the letters he's sent," the younger witch replied, frustrated. Arguing semantics over a wizard's title wasn't important to Harriet, and she couldn't help the niggling lump of disappointment from turning over in her middle. She'd hoped he would shed more light on the Chamber and whatever it contained. Harriet and the others already knew the Chamber had been opened before; Professor Selwyn had said as much in History of Magic, but Harriet hadn't known someone died last time. Who had it been? How did it happen? Did they die because of the Petrification?

Footsteps echoed in the covered bridge and brought an end to their musings. The three witches waited, watching, and grimaced in triplicate when Neville Longbottom came tromping out into the open with Seamus and two older students Harriet didn't know. "He's worse than Malfoy," she muttered, despising whatever miserable fates conspired to continually cross their paths. She could very happily go the rest of her life never without ever seeing the Boy Who Lived again.

It only took a few seconds for the Gryffindors to spot them, and they froze as if they'd discovered actual snakes on the lawn and not just three young Slytherin witches sitting on a rock. "What are you doing here?"

"What does it look like, Longbottom?" Harriet retorted, biting her tongue to keep her tone even. "We're sitting here."

The taller, dark-haired Gryffindor said something to his friend, and they guffawed, an unfriendly tilt taking over their grins as they faced the younger witches again. "You know them, Neville?"

Longbottom hesitated, then gave his shoulder a lazy jerk as if fully shrugging would take too much effort. "Sure. They're in my year."

"So you don't know them," said the other older student. He had a heavy dusting of freckles over his cheeks and nose. "I mean you can't really know Slytherins, can you? Right, Finnigan?"

"Yeah," Seamus agreed. He and Neville looked at one another, then at the ground.

"Oi." The tallest Gryffindor approached, one hand on his hip, the other twirling his wand between his long fingers. "What are you little snakes up to, huh?"

Harriet eyed the wand and, though her hand itched for her own, she didn't remove it from its brace. Snape's warnings and reprimands bounced inside her thick skull, telling her it'd be worse if she reacted, because if that Gryffindor prat tried to hex her and she used a shield, it'd probably smack bloody Longbottom square in the face. It'd look like Harriet had attacked him, and she'd land herself in detention for a month—or worse.

"I think they're collaborating, aren't they, Rivers?" said the second Gryffindor, elbowing Longbottom as if looking for approval. "Are you out here waiting for your Heir to show himself?"

"What hogwash," Hermione snapped. Harriet bit her lip and Elara kept her face perfectly blank, though Harriet noticed how tightly she held her hands. "Just because we're Slytherins doesn't mean we have anything to do with this Heir nonsense. I'm Muggle-born."

"But you're not lying up in Pomfrey's ward like poor Creevey, snake," the one named Rivers snapped. "Isn't that convenient—and here you are, having a nice chin wag with Slytherin's cheating little Seeker. What'd you do to the Snitch, Potter? D'you have to Jinx it because you can't see with those nasty specs of yours? "

The freckled Gryffindor took out his wand, giving it an arrogant twirl. "What've you got

there? Relashio!" Purple light flickered over her, and suddenly the parchment in Harriet's hand slipped through her numb fingers, falling to the grass. She tried to catch it, but another flick of the senior's wand sent the letter flying right into the boy's large fist. Harriet jumped after it.

"That's mine!"

The freckled boy held the letter high, away from Harriet's grasping hands, and she barely suppressed the urge to kick him in the shin. "Is it? Is it from your mummy, little girl? Huh?"

Heat prickled in her chest, in her neck, and though Harriet knew her face had gone quite pink, she didn't back down. She wanted to hex him. She wanted—. "Give me my letter, or I'll tell Professor Slytherin."

"You wouldn't, Potter," Longbottom said, crossing his arms, though he shot an uneasy look at his older friends and didn't sound at all sure of himself.

"I would—I will," she asserted, making another jump for the letter, only for the freckled Gryffindor to push her back and hold it higher. "Stop it!"

Hermione got to her feet with Elara. "Give it here, Wattle!" she said, and Harriet wasn't at all surprised she knew the prat's surname. "Harriet's letter is no one's business but her own!"

Harriet grabbed Wattle's sleeve, trying to yank his arm down, and he pushed her again, hard enough for Harriet to stumble.

"What's going on 'ere?"

The commotion hid the approach of thumping feet shuffling nearer from the forest, and the students looked up to see Hagrid—dressed in his hairy coat, balancing a crossbow on his shoulder with a dead rooster in his hand—standing off by one of the sundial's crooked stones. The disapproving look on his lined face showed that he very clearly knew exactly what was going on, but that didn't stop the Gryffindors from lying through their teeth.

"Oh, hey, Hagrid," said Rivers, stashing his wand away in his pocket. "These Slytherins were acting suspicious, and given what's been happening, we were just having a chat is all."

"That's a load of hippogriff dung and you know it, Rivers. Go on, give Harry her letter there and get yerselves back to the castle. Go on!"

Frowning, Wattle let the letter go, and Harriet managed to grab it before it could land in the mud. The Gryffindors shuffled off, Wattle and Rivers disappointed and put out, Longbottom and Finnigan clearly relieved. Harriet didn't care if they were relieved; they stood by and did nothing, and would've continued to stand by and do nothing while the older boys pushed Harriet around and took her things. Harriet really hated them in that moment—them and Professor Snape, because she wanted nothing more than to curse them blue as they walked away, consequences be damned.

"All right there, Harry?" asked Hagrid.

"Yes," she replied, because she wasn't hurt, even if she was upset and felt tears burning the corners of her eyes. Harriet decided those tears were just as stupid as Wattle and Rivers and refused to let them fall, scrunching her nose until the sting abated. "I'm okay. Thanks, Hagrid."

The half-giant nodded, shifting his crossbow, the bloody rooster swaying in his grip. "They don't mean nothin' by it, course. They're good lads usually—but fear makes people do dumb things."

Perhaps sensing Harriet's urge to snap at the man, Hermione piped up with, "What happened to your rooster, Hagrid?" which spared Harriet from saying anything she might regret.

"Oh, er—nothin', nothin'. At least, nothin' for you lot to concern yerselves with." Hagrid quickly tucked the rooster in one of his large pockets and wiped the bloody feathers from his fingers. "C'mon, you three, best be gettin' back inside now. It's a mite cold to be out here without yer coats."

Harriet didn't believe Hagrid really cared about them getting chilled, but she nonetheless allowed herself to be herded back across the covered bridge with her friends, Mr. Flamel's letter still clasped in her small hands, her fingers worrying the edges until the crisp parchment felt soft and old.

She would never understand why people hated Slytherins. Some said it was because of the Dark Lord, because he went to Hogwarts and he was in the House of Serpents, but what did his Sorting have to do with anything? Harriet was a Slytherin, and she'd lost almost everything because of Voldemort! She hated him, hated that he'd taken her parents, hated that he'd tempted her in front of the Mirror of Erised, and hated that every bad thing that happened at Hogwarts got turned around on Slytherin House because the Dark Lord once slept in their bloody dorms.

The letter crinkled against her palms as her fingers squeezed together.

Something Mr. Flamel wrote stuck in her mind like a thorn she couldn't quite pluck. Everyone claimed Salazar Slytherin left something in his Chamber capable of killing Muggle-borns, but Mr. Flamel didn't think so; he didn't believe the founder would endanger the school and his own legacy by potentially allowing a deadly curse or beast to be recklessly unleashed. Mr. Flamel was one of the smartest people Harriet had ever met, so she didn't dismiss what he'd said—but if Salazar Slytherin hadn't bequeathed his Heir a monster capable of Petrifying Muggle-borns, what did he leave behind? What was the point of his Chamber if not to eradicate the "unworthy"?

The castle waited ahead of them. Harriet stared toward the lights visible through the bridge's crooked arches and wondered at the mystery—and danger—of it all.

A/N: I dislike the term "Non-Magique," which is the canon French equivalent of "Muggle." So I use the term "Moyenne" instead, from the French word for "average," and "Demoyenne" is the equivalent for "Muggle-born." You can always assume it's the older version of "Non-Magique," if you want.

cleansing

lxxvi. cleansing

Three days before term ended, first-year Aidan Shafiq came running over to Harriet and Elara in the common room and shoved a note with dreaded, spidery writing into Harriet's open hand.

You and Black are to report to my office directly after dinner.

- Prof. S. Snape

That was not good news at all. "Shite," Harriet whispered, color leaching from her face.

"What is it?"

She handed the parchment to Elara, who didn't pale as Harriet did, but certainly looked disconcerted by the summons.

"D'you think he knows?" Harriet whispered, eyes darting about the crowded common room. No one paid them any mind, and Harriet didn't think the older students chatting around the main hearth truly realized she and Elara were there. Discussions about the upcoming break were loud and numerous.

"I think if he knew," Elara began carefully, gathering their school books together. "He would have dragged us out of here by our ears in a high temper, don't you agree?"

"…probably." Harriet cleaned her quill and capped the inkwell. "Dinner's soon, isn't it?"

"Yes. Come on, let's find Hermione…."

After sorting their things away into their school bags, the two witches went in search of their friend, but they didn't manage to find her until they reached the Great Hall, and by that point, Hermione was deep in conversation with Malfoy. Given the look on her face, Harriet didn't think it was a nice conversation. She continued to argue with the prat throughout dinner, until it was time for Harriet and Elara to drag their unwilling feet back to the dungeons, walking the too familiar path to Snape's office.

The Potions Master hadn't been at dinner, and seeing the light peeking over the threshold, Harriet knew he had to be inside. Glum, she rapped her knuckles against the wood, and a moment later a spell opened the way, revealing Snape seated behind his desk, his attention on his marking. Harriet and Elara shuffled inside—and the door slammed shut. Harriet tried very hard not to look at the portrait hiding the storage cupboard.

"Sit," Snape said, and the two witches did as bid, taking the two straight-backed chairs by the desk. Harriet sniffed and picked up the lingering smell of food, so she guessed Snape had eaten his meal down here with his work. He continued writing, scribbling what was probably a vicious reprimand on some poor sod's essay, then he set the quill aside, favoring Harriet and Elara with a blank, hard look.

"I received the list of Slytherin students intending to stay during the Yule holiday. Neither of you wrote your names down."

Harriet glanced at Elara, puzzled, and said, "…Yes? Sir?"

"Had either of you thought to ask, I could have informed you that you will not be leaving the school for the holiday. You will need to add your names to the list."

Elara balked. "You can't tell me where to go. Sir." She added the last bit when Snape's glower landed on her, as the wizard didn't seem in a mood to be trifled with. The cold settled in without reservation in the dungeons, and Snape's fire smoldered low. Harriet thought she might start shivering soon. "I'm—."

"If the next word out of your mouth is emancipated, Black, I'll ensure you're on the train home and don't get a ticket back." Snape braced his hands on the desk's edge and stood, leaning forward, his eyes dark and grim as Harriet had ever seen them. "I cannot leave the castle during the break, and as the headmaster has seen fit to leave me in charge of your well-being while you're interred at Grimmauld Place, you will be spending Yule at Hogwarts, Potter. End of story."

There wasn't much to say after that. Neither Harriet nor Elara could change the wizard's mind, given it wasn't Snape's mind that needed to be changed, rather Dumbledore's, who Harriet didn't want to bother with something so trivial. Elara wore a peeved expression as they made their way to the dormitories once again, spooking two Hufflepuff first-years who'd wandered down the Slytherin corridor.

"I think that's the Hufflepuff I blasted at the Dueling Club," Harriet muttered, chagrined. "Are you gonna stay at Hogwarts for Yule, then? Or are you going home?"

"Yes," Elara said at last, a muscle in her jaw ticking. "I'm staying, that is. I don't much want to go home, or see Kreacher—but I did have a few things I wanted to research and look into."

"You don't have to stay just for me, y'know," Harriet told her, looking down at her shoes. "Last Christm—Yule wasn't so bad on my own." Really, it'd been awful, as Harriet had been stuck in detention almost every day and Elara and Hermione both knew that, but she didn't remind her.

"No, I'm staying. Snape just aggravates me."

"He aggravates everyone, that's his natural state of being."

They went to the dorms, then doubled back when they failed to find Hermione, though Harriet stopped to smuggle Livi out under her shirt. Elara tutted, but said nothing else. They went off in search of the library and took a wrong turn somewhere on the second level, where the halls sometimes liked to intermingle or pretend to be somewhere they're not, and they wandered past a familiar, faceless bust asking funny questions. "Here," Harriet said when she spotted a portrait containing a gaggle of geese. "I know the way from here."

They went around the long way, and they did find Hermione and the library eventually, the former at their favored table near the back, grumbling darkly into a thick book about Charms. A thin monograph tried creeping away from her, but Hermione smacked her palm down flat on the little booklet, and it whined.

"What were you arguing with Malfoy about?" Harriet asked.

"Never you mind," Hermione quipped—and realizing she'd snapped at the younger witch—she lowered the dusty book and grimaced. "I'm sorry, Harriet, I didn't mean that. He's—absolutely impossible, if you must know. I told him I'm going to be spending the hols with my parents, and he keeps telling me how terribly insulting it is to Lucius and Narcissa that I refuse their invitation to their Yule celebrations."

Elara rolled her eyes as she sunk into a chair. "Heaven forbid Lucius and Narcissa be insulted."

Hermione scowled, shutting the book hard enough for the binding to give a warning yelp. "You don't understand," she insisted. "My place at Hogwarts isn't as secure as yours or Harriet's! If they so chose, Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy could have me removed from school—or transfer me to a different family, who might not let me go to Hogwarts at all, or I might be expelled from the Wizarding community altogether—."

"All right," Elara said, placing a placating hand on Hermione's arm. "All right, I get it. That's not going to happen."

Hermione gave her a dubious look, and Harriet pretended she couldn't see the faint gleam of tears highlighted by the Charmed candles.

"Even the Malfoy family understands the importance of family, Hermione. They won't begrudge you your time with them."

A tense moment passed between the trio as Hermione sniffled and quickly dabbed her nose with a handkerchief found in her robe pocket. "I'm being silly, I know. I—I love my parents very much, you see, but…but sometimes I—." The handkerchief turned into a wadded up mess, balled between Hermione's nervous, fidgeting hands. "Last Christmas was…was difficult. They're very sensible people, my parents, and magic can so often be…."

"Insensible?" Harriet supplied.

"Exactly." Sighing, Hermione shoved the handkerchief away into her pocket once more. "They don't understand it, and it's not their fault—but it's all very frustrating. Oh, never mind. Don't listen to me. Tell me; where did you two head off to after dinner?"

Scowling, Elara crossed her arms and looked out the window, leaving Harriet to explain their meeting with the Potions Master. Hermione was sympathetic—and then got a curious, speculative glint in her eyes, and started tapping her chin with her index finger. Harriet knew that look, and she felt a mite nervous to ask what the older witch was thinking about.

"The potion," Hermione said, still tapping at her chin, a loose curl bobbing by her hand. In the distance, Harriet could hear Madam Pince moving about, shelving books and shooing students off to bed, and she knew they needed to get back to the dorms soon or risk Professor Slytherin's wrath. "This might be a blessing, really. The potion's going to mature near Chris—Yule. It would hold fine until we returned in the New Year, but its efficacy would go down, and there'd be a much higher risk of something happening to the cauldron or the potion being contaminated without one of us coming by to properly check." Hermione stared at Harriet as she spoke. "But if you lot are staying, you can finish it, Harriet."

"Me?" she sputtered. "I couldn't do that!"

"You're perfectly capable."

"I'd make a mess of it!"

"No, you wouldn't," Hermione asserted. "You're much better at Potions than you let yourself believe, Harriet. Besides, the most difficult aspects of the brewing process are over. You need only wait for it to mature, fold in the bicorn horn with the proper number of stirs, and then simmer."

Groaning, Harriet looked to Elara for assistance—but the other girl shook her head. "I'm not touching it."

"And if I bollocks it up?" She hadn't touched a potion nearly as complicated as Polyjuice before. Sometimes she diced ingredients for Hermione or checked the cauldron's temperature, but she never worked with the concoction itself. The bespectacled witch rubbed nervously at Livi's scales through her shirt. "What then?"

"Really, Harriet, the language—if you make a mistake, then so be it. I'm not infallible either, you know. This will be the perfect opportunity; without a lot of students about, the staff will be easier to watch and less on guard."

Elara nodded, obviously seeing the sense in Hermione's idea—but Harriet didn't nod, because it sounded terribly nerve-wracking to the poor girl, who had very little faith in her potion-brewing abilities, or her espionage skills. She wrinkled her nose, face scrunched, and as Hermione and Elara started picking up texts to return them to their proper place, Harriet left the pair there and headed back to the dormitory on her own. Her friends gave her far too much credibility. She just knew she was going to ruin it. Harriet wasn't nearly as talented as Hermione, and Polyjuice was devilishly tricky.

She had traversed only a single corridor when Livi stirred, dry scales rasping against her skin. Harriet paused to soothe the serpent—when a heinous, all too familiar hissing reached her ears.

"Time to kill…kill…mussst find them…kill them…."

A loud chime burst from Livius, and Harriet gasped, startled by the noise, throwing herself against the wall.

"Kill…kill…KILL…."

Oh, Merlin, Harriet thought, breathing hard. Merlin, it's here with me, it has to be here somewhere—. Her eyes darted all about, searching for something, anything, and yet nothing in the dark hall had changed at all. The torches continued to flicker, and the sole portrait on the wall opposite her kept on with his nap. Harriet had to find a professor—or Lockhart, or someone! But where to go? Where would they be? What was she to do?

Livi chimed again and hissed with menace, having slithered out of Harriet's collar to perch half his body on her shoulder. "I will bitesss it," the Horned Serpent declared. " It will not come near Misstresss, I will eatsss it—."

"Kill…kill the filthy onesss…."

Like a sudden ice bath, Harriet realized there was one Muggle-born witch near there, just one corridor over—one witch that the invisible, skulking monster might mean to kill that evening. Harriet hadn't the faintest idea where the ruddy thing was or where she could find a professor, but she knew exactly where Hermione and Elara were; in the library, defenseless, unable to hear that murderous crooning closing in.

She took off running, not caring that the hissing faded, that Livius coiled too tightly about her throat, or that she must look like a madman running through the hall. Her heart raced. She had her wand in her hand, and she didn't remember taking it out. Harriet didn't care about any of that; all she cared about was finding her friends and getting the hell away from there.

Harriet rounded the corner—and tripped. Something heavy and solid struck her shins, and the bespectacled witch toppled, barely managing to catch herself with her hands before she collided with the floor. Livi writhed but Harriet's reflexes spared him from impact, even if she did bloody her knees from the effort. Panting, Harriet rolled to see what she'd hit—and froze.

A ghost hovered in the corridor. Pearlescent and as gray as a winter morning, he drifted several inches from the stones below, and Set pooled around him in a vaporous black veil, a haunting halo of shadow and inky darkness in the encroaching hours of night. Harriet knew the ghost to be Nearly Headless Nick, though she hadn't any familiarity with him; she didn't know any of the undead residents of the castle, and this was the closest she'd ever been to one. Nick hung motionless in the air, staring straight ahead.

There was something behind him, something large, crumpled by the wall. Something shaped like a body….

Hands landed on Harriet's shoulders. Her heart leapt into her throat and she shrieked, terrified— only to look up into the black eyes of Professor Snape as he knelt by her, out of breath, his hair wind-blown as if he'd ran the width of the castle.

"Are you injured?" he demanded. "Are you hurt, Miss Potter?"

"Wh-what?!"

"Are you hurt, you imbecile?!"

Harriet gave her head a jerk to the side, certain she wouldn't be able to find her voice. Together, they turned to the gruesome sight before them, seeing the student sprawled upon the floor, the paralyzed Gryffindor ghost, and the glistening letters scrawled by an errant, irreverent hand upon the stone wall.

SLYTHERIN'S HEIR WILL CLEANSE THE DIRTY-BLOODED.

Harriet gulped.

A/N: Livius - "I'll eat it!"

Basilisk appears, 50 feet long, big as a bus.*

Livius, narrowing eyes - "I'm still gonna eat it."

burning day

lxxvii. burning day

The boy was named Justin Finch-Fletchley, and when Snape rolled him to his back, exposing his face, Harriet knew he was Petrified before the wizard could say a word.

She couldn't look away from him, even as she shook, still sitting on the cold floor with a sluggish trickle of blood dripping from her knee into her rumpled sock. Harriet could have been the one attacked—Harriet or Hermione or Elara, or any of the few students meandering about the library, since that was where Justin must have come from. She couldn't understand how it had happened, and so quickly. It could have been me.

When McGonagall came upon them, she spotted Justin and gave a muffled shout—and then shouted again when she spied Harriet and the agitated serpent wriggling about her neck. "Miss Potter—!"

"Minerva, take Potter to the Headmaster," Snape said, using his wand to levitate Justin into the air. The Potions Master looked ghastly in the dim light, pale with shock, right hand twitching. There was sweat on his brow.

"What?! Severus, there is a snake—!"

"Now is not the time or the place, woman! Quickly, before Slytherin comes strutting by, get her away from here!"

McGonagall didn't appreciate being ordered about, but she urged Harriet to her feet, staying as far from the hissing snake as was possible in the hall's confines. Snape's mention of Slytherin spurred Harriet onward, though she did so in a daze, the image of Nearly Headless Nick and Finch- Fletchley burned in her mind. What in the world could Petrify someone who was already dead? And the writing on the wall—! Was that another threat against Professor Slytherin?

Livius continued to spit and threaten the invisible voice, and Harriet would've been very flattered at his chivalry if the snake didn't threaten to bite and eat anyone and everything for every minor inconvenience he incurred. "Shut up, Livi," Harriet whispered as she tried to wrestle him back into her shirt, but the others had been right when they said he was getting too large, and she had barely grown at all. Professor McGonagall continued to goggle at her, stunned into silence.

"He's my familiar, Professor," Harriet explained.

"Your familiar?"

"Yeah—I mean, yes, ma'am." She succeeded in calming Livi enough for him to go invisible once more, earning a startled huff from the Transfiguration professor. "The Headmaster and Professor Snape know about him."

"Oh, I'm sure they do, Miss Potter," Professor McGonagall said, her brogue thick and agitated, and she uttered something else in an undertone, but Harriet didn't quite hear it.

They hurried on, Harriet struggling to keep pace with her shorter legs and her knee stinging terribly by the time they reached the seventh floor and the entrance to Dumbledore's office. McGonagall

gave the password— "Gobbling gumdrops," —and then shooed Harriet up the spiraling steps without her. "Stay in the office, Harriet, until Professor Dumbledore finds you," the witch instructed, disappearing before Harriet could ask anything else. She realized the professor had called her by name, and though the thought warmed Harriet and told her Professor McGonagall didn't believe she'd attacked Justin, little could displace the sudden chill sitting in her middle.

The office hadn't changed a bit since she'd seen it at Hallowe'en, the door to the closet where Quirrell met his end still sealed tight, the mullioned windows giving a glimpse of the sunset's final vestiges smeared on the horizon like a bloody fingerprint. Most of the headmasters and headmistresses snoozed in their frames, but a few watched curiously as the young witch came edging in the room, uncertain of herself.

"Professor Dumbledore?" Harriet said aloud—but no, Professor McGonagall mentioned the Headmaster would come to find her, probably after checking on Finch-Fletchley and Nick. Sighing, Harriet went to one of the comfortable winged chairs by the hearth and sank into it, glancing at the smoldering bits of ash and wood settling in the grate.

She worried about Hermione and Elara; just because the monster had already attacked this evening didn't mean it wouldn't attack again—and Elara and Hermione must have left the library by now. Were they back in the common room, safe with the others? Or were they still in the corridors? Harriet swallowed down her trepidation and prodded her knee, keeping her eyes fixed on the growing bruise and clotting scrape.

A clock chimed the hour.

There were a great many things in the Headmaster's office Harriet hadn't had the time or the wits to inspect before. Restless and in need of a distraction, she hopped to her feet and took the chance to investigate now, pacing along the wall with its wood shelves and shorter tables laden with strange devices. Harriet thought Professor Dumbledore might have more books than the library crammed into the shelves, several protected behind locked cabinet doors, and though she wondered what kind of texts a wizard like Dumbledore might collect and seal away, she didn't touch the doors.

A set of stairs led to an upper platform, an area behind the professor's large desk that held more portraits upon the curved wall, more shelves, and several shut doors. She considered going up those steps but didn't, because Harriet decided those doors must lead to Professor Dumbledore's quarters and it felt terribly rude for her to go poking her nose about where it didn't belong.

Harriet's eyes moved over the tables with their silver instruments and came to rest upon a familiar pile of glass.

She shivered when she stopped before the Mirror of Erised's fragments. Professor Dumbledore had the largest pieces floating in the air, like a bizarre, string-less Muggle mobile, shifting ever so slightly when Harriet approached and her breath caught the edges. Looking into the shards, Harriet didn't know what she expected to see—maybe nothing at all, given Quirrell had shattered the dodgy thing when he tried to kill her—but individual images moved within the fragments. She peered closer.

It took Harriet a moment to realize the mirror still worked—at least, after a fashion. Instead of displaying her single greatest desire, however, each chunk and sliver showed smaller wants and wishes, big, small, important, and petty alike. There Harriet saw herself having a lie-in, and there she saw her mum's face, and here laid her favorite sweater with the top button fixed, and that bit over there showed all the Petrified victims back on their feet. Harriet didn't know what to look at first, and the effect was disorientating.

She still hated that mirror.

Harriet wandered back to her seat, and by the time Dumbledore arrived, the young witch was crouched near the hearth, Livius coiled on the warmed bricks and irked with her for not letting him bite the owner of the voice they'd heard in the corridor.

"Good evening," Professor Dumbledore said, smiling at her before his gaze lowered to the indignant snake. "Oh, dear. I thought we had an agreement about your familiar staying in the dorms, Harriet?"

Frick. Standing, Harriet fussed with her sleeves and tried to meet his gaze, but she couldn't bring herself to look past the Headmaster's crooked nose. "I'm—sorry, Headmaster. I'm always really careful, and it's not all the time! But I—I just…feel safer when I have Livi."

Professor Dumbledore sighed, and then simply nodded, looking tired in the dying fire's dull red glow. "I understand. We will have to discuss this further at another time, but for now…."

He gestured her over to the desk and they left Livi behind, Harriet taking one of the smaller seats meant for guests and students, and Dumbledore sat next to her. The Headmaster's heavy gaze once more fixed upon Harriet, and she fidgeted in her seat. Did the Headmaster think she had something to do with Finch-Fletchley? Did anyone else know she'd been there? How did the monster move about so quickly?

"Is Justin gonna be all right?"

"Yes, thankfully. Poor boy will be back on his feet as soon as the Restorative Draught can be brewed."

"What about Nick? He got Petrified, too."

Professor Dumbledore stroked his beard in thought. "Yes, Sir Nicholas should be all right as well. Professor Snape is convinced that by reducing a sample of the Draught to a gaseous state, he'll be able to revive Gryffindor's House ghost."

The sudden image of Snape holding a spray bottle like the one Aunt Petunia used on her houseplants popped into Harriet's head and she smothered the inappropriate urge to snort.

Something about the Headmaster's demeanor bothered Harriet. All things considered, the elderly wizard seemed quite composed, a calmness about him she appreciated, but didn't understand. Why wasn't he asking about what happened, about what she saw in the corridor? Why wasn't he—?

Frowning, Harriet studied Professor Dumbledore, and he studied her too, his expression more bemused than anything, his brow raised in question. "Headmaster…." She started, pausing to gather her thoughts. "You…you know what it is, don't you, sir? The monster from the Chamber."

"Do you know what it is, Harriet?"

"It's a snake," she said without hesitation, the line between her brows deepening. "I don't know what kind and we can't figure it out—but I can hear it."

A grave expression overcame Dumbledore, and he moved to touch the back of Harriet's hand. She hadn't realized she'd started gripping the armrests so tightly. "You mustn't go looking for it, Harriet. It is incredibly dangerous."

"You know what it is," she repeated. Irritation bubbled in her chest and prickled hot through her

shoulder and neck. Looking in the wizard's blue eyes made her miffed all of a sudden. "I don't understand, Professor. If you know, then why—? People have gotten hurt, and everyone's so frightened. Why—why isn't the school closed? Why hasn't anyone done anything? Why haven't you done anything?!" Harriet took a breath and shook her head, realizing that she'd raised her voice considerably, and the portraits on the wall murmured with reproach. "I'm sorry, I don't —I didn't mean to yell, sir."

"You're well within your rights to be frustrated with me, Harriet, it's quite all right." He sighed and peered at the witch over his half-moon spectacles as if looking for something. After a moment, he gave his head a slight shake and looked away. "I fear that sometimes the easiest solutions are not all they appear."

"What d'you mean?"

"I merely wish to explain that, were it my decision, I would close the school until the danger is corrected, but it isn't my decision. A Headmaster may cancel classes if needs must, but I cannot shut Hogwarts without consent from the Board of Governors."

"But then why doesn't the Board of Governors close the school? Not that I want the school to close, it's just—not safe." Hermione's not safe.

"Ah, Harriet. You cut to the heart of the matter, for though your question seems a simple one, it has a very complicated answer." Dumbledore said nothing else, and instead contemplated his desk and his phoenix perched upon his gilded stand. Harriet thought the bird might be molting or—ill, perhaps—though she didn't give it much thought now. She wanted Professor Dumbledore to explain, but Harriet sensed she'd stumbled upon a topic beyond her, like a weed with a root that went down, down, down into the earth, and no matter how hard she pulled, she'd never get to the end of it, and would only get a handful of slivers for her effort.

Hermione was right, though, she thought. The staff knows a lot more than they're telling us. Why does the Board want Hogwarts open? Is someone trying to frame Professor Slytherin? Harriet flinched when Livi nudged her hand, then let her fingers slip over his horns and the smooth, dry scales of his snout, coming to linger on the gem set in his skull.

"I know you would like to know more, Harriet, but I fear it wouldn't be safe to tell you. I would not burden you with knowledge beyond your control."

Harriet just nodded.

"Why did you not come to me when you heard the voice? Or to Professor Snape, perhaps?"

"Well, I—. At first, I thought I'd imagined it, and then—then I was nervous, I guess. It took me a while to figure out it was a snake, and then I didn't know what kind of snake it was."

"I hope you feel able to tell us information like this in the future, my dear girl. Either myself or Professor Snape—or Professor McGonagall, who had a great many wonderful things to say about our reptilian friend here when we crossed paths in the hall."

Harriet winced. "You got me in trouble," she muttered to Livi, whose answering look plainly said he disagreed. The serpent continued to coil himself tightly in her lap, settling in like an irreverent cat who cared little for the fact that Harriet would have to get up eventually.

Just then, Fawkes gave a mournful cry, and when the bespectacled witch lifted her chin to look at him, the bird burst into flames.

Harriet jumped to her feet and Livi hit the floor with a thump. "Professor Dumbledore!"

The Headmaster sat in his chair still, smiling, and Harriet was sure he'd gone round the bend when he chuckled. "Well, it's about time. He's been looking dreadful for days now and I've been hoping he'd get on with it."

"Wh—?"

"Fawkes is a phoenix, Harriet. It's his Burning Day."

"Yes, I know he's a—! Oh," she finished with a soft breath, the flames settling as swiftly as they'd ignited, Livi hissing furious words at Harriet's feet. Harriet had read that phoenixes were reborn from their own ashes, but she hadn't expected to see such a thing herself, or for it to be so— explosive. Or sudden. Or panic-inducing.

I thought I set him on fire accidentally like Uncle Vernon's trousers. Holy Merlin.

Professor Dumbledore stood and shuffled around the desk, going to the golden stand now sporting nothing but a few wilted feathers and a pile of soot. "Witches and wizards in the east say it's good luck to see a Burning Day," he commented as he started to gently brush his fingertips through the ash. "They say it's a miracle, and maybe they're right. It certainly is very strange and wondrous magic."

A bald baby chick emerged, chirping softly, wiggling its newborn wings as Professor Dumbledore smiled down at his familiar. As Harriet watched, she couldn't help but think the Headmaster's words described all kinds of magic, be it the kind that revived phoenixes from their fiery grave, or the kind that could Petrify the dead. It was all strange, wondrous—

And often terrifying.

A/N: It always annoyed me that the Board of Governors was only brought up in canon, what? Once? Twice? I personally find it interesting to have more checks and balances to the Headmaster's power.

Harriet: "Professor, your bird is on fire."

Dumbledore: "Good."

watchful eyes

lxxviii. watchful eyes

"Hermione, you're going to miss your train."

"It's fine," the witch in question replied, waving an idle hand without taking her eyes off the cauldron. "I've plenty of time yet."

"If by plenty of time you mean fifteen minutes, then yeah."

Hermione gave the potion another stir, and Harriet huffed. As they stood clustered in the damp stall, the three Slytherin witches could hear the occasional voice passing in the corridor, followed by jogging footsteps or squealing familiars or thumping pieces of luggage. Harriet knew if Hermione managed to miss her train home, she and Elara would somehow catch the blame, and she wasn't keen on spending the whole of the holiday chopping ingredients for Snape.

Elara would probably end up stabbing him with a paring knife.

"—Harriet."

"Hmm?"

She turned her gaze to Hermione again and almost went cross-eyed looking at the small vial she held up to her nose. "Be careful," Hermione said as Harriet took the vial, scrutinizing the insides. "That's the only hair I managed to get off of Professor Sinistra."

"This plan is barmy, I hope you know."

"It's not. It's perfectly logical! Professor Sinistra doesn't often leave the Astronomy Tower, thus lowering the prospective chances of you being caught—but she does leave sometimes, which means your—or her—presence won't be suspicious. Elara will go to her office and keep the professor busy with questions just to ensure she doesn't wander down to the staff room."

"And how am I supposed to get information, Hermione? 'Jolly good, let me freshen your cuppa, Slytherin—oh, by the way, what's in your great-great-great grandda's secret chamber there?'"

"Don't be glib, Harriet. You'll do no such thing." Hermione gave the cauldron a final stir, then removed the ladle, returning it to the open kit. "No, professors gossip just as much as any student. I can't even begin to tell you the things I've heard them half-say before they realize I'm in the room with another teacher—but that's not the point. No, you're just there to learn what they know, not interrogate them. That'd be an intolerable risk and—foolish."

"But what if I don't find anything out? What if I actually do manage to make the potion, but none of the professors are around or they just don't mention the Chamber? What then?"

"That's the only risk we should be taking, really." Hermione took a deep breath, then exhaled. "The potion is a means to an end, Harriet—and if we can't find out what we want to know safely, then there's no point to it, is there? If you don't learn anything new, so be it. We'll find another way—find a spell, or another potion, or something. We're clever enough and cunning enough not to get caught by being silly."

"If you say so," Harriet mumbled, blinking owlishly as she looked down into the Polyjuice Potion, still holding the vial with Professor Sinistra's hair. It was a convoluted but bizarrely simple plan in her opinion, and if Harriet followed Hermione's directions, she'd manage all right. She knew from experience adults became much more chatty when they didn't know children were around, and while Harriet believed Slytherin would be more circumspect, the professor did have an arrogant streak in him that could work in their favor.

Harriet groaned and rubbed at her eyes, almost knocking off her glasses.

"Don't touch your face, you're in a loo, Harriet."

"I didn't put my hands in the toilet or something, Elara, for Merlin's sake."

"Still. It's unsanitary."

Harriet dropped her arms back to her side and resisted the urge to scowl. Hermione whipped out a large scroll from her bag and shoved it toward the shorter witch, who took it—and nearly dropped both it and the vial in the cauldron, surprised by the weight. "Those are all my notes on the Polyjuice. I copied and annotated all the directions from the book, noting all the proper colors and smells, what the potion should look like before adding the hair, etcetera."

Gawking, Harriet realized it must have taken Hermione ages to put all this together, and she felt another prickle of worry and nerves go through her. Hermione was the one who'd put in all the work, and now she was handing off the nearly finished potion to Harriet, confident she wouldn't make a total mess of things. The younger Slytherin swallowed.

"I'll do my best. I promise."

"I know you will." Hermione exhaled, then fidgeted with her bag. If Harriet didn't know better, she'd say the other girl was stalling and purposefully cutting her chances of making the train short. Why? Didn't she want to see her mum and dad? "Well, we'd best hurry down to the entrance hall."

Harriet secreted the notes and vial away into her robes' pocket, moving Kevin up into her collar out of the way. "Wait, hang on, I've got this—."

She yanked the Invisibility Cloak out, earning a bemused look from both of her friends as she hurried to explain. "Well, there's a lot of people about, isn't there? And they'll be more suspicious after what happened to Finch-Fletchley, so I thought it might look odd if three girls came out of a loo no one ever goes into and—."

"It's a great idea," Hermione rushed to assure her. "Does it cover all three of us?"

The Cloak did, in fact, cover all three witches, but not without a fair share of shuffling, toe- treading, and misplaced elbows. Elara had to hunch and Harriet wound up caught between the two with a mouthful of Hermione's frizzy hair, and yet the trio managed to quietly slip from Myrtle's loo into the corridor with no one the wiser. Good thing, too, because not a moment later, Professor Flitwick came bustling past, a pocketwatch balanced in his hand as he muttered under his breath.

"Let's go this way—."

They hurried along the hall, then took off the Cloak once out of sight of Flitwick and the loo. Harriet stuffed the Cloak back into her robes, and together they walked through the History of Magic corridor, avoiding the suit of armor prone to kicking students who crowded too close to it. A low, droning voice echoed from one of the abandoned classrooms, but Harriet paid it no mind; she knew from experience it was only a ghost named Cuthbert Binns, who had supposedly been a

professor both before and after he died, until he finally got the sack. Of course, they couldn't really sack a ghost, so the class got moved to a different end of the corridor, and Professor Binns went right on teaching, even if he didn't have any students.

Professor Selwyn was at his desk, writing a letter, the quill whipping from side to side. They scuttled by his open door as quickly as they could. Shouldn't he be down with the other teachers making sure no one gets left behind?

Hermione pulled back a dusty tapestry, and they went single-file through a dark and stuffy secret passage that somehow managed to drop them down a level without having any stairs. The trio came out onto the main floor, where the voices of their fellows echoed louder, and Harriet could hear Professor McGonagall scolding someone over the crackle of a Filibuster Firework.

"Merlin, who thought it was a good idea to set one of those off…."

It appeared most everyone was running late that morning, as students dashed about the entrance hall, accounting for their things, all while their professors urged them out the doors. Hermione, who had everything she needed already tucked into her satchel, yanked both Harriet and Elara into a hug. Elara stood there like she was unsure what to do with her hands, and Harriet squeezed both of them just because she could.

"You're squishing my lungs, Harriet…."

"You both be safe," Hermione said, voice quiet but fierce as she let go and stepped back. "Do your holiday assignments. And for goodness' sake, don't go chasing after any strange voices, and don't antagonize Professor Snape."

"Neither of us antagonizes him. I just breathe in his direction and the bloke has a fit."

Hermione wasn't convinced given her stern look, but she shook her head and dropped the topic. With a final wave, she turned and set off after the other students hurrying down the steps in their winter robes, white flecks whirling in the air and coming to land upon the entrance hall's stone floor. A few snowflakes touched Harriet's hair and melted.

"She's safer out of the castle," Elara muttered as they watched their friend go. Harriet nodded, sad to see Hermione leave, but pleased she'd have a chance to see her parents and escape the Chamber's looming threat. She would be safer outside Hogwarts for now.

The holidays seemed unusually grim to Harriet, and she wasn't looking forward to the weeks ahead. She had to finish the Polyjuice without messing up, and both she and Elara would have to avoid Snape and Slytherin and probably every other professor so their plans wouldn't be bungled before they even began. She thought of what Professor Dumbledore had said when she'd yelled at him—and Harriet could hardly believe she'd done that. What had gotten into her?!—pondering the answers to all the questions she wanted to ask.

Something wasn't right, and not because there was an invisible, Petrifying monster slithering about. The Board of Governors wouldn't let the Headmaster close the school, and Minister Gaunt wouldn't send a competent Auror to assist them, and someone kept writing those weird, incriminating messages on the walls. Slytherin's Heir will cleanse the dirty-blooded. The only bloody Heir of Slytherin at Hogwarts was Professor Slytherin, so someone clearly had it out for the wizard.

Something just wasn't right, and like Professor Dumbledore told her, sometimes the easiest solutions weren't all they appeared.

Frowning, Harriet started to turn from the doors—and paused when she spotted Longbottom lurking outside the Great Hall. "Oh, bloody hell."

Both the Boy Who Lived and several Weasleys lingered there, all still dressed in their school robes, watching the other students sprint outside for the carriages. Longbottom was glaring at Harriet and Elara, suspicion clear in his dumb face, and Harriet wanted nothing more than to swear at the git. "Doesn't he have a bloody family to go home to?" she whispered. "He's going to be watching us! As if having stupid Snape around wasn't bad enough—."

The wizard in question stood on the upper landing, deep in conversation with Professor Dumbledore—until Mr. Lockhart came gallivanting over, at which point both the Headmaster and Potions Master broke off their discussion with mirrored looks of aggravation. If Harriet hadn't been so peeved about Longbottom, she would have laughed.

"Come on, let's go to the common room. It should be quiet there."

Shooting a final ugly look toward Longbottom, Harriet shuffled after Elara—who moved with far more poise and much better posture. "Why d'you walk so pretty?"

"Why don't you pick up your feet?"

"I'm being serious!"

"So was I." The bustle and cheer of the entrance hall faded behind them as the pair descended into the dungeons, their footsteps resounding in the enclosed space. Torchlight guided their way into the overwhelming dark. "If you're swatted enough for slouching, it becomes a habit not to do so."

"Oh," Harriet said, voice quiet. A muscle worked in Elara's jaw, and she refused to look in her direction.

"Besides, doesn't Mrs. Malfoy harangue you about sitting up straight and dressing properly? You're still writing letters to her, aren't you?"

"Yeah. I didn't think I was going to, but I dunno. Some of the stuff she says is bollocks, but she also tells me interesting bits here and there about everything." Harriet glanced down at her too-big jumper under her robes and tried straightening both it and the buttoned shirt beneath it. "You don't think I dress funny, do you?"

"No. I think you're fine the way you are." They came upon the hidden entrance to the common room and Elara gave the password. "Are you going to read Hermione's notes?"

"Yeah, I better get started on it. I think this scroll weighs more than I—."

Harriet came to a stop mid-sentence as she bumped into Elara's back, who stood frozen not two feet past the hidden wall. Confused, Harriet peered around her—and flinched, because Professor Slytherin sat by the main hearth, his profile cast in shadow by the firelight, one leg crossed over the other and a goblet in his hand. As Harriet and Elara came inside, he turned, placed the goblet aside, and stood.

"Good—good morning, Professor Slytherin," Harriet managed to say, both surprised and wary. What was he doing there? He only ever came to the common room when he wanted to chew out the whole of the House for something terrible happening.

"Good morning, Miss Potter, Miss Black," the wizard replied. He smiled, but Harriet knew it was fake, his red eyes narrowed and cold as they inspected her and Elara. His robes rippled as he

stepped forward, the fire at his back throwing his face deeper into shadow. Harriet could only see the vague glint of his teeth and startling eyes in the weak glow given by the silver lanterns. "My, my. Is this not the second Yule holiday you've remained at the school, Potter? Where are your relatives?"

Thinking about the Dursleys forced Harriet to stiffen her spine, though she almost fidgeted and looked away. She decided to feed him the same lie she gave Snape last year, because though he hadn't looked convinced, it was technically true. "They work, Professor."

"Hmm. And you, Black?"

"I'm emancipated and can spend the holidays as I please, sir."

He continued to approach them until he stopped not two feet away, looking down his nose at both witches with something harsh and doubtful glittering behind his eyes. "As you are the only Slytherins remaining behind, I felt it prudent to remind you both of the curfew and my expectations."

"Yes, professor."

"Refrain from wandering and…mingling. You'd both be fools not to realize someone in this school seeks to sully my name—and thus your names as well, given all of Slytherin House shares in this uncalled for maligning. Stick to the common room unless your presence is necessitated elsewhere, and should I find either of you out after hours…. Well, let's just say the consequences will be quite dire indeed."

Harriet could only nod, and Elara looked grim.

Slytherin continued to study them for another minute, his hands loose at his sides, until he seemed satisfied. "Good. I remember assigning you an essay for the break; I expect an additional foot from both of you. It's best to keep busy, lest idle minds turn to…mischief." He cocked his head to one side, and over his shoulder hissed, "Watch them."

"Yesss, Massster."

With that said, Slytherin swept by Harriet and Elara, disappearing into the corridor with barely a sound to note his departure. Harriet watched the serpent in the painted rowan roots curl itself around the wild tree, its sharp, beady eyes trained on hers even across the room. She didn't inform Elara of what Professor Slytherin had said, because one didn't need to be a Parselmouth to know it hadn't been good.

Harriet took her friend by the hand, and they escaped into the dorms.

A/N: I know Draco and a bunch of other Slytherins stayed for the hols in the book—but that kinda goes against the headcanon I've established where most students head home for the Yule break. So, no Draco.

changing skins

lxxix. changing skins

Despite the worry and trepidation hanging around the castle like dark clouds in the air, Harriet couldn't deny Hogwarts was beautiful at this time of the year.

Snow blanketed the grounds, and all around them, the highlands slumbered beneath the crisp white sheet and the trees swayed dark and solemn, the lake a solid, gleaming sheet of hoary ice. Icicles clung to the eaves, growing along the ramparts, and whenever one fell, it dissipated into a fuzzy swarm of magic and frost, fogging the windows and the unawares in dewy drafts. Hagrid dragged pine trees into the Great Hall and the professors decorated them with magic and delicate things, fairies hiding in the needles, their giggles seeming to follow Harriet wherever she went, fairy dust sprinkled on her shoulders and in her hair. A Yule Log burned in the Hall's hearth, Charmed to remain until the hols came to an end.

She enjoyed herself more than she had the year prior, simply because Elara was there with her. They snuck back and forth from Myrtle's loo with her Invisibility Cloak and hid in Harriet's trunk to pore through Hermione's exhaustive Polyjuice research. In direct contrast to Professor Slytherin's orders, the Headmaster had Snape come drag them out of the dungeons if they spent too long down there alone, and so the pair of witches went exploring, enjoying the library, or avoiding the Defense teacher. They did homework in the Great Hall by the fire and oftentimes a professor would come sit with them to help or chat.

On Christmas Day—or, well, the day of the Solstice—Harriet woke to find a smattering of gifts left on the foot of her bed, an occurrence that would never cease to surprise the bespectacled girl. Elara had the same assorted collection of presents, though she was far less enthused when poked away by her dormmate only an hour or so past dawn.

"Harriet, I'm going to murder you."

"Murder me after we open gifts, c'mon!"

They sat in their nightgowns with their coverlets pulled up around their shoulders to ward off the dungeons' chill and started in on their presents. Harriet received the same thoughtful, if trivial, trinkets from the old families, including another packet of parchment with her family crest from the House of Black. From Elara personally, she unwrapped a pretty, deep violet quill that shimmered with silver threads when she brought it up to her eyes.

"It's made from an Occamy's feather," the other witch explained as she prised open a Transfigured box. "It's for letter writing. Oh—are these gloves, Harriet?"

"Yeah! I ordered them for you. They're supposed to feel more…what's the word? Tactile? And they're water-repelling."

"Thank you." Elara pulled the black gloves on over her pale, slim hands.

"Hermione got me a kit for my broom, excellent."

"Did Malfoy send you anything?"

"His family—or his mum did, at least. Chocolate Frogs."

Harriet picked up one of her final gifts, a sizable, lumpy parcel wrapped in butcher paper and twine. She recognized the writing on the card, and hummed thoughtfully, wondering what it could be. "I got something from Mr. Flamel and his wife."

"What is it?"

The paper tore, and heavy, cool fabric puddled in Harriet's hands. "I think they're robes." They were black in color with fine, silver threads at edges and a silk, sage-colored lining.

"Go on, try them on."

Unearthing herself from the blankets and strewn packaging, Harriet got to her feet and tried to find where the robes opened. Wizarding fashion could be funny in its design. "Why are they so big?"

"You're putting them on wrong."

"No, I'm not. Look—." As soon as she stepped into the robes and pushed her skinny arms through the overly large sleeves, the fabric came alive and swaddled her, scaring a high-pitched yelp out of Harriet. The cloth drew itself snug about her frame, sleeves shortening and tightening, sash cinching tight as a silver brooch snapped shut on her shoulder, closing the front. The startled witch stood still, arms held out, and waited to see if the robes would move again.

On the other bed, Elara snorted, lowering the book given to her by Hermione. "It's just a sizing Charm. Though, I haven't seen one quite so…enthusiastic before."

"Me neither."

"Those are nice, though. Go look."

Harriet went to the mirror on the wall and gazed at her reflection, taking in the image of her bedraggled hair coupled with the clean, straight lines of the robes. The collar came up around her neck, hiding most of her scar, and the skirt and hem fell in gentle, tapered waves around her legs. The lining rippled with magic, shimmering leaves seeming to drift in an unseen breeze against the silk. Harriet owned a few pairs of robes besides her school outfits, but none of this quality, and none quite so lovely.

She moved back to the bed and found the card again. "He says they're spell-resistant. I wonder what that means, exactly."

Elara quirked a brow—then picked up her wand from the end table, and aimed a Stinging Hex at Harriet's side. Harriet jumped as the spell made contact, but the light fizzled out against the dense fabric. "Oh. Excellent. I wish I could wear these in Slytherin's class."

"It probably wouldn't help." Elara replaced her wand. "The spells coming back at you in Defense are your own, and undoubtedly more powerful than what a simple cloth enchantment can handle."

They finished opening their gifts, then set about getting ready for the day, Harriet showering and donning her new robes once again after Elara tugged her wayward hair into a braid. They journeyed upstairs for breakfast—then scrapped that plan when they peeked inside and found the House and High Tables replaced with a single table down the hall's middle, the only seats open left between Longbottom and Slytherin. Neither girl decided they had much of an appetite.

They escaped outside, and though it was bitterly cold in the breeze, it was much warmer in the

open planter cloister by the greenhouses, the space filled to the brim with pots of all shapes and sizes and mostly dormant flora, gnomes snoozing in the dirt with crumpled leaves as their blankets. Snow heaped itself on the low walls below the arches and steam rose in ghostly sheets from the heated greenhouses below.

"Longbottom was watching us," Elara commented as they sat on a stone bench and she smoothed her skirt. "I don't think he heard a word Weasley was saying to him; he was staring at the doors, waiting for us to show up."

Harriet grumbled under her breath. "Bloody Gryffindor."

They played with the snow for a time, letting it melt in the little pots Charmed with heating spells, pouring the water out and using the Glacius Charm to freeze it into different shapes. Harriet made a passable—if a bit lop-sided and big-headed—bird, while Elara crafted a dog. "Look," Harriet said, holding her tiny ice sculpture in the palm of her cold hand. "I'm going to name him Draco, because—."

"Because it has a fat head?"

Harriet started to laugh.

The screech of an owl brought them to attention, and a miffed barn owl fluttered through an arch, clasping a tightly rolled newspaper in its talons. "Ah, the Prophet," Elara muttered, patting her pockets. "Do you have any money on you, Harriet?"

"Let me see." She had to unclasp the robes to reach her trousers' pockets, and after checking there, she searched her jumper. "Oh. I have a Sickle, though that's a bit much for a paper."

Elara sighed and took the Sickle, tucking it into the little leather pouch on the owl's leg so it would relinquish its delivery. "I'll pay you back later."

"It's fine."

The taller witch sat with her back to the cold, her shoulders stiff, and read the paper while Harriet tried to make an ice-snake to eat ice-Draco, and ended up with something that better resembled a hungry scarf. Elara made a sudden, thoughtful sound.

"What is it?"

"This." She flipped the paper about, folding it to show the main article on the second page. Harriet adjusted her glasses and squinted against the paltry winter light, trying to read.

"'Wizengamot questions Headmaster's eff—efficacy during troubled times. Defense Instructor's ability under scrutiny.' Well, the bit about Dumbledore is awful. Do you think they'll give Slytherin the sack?"

"Not hardly. But this could work to our advantage."

"What? Explain."

Elara gave the paper an impatient shake. "This. We could do it today, after lunch. It's Christmas— the Solstice, and I doubt they're serving pumpkin juice to the professors. You can leave this out, casually flipped to this page, and whoever sees it is bound to have a comment on it."

"And what if they want to comment on it to me?" Harriet asked, keeping her voice low. "What

would Professor Sinistra say?"

"Something about the stars aligning, whatever the fates will, etcetera." Elara folded the paper and handed it to Harriet. "Well? Are you ready? Do you want to do it today?"

Harriet exhaled, wishing she could tell Elara she didn't want to do this at all, because it sounded precisely like the kind of thing that would get her in heaps of trouble, but Harriet kept quiet. "Yes. I only need to fold in the bicorn horn, and we'd have to wait for it to simmer."

Elara met her eyes, and then nodded. "Okay, then. After lunch."

xXx

Harriet could hardly eat a thing by the time lunch finally did manage to roll around. Worrying about the Polyjuice made her stomach twist up in knots, and she felt as if everyone at the table was giving her funny looks. Longbottom glared at her and Elara, his eyes narrow and shifty, Snape scowled every time she accidentally turned in his direction, and even Luna Lovegood, the only Ravenclaw staying for the hols, shot her several puzzled, contemplative looks.

She wound up spilling hot cider down her front, which was how she found out her new robes were stain-resistant, too, which was a nice addition.

Elara just held her head in her hands.

They split up after the meal, and Harriet went alone to Myrtle's loo, taking the long way, diving through at least one secret passage to make sure anyone—namely Longbottom—wouldn't be able to follow if they tried. She found the Polyjuice just as she'd left it the day before, settling in its cauldron atop the toilet, Hermione's magic still warding away the damp. Harriet rolled up her sleeves, opened the potions kit, and consulted Hermione's notes again.

It was a nerve-wracking thing, brewing a potion one intended to consume. She'd made dozens of potions by now, but each of those had gone to Professor Snape, and Harriet always felt a certain safety in brewing when she knew the potion wouldn't poison or kill someone if she made a mistake. A bit too much billywig? Not enough scarab beetle? No big deal. But now, as she used a flat stirring rod to carefully tuck and fold the potion around the sprinkled bicorn horn, cold sweat prickled the back of her neck.

What if she messed up? What if she bloody poisoned herself? Oh, Harriet remembered only too well how it felt to be poisoned after Quirrell spiked her tea. The thought of enduring that again made her ill.

Elara returned later, carrying a bundle under her arm, and found Harriet leaning on the partition next to the cooling cauldron. "It's done, then?"

Harriet nodded.

"Excellent. Well done, Harriet," Elara smiled—one of her rare, full smiles, and Harriet tried to return it, but she'd gone weak in the knees, her hands shaking. "Are you all right?"

"'M fine."

Hesitating, Elara touched her shoulder. "No, you're not. Harriet, if you don't wish to do this, then don't. You shouldn't allow anyone, especially Hermione and me, to pressure you into anything. The potion will keep if we bottle it up. You can give it to Hermione when she returns."

"It's fine," Harriet sighed through her nose and rubbed her eyes, thankful Elara didn't gripe about her touching her face. "I'm just—afraid I botched it. What'll happen when I drink it?"

"I could drink it, if you want."

"No," she shook her head. "No, if anyone's going to be laid up in hospital because I can't brew worth a shite, it'll be me."

"A terribly Gryffindor sentiment. What are we going to do with you?" Elara pulled out the bundle she'd brought, and when Harriet took it in her hands, she realized it was a set of robes, a dark emerald pair for a witch, done with constellations and stars stitched into the panels.

"Are these—these are Professor Sinistra's! I've seen her wear these before! How did you get these?"

"Laundry," Elara said without pause, turning the robes over to show Harriet the book and flask she'd included. When Harriet continued to stare at her, the other witch frowned. "Where did you think I went for so long? They're clean. I was bribing house-elves."

"Bribing house—."

"This—." Elara tapped the book, ignoring Harriet's sputtering. "Is the Quasar Quarterly."

"An astronomy periodical? How did you get that?"

"Well, just because Hermione thinks astrology is rubbish and you hate the maths doesn't mean I can't like the subject." She pinked in the cheeks and cleared her throat. "I would assume Professor Sinistra receives the same subscription. Just pretend to read it. Turn the pages every so often. And this—." She touched the flask. "How many hours of Polyjuice did you brew?"

"Twelve," Harriet recited. "Err, or less. Hermione said it's meant to be twelve—but this is our first time brewing it, right? So it might not be as potent, and if it's 'contaminated' at all, or watered down, it could be less. There should be at least six hours there."

"And one mouthful is supposed to last an hour?"

"Or less. 'A mouthful' isn't an exact measurement, is it? And different people have different sized bodies and stuff, and Snape always goes on about how the 'internal composition of organs and blood impact potion viability' and whatnot. So, I can bank on thirty minutes, then I have to drink again, just to make sure." She extracted the flask from the robes. "Is this Professor Sinistra's too?"

Smirking, Elara nodded.

"No! I wouldn't have fancied her a lush."

"I actually think she puts coffee in there, when she has to be up during the day. Her entire area of study is night-based, Harriet."

"Oh, my mistake." Sighing, Harriet put the flask, book, and robes up on the dry back of the toilet's tank. "Might as well get this over with."

She fished the vial out of her pocket and removed the professor's single hair, letting it drop into the cauldron. For a second, nothing happened, and then the liquid morphed into a murky purple shot through with lighter bands of lavender and periwinkle.

"Put the robes on before you drink the potion."

Harriet glanced at Elara, confused—and then realized what the other witch meant. "Right. Thanks."

Elara stepped out of the stall, letting Harriet shut the door and shuck her own clothes and pull on Professor Sinistra's, the excess cloth puddling around her smaller frame. Minding the sleeves, Harriet ladled Polyjuice into the flask, and once it was almost too full, she stopped, looking at the dubious goop like it might jump out of the flask and attack her. Sighing, Harriet muttered, "Cheers," and drank.

The taste of dusty blueberries burst on her tongue and Harriet almost gagged, not because it was terribly unpleasant, but because it was unexpected and overwhelming. She held down her gorge and swallowed, having to do so several times as the thick, syrupy potion seemed to cling to her mouth and esophagus. "Ugh."

The effects weren't immediate; indeed, Harriet assumed she'd messed something up along the way, because all she felt was a slight queasiness in her middle. Then, the queasiness changed to a sharp, aching tightness, spreading from her middle to her chest, and Harriet squeezed her eyes shut, leaning on the partition. Her legs burned, pain shooting through her knees, and Harriet wanted to yell for Elara, tell her something was wrong, but all she could do was gasp and wheeze as the skin of her arms bubbled, darkened, and then—.

Then, it was over.

Breathing heavily, Harriet blinked, wondering what was wrong with her eyes—before she realized Professor Sinistra didn't wear glasses, and she lifted a shaky, unfamiliar hand to remove them. The astronomy professor wasn't a large woman by any means, but she was considerably larger than Harriet. The second-year Slytherin found herself too tall, her legs too long, rounded in unexpected ways with more weight in different areas. She touched her chest—until she realized she'd just groped her professor, no matter how inadvertent, and blushed from her cheeks to her toes.

"Merlin," she wheezed in a strange, husky voice. She thanked every force in the bloody universe that Hermione hadn't picked a male professor.

"Harriet?"

"I'm, um—."

Elara repeated her name with more urgency, shaking the door. Harriet reached out and unlatched it.

They stared at one another, a spooked shadow passing through Elara's colorless eyes as she found herself looking at one of her professors, sweaty and shivering in a loo, looking for all the world like they'd seen something ghastly. Harriet just couldn't believe how tall Elara was, given she could meet her eyes without looking down. "It—." Elara cleared her throat. "It worked."

"At least I didn't poison myself," Harriet said—then winced, because while she had Professor Sinistra's voice, she didn't sound quite the same. How odd. "Err, I better not talk. Sinistra has more of a Scouse accent than I do. I sound weird."

Elara nodded. "Okay. I'm going to go now and make sure Professor Sinistra stays in her office.

Don't forget your flask, the book, and the paper."

"I won't."

"Okay. Meet you here before dinner?"

"Yes."

The other Slytherin left, leaving Harriet to gather her scattered wits and ignore the mirrors, not wanting to glimpse herself in its depths. She'd never use Polyjuice again; the invasiveness of it had her on edge, and Harriet couldn't convince herself the unsettled rock in her gut wasn't from drinking liquefied lacewing flies and whatever other nonsense Hermione had tossed in the cauldron. She stole several deep, calming breaths and tried to stand like Professor Sinistra would, which necessitated a brief stint in front of the mirrors, the pinched scowl she wore like nothing she'd ever seen on the astronomy instructor.

For all her planning, Elara hadn't given Harriet shoes, so she made do with resizing her own, happy the robes fell to her feet and concealed them. Eventually, she had no further reason to procrastinate and hang about, so Harriet schooled her expression and forced her anxiety back, thinking about all manner of unpleasant things, including each she'd lied to the Dursleys. She hadn't been a guiltless child at times, and now she tried to channel that same nervous steel she'd forced into her spine whenever faced with a furious Uncle Vernon.

Water dripped below the sinks as Harriet counted to ten and opened her eyes—a stranger's eyes. She could do this. For Hermione.

She gathered her periodical and her paper, tucked them under her arm, stepped out of the loo—

And almost collided with Neville Longbottom.

Shite.

A/N: Harriet: "I'm never drinking your funny toilet potions ever again, Hermione."

little lies

lxxx. little lies

The Boy Who Lived stood not two feet from the door with his hand outstretched, looking as if he'd been reaching for the handle before it popped open.

Harriet gasped as they ran into one another. She went to quip a scathing remark—but the frightened, shocked look in Longbottom's wide-eyes stilled her and returned a measure of clarity to Harriet's anxious, startled thoughts.

He thinks I'm Professor Sinistra.

"Wh—what do you think you're doing, Long—Mr. Longbottom?" Harriet demanded, hoping his own surprise helped cover the strange pitch of her voice. She tried to concentrate and thought back on every lecture she'd ever heard Professor Sinistra give—but all her classes happened in the middle of the night, and Harriet could rarely concentrate on her voice without dozing off. It always sounded soft and far away, like the witch was a hooting night owl who deigned to fly over and teach at the school.

"Professor Sinistra!" Neville exclaimed, gone pale in the face. "I was—I—uh, have you seen Potter by any chance?"

"Potter?" She wanted to kick Longbottom in the shins. Was he actually following her?! What a berk! "Potter from Slytherin?"

"Yes, ma'am. You see, I was worried about her going off on her own, given what's been occurring lately. It's not safe."

Rubbish!

"Is that what you're doing, trying to go into a girl's loo—lavatory? Well?"

Longbottom gave her a funny look, though he had the grace to blush with embarrassment. "This is Moaning Myrtle's place, isn't it? I was told no one ever used it. I knew she came this way, and just, uh, wanted to make sure Pot—Harriet was okay." His eyes narrowed, a small furrow appearing between his light brows. "What are you doing here, Professor?"

Does he honestly talk to all of his professors like this?

"That is none of your business, Longbottom. Err—ten points from Gryffindor! Yes!"

"What?! But that's not—!"

"Get back to your dormitory, or I'll make it twenty! Go on!"

He didn't need to be told again, but Harriet did catch the second odd glance he threw at her over his shoulder as he retreated. He disappeared around the corner, and Harriet exhaled, her heart beating much too fast in her chest, her hands shaky where they clasped the book and newspaper to her chest. A laugh bubbled out of her mouth, and Harriet coughed, reminding herself to be serious.

She couldn't remember how long it'd been since she first drank the potion—ten minutes? Fifteen? How long was she in the loo before she left? How long until she reached the staffroom? What if she suddenly turned back into herself? What then?

Puffing out her cheeks, Harriet stepped forward, thinking it better to move than to stand frozen in place like a numpty. She hurried, shoes creating a steady, firm series of clicks against the stones as she walked and tried to set a casual pace, though walking in someone else's body proved difficult. She tripped twice, earning one muttered comment about being "drunk on the job" from a crotchety portrait of a wizard with an ear horn.

Set came alive at one point, whirling about her feet in the flickering torchlight, and he threw himself toward a convenient door. Harriet didn't question him and did as indicated, cursing her clumsy limbs as she stepped inside the room and eased the door closed. Moments later, McGonagall rounded the far bend and hustled by. Harriet didn't breathe until the witch was out of sight again.

Merlin!

The remainder of her trip to the staffroom proved uneventful, and Harriet felt profoundly lucky to find the room empty, embers sputtering in the wide hearth flanked by gargoyles, the antique tables barren with the chairs neatly tucked in. There were four tall, cushioned chairs facing the fire, their backs to the largest table probably used in staff meetings. Glancing about to make sure she was alone, Harriet set out the paper like Elara had suggested, tilting the chair as if someone had gotten up in a rush and forgotten it there. She went to the tea-station by the old wardrobe, made herself a cuppa, and quickly sunk into one of the wing chairs by the hearth, shielding herself from casual observation.

The carriage clock on the mantel chimed the hour. Harriet fumbled about in her pockets for the flask and took a measured sip. The taste of blueberries lingered as she opened the periodical on her lap and stared at the clock. Around her, the castle remained quiet and snowflakes stuck to the window's glass.

An hour passed, an hour spent fretting and twiddling with the pages of Elara's booklet, the tea cold as bones on the little table by Harriet's seat. She drank from the flask twice more, once after thirty minutes had passed, and then again on the hour. The lower the potion inside dipped, the more anxious Harriet became, sweat prickling on her spine. What if Hermione and Elara were wrong? What if no one came around? What if Harriet just sat drinking tea as Professor Sinistra until her time ran out? What then?

A clatter at the door put an end to her inner woes, and a second later it popped open, propelled by magic instead of a hand, Professor Slytherin sauntering inside with Professor Snape looming at his heels.

"—with that blond half-wit gallivanting about, dogging my every move. I've cursed the fool thrice and think a fourth attempt will render what little brains he has irredeemable."

Professor Slytherin spoke in a harsh, dark tone Harriet had only ever heard him once or twice, the same voice he used after she dared hex him and he chucked her into a desk. He slammed the door shut behind Snape with a wave of his hand.

"Lockhart is, in and of himself, harmless," Snape drawled. "He doesn't know half of what he's looking at and spends much of his time locked in his office, doing Merlin knows what."

He sounded odd to Harriet too, not at all like the Snape who'd spent part of the summer at

Grimmauld Place. That Snape was always bitter and snappish and prone to sniping at them over dinner. His temper sparked with a word and fell just as quickly. This Snape was cold, laconic. He spoke with all the emotionless precision of a knife dicing potions ingredients, and Harriet didn't like it at all.

"Being utterly useless and inconvenient." The pair passed Harriet's seat, their shadows moving on the floor. Slytherin paused. "This rag! Who left this here?"

Harriet almost jumped out of her skin when Slytherin jerked the paper off the table and threw it over her head, right into the fire. The pages curled and blackened in an instant.

"Bloody Gaunt," Slytherin quietly seethed. The pair of dark wizards continued to the seats against the wall by the window, a chessboard between them waiting to be played. It was harder for Harriet to hear their voices, but not impossible. "He never called a session with the Wizengamot, and half the stupid population knows that, but they choke down the Prophet's tripe like gospel. He aims to start an inquiry that will remove both myself and the old man from the castle for at least a short period of time."

"It is a proverbial show of strength."

"There's nothing proverbial about it." Slytherin Summoned a bottle of wine from the rack by the tea-service, and his next words were given in undertone, so low Harriet almost missed them. "He means to 'conquer the beast' and thus further endear himself to the Board and undermine my authority. The Minister wishes for nothing more than to have a firm foothold here, one the Ministry has long been denied."

"Of course. How goes your search for the Basilisk?"

Harriet almost spat her tea out and had to swallow several times to keep herself from coughing, tears burning in her lashes. The WHAT?!

"Unsuccessful," Slytherin sneered, voice so cold Harriet thought Snape actually recoiled. Her Head of House poured himself a glass of dark wine and didn't offer the Potions Master any. Snape appeared bored and indifferent, unruffled by the slight. "Wherever Gaunt's agent has chosen to move it, I do not know, and it hasn't answered my call. I've scoured the Chamber from top to bottom and found no trace of the perpetrator."

By now, Harriet was silently wheezing in her chair, hands white-knuckled on the periodical in an attempt to hold onto something. Basilisk! How could it possibly be a Basilisk?! she wondered— no, demanded of her own thoughts. Merlin's fricking beard! And he thinks it's Gaunt—Minister bloody Gaunt!—responsible for all this?! He knows where the Chamber is! And Snape knows he knows and—.

Harriet continued to spiral, both wizards all but oblivious to her unobtrusive presence.

"I would suggest, again, that a second pair of eyes might help in—."

"And I would suggest, again, Snape, for you to stop parroting the old man's orders." Slytherin's eyes narrowed in such a way that Professor Snape bowed his head, the dark curtain of his oily hair falling forward. "As I've stated before, the knowledge of my ancestor's Chamber is not pertinent, and I won't allow outsiders to sully a thousand-year-long legacy for no reason. What help do you possibly think you'd be, anyway?"

Snape's dark eyes flashed in her direction, then away, fixing on Slytherin.

"I know Aurora's there, Severus. I haven't said anything not already brought to her attention in staff meetings." He scoffed and drank his wine.

Harriet's head swam. She was so disoriented, she didn't have a chance to panic about being brought to their attention. A Basilisk—a huge bloody Basilisk! How in the absolute hell was a fifty-foot serpent mucking about in the castle undetected? Snippets of the monster book she'd read in the library haunted Harriet, little passages about deadly venom and huge eel heads and a look that could kill. Holy shite! But how is it Petrifying people? The book mentioned nothing about that.

She glanced at the clock again—and jumped. Forty-five minutes had passed, lost somewhere between her own worrying, Slytherin's griping, and Harriet's private shock. The dark skin of her arms began to bubble, her hands looking like she'd thrust them into an active beehive. Harriet snatched the flask out of her pocket again and drank.

"Something the matter, Sinistra?"

Harriet didn't spill—she didn't—but it was a near thing, and she couldn't stop herself from trembling when she turned her head far enough to see Snape staring at her. "Bit of a head cold," she said, pitching her voice low. It came out rough and passably ill sounding.

"Hmm."

Slytherin set his goblet aside. "Are Potter and Black minding themselves?" he asked Snape—and Harriet flinched. "I told them to stay in the dungeons."

Snape looked at Harriet for a moment longer, face inscrutable, then faced Professor Slytherin again. "I've had no difficulty with the brats."

"I asked them both why they remained for the break and received unsatisfactory replies."

"The only type of reply they are fit to giving, I fear." Snape traced the row of buttons on his sleeve with an idle hand, his fingers long and pale against the black cloth. "Black was recently emancipated, as I'm sure she told you. She chose to remain with Potter, whose relatives work overseas for much of the year."

Slytherin grew bored of the conversation and returned to his wine, muttering scathing comments about Minister Gaunt again. He just lied to him, Harriet marveled. Snape just lied to Slytherin, right to his face without blinking an eye. How did he do that?

They continued to speak on inconsequential matters and didn't bring up the Basilisk—a bloody Basilisk!—again, only mentioning things concerning the students, their grades and behavior, and the school itself. Harriet knew they'd start talking about something more consequential the moment she left, but she'd already learned more than she thought she would. A lot more.

A Basilisk. Professor Slytherin thought Minister Gaunt—the Minister for Magic himself—was behind the Chamber's opening, behind his framing. Why? Headmaster Dumbledore told her he feared it wouldn't be safe for Harriet to have this knowledge, and though Harriet despised being kept in the dark, she understood he had a reason; she'd blundered headfirst into a problem she hadn't the slightest hope of solving, and it didn't lessen her worries to know what the snake actually was. It made them so, so much worse.

She stood, wagering enough time had passed, and gathered her periodical. Slytherin kept talking to Snape about a promising new lesson plan he'd devised—and Merlin, wasn't it weird to hear Slytherin talk as if he actually enjoyed teaching. The Potions Master's cold eyes snapped to Harriet

as she moved, like a snake seeing something small and edible stir in the brush, then returned to the Defense instructor.

Harriet had a hand on the door when Snape stiffened and looked at her again—but this time, his eyes lingered on her shoes.

Harriet's shoes.

Snape opened his mouth as if to say something, and the Slytherin witch stepped into the corridor. She let the door come closed with a soft click—and then started running.

misery loves company

lxxxi. misery loves company

Severus hated the holidays.

He said the same thing every year, and every year the sentiment deepened; he despised the juvenility of it, the forced cheer, the interruption to his schedule. He cherished the brief, fleeting respite when the dunderheads first departed and quiet descended, as if the whole of Hogwarts held its breath—but then the stillness shattered; the castle mourned, his colleagues meddled, and Severus worried himself to distraction over Slytherin's plotting.

He hated the Yule time—and that had nothing to do with the fucking snake roaming loose in the school.

The Chamber of Secrets. The moment Severus saw the writing on the wall, he—and Dumbledore —both knew Gaunt was testing the waters, testing his own power and Slytherin's hold on the student body, probing for weakness. No one else could find the Chamber, not even Albus bloody Dumbledore himself, and so the only person capable of opening it was Slytherin—or Gaunt, or Voldemort, or Riddle. It was all the same wretched person in the end.

The situation cycled back to the events of summer, beginning with Gaunt sending out lackeys to find the Potter girl. The Minister knew something odd had occurred with Potter before the Mirror of Erised shattered, and he shouldn't know anything at all; they had a traitor in their midsts, one informed by the Minister on how to open the Chamber and move the Basilisk. It was curious that this informant knew to relocate it somewhere Slytherin couldn't find; the schisms between Slytherin's and Gaunt's minds made themselves apparent at the worst possible junctures.

"Black and Potter are up to something," Severus said as he leaned into the wall by the Headmaster's hearth. Night sunk fast over the highlands, lacing the stones with a harsh, biting chill that raked its claws against his bones. "Though it hardly needs saying."

"Oh?" Albus commented from behind his desk, having the audacity to pretend he didn't understand what Severus meant. "How so?"

The Potions Master thought it obvious; if Potter dumping hot cider down her front that afternoon like a twit hadn't been clue enough, then Black's stiff, blank expression confirmed his suspicions. Neither could lie to save their own skins.

"I didn't pursue them. I found my time better served keeping Slytherin preoccupied instead of chasing those idiots about like a madman herding spiteful cats."

Albus chuckled, blue eyes bright, and then sobered, turning his attention inward, following thoughts beyond Severus' knowledge. "She knows."

"Who knows what?"

"Harriet knows about the Basilisk—or, I should say, Harriet knows the creature set loose from the Chamber is a snake, not that it is a Basilisk."

Severus stared, and the cold at his back reached deeper, past his skin and bones and into his heart,

a psychosomatic spasm curling his fingers in upon themselves. "How." It wasn't a question, and the Potions Master was sure he didn't want the answer. What if they'd…missed something? A curse laid by Quirrell? New curses were made every day, and who knew better what had occurred before the Mirror than the girl herself? Who else better equipped to speak the language of snakes and open the way in the Chamber?

What if she was being controlled? What if—?

"She can hear it," Dumbledore said, ignorant of Severus' building terror. "I imagine it scared the poor girl half to death the first time it spoke near her."

"Why didn't she come forward, then?"

"Why does any child hide information? Because she was uncertain and afraid. Her upbringing with Petunia and Vernon—." And here Severus saw a shadow of the man Voldemort still feared, no matter his diminished power and ability. For the Potions Master, thoughts of Tuney curdled hot and hateful, surging with the kind of terrible longing that swayed him toward the Dark Arts; a lust for violence, for retribution, for ten long years of his wrist burning in agony every time she and her dumb waste of a husband raised a hand to the girl. Dumbledore's anger was a different beast entirely; it was cool, quiet, and subtle. It existed in his eyes, in his voice—and it cut all the more deeply for its reservation. "—has taught Harriet caution when approaching adults with her concerns."

Stubborn, obstinate brat.

"It weighs heavy on my heart, Severus, the thought of him whispering madness in the child's ear. Should he learn of their shared ability, he'll seek to corrupt her. We can't let that happen. Harriet is good, and in the end, that goodness will be what saves her and those she loves from Tom Riddle."

Love. Severus almost rolled his eyes; Merlin spare him from Albus Dumbledore and his crackpot notions on love. Love did nothing but sow discontent in wayward, unsuspecting hearts. Severus had loved Lily—not as a sister, not romantically, but in the way one loves the constant and simple things in their life: a cool breeze on a summer day, a comfortable place to rest after a trying day, the shoulder upon which one cries and sheds their woes. Not that Severus ever cried, but Lily had always been the first one he'd see after rowing with his father. He could still remember the feel of her warm fingers sticking Muggle plasters over his cuts.

She was part of the building blocks he'd built his life upon. From the time that they were seven- years-old, it had been Severus and Lily, two constants sharing a single sphere through their formative years—and then she was gone, gone like summer days and cool breezes and comfortable places, plunging Severus into an undying winter of his own fucking making. Oh, he'd placed the blame on everyone else when it happened—on her, on Potter, Black, Pettigrew, Lupin, on that worthless dickhead Slughorn who couldn't spare a stringy half-blood an iota of attention, on Dumbledore and McGonagall and the blasted Dark Lord—when it always came down to two horrid syllables escaping his own bloody mouth.

In the end, love brought Severus nothing but servitude, and it was still the only part of him worth a shite.

The Headmaster poured himself a small hot toddy and offered one to Severus, but the Potions Master declined with a jerk of his head, not meeting his eyes.

"Are you sure, my boy? It is Christmas, after all."

"No. I imagine Slytherin is still awake and—slithering."

Dumbledore sipped his drink and pursed his lips, not quite holding back his smile. "Ah, perhaps there is something to the old adage of 'no rest for the wicked.'"

"Are you referring to me or to him?"

"Never you, Severus."

The Potions Master snorted and flicked his hair back from his eyes. "Of course, Headmaster," he drawled. "If you're interested, I do have a theory on what Potter and Black are up to."

"Oh dear."

"Indeed. I informed you of a theft from my private stores?"

"Yes, you did."

"I provided you a list of the possible potions one might intend to brew with those missing ingredients—among which was Polyjuice Potion." Severus' black eyes glinted in the firelight and he crossed his arms, gritting his teeth. "Earlier this afternoon, I noticed Sinistra acting oddly, and her shoes were quite similar to the pair for the girls' uniform, aside from their size. At dinner, she was dressed differently and didn't seem to have any memory of our meeting in the staff room. She mentioned having a, and I quote, 'lovely afternoon with Miss Black discussing various ephemerides and their impact upon transmutation Transfigurations.'"

Dumbledore covered his mouth with his hand, looking very close to laughter, which only served to further infuriate Severus. "Do you truly think our wayward trio capable of brewing Polyjuice Potion? They are only second-years, Severus."

"Black? Merlin, no. Potter and Granger?" Severus considered the idea again, just as he'd been doing all afternoon, ever since he glimpsed Sinistra's curious choice in footwear—ever since he first took note of the missing ingredients, really, and theorized Potter and her cohorts might have gotten into his stores somehow. He wasn't an idiot; the timing of their visit to his office and the theft were suspiciously close. If he had a shred of proof, he'd ruin their wretched little lives, but for now, he'd settle for making them miserable. If he didn't strangle all three first. "Potter and Granger could do it, especially if Granger coached the girl."

"If you're right, Severus, what do you believe Miss Potter learned?"

"Too much. Slytherin was particularly loquacious today. If it was, in fact, her masquerading as Sinistra, she does know it's a Basilisk now."

Dumbledore sighed. "Oh, Harriet," he murmured, shaking his head.

"You do realize I'm going to give her and Black detention for the remainder of break, correct?" Possibly into next year, doing some of the foulest ingredient prep imaginable.

"I think, under the circumstances, I will allow it." The Headmaster rubbed his brow, then returned his attention to his drink. "I've asked Minerva to give Mr. Longbottom detention as well."

Severus almost laughed. "What? The precious Boy Who Lived in detention? How scandalous."

"Like dear Harriet, Neville has become indelibly curious about the Chamber, but he is not as… well, let's say circumspect as Miss Potter and her friends."

"You mean he's a bloody, dunderhead Gryffindor who wouldn't know discretion if it kicked him in the face."

"That's not what I said, Severus."

"No, it's what you meant." He leaned off the wall and slunk over to one of the chairs in front of Dumbledore's desk. He Summoned the rum and a cup, pouring himself a mouthful and forgoing the tea. They drank in silence, the fire crackling in the grate, the winter winds buffeting the tower walls, and Severus finished his rum far too soon for his liking. Bloody Potter was going to be the death of him. "So…you don't suspect the girl is the one behind the Chamber's opening?"

"No. Harriet is a reticent child, but she knows her own mind. I fear we may be playing host to a far more insidious host."

Severus sunk into his seat, leaning into his hand, pale fingers splayed across his face. He studied the Headmaster, the minutiae of the older wizard's expressions and subtle movements, the steady whir of silver instruments interrupting his own introspection. "You think it's another one of his homunculi."

"Possibly."

"For fuck's sake, Albus!" Severus' empty glass flew and crashed into the hearth. Fawkes shrieked on his perch. "We're barely treading water as is, torn between Gaunt and Slytherin! We're well and truly buggered if he has another one! How is he making them if the Dark Lord isn't even alive?!"

"But he is alive, my boy. Simply not in a state conceivable to you or I. Did incident with Quirinus prove nothing to you? As for how he makes them, I cannot say."

"Not 'cannot.' You 'will not' say!"

"Fine. I will not say, for I do not know for sure, Severus. I have only my suspicions."

And a distinct lack of trust, the Potions Master sneered in his own thoughts, steepling his hands together. Morgana save them if another clone of Tom bloody Riddle reared its foul head.

Discussion turned to pettier and more inconsequential topics, and eventually McGonagall joined them, the Scottish witch worked into high dudgeon over the Weasley twins' latest atrocity, to which Severus gave his usual suggestion of expulsion. Minerva rounded on him, hat askew, and scowled.

"And what of your own students, Snape? Are they behaving?"

Severus shared a blank look with the Headmaster. If one can call potential larceny, lying, and identity theft behaving.

"As docile as lambs, Minerva. As docile as lambs."

xXx

Severus' feet moved without a sound upon the cold stones as he wandered into the castle's depths.

Curfew had long since passed, giving way to snoring portraits and lazy, tired ghosts, winter thick and chilling as it seeped into the halls and fought against the wavering warmth thrown by the guttering torches. Severus himself was little more than a taut, narrow shadow drifting against the wall, walking carefully, a faint blush in his face from that third glass of rum he knew he shouldn't

have had. Bloody old goats.

He found no students out of bed, no familiars causing mischief, no Peeves, the light in Slytherin's office gone dark for the night, Filch passed out and snoring with Trelawney and a dozen bottles of sherry in the staff lounge on the sixth floor.

There was no snake, no Petrified children, no writing on the wall, which was all well and good, because some blighter kept killing all the fucking roosters, and Severus wasn't stupid enough to think he could surprise a Basilisk while half-pissed and survive.

He returned to his office like a knackered reptile creeping back to its den and collapsed in his chair, groaning at the frigid cold that had stolen into the room after the fire had died earlier in the evening. He couldn't be arsed with lighting it again, and so he only waved a hand at the candle on the desk, letting its paltry glow give the room color and shape.

Gifts cluttered part of the floor and the counter where he worked with smaller cauldrons or personal brews. It would shock most of the student population to know the dreaded Dungeon Bat did, in fact, receive presents for Yule—but always the same gifts, from the same people, thoughtless trinkets and items bought in bulk when the pure-blood families did their yearly shopping for tokens meant to be sent to acquaintances for posterity's sake. The heap consisted of the same standard potions manuals nabbed off the bargain rack at Flourish and Blotts, packages of quills, parchment, and cheap ink. Lucius and Narcissa always sent him the same bottle of Blishen's every year, despite the fact that he'd—mostly—given up drinking.

Except for when obstinate old Gryffindors badger you into it, idiot.

He'd end up binning most of the items without bothering to shuck the paper. Severus sneered at the familiar shapes and packages—and then his eyes caught on something not so familiar.

The old families used the same, ubiquitous wrapping paper, another staple of their seemingly infinite ability to channel the same, stupid trains of thought, but this gift had been folded together in what looked like standard parchment paper, sealed with far too much Spell-O-Tape. Severus flicked his wrist and let his wand fall into his hand, waving it at the innocuous package so it floated over and dropped onto his desk without a sound.

After two detection spells failed to find anything amiss, Severus stuck his wand back into his sleeve and tore the parchment open.

Something dry and fragile brushed his fingertips as it fell to the desk's top and the Potions Master found himself staring at a loose pile of shed snakeskin. From under the skin, he slid free a brief note.

Professor Snape,

Thanks for watching us this summer. Hermione told me Horned Serpent skin is rare, and I hope you find it useful.

- Harriet Potter & Elara Black

P.S., Elara said not to put her name on the card but I did anyway.

Severus sighed as he read the note again, folding the torn parchment in his fingers.

The brat really is going to be the death of me.

A/N: Snape chapters are always fun to write.

in the heart of the earth

lxxxii. in the heart of the earth

Harriet and Elara stood huddled in the shadow of Verna the Vexing, a rather foreboding statue guarding the corridor to the upper dungeons where the Hufflepuffs dwelt. They waited and watched students arrive in the entrance hall.

"Do you see him?" Elara whispered.

"No," Harriet replied, but she could see very little in the dim lighting, a blizzard rallying itself out beyond the bounds of the lake, making the grounds and the steps leading into the castle darker than usual. Everyone coming inside had their cloaks wrapped tight and their hoods drawn high.

Elara sighed. "We might as well get it over with. We can't hide forever."

Harriet thought she'd love to hide forever and disagreed with Elara, because if she had to spend another minute in the dungeons prepping potions ingredients or cleaning the cupboard or sitting very quietly staring at the wall, she might just pickle herself in a large jar to get away. "You know he's just waiting to swoop in like a—a vampire bat! Ready to suck the life and—and fun out of everything he can."

"You're being dramatic."

"'Course I'm being dramatic, but it doesn't make it any less true."

Elara pulled a face that Harriet chose to ignore, instead swiping her overlong fringe from her eyes as she peered into the higher hall. "I think…that's her."

"Do you see Snape?"

"Isn't that him there, with Professor McGonagall?"

The back of that black cloak had to be Snape, because Professor Slytherin didn't loom quite so much, and the pair of brawling Gryffindors he and McGonagall had cornered looked suitably cowed.

"Wait here."

Elara stepped out from behind Verna the Vexing and darted forward, maneuvering through the cold, tired crowd with relative ease. Harriet saw Hermione jump when Elara's hand suddenly grabbed her by the wrist, but she relented to the other witch's insistent tugging, and they retreated from the entrance hall not a moment too soon. Snape turned from McGonagall and the Gryffindors, his dark eyes sweeping the area. He scowled.

"Harriet!" Hermione exclaimed, and they embraced, Harriet getting a face full of snow-dampened hair, Hermione wincing when she felt Livi's coils hidden under her cloak. "What happened? Did you two finish our, erm, project? Was it successful? What did you learn—?"

"Not here," Elara interjected, her gray eyes flicking from Snape to the other professors and ears who might be listening in. "Come on, let's go to Myrtle's."

"Myrtle's? But what about dinner—."

Harriet let Elara explain why they'd be better off going hungry for the night if it meant avoiding the staff, because not only Snape had been keen on assigning detentions to students over the break. Ron Weasley actually swore at Professor Sprout when he got in trouble for throwing snowballs at her Giddy Gladiolas, and apparently got a letter sent home to his mum. Elara theorized the professors meant to keep them from wandering off and thus close at hand if anything went amiss, and Harriet was inclined to agree with her, especially after what she heard Slytherin say in the staffroom. Still, she wished the holidays hadn't been so dreadfully boring.

They found the loo as it always was; cold, wet, poorly lit and smelling damp and musty. Harriet thought they spent far too much time in there, but finding a private place for conversation at Hogwarts could prove challenging. Using Harriet's trunk had its limitations, what with Pansy always interfering and Elara's hatred for tight, confined spaces. Longbottom was mucking about, sticking his nose in everyone else's business, and that made things even more difficult. So, the trio tromped once more into Myrtle's loo, for what Harriet hoped was the last time.

"Elara doesn't even have detention anymore," Harriet commented to the ongoing conversation, pouting as they stood together in the stall where their potion had once bubbled. "It's not fair."

"Yes, but tell her why that is."

Harriet leaned on the stall wall. "It's not my fault. Snape had us squeezing ink from squids, and he started telling me off for doing it wrong, and err—."

Elara lifted a brow while Hermione looked between them, clearly confused over where this tangent was going.

"I squeezed the squid a bit too hard because the berk was frustrating me, and the eye popped, splattering on Elara and—well, you know how she gets. She sicked up all over Snape—."

"And then this little monster started cackling like it was the most brilliant thing she'd ever seen, which is why you're still in detention with Snape while I got reassigned to Professor McGonagall, whose an actual human being and only set me lines, not—squeezing squids."

"His face was pretty funny, though."

"I thought he was going to kill us both and hide the bodies in a cauldron."

Baffled, Hermione shook her head and blinked, loose coils of hair bouncing around her shoulders. "But what about the Polyjuice? What happened?"

"It worked," Harriet rushed to assure her. A little bit too well. Turning back into herself had been both a relief and a right pain. "Everything went to plan and I wasn't caught, but—um—Snape knows."

"What? How could he possibly know if you weren't caught?"

"He knows," Elara asserted before Harriet could, her face grim. "He's far too observant, and he keeps attempting to confuse or catch us at a lie. He doesn't have proof, else we'd probably be expelled, but Snape never needs proof, does he?"

Harriet nodded, remembering when they'd escaped the troll and he'd snarled at them. I don't need proof, Potter, and you're a fool to suggest otherwise. She shivered. "That's why we grabbed you straight off. We worried he'd trick a confession out of you."

Rubbing the spot between her brows, Hermione kept her eyes on the sticky tiles as she thought. "But how could he know about the Polyjuice? Or, in this instance, guess about the Polyjuice? Because that's just highly unlikely."

"I think it was my shoes," Harriet confessed, and all three witches looked down at the shoes in question—a pair of black, laced brogues with a solid, flat heel and a few scuffs on the side. "We didn't have a pair of Professor Sinistra's, and though the robes mostly covered them, he seemed to notice and look down as I was leaving. He probably would have followed me had he not been sitting with Slytherin."

A pained look crossed Hermione's face. "Of course. Those are clearly from the uniform." Girls had two choices for shoes: the brogues with laces Elara and Harriet wore, or the single-strap Mary Janes Hermione had on. "Was it worth it? Did you learn anything?"

Nodding, Harriet quickly recited all she'd heard, speaking in a low undertone so her words wouldn't bounce in the confined space. She couldn't remember every word verbatim the way Hermione might have desired, but she recalled enough of the details. The more she spoke, the more Hermione's expression twisted in shock, disgust—and finally, anger.

"But if Professor Slytherin's known where the Chamber is all this time, then he knew there was a Basilisk in there before this other person came around and let it out! A Basilisk! That's preposterous! It couldn't possibly be a Basilisk! Someone would be—." She winced, her voice high and strangled. Before she spoke again, Hermione took a breath and calmed herself. "We didn't see much information on Basilisks when we were researching, but what we did read said absolutely nothing about Petrification. Basilisks are exceedingly dangerous and Dark; not to be cruel, but we have to wonder why no one has died. And why does he assume Minister Gaunt is behind this? None of this makes any sense at all."

Hermione pressed her hands against her cheeks and chewed on her lip, as she was fond of doing when presented with a particularly daunting problem. No matter her friend's tenacity, Harriet didn't think she'd make any sense of this puzzle; somebody opened the bloody Chamber, not that it mattered, according to Slytherin. Apparently the founder's Basilisk was no longer in residence.

"It might be best to let this go and just keep our heads down," Elara muttered. Hermione shot her a look, and the taller witch returned it. "Harriet and I will make sure you're never alone, and we'll be careful not to wander."

"Like any of that matters when there's a Basilisk roving about—one that can apparently flout all laws of physics and—and magical physics and just vanish into thin air whenever it pleases!"

Her hands moved from her cheeks to cover the whole of her face, and Elara touched her shoulder, giving it an awkward rub.

Harriet tried to think of something clever or comforting to say, and as she turned over the words in her own head, she heard footsteps in the hall. Recalling how Longbottom had been seconds away from barging into the loo after she turned into Professor Sinistra, Harriet fumbled at her pockets and jerked out her Invisibility Cloak.

"Harriet?" Hermione questioned, looking up when she felt the Cloak's odd, heavy cloth fall over her head. "What are you doing?"

"Someone's coming—."

The door came open and struck the inner wall with considerable force. The three witches settling

under the Invisibility Cloak flinched, drawing closer together, their breath held. At first, Harriet thought it might be Snape; the Potions Master had a terrible penchant for throwing doors open, dramatic as could be, but she couldn't imagine the wizard mad enough to go trouncing into a girls' loo. A shadow pulled along the floor, no footsteps seeming to touch the damp tiles—and the first stall door slammed open.

A knot of fear twisted in Harriet's middle as whoever had entered the loo continued to open each stall, pausing just long enough to ascertain it was empty before moving on to the next. When the door to their stall came open, Harriet felt the air ripple against the Cloak—and her throat tightened upon seeing Professor Slytherin standing there, his red eyes bright and ghastly in the lowlight, the hem of his robes gliding over the water like a snake's scaled belly.

What on earth is he doing here? Why is Professor Slytherin checking a lavatory when everyone else is at dinner? Is he—some kind of pervert?

Two more stalls extended beyond the one currently occupied by the three witches, and Slytherin checked them both. Harriet didn't dare move, and so she lost sight of the wizard for a minute, marveling at how he managed to walk without a sound, like he didn't have feet. Slytherin came into view again as he went to the sinks, and he leaned against the middle one, pale hands braced on the porcelain. He looked at himself in the mirror, his young face blank, eerie in its passivity—and, all of a sudden, he stepped back.

"Open."

Livi stirred beneath Harriet's shirt at the utterance of Parseltongue, and a faint shiver went through the floor under their feet, rattling the fixtures and toilets fixed to the walls and floors. Professor Slytherin stepped back again, and the sinks moved, the middle one rising upward, the others peeling to the side like a misshapen flower blooming, its petals unfurling to reveal its center—or, in this case, the opening of a huge pipe.

"What is he doing?" Hermione breathed in Harriet's ear, but the younger girl didn't have an answer for her. What was the professor doing? Slytherin watched the sinks until they stopped, settling in place with a jarring click, and then the wizard strode forward without an ounce of hesitation, stepped into the pipe, and vanished into its unknown depths. Hermione and Elara mirrored Harriet's gasp.

Moving together, the trio moved to the pipe's edge and looked inside, but they could nothing aside from the gray metal, corroded by years and years of water passing against it. "He said 'open' in Parseltongue," Harriet told the other two, feeling on the edge of an epiphany she wasn't sure she wanted to make. "What if—? It has to be the Chamber!"

They stared into the bottomless dark and shared a nervous, awkward breath. It was the Chamber of Secrets. They were looking down at the entrance to Salazar Slytherin's legendary Chamber—in a bloody girl's loo.

The sudden shivering started again, and the sinks began to pull in upon themselves, closing the entrance behind the professor. Elara and Hermione shuffled back, and Harriet tried to as well, but she couldn't move her feet. She swayed, caught unawares by the sudden loss of traction, and she had just enough time to see Set's black, shadowy hands wrap about her ankles before he yanked her forward, and Harriet plunged down into the closing pipe.

"Harriet!"

Hermione's shocked shriek disappeared in an instant, whipped away by the harsh clang! of Harriet

smacking her head, her elbows and shins skidding on the bumpy rivets, rolling once, and then—

Crash!

She landed hard upon a solid, flat surface, the air leaving her lungs in a jagged, broken gust. Harriet heard her name again—distant now, so far she couldn't rightly say if it was her name being called or just an echo of her own thoughts—and then the dreaded, decisive thump of the sinks coming back together, trapping Harriet below their depths.

"Fuck!"

The dark pressed in on all sides and she panted, scared and more than a little rattled by the fall. As far as she could tell, she knelt on a stone landing at the bottom of the pipe, a deep gutter carved into the flagstones where water could flow and trickle into what sounded like a culvert. Harriet stuck her hand over the open space and felt the cold emptiness press against her skin. Squinting, she thought the culvert—the very one she'd almost rolled right into—turned away, and plunged downward again in another drain.

Harriet patted the surface under her until she could find the pipe that had dumped her here, and she also found the Invisibility Cloak tangled about her legs. Livius loosened his coils from around her body, cursing the sudden, quick descent.

"Are you hurt?" she asked him, keeping her voice low. How Professor Slytherin hadn't come running, she hadn't a clue. Hadn't he heard her fall? If he hadn't, should she risk lighting her wand? Would it be better to be found, to go on undetected? If this truly was the entrance to the Chamber, Harriet didn't much like the idea of Slytherin knowing she'd stumbled inside.

After he finished cursing her name and her blatant disrespect, Livi calmed down enough to report no, he wasn't hurt, Harriet's arms having taken the brunt of the impact. "Can you tell me the way out?"

"We shall sssee."

She felt the serpent move about, hissing, and neither of them could get more than foot up the first pipe before sliding back down. Harriet tried telling it to open, or to make stairs or an exit, but the pipe and surrounding wall remained obstinately still. She was stuck.

"There isss a tunnel over there."

"A tunnel?"

Blind in the dark, Harriet followed Livi's voice and finally decided to risk lighting her wand. She pulled it from her brace, whispering, "Lumos Minima."

The paltry glow illuminated the narrow brick platform she stood upon and part of the deep culvert, a wide, corroded pipe diving down into the sodden blackness of the earth. To Harriet, it looked as if someone had built the platform after the fact, as if the pipes had been put into place and the builder had cut into them specifically to form a landing place for anyone looking to enter the aforementioned tunnel. A rough stone snake encircled the rounded entrance, and the tunnel beyond swept away, curling out of sight.

Set formed on the craggy wall and pointed down into the tunnel's depths.

"Like I'd follow you, you arsehole!" Harriet hissed. "It's your fault I'm bloody stuck here!"

Unmoved, Set pointed again, and Harriet once more felt the strange, sticky weight on her feet that had dragged her down here in the first place. "Fine!"

She had little choice in the matter, since she couldn't figure out how to open the entrance behind her. Swallowing, Harriet pulled the Invisibility Cloak around her shoulders, told Livi to follow, and set off into the dark.

x X x

The passage rounded in upon itself like the coils of a huge, dozing serpent, the uneven floor slanted low with the occasional step cut into the stone. Harriet kept one hand on the inner wall, and sometimes her fingers pressed against odd runes and symbols carved deep into the bedrock. She could see striations in the earth, different minerals and stones compressed by thousands of years of time and shifting earth, thin lines of gemstones glittering when her wand passed by them.

Ahead, Harriet could hear a muffled, constant roaring, like white noise on the telly when Dudley passed out and the program went off air. The air grew thin and smelled of wet things, reeds and brine and algae. Twice Harriet stopped and considered going back, going and waiting by the entrance, because Elara and Hermione would find someone to rescue her eventually. She only moved on with Set's encouragement, and because she kept imagining horrid scenarios in which no one ever came for her, and she died alone in the miserable dark.

That's a cheery thought.

The roaring grew louder, as did the smell. The tunnel stopped curving inward—and Harriet stifled a curse when she stepped forward and found herself at the edge of a massive underground reservoir, a solid bridge of natural rock leaping over the black liquid, framed on either side by rushing waterfalls. Lights hung in the cavern overhead like bulbous green stars plucked from the sky, kept aloft by magic alone, shining on the water and the bridge—and the vault door on the other side of the cavern, the one Harriet could see Professor Slytherin disappearing through.

"Nox," she murmured, lowering her wand. "C'mon, Livi."

Harriet urged the serpent up onto her shoulders and pulled the Cloak into place before hurrying over the bridge. The water masked her footsteps, and so she ran to catch the wizard, worried he'd shut the door and strand her outside of it. Slytherin moved at a steady clip, his wand in his hand, his robes whispering over the flat, shined stone of the new solar's interior. Harriet stepped over the door's raised threshold after him.

More little spots of starlight waited in the chamber, shining upon a vast, brass contraption of concentric circles forming a loose sphere, a solid bar in the middle of the floor holding it above them. The rustic, untouched texture of the walls gave way to Transfigured blocks and pillars—and Harriet gulped when she tipped her chin back and saw the undulating waters of the lake's belly rippling where there should have been a ceiling. What's holding that up?! Magic?! What if it wears off?!

She didn't have time to puzzle the mystery of it; Slytherin crossed the space without thought to the water overhead and stepped up to a second vault door, five metal snakes forming the head of a hydra splayed out from the center.

"Open," Professor Slytherin commanded, and the snakes obeyed, heads recoiling, the lock slamming back with a thunderous bang. The door rolled open, and Slytherin continued on his way with Harriet staying a few meters behind.

They entered another tunnel, long and dark, the professor not bothering to light his wand, and they stopped before yet another door. This opened just as the others had, revealing what Harriet could only think was the true Chamber of Secrets beyond it.

A vast chasm of open space, illuminated by faint, shimmering green light, the Chamber was larger than any Muggle cathedral but just as grand and self-assuming; a palpable film of disuse maligned by the scent of rot coated the air, but it still felt sacred there, a place for quiet awe and lowered voices. The columns rose up and up and up, right into the black, nacreous haze clinging to the ribbed arches, long, reflective pools lining the wide central aisle. Dark stone doors and corridors connected to the main hall, but Harriet couldn't help but stare at the huge, bearded bust of Salazar Slytherin himself waiting at the Chamber's other end.

Professor Slytherin kept walking, tapping his wand against his open hand as if lost in thought. Harriet kept pace—until her foot connected with a puddle, creating a loud, sudden splash that had the wizard whirling around and pointing his wand directly at her head.

Harriet froze, holding her breath, and Slytherin continued to hold his wand high. For one horrid second, it looked as if he could see her, but then his eerie red eyes roved away, taking in the rest of the Chamber, flitting from shadow to shadow in search of the noise's cause. "Homenum revelio."

The spell expanded outward from his wand and crossed over Harriet, but it didn't settle. When nothing happened, Slytherin narrowed his eyes and finally—finally—lowered his wand, his eyes still searching as he turned his back. Harriet sucked in a discreet breath.

That was close.

The wizard walked, silent as ever, until he stood under the unblinking eyes of his ancestor, every line of his face cast in deep relief by that watery, aquamarine glow, a single coil of brown hair falling across his brow. Slytherin lifted his free hand toward Salazar's face and snarled in Parseltongue. "I command you Salazar Slytherin, greatest of the Founders four, to bequeath your secrets unto me!"

Stone grated on stone, and Harriet watched in horrified trepidation as Salazar's mouth opened like one of those chintzy nutcracker dolls Aunt Petunia always left on the mantel at Christmas, revealing a narrow, blackened tunnel smaller than those they'd traversed to reach the Chamber. She waited as the dust settled and the shallow pool at the bust's massive chin stopped rippling. She waited for a full minute, tense and afraid—and yet, nothing happened.

Slytherin scoffed, dropping his arm. "Miserable cretin." He started casting spells then, putting his back to the statue, muttering and reading some kind of magic relay Harriet couldn't decipher. He's looking for the Basilisk again, isn't he? the young witch thought as she observed the swift, steady motions of the professor's hands, the magic prickling her skin, seeming to brush her cheeks like warm, curious fingertips. Harriet pulled away, spooked, and minded her feet as she put distance between herself and whatever spellcraft Slytherin was evoking.

Thank Merlin the Basilisk isn't here! The witch had a soft spot for creepy, odd things, especially snakes—but she drew the line at fifty-foot long eldritch monsters capable of killing with a single look.

A tell-tale tug at her ankle dropped Harriet's gaze, and Set pooled at the cloak's hem, allowing one

finger to poke out in the direction of an adjoining corridor. Harriet gave Professor Slytherin one last glance, then went where Set indicated, shivering at the biting cold nipping at her face and exposed legs. The corridor immediately twisted off into the dark, and Harriet scooted along until confident she was at out of sight, at which point she risked lighting her wand again so she could see Set.

"This is bloody mad," she muttered, brushing a cobweb out of her hair. "But I've trusted you before. Don't let me down."

Livi twitched on her shoulder, angular head nudging the Cloak. "The air isss…ssstrange here."

"How so?"

"It is…enticccing."

Harriet understood what the snake meant, though she couldn't put the sensation into words. Truly, it made her a touch leery, because anything capable of overpowering the dismal, chilling design of this place to give her that fluttery feeling in her middle couldn't possibly be benign. It was like waking up on Christmas to find presents on the foot of her bed; it was a pleasant shock, settling into a warm, elated feeling bubbling in her veins. It made her want to stay and get lost in the veritable warren of passages and corridors and long, open cloisters looking down upon the reservoir's black waters. Harriet didn't trust the feeling at all.

At length, Set stopped before a wide, Gothic door, and the funny symbols chiseled into the petrified wood flickered like bleary, blinking eyes under his shadowy fingers. Then, the runes went dark. Wary, Harriet tapped the door handle with her wand and whispered, "Aberto." The handle twisted on its own and forced the door to ease open.

She didn't know what she expected. Another chamber perhaps, or another sprawling, mystical dungeon. Maybe more blasted tunnels seeming to lead ever downward into the heart of the earth— but when Harriet stepped over the threshold, she found herself in a plain, stuffy study. Dust and time had ravaged the grand, stately desk and the tall burrow of cabinets and shelves over the stone running the length of the room, but evidence of recent occupation persisted through the space. The brocaded chair behind the desk was new—or, at least, made within the last century. The wood stool by the counter was free of rot and damp, and the large, empty cauldron hanging by the rod above the barren hearth bore no spots of rust or charring.

"Is this Salazar Slytherin's office?" Harriet asked aloud, voicing the thought to herself. Given the grandiose, if deteriorated, spectacle of the main Chamber itself, she would've anticipated something gaudier and more luxurious from the Founder, but his office bore little of that pretension. The rug on the floor had long been reduced to a thin, matted layer of rat-chewed fibers. The portraits on the wall were all empty, their backgrounds faded and gray. A single mirror hung on the wall behind the desk, framed by a pair of lank, crooked curtains.

Set spilled from her shadow in a rolling, stark pillar of black against the pitted stones, and he stretched up the desk to encircle the newer items that lay upon its surface. There were quills and inkwells, sheaves of parchment left in tidy piles, and several books—the largest of which Set shoved toward Harriet, and she jumped to catch it as the volume slid toward the floor.

It was heavy, heavy enough that Harriet needed to stoop and cradle the book in both arms to lever it back up onto the desk. The cover had a lock on it—something she'd never seen before, not even in the library—but it didn't look very fancy. The ancient leather peeled and flaked in places, the parchment edges ragged, torn, and nibbled by moths. Seeing the lock and adjoining buckle were both undone, Harriet carefully pried the tome open and scrunched her nose at the funny letters written inside. It looked like English, but the kind of English the very old portraits in the castle

shouted at misbehaving students, which meant Harriet couldn't read a word of it.

An ink snake coiling about a block "S" was drawn on the first page, and the snake moved before Harriet's eyes. Above it, she could just barely decipher the faded rendering of a castle's silhouette done in charcoal.

This had to have belonged to the Founder!

Harriet closed the book, and her eyes caught upon another item nudged into view by Set's persistent prodding. She picked up a journal—a new journal, the binding still strong, if a bit creased—and thumbed through the pages, recognizing the familiar handwriting, though not the words themselves. Harriet held Professor Slytherin's notes, the lines written in some kind of code, all the letters jumbled or replaced by funny little runes and symbols. His careful script filled almost every page.

Harriet knew she should let it be; she should pretend she never saw the Chamber, let alone the notebook her cruel, sharp-eyed professor chose to hide within its depths. She needed to find the exit and she needed to leave those book there—and yet, Set continued to lap at their edges like slow ocean waves, and Harriet's wand trembled ever so slightly in her uncertain hand. She licked her bottom lip—and in a fit of Gryffindor boldness, tossed Professor Slytherin's notebook atop the Founder's tome and pulled both into her arms.

"I'm going to regret this," Harriet griped, letting the book's weight settle against her ribs. Set fell about her invisible feet once more, circling like a pleased cat, and the witch only hoped she wasn't going to get herself caught. She was horrified to realize she really didn't know what Professor Slytherin would do if he discovered her down there. She wasn't sure he wouldn't kill her.

It was not a comforting realization.

"Now…how do I get out of here?"

A/N: I can't see Slytherin going down the slip'n'slide of doom into the sewer. I just can't.

I base the entrance of the Chamber off the idea that it wasn't always located in a loo, and I just have a lot of thoughts on the place, because in canon, it's pretty boring for a secret chamber, honestly xD. Basically, I had way too much fun with it and I hope you enjoy the new details and changes.

So I pondered about this for a while: could homenum revelio detect someone inside The Invisibility Cloak? In canon it could, but for CDT, I'm saying it can't. It's a part of Death's cloak; magic cannot forcibly reveal it. Snape (and Mad Eye) can see through it, because the magic to do so is physically changing how they see and perceive things. The magic in their eyes is affecting them, not the world around them. In CDT, the Cloak resists and shrugs off the magic of Homenum Revelio.

rowena's silver

lxxxiii. rowena's silver

Elara Black was afraid of many things.

It crept up on her, that prickling, engulfing numbness inspired by nascent terrors and smaller, unfortunate triggers. She was afraid of enclosed spaces and high places, loud noises and germs to a certain extent. The dark made her wary, and sometimes she woke in the dead of night remembering the Slytherin dorms rested below thousands of tonnes of earth and water and couldn't get back to sleep. Strangers made her anxious—and so did familiar faces, because had it not been familiar faces who dragged her from her bed and ignored her screams as Father Phillips swung the branding iron closer?

Yes, Elara Black feared many things—but she swallowed the fear down, pushed it back, tempered anxiety with a hard, unyielding stare, and if her heart beat a tad faster than normal, that was no one's business but her own.

Even so, Elara couldn't stop the terrified cry from escaping when she watched Harriet fall into the gaping shadows opening beneath the loo's floor.

"Harriet!" Hermione's hand closed around Elara's wrist and tugged. "Let go!"

"Watch out!"

The other witch's grip increased—too tight, too tight!—and Elara panicked, throwing herself back and out of the way of the closing sinks, which had been Hermione's intention all along. The sinks sealed again with a wet snap.

"Don't grab me," Elara said much too sharply, too hoarsely, but Hermione only spared her a momentary glance before turning her attention to the sinks—and the hidden tunnel below them. The entrance had shut, leaving behind no indication of its existence. "This isn't good."

"This is a nightmare! How did she even fall?! She was fine—!" Hermione hurried forward, putting her head in the middle sink, which confused Elara until she started shouting. "Harriet? Harriet, can you hear me?"

Her voice echoed in the drain, and neither witch could say if it actually reached their friend under their feet. The sound bounced in their ears, and when it disappeared, the loo seemed quieter than ever. The silence sat so heavy, Elara had difficulty believing the crushing weight on her chest wasn't actually there.

Straightening, Hermione took a shaky breath, sinking her large front teeth into her lower lip. "Professor Slytherin's down there with her," she murmured, more to herself than to Elara. "She—if he's down there as well, Harriet should be fine. Professor Slytherin would—well, he wouldn't hurt her. She's going to be fine."

"Or she's concussed," Elara retorted, hands shaking. "Or worse. I don't trust him in this slightest, and neither do you!"

"No! We—okay. We simply need to open the sinks, as Professor Slytherin did."

"If you haven't noticed, we're short a Parselmouth!"

"But we just need to mimic it!" Hermione scrunched her nose in concentration, and then hissed in her best approximation of Parseltongue. Despite her panic, Elara could admit something of the glottal sibilance Hermione made matched the snake tongue's hushed otherworldliness, but it wasn't quite right. The sinks remained in place.

"I think there's more of a rattle to it, and I don't know if I can copy it. Parseltongue is magic, after all. There haven't been many studies on it, given the rarity, but theoretically, humans should be physically incapable of the language, given we lack a glottis and a snake's hissing isn't made with their palate or compressions of air created by the tongue—."

Elara began pacing. Hermione rambled as she was prone to do in stressful situations.

"And snakes don't actually speak to one another, do they? Animals don't have a true language. It's more of a primitive system of innate warnings and bodily communication—."

Elara kept pacing.

"Which would explain why magical creatures have higher intelligence, because the natural phenomenon of magic and successive breeding have changed their brains and morphology, and Parseltongue being a hereditary trait means magic has physically impacted a Parselmouth's brain —but that doesn't make sense, because anyone could consult a simple Punnett square and understand continuous breeding with non-Parselmouths would have long since wiped Parseltongue out—."

Elara stopped and stared at the line of sinks. Her hands still shook, perspiration beading her palms.

"But it's not as if Harriet hisses whenever she breathes, so I should be able to mimic the sound she makes, unless it's impossible without an ingrained gene triggered by magic that really has nothing to do with the language whatsoever—.

"Move," Elara interrupted, whipping out her wand.

"What?"

"Get out of the way."

"Wait! What are you going to do—?"

Hermione finally shifted from the sink and Elara jerked her own arm, concentrating on the spell's formation. "Bombarda!"

A sudden, loud screech filled the lavatory—and the side of the stall behind them shattered like glass, wood splinters flying through the air as their ears rang. Both Elara and Hermione threw their arms over their heads, the latter yelping in surprise. Unlike the stall, the sink remained pristine and unmarked.

Elara almost swore. It appeared Slytherin—either the present professor or the Founder or one of his descendants—had Charmed the plumbing to be impervious.

"Ooh, what are you both up to?" A cool breeze preceded the sudden reemergence of Myrtle's spectral self, the teenage ghost floating through the wall at their backs, swooping low to survey the wreckage. She gasped. "Vandalism! In my bathroom?! Don't you have anything better to do than come pick on me?!"

Her voice, usually sharp and nasally, rose several pitches until it neared unbearable levels, and Hermione winced. "We're terribly sorry, Myrtle," she pleaded. "There was a, err, accident."

"An accident?!" Myrtle wailed. "It wasn't an accident! You did it on purpose! You're going to be in so much trouble—!"

"What's down the drain over there?" Elara demanded as she jabbed a finger toward the stubborn sink and glared at the ghost. The undead residents of Hogwarts were fascinating conversationalists for the most part, but only in short bursts, and while Hermione always theorized on the reasons why the ghosts avoided Harriet, Elara secretly enjoyed her friend's odd spirit-repelling quirk. It saved them from having to endure Myrtle's tantrums, and it spared Elara having to see the Fat Friar.

Myrtle paused mid-shout, and her pockmarked face went slack with thought. "I don't know."

"Why not? You spend tons of time in the plumbing."

"I—." Her eyes scrunched behind her thick spectacles. "I haven't been down there, obviously."

"Why not? Why not go look?"

"Why don't you?!" Myrtle shot back. She rose higher in the air, looking equal parts frightened and confused, her head turning to the sinks and then away as if she couldn't help doing so. "Just because I'm dead doesn't mean you get to order me about! I know you all make fun of me behind my back! 'Poor, ugly Myrtle. Poor, ugly—DEAD Myrtle!"

The ghost broke into hysterical—and, in Elara's opinion, forced—sobs before plunging headlong into the nearest toilet, her shrieks echoing in the pipes.

"There are a lot of places in the castle warded against ghosts," Hermione said in the aftermath. "Hogwarts: A History has a compiled list of areas, and it would certainly make sense for the entrance to the Chamber to be blocked as well."

"Marvelous," Elara replied through gritted teeth. She tried another spell on the sinks, attempting to transfigure their shape instead of simply blasting them out of the way, but they still resisted her efforts. Water began to rise from the toilet Myrtle had disappeared down, and it spilled over the rim, flooding the floor.

"We need to leave before Filch comes!"

"We need to help Harriet."

Huffing, Hermione took her by the hand instead of the wrist this time and tugged Elara toward the door. "We can't help if we're dragged off to his office. He'd take one look in here and have a fit!"

Elara knew she was right. They left the loo but didn't go far, only enough to create plausible deniability if Filch came stomping past.

"Honestly, I've only been back at school for an hour and Harriet's already found herself in trouble and you tried to blow something up—!"

Remembering the Basilisk, Elara reversed Hermione's hold upon her hand and set off at a quick dash, heart still racing in her chest, though her mind felt clearer than it had minutes prior. "We can't stand out here alone." Harriet had Professor Slytherin with her, and should the professor prove treacherous for whatever reason, then Harriet had Livius. Elara and Hermione had nothing

but their wands, and if the Basilisk came upon them, they'd make for easy targets while the rest of the school sat comfortably in the Great Hall.

They returned to the school's foyer in record time, and together Elara and Hermione slipped through the main doors into the brightly lit hall, hurrying to their table under the cover of laughing voices and chattering flatware. "What are we going to do?" Hermione hissed beneath her breath, accidentally stepping on the hem of Elara's robes and nearly sending them both careening into the backs of a pair of Hufflepuffs. "Surely we can't just—sit here?"

"We'll wait until after dinner," Elara told her, not at all knowing if that was the right response or if she had the right idea. What was one meant to do when their best friend fell into a secret tunnel under a loo? If Harriet managed to avoid alerting Professor Slytherin to her presence and they caused a scene, they might only make things worse. But what if she was hurt? What if she wasn't? What if she was with Slytherin, and the professor cursed them into oblivion for exposing his ancestor's legacy? "And then—we'll go to Dumbledore."

They'd spent enough time in Myrtle's loo discussing all Harriet had overheard in the staffroom for dinner to be nearly over. Elara and Hermione hunched low in their seats and didn't bother touching any of the desserts arrayed before them, choosing instead to wait and gnaw over their own worry. Professor Slytherin was, naturally, absent from the High Table, and Elara let out a grateful breath when she spied Snape deep in conversation with a professor she didn't remember the name of. She twisted her hands together in her lap, and the empty plate before her jumped and shuddered on the table.

When Professor Dumbledore stood and dismissed them all, Hermione popped to her feet before Elara could, and they darted toward the front of the Great Hall, dodging around speculative classmates wondering where they were going. The Headmaster seemed to see them coming, for he paused in turning away with Professor McGonagall, the latter of which took one look at the pair and formed a tight line with her lips.

"Professor Dumbledore?" Hermione asked, her voice warbling with uncertainty, though Elara could see how hard she tried to keep it level. "May we speak with you a moment?"

His blue eyes skipped from Hermione to Elara, and when they failed to land upon a green-eyed, disheveled girl in the midst, something in the wizard's attention sharpened. "Of course. Let's step through here, shall we? We'll finish our conversation another time, Minerva."

He gestured for them to go before him, and together the trio walked through the side entrance typically utilized by staff, pausing inside the little antechamber squeezed between the Great Hall and the outer corridor. "Now," Professor Dumbledore said, resting his arm against his middle. "Judging by your expressions, am I to guess Harriet has gotten herself into a spot of trouble?"

Hermione and Elara nodded, the former blurting out, "We were in the second-floor lavatory when Professor Slytherin came in—and he didn't see us there, and he—well, he hissed in Parseltongue, and the sinks started to move and revealed a large pipe underneath and he jumped in and—."

"Harriet fell," Elara interjected, though a voice in the back of her mind commented it hadn't looked as if Harriet fell; it looked as if she'd been shoved, no matter how impossible that was. "And the entrance closed again before we could get her out."

"Is Harriet hurt?"

"We don't know, Professor."

The Headmaster led the way into the corridor, the two shorter witches rushing to match his swift, quiet stride. He avoided the main stairs and the crowd of sleepy, yet indelibly curious students that would be there, taking Elara and Hermione through a narrow, dark passage Elara hadn't known was there in the first place. Cobwebs swaddled the ceiling, illuminated by the bright spell-light spilling from Professor Dumbledore's wand, strung along like great globs of candy floss. Without warning, the passage merged again with the main corridor, leaving nothing behind them but a blank stretch of stone, and if Elara hadn't walked down the skinny passage, she would have never guessed it to be there.

"Stay close, if you please," Professor Dumbledore said, which caused both witches to stick to his heels like gormless chicks chasing a mother hen. They turned a corner, torches coming alive, starlight peeking through the shuttered windows holding bastion along the outer wall—and Elara crumpled under the weight of Harriet Potter as the girl came toppling out of a framed mirror.

"Harriet!"

The bespectacled witch rolled herself off of Elara and sat in a wet, messy heap on the stone floor, the smell of brine and old, damp rot radiating off her in waves. The Invisibility Cloak hung on her arm like a twisted wrapper. Aside from a few scrapes and a rather painful-looking raw spot on her shin from sliding down the pipe, she appeared unharmed—if a bit dazed. Livius wrapped himself about her shoulders, shaking his angular head as he eyed the newcomers with what Elara assumed was reptilian wariness.

"Oh," Harriet said when she spotted the Headmaster arrayed in a pair of burnt sienna robes peering down at her. "Hullo, Professor."

"Hello, Harriet," Dumbledore replied. "It appears we were a bit premature in mounting your rescue."

Harriet looked to her two friends as relief swept through her expression. "Thanks, Hermione and Elara."

They muttered their own relief at having her back, and Elara's heart finally slowed from its frantic, painful beat and seemed to crawl from her throat back into her chest where it belonged. Professor Dumbledore turned his attention to the mirror, a large, gilded piece with various spots of damage on the frame or the glass itself. "How extraordinary," the Headmaster remarked as he swept his wand against the mirror's surface, searching for something the three witches couldn't see.

"I don't know what happened," Harriet said as Hermione helped both her and Elara back to their feet. "I was in the—Chamber, did Hermione and Elara tell you about that yet? Blimey, Professor, there has to be about a hundred tunnels down there!"

"And what has happened to Professor Slytherin?"

"I think he's still inside? He was looking for the—erm, snake, and was brassed off when he couldn't find it." Harriet blinked, her green eyes flitting to the mirror. "There was a mirror like this one in what I think was an office, and I told it to open in Parseltongue. Next thing I knew, I ended up here."

"That is what so extraordinary," Professor Dumbledore replied with cheer. "Because this is a perfectly ordinary mirror."

The three Slytherins blinked. "What do you mean, sir?" Hermione inquired, brow furrowed. "There must be a Translocation Charm of some sort upon it, shouldn't there?"

"No. I can detect no magic of any kind upon it." He gave the surface two solid taps with his wand, and when nothing occurred, Elara silently agreed it appeared mundane. "This, my dears, is a Moon Mirror. It is very old, and there are more than a dozen of them scattered throughout the castle. Neither I nor any of my predecessors have ever discovered their true purpose."

"Why're they called 'Moon Mirrors'?"

"These aren't made of glass, you see. Instead, their creator used the eggshells of an Occamy—a rare magical creature out of the east, whose eggs are comprised of solid silver. Early alchemists referred to silver as the 'metal of the moon,' and so the term extends to these lovely mirrors." Professor Dumbledore returned his wand to his pocket and tugged on the end of his beard, lost in thought. "It is said Rowena Ravenclaw herself fixed them to the castle's walls. Fascinating. If I were to guess, I would say the mirrors have pairs, with one being an exit and the other entrance. After you passed through the first mirror, Harriet, it seems the second sealed itself shut behind you. An effective way for Salazar Slytherin to journey about Hogwarts without exposing his secrets."

Elara looked into the polished silver surface and stared at her own disgruntled reflection. It didn't sit easy with her, the idea that any mirror in the school might actually be one of these Moon Mirrors and thus serve as an exit or entrance for people like Professor Slytherin to come slithering through. Magic was as vast as it was frightening, and though one could map out the school's halls and corridors and classrooms, Hogwarts continued to prove itself truly unknowable, a place of infinite mystery and discovery.

In the distance, the clock tower began to chime the hour, and Professor Dumbledore stirred. "Ah, well. If you're unharmed, Harriet, you three should return to the dorms."

"Yes, Professor."

The trio of witches walked away from the Headmaster then, Hermione fussing over Harriet's scrapes, Elara's hand fisted in a part of the Invisibility Cloak, letting the feel of the cold, slick fabric ground her. None of the three looked back at their professor, too preoccupied with thoughts of their beds and the perceived safety of their underground dormitory, and so neither Harriet, Elara, or Hermione saw the shadowy hand dip into the large pocket of Harriet's robes and drop a thin, weathered volume on the floor.

Professor Dumbledore spotted the journal and picked it up. His wizened fingers leafed through the coded pages, spied the familiar, unwelcome copperplate—and his blue eyes rose to watch the three witches until they disappeared from sight. He closed the journal with a snap.

"Extraordinary indeed."

lost to the ages

lxxxiv. lost to the ages

By the end of the week, Harriet was certain Madam Pince would murder all three of them before term let out.

After Hermione stopped fussing and regained her breath, Harriet brought out the tome she stole from Slytherin's office and the bushy-haired witch went right back to fussing, going into absolute raptures about the treasure Harriet managed to nick from the bowels of the earth. Hermione informed her it was written in old Anglo-Saxon, and if they wanted a chance of reading what Salazar Slytherin himself had written on those crinkled pages, they'd have to translate it themselves.

Hence why Madam Pince was one step away from committing a triple homicide.

They arrived early every morning that week and waited for the elderly librarian to open the doors, taking over their favorite table in the back during lunch and break and before dinner, badgering Pince with questions about the materials they wanted and the sources they needed. Hermione had a terrible habit of gasping aloud when she made a discovery and hoarding far too many books, which irked Madam Pince, and Elara accidentally set off a Caterwauling Charm when she wandered too close to the Restricted Section. Twice. Harriet thought herself perfectly well-behaved—but then she got ink-covered fingerprints on a monogram more than seven-hundred years old about the Norman conquest and Madam Pince threatened to boil her alive. Twice.

In Harriet's latest letter to Mr. Flamel, Harriet told him about finding a book written by the Founder and wanting to translate it, leaving out her dubious acquisition of the book in question, and the wizard wrote back that "you always have the most interesting questions and stories to tell, Harriet," enclosing a primer he hoped would assist them in their quest. Hermione devoured the primer, of course, with help from Elara, who actually understood bits and pieces of Anglo-Saxon and could read the dated, cramped lettering better than anyone else. Harriet was relegated to scribing the chunks they managed to translate.

Harriet didn't mention the other book, the journal she knew she took from the desk with Salazar Slytherin's tome. She panicked when she first discovered its absence, but Harriet found nothing when she searched, so it either fell out of her pocket somehow or never left the Chamber in the first place. After a minute of thought, she decided that might be for the best. Harriet was only a second- year, after all, and she didn't know all that much about magic; what if Professor Slytherin had a Tracking Charm on his journal? What if it was cursed? No, best the bloody thing not be in her possession when all was said and done.

"It's not anything Salazar Slytherin would have thought important," Hermione deduced on Friday, the three of them once more in the library hiding from Pince, who was determined to oust them early, being that it was the end of the week. They sat on the floor in the stacks devoted to Edwardian Wizarding history with a candle and Slytherin's obnoxiously heavy book open between them. "Parchment back then would have been more difficult to procure as well as more expensive, so even what we would consider scribbles or scratch paper were kept and bound together. The Founder kept notes here. It's not a diary, not really, but he did write down his thoughts on current events. He even mentions part of the east wing's construction—oh, this is priceless, Harriet. To have a firsthand account of the castle's creation—."

"Does he waffle on for a full chapter about the plumbing? Because Hogwarts: A History already did that."

Elara snorted.

Indignant, Hermione gave them both a stern look worthy of Professor McGonagall. "No, he doesn't mention the plumbing, because there was no plumbing in those days. It was added on later—and from your description, Harriet, it seems as if someone purposefully disguised the Chamber's entrance when the updates were started or converted old drains and drainage lines. He talks about the Chamber here in this bit, briefly." She scrunched her nose and consulted the primer again, holding it closer to the candle. "Oh."

"Oh?"

"I'm not entirely sure, but the context of the word would be odd otherwise…. You see this line here? Where he mentions the 'neoðan'? That roughly translates to 'the underneath,' and if I'm not mistaken, that's what the Founder called the Chamber. In hindsight, it makes perfect sense. Why would Slytherin himself call it the Chamber of Secrets? That's too pedantic even for a bigoted egoist."

A sudden clopping of shoes on the floor turned their heads as Madam Pince bore down upon the trio. "You three again! Out! Out of the library! It's closing for the evening!"

"But it's not even time for it to close!"

"Out, I said! Go to dinner! Go!"

Sulking, Harriet and the others allowed themselves to be ushered back into the corridor, and—leery of being isolated in an area of the castle where the Basilisk had already attacked—they rushed to the Great Hall, taking their usual spots at the House table before many of their classmates arrived. For a little while, Harriet pushed thoughts of Slytherin's book from her head and tucked into her supper, talking with the Beater Peregrine Derrick about the upcoming Quidditch match between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff and who he thought would win. Soon, however, dinner ended and the Slytherins returned to their dormitory, and Hermione asked if they could use Harriet's trunk to keep researching. Elara grimaced, but the trio descended into the extra room inside the trunk, lit the lantern, and shut the lid.

Livi peered from his terrarium, displeased with the interruption to his nap, and two smaller heads peeked over the teacup's rim.

"Harriet, is that another snake?"

"Yeah!" she chirped, bending at the waist to pick up Kevin and her newest acquisition. "He's another Chr—Yule cracker golem. I got him at the feast." She held the skinny red snake out toward Hermione, since Elara had already seen the tiny creature when they'd pulled the cracker and Harriet tucked him into her sleeve. "His name is Rick."

"…Rick?"

"It's short for Godric—because he's red, like a Gryffindor."

"Then what's Kevin short for?"

"Kevin's short for Kevin. Are you daft?"

Hermione opened her mouth as if to argue, then thought better of it and shook her head. She removed Slytherin's book from her satchel and set it on the worktop, the spine creaking as she opened it to her marked place. "Never mind. Let's go back to the part we were reading before Madam Pince interrupted…."

And so they did, Harriet returning Kevin and Rick before retrieving her quill and parchment as Hermione and Elara scratched their heads and picked apart Slytherin's ancient lettering. Tired from dinner, Harriet's eyes glazed over, and her attention drifted, tracing the old spots on the wall where posters or placards used to hang, the faded Potter crest emblazoned on the cupboard. Sometimes she wondered if her dad had used this space, and Harriet amused herself with imagining what he could have possibly stored down here. What had he been like? She knew James Potter had been a Chaser and Head Boy, so did that mean he was brainy? Popular? Was Harriet anything like him?

"He mentions Rowena Ravenclaw quite often," Hermione muttered, squinting in the low light, bringing her face closer to the pages. "This section is almost incomprehensible. His handwriting is atrocious in places. Here he mentions something about a 'nest,' but is that the right word for it?" She flipped through Mr. Flamel's primer, growing more frustrated. "I can't decipher this nonsense!"

"It would make sense for Slytherin to talk about Ravenclaw, wouldn't it?" Harriet asked, worried she might get snapped at if she interrupted Hermione now. "All the stories say the Founders were friends before they made Hogwarts, so that means Slytherin and Ravenclaw were friends, too. Why else would he have those mirrors down in the Chamber—or the Underneath, or whatever?"

"That doesn't explain why the mirror only responded to Parseltongue," Elara pointed out. "Ravenclaw wasn't a Parselmouth."

The unspoken question in her tone went unanswered. True, the Moon Mirror in Salazar's study had only opened after Harriet had spoken to it in Parseltongue—and after Set had badgered and shadow-mimed her into inspecting the ruddy thing in the first place—but that didn't mean it was the only way to get it to cooperate. If Ravenclaw made the mirror, then she knew it better than anyone else, and it was entirely possible for the Parseltongue password to be something like a failsafe just in case Rowena herself couldn't get through or open the way. It reminded Harriet of how she'd adjusted the Charm on the trunk just enough to let Elara and Hermione open the extra room. Maybe that was the whole reason Slytherin had the Moon Mirror in the first place.

Lost in thought, Harriet made idle scratch marks on the edge of the parchment with her eagle feather quill, and when Elara and Hermione started to bicker over the exact connotation of this "nest," Harriet took the opportunity to look over the book herself. Unlike Hermione, who dissected the thing page by page, Harriet marked her place and chose a random spot to flip to. Twice more she did this, until she spied a promising section complete with stray doodles and crossed out scribbles. Something about the image of the great Salazar Slytherin huffing and scrawling over his notebook like a teenager made Harriet want to laugh.

She made a right hash of the writing in trying to puzzle out a few of the disjointed sentences. 'Fire, foe, cannot burn mine person, water cannot take mine lungs. What be I?' Harriet nibbled on the end of the quill, picking through the stray lines here and there, finding other, similarly written phrases. A few struck her as being familiar. Are these…riddles? Odd.

On the corner of the page, smudged by the fingers of someone long dead, Slytherin had drawn something feathery encircled by coils or thorns, Harriet couldn't tell which.

Above them, Harriet could hear the tired, impatient thump of feet moving into the dorm and the lavatory beyond, someone—probably Pansy—dropping their satchel with a particularly heavy

bang. "C'mon, we have to be in bed before Prefect Farley comes by for her rounds."

Elara and Hermione abandoned their squabble with some reluctance and followed Harriet up the steps and out of the trunk. Never one to miss an opportunity for being an irritating berk, Pansy sat up from where she'd flounced on her own bed and glared at the trio. "What are you up to down there, Potter?" she demanded.

Harriet considered giving a snippy reply, but she was tired and not inclined to humor Parkinson. "Studying," she said as she closed the trunk. "Pince kicked us out of the library."

"Why not study in the common room like a normal witch?"

Rolling her eyes, Harriet switched the latch on the trunk and opened it again, fishing out her nightgown from the small compartment. Elara disappeared into the washroom, and Hermione sat on the edge of her bed, brown eyes distant as she stared at the rug under her feet. Runcorn asked her about the quiz they were supposed to have in Astronomy later that night, but Hermione didn't hear her, so Katherine scoffed and went to ask Daphne instead. Harriet changed, then went to brush her teeth, and when she came back, Hermione was still sitting on the bed, her brow furrowed, lips pursed.

"…Hermione?"

"Hmm?"

"Everything all right?"

"Oh. Yes, I'm fine." She stood and smoothed the front of her skirt, though her face didn't lose that speculative look that made Harriet a mite nervous. Nevertheless, Harriet went to her own bed, drew the curtains, and tucked herself in. She set her glasses on the end table—and made sure to set a timer with her wand, having forgotten to do that more times than she cared to remember. The sound of her dormmates moving about settled, and soon Prefect Farley checked they were all in bed. Really she only popped her head in, pausing her conversation with her own dormmate long enough to see all the curtains were closed. Farley shut the door again, and Pansy continued whispering with Millicent once the prefect moved on. Harriet listened to the indistinct rasp of their voices and, slowly, fell asleep.

xXx

Hours later, in the cold, unrelieved dark of the quiet dormitory, Harriet woke wide-eyed and gasping from a dreadful, slippery nightmare, the details quick to disperse and drain over the edges of her mind like spilled milk dripping off a counter's edge. It left her feeling unsettled and nervous, and so she sat up, shivering against the chill, and brought the blanket up over her head.

"It's just a dream," she reminded herself in a low whisper, her breath warming the air trapped under the cover. "It's not real."

The familiar mantra helped calm her nerves, and Harriet pushed the blanket off, peering into the dark with her myopic vision. The timer on her wand had yet to go off, and the other witches were still fast asleep, so Harriet assumed she hadn't dozed off for very long. With a grunt, she placed her glasses on her nose and nudged open the curtains, deciding it best to get up and read or study instead of trying to go back to sleep. All the other curtains remained closed—except for the ones

around Hermione's bed, which was perfectly made without a single wrinkle in the counterpane.

"Hermione?" she whispered, picking up her wand. When no answer came, Harriet padded into the lavatory, finding it empty but for the steady drip-drip of a loose faucet, so she returned to the main room. She happened to glance at her trunk and saw the latch undone.

What is she up to?

Frowning, Harriet eased the lid open—and squinted against the sudden, soft glow of lantern light emanating from below. She threw a leg over the trunk's side and crept down the steps. "What are you doing?"

Hermione sat on the floor in the tiny room, Slytherin's book propped open upon her lap, Mr. Flamel's primer tucked under her knee. Livi had abandoned his terrarium, and Harriet knew Hermione was distracted because the older witch didn't so much as blink when the Horner Serpent hung his head off the shelf to inspect her bushy hair. Letting out a little huff, Harriet came to Hermione's side and tapped her on the shoulder. Hermione glanced up, her eyes filled with dreadful confusion, and again Harriet asked what she was doing down there.

"I couldn't sleep," she admitted. "I—. Slytherin made a comment I couldn't get out of my head, even when I lied down and tried to shut my eyes. He goes on these long tangents about the 'gyr- blódgeótend,' you see—these parts where it looks as if he'd tried to stab the parchment with his quill. According to him, they were quite a problem in his youth, and he—and Godric and Helga— lost several members of their families to their 'deceit of the cræft.' He hated the gyr- blódgeótend. Despised them utterly and thought they should be wiped out. Do you know what it means? It translates to 'dirty bloodshedder,' and it's the etymological origin of Mudblood."

Harriet leaned on the wall and slid down until she could sit next to Hermione, wondering where this conversation was going. "Well, everyone knows he hated Muggle-borns. That's the whole bloody legend behind the Chamber, isn't it?"

"But that's just it! In the comment I translated just before we went up for bed, Slytherin mentioned those 'from Eargian'—'Eargian' being an early term for Muggles. He wrote about the tutelage of his Muggle-born students—and he didn't hate them, Harriet, he didn't. He hated the gyr- blódgeótend, the dirty bloodshedders—those witches and wizards, pure-blood or not, who betrayed their own kind to the Muggles that hated and feared magical beings. This was far before the Statute of Secrecy; the Wizarding world was common knowledge to everybody. To Slytherin, you were either with magic, or against it, and though he remained suspicious of Muggle-borns, he didn't think them undeserving of their abilities. Mudblood doesn't mean Muggle-born. It means traitor."

They stayed silent as Hermione's words sunk in, her hands tight upon the book's weathered edges, and Harriet watched as the color leached from her small knuckles.

"I had to keep reading. I had to be sure of what I'd spotted—because this means everything we know about the Chamber and its legend is—is utter bollocks, Harriet! Rubbish! He didn't leave the Basilisk behind to kill the Muggle-born population; he left it behind as a final line of defense in a Muggle incursion! So much history, all lost to shoddy translation and misinterpretation!"

She slammed the book shut, and Harriet saved it before it could suffer more mistreatment in the hands of the bushy-haired witch. Harriet had never seen Hermione so frustrated and upset before. "I don't understand," she said, hesitant.

"Neither do I," Hermione retorted with a sniffle. "Professor Slytherin knows about this book. He's read it! You know he has! And so he must know the truth, for years even! But he's never said

a thing! And people like him, and Professor Selwyn, and—and Voldemort, keep using Salazar Slytherin's ideology as an excuse to harm and belittle Muggle-borns when that was never the Founder's intention. I never understood why I came to Slytherin House. I argued with the Hat, but it insisted, and for almost two years I've questioned its decision every single day, every single time I had to put on the crest of an old, crusty bigot." Hermione wrapped her arms around her legs and balanced her chin on her knee, scowling. "But he wasn't a bigot. Merlin knows the man couldn't have been perfect—honestly, who leaves a Basilisk in a school and thinks that's a good idea? But he wouldn't have spat on me because of my bloodline. He wouldn't have denied me my place here. People like the Dark Lord appropriate everything the Founder stood for and just—twist it until we can't recognize any of it anymore. Pride becomes fanaticism, ambition turns to greed, cunning an excuse for cold-blooded ruthlessness. This is what people think when they see us—just look at how the others behave around Slytherins after this Chamber nonsense! Like we're a pack of murderers just waiting to happen. It's not right."

Harriet struggled to think of something to say, but there was nothing at all that would make any of this any better.

Hermione shook her head. "No one will ever believe us. We could shout it from the top of the Astronomy Tower, and no one would ever listen. It changes everything, and yet it changes nothing, and that frustrates me so much."

She unfolded one arm, and Harriet took her hand in her own, giving it a squeeze. She had a point; they couldn't reveal their possession of Salazar Slytherin's notes, not without dire consequences, and if they told a bunch of stuffy pure-bloods their idol wasn't the gleaming pillar of staunch magical lineage, they'd be called liars. Snape always harped on Harriet about perception, and was this not yet another example of perception being tweaked to suit a particular frame of mind? Like when Dudley told stories about Harriet and all the neighbors thought her a nasty little hooligan without ever meeting her. Reality wouldn't change their views.

"Some people don't want to hear the truth, Hermione. Especially if it proves them wrong."

"I know."

"Slytherin's been dead for hundreds of years, so it doesn't matter what he thought anymore. Even if he was a bigot, it's not his House anymore; it's ours. You're just as much of a Slytherin as Malfoy or Parkinson or any of those gits, and we're not going to sit about and let those dodgy pure- bloods and near-sighted numpties give us a bad name, are we?"

Tension eased in Hermione's expression, and she smiled, the fevered brightness dimming in her eyes. "Yes, you're right." Her fingers tightened once more before she let go and began to search her pockets for a handkerchief. "Thank you, Harriet."

"You're welcome."

She found her sought handkerchief and though she managed to dry her tears, Hermione's face stayed blotchy and rather miserable looking. "There's more to that book than I think any of us expected," she said, changing the subject with a brisk sigh. "Such as his apparent connection with Rowena Ravenclaw. I can't put my finger on it, but something about that connection begs a more thorough inspection. I think it's important."

"As long as it doesn't end with me brewing an illegal potion and wearing Professor Sinistra's face," Harriet joked, and the mood lightened at last.

"No, I don't believe it will come to that."

"Oh, bloody hell."

"What is it?"

"I thought I'd suppressed all that. Now I remember and we've got Astronomy soon. How am I supposed to look her in the eye?" Harriet groaned.

Hermione laughed as she tucked away her handkerchief, and together they set Slytherin's book and Mr. Flame's primer on the shelf. "Just look at the top rim of your glasses."

"Because being cross-eyed is so much better. Ugh. Drinking that had to be the worse idea you've ever had, Hermione."

"Perhaps." She smiled again, the motion sharper now, almost mischievous. They ascended the steps into their silent dormitory, and as Hermione walked away, she whispered. "But also very informative."

A/N: I dabble a bit in trying to flesh-out the Founders' characters. It's always bothered me that Salazar (like most Slytherins) is just a two-dimensional villain in canon. The world during Hogwarts' founding was a much, much different place, and it seems ridiculous to me that in a time of war, invasions, plagues, and population discrepancies, that Salazar would honestly give a shite about where magic users came from, so long as they were loyal. I'm inclined to believe he would have hated pure-bloods like the Malfoys more, who came over with William the Conquerer, and xenophobia was huggge. But, y'know, head-canon. /shrug.

Hermione: "Is that another snake?"

Harriet: "Yeah, isn't he cute?"

Hermione: *mentally organizing an intervention* "…Mhm."

in search of answers

lxxxv. in search of answers

On a Sunday midway through February, the majority of the school's student body tromped out of the castle into the brisk weather and headed for the Quidditch Pitch.

Hermione and Elara didn't want to go. Neither did several of the older Slytherins for whom the glamour of Quidditch had worn off, at least when their own team wasn't playing. Harriet knew her friends didn't much enjoy the game, not as she did, and so she didn't needle them relentlessly about attending. "Just promise you'll be careful and won't leave the dorms," she said. Hermione rolled her eyes and Elara gave a distracted nod.

"We'll be fine, Harriet. We promise."

And so the younger witch left her friends to follow the crowd into the castle's corridors. Malfoy made a passing comment on Harriet being a loner, and Nott pointed out that Crabbe and Goyle had gone on ahead without him, and he yelped, running to catch up with the other two. Harriet shared a laugh with Nott and Zabini, though she couldn't shake the feeling of being the odd one out, drifting toward the edges of the group. They were almost out of the entrance hall when she glimpsed a flash of crimson and paused, spotting Ginny Weasley standing in the middle of the passage, staring at the wall.

Frowning, Harriet broke off from the group and went to Ginny's side. "Weasley?" she said. The girl's eyes remained faceted on the blank stretch of stone in front of her—until Harriet gave her shoulder a light tap. Ginny blinked and looked around.

"…Potter?"

"All right, Weasley?"

"I…yeah, I'm fine." She shook her head, then glanced past Harriet toward the entrance hall, then behind her. In the sunlight coming through the window, Harriet could see that Ginny's face was paler than usual, her freckles stark, her blue eyes dark and distant. "Where did Luna go?"

"Luna? She's probably headed to the pitch, Ginny. We can go check, if you want. It's not a good idea to stand around alone these days, yeah?"

Weasley narrowed her eyes as if trying to figure whether or not Harriet was threatening her, and then the redhead shook herself again. "You're right. I thought she was right here—but Luna's a bit, erm, flighty?"

Harriet got the impression Ginny wanted to say "empty-headed," and she forced herself to not point out that it hadn't been Lovegood she found aimlessly standing in an empty corridor. They hurried to catch up with the rest of the school, jumping down the steps and cutting through the courtyard, meeting the tail end of the leaving students and falling into place. As they slowed to a walk, Harriet had to admit that while she didn't know Ginny well, they'd become more friendly over the past few months, exchanging smiles or nods in the halls, sitting at the same table in the library when Hermione didn't crowd the space with extra books. Weasley seemed…off, somehow, and Harriet couldn't decide what was wrong.

It had been quiet at Hogwarts, for the most part. Many students had begun the inevitable shift toward normalcy, thinking the danger of "the Heir" had passed since no one had turned up Petrified since Justin and Nearly Headless Nick. Even Professor Slytherin had been marginally less acerbic, though he and the other teachers remained on edge, just like Harriet and her friends. Great big ruddy snakes didn't just up and disappear, and Hermione asserted that whoever stole the Basilisk must have done so for a purpose and their purpose hadn't been fulfilled. "There will be more attacks," she had said just last week. "I imagine the Headmaster is determined to purge the school during the summer, so they have to complete whatever their plan is before the end of the school year. Anyone who thinks otherwise is—well, they're an idiot."

Oddly enough, the Slytherins remained the most vigilant despite how some of the older, nastier upper-years sneered about the Heir doing "good work," and Neville Longbottom still hadn't stopped bloody following Harriet around. Harriet had confronted him several times and Elara told the git off more than once, but he persisted and seemed to be there whenever she turned around, his eyes all scrunched and squinted, looking at Harriet like she'd killed a bloke. She didn't have a clue what she'd done to earn his suspicions.

"How are things in Gryffindor Tower?" she asked Ginny, who shrugged.

"Better, I guess. It's a bit quieter, what with everyone trying to prepare for the exams before the Ostara hols. Is it like that in Slytherin?"

"Not really? It's never been loud. Snape would probably gut us if we were."

"Oh." Ginny's brow furrowed as they came under the shadow of the Quidditch stands. "Hey, can you tell me what your common room looks like?"

Confused, Harriet replied, "Err, I guess? It's got couches and armchairs, a few tables, a few hearths. It all looks a bit antique. Oh, and the windows. They looks out into the lake."

"Ha, I knew it." Harriet raised a brow and Ginny rushed to explain. "My brothers, Fred and George, you know them, right? They claim they've snuck into Slytherin common room before, but I always knew they were full of it. They said you lot have a big snake statue in the middle of the common room with an altar in front of it."

Harriet snorted. "Oh, yeah, forgot to tell you about that. It's ten feet tall and we sacrifice lost Hufflepuffs there on the weekends."

They shared a laugh as they started up the steps into the stands, arriving at the higher level out of breath and chilled by the bracing wind. Harriet could already spot the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff teams down on the field meeting in the middle with Madam Hooch. She looked about, squinting through her smudged glasses, but didn't see Luna Lovegood among the gathered spectators.

"She's over there," Ginny noted with a breath of relief, pointing out her Ravenclaw friend seated in a sea of crimson and gold scarfs. A fission of unease crawled down Harriet's spine as she followed and realized she'd landed right in the midst of the Gryffindor upperclassmen. She recognized the sixth-years Rivers and Wattle, the two idiots who'd tried to steal her letter from Mr. Flamel and pushed her into the mud. They sneered at Harriet as Ginny took the empty space by Luna.

"I…should probably go, Ginny."

"Huh?" the first-year asked, glancing at Harriet, then turning to the harsh, hateful glares being thrown at the bespectacled witch. "You can sit with us, if you'd like. Leave off, Elijah!"

Rivers—or Elijah as Ginny called him—had a nasty comment in reply, and Ginny's reddening face quickly brought the Gryffindor prefect Percy Weasley over, who basically told them all off and finally let Harriet sit down. She tried concentrating on the game as it played out, feeling dreadfully out of place among the Gryffindors despite Ginny's reassurance. Every time Neville scored and they cheered, Harriet got a strange, unfamiliar tightening in her middle that she couldn't quite describe. She sat among people who adored and worshiped the Boy Who Lived while they despised Harriet—and the only things separating Longbottom and her were a lie and a hat's split- second decision. In another life, it could have been her out there on the pitch wearing red and gold while people chanted her name.

It would be easy to say she was jealous, but she wasn't. No, Harriet was…unsettled. One lie turned attention from her to Longbottom, and it changed the whole of the world, it seemed. One lie had changed history and turned Salazar Slytherin into the pure-blood fanatic messiah. She thought of all the things she'd ever been told and learned, and Harriet wondered what else was a lie, and what was the truth.

The game ended with Gryffindor victorious, and Harriet made a quick escape, saying goodbye to a distracted Ginny and Luna before tumbling down the steps and into the stream of disgruntled Slytherins already leaving the stands. Harriet paid little mind to the upset grumbling—Gryffindor's win brought them closer to the fore, and if Slytherin lost against them in their own match, they'd lose the cup. As Seeker, she made all the right noises and remarks about crushing the dunderheaded House of Lions when the time came, but her heart wasn't in it, and she was glad to escape back into the dorms.

"Bloody Gryffindors and their thick heads," she muttered, dragging her scarf off from her neck, scratching at the prickling itch beginning to needle her neck. She shouldered open the door into the room she shared with seven other witches and asked, "Hermione, do you know where that cream Madam Pomfrey gave me for my scar is—?"

Her question trailed off unanswered as Harriet spotted no sign of the bushy-haired witch. Her hangings stood open, baring the tidy bed to view, while her carrel remained its usual explosion of strewn study supplies, scrolls and books and journals stacked high on its surface. Next to it was Harriet's desk, and then Elara's—and it was here Harriet spotted her other best friend slumped in her chair, using a thick book as a pillow.

"Hey—." Harriet shook her shoulder until Elara sat up and flinched, wiping away a bit of drool on the back of her glove. "Where's Hermione?"

"What? Is the game over already?"

"It's been three hours." Harriet couldn't suppress the note of urgency squeezing her voice. "Where's Hermione?"

Elara shook of the vestiges of sleep and turned to Hermione's carrel, pausing upon seeing it vacant. "I—don't know, apparently. I thought she was right here—."

Harriet strode over to Hermione's desk and searched the surface, scattering quills and loose parchment, snatching up the sheet left on top. "'Went to the library. Had to check something,'" she read aloud, unease twisting in her heart. "'Be back soon.' When is soon? When did she leave?"

A pained, guilty expression crossed Elara's face, and Harriet headed out of the room. "Harriet—."

"She knows she's not supposed to wander alone—!"

Swallowing, Harriet darted through the crowded common room without looking back, telling herself she was being paranoid, that she'd find Hermione already on her way back down to the dungeons. She didn't give her eyes the chance to adjust to the dimmer, murky light of the corridor outside the common room's entrance, and subsequently only made it a meter or so before colliding with a solid body.

"Potter!" Professor Slytherin gasped, clutching the spot on his chest Harriet had slammed her head against. "That is the second time you've ran into my person, careless wretch! What do you think you're doing?!"

Dazed by the blow, Harriet stumbled—and then stumbled again when Elara crashed into her back and almost sent her careening into Slytherin again. "Professor! Hermione! We—we were just going to check on Hermione!"

"Granger? What about her?"

"She left the dormitory without telling anyone," Elara said, wringing her hands. "We don't know how long ago."

"She did not attend that obnoxious sporting event?"

"No, sir."

Professor Slytherin appeared to think their statements over, his eyes half-closed and narrowed. "Ah," he finally uttered, at which point he seized both Harriet and Elara by their elbows and marched them down the hall in the opposite direction from which they'd intended to go.

"P-Professor!" Harriet argued, dragging her feet, but the wizard didn't stop until they reached Snape's office, and he kicked open the door, throwing them both inside. The Potions Master was not, fortunately, in residence.

"Stay here until you are called for," Slytherin snapped. With an errant wave of his hand, the door slammed shut, leaving Elara and Harriet sealed inside.

"Arsehole," Harriet whispered under her breath, hands balled into fists. The quiet pressed close, ghoulish things floating and drifting inside their jars, the cold sinking into her bones. "Why couldn't he just let us go check on her?"

Elara sighed and sank onto the hard, straight-backed chair Snape left out for students. She rubbed her tired eyes.

Harriet paced, and as time trickled by, she paced more, faster, the dread in her belly growing until it became full-blown nausea. "What is he going to do? Just leave us in here? Did he even go look for Hermione?" She stopped and turned to Elara. "What was she reading before you fell asleep?"

"A bit of everything, really," she muttered, silver eyes roving over the cramped shelves. "You know how she gets. I think she was researching the Basilisk."

Harriet let out an irritated huff. She nosed about Snape's shelves and books, trying to take her mind off her worry and their impromptu imprisonment, but Snape kept nothing there one wouldn't see in the library. Well over an hour passed them by before the locked door opened again, revealing the blank, unfriendly countenance of Professor Snape. Harriet expected to be yelled at—or berated. She would have loved to hear another Snape lecture on bothersome-witches-doing-what-they- should-not-be-doing, but Snape said nothing, standing just beyond the room's threshold with his arms crossed and his eyes hard.

"Follow me," he said softly.

Harriet's stomach flip-flopped and bile burned the back of her throat. "Professor?" she managed to say. "Is—where's Hermione?"

"Just do as you're told, Miss Potter. You as well, Black."

He retreated into the hall and started walking, Harriet following close to his heels. It didn't take long for her to realize where they were going, and Elara grabbed her by the hand, holding her back, fingers squeezing tight enough to bruise.

Voices grumbled and bled together inside the hospital wing, Harriet so worried and scared she almost didn't recognize Draco's mum and dad when she finally passed through the doors. She wondered why they were there—and then realized that they would be the ones called if Hermione was—.

Harriet yanked free of Elara, pushed past Snape, and darted forward—only stopping when Professor Slytherin caught her with a hand against the chest, pain hurtling through her so fast Harriet thought she might be sick. "Hermione!" she shouted.

"Miss Potter," Madam Pomfrey chastened, stepping out from behind the bed's curtain. "If you cannot control yourself, I will have to ask—."

Harriet barely heard a word she said; instead, she fixed her gaze on the figure of her best friend lying still as death on the narrow hospital bed, her brown eyes wide and unseeing, one hand clenched in a fist against her middle, the other extended as if holding something up.

Petrified. Hermione was Petrified.

"Harriet."

Professor Dumbledore had his hand on her shoulder, fingers squeezing, and the Headmaster cut such a hard, angry look at Professor Slytherin, the younger wizard sneered and retracted his own hand from her person. There were other people in the infirmary, too—a man and a woman dressed in wrinkled robes, as if they'd thrown them on in a hurry, standing in the partially open curtains around a separate bed. The man had his arm around the woman, and she sniffled into a handkerchief. Harriet realized someone else must have been attacked by the Basilisk, too.

"Miss Potter, Miss Black," Madam Pomfrey said to gain their attention. She lifted a small, handheld mirror from Hermione's bedside. "Miss Granger was holding when she was found. Does this mean anything to either of you?"

Frowning, Harriet shook her head, and Elara took her hand again. She squeezed her friend's fingers, wanting something to ground her, wanting to turn and run and close her eyes. Who cares about some stupid mirror! It's just a bloody mirror!

"Is this how you run your school, Dumbledore?" Mr. Malfoy sneered, turning his back on Hermione and his wife as he approached the Headmaster. "Rest assured, the Minister will be hearing about the abysmal state of things at Hogwarts."

"I'm certain he will, Lucius."

Professor Slytherin made a sound more akin to a snarl than a scoff, and Mr. Malfoy had the good sense to back up, throat bobbing as he glanced in his direction.

"I think," Professor Dumbledore said as he dropped his hand from Harriet, his voice breaking the harsh, stagnant silence. "It would be best if we take further discussion to my office. Let us give Misses Potter and Black a moment alone with their friend."

The Headmaster ushered the Malfoys and Professors Slytherin and Snape away from the bed, and Narcissa stopped just long enough to touch Harriet's arm, then Elara's, before departing after her husband. Madam Pomfrey huffed and muttered under her breath, but she didn't kick Harriet and Elara from the room, instead going about and fixing the curtains, hiding them from the view of the couple at the other bed. Harriet still didn't know who the other victim was.

A horrid sense of powerlessness overwhelmed her, coupled with rage and something that tasted bitterly of defeat. "She promised she wouldn't go off on her own," Harriet whispered. "She promised. What was she thinking?"

"It's not her fault, Harriet."

"I know that! I do." It was the Heir's fault, or the Basilisk's, or—Harriet's, for going to that stupid Quidditch game when she hadn't even paid attention to a bloody thing. Why did she go? Why didn't she stay when she knew how much danger Hermione was in?

Elara looked the mirror over, tracing one finger along the brass frame. "I think this is Pansy's," she remarked. "Why would Hermione take this?"

Shrugging, Harriet wiped her face as tears stung and burned in the corner of her eyes. She refused to cry. She wouldn't cry—not when she wanted to find whoever had let the Basilisk out and punch them right in the ruddy face, or wake Hermione up and shake her for being so stubborn.

Extending her arm, she touched the cold, stiff fingers of the hand Hermione held tight against her chest—and she felt something scratch her fingertips. "She's holding something."

Elara set the mirror down and came to Harriet's side, furrowing her brow as Harriet carefully pinched the corner of what looked like a crumpled ball of parchment Hermione had clenched tightly in her hand. She gave it a tug, and with slow, patient speed, freed it from Hermione's grasp without hurting the Petrified girl. Harriet straightened the rumpled sheet out as Elara asked, "What is it?"

It was a page from a book—a page Harriet recognized because they'd pored over this same page down in the depths of her trunk, squinting in the paltry lantern light as they read about Salazar Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets in Hogwarts: A History. Hermione had drawn a hasty circle around a sentence of the text, but not in the section about the Chamber; rather, she'd highlighted a throwaway line about "Ravenclaw's secret library."

In the bottom margin, Hermione's tidy script wrote out the words, "R.Claw's Aerie."

"Ravenclaw's Aerie," Harriet murmured aloud, hands smoothing the harsh crinkles in the thick parchment. "What is Ravenclaw's Aerie?"

Elara shook her head.

The pair of witches stood in silent sentinel for far longer than they should have, and when Madam Pomfrey came to escort them out, they went with heavy hearts—and with a page torn from a library book folded in Harriet's pocket.

A/N: Ostara - Pagan equivalent of Easter, celebrated around the vernal (spring) equinox. I.e., spring break.

the horror welcomes her again

lxxxvi. the horror welcomes her again

Hogwarts wasn't the same after Hermione and a Ravenclaw named Penelope Clearwater were found Petrified.

Of course, for Harriet and Elara, going through the motions in a world where their best friend had been turned to living stone by a monster was something like a waking nightmare, but the rest of the school wasn't unaffected, either. In the week following the attack, the staff suspended all privileges, meaning no Quidditch, no Hogsmeade for the older students, no wandering about the castle without a chaperon. Teachers marched them from class to class, from the Great Hall to their dorms, and no one could go to the library unless they made an appointment with Madam Pince. Defense turned into a study hall, since Professor Slytherin seemed about one step away from hexing them all bloody.

Harriet kept catching herself looking over her shoulder, waiting for Hermione to comment on this or that—but Hermione wasn't there. The endless stream of dialog that filled her days with information and details was flat and jagged, like an old scar she couldn't stop her fingers from scratching at. Ravenclaw's Aerie. Neither Harriet nor Elara could figure out what Hermione had meant by writing that, and they couldn't go to the library to research it. They pulled apart Hermione's notes at her carrel, but whatever brilliant leap of logic had sent the witch sprinting off out the dorms hadn't been written down. They were at a loss.

Harriet knew it had something to do with that "secret library" bit Hermione had circled in on the torn page. The problem was, Hogwarts: A History had even less written on the supposed library than it did on the Chamber, and Harriet knew even if it did have information, it'd all be rubbish, given how the passage on the Underneath—as Harriet began to refer to the Chamber in her head— held almost nothing but lies.

She'd tried asking Terry Boot and Anthony Goldstein about it, but while they thought they'd heard the term before, they had no knowledge attached to it.

"Talk to one of the sixth or seventh years," Terry told her. "They know quite a bit about the castle that we don't."

Speaking with an upper-year Ravenclaw proved impossible, as being marched about like tin soldiers from one point to the next with little intersection meant Harriet barely saw the upper- classmen outside of meals. She didn't dare approach anyone in public, where anyone could see or hear their conversation. What if the "Heir" overheard them? What if they attacked again?

Harriet's chance for answers came on Thursday, of all days. Professor Selwyn spent half a class period ranting about this or that nuisance, and then he ushered them out the door early, muttering about having better things to do than shepherd the likes of them around the bloody castle. He stomped on ahead of the group as the Hufflepuffs and Slytherins meandered down into the dungeons for their free period. Harriet hung back, gathering and sorting all the notes she'd been taking for Hermione, and was the last to exit the classroom. She walked quietly with Elara, absorbed in her own thoughts, and as they reached the ground floor, Harriet thought she saw a flicker of…turquoise.

In fact, after she paused to study the ajar door leading into the empty foyer adjoined to the entrance hall, she knew she'd the back of someone's gaudy blue robes disappearing inside. Familiar robes.

Inspiration struck.

"Harriet?" Elara asked.

"Go on ahead," she replied, and when the other girl gave her an incredulous look, Harriet patted the lumpy pocket of her robes. "I have my Cloak, and I'll be down in just a few minutes. I won't leave the Entrance Hall."

The class was moving farther off, so with a huff, Elara turned and hurried after them. Harriet waited for a second more to see if someone would note her absence, then crossed to the open door, poking her head inside. "…Mr. Lockhart?"

The wizard let out a strangled shriek, feathers firing from the end of his held wand. Harriet ducked behind the door in case he threw any other spells, then looked inside again, glaring.

"Oh," Lockhart said with a great, wheezing exhale. He slumped against the wall at his back like a boneless sack, sliding down its length, and Harriet noted the open bottle of Wizarding booze sitting at his hip. He reeked something fierce. "Oh, Merlin have mercy, it's only you."

Harriet stepped into the chamber and gave Lockhart a wary once over. Frankly, he looked like shite; his pretty hair resembled Snape's more and more these days, and he had the twitchy, wild- eyed stare of someone who'd gone without sleep for quite a few nights. His turquoise robes had a stain down the front as if he'd dribbled his morning tea.

He made for a pathetic sight.

Looking down at the bloke, Harriet balanced a hand on her hip and scoffed. "Aren't you supposed to be out looking for the Heir? Or doing anything useful? Not hiding in here getting—sloshed!"

Lockhart gaped at her and clutched the bottle closer, fumbling his wand. "It's not as if I volunteered for this!" he shrieked. "My poor hair! I'm going bald—bald, I tell you! People banging on the door at all hours of the day and night, demanding I do something—and what am I meant to do? What can I do that Albus Dumbledore can't?!" His face twisted as if he might start blubbering, and Harriet thought Lockhart had one of the ugliest crying faces she'd ever seen, and she included Dudley in that comparison.

"Stop your whinging," she snapped, though the slightest niggling of pity wormed its way into thoughts. The bloke was a liar and an idiot, and the Ministry had preyed on that. He hadn't meant anything malicious with his incompetence. "Answer me something; Hermione told me you were a Ravenclaw. Is that true?"

Lockhart sniffled, wiping his snotty nose on his sleeve. During the height of her inexplicable crush, Hermione used to natter on with facts about Lockhart, ranging from information about his books to the wizard himself, and the particular curiosity about him having been a Ravenclaw stuck out to Harriet because she'd marveled that such a numpty had come from the House of Eagles. "Yes, what of it?" He gave the bottle a forlorn nudge.

"Have you ever heard of Ravenclaw's Aerie?"

He sniffled again, fished a frilly, lilac handkerchief out of his robes, and blew his nose like a foghorn. "Of course. It's one of those silly little myths they use to share around the dorms, like Rowena's diadem, or Helga's cupboard, Godric's mythical armory, or Slytherin's Chamber—."

His voice began to rise toward a shriek again at the mention of the Chamber, and so Harriet made calming motions with her hands. Merlin forbid Snape came swooping by and hear the pissed

wizard crying and wailing with Harriet in the room. "Okay, okay! It's fine, I don't want to know about that. I just want to know what the Aerie is."

"It's supposed to be a library or something. Some kind of great, private archive of Rowena Ravenclaw's, and she built Hogwarts as a place to share all the knowledge she gathered therein. Not that that makes any kind of sense." He took a deep, pulling swig from the bottle, his breath leaving a sticky, sweet smell in the air. Lockhart started to slur in earnest, swaying in his spot sprawled against the wall. "It used to be a game, y'know? A spot of hazin' in—in Ravenclaw, to get someone to climbing all the towers lookin' for it. Why're you asking about this, anyway? You're a very nosy little girl, aren't you?"

"Yeah, and?" Harriet glowered. For a Ravenclaw, his information sounded bizarrely backward. How would she have a library before Hogwarts was built? "My best friend's laid up in hospital and the only help the Ministry's sent is you. If you don't get eaten before all is said and done, you'd better rethink your life choices. You aren't nearly clever enough to be a con-artist."

Lockhart started breathing funny halfway through Harriet's sentence and she doubted he'd heard much of the rest of it. "E-eaten!"

Footsteps sounded out in the hall, coming down the marble steps, and Harriet told Lockhart in no uncertain terms he needed to shut his drunk gob as she eased the door almost shut and peeked through the crack.

"It's all just a formality of—of course," said an odd, short wizard in pinstriped robes and a lime- green bowler hat. "Just until the inquiry's over, you understand. Such terrible things going, and the Minister is worried—."

Harriet recognized Professor Slytherin's answering voice and almost recoiled. "If I wished to hear the Minister's opinion, I would ask for it myself."

Behind the pair walked Professor Dumbledore and another two wizards Harriet didn't know, both dressed in familiar maroon robes. She couldn't see Professor Dumbledore's face, but she heard his soft, grim tone when he addressed the plump wizard at the head of their procession. "I trust, Cornelius, that our Minister recalls a full session of the Wizengamot and unanimous voting by the Board of Governors is required to dismiss a Headmaster from the school midterm?"

"W-Well, it's the Board that's called for the inquiry, Albus. After what happened to Mr. Malfoy's ward…."

"Ah, Lucius' charms at work," Slytherin cut in, and Harriet shivered. The group of Ministry officials led by the wizard named Cornelius moved farther down the hall, approaching the towering doors barring entrance into the castle. "How very convenient for him and the Minister. And what of my removal, Fudge? How is Gaunt managing to spin that? I can't imagine the Board would be foolish enough to vote me out as well."

"It is just until the inquiry is solved, Professor Slytherin, I ensure you…."

The wizards kept moving, passing through the entrance into the speckled light of late afternoon, and Harriet eased the door open wider, stepping into the hall to better watch Professor Dumbledore's retreating back. The voices dwindled with distance, and the farther Dumbledore walked, the colder the school became—or, perhaps, the colder Harriet became. Soon she shook and shivered, unable to shed the frightening terror freezing her in place.

What have they done?

"Wazzit?" Mr. Lockhart asked, having crawled out of the extra room after Harriet. He had feathers in his limp hair. "What's happenin'?"

Harriet swallowed. "I think Headmaster Dumbledore has been removed from Hogwarts."

The answering moment of silence resounded in her ears louder than the rush of her breathing—and then Lockhart let out a hysterical, panicked laugh, and fainted dead away on the floor.

x X x

That evening, by the fireside in a house that remained empty more often than not, Albus Dumbledore sat reading a journal.

It was not a nice journal, not by any stretch of the imagination. Though the elderly wizard spent much of his time worrying about one thing or another, that journal in particular had been worrying him for weeks, ever since it fell from the pocket of a bespectacled, green-eyed student and came into his possession. Sometimes he marveled at the sheer serendipity Harriet Potter managed to wield, when years of effort on his, Minerva's, and Severus' parts had failed to yield the very thing he now held open in his hand: the thoughts and ruminations of Tom Slytherin, the man who was— and wasn't—Tom Riddle.

At his side, his wand hovered and moved of its own accord, drawing sharp streaks of light as it continued to decode Tom's evolving cipher. It was a clever bit of Charm work meshed with Arithmancy; at odd moments such as this, Albus mourned the brilliance of a boy who'd turned his purpose to evil as a man. He pondered if Tom Riddle had always been destined for this path, or if Albus—if all of them—had failed him in some way.

He grieved for the death of an innocence that might have never been, but only for an instant that passed as quickly as it came, because Albus and the world had suffered greatly at the end of Riddle's wand and he had no mercy in his heart for such a creature anymore.

The symbols and letters of Tom's journal continued to begrudgingly swap themselves around and change their shape. The night aged, and so did Albus Dumbledore, as with every page he turned, the lines in his face dragged themselves deeper and horror found its place behind his half-moon spectacles.

Dawn rose just as Albus finished the final line, and he turned to the window, barely able to see the light for the shadow that darkened his heart.

He remembered, then, Harriet in his office, raw, alien anger in her voice, "Why haven't you done anything?!" He remembered her confusion, as if she hadn't known what had come over her. He remembered the flicker of red overcoming her eyes, gone like a vapor, a morning mist caught and torn in the breeze.

Albus thought of the monstrous things Tom Riddle had done to his own soul, and contemplated what he might have done to another.

"Oh, my dear girl," he whispered. He gripped the journal hard enough for his wizened knuckles to turn white.

From his perch in the corner, Fawkes gave a lone, mournful cry.

A/N: The chapter title is from Emily Dickinson's "The Soul has Bandaged moments." It's a

haunting piece, and when I read it, I think of Harriet's soul being despoiled by Voldemort's, the instability of it, the yearning to be free, and yet being dragged under its influence again. The final stanza is - "The Horror welcomes her, again, / These, are not brayed of Tongue," basically says the nightmare / struggle of it all is unspeakable. So that's my spot of poetry analysis for today.

where eagles roost

lxxxvii. where eagles roost

The voice had come again to haunt her cupboard door.

Harriet sat curled in a ball among the spiders and clouds of dust, hiding behind her own knees as she watched the slender, shimmering bar of light glowing against the dirty floor. A shadow crossed the light again and again as someone—something—paced on the other side.

"Aunt Petunia?" Harriet whispered.

The shadow never stopped its restless drifting. "Harrrrrriet," the voice crooned, and claws skittered against the cupboard door. "Let me in, Harriet."

Harriet hugged her knees closer.

"Only for a moment, I promissse." The claws tapped the thin wood. Tap, tap, tap. "I could tell you what you want to know. I could tell you what she found. I could tell you where the Aerie lies."

Hesitating, Harriet peeked at the light through her lashes. How strange. The walls of her cupboard had never felt closer or more cramped before, nor the light so dim. Surely Aunt Petunia would be there soon to wake her up? But wait—.

"What do you know?" she asked.

A terrible, wrenching laugh crawled into Harriet's ears and no matter how she tried to block it out, it continued to scrape and tear at her, and then the banging began. Heavy fists battered the cupboard door again and again, shaking it, bottles and jars tipping, shattering, spiders raining from the risers overhead—.

"LET ME IN!" it howled. "LET ME IN, LETMEIN!"

Harriet clasped onto the door's tiny handle and held on for all she was worth, squeezing her eyes shut, willing it to stop, screaming with all her might, "NO!"

And then—.

And then Harriet woke in her comfortable bed, shrouded in the murky green light of the dormitory, drenched in sweat and shaking from head to foot. Someone had their hand on her shoulder, and she started, blinking at the figure leaning over her bed.

"Harriet," Elara whispered, and Harriet let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding, the sound of it breaking like a sob. The hand retreated then, leaving her cold and adrift. Harriet heard soft footsteps, the thump of a trunk lid opening. The figure returned, looming closer until the weight of warm, curling coils settled on the coverlet, and Livius hissed something tired and nonsensical in her ear as Harriet drew her arms around him.

The blanket shifted, drawing up to cover both girl and serpent, and the hand came again, cool against her clammy forehead, thumb brushing a fond, idle stroke against her forehead.

"Go back to sleep."

Harriet might have murmured a response, but she had her eyes shut, and the heavy, tired lethargy dragged her under before she could give her nightmares another thought.

x X x

A persistent nudging against her cheek pulled Harriet into a foggy, reluctant awareness some hours later.

"Stop," she grumbled, and a cold tongue flicked against her skin. "Livi."

"Missstresss hasss ssslumbered too long," he said, one of his growing horns jabbing her jaw. "It isss time to wake."

Grunting, Harriet pushed Livi's snout away, but she did pull herself upright, fumbling at the nightstand for her glasses and wand. The dorm lacked the usual clamor and bustle that came with a bunch of girls getting ready for class. Harriet jerked her bed hangings open and stretched to see the clock.

It was twenty past ten on a Tuesday.

"Oh, fuck," Harriet whispered, waiting for the sputtered gasp and chastisement that never came. She glanced at Hermione's bed and found it waiting forlorn and empty. On the other side of her, however, the bed still held a sleeping lump. "Elara. Elara—."

Harriet lobbed a pillow, and the other witch groaned when it landed on her head. "Knock it off."

"Wake up! We've missed breakfast and Herbology. We're going to miss Defense, too, if we don't get up."

Elara groaned again and rolled to her back, scowling at the ceiling. "What does it matter, with Lockhart substituting?"

"You say that now, but we'll both hate life if Snape comes thundering down here to find out if we've died in our sleep." Harriet dragged herself out from under the covers. "Besides, at least Lockhart's pulled himself together enough to give us study hall."

Elara muttered something that sounded like "Marginally," and Harriet couldn't disagree. The bloke showed up sober, which was something.

Together, they spent the next ten minutes rushing through their morning routines, throwing together their books and the homework they'd need for Transfiguration and Charms after lunch. Tucking her things—and Livi—into place, Harriet paused when she glanced at the bottom drawer of her desk, thoughts veering toward the book hidden therein. By unspoken agreement, the three of them knew not to take Salazar Slytherin's tome out anywhere where it might be seen by Professor Slytherin—but Professor Slytherin wasn't here now. Mulling the idea over, Harriet finally opened the drawer and squirreled the book away with her others, deciding she might as well get something useful done in Defense today.

They met up with their class as Professor Sprout escorted them back into the castle from the

Greenhouses, and though the Herbology instructor scolded them for missing class, Harriet decided she went easy on them, considering the missing member of their trio. In the Defense classroom, Mr. Lockhart waited for the Slytherins, the Gryffindors already in their seats, the gaudy wizard back to swanning about and talking out of his arse—though he did have the good sense to shut up when Professor Sprout sent him a disappointed look.

Harriet dropped into her seat by the empty one reserved for Hermione. She fought to urge to stare at it.

She'll be okay in just a few months, she told herself as she dragged out her Defense text—and then Salazar Slytherin's book, glancing around to see the others already indulging in their own work or staring off into space. Already Lockhart had descended from his borrowed desk to pester the Boy Who Lived, and though Longbottom looked put out by the attention, the nattering Gryffindor girls fawned over the wizard and his self-important prattling.

"Idiots," Harriet mumbled, rifling through the thick tome until she found the parchment she, Hermione, and Elara had been taking all their notes on. It was sacrilege to Hermione for anyone to annotate directly inside a book—especially an ancient, historic thing like Salazar's journal—which made her decision to tear that page from Hogwarts: A History all the more shocking. Harriet knew with all her heart that Hermione meant for them to find it, that it was important. Her best friend could be overzealous or just plain barmy when it came to study, but Hermione was not stupid. Something dire sent her off sprinting for the library, and it had to be hidden somewhere in that tome resting on Harriet's desk.

She turned the parchment round on its side, flattening the curling edge worn from too much handling, and squinted at a hasty line of Hermione's tiny handwriting. "Aerie: noun," it read. "A large nest of a bird of prey, especially an eagle, typically built high in a tree or on a cliff."

Well, Harriet already knew that—.

Nest.

She prodded her spectacles back up her nose and scrutinized the word as it stirred a foggy memory from weeks ago. Elara sat at her own desk with her head down on her closed textbook, but Harriet could recall how she and Hermione had argued about a translation regarding the word. But what had it been, exactly?

"Potter, what are you doing?"

She glanced at Malfoy lounging in his seat. "Studying. You should try it sometime."

"Why are you being so intense about it? He's not even looking at this side of the room."

"Leave me alone, Malfoy."

"Fine."

Harriet went back to reading, though she tried to look bored as the rest of the class, slouching enough to put off Malfoy's curious glances. She flipped through several pages—and then stopped, because she couldn't actually read the book, and her friends had been discussing the translation, which meant it was somewhere on the parchment. Harriet flipped the sheet over again, scanning the cramped lines for handwriting that wasn't her own.

"The nest awaits when thee march forth in search of knowledge and find thyself among the gander," Hermione had written in a scrolling semi-crescent, fitting it in between the rest of the

snippets she'd deciphered. "When you answer thus the faceless bust, step to yourself in the moon's reflection."

"I can't decipher this nonsense!" Hermione had despaired, and Harriet could see her predicament —because the Founder had been fond of riddles and puzzles, and Harriet had to wonder about that, because Rowena Ravenclaw had supposedly liked riddles, too. Her finger traced the word nest. What if her friends had chosen the wrong translation of the word from Anglo-Saxon to English? What if, instead of nest, Slytherin had meant…an aerie?

A nervous thrum of discovery went through Harriet, and she couldn't stop herself from straightening her spine, reading and rereading the line.

"The nest—Aerie—awaits when thee march forth in search of knowledge and find thyself among the gander."

A gander. That's a—a goose, isn't it? Was the Aerie outside on the grounds somewhere? That didn't make any sense at all, did it? Bloody hell, this is literally sending me on a wild goose chase —.

"In search of knowledge."

If anyone wanted to know anything at all, if they " sought knowledge," wouldn't their first stop be the library? Twice now, Harriet had gone looking for the library and twice she'd come upon that peculiar, looping corridor, in which hung a portrait of a woman herding a gaggle of very rude geese. She'd been so busy trying to find the exit and continue on to library, Harriet had barely given that misshapen, faceless bust asking funny questions a thought.

No way, she thought, skin buzzing, expression stunned. There's no way—.

And yet, in the twisted logic of a witch and wizard long dead, it had a certain clarity: an archive that could be found only if you sought knowledge, if you could answer a question—satisfy that need of being worthy. But why had no one discovered it before? Surely Harriet wasn't the first to go lost searching for the library.

"Step to yourself in the moon's reflection."

Well, that sounded like a mirror—and what had Professor Dumbledore told them? "Early alchemists referred to silver as the 'metal of the moon.'"

"That's…barking," Harriet whispered, voice reed-thin, her hands trembling. It's a bloody Moon Mirror. It's talking about a Moon Mirror!

As Harriet prepared herself to kick Elara awake and hiss her findings, a trickle of magic washed over the whole of the room, stilling the idle, ambient conversations—and scaring a muffled yelp out of Lockhart.

"Instructors must escort students to their dormitories immediately," echoed Professor McGonagall's voice, seeming to emanate from the walls themselves. "All classes are canceled until further notice."

"What's going on?" Runcorn asked aloud, earning more than a few speculative murmurs. As one, eyes swiveled to Lockhart, who looked back at them like a spooked owl.

"I, uh, I—well, you have to get back to your dormitories, obviously! Gryffindors first, I think. You lot are quite lucky—and safe!—with me as your guide…."

Books and parchment shuffled about, chairs dragging on the stone floor. Harriet jumped to her feet and hurried to set her own things to rights, tugging on Elara's sleeve to gain her attention.

"What is it?"

"I think—." Harriet licked her lips and glanced about, but the other Slytherins paid them no mind. "I think I found something."

"…Something?"

Nodding several times, Harriet tried to tell her about the Aerie, about the geese and the bust, but then she caught the watchful, askance look of Neville Longbottom and scowled. "Wait until we're back in the dungeons. Nosy prat…."

Lockhart sauntered from the classroom, looking nothing like the plastered, sobbing wreck Harriet had half-dragged, half-kicked back into the spare room off the entrance hall last week. Harriet kept a close hold on her bag as they journeyed up to the tower rather than down to the entrance hall, and Zabini complained aloud about having to walk from the top of the school all the way back down to the sub-levels.

"Exercise builds character, Mr. Zabini!" Mr. Lockhart proclaimed. Zabini grumbled about the kind of character he thought Lockhart could use.

They climbed the stairwell and came upon an intersecting hall where Gryffindors of all year groups merged together. There was a great deal of noise and panic, no one seeming to move in the right direction, and Harriet found herself being trod on more than once.

"Look!"

"On the wall there, plain as day—!"

"Someone's been taken!"

"Merlin—!"

"What are we going to do—?!"

"We need Professor Dumbledore—!"

Bracing herself, Harriet shoved and elbowed and squeezed her way through the older students until she could see the wall in question. New, glistening letters had been painted against the stones. "Her skeleton will lie in the chamber forever," Harriet read aloud, voice lost to the shouting and crying around her. "Her who? There's nothing in the bloody Chamber."

That's the point, isn't it? The Heir's been lying from the beginning.

"Get out of here, Slytherin!"

Someone shoved Harriet, and she would have fallen if not for days of Quidditch teaching her better footing. Harriet ducked back into the crowd before whoever had touched her could try it again. The Gryffindors turned on the class of poor, unfortunate Slytherin second-years who'd stumbled into their midst, and though the professors tried to control the situation, several of Harriet's classmates wore terrified expressions.

She didn't wait to see what would happen; she grasped Elara by the hand and ran for the stairs. The

sound of their heels clattering on the stone steps echoed in the confined space, and Harriet's loaded bag swung hard against her leg, leaving bruises.

"What are you doing?" Elara demanded.

"I think I know where it is," Harriet panted as they passed another landing.

"What?"

"The Aerie! I think—that's where the snake will be! Don't you see? Hermione realized it! The Mirrors—the connections between Ravenclaw and Slytherin! Whoever opened the Chamber knew to hide the Basilisk in the Aerie! They know about the Moon Mirrors!"

"We're not going there, are we?!"

"I have to see if—if I'm right. And then, we'll need someone—Professor Snape, or McGonagall, or anyone! Hurry!"

By the time they reached the level the library was located on, Harriet's heart was hammering in her chest, and Elara's breathing had been reduced to a reluctant wheeze. They didn't have time. If she could prove where the Basilisk was—if Harriet could find the Aerie, then maybe it wouldn't be too late. She didn't know who'd been taken. She hadn't even known there'd been another attack—but she did know if someone died, Hogwarts would never be the same. Professor Dumbledore would never come back. It was entirely possible the school might close down—permanently.

Harriet shook those errant thoughts from her head and fixed in her mind the idea of a book. Knowledge, she told herself again and again, footsteps echoing, breathing ragged. Knowledge, I'm searching for knowledge. I'm in search of knowledge.

They turned a corner, and Harriet half-expected to see the library, for her idea to be wrong. Instead, they rounded the bend and came face to face with a familiar shepherd in her grassy field. The painted geese looked at Harriet and honked.

Red-faced and doubled over, Elara eyed the loud birds with disdain. "We've been here before," she commented. "When we were looking for the library."

"Yeah." Harriet moved on, coming to a stop before the misshapen marble bust stationed about halfway down the visible corridor. It appeared as yet another innocuous piece of Hogwarts' decor, no stranger than the suits of armor prone to moving or the portraits that followed students about gossiping. Whoever had sculpted the bust must have started the face, giving it the impression of a nose, the slight indents below the brow line, the sloping cheeks, but they hadn't finished. Still, Harriet felt the thing was staring at her as she approached. A high, feminine voice spoke.

"Have thee none, I am plenty. Those of means, need of me. Partake of me, and thou shalt perish. What am I?"

"It's one of those stupid riddles!" Harriet said, reaching into her bag to jerk the parchment free of Salazar's book. "Salazar Slytherin came up with these! I translated all of his bloody riddles and most of the answers, where is it…?"

"It's nothing, Harriet."

"It not n—."

"The answer is nothing."

Harriet blinked, and Elara gave her an impatient look. "Oh. Right, then." She tucked the parchment away, then faced the bust and cleared her throat. "You are nothing."

The bust didn't reply. Instead, it moved and shifted backward, dissolving into the wall like a sugar cube melting in hot tea. The wall rippled again—and something else came forward. A large, rather plain mirror popped into existence where the bust and its plinth had been, leaving Harriet and Elara to gaze at their disheveled reflections.

Harriet swallowed, trying to rid the sudden dryness gripping her throat. "Open," she told the Moon Mirror in Parseltongue. Just like the one in Salazar's study, the mirror didn't move or glisten or give any indication that it'd changed, but when Harriet brushed her fingertips against its surface, they slipped through like pebbles dipping into a still pond. She pulled back before it could yank her through.

This is it.

"We need to go find a professor," Harriet said, and Elara nodded. Harriet turned—and almost walked into a wand. "W-what are you doing here, Longbottom? Weasley?!"

The Boy Who Lived and his constant companion stood in the corridor with them, and Harriet could only think that her own pounding heart and quick breathing had covered the sound of their approach. Longbottom had his wand trained on Harriet, and he looked nastier than she had ever seen the prat before.

"I knew it was you," he spat.

"What are you on about?"

"I knew you were the Heir!" He jabbed her with the wand and Livi hissed, forcing Harriet back a step. "You're always going about hissing and whispering and talking to yourself when your lackeys aren't there! I knew it was you!"

"You prejudiced arsehole!" Harriet shouted. "Just because I'm in Slytherin—!"

He jabbed her again.

"Stop it!"

Elara went for her wand, but Weasley had his own pointed at her, and both she and Harriet knew better than to test Weasley's wretched wand. It might backfire on him. It might do nothing—or it might set them both on fire.

"This is it, isn't it? It's the Chamber! I knew if I followed you around enough you'd eventually lead me to it!"

"The Chamber's not—." Harriet stopped herself before she could say something stupid, like 'the Chamber's not here, it's downstairs in a loo!' "I'm not the Heir! I swear to Merlin, Longbottom, you've got to be the dumbest twat ever born. How could I be the Heir? I was in your bloody class not twenty minutes out when the Heir attacked again!"

His brow furrowed, but Longbottom didn't let up. If anything, his grip on his wand only tightened. "That doesn't matter. You could have had someone help you! Or cursed them!"

Harriet sneered and considered kicking the idiot in the bits and making a run for it, but if he jinxed her, or knocked her unconscious, whoever had been taken might die. "Stop mucking about,

Longbottom. You have no proof—and we need to find a professor right now!"

His gaze flicked past her, then back to Harriet. Twice more he did this before something hardened his resolve. "Fine. Proof? I'll get my proof!"

Harriet had been watching his wand hand; she didn't see his other until Longbottom pressed it to her chest and pushed with considerable force. Harriet gasped—

And stumbled back into the waiting mirror.

A/N: Harriet: *talks to Livi about cake or crickets or his favorite place to nap.*

Neville: "That is some sinister plotting going on right there. Better attack."

the heir of slytherin

lxxxviii. the heir of slytherin

From one step to the next, the cold rippled over Harriet like the first wind of winter, cutting through her robes and sweater, clinging and biting, and then—.

Nothing. Harriet gasped and gawked at a blank stone wall.

"No," she whispered, touching the wall, her fingertips scrabbling at the sharp grooves between the blocks. "No, no, no—Elara! Longbottom? Open! Open!"

The wall didn't budge.

Of course not, Harriet told herself in a stern, logical voice that sounded quite like Hermione. The Mirrors only go one way—and it's not as if I have a lot of experience with them. Merlin help me.

Gulping, she slowly—slowly—turned herself around.

The first thing Harriet noted were the books; it was impossible to not pause and take it all in, the towering cases, the gilded light falling through the mullioned windows, and the hundreds upon hundreds of volumes crowding the wood shelves. She appeared to be in an average Hogwarts corridor, except for those shelves and those books. She'd never seen anything like those out in Hogwarts' thoroughfares. Harriet took a few tentative steps forward, inspecting the corridor, peeking from one end to the other, seeing where the corners turned out of sight. The shelves crowded every available space but for where the windows were set and the occasional blank spot on the wall holding plaques of Ravenclaw's bronze eagle. There were no torches, only odd spheres of orange light suspended overhead—almost like the ones had seen in the Underneath.

Harriet peered out one of the windows, hoping for a clue as to her whereabouts, but the view was distorted, blurred and smudged, shapes in the distance oddly formed or just incomprehensible. The light coming through the fuzzy glass flickered and pooled like…candlelight. She shook her head and stepped away.

"Okay," Harriet whispered, urging Livi out from under her robes. "Can you help me find the exit? We need to get out of here!"

"Ssss…." The serpent curled and wended his way around Harriet's shoulders, lifting his head in the air. His violet tongue flitted several times and Harriet waited for his verdict, listening to the unsettling silence pervading the otherwise charming passage. "The air here isss…flat."

She agreed; every breath went down like a stale biscuit, and while Harriet didn't spot a single mote of dust on any surface and magic seemed to vibrate under her feet, a kind of static pall had come over her, prickling against her skin and her awareness. The air didn't move. The small click-clack of her footsteps didn't echo. Harriet snapped her fingers and the louder sound hung by her, fading far too soon.

Her shadow darkened and pooled as Set made his presence known, stretching toward the left turn in the passage.

"Is that where the exit is?" she asked, her trust in the shadowy creature a touch more dubious after the incident with the Underneath. He'd gotten her out and shown her Salazar Slytherin's book, but Harriet couldn't quite bring herself to forgive him for that split second of sheer and utter terror

when she'd felt hands grab her ankles and yank her down into the dark.

An arm formed, and the hand with its too-long fingers pointed toward the left.

"…okay."

Harriet pulled her wand out from its brace and held it at the ready as she walked. She realized her bag hadn't made it through the Moon Mirror with her, most likely dropped when Longbottom pushed her and she lost her balance. She cursed the Prat Who Lived and prayed she didn't need Salazar's book at any point. She'd hex Longbottom bloody when she got out of there, damn the consequence.

What if I can't get out?

Harriet shook her head and refused the insidious thought purchase. No, there has to be an exit. It's a library, not a prison.

The corridor turned into another, and another. Harriet came across a flight of stone steps headed upward and took them at Set's prompting. She saw more books than she'd ever seen in her life— more than could have possibly been written in Ravenclaw's time a thousand years ago. Where did they all come from? Despite her rush, Harriet paused and eased one volume out of place, inspecting the pristine cover and odd binding. Foreign characters written with a quill filled the inside—maybe Mandarin, or Japanese, Harriet wasn't sure. The book next to it was in French, or what looked like French.

Harriet kept moving. The corridors looked similar enough to one another for her to think she'd started going in circles, so she took to checking books more and more, trying to make sense of their organization or find a clue about how to get out of there. How could this place be in Hogwarts? It was as big as the castle itself!

The layout shifted, an arch appearing between two towering shelves, and Harriet didn't pause to look at Set; she dashed through the new opening and inspected the room beyond. She stopped when she almost collided with the back of a brocaded chair, her free hand coming to rest on its scrolled edge as she looked around. More shelves resided here, as did several empty carrels and tables with the chairs kept tidy, tucked in and straightened. Harriet glanced at the domed ceiling and her breath caught, the spangled sky and its shifting constellations reflected in hues of blue and purple and bronze, tiny scrolls unwinding to show the names of various figures. An armillary sphere, a smaller version of the one in the Astronomy Tower, sat in the middle of the room, the stones of the floor radiating outward from its mount, the rings moving in slow, lazy circles.

Harriet spotted a hearth and ran to it, searching the carved mantle for a dish of forgotten Floo powder. Maybe, just maybe, she could escape that way.

A voice surprised her, and Harriet jerked back with an alarmed squeak. She'd neglected to notice the portrait hanging above the fireplace, and the woman and man inside of it looked at her.

The woman—dark-haired and arrayed in a navy blue gown, a tiara sparkling at her brow—spoke again, her language almost familiar but not quite. When Harriet failed to respond, the wizard— bearded and wearing drab robes, his gimlet eyes stern and inquisitive—barked something else. His piercing gaze landed on Livi. "Be you a Speaker then, maid?"

Gawking, Harriet nodded. "Yes, I'm—I'm a Parselmouth."

"You array yourself in the colors of mine House."

"I'm in Slytherin. Are you—?" She glanced between the pair, and for a moment almost forgot she might be in mortal peril. "Are you the Founders?"

The witch—Rowena Ravenclaw, it had to be!—spoke again, her words fast and urgent, her fair hands pressed tight together. Slytherin held his own hand up, stalling her words. "It is not safe here," he told Harriet. "Mine guardian has been released upon these halls, despoiled and wretched! Thou cannot linger, child!"

"I can't find the way out!" Harriet replied, panic creeping in. Oh, God—Merlin! He means the Basilisk. The Basilisk is here! Harriet had guessed as much, but having it confirmed only worsened her worry. "How do I get out?!"

"Dost thou know of the glass of silver?"

"The wh—? Yes, yes I know about the Moon Mirrors. I can't find one!"

Ravenclaw told Slytherin something, words tumbling in a rush, and then she looked at Harriet. She lifted her hand and pressed it to the fancy tiara on her head.

"Touch not the diadem," Slytherin ordered. " For it has been despoiled by craeft most malicious. Keep thine eyes averted, maid, and make for the higher solar! Rowena's own glass hangs therein. Go! Be off, now!"

He yelled and threw an arm toward an arch at the opposing end of the lounge, and though Harriet did as she was told and ran for it, she couldn't stop herself from looking back. Slytherin shouted, "Go!"

Harriet entered another corridor, wand out still, one hand on Livi to keep him steady. "If we see the Basilisk, whatever you do, Livi, don't look into its eyes!"

"I will bitesss—!"

"No, Livi! Don't look it in the eyes!"

Another corridor, another flight of stairs—another thousand books, all sitting silent upon their shelves, golden light in those strange windows illuminating their abandoned titles. Harriet searched for a door, an archway, anything that might lead to what Slytherin referred to as the "higher solar." What had the portrait meant by that? Why couldn't anyone put up any bloody signs?!

Harriet sprinted around a final turn in the corridor she journeyed through and came to a sudden, terrified stop. Her eyes closed—but no, no movement disturbed the eerie, pressing silence, nothing aside from her own breathing and thumping heart, sweat gathering on her cold skin, dripping along her spine. Hesitant, Harriet peeked at the floor toward her toes, and a single glimpse of the papery white material under her scuffed shoe sent her stomach swooping and flopping about like a pigeon crashing into a building.

The snake's shed skin unraveled like a rough, translucent ribbon splayed out on the otherwise immaculate floor. In a few places, it bunched upon itself and curled up the wall, stretching on and on and on, every visible foot of it increasing Harriet's fear until her vision blackened at the edges. She bent at the waist and picked up a loose piece; the scales had left impressions larger than Harriet's hand. At the head of the trail, where the corridor came to an end, waited a mirror. A Moon Mirror.

"Of course," Harriet breathed. "That's how it's been getting about." Professor Dumbledore had told them the Moon Mirrors could be found all over the castle, stating more than a dozen existed—but

exactly how many more, he never specified. Harriet had firsthand experience with the exceptional intelligence of magical snakes; given time, she didn't doubt the Basilisk could figure out how the Mirrors were connected, and which took it from one place to the next.

But where did this particular Moon Mirror lead? To the exit, or to certain doom?

Harriet navigated over the skin, wincing whenever it crackled under her feet. Her hand left a damp smudge on the glass when she pressed it to the mirror and said, "Open."

Again, the brisk, needling sensation passed over her as Harriet shut her eyes and stepped forward. Once on the other side, she blinked and looked around, wand at the ready. Nothing stirred in the museum Harriet had entered; the bones of ancient creatures stood on raised platforms or hung from the rounded ceiling, little plaques set out to tell what was what. Harriet wandered through the hulking, prehistoric monsters, hardly daring to raise her head for fear of meeting the Basilisk's sudden gaze. A glimmer caught her attention, and Harriet hurried to yet another Moon Mirror, this one set in gold and lifted a good foot or so from the base of the wall. When Harriet told it to open, it remained stubbornly shut.

An exit, then, not an entrance. Harriet turned and hurried back the way she'd come, taking a right past what could have only been a Thunderbird's massive ancestor, running by an empty tank where nothing but desiccated sand remained, pausing by a towering quadruped with a long neck—a brontosaurus, she thought it was called. Another mirror waited beyond its platform, and she dodged around the fossil until she reached the glass, whispered in Parseltongue, and managed to slip through.

Again, Harriet stood in one of the book-crowded corridors, but something had changed. She knew it by the taste in the air, an inexplicable bitterness on her tongue that made Harriet think of old dirt left too long in the sun, and how it smelled when the rain finally returned. The farther she journey, the wider the corridor grew, until the outer wall curled away, a colonnade taking its place, each pillar carved to resemble a tree, the stone branches sprawling out over the enchanted ceiling. The area beyond the colonnade expanded, two or three shallow steps leading up to what Harriet decided must have been a vast atrium in its glory days, a thousand perches of various sizes reaching high toward the vaulted roof, the curved wall dominated with a dozen soaring windows looking out upon the strange, distorted view.

Pages fluttered. Someone turned the page of a book.

Harriet climbed the steps, weak knees knocking together, and as she edged out from behind a carved pillar to see the heart of the atrium itself, she spotted yet another Moon Mirror, this one freestanding in an iron frame, gleaming bright in the orange firelight from beyond the false windows. A familiar face waited there.

"…Luna?"

A book snapped shut. A figure stepped from behind the mirror.

"Not quite."

Livius began to chime.

A/N: Okay, so something that always bugged me in canon (there's a lot, but, y'know, w/e) was that the Basilisk moved around through the pipes. Okay, awesome, makes sense given where the Chamber is…but how did it get out to attack people? It's not like there are open drains

big enough for that bad boy to come slithering out of.

Also, I'm not the world's great artist, but here's a link to an image of the trio!

CDT hermione, harriet, & elara

https//rentachiworks/art/certain-dark-things-hermione-harriet-elara-848400718

wit beyond measure

lxxxix. wit beyond measure

Harriet stared into the blank, empty eyes of Luna Lovegood and nearly screamed.

She hung before the Moon Mirror like a puppet with slack strings, her feet flat on the floor, her shoulders sagging, blonde head lolling on its skinny neck. She wore the same tiara Harriet had seen in Rowena Ravenclaw's portrait; the blue and white gems glinted like animal eyes in the night, all arrayed around the sweeping silver wings of the metal eagle, the band sitting snug above Luna's slack brow.

Someone walked into view and, before she thought better of it, Harriet asked, "Professor Slytherin?"

But no, it wasn't. It couldn't be; the wizard before her rose a bit taller in height, his shoulders a touch broader, more grown than her Defense instructor, dressed in plain black robes. He was also paler, his hair like ink dripping and curling over his forehead and around his jaw and ears, his profile vaguely avian in appearance, the angles of it harsher and more pronounced than Professor Slytherin's—though the stranger did have the same glaring, bright red eyes.

Those eyes focused on Harriet, his mouth curving into a grin too sharp and cold on his otherwise handsome face. He looked everything and yet nothing like Professor Slytherin.

"Intriguing," the wizard said as he looked Harriet over, gaze lingering on Livi longer than the girl herself. He had a book in his hands, and he dropped it without a care, kicking the thing away. "Another Parselmouth? Whose illegitimate spawn are you? Gaunt or Slytherin's?"

Ignoring him, Harriet demanded, "What have you done to Luna?!"

"No, too old to be one of theirs. Intriguing indeed," he continued, ignoring her in turn. He took a step forward and Livius chimed again, a low hiss building in the serpent that sank down into Harriet's bones. "A clever little witch, aren't you? What is your name?"

Harriet said nothing.

Sneering, the wizard turned to Luna and grabbed her roughly by the chin, tilting the girl's head back so he could stare into her vacuous eyes.

"What are you doing?! Get away from her!"

"Hmm. Harriet Potter." He let go of Luna, disregarding her, and looked to Harriet. He smiled again.

"H-How—?" Had Luna told him her name? Did he just—did he read Luna's mind?!

The wizard began to pace, slow and methodical, like a lion in its cage waiting for dinner to be served. Where he crossed the thicker bands of light passing through the windows, his outline seemed to glimmer or glint, like sunlight reflecting inside a crystal, sparking bright, colorful flares. The floor could be seen through his legs if he moved too quickly. "How are you liking the Aerie, Harriet? I'm surprised a student managed to find it, let alone have the ability to open the

passage. Rowena's archive has nothing on my ancestor's Chamber, but it does have its own quaint charm."

My ancestor.

"You're the Heir," Harriet stated.

"Brava, girl. Of course, I'm the Heir. Perhaps you're not so clever after all." He circled Luna, never straying far, and Luna remained immobile just a hand's breadth from his reach.

"What have you done to Luna? Let—let me take her," Harriet tried to bargain, licking her dry lips, breath shuddering in and out of her lungs. Livi chimed. "Let me take her, and I won't—won't tell anyone about you. I'm a Slytherin. I think you're—you're doing great work!"

"Liar," the Heir hissed before he laughed. "I'm afraid Luna won't be going anywhere. Not until I'm finished with her. She's been a great help to me, even if her annoying friend proved a nuisance. Nothing an Imperius or two couldn't handle." He leaned forward to brush his forefinger against the tiara's band. "Her soul belongs to me now, you see. Do you know what this is?"

"No, but—."

"I thought not. Ignorant thing you are. It's Rowena Ravenclaw's lost Diadem—only, it's not quite as lost as people believe, hmm? It's an interesting trinket, one a curious, naive little first-year wouldn't be able to resist putting on." He circled behind Luna and framed his hands around the witch's head. "Oh, she tried to resist, but when I kept whispering all the answers to every question her dense brain could imagine, Luna soon couldn't bring herself to take it off. I'd waited so long. I was too weak to form myself like the others, but being trapped in the Diadem has its perks, you see, one of which is learning the stored knowledge of the Aerie itself—a place neither Slytherin nor Gaunt nor Albus Dumbledore himself knows anything about."

Touch not the diadem, the Founder had said. For it has been despoiled by craeft most malicious. Harriet didn't know where the Heir had come from, why he'd targeted Luna or how he'd come to be trapped in Rowena's Diadem—but the more she watched him, the more it became apparent he had a connection to the thing. Was he killing Luna? Draining her? Harriet needed to get the Diadem off of the younger witch and get out of there!

"You've been framing Professor Slytherin all year. Why?" Harriet inquired in a bid for time. How was she supposed to get the Diadem off with the Heir hovering so close? Harriet regretted never learning a spell to yank hats off of a person's head.

"A means to an end, I assure you. A mutual acquaintance assisted me in finding a new body—." He drew a finger down his not quite corporeal chest. "And in exchange, I make a small spot of trouble for poor Professor Slytherin and Dumbledore."

"Headmaster Dumbledore will stop you."

The Heir snorted, pale nostrils flaring with suppressed rage. "Dumbledore can't stop anything. He is an impotent old wretch, little girl, and the sooner you realize the new order of things, the better." He tilted his head. "Though whether or not you survive our encounter depends on you."

"Depends on what?"

"Whether or not you're prepared to serve your new Lord."

A shiver of dread went through Harriet, and her eyes widened. Oh, no. No, no, no…it can't be. "…

Lord?"

The Heir smiled—a slow, sickening stretch of red lips baring white teeth, his gums pale and his eyeteeth long like fangs. "You haven't asked my name, little Harriet. How rude."

Harriet swallowed and shook her head, as if denying him the question would change the reality of her situation.

"Oh, come now, don't be coy. I said, ask me my name."

He tore the words from Harriet against her will. "What's your name?" She slapped her hand over her mouth, breathing hard.

Again, the Heir simpered and grinned, and when he raised his arm, Harriet saw Luna's wand clasped in his long, delicate fingers. "Flagrate," he incanted. The end of the wand lit up, and as he began to spell fiery letters in the air, he kept talking. "Tell me; your parents were killed by the greatest Dark wizard who ever lived, were they not? Our Luna here always found that an interesting, if often disregarded, fact of history. You were 'overlooked.'" He stopped writing, the words 'TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE' suspended between him and Harriet. "Only, he never overlooks anything. Never. So tell me, Harriet Potter, how did you survive?"

He flexed his white hands and the letters moved at his command, the fiery light glaring in his red eyes, burning like embers right out of the pits of Hell, the words coming together before the letters fully settled—.

I AM LORD VOLDEMORT.

No, no—not again!

"Relashio!" Harriet shouted, flinging the jinx toward Luna's head, but the Heir— Riddle, Voldemort—was faster, a silent shield catching her spell with a slight flick of his arm and a flutter of black cloth.

"Incarcerous."

"Protego!" Thin, gray cords whipped against Harriet's own shield and dissipated. She lunged forward without hesitation. "Expelliarmus!"

Again, Riddle simply swatted the spell aside. He laughed—a high, cold sound. "Child's play!"

A streak of blue light soared toward Harriet, and the words Snape spoke so many months ago in the dark of the dungeons came back to her. "Dodge spells colored green, blue, indigo, or violet. They will be more difficult, or impossible, to counter." So Harriet dodged; she flung herself to the side and scrambled behind a pillar, clutching Livius close as the serpent writhed and tried to get free. She was terrified Riddle would kill him. She was terrified he'd kill her.

"Hiding already, little Harriet? My, I didn't think I was such a bad host. You haven't even seen the best part!"

With her back pressed to the pillar, Harriet peered around the side, Livi still struggling. Riddle rounded on Luna, pushing her away, and he came to the Moon Mirror, touching its solid surface. Harriet fired a jinx at his back—but he saw it coming in the glass and deflected it with ease, the red light flying back at her with speed. Harriet ducked and heard the resulting crack! of the spell striking stone.

"Hear me, Salazar's chosen!" Riddle bellowed into the mirror. " Hear me and come, for I have opened the way!"

He whipped back—and the glass began to ripple, curdling, something coming near. Harriet threw herself upright and ran for the corridor.

"Offendimus!"

The Tripping Jinx caught her by the ankles, and Harriet went down, smacking her chin, driving her teeth into her tongue.

"Where are you going, Harriet? Why, you've come all this way, and haven't met my pet!"

She heard the Basilisk when it arrived: the thump of coils against the floor, the great, rattling inhale of lungs far, far larger than her own, its susserations joining in with Riddle's amused chuckling. Harriet slammed her eyes shut and clung to the first pillar she found. Copper flooded her mouth, chin stinging, her hand so tight upon her wand she feared it might snap in two. Livi jerked, and then—.

"No!" she cried at the Horned Serpent as he pulled from her body. Harriet opened her eyes on instinct, but her familiar had already gone invisible, and when she spied the looming shadow, the faint sheen of oily green scales, she squeezed her eyes shut again.

"Massster callsss for usss ," the Basilisk hissed. "Massster needsss usss."

"A plaything for you," Riddle told the creature, and Harriet didn't need to see to know he gestured at her. "Have fun."

The Basilisk crooned in affirmation and dragged its weight nearer where Harriet trembled blind and horrified. "Wait!" she yelled. What could she do? What could she say? Could she turn the Basilisk against the Heir? She didn't know enough bloody magic for this. "Wait! Your master is a fake! He's a fake!"

"The Massster isss everything," it answered, still moving. "The Massster isss with usss! Hungry, ssso hungry!"

Its voice roiled in Harriet's brain, hot and sticky and feverish, the edges of it curling in upon itself like milk left too long to boil in the pot. Something was wrong. It sounded ill, almost incomprehensible. "This isn't your purpose! This isn't what Salazar Slytherin would have wanted!"

"Give it up, Potter," Riddle called from his place by Luna's side. "The beast's mind rotted centuries ago! It only heeds my commands!"

The Basilisk loomed, its hissing thunderous, and as it reared overhead—.

"Protego Tria!" Harriet cried, jabbing her wand upward. The magic pulled through her with visceral force as she summoned the strongest shield she knew, and the snake collided with it, driving the air from Harriet's lungs. She skidded across the stones, rolling, and the snake came again, snarling. "Protego Tria!"

The second blow proved almost too much for Harriet's strength, throwing her far enough for her side to collide with another pillar. Something snapped and Harriet gasped at the resulting pain, the blackness inside her eyelids pulsing with red. She crumpled at the pillar's base.

"Pathetic."

Grunting, Harriet prepared herself to cast another shield, knowing the Basilisk surrounded her, its presence pressing closer and closer, the pillars groaning against the squeezing hold of its coils. I'm going to die here, Harriet realized. The thought wasn't as terrifying as she would have expected. Harriet didn't fear death so much as what would come after, what would happen to her friends, to her school, to Luna, and the Wizarding world. She hadn't known it, but maybe Harriet had made her peace with death a long time ago, somewhere in the dark of a stuffy cupboard, hungry and tired and unloved, unwanted. Living was often a lot scarier than the thought of dying.

Something brushed her arm. "It will not touch the Missstresss!" Livi snarled. Next came a harsh, guttural rasp as he spat at the monster—and the Basilisk shrieked.

Stone crunched and ground against itself as the Basilisk writhed and a column fell, crashing into the floor, bits of rock pelting Harriet as she threw her arms over her head.

"No!" Riddle shouted, but Harriet couldn't spare a moment for his objection; the Basilisk's tail whipped out and struck her side, flinging Harriet across the room once more. Sputtering for breath, she surged upright and risked a quick peek through her lashes.

Her glasses remained on, kept steady by a nifty Charm found by Hermione for Quidditch. The Basilisk did, in fact, surround her, having wound itself up in the colonnade to compensate for its length—every long, spiny foot of it twitching and twisting, the stones groaning, the floor shaking and jumping underfoot as it hissed and cried and sputtered half-formed curses. Harriet chanced a look at its horrid, eel-like head, her knees almost buckling at the sight of its teeth flashing like curved rapiers, but what caught her attention was the clear, viscous liquid popping and sizzling, dripping along the contours of its skull, joined by thin rivulets of pink blood.

Livi's venom. He spat venom into its eyes!

Harriet sucked in a breath. "Livius!"

She ran, and either the Basilisk heard or felt or smelled her coming because it jerked its head about with an infuriated hiss and lunged for the Horned Serpent laying curled up and crumpled at the base of a chipped pillar. "Protego Serpens!"

The monster bounced off the vaporous shield that formed over Livi, jostling more venom into the bloody ruin of its eyes. It shook itself, and Harriet felt it splatter against her skin, a fine, burning mist peppering her hands as she reached out for her familiar—.

"How dare you?! CRUCIO!"

Recoiling, having forgotten Riddle in the heat of the moment, Harriet thrust her wand forward, gasping, "Protego!" yet again. The red blast streaked toward her with all the speed of a lightning bolt, but her shield did nothing to stop it. It sank right through the Charm without resistance, and Harriet didn't have a chance to be confused about that before she was screaming, the world disappearing into a red-hot tangle of sheer, inexplicable agony that burst into existence faster than an exploding firecracker. It ended just as suddenly as it began, and Harriet came back to herself wheezing and sobbing, collapsed over Livi's prone form.

Riddle's laughter seemed to echo and resound from all corners of the atrium, burning worse than the venom pockmarking Harriet's arms, or the trembling, searing ache in her joints, or the piercing throb of a bone broken somewhere in her left arm. "Did you like that, little girl?" Riddle crowed— and Harriet fired another worthless Disarming Charm at him. He deflected it into a window and shattered the glass. "Oh, I think you did enjoy it. Your worm blinded my Basilisk, so I think it's only fair I return the favor!"

He raised his wand again, and Harriet braced herself for the blow—for the pain or for death, every spell she'd ever learned seeming to leak out of her ears like meaningless goo, her wand just an ineffective stick clasped in numb, frozen fingers. She could hardly see Riddle through the haze of her tears, his body silhouetted against the brighter windows—but she saw that arm lift, and Harriet refused to close her eyes.

"Crucio!"

"Protego Horribilis!"

A silvery, paper-thin aegis flashed in front of Harriet, catching and absorbing the oncoming curse. Harriet breathed and turned her head, because she hadn't been the one to speak that spell. No, it had been the idiot now standing at the entrance of the atrium gaping at the hulking serpent and the Heir of Slytherin himself.

It was Neville fucking Longbottom.

A/N: Someone asked if Luna was foreshadowed; she is, a bit. It's subtle. Most of her "odd behavior" is just brushed off as Luna being Luna. Readers kept expecting it to be Ginny and the diary and thought she was under the influence of the Horcrux, when we know from Rikkety the house-elf's behavior after she poisoned Harriet (CH 32) that Ginny is showing signs of having been Imperiused. It's not the Diary; we've seen the Diary (CH 26). You can actually go back and find a clue pointing out where Luna must have gotten the Diadem and who gave it to her.

Would Livi's venom kill the Basilisk? Maybe, given time. The Basilisk's canonically "magic resistant," and venomous snakes do have some resistance to venom when it's introduced to their bloodstream. Given it's a magic snake and incredibly deadly, I'd say it'd most likely survive.

promises made

xc. promises made

Severus knew something was wrong before the pain even began.

He put no credence in Divination; he thought it a vacuous discipline perpetrated by charlatans and conmen, by morons like Sybil Trelawney who sucked down too many hallucinogenics and made a living screwing up everyone else's lives. Prophecies weren't anything until madmen decided they were; the centaurs claimed the fate of the world was written in the stars, but that was shite, too. There was no greater destiny, no fate. Decisions and the lack thereof drove the universe, the chaos of freewill being far more terrifying than anything Trelawney could summon in her crystal ball. Even so, for all his disdain of Divination and its practitioners, a chilling portent of doom settled in Severus far before Minerva called for the students to return to their dormitories. It didn't surprise him.

What now? He snarled in his thoughts, flicking his wand to Vanish the contents of his students' cauldrons. "Pack your things," he told the group of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw first-years. "Quickly."

They moved to comply, muttering and whispering among one another, wondering what was going on. For a moment, Severus' eyes snapped to the empty seat in the middle of the room where Lovegood usually sat, and again that inexplicable sensation of being wrong-footed came over him. Sneering, he flexed his right hand to ease the stiffness in his fingers and rubbed his knuckles.

He swept from the lower dungeons with the nattering students behind him trailing like nervous, irritating ducklings. Severus saw the Hufflepuffs off first, their common room not terribly far from the potions class, then embarked for Ravenclaw Tower, chiding the first-years to keep up. Flitwick waited outside the Tower's door, and he checked off names from a scroll of parchment as the children passed him one-by-one into the common room before.

Severus crossed his arms. "Miss Lovegood neglected to attend class," Severus informed the shorter wizard. "Miss Wilde stated Lovegood told her she wasn't feeling well and would be reporting to the hospital wing."

Filius waited for the last student to enter the Tower, then tapped his wand against the enchanted knocker, flaring the castle's wards. Severus felt them shift like he felt the cool, prickling numbness in his fingertips. "Miss Lovegood has gone missing, Severus," Flitwick said, expression grim. "We believe there's been another attack. There's writing on the wall in the sixth-floor corridor, and the perpetrator claims to have taken the poor girl. Minerva is meeting with her father, Xenophilius, in Albus' office as we speak."

Severus didn't envy McGonagall having to comfort the distraught man; he knew Lovegood by reputation, which painted him as a wizard one step above Trelawney in lucidity. Again, that prodding sense of doom had the audacity to knee him in the gut and Severus stirred, restless. "Fine. I need to count the Slytherins," he said, leaving without further comment. He didn't bother to mention Professor Slytherin's absence, given Severus would have been forced to act as Head of House with or without the wizard's presence. He held no illusions for his role; he acted as Slytherin's servant, putting in the bloody legwork so the bastard could go right on being a conniving monster. He took the stairs at a quick pace, robes billowing, and arrived back in the dungeons in record time.

The Slytherin common room remained at its usual demure decibel despite the students gathered with their heads bent in whispered speculation. That soft murmuring cut off as soon as Severus stepped through the entrance, all attention swiveling to the approaching Potions Master. "Prefects Derrick and Muldoon," he said. "Gather anyone in their rooms and bring them here."

The respective boy and girl broke off from the group and disappeared through the opposing corridors, inciting a slow dribble of latecomers until the pair returned and informed him that the dorms were empty. Severus counted heads, rattling down the Slytherin roster in his head—only to come to a screeching halt when he missed the whole second-year of the House.

"Where are the second-years?" he asked aloud. Gemma Farley replied, "Defense!" and Severus scowled.

Of course.

"You will remain here until I say otherwise," he told the students, spinning on his heels to march back into the castle proper. Whoever had the idea of employing Lockhart as a substitute this late in the term needed to be cursed—though he understood Minerva's reasoning for authorizing the decision. Defense Masters were hardly thick on the ground. Understanding didn't mean he accepted the outcome of the farce, however. The bumbling shouldn't be in charge of himself, let alone a group of teenagers armed with their wands.

He needed only approach the Defense lecture room to know the students had already moved on, the hall free of Lockhart's loud, aggravating vamping. Severus headed toward Gryffindor Tower in search of his wayward charges and heard the voices echo down the stairwell, the shouting and wailing, too many sounds mixed together for him to recognize any person in particular. The Potions Master palmed his wand as he came out into the upper thoroughfare and found the Slytherins in the middle of a red-faced Gryffindor mob, the macabre writing on the wall a garish and horrid addition to the unfolding confrontation. Sprout and Babbling were caught in the middle of it, trying to soothe the panic and chivvy everyone on their way, but neither had the temperament for dealing with a gang of scared morons.

Naturally, Lockhart's effete presence did nothing to help.

"For fuck's sake," Severus hissed, voice lost to the noise. He jabbed his wand against his throat and threw an Amplify Charm on himself. "Silence!" he boomed, and anyone who didn't have the sense to shut their mouth quickly did so after meeting his furious glower. "Return to your dormitories. Now. Anyone still standing here in the next thirty seconds will be having an exceedingly unpleasant conversation with our acting Headmistress."

Feet hurried and scampered away, though a few of the older and more obstinate Gryffindors lingered to glare at Severus. They, too, wandered off quickly enough, following their younger dormmates toward the rising stairs. Pomona and Babbling shepherded them along, though they did shoot grateful looks in his direction. Their gratitude rubbed the Potions Master the wrong way, and he refused to acknowledge them, turning his attention to the group of frightened Slytherins—and bloody Lockhart.

"Ah, well—there was no need to intervene, Severus, old chap! I had everything under control!"

"Did you?" Severus asked, his tone frigid. He didn't have time for this sodding ponce. "Do you have that under control as well, Gilderoy?" He jabbed a finger at the gruesome writing. "You are the resident Defense expert with Professor Slytherin's inquiry still pending, after all."

"I, uh, yes, of course, I…."

Severus' eyes flicked over the second-years, counting—and coming up two short. "Where are Potter and Black?" The children looked at one another, and he knew they hadn't yet realized the two brats had disappeared. When did they leave? What in the hell did they think they were doing? "You eleven are to go to the common room directly. No detours. Stay together. And you—." Severus had half the urge to curse Lockhart into compliance simply so he wouldn't bollocks anything else up. "I assume you can escort a group of children to the entrance hall without further difficulty."

"Yes, yes, I can do that, no problem—!"

"Then do so, and try not to lose any other students."

Severus headed off to a higher floor still, his mind whirling, the whole of his attention centered upon his right wrist and the white scar wrapped about it like spider silk. The stiffness there took on a new meaning. Merlin help Black and Potter if he found out they'd been overlooked in the dorms or if they'd felt peckish and gone to the kitchens unannounced. Flitwick specified that Lovegood had gone missing or had been abducted, not Potter, not Black. Where had the stupid girls gone?

The pervading numbness in his hand intensified as he passed through the entrance hidden by the snarling gargoyle, and when he at least reached the Headmaster's office, the first sparks of static began to eat at his flesh.

"Severus," Minerva said as he barged into the room unannounced, the door bashing against the inner wall. Xenophilius sat at one of the guest chairs, twisting a handkerchief round and round in his pale hands, his hair thin as corn silk and his red-rimmed eyes slightly crossed. "What is the meaning of this?"

"Potter and Black aren't accounted for," he reported, fisting his aching hand in the wide sleeve of his robes. "And your Gryffindors were in an unruly state last I saw of them."

"Unruly?"

"As unruly as they ever are—completely disrespectful and close-minded. It doesn't matter. Did you not hear what I said? Potter and Black are missing."

Minerva sighed, rubbing at the lines of exhaustion drawn across her furrowed brow. "Merlin preserve us. Where could they be?"

"That's what I would like to know."

"And what about my Luna?" Lovegood demanded, voice breaking as it rose. "What is being done to find this—Chamber? Why hasn't the Ministry sent anyone?!"

Severus and Minerva glanced at one another. Both Slytherin and Albus had postulated that Gaunt wouldn't step in to "assist" until someone died. If that death was pure-blood child, then all the better; those simpering sycophants with seats on the Wizengamot would sing Gaunt's praises if the Minister strolled into Hogwarts and felled the monstrous creature killing "magical" children. A few Petrifactions of boys and girls from mundane households meant nothing—as if Muggle-borns were any less deserving of their magic, as if they were less sympathetic in the eyes of the staid, insular council.

The Wizarding world would be looking at another ten years of the Gaunt administration come next election if Luna Lovegood died.

A yelp echoed behind Severus, rising up through the yet open door—and the youngest male Weasley found himself staring down the Potions Master's wand when he came careening into the office without invitation.

"Mr. Weasley!" McGonagall sputtered, torn between being aghast or simply outraged. "What on earth are you doing outside of your common room?!"

The boy paled. "Professors! He—you have to come! Neville, he, you know, he's been following Potter around, 'cos she's been acting suspicious, and then there was this mirror and Neville thought it might be the Chamber, but then he went and pushed her and, blimey, I don't know why he did that—and then Black hit him and they both fell through and I didn't know what else to do, because it closed up right after them—."

"Weasley, are we supposed to understand any of this drivel? Take a breath and spare us the melodrama."

The boy didn't have the wherewithal—or the wits—to scowl, and he kept rambling, his attention centered on McGonagall as the witch came around Albus' desk.

"Please, Professor, they might be trapped there! Luna and Neville and Potter and Black!"

"Trapped where, boy?"

"In the Chamber! Inside the mirror!"

The words sent a bolt of fear and fury down Severus' spine for all that he knew them to be a misled lie. According to Slytherin, the Chamber hadn't been touched since the Basilisk's release, and whoever was masquerading as the Heir wouldn't use it now as Slytherin was only one Floo call away and keen to subvert Gaunt's plans. Where were Potter, Black—and Longbottom—trapped, then? In the actual, empty Chamber? Slytherin would have their heads.

Severus' right hand quaked. Them being in the Chamber wouldn't explain the Vow's reaction.

"Show us where, Mr. Weasley."

The boy whipped about and ran down the stairs again with Severus right behind him. Minerva's stern voice followed as she tried to get Lovegood to stay behind, but the man cried, "She's my only daughter! My little girl! I won't sit by and do nothing!" and the witch knew she'd lost.

Clear of the gargoyle and already across the hall, Weasley bolted for the stairwell. He would have tripped over his own feet and tumbled onto his head if Severus hadn't caught him by the arm. Minerva and Lovegood kept pace, their footsteps echoing, joined by Lovegood's anxious muttering and Weasley's terrified panting. The boy led them down through the castle to the second-floor… and came to an abrupt halt in front of the library's locked doors. He backtracked and they came around the other way, again coming to the library's empty corridor.

"Mr. Weasley, if this some kind of prank—."

"I—I swear, Professors, it was here!" He spun in all directions, looking at the walls, the floor, and when he failed to spot whatever it was he sought, the boy launched into another jumbled explanation. "It was a corridor I've never seen before! I don't think Neville had come across it before either, but I don't know, we didn't stop to chat about it! We followed Potter here and she— well, there was this ugly statue there, and it asked her a riddle or something, and then it disappeared and there was a mirror and they went through it—."

"Where is it, Weasley?" Severus demanded, gritting his teeth. He flicked his wrist to drop his wand into his grasp—and had to transfer it to the other hand when his fingers seized and cramped, curling in upon his palm. The pain intensified like burning copper coils winding tighter and tighter, cutting into the skin, the tissues, the muscles, the bones. It made the whole of his arm ache.

Minerva spared him a curious glance, then looked away.

"I don't know! It was here! But…not here. Blimey, I know that sounds mental, but it's true!"

Severus swore aloud and the boy gawked. He attributed McGonagall's lack of reaction to her own worry, and Xenophilius slumped against the nearest wall, a man defeated.

Where is Albus when the old codger is actually needed?! Dumbledore wasn't there, and they didn't have time to bring him in. Severus didn't have time; the girl was in danger, mortal danger, given the Vow's growing alarm. It blotted out rational thought, a crushing lodestone seeming to pulverize and reconstitute the atoms of his digits only to repeat the process over and over again. In some distant depth of his mind, the Potions Master understood he might die today—that his death may, in fact, be imminent, as he'd never been one for optimism and their situation did not lend him any foolish hope.

He felt the ghost of Lily's hand over his own. The pain set in and dragged like a witch's nails clawing his flesh.

"If the worst should come to pass, will you keep her from danger?"

"I will."

Severus pushed himself into motion. McGonagall started. "Where are you going?" she called at his retreating back.

"Potter's dormitory."

"Severus, wait—."

She hurried after him with surprising speed and wrapped a hand about his forearm. "Get off of me —!"

The pressure of Apparition enfolded them, stealing Severus' breath, and they landed again with a heavy, awkward thump. Severus smacked his head against a four poster's rail while McGonagall slumped back on a closed trunk. "Och," she grunted, winded. "Albus warned me that wouldn't be pleasant with all the wards active if I needed to use it."

"Ah. I'd forgotten you could Apparate within the castle as acting Headmistress." Severus straightened and pushed his hair from his eyes, ignoring the throbbing knot forming on his skull. The second-year girls Slytherin dorms looked just as all the rest did, if tidier than he knew the section dedicated to their male counterparts of the House would be. Severus didn't know which bed belonged to which student and didn't bother to check; he twitched his wand with his left hand and said, "Accio Potter's hairbrush."

It was ironic, Severus decided, that he would have to use the same Locator Effigy he'd utilized earlier in the summer to find the girl yet again. Albus wouldn't like the use of such a dubious incantation on school grounds, but if Severus didn't do something, it wouldn't bloody matter what Albus liked to didn't like. Several students would be dead or injured or Petrified, the Board would confirm Dumbledore's dismissal, and Severus would be six feet under.

A thud sounded from one of the trunks and he strode over to it, pulling harder on the magic until the lid popped open with a clatter and the summoned brush smacked into his waiting palm. Severus ripped a chunk of hair from the bristles, tossed the brush aside, and turned to Minerva. Severus recognized the displeased gleam in her eyes; though not as versed in Dark magic as he, McGonagall was a master in her field and had enough experience with magic to recognize what spell he meant to use. Like Albus, she didn't like it—didn't like being associated with something that might tarnish her gleaming Gryffindor morals—but she gave no protest.

It always fell to him to do the dirty work.

"To my storeroom," Severus said, voice cold, hand extended. "Quickly."

She did as requested, the second spiraling journey through the castle more pressing and crippling than the first, and Severus felt his private wards crackle and tear at the edges as McGonagall used her temporary authority to gain entry into his locked office. Something shattered when they reappeared—a thrown arm or an elbow or a leg connecting with a jar—and Severus didn't bother to look for the mess, staggering upright instead and lurching like a drunkard to his shelves. He scattered vials and loose cartons, hunting for the tied bundle of evergreen he kept here—when, from one moment to the next, he started screaming.

It rose up like a terrible inferno, a swelling plume billowing, expanding, skin tearing from bone, veins filled with acid dripping and sizzling, and Severus would have done anything to be parted from it, would have chewed his arm off at the elbow if only to lose the flaming, crackling appendage being incinerated at the end of it—but no. No, nothing had changed but for Severus landing on his knees in a puddle of broken glass and potion debris, his hand raised up over his bowed head with his fist clenched tight. Minerva grabbed him by the shoulders, demanding to know what was wrong, what she could do—until she went silent as the grave.

Severus lifted his head. Minerva had her eyes fixed to his quaking hand, and in the low, diffused light of the storeroom, the pearlescent lines of the Vow's scarring stood out stark on his clammy skin.

"What have you done?" she whispered, both a question and a demand—and a quiet, despairing platitude. "Oh, Severus…."

She made as if to touch it, and Severus jerked away, snarling, bracing his other hand on a shelf to bring himself upright and to tower over the woman. "Either assist or get out!"

"Yer aff yer heid, Severus Snape, taking that tone with me!" McGonagall's square spectacles caught and burned in the weak light. Her accent thickened, and color blazed in her furious face. "You stubborn, eejit boy! What have you done—?!"

Severus couldn't take it. "I made a promise!" he yelled, and the words seemed to bounce and shatter upon the stone walls in the resulting silence, Severus' breathing hoarse, his nerves frayed by pain and the unspeakable fear of fucking dying at any given moment, though he'd never admit to it. He felt as raw and flayed open as he had the night he found that bloodied, squalling infant in her crib, her mother's body cooling on the bedroom floor. He made a promise. He would die for the privilege of seeing it fulfilled.

Severus shut his eyes and shoved the emotion down, Occluding until the cold, frozen waters consumed him and gave clarity to the spiraling madness. He needed to act. This wasn't a conversation to be had now. It wasn't one he meant to ever have. He needed to find the students.

"Move," he said, the word soft, dangerous. Minerva shifted, alarmed, and Severus went to the shelf

behind her, shoving the jars aside to reveal the wrapped bundle of evergreen branches. With practiced efficiency, he stripped off a sprig and tied Potter's hair about it, threading it through the preserved needles, focusing on his intent. A slash to the outside of his palm and a generous smear of blood against the sprig finished the Effigy. "Take us back to the library. Now."

A third and final Apparition nearly turned Severus' stomach. The resulting crack! startled both Lovegood and Weasley, the latter pointing his snapped wand at Severus as if he could actually do anything with it. Sneering, Severus turned his back and spelled the Effigy into the air. It hung for several seconds without motion, and each of those seconds beat in his chest, hollow and static. The pain wended upward from his wrist again and Severus willed the Effigy to move, to find the way. It might not work. It might go nowhere at all—or it may fly toward the dungeons, or anywhere else the girl frequented in the castle. It might—.

The sprig twitched, and magic brushed Severus' thoughts, his gaze flicking to an angle in the wall he'd failed to notice before. It made for an odd flaw, a glimmer or sheen against the darker blocks, a thin skein projecting forward just enough to catch his attention. Given neither Minerva nor Lovegood appeared to see it, Severus guessed it was the Charm in his left eye detecting a chink in an otherwise perfect glamour.

The Effigy floated into the wall and disappeared.

Severus surged forward and whatever ancient magic shielded the branching passage from view splintered, two corridors overlaying one another for the briefest of instances—until he found himself standing by a portrait of a woman and several geese, a wall at his back, and a new hall opened before him.

Minerva and the others had vanished.

The Effigy warbled and shook, continuing until it dropped without warning, the spell broken, the tied bundle hitting the floor by Severus' boot. He paid it not mind, the bristle snapping under his tread, the smell of pine pungent in his nose. A bust sat upon a plinth midway down the passage, and as his shadow crossed the stone head, Severus swore it turned to look at him.

"Name me, and I shall disappear."

A riddle. Simple enough. "Silence."

Stone grated against stone, and Severus held himself ready, a curse on the tip of his tongue as the plinth receded and a mirror—the same Weasley had mentioned in his blathering—came forward. His reflection was paler than usual, gaunt and severe, a red flush creeping upward from his collar, caused by the steady, angry pulsing that knifed through his hand and the cold sweat sticking to his skin. He placed his hand on the glass and it remained stubbornly in place.

"Aberto."

He pushed, and nothing happened.

"Aparecium!"

Yet again, the mirror remained as it was, and Severus' arm shook under his weight, his knuckles stark. A ragged breath fogged the surface.

"Revelio! Speculum Aperio! Open, goddammit!" His fist collided with the glass, and the open slash on his palm that had been steadily leaking since the dungeons left a red smear. He struck it again— harder, splitting the skin upon his knuckles—and gave a wordless, ineffectual snarl as his

Occlusion flickered and warped under the strain of his rage and self-hatred. "What in the fuck is the point of you?!" Severus screamed. He met his own stare in his reflection and didn't know to whom he spoke—himself, the mirror, Dumbledore, the castle, or the whole wretched society that used its people like pawns on a chessboard. "What is the point of it all when children are fucking dying in a miserable political gamble and you do nothing?! Tell me."

Blood ran and dripped on the floor, over his wrist, the wall, staining the white of Severus' cuff, leaving rusty trails on the glass.

"Open!"

He shouted and pressed and reached with everything in his being, a thousand years of magic opening its eyes to look back and—.

"OPEN!"

Suddenly, Severus' hand passed through the mirror.

A/N: Kind of a slow chapter, but the stuff that happens here is really important later on in the series.

Anyway, a couple of readers asked about creating a discord server for this story. Is that something people are interested in? I have to admit, I don't know how to go about doing something like that, aha.

Aerie Guardian: "Name me, and I shall disappear."

Snape: "Is it Potter whenever I do a Slytherin head-count?"

Guardian: "….."

Snape: "….."

Guardian: "Okay, I'll allow it."

inferno

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

xci. inferno

Harriet blinked. She blinked again—and again, because she could do little else than stare in dumbfounded disbelief at Neville Longbottom standing there with his wand out and pointed toward the Heir of Slytherin.

I must have smacked my head if I'm seeing Longbottom of all people.

He was saying something to her, his lips moving. The words made little sense to Harriet, the syllables and sounds bouncing about in her fuzzy brain like bugs in a jar. "—move, Potter! Move!"

Nothing registered until Elara sprinted forward, her silver eyes wide, panicked, and locked on Harriet. Longbottom fired a bevy of jinxes and hexes at Riddle, each ricocheting off Riddle's shields—and Harriet reached out as if in a dream, snatching hold of Elara's hands, and yanked her out of the way of a returned curse.

This is real. This is happening. They're actually here. I need to—!

Harriet scooped Livi into her arms and scrambled from her knees to her feet. Elara shouted, "Oscausi!" and a blur of white light flew at the Heir, deflected again with a subtle twitch of his wand hand. The rocks it hit cracked along the edges.

"Someone's been practicing Dark magic! Such interesting friends you keep, little Harriet."

Running, Harriet and Elara dodged the Basilisk and Riddle's spellfire, diving behind Longbottom and his faltering shield. "Run!" Harriet yelled at the boy, grabbing a handful of his robes and yanking with all her trembling might. "Run, you idiot!"

"I'm not leaving Luna!"

The Basilisk was turning, tongue lashing, but Riddle hadn't taken a single step forward.

"We have to move!"

A column toppled as the Basilisk reared back, mouth open, fangs extended, forcing Neville into motion. Their footsteps echoed in the narrower corridor like hailstone on a window—but nothing could drown out Riddle's screamed command for the serpent to chase after them.

Neville tried to stop and face it, jerking against the hands holding him back. "Luna needs our help!"

"We can't help her if we're bloody eaten, you absolute twat! Run!"

They bowled around a corner and only Elara's painful grip under Harriet's arm kept her weak legs from giving out. Neville threw an Exploding Charm over his shoulder and nearly clipped them both in his hurry. Books burst into a messy shower of pages and tattered parchment, the sound and resulting shower confusing the Basilisk just long enough for the trio to dash to the Moon Mirror waiting at the corridor's end.

"Open!" Harriet hissed, terrified that it wouldn't, that it'd be another exit-mirror and they'd be

pinned in a dead-end with sixty ruddy feet of enraged, blinded snake bearing down upon them—.

Elara pushed them through the glass, and Harriet landed in a crumpled heap, grunting when the stone made contact with her already bloodied chin. Panting, she rolled to her side and with a harsh, slashing motion, cried, "Finestra!"

The mirror shattered into pieces.

"Why would you do that?!" Neville yelped, making as if to grab at the shards before Elara pushed him back. "How are we supposed to get Luna?!"

Harriet didn't reply. She lowered her wand and allowed herself to take a breath, the air cutting into her lungs like a smothered sob. Her muscles continued to jump and seize, painful tremors making it almost impossible to hold herself steady. She cradled Livi close and brought his face nearer her own. He let out a low, plaintive hiss and opened an eye, the pupil widening with the effort. Blood speckled the gem set in his skull, and one of his horns had a large split along the side.

"You were brilliant, Livi," she whispered, stroking his snout. Carefully, she tucked him around her shoulders and under her sweater, warm and out of sight. "Just rest now. We'll get you f-fixed up soon, don't worry."

"Potter—."

Neville was cut off when Elara snapped, "Shut up! God help me if you open your mouth again, Longbottom, they won't find your body!"

"But—!"

"What happened to your face?" Harriet blurted. Neville sported the beginnings of a rather large and swollen black-eye, and Harriet hadn't seen any of Slytherin's curses make it through Neville's shield and connect.

"It broke my hand, that's what happened!" Elara retorted, proffering said hand for Harriet's inspection. One of her fingers had swelled up like Longbottom's lumpy face. "All because of his stupidly hard head!"

"That was your fault, Black—!"

"You imbecile—!"

"Stop it," Harriet demanded, and though her voice was reedy with pain and exhaustion, the pair fell silent. She surveyed the room they'd wound up in and recognized the museum of ancient fossils, a Thunderbird to their right, a golden frame at their backs where the Moon Mirror once hung. Harriet had tried this particular mirror before and had found it didn't open from this side; she knew exactly where the exit back to Riddle and the atrium was.

She must have taken too long in considering their options, because Longbottom shifted from foot to foot, uneasy. "Are you, uh, okay, Potter?"

"No, I'm not bloody okay! Idiot." Harriet took another breath, wincing. "How did you two wind up here? How did you find me without using the Mirrors?"

Scowling, Neville crossed his arms, his wand still clenched in his fist. "Black pushed me in."

"I did not. I struck you, and when you stumbled, you grabbed my arm and pulled me with you!"

"Whatever. I don't know what you mean about the mirrors, Potter. I think the corridors can move like they do in the rest of Hogwarts." He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. "What is this place? It can't be the Chamber—look at all these Ravenclaw emblems!"

Elara scoffed and spoke to Harriet. "This place reads intention, to an extent. Longbottom dashed off looking for Luna and the Aerie eventually brought us there. The Mirrors appear to be a form of shortcut—a means probably utilized by a moderator or librarian in the past."

Harriet just nodded, not at all fussed at the moment to try and understand the Aerie's inner workings. They had more pressing issues.

"We have to move," she told them, trying—and failing—to get upright once more. Elara ducked down and pulled Harriet's arm around her shoulders, helping the shorter witch stand. "We—the Basilisk knows how to get around. It can move through the Mirrors, and—we have to get the Diadem off Luna. I don't know how he's doing it, but he's—the Heir is draining her through it, or killing her, or—. Listen, we need to go this—."

Suddenly, Harriet could hear it again, the dark, slippery susurrations of the Basilisk's mad, ravenous chattering. "Kill the falssse Ssspeaker. Find them, KILL them…."

It was drawing nearer—there! The thump of coils upon the floor caused all three of them to jump as the monster entered the museum through another portal. Harriet let go of Elara and lunged for the aisle, leaping onto the towering brontosaurus' platform, dashing between its legs. Elara and Neville followed—and the Basilisk's answering hiss as it swiveled its mangled head in their direction sounded as loud and as vicious as any lion's roar. Harriet didn't give herself time to think; its weight struck the platform, jarring it, its shadow colder than it should be—and she hurled a hex at the fossil overhead.

Grabbing Neville and Elara by a wrist each, she jumped from the platform as the dinosaur came tumbling down, crashing and splintering, the Basilisk shrieking as it disappeared under a heaving pile of heavy bones. A cloud of dust exploded from the impact and the trio choked on the thick, gritty air, but Harriet could still see the outline of the last Moon Mirror stationed ahead. "We're almost there!"

She hissed at the glass, and again it allowed them passage, Harriet sucking in cold, clean air when she popped out the other side. She didn't hesitate to shatter the mirror like she had the last.

"Why are you doing that, Potter?! You're going to trap us here!"

She bared her teeth at Longbottom as she gripped her broken arm, holding it close to her side. "You weren't so worried about trapping anyone when you pushed me into this bloody place, were you? No, you were right chuffed then. Bigoted prat."

Red suffused Longbottom's sweaty face and blotted the purpling bruise. "You really want to have it out right now? Fine. I was wrong, okay? I was wrong! I'm an arsehole! Now, can you tell me where we are? Why did that freak look like Professor Slytherin? And how are we going to rescue Luna? Or are you planning to slither out of here without even trying—?"

Harriet kicked him in the shin and didn't care that it hurt her foot. Everything else already hurt, so what did it matter? "I don't know, Longbottom, for Merlin's sake! I didn't exactly plan for this, did I?"

"Harriet," Elara intoned, and the shorter witch grimaced, looking away from the Prat Who Lived before she gave in to the urge and kicked him again. "Do you have your Cloak?"

"No, it's in my bag, which I think is outside by that ugly statue."

Elara sighed and wiped her dusty face with her sleeve. Harriet's shoulders grew heavier with every passing second, dragging toward the floor, tears pricking at her eyes against her permission. She was so tired; Harriet had never wanted for a day to be over more than she did right at that moment, and the injustice of it pulled at her as if it had tangible weight. She couldn't leave Luna to die. She didn't know the way out. Her arm hurt—every nerve in her body throbbed, flayed open, and there was almost too much blood and grime on her glasses to see through.

They couldn't stay there. The mirror might be broken, but the Basilisk would find another way around.

"We'll distract him," Neville said, piecing together a patchwork plan of action. "Potter, you're fast —so Black and I will keep hexing him, and you'll get by and sneak over to Luna and take off the Diadem!"

"If you had a half a brain in your fat head you'd know we aren't going to get anywhere near the Diadem. He's not some dimwitted idiot who'll let three kids get one over him." The orange, blazing letters of the wizard's name remained fixed in Harriet's mind as if burnt onto her retinas. I am Lord Voldemort. Tom Marvolo Riddle. She scratched her neck, broken nails dull and uneven against the thicker skin of her scar. "We have to attack Luna."

"What?!"

"Don't be thick, Longbottom. We won't get anywhere attacking the Heir; we gotta get that crown thing off of Luna, and she's the one without a wand. If we knock her down, it should knock the Diadem off."

Harriet didn't know if it'd work. She didn't know if knocking the Diadem off would do anything at all, only that Riddle wouldn't leave Luna's side, and it was the only chance they had of defeating him. They couldn't stand here and waffle over ideas forever; Luna could be dying and the Basilisk would be drawing ever closer.

She looked at the wand clasped tight in her shaky hand. Some part of her didn't want to go back; it was cowardly, but Harriet thought it better to admit the fear than to let it fester. She was afraid. All she had was a smattering of spells all jumbled in her head, a broken arm, and an injured Horned Serpent. She was afraid of failing. Failure didn't mean she'd get a 'T' on an essay or detention; people would die—one of her best friends, the Boy Who Lived, Lovegood.

Harriet didn't know what to do.

Neville moved, charging on with that blind Gryffindor assurance could be almost admirable in the right situations—though, Harriet didn't think now was the best time for it. She and Elara exchanged one wary glance and set off after him. The light continued to gleam, steady as a well-stoked hearth, and they walked through intermittent bands of gold and shadow as the corridor widened again, and they returned to the barren atrium where the Heir of Slytherin lurked.

Harriet caught the barest glimpse of disbelief in the wizard's red eyes when Neville came strolling out from among the pillars. "Returned to die, have you?"

"We're not leaving without Luna! Let her go!"

Riddle laughed. "What pointless grandstanding? This is where sentiment gets you: nowhere at all. Stumbling right back into my hands—."

Neville made a noise as if to argue with the madman—but Harriet surged forward and threw her hex, following it with another, and another. Riddle's arm moved faster than her eyes could track, and the hex slammed into his nonverbal shield hard enough to drag his feet on the stones. Snarling, Riddle returned fire—that same, horrid red curse sailing far too close to her head—and Elara tried hitting Luna with a Jelly-Legs Curse, but she was too tentative and unsure. Riddle flicked a spell at the column she hid behind—and it suddenly lunged, sprouting crushing arms, and knocked Elara into the floor.

"Elara!" Harriet cried. "Bombarda!" The spell blasted the stone pillar into smithereens, small chips and broken bits falling on their heads.

"Enough!" Riddle hissed, and Harriet couldn't tell if he spoke in English or Parseltongue, the nuance of the difference lost to his rage. "Everte Statum!"

A sudden, overcoming wave of force threw Harriet and Neville flat on their backs with Elara. Harriet's vision swam.

"You think to best me? Mere children against the greatest wizard who ever lived?!" Riddle seethed. "You may have outmaneuvered the Basilisk—a stupid beast—but you will not make a mockery of me!"

Neville groaned and hexed him again. Harriet watched the spell hit Riddle's shield, red color washing over the transparent surface, and she saw how the shield tapered and thinned the nearer it got to the Heir's feet. Behind him stood Luna, and behind her, the Moon Mirror.

Memories of Defense class came swinging back like physical blows, Professor Slytherin's cold voice all too like the Heir of Slytherin's, and in the recollections she relived the fleeting apprehension and fear that had filled her when she'd faced her instructor and jinxed his legs. She remembered his rage. "Aim for his feet," Snape had told her and she had. Lying on the floor, Harriet realized she was going about this the wrong way; she kept slinging incantations head-on at the Heir like a Gryffindor bashing his skull against a wall, trying to chip away at the bricks. She had to be cleverer. She had to—.

Twisting, Harriet rolled onto her bad arm, grit her teeth, and swung her wand low, parallel with the floor. "Flipendo!"

The Heir acted on instinct, his shield rising again, angled toward Harriet—and she saw his eyes widen as the spell skirted the stones underfoot, caught a wide groove, and clipped upward beneath his Charm. It struck the mirror, bounced, and then—.

"No!"

Luna toppled—thrown hard—and when she hit the floor, the Diadem popped off her head and skittered away. For a second, the Heir stared, reaching, and then he vanished as if he'd never been. Luna's wand fell with a clatter.

Harriet let out a ragged breath, her ribs aching, head swimming, waiting for a curse or a hex or —something, something that never came. "Luna!" Neville shouted once he regained his feet, running to the girl's side, and so Harriet shoved away the woozy feeling threatening to knock her out cold and went to check on Elara. Her friend sat up and dabbed at a bloody spot on her brow, muttering darkly under her breath as she studied the sticky stain on her gloves.

"All right, Elara?"

"Fine, thank you. How is Lovegood?"

Shrugging, Harriet wobbled over to Longbottom next. He was trying to shake Luna awake, but she remained unresponsive. "She's cold," he commented, fretting and clearly unnerved. "But she's breathing, so she should be okay, right? Once we get her to Madam Pomfrey?"

Harriet glanced at the Diadem then, sitting so quiet and innocuous on its own, the light glittering in its pretty gems. She wondered if they should take it with them, if they should bring it just in case it was needed to make Luna better—but then she shook herself and looked away. No, it was obviously cursed, and they'd better leave it behind until she could find a professor and let them handle it.

Neville and Harriet stood and together got Luna balanced between the two of them, Livi hissing a tired, wounded protest as the witch's limp arm came to rest against his coils.

"It's okay, Livi. We're going to get out of here, somehow."

Starting, Longbottom gave her a long, measured look as they set off, Elara following a step behind. "…you're a Parselmouth."

"You didn't notice that earlier? How perceptive of you. What's your point?"

"You're not the Heir of Slytherin?"

"Of course not." Harriet scowled and took a breath, finding it harder and harder to get enough air. "And no, I'm not related to Professor Slytherin, either. I've been able to talk to snakes even before I knew there was such thing as magic."

"Wait…before you knew about magic? How's that possible? Were you raised by Muggles?"

Bloody hell, Harriet swore at herself. "Shut up and lift, Longbottom."

"Kill…Kill…KILL…."

"Fine, just stop hissing at me, Potter."

"I didn't—." Harriet's heart lurched in her chest. She almost dropped Luna in her haste to look back the way they'd come. The Diadem still rested at the foot of the Moon Mirror—and Harriet knew then that she'd made a mistake. She hadn't thought to shatter the glass as she had with the others, and the surface was rippling like an upset pond. "It's coming. Oh, shite—!"

Neville took one glance at the shifting mirror with the dark shape about to burst through and started running, dragging Luna and Harriet along with him. The Basilisk reappeared, its body slamming into the floor, shaking the whole of the Aerie around them as the blind serpent dove forward. It opened its maw, its fangs poised, dripping venom, and lunged.

Elara skittered to a halt. Face set, she slashed her wand through the air and shouted, "Ignis Monstrum!"

The spell started with a ripple of heat; Harriet felt it touch her face despite the distance between her and the other witch, a shimmer hovering at the wand's end, chased by a gout of red, glaring sparks. Flames spooled like threads of brilliant, glowing yarn, knitting together in a pattern faster and faster until a body swelled from the bubbling, writhing heat. It howled, that amorphous thing formed of fire and teeth and scouring claws, joined by another and another, the inferno building with astounding speed. The head of it seemed to open wide its yawning jaws—wider than the charging

snake—and it swallowed the Basilisk whole, the snake disappearing in a flash of green scales and rasping screeches.

The fire didn't stop. It kept going—smoke rising, thickening, the whole of Harriet's vision disappearing in a confusing swirl of orange and black and gray, and through the howling she heard a different noise: a scream, distant and wretched, the wail of a dying thing giving its last breath. Set curled from Harriet's feet, stretching into the blaze, and she sensed a strange tug, followed by a sudden, intense silence.

What was that?

"Stop it, Black!" Neville yelled, the fire reflected in his wide eyes. "Put it out!"

Elara drew her arm back and tried to end the spell, but it kept going, resisting, impervious to several canceling spells. A curl of flame whipped back and Elara cried out, the fire grazing her hand. She dropped her wand and it vanished into the monstrous inferno—the inferno now coming straight toward them.

They ran. The smoke burned in Harriet's lungs, in her eyes. Luna's weight felt like a thousand tonne weight strangulating her neck, and no matter how fast they went, the fire seemed to get closer and closer. It whined, snapped, nipped at their heels, embers catching their shins, smoldering the edges of their robes. Sweat poured down Harriet's back, over her face, in her eyes. She shut them, unable to see anything at all through the haze, and just ran, forcing every bit of strength into her legs and pounding feet.

She collided with something solid and would have yelped if she'd had the breath for it. She made to reel back—when an arm came around Harriet's shoulders, a large hand with its fingers tangled in her hair turning her head, hiding her face from the blaze. The pounding in her ears sounded unnaturally loud.

"Aculei Ignis!" bellowed a deep, familiar voice.

The air whipped itself into a frenzy and Harriet clutched to Luna and the sturdy form in front of her, holding on for dear life. Higher and higher the wind coursed, and the stronger the wind grew, the louder the fire howled. It surrounded them, seeming to come from the walls or the floor, and Harriet waited for it to end, for the flames to sink their teeth in and cook them all alive, and yet—.

And yet, silence fell. The wind ceased as abruptly as it'd begun, and cold air touched the damp nape of Harriet's neck. She took a shuddering breath.

The last thing Harriet registered was the feel of rough black wool sliding against her cheek, and then nothing at all.

A/N: Harriet, CH 53 - "Hey don't do that spell, looks dangerous."

Elara, CH 91 - "…Whoops."

Chapter End Notes

So I made that discord! Here's the link: CDT Discord

https/discord.gg/4Mxw628

a crown of thorns

xcii. a crown of thorns

"Miss Black, I am telling you for the last time, change into the gown—."

"No."

"Don't be difficult, young lady. You're injured and need—."

"I won't."

Somewhere in the haze of dreamless sleep, Harriet heard the voices arguing and blinked open her heavy eyelids, scrunching her nose against the light coming off a nearby lamp. The blankets had been tucked tight around her, her body strangely distant and heavy. She wondered what in the world Madam Pomfrey was doing in their dorm and why she wanted to dress Elara in a gown—and then recent events returned to her like bricks dropping into place. Thump, thump—thump! Harriet knew this bed, knew that ceiling and that blush of moonlight in the windows. She wasn't in the dorm; she was in the hospital wing.

Harriet sat up and groaned when every muscle in her body protested the motion, her fingers bunching the blanket under her hands. The hushed argument cut itself short and Elara ducked around the partially drawn curtains hanging around the bed. She saw Harriet awake—if confused and more than a bit sore—and relief flooded her features. Elara jumped forward, and Harriet winced when the other witch yanked her into a crushing embrace and almost pulled her from the bed entirely.

"I think you're breaking my bones, Elara."

"Good. You scared me half to death."

Snorting, Harriet didn't dare mention that if anyone had scared someone half to death, it was Elara when she'd cast that bloody fire spell. She pulled back and studied her friend, the soot painting her skin, the singe marks on her robes, the gauze swaddling her right hand. "Are you okay? Where's— where's Livi? And Luna? And—Longbottom, I guess—?"

Madam Pomfrey stepped up behind Elara and physically dragged them apart, her face promising dire consequences for anyone who resisted. "Miss Potter, you are meant to be resting—."

"But what happened?"

"There's time for that to be discussed later—."

"But I want to know!"

"Miss Potter—."

The curtain's metal rings shrieked on the rod as they were jerked aside, the three witches jumping when Professor Snape appeared. Part of his lank hair seemed to have been burned off, given the shiny rest spot on the corresponding side of his jaw. "Black," he snapped. "Get to your own bed."

"I'm emancipated and don't need to accept medical—."

It was precisely the wrong thing to say to the wizard, given how Snape's dark eyes glittered with suppressed rage and he bore his crooked teeth. "What is wrong with you, you stupid girl?"

"Professor Snape!" Madam Pomfrey sputtered.

"You are injured if you haven't cared to notice, and being emancipated has no bearing on Madam Pomfrey's duty to ensure proper treatment for you idiotic fools. While you stand in this infirmary, you are a ward of the school, Black, and will do as she tells you to. Do you understand me, or must I repeat myself using simpler words?"

Elara flushed a dark, furious red but chose not to say anything. Instead, she jerked herself back from Harriet's bed and disappeared around the curtains, Madam Pomfrey following with a sharp, frustrated tsk—which left poor Harriet alone with an angry, soot-marked Potions Master.

"What in the hell were you and Black thinking?" he hissed.

"I didn't—."

"Exactly! You needn't say anything farther, but you don't think, Potter! You never do!"

Exasperated, Harriet readied herself to yell at Snape, to throw Longbottom under the proverbial bus for getting her into this mess in the first place—but she stopped herself and chewed the words, not entirely sure why she did so. She hated the jerk, didn't she? She should do what Draco would do and sell the bastard out. "It wasn't my fault," Harriet told him. "What happened? Where is everyone?"

Snape ignored her questions. "So you didn't decide to leave your class and escort and go off on your own while there was an unknown monster roaming the school?"

"It wasn't unknown! I knew what it was!"

"That makes your behavior worse, Potter!"

The curtains rustled for the third time, and a wizened hand nudged them aside as Headmaster Dumbledore appeared next to Professor Snape. The Potions Master didn't seem to notice or care, but Harriet almost jumped out of her bed in her rush to ask questions.

"Professor, you're back! Can you tell me what happened? Is everyone okay? Is Luna all right? Where's Livi—?"

"Potter, settle down—!"

"Come now, Severus. I think Harriet deserves to have her questions answered after the afternoon she's had. She can bear your lectures another day."

Snape glared at Professor Dumbledore and let out a soft, disgusted snort. Harriet, meanwhile, used the wizard's distraction to roll free of Madam Pomfrey's tightly tucked blankets and stand. The cold floor burned the bottom of her bare feet and she'd never been as aware of her short height as she was next to the two towering wizards. "Potter—."

Professor Dumbledore gestured out into the wing proper before Professor Snape could protest in earnest, and Harriet dodged around the Potions Master to follow Dumbledore, wincing when his hand gave her shoulder a reassuring pat. Every joint and bone in her body throbbed. "Your familiar

is in the estimable care of our gamekeeper. Hagrid tells me Livius is a bit bruised but will be right as rain after some rest."

"Oh," Harriet said, relieved. "And the others?"

He smiled, and led her across the infirmary to another partly open set of curtains. Curious, Harriet poked her head through and then stepped past the divider.

Luna lay on the bed fast asleep, her hair fluttering as she snored and the wizard sitting in the chair at her side spoke quietly with Neville Longbottom—whose face had, regrettably, been healed. Harriet had hoped he'd be forced to heal that the Muggle way. Neither of the two noticed her until the Headmaster cleared his throat, at which point the unfamiliar wizard turned his head, and the resemblance to Luna became apparent. He spotted Harriet—and jumped forward.

"Hey!" she yelped as the wizard snatched her into his skinny arms and squeezed the breath out of her. Every muscle in her body burned and complained, her hands tingling against her sides. Harriet didn't hear what he said at first, so startled by his sudden movement and the loud thump of her heartbeat.

"—my only girl, you saved her. Oh, I'm so grateful! So grateful! There's nothing I could ever do to thank you enough—!" he blubbered against her shoulder.

"Save—what? Who—?!"

"Xeno, let's sit, shall we…?"

It took Professor Dumbledore's insistent cajoling and Snape's less than gentle yanking to pry Luna's dad free, and all the while Harriet tried to make sense of his rambling. She caught a glimpse of Neville looking at her before his eyes darted away, focusing instead on Mr. Lovegood, and Harriet's brow furrowed.

What did he tell them?

Mr. Lovegood finally returned to his chair, sniffling and red-eyed, and took Luna's hand into his own. "Neville was just telling me about all your heroics," the wizard said, his thumb fondly stroking Luna's palm. "How the three of you dueled the Heir of Slytherin into submission and rescued my Luna!"

Harriet bit her tongue to stop her first reaction, though she thought Snape might have noticed the motion. Longbottom kept his eyes averted. "Did he really?"

"You must have been terribly frightened facing that monster and his creature! Thank Merlin you were there to help Mr. Longbottom!"

An incredulous huff escaped Harriet, and for a moment she considered whether or not she'd heard Mr. Lovegood correctly. HELP Longbottom? Help?! That lying arse! The urge to yell at the Prat Who Lived intensified and still Harriet swallowed the words, letting the furious air out of her sails because no matter how he lied or his own culpability in what happened, she had never been so bloody grateful in all her life as she was when he stopped Riddle from torturing and possibly blinding her. She never wanted to experience pain like that again, and so Harriet said nothing.

Elara, however, didn't suffer the same compunction.

"What?" came the furious snarl from behind them, and the other witch shoved by Professor Snape to stand with Harriet. Madam Pomfrey had managed to shove her into one of the hospital gowns,

but Elara had pulled her ruined school robes on over the top of it, buttoning the collar around her neck. The sticky bandages on her right hand made it impossible to move her fingers, so she used her left to point at Neville. "There seems to be a lot of pertinent details missing from that story, Longbottom."

Neville stiffened, his shoulders rising toward his ears.

"What about the part where you followed Harriet around for the better part of the year and didn't stop when we told you to? Or when you pushed Harriet into the Moon Mirror after you and Weasley held us at wand-point? You purposefully shoved her into what you thought was the Chamber, where the deadly snake was!"

"I didn't know any of that! She was—acting suspicious, is all. I got overzealous."

"How entirely Gryffindor of you," Snape seethed, brushing Elara back before she could do something foolish, like punch Longbottom again. Harriet grabbed Elara by the arm and held tight. "Rushing in without thought, without any regard to the safety of others—without consideration for what you've been told by wizards and witches far beyond your experience!"

"I only meant—!"

"You think we should be sympathetic to you, Longbottom, when all you've done is perpetuate unfounded rumors and harass your peers?" Snape smiled—and Harriet shivered at the unremitting hatred and cold, rigid ire glinting in the Potions Master's eyes. He was angry, maybe angrier than she'd ever seen him, and the emotion thrashed just beneath the surface. "I believe I told you at the beginning of the year; if you were in my House, I'd see you on the train home this very night, and you'd never set foot in this school again."

"And I believe I told you it wasn't your prerogative to punish my students, Severus."

Professor McGonagall had entered the hospital wing, her face set in a hard, unimpressed expression as she strolled into the wing trailed by a collection of wizards Harriet didn't recognize at first glance. Professor Snape retreated a step and shifted, his arm fidgeting, and Harriet leaned closer to Elara to peer around the edge of his robes as the cloth came out to block the pair from view. There were four wizards with McGonagall, and after studying them, Harriet remembered the shorter, plump man with the green bowler hat as one of the blokes who took Headmaster Dumbledore from Hogwarts—and the tall, stately wizard behind him was Draco Malfoy's dad.

"Well, well, Dumbledore," Lucius Malfoy said as he approached the Headmaster, his cane held in one long-fingered hand. "Even when dismissed from your post, it seems impossible to pry you away from the school."

For his part, Professor Dumbledore met Malfoy's snide remark with a gentle smile. "Good evening, Lucius. I think you will find I haven't been dismissed from my post after all. In fact, I had a very curious conversation with several Board members who'd felt their families and livelihood had been threatened. A terrible misunderstanding, I'm sure, but when they heard a child had been taken, they were quick to retract their stance on the inquiry and to ask me to return."

A muscle jumped in Malfoy's jaw before it settled. "How very serendipitous."

"I would think so. Of course, seeing as my own inquiry was dismissed, I imagine we'll also be seeing Professor Slytherin return as well. The precedence would ruin any case against him. Isn't that right, Minister?"

The latter portion of his statement Dumbledore directed at one of the wizard's Harriet didn't know, and she had to shuffle closer to Snape to get a better look at the man. In the dim, low-light of the moon filtering through the ward's windows, Harriet glimpsed a pair of red eyes in a pale face and stopped breathing.

It can't be.

The wizard—the Minister—inclined his head, and Harriet didn't realize she was trembling until Elara tugged her away from Snape and she let go of his robes. At first glance, the Minister for Magic mirrored Tom Riddle—and Professor Slytherin—but the more Harriet studied him, the more differences she spied. His hair was longer, his face narrower and more affected by age, and he was larger than either the professor or the man from the Diadem. He wore emerald green robes with gold buttons on the cuffs and a high collar that extenuated his square jaw.

"Yes, it seems the inquiries for you and…Slytherin had to be recalled before the Wizengamot could be called to session." He smiled without sincerity and his eyes roved from Dumbledore to McGonagall, Snape, and then Luna's dad. "Mr. Lovegood, I'm so pleased your daughter has been recovered. Truly a relief."

Mr. Lovegood nodded, but he didn't quite meet Minister Gaunt's gaze, instead focusing on Luna and holding her hand tight.

"I must admit, I'm not here for congratulations, Dumbledore," the Minister continued, flicking a stray strand of hair back from his brow. "While we at the Ministry were pleased to hear the problem has been…eliminated, I find the particulars of the solution used rather troubling. Especially as you weren't the one who informed me of them."

"Why does he look like Professor Slytherin?" Harriet whispered to Elara, and the other witch shrugged.

"I don't know."

Dumbledore cleared his throat. "I'd be interested in knowing who decided to pass information on to you, Minister, but alas! I know you will not say. What particulars might you want to know, Marvolo? I will do my best to clarify."

Minister Gaunt stepped nearer and Harriet twitched, chills racking her spine as pain needled her neck and shoulder. The plump wizard gripped his bowler hat and nervously twisted it in his hands. "I want to know who cast the Fiendfyre," Gaunt said, his eyes again flicking from face to face, settling longest on Professor Snape, knowing there were others behind him but not able to see who they were. "I want to know who used Dark magic to destroy a priceless relic of history. I assume you don't need me to clarify the legality of Dark magic, Headmaster."

Elara stiffened.

Professor Dumbledore frowned, the moonlight bright on his half-moon spectacles. "That priceless relic you mentioned attempted to kill several students and is responsible for harming many others."

"Yes, very tragic." It didn't sound tragic. The Minister sounded as if he could barely muster the sympathy to spit the words. "Regardless, Fiendfyre is a regulated spell and I intend for whoever cast it to incur…repercussions." He looked at soot-stained Professor Snape again with a victorious glint in his eyes. He thinks Snape cast it, Harriet thought. Oh, Merlin—what if he gets fired? Or— arrested?

What would happen if the truth came out? What would happen to Elara? And what would Professor Slytherin do when he learned she'd torched his ancestor's serpent?

"It was me."

Gaunt paused, then swiveled to Neville, who stood and met the Minister's scrutiny without hesitation. "…You?"

"Yeah." Neville swallowed, his throat bobbing up and down. "I've had training to do it, you know, as the Boy Who Lived."

Harriet's first inclination was to think Neville meant to take credit for what happened in the Aerie —but there was no glory to be gained in this. Both Harriet and Elara knew that spell in Elara's journal was Dark, but neither could have expected the Ministry to find out about it. Longbottom was taking the blame. It would be easy to persecute a nameless girl from a presumably Dark family like Elara's—but Neville was a different story. Being a golden Gryffindor had its benefits.

The Minister smiled again, and yet the way he grit his teeth was apparent. "Yes…the Boy Who Lived. Your celebrity notwithstanding—."

"I was just doing what I've been trained to do—saving the day. I think the Wizengamot—and the Prophet—would agree I did the right thing, don't you think, sir? My step-mum gets on with Miss Skeeter quite well."

Elara scoffed under her breath. "What a manipulative prat."

"If he keeps your arse out of Azkaban, I'll sing his bloody praises. Shh."

By now, the Minister had grown visibly frustrated, the forced serenity of his expression dwindling into a cruel, unpleasant glower. The plump wizard—Fudge, Harriet recollected—kept a steady, anxious motion with his hands, and the fourth, unnamed wizard in his maroon robes kept leaning back like he wanted to make a break for the door and run. Even Mr. Malfoy shifted with unease. "Fine. I expect suitable academic repercussions to be handed out by you, Albus, since you've decided to return."

"Of course, Minister Gaunt. I think Neville would agree that being suspended for the remainder of term is an agreeable consequence for his transgression."

By the look of him, Neville did not agree, and he opened his mouth to protest—but Professor Dumbledore leveled him a serious look, brow raised, blue eyes steady, and Longbottom deflated. Harriet knew he wasn't being punished for the Fiendfyre; he was being punished for judging her, for following her around, for pushing her into the bloody Aerie in the first place. Gratitude swelled in Harriet's chest.

"Yes, well. What of the Heir? Your daughter unleashed the beast upon the school, did she not, Mr. Lovegood?"

Luna's dad balked and his already pale face lost what little color it had gained. "No! My Luna— she would never!"

"She'll have to be taken in for questioning by the Ministry—."

"It wasn't Luna," Harriet blurted out. Shite. Snape sighed and reluctantly stepped aside so she came into view. She wished he hadn't when she found herself the subject of Minister Gaunt's baleful attention. "It was—Tom Riddle."

Minister Gaunt stared at Harriet for far longer than was appropriate. Recognition deepened the thin lines about his eyes and Harriet understood without a doubt that the Minister knew who she was. "…Tom Riddle, you say?"

"Y-yes, sir. That's what he called himself."

"And where is this Tom Riddle, hmm? I don't see him here." His red eyes met Harriet's—and she felt frozen, as if her face had been exposed to a sudden, inexplicable blizzard, and the cold crept deeper into her flesh and bones, burning in its intensity—.

Professor Dumbledore extended his arm as if to fondly ruffle Harriet's hair, but he used unexpected force in the motion, and his hand pushed Harriet's head down, breaking her gaze from Gaunt's. The cold feeling vanished.

"It was a cursed object left behind by Tom Riddle, who used to be a student here many years ago," the Headmaster interjected. He kept his hand on Harriet's head. "He once went by another name and innumerable witches and wizards have been led astray by his guile. Our dear Luna is simply another victim of his machinations."

"And where is this cursed object?" Gaunt demanded. "You will turn it over to me—and the Ministry—immediately."

"Gone, I'm afraid," Dumbledore said with apparent cheer, smiling in the face of the Minister's blatant resentment. "Destroyed in the fire."

Gaunt's hand flashed out and gripped the footboard of Luna's bed, his knuckles white, a gold ring glinting on his finger. "How fortunate," he breathed, his grip belying his quiet tone.

"Fortunate for our students, yes," Dumbledore said with a sage nod. "One does have to wonder wear Luna came upon such an object."

"I'm sure we'll never—."

"It was Professor Selwyn."

Harriet and everyone else in the vicinity started when a quiet, groggy voice rose from the bed. Mr. Lovegood jumped to his feet when Luna opened her eyes—and she peered at Minister Gaunt with frank distrust.

"Pardon, Miss Lovegood?"

"It was Professor Selwyn," she repeated with perfect clarity, pausing to beam at her father—and Harriet and Elara. "Hello."

"Hi, Luna."

"Miss Lovegood," Minister Gaunt interrupted, both hands coming to grip the footboard now. "Accusing a Hogwarts professor of bestowing a Dark object upon a student is a slanderous offense —."

"It's not slander if it's true. Daddy taught me that." Luna sat up with some difficulty and Mr. Lovegood's assistance. "Professor Selwyn gave me the Diadem in Diagon Alley. He knocked into me and pretended he didn't know what I was talking about when I tried to give the box back." Fretting with the stitching on the blanket, Luna glanced first at her father, then Professor Dumbledore. "I didn't mean what I did, and I know I should have told you, Headmaster. It was

nice having someone listen to me instead of telling me I'm wrong all the time, and whenever I tried to approach you, I found myself unable to do so. It was quite strange."

Luna sounded oddly unaffected by her experience, and Harriet marveled at her strength. She herself didn't feel nearly so composed, the tears and anger and fright still bubbling in her heart, outweighed only by her fatigue and general relief.

"Oh, dear. It seems it would be best if we brought Otho in for questioning. Severus, if you would go and fetch him with Auror Dawlish?"

Grim, Snape only nodded once at Dumbledore before sweeping away—which would have left Harriet and Elara fully exposed to Minister Gaunt's scrutiny if the Headmaster hadn't slid forward in his place, his hand dropping from Harriet's head to her shoulder. Dawlish—the bloke in red— looked to the Minister for reassurance, and the wizard gave a short, displeased jerk of his head, indicating the Auror should follow Snape. He let go of the footboard, leaving behind a smoldering scorch mark in the shape of a hand. Harriet gawked.

"You two should be returned to your beds now," the Headmaster said with false cheer, applying the slightest of pressure on Harriet's shoulder to urge her into motion. "Poppy always tells me too much excitement is bad for a healing body."

As they walked away, the low, forbidding sound of Minister Gaunt's voice followed after them, chasing their heels like a snake after its tail had been stepped on. "This isn't over, Dumbledore."

Professor Dumbledore paused, his fingers tightening, then relaxing. "No, you're quite right, Minister. This isn't over. Minerva, could you please escort our guests to my office and out of the infirmary so our charges may rest?"

"Of course, Headmaster."

Minister Gaunt, Fudge, and Mr. Malfoy marched off with Professor McGonagall, and Harriet went with the Headmaster, too tired and shocked by what she'd heard and seen to do much else. She'd never liked Professor Selwyn; he hated Muggle-borns, half-bloods, and she always suspected he didn't much care for witches, either, the berk—and yet Harriet wouldn't have expected him capable of harming a student on purpose. Did he really give Luna the Diadem? Did he know what it was? Who it was?

"Professor Dumbledore?" Harriet asked once settled in her own bed once more. Elara hugged her again, then disappeared beyond the curtains. They could all hear Madam Pomfrey's impatient muttering and shuffling, the clink of potion bottles being moved and liquid being mixed.

"Yes, Harriet?"

"What's going to happen to Professor Selwyn?"

Exhaling, Professor Dumbledore retrieved his wand and flicked it toward the lamp sitting on the nightstand, dimming its glow. "I'm not sure," he confessed. Worry tangled in Harriet's middle and she tried to ask another question, but he shook his head. "I have no more answers for you tonight, dear Harriet. You need your rest. It is no small thing, what you or the others endured this day."

He left her soon afterward, and Harriet lay for some time staring at the ceiling, comforted by the lamp and its steady, golden shine. She fully intended to get answers from the Headmaster before the school year ended—but not tonight. Right now, all Harriet wanted was to fall asleep and to not dream of the terrible things she saw, to not hear Tom Riddle's malicious taunting or the Basilisk's

heavy, poisoned breathing at her ear. She clutched the sheet close and willed herself to stop thinking about it.

Harriet woke only once from nightmares about endless, book-filled corridors. The dark figure seated at her bedside with a book in his hand said, "Go back to sleep, Potter," and—miraculously enough—she did.

A/N: Adult - *opens mouth*

Elara - "I'm EMANCIPATED."

Snape - *internal screaming*

Honestly though, imagine how that's going to go over next year when certain *cough* people return.

deeper waters

xciii. deeper waters

Elara stared at the inside of the book without reading a single word.

Instead, her attention lingered overlong on the pink, shiny skin marring the fingers and knuckles of her right hand. The scars made the hand stiff and they ached still, too warm to the touch. Madam Pomfrey warned her it'd take time for the pain to ease and for the magic inherent in cursed wounds to dissipate. Elara flexed her fingers, curling them in and out of a fist, feeling the skin tug against itself.

She didn't hate the scars like she hated the others. These came from resistance, from fighting, from her own mistake; the others were products of weakness, at least in Elara's eyes. In the grand scheme of things, she guessed she should be happy about still being able to use the hand. They should all be thankful to be alive.

Elara pulled her gloves out of her pocket and tugged them on.

At the head of the classroom, Professor Flitwick paced the length of the desk as he chattered, his face gone a bit red from the endless monologue. After Professor Selwyn went missing, Flitwick and several other of the professors took on the burden of teaching History of Magic, and the Charms professor took to the task with gusto. He'd tossed whatever curriculum Selwyn left behind and instead filled their classes with discussions on the origins of Moon Mirrors or Ravenclaw's background. Currently, only Snape or Harriet could open the Aerie—not that anyone knew the truth as to why Harriet could—and Flitwick challenged his students to figure out the lost key Ravenclaw meant for people to use centuries ago.

I wonder how Snape managed to get through. He's not a Parselmouth. Elara sighed, smoothing the page of the spellbook on her desk, tracing a finger over the aged, macabre drawing. Ignis Monstrum. No matter how long Elara studied the page, she couldn't tear her eyes away from the flickering drawing of spindly animals spooling from the wizard's wand. She kept remembering the surge of emotion, physical heat mirroring the hot, curdling morass in her own heart, rage and fear and elation, all those feelings she usually encountered in spare, measured doses pouring from her as sparks had from her wand. She nearly killed them all with that spell, and Elara felt oddly… betrayed by the journal. It hadn't warned her of what would happen.

Some unexplainable part of her wanted to cast it again.

"The production of the Moon Mirrors suggests a previously unknown—and most likely now extinct—clutch of Occamies in the isles, or Rowena had an acquaintance in the Far East," Flitwick squeaked from the front of the room. "Now remember, children, this was in a time before the invention of the Floo Network, the advent of the I.C.W, and several historical sources lead us to believe Apparition hadn't yet been created. How extraordinary it would be for Rowena or any of the Founders to form bonds with witches or wizards half the world away!"

Elara glanced at the two empty seats next to her and slowly closed the book, tucking it away in her satchel. She instead turned her attention to taking notes, knowing her friends would want them once they were well.

A chair squeaked as Malfoy leaned closer to her. "I heard Granger's going to be woken up today."

Elara's eyes cut in his direction. "Who told you that?"

"Madam Pomfrey has to keep father informed as her guardian."

Elara almost scoffed at the thought of Lucius Malfoy being the guardian of any child, but Draco sat there in direct contention to the thought. Bigoted idiot he might be, but Malfoy clearly had a happy childhood and adored his parents, something Elara couldn't relate with. "Are you going to go see her?"

Draco blinked. "What are you on about?"

"I asked if you were going to go see her. Hermione."

Red crept into his pale cheeks and he sputtered, wide-eyed. "W-why would I do that?!"

"Quiet please, Mr. Malfoy, Miss Black," Professor Flitwick called.

"Sorry, Professor."

Elara returned to her notes and ignored Malfoy as well as she could, though he continued to shoot her infuriated glances and hissed at her to clarify her meaning. As if she would.

Eventually, Flitwick finished his lecture and dismissed the class, allowing the students to pack up their things and run out into the busy corridor. Elara hadn't noticed it before, but in the two weeks since the Heir's defeat and the "Chamber's" closure, the Slytherin students walked lighter, having shed a dark and constant pall of suspicion and unease. The weather outside grew warmer and the whole castle felt—brighter, for lack of a better word. Laughter came easier.

Outside the classroom, Elara found two people waiting for her.

"Hey, Elara!" Ginny called, waving her over. Luna, standing at Ginny's side, waved as well. She looked happy in a way she hadn't all year, her smile wide and pale eyes lucid, a whole chunk of garlic hanging from her neck by a woven bit of twine. Elara decided not to ask about that.

"Hello," she said when she reached the pair, feeling off-balance without Harriet or Hermione. "How are you doing, Luna?"

"Much better, thank you." She beamed. "We know you don't have anyone else, so we wanted to know if we could go with you to see Harriet and Hermione."

Elara hesitated, torn between being indignant that two first-years thought she was a loner and touched they'd thought of her at all. She decided to accept the gesture for what it was; Luna outside of the Diadem's control was quite blunt and Elara could appreciate the honesty. "Sure, that'd be great."

They walked together to the hospital wing, a route Elara had grown familiar with over the past weeks, and entered the ward to the sound of arguing voices. That, too, Elara had come to expect whenever she visited. Harriet proved a compliant patient for two or three days—but beyond that, she became a right terror, and Elara thought Madam Pomfrey probably considered strangling the witch on a regular basis. Either that or liberal use of Dreamless Sleep.

"Miss Potter," she said, exasperation plain in her voice. It drifted from behind the row of curtains drawn about the Petrified victims. "For last time, you're meant to be resting. Preferably in your bed, and not underfoot!"

"But I'm bored," Harriet complained. "Can I leave?"

"No. Not until you're fully healed—which would happen faster if you rested."

Elara came to a sudden stop and her heart stuttered, snippets of memories clouding her mind. She remembered the frantic burn in her lungs, the hollow pounding her feet on the stone floor as she ran at Longbottom's side and Harriet's screams grew ever louder. Elara would never tell her, but she'd cried for her Aunt Petunia. Having never known another mother, Harriet's pain-riddled mind must have latched onto the first person it could, like an animal instinct, and it hurt Elara in indefinable ways to think that in her most desperate hour, Harriet begged help from a woman more likely to turn a blind eye than intercede on her behalf.

Damage from the Cruciatus Curse didn't heal overnight. Dozens of curses could be used to inflict pain on a person and weren't considered unforgivable; only the Cruciatus Cruse excised a toll on both target and caster. Harriet might not feel the aches and creeping numbness in her nerves anymore, but Madam Pomfrey—and, by extension, Professor Dumbledore—thought it best she stay in the infirmary until the magic's residue fully disappeared.

"All right, Elara?" Luna asked, noticing her pause.

"Yes, I'm—."

The curtains rustled and Harriet darted into view. Elara didn't have time to brace herself, and they collapsed in a heap when Harriet launched herself at her.

"Miss Potter!"

After a thorough dressing down from the matron and getting all but dragged back to her bed by the ear, Harriet settled and sat cross-legged on the mattress in her hospital gown, giving the other witches room to sit too. "What's happening out in the school?" she asked, her eagerness for conversation obvious. "Have they found Selwyn yet? Or the Aerie?"

"Well," Ginny began, taking a breath. "It's not like they're telling us much of anything, is it? You know Dumbledore's back, 'course, and so's Slytherin." Her freckled face scrunched in a grimace. "Being a right tosser, that one. Hasn't given any of his classes any kind of break even though he's been gone for weeks and we're all terribly behind. If anyone so much as mutters the name 'Selwyn' around him he all but flies off the handle."

"I guess that means they haven't found him."

"Nah. There's been nothing in the Prophet, either."

Harriet hummed, a stubborn set to her jaw as her gaze roved away from her friends and landed instead on the nightstand holding the torn remnant of Chocolate Frog package. "And the Aerie?"

"Professor Flitwick and the Headmaster managed to find the corridor with Professor Snape's help," Luna piped up. "They know the trick to get there now, but they haven't figured out the Moon Mirror and asked the school at large to put our brains to work trying to figure it out. Apparently the mirrors don't stop Professor Snape anymore."

"What, really? Why not?"

"No one knows for sure. I think it's because he asked nicely."

Ginny snorted, then smothered the sound in her hand. "Yeah, who knows? No one else has figured

it out. You might be right, Luna. Ron said Snape's reflection was so horrified of him, it ran away and let him walk right on through."

A strangled sound left Harriet and Elara didn't hide her smirk. Luna frowned. "That's mean, Ginny."

"Don't look at me, Ron said it."

They moved on to safer topics, and not a moment too soon; not five minutes had passed before the infirmary doors came open with a decisive bang and the black-clad git himself stood at the threshold with a cauldron floating along behind him. He caught sight of them all huddled on the single bed and glowered before moving on.

Madam Pomfrey came out from behind one of the hangings and sighed when she spotted the Potions Master. "There you are, Severus," she said, wiping off her hands on her apron. "The Draught is ready, I take it?"

"Apparently." He flicked his wand, summoning a blanket into his hand, which he then turned into a table and used as a place to set the large, fire-blackened cauldron. He produced a graduated beaker from his cloak pocket. "The cat first, then. To assure nothing is…amiss with the brew."

The thought of inadvertently poisoning Filch's cat put a smile on the man's face, and the four witches on the bed knew without a word shared between them that it'd be best to stay out of his way.

Snape and Pomfrey went about prepping the potion and patients respectively, and Elara fidgeted with her gloves as she watched, eager for Hermione to wake up again. The Draught wasn't drunk as she'd assumed it'd be; rather, Snape applied it directly to the soft, permeable tissue of the mouth, nostrils, or eyes, given whichever was available. Not ten seconds after applying a liberal dollop in Mrs. Norris' eye, the cat went limp, stirred—then rocketed up from the bed she'd been sequestered in and clawed up Snape's robes. The man cursed wildly, his hands full and occupied, and eventually Mrs. Norris reached his head.

"Poppy!" he roared.

"Hold still, Severus, for Merlin's sake, it's just a cat…."

Madam Pomfrey got the distraught cat off Snape with Luna's help, who held the disgruntled feline secure in her arms. She volunteered to see Mrs. Norris back into Filch's care, and once she skipped off with Ginny in tow, Snape moved on to the next patient. Both Harriet and Elara noticed the angry claw marks on his face and had the good sense to keep their mouths shut.

Colin Creevey received the next dose of potion and woke with far less drama than Mrs. Norris. Really, he appeared more enthused that he'd been attacked by a giant magical creature than scared, and Elara put it down to some strange Gryffindor impulse she didn't understand. Finch-Fletchley came next, the Hufflepuff confused and disoriented. The Gryffindor ghost got a healthy misting delivered by a Transfigured aerosol can—and immediately vanished through the nearest wall the second he spotted Harriet. Snape and Pomfrey exchanged befuddled glances. Clearwater cried when she woke, and Madam Pomfrey had to take her aside to calm the poor witch down. Finally, Snape came to Hermione's bedside, and Harriet and Elara hopped up to join him, earning a sharp reprimand to keep their hands to themselves.

He dribbled the remainder of the Draught into Hermione's parted lips. She seemed to exhale, sinking into the bedding, her eyelids fluttering—and then she sat up and knocked the beaker from

Snape's hand before he could react. It shattered on the floor.

"Professor!" Hermione cried. "Professor, the Basilisk! The—the Aerie! That's where it is, where the Heir's taken it! I don't know where, but—!"

"Hermione!" Harriet said, grabbing her arm before she could whack Snape again. The Potions Master had a murderous look about him as he swept his wand over the floor to clean up the glass.

"I—what?" Hermione blinked again as she realized she and Snape weren't alone. "Where—? Oh, the infirmary? But what happened? I—."

"You were Petrified! You scared us half to death, you know!" Harriet clamored halfway onto the bed to hug Hermione, who hugged the other witch back, puzzled. Snape stepped back from the scene, rolling his eyes. "What were you thinking, going off like that on your own? We told you half a dozen times that we had to stick together."

"I—it was important," Hermione murmured, one arm still tucked around Harriet, the other rubbing her furrowed brow. "I realized…the Aerie. That's where it's being kept, the Basilisk. And I figured out no one had died because no one had looked the snake straight in the eyes. They saw it in reflections—in water, or mirrors, or glass. Not directly."

Ah, Elara thought. That would explain the compact she nicked from Pansy. At least she had that much sense.

"Penelope was with me in the library, and I heard an odd noise so we used a mirror to look about the corners. I remember of pair these horrid eyes—." She gasped. "We have to find the Aerie! That's where the Heir's keeping the Basilisk, I—!"

"Err, Hermione?"

"Yes?"

"We already found it."

"You what?"

"Already found the Aerie, the Basilisk's gone, the Heir's gone, all settled! You've got a lot to catch up on…."

Harriet jumped right into the story and Elara was content to sit back and listen to the verve Harriet told the events of the past few months with—until Snape caught her by the arm and Elara started. She'd forgotten he was there. Looking up at him, Elara paled.

"A moment of your time, Black," he said, leaving no room for argument. In fact, he didn't remove his hand from her person, leading her with a harsh, rather impersonal touch into Madam Pomfrey's deserted office. The sound of the latch closing set Elara's teeth on edge and her heart beat an uncomfortable rhythm against her sternum. The cleaned vials set in a rack on Pomfrey's desk rattled and didn't stop rattling until Snape let go and Elara took a step away, rubbing her arm.

It seemed an age the wizard said nothing at all, just looked down his long nose at her with his back to the door and Elara fought off the sudden rising panic in her chest. She could see the resemblance in him again to Father Phillips—the starkness of his black robes, the splash of white at his collar— and in the semi-darkness of the office illuminated by the dying fire, and she felt far too close to that place. It trembled in her memories, a nervous, terrible bundle of sick dread she couldn't stand to let touch her. She wanted out of the room. She wanted away from him.

"What do you want?" she demanded, not caring how rude the question was. Her voice shook.

She really missed her wand.

Snape tipped his head, black eyes hard and cold. "I want the book."

Elara paused. "What book?" What is he on about? I haven't got any book of his.

"The book. Oh, don't take me for a simpering government fool, Miss Black. I know for a fact neither Potter or Longbottom cast Fiendfyre in the Aerie. Give me the book."

"I—I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes, you do. I imagine you haven't let it be for weeks—months, even. It's a small distraction, but a distraction nonetheless. I fully assume you have it on your person right this moment."

He wasn't wrong. Elara stopped her hand from touching her satchel. Why hadn't she dropped it once she reached the infirmary? The weight dragged at her shoulder. Why hadn't she set it down? Why hadn't she noticed?

"Give me the book. I am not asking. I am telling you to hand it over—and don't you dare continue to play dumb with me, Black."

Slowly, Elara tucked her fingers under her satchel's flap and found the small, leather-bound book with unerring precision. She tugged it free and held it out in front of herself, trying to remember the last time she'd left it in her trunk, or in the dorm. When Snape snatched it from her hand, she almost lashed out, almost lunged for it, but that was ridiculous. It was just a stupid book and she had dozens and dozens more just like it at home. That didn't explain her outrage, however, that voice in the back of her head hissing how dare he, when Elara knew Snape was well within his rights to confiscate a primer of Dark magic from her. He could expel her. She should have been expelled for casting Fiendfyre in the first place.

She thought Snape would dismiss her, but he didn't. He flipped through the book, his pale fingers moving silently over the aged pages before he shut it and dropped it on Pomfrey's desk. Elara's eyes followed it and stared at the gilt snake on the emerald cover.

"Typical Black arrogance. You're in the deep end now, girl, and you have two choices. You can take the book with you. You can keep reading it, absorbing whatever malicious magic it has written on its pages, and I won't stop you. Take the book and know that, someday, you might lose control again. You might not. You might master the spells to no ill-effect, or you might hurt yourself—or Potter, or Granger. You might say something they cannot forgive, and you might find yourself alone. It will change you. The magic will take pieces of you and, if you're unlucky, you will look into the mirror one day and not recognize the person looking back. How else do you think the Dark Lord became the creature he is today?"

Snape loomed closer and Elara fidgeted, a lump forming in her throat. "You can take the book, or you can leave it here. You'll be tempted to delve deeper—it will never go away regardless of your choice, but it's simpler to ignore if you remind yourself of better things to hold onto—like your friends." He sneered at the sentiment. "In the end, it is your choice, Black. The consequences are yours to bear."

He swept by her without another word, the door opening and shutting in his passage, the air cold against Elara's sweaty nape. Snape's assumptions infuriated her; how could he assert such lies? It was just a stupid little spellbook. Yes, it had Dark magic in it—but it also had normal spells, too,

and it was so old, Dark was a relative term, wasn't it? It wouldn't change her. She'd never hurt Harriet or Hermione!

But I almost did, didn't I? I didn't mean to, and yet—.

Elara picked up the spellbook and wanted to return it to her bag. The damage had been done; she knew at least half of the magic written therein and could do so much good if she could just master them. What did it matter? It was an heirloom, wasn't it? If she hadn't lost control of the Fiendfyre, if she could just learn to wield it and the other spells, if she could just practice—.

Out in the ward, she could hear Harriet laughing, Hermione scolding her for something. Luna and Ginny had returned. Colin and Justin and Penelope had come to hear about the things they'd missed, their voices mingling together. The office felt smaller and smaller with every passing second.

Inhaling, Elara jerked and tossed the book into the hearth where the slim leather volume fell into the guttering flames.

She turned and walked out without looking back.

A/N: I kind of equate Dark magic with addiction, like alcoholism; some people drink just fine and enjoy it, and yet it can ruin others' lives.

My favorite thing is that Lucius Malfoy fighting Arthur when Harriet was in Diagon Alley was just a red herring. Lucius Malfoy is a giant fish, confirmed. He catfished us. "My flounder will hear about this!"

worthy

xciv. worthy

The grass rustled and snapped under Harriet's shoes as she ran. The redolent smell of late spring blooms chased her down the slope, joined by the deeper scents of lake water, pine needles, and chimney smoke. Her robes flapped in the breeze, and stray hairs escaped the braid Elara had plaited for her that morning to curl and twist about her ears. She jumped the steps at the bottom of the hill and landed heavily on the path, but didn't pause to notice. Her destination waited ahead.

Hagrid's hut sat just as it always did—though the collection of fat magical birds jostling for position on the roof was new, and Harriet paused to ogle the strange, dodo-like things. They ogled her in return, and one let out a loud, aggrieved caterwaul that echoed into the trees. She heard humming coming from the garden and hurried through the gate.

Hagrid wasn't in his garden but instead at the window inside his hut. Judging by the smell wafting under Harriet's nose, he was baking something sweet and enjoying the warm weather. Harriet jumped onto a convenient stack of firewood and popped her head over the sill.

"Hi, Hagrid!"

"Harry!" the half-giant exclaimed after his initial surprise, holding a large, goopy tray of fudge he must have just retrieved from the oven. "What're doin' out there?"

"I came to visit, and to see how Livi's doing if that's all right."

"'Course! Come around to the door, ya daft Bowtruckle. Startled me something fierce, almost dropped me fudge…."

Harriet grinned and hopped down, running back through the garden gate and up the massive steps to the porch. Hagrid opened the door—and his boarhound came bounding out, bowling her over.

"Back, Fang! Let her up, ya dozy dog…."

Regaining her feet, Harriet scratched behind Fang's ears and let Hagrid usher her into the hut, settling her at the huge table with a mug of strong tea and a plate of warm fudge. She nibbled on a piece, careful not to get her teeth glued together by Hagrid's dubious cooking, and cleaned the drool from her glasses.

"Yer familiar is over here, doing much better now, if I don't say so myself. Had a good amount of bruising about his neck, poor thing, a few cracked bones that made it hard for him to get around." Hagrid popped the loose lid of a crate sitting near the hearth, and Harriet straightened in her seat to see the soft, pillowy lining inside. She snorted. Hagrid's gone and spoiled him rotten.

"Sss…" Livius hissed, rustling in his bed as the light fell over him. "The tall one isss here. Doesss he have food?"

"You're going to get fat."

A pause occurred, then the Horned Serpent raised himself up, swaying, his tonguing flicking as he spotted Harriet at the table. "Misstresss…."

"Oh, now isn't that precious," Hagrid cooed as Livi made his way out of the box and over to

Harriet. She thought only Hagrid would see a second-year getting wrapped up in snake coils and think it precious. Livi looped his head about her shoulders and rested on her nape, hiding behind the short braid, content. "He missed ya something fierce, Harry. Goes invisible and causes all sorts of mischief when he gets bored. Clever fella knows how to open the doors when he sets his mind to it. Hooch almost had kittens when she found him out baskin' on the Quidditch pitch one mornin', but I calmed her down quick enough."

"Thank you for taking such good care of him, Hagrid." Reaching back, Harriet ran her fingers over Livi's snout, feeling the small bump of new scar tissue by his eyes and the larger crack in his horn. She needed to be more careful with him. Livi was her responsibility, and Harriet didn't know what she'd do if something happened to that snooty, scaly snake.

"No problem at all. He's kept me and Fang on our toes." Hagrid took a seat and cut himself a generous slab of fudge. Harriet hefted her mug of tea off the table and carefully sipped. "Y'know, if yer interested in learnin' more about Horned Serpents and the like, you should take Care o' Magical Creatures next term. Professor Grubbly-Plank can teach you lots about them."

"Really?"

"Yup. She knows her stuff."

They drank in companionable quiet for a moment, Livi's weight warm and reassuring on Harriet's shoulders, Hagrid munching away at his fudge. One of those strange dodo birds braved the window sill, eyeballing the platter of cooling sweets, and Fang huffed, startling it away.

"Heard you and yer friends are gettin' an award for special services to the school."

Harriet nodded even as she blushed, fiddling with her mug. "Yeah. It's just another trophy we get to polish when we're assigned bloody detention with Filch though, isn't it?"

The corners of Hagrid's dark eyes crinkled as he laughed. "You might have a point there. Ah, but yer parents would be right proud of you, Harry. I—." He stopped himself from saying something else and stuffed another bit of fudge into his mouth, chewing. "I—err—ye did a good thing. Tellin' everyone Riddle was responsible for the Chamber. It means—I mean, it prolly means a lot to some people."

"Are you okay, Hagrid?"

"Oh, I'm just fine, just fine."

Harriet gave the half-giant a funny look, knowing he'd purposefully disassembled, but she didn't press him for more. They chatted about the end of term, about Quidditch and Ravenclaw winning the House Cup for sure this year, about springtime and the magical creatures they both found so fascinating. Harriet enjoyed her tea, hid fudge in her pockets when Hagrid looked away, and when it came time to leave, she tucked an invisible Livi underneath her robes. To her chagrin, her ruddy familiar felt almost a stone heavier than he had last time she'd picked him up, and her robes had grown almost too small to properly cover the both of them. She complained about it all the way back up the hill—and swatted his nose away from her pockets before he ate the fudge and found his jaws glued shut.

Somebody idled at the bottom of the steps into the entrance hall, and Harriet glanced at them as they crossed paths. It took a moment to recognize the person, their features washed out by the blazing glow of the sun. She stopped. "Longbottom?"

"Potter."

He looked just as she'd seen him last in the hospital wing, if a bit sullen and much cleaner. He wore casual robes instead of his uniform, which made sense—given the prat was meant to be suspended.

"What're you doing here?"

Longbottom sniffed. "Had to take my final exams even if I am suspended, didn't I?"

"Oh. I guess."

He nodded as he crossed his arms, looking out toward the distant gates, the sun bright in both of their eyes. "The Headmaster asked me to tell you you're wanted in his office. Don't know why or how he even knew I'd run into you down here, but there it is."

Dumbledore wanted her? Harriet couldn't think of a reason why, but it was convenient. She just needed to grab something from her dormitory and drop Livi off. "Okay. Thanks, Longbottom."

He moved off, dropping the last step to the dirt path, and Harriet could see someone in maroon robes waiting beyond the gates for him—his dad, maybe? It was too far to tell. Harriet started up the steps and nearly reached the doors before she stopped.

"Longbottom."

"What is it, Potter?"

"I, um." She shifted from foot to foot and grimaced. "I just…thank you for what you did for Elara. That was almost decent of you."

Longbottom scoffed and ran a hand through his dirty blond hair. When he ruffled it like that, Harriet noticed his ears stuck out from his head a lot. It made him look a bit goofy instead of heroic and bold. "I didn't do it for you. You probably haven't noticed, but your friends are bloody scary. If I got her expelled, Black would probably stab me."

"No, she—." Harriet hesitated, remembering the wild, flinty look in Elara's face as she'd shouted at Longbottom, her hand broken, his face bruised. Then she went and killed a Basilisk with a single spell. "Well."

"Granger would upend a bookcase in the library on my head."

"No, she wouldn't," Harriet said without pause this time. "It'd hurt the books."

Longbottom guffawed and Harriet smirked despite herself. She didn't like Longbottom. She doubted she ever would; it had nothing to do with what occurred in the Aerie and everything to do with their different situations in life, with their families and childhood. In the vaguest of terms, Harriet understood she could not hold Lily and James Potter's fates against him, but the pettiness of the emotion scoured deep in her heart and she couldn't let it go.

"Whatever. See you next term, Potter."

"Bye, Longbottom."

They parted ways, the Boy Who Lived disappearing from sight once the great doors swung shut.

x X x

"You wanted to see me, Headmaster?"

Professor Dumbledore sat behind his desk in his office idly twirling a blue quill in his hand. He'd looked up as soon as Harriet passed through the door and smiled when she spoke, gesturing the young witch forward to take a seat. It wasn't an unusual arrangement; in fact, Harriet could clearly remember taking the same exact chair now as she did at the end of the previous school year. She'd heard the saying before that the more things changed, the more they stayed the same, and it made an odd—if morbid—kind of sense to her.

Still smiling, Professor Dumbledore set his quill aside and lifted the morning's copy of the Daily Prophet. Lockhart's glittery teeth beamed from the front page. "Have you had a chance to read today's issue?"

Wrinkling her nose, Harriet shook her head.

"It seems our friend Gilderoy had a change of heart and has switched professions. He states that his experience here at Hogwarts, and some encouragement from select students, has inspired him to pursue a life in literature instead of adventure. His first novel will be about a fictional girl and her adventures in the Chamber of Secrets."

Harriet almost snorted. "I don't know if he can do it without stealing from Tolkien again, but it's better than getting himself killed for being a numpty."

"As you say."

"Is that what you wanted to talk about, Professor?"

"No, Harriet. In fact, I fear the conversation we need to have is far more serious than that." A hush fell upon the wizard as he returned the paper to its spot on the desk and the watching portraits quieted their fake snores and whispering. "You have questions for me. I promised I would answer what I could at this time."

Harriet's mouth went dry and her mind blanked. Yes, she did have questions—dozens upon dozens, and they all blared to life in an instant like a cloud of dust escaping from under a rug. "Professor," she began, staring not at the Headmaster but at the window or at the spindly items on his shelves, trying to gather her muddled thoughts. "When I was in the Aerie and I—when I found the Heir, he looked…well, he looked like Professor Slytherin. Not perfectly alike, mind you, but it was— uncanny, really. Minister Gaunt looks something like him too, and when the Heir—." She swallowed, surprised by how difficult it was to speak about the man—or figment—that had tortured her. "He told me his name was Tom Marvolo Riddle. He said—he said he was Lord Voldemort."

A shudder ran through the spectating portraits and Professor Dumbledore's eyes didn't shine like they usually did. He nodded.

"Why do they look so alike, Professor?"

The Headmaster exhaled as he removed his spectacles, set them down, and went about gently cleaning the lenses with his overlong sleeve. The jeweled bauble hanging from the temple caught her eye as she waited for his response. "As usual, you've cut to the heart of a very complicated matter, Harriet. You have a talent for it, it seems, and though I will endeavor to answer to the best of my ability, I fear you will only leave with more questions today." He put his spectacles back on. "You are not the first to note the similarities between Minister Gaunt and Professor Slytherin, though you are uniquely situated to understand the significance.

"Magic is not something we will ever fully understand, Harriet. The Ministry has an entire department devoted to unraveling its many mysteries, and the witches and wizards who work within it spend decades searching for answers most never find. Magic is both wonderful and terrible at times. The things it can do to a person are horrific, and it is to my lasting shame you experienced some of those horrific things in the Aerie."

"It's not your fault, sir. You weren't here."

"No, I was not, and yet I feel the burden of my faults and weaknesses as any wizard does, dear girl. Age and hubris can wear on a person. I fashion myself a rather intelligent wizard, but for all my intelligence and years, I could not prevent my removal from Hogwarts, putting my charges in peril, and I could not discover the Basilisk's lair as you did, Harriet."

He smiled and she blushed, recognizing the praise.

"But we are getting off topic. Magic is mysterious—it baffles even the brightest of us, and there exists spells and enchantments that we may never fully fathom or comprehend. You asked about Tom Riddle, Professor Slytherin, Minister Gaunt, and their apparent similarities. They look alike, Harriet, because they are the same person."

Harriet froze, a horrid, terrified churning in her middle nearly bringing her lunch up for a second visit.

"And yet, they are not."

She swallowed, the back of her throat burning, her hands clamped too tight on the arms of her chair. "W—what does that mean? I don't understand, Professor."

"It's not an easy thing to understand. How is one to define being, Harriet? What makes a person a person?"

Realizing he meant for her to answer, Harriet tried to ignore her dumbfounded shock and scrap together a remark. "Well, I—stuff like, I don't know, a body? A heart, brain. Feelings?"

"And yet, all these things can be replicated. Feelings can be forced and fabricated. So can bodies. I believe you have several pet golems in your possession, yes?"

"Oh. Two, yes. Kevin and Rick." How does he even know that?

"And how do Kevin and Rick differ from your dear familiar?"

"They—." Harriet shut her mouth when she discovered the answer didn't come to her immediately. By all rights, the golems were alive; they bled, ate, shed their skins, had all the moving parts and functions of Livius, and yet they weren't real. They'd been brought to life by a clever bit of magic and Charmed clay, according to Hermione. They used golems in Transfiguration but not in Potions. What really made them different? "…Livi has a soul."

Professor Dumbledore nodded. "Yes. But what is a soul? No, I don't expect you to answer, dear girl; better theologians than either of us have been trying to solve that question for centuries to no avail. We could say a soul is, or isn't, what makes a person a person, and we could find ourselves lost in the hows and the whys long into the new term and still be no closer to revelation. They are, and are not, the same person, Harriet. Slytherin and Gaunt are, and are not, Lord Voldemort."

Harriet could do little else aside from gawk at the Headmaster. How in the world could Professor Slytherin be Lord Voldemort and yet—not him? It didn't make sense. How did it even

happen? Who was he?

The world thought the Dark Lord dead, and yet Harriet knew better, didn't she? She'd met him. Faced him. The world thought him defeated, and yet—.

A memory itched in the back of her mind. She remembered in a cozy room above a tavern in the summertime, sitting in the middle of a bed listening to the mingling sound of Muggle London and Wizarding Quarter. Her fingertip traced the words "The best coups are silent," at the bottom of a book's page, pressed into the paper by a quill's firm strokes.

She recalled the humid heat of a greenhouse, a line of infant Mandrakes waiting to be repotted, and Anthony Goldstein leaning forward to whisper, "My great-aunt told me he's the reason that Dumbledore, you know—." He wagged his right arm.

She thought of the words written in Mr. Flamel's letter—, "Your Defense Master is more than he appears."

Harriet felt very young as this knowledge pressed upon her. It frightened her to consider the forces meant to keep her safe weren't as powerful or well-intention as they appeared. She was just a girl whose feet couldn't quite reach the floor when she sat down, a girl who'd spent much of her life living under a set of stairs and knew so little about the world. She stared at the professor's empty sleeve and wondered what he meant by faults and weaknesses. She wondered what he'd meant when he told Minister Gaunt, "You're quite right. This isn't over."

She wouldn't be young forever, and the repercussions for all the things she didn't understand couldn't be ignored indefinitely. Sometimes a storm on the horizon dissipates, but more often than not it arrives in its own good time.

Professor Dumbledore pushed back from his desk and stood. Harriet blinked and focused on the wizard. "I have something I wish to show you, if you would accompany me on a short journey."

"Of course, sir."

He led her out of his office and down the spiral steps into the corridor beyond. As he'd said, it wasn't a long journey; Professor Dumbledore stopped at a painting of a woman in a puffy Edwardian gown and gave the password. The portrait opened, and he ushered Harriet into a new room. The hall inside stretched quite far, lit along both walls by torches that burst to life at their entrance. Harriet wanted to say it was a display room of some sort, but storage felt a better description of the numerous boxes, crates, and odd things tidied into shelves and stacks along the peripheries. She gazed up at Professor Dumbledore in silent question.

"Over the decades, the Headmasters and Mistresses of Hogwarts have had the unfortunate habit of accruing many possessions they inevitably forget or leave behind to the school. I believe Muggles would call them hoarders." He walked forward, setting a brisk pace, and again Harriet followed. He brought her to an ancient end table upon which rested a dusty, overturned bell jar. Inside the bell jar floated a wooden cube smaller than Harriet's palm, and she got to measure that assessment when the Headmaster gave his wand an errant flick to dismiss the bell jar and levitated the cube into her waiting hand. On closer inspection, she spotted dozens and dozens of smooth, shiny flecks of glass set in orderly rows on the cube's flat faces. "I take it you've encountered the legend of Ravenclaw's Aerie prior to discovering it, yes?"

"Yeah—yes, sir."

The older wizard nodded. "To most, it seems a rather backward legend, the story of Rowena

constructing Hogwarts as a place to share the knowledge she gathered in her Aerie when the Aerie was supposed to be within Hogwarts itself. The discrepancy has always fascinated me, even when I was a student myself, and when you recounted your adventures to me—well, I went to have another look at the oldest items stored in our collection here. I've been told possessions here could have belonged to the Founders themselves—and it seems that assumption is correct."

Harriet turned the cube in her hands. Part of the revealed face had been scorched, a blackened spot eating away at the corner like mold. Harriet brought it closer to her face, and on further inspection realized the flecks of glass looked like windows—.

"Is this—?" she breathed, shocked. "It can't be."

"Magic is infinite in its delights and deceptions, dear Harriet." The Headmaster plucked the cube —the Aerie—from her grasp and returned it to the table. He replaced the bell jar, and the Aerie once more began to float, suspended forever beneath the curved glass. Harriet could see a smudge of smoke on the surface.

He's right. I don't think anyone could ever really understand magic in its entirety.

"Professor," she said after a moment, interrupting the quiet.

"Yes?"

"I have something to give you."

She shuffled and reached into her robes, pulling out Salazar Slytherin's tome and the scroll they'd used to write the translation on. The Charm on her pockets keeping everything light gave way and she nearly dropped the book, but she managed to hold on and hand it over with a sheepish grin. "I found this in the Chamber," she said. "It belonged to Salazar Slytherin, and we—Hermione, Elara, and me—spent most of term translating it."

"That must have been a fascinating project."

Nodding, Harriet continued. Fascinating's one word for it. "It helped me find the Aerie, and it—. We didn't finish translating it until this weekend, and though we kept a copy of the translation, we decided it best to give the book back to you." She caught the Headmaster's gaze and frowned. "There's so much that's not…right, Professor. So much about history that people have misinterpreted and just bloody—sorry—lied about. Everyone's always told us that Salazar Slytherin hated Muggle-borns, but he didn't. The Dark L—Voldemort's built his whole following on the idea of Muggle-borns being lesser and hated, using the Founder as a scapegoat. Some people look at Slytherins like we're the prod—progeny of a hateful monster, and it's not true at all."

Professor Dumbledore sighed. "Few things are ever as they appear, Harriet."

"I know. It really upset Hermione when we found out, and I told her some people don't want to hear the truth."

"That was very wise of you."

"I don't think it was wise, Professor. Just—sad."

The Aerie revolved in slow increments and Harriet could see the charred spot again. It looked like such a little thing, as if someone had pressed a match to the surface, and not at all like the remnant of a howling, seething inferno fit for nightmares. When Harriet spoke, she couldn't bring herself to look at the Headmaster. "The legend about the Chamber said Slytherin left behind a curse to purge

the school of the unworthy, and it wasn't true. They say he left the school because of a disagreement, because of hate, and that wasn't true, either."

Professor Dumbledore continued to gaze at Harriet even as she fidgeted.

"He and Rowena Ravenclaw were in love. That's why the Aerie or the Underneath—the Chamber —shared entrances or objects only usable to either Founder. They loved each other, but Ravenclaw's family betrothed her to someone else. Hermione tried to explain to me how it used to work in those days, but I didn't understand it all. When she married, Slytherin wrote—." Her voice lowered, a sadness not her own creeping into thoughts of a witch and wizard dead for a thousand years. "He wrote that he could not spend another day here, or he feared his heart would break entirely."

Harriet knew nothing of love like that, not romantic love, and it proved difficult to imagine. She thought of Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, but any love there felt poisoned and wrong, maligned by furious, half-whispered fights in the sitting room when they'd thought Harriet couldn't hear them arguing about her or about money or about Dudley. Sometimes Uncle Vernon had made snide comments about her cooking. Sometimes Aunt Petunia had glared at the back of his fat, mustachioed head.

Slytherin wrote of Ravenclaw as one might write about something precious, like rare flowers found in bloom, or a new sunrise shedding light on a bleak world. He hadn't written a lot, but always it was—soft. Reverent. He'd called her 'my Rowena.'

Professor Dumbledore shifted and Harriet started as he pressed the tome back into her hands. "Professor?"

"I think," he said. "That Salazar Slytherin would have preferred this stay with a witch truly worthy of being his Heir rather than with me. Though, I do appreciate a copy of the translation. Thank you, Harriet."

Her fingers tightened on the book's binding as she brought it closer and hugged it to her chest. "Are you sure, sir?"

"I'm certain."

Dumbledore patted her shoulder and Harriet smiled, pleased with his comment. It shouldn't matter. She'd told Hermione once that it made no difference what Salazar Slytherin would have thought; Slytherin House belonged to them now, to the children who slept in emerald beds and studied under silver lanterns beneath the lake, they being the Founder's real legacy. However, holding something of his, imagining he'd want her to keep it, to know the truth of the wizard he'd been and reclaim that sense of blighted and tarnished Slytherin pride brought Harriet joy.

In that castle once lived a witch and a wizard who loved one another, even when that love was doomed to fail. He left behind a monster to protect her—her and her children and charges, and their children, those he couldn't look at without deep sorrow and regret but strove to shield all the same. Time had stolen the truth and twisted love into something terrible, made into a symbol of hatred and bigotry, but Harriet held the truth in her hands and she wouldn't let it be forgotten. Theirs was the House of ambition, and she swore they'd never fall into complacency. Slytherins were made to lead, not to follow, and she'd be damned if Tom Riddle—or any version of him— took that from them.

The bell rang. It echoed in the distance, and both Headmaster and student glanced up at the sound.

"I think it is time for you to return to your friends, Harriet. They'll worry where you've gone."

"You're right, sir." She tucked the book away, letting the weight disappear into her Charmed pocket, the outline of it still solid and real against her leg. Together, they left the room—and the Aerie—behind.

A/N: One more chapter for this part.

a traitor's fate

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

xcv. a traitor's fate

The crack of Apparition faded into the sullen, misty climes of the surrounding moor when the two wizards arrived at the property's boundaries.

Severus' hand twitched about the handle of his wand. It was the only outward sign of his unsettled state of mind, the only sign he couldn't bring himself to still. It manifested as a rhythmic tightening and flexing of his fingers that most people never noticed. Albus knew of it, and maybe Minerva— though she might simply mistake it as his seething desire to strangle the little pustules they nurtured on a daily basis. The Dark Lord—and Slytherin—never noticed. For self-proclaimed geniuses, they had their heads so far up their own arses sometimes, they couldn't see what was right in front of their eyes.

He inhaled a slow, measured breath through his nose. Strained light gave form to the night, two men by the path's end, the gate beyond left unlatched, swinging free. Crickets resumed their chirping in the underbrush as the man next to Severus unfurled like the snake he was, the visible portion of his face blanched in the moonlight, his single eye as red as a garnet—red as blood. His wand moved in predictable ways, unraveling the wards with sharp, calculated motions, a whispered Revealing Charm showing a dim halo of yellow light lurking in the confines of the distant, rundown house.

Severus exhaled. His thoughts stilled and sunk in the dark, arctic tundra of his mind, the waters rising until everything but this moment ceased to exist.

Slytherin lowered his wand and his lips curled in the approximation of a smile. "At last. Go, dog, flush him out."

Bowing his head, Severus launched into action, Disillusioning himself even as he slung one leg over the garden wall and landed in the adjoining field. His robes hissed against the overlong grass, but his boots moved without sound. If he pretended, if he shut out the sounds of the moor and the smell of encroaching summer, Severus could almost imagine himself at Hogwarts. He could place himself there, striding down a lone corridor at night, starlight in the windows, hunting errant students out after curfew—but he wasn't at Hogwarts. Term had ended two days ago. He was in the County Durham, in the middle of bloody nowhere, and he wasn't out for tardy students. No, this was a different kind of hunt entirely.

He avoided the front of the house, skirting another ward anchored to the crumbling well stretching toward a ruined shed against a far wall. He considered triggering it; Merlin knew Otho Selwyn would need the head-start, the fucking moron—and yet Severus avoided the ward and continued toward the rear of the building. Slytherin would kill him if he botched this assignment; he knew no mercy lingered in the wizard, not after learning one of his supposedly loyal lieutenants at the school had sought to subvert him in Gaunt's favor. This was as much a test for Severus as it was a hunt for Selwyn. Should he fail….

A nebulous vein of panic touched his mind when he considered the notion, but it held no substance

and disintegrated before it could even raise his pulse. The Muggle power lines leading to the conduit beneath the eaves hummed low and crackled where Selwyn's next ward edged too near the electrical box. Severus spotted no lights on within the house itself and doubted Selwyn knew how to turn them on even if he had the desire to do so. Magic and Muggle technology did not mesh, and he supposed the sheer inundation of it and the remote location had served Selwyn well in avoiding Slytherin and his overzealous followers over the past weeks.

He couldn't run forever, even if he managed to find a Portkey off the continent. Slytherin didn't brand his Knights of Walpurgis, but the Dark Mark called to him all the same.

With a soft click, the lock on the back door disengaged and Severus eased it open, eyes narrowed under the lowered hem of his hood, his wand extended. He crossed the threshold, his murky shadow dragging over the wall, and he breathed, "Homenum Revelio."

Yellow light bloomed pestilent in the dark, nasally breathing breaking into a snarl, and then—.

"Reducto!"

Red-light shimmered and crashed into the wall where Severus had stood a moment ago, the blast thickening the air with dust and debris as footsteps pounded the rotting floorboards. Severus jumped forward, his shield flaring into being, a milky-white barrier catching and repelling three other curses before collapsing in upon itself. Glass shattered, and Severus double-backed out the door again rather than following through the broken window. A figure bolted from the house. Severus knew Selwyn had tried to Disapparate—he must have—but any fool with an ounce of magical intuition could sense the tell-tale sting of Slytherin's Anti-Disapparition Jinx hovering above his skin.

"Incarcerous!" Severus snapped at Selwyn's retreating back—but the man dodged the spell and returned one of his own, breaching the tree line. He neared the limits of Slytherin's Jinx.

Severus didn't run. Though ratty elms impeded his sight of Selwyn, he still flicked his wand in the rune of Ingwaz and incanted a spell of his own devising. "Incarcerous Herbivicus!"

Magic rushed down through the soles of his feet and into the earth itself, churning the grass and dirt as it surged toward the trees. Silence hung, a held breath, until—the earth burst in the distance like a gasping diver breaking the surface, the twang of roots coming alive, and—finally—the heavy, damning thud of a body falling down echoed back to the Potions Master's ears. A muffled curse floated on the breeze.

When Severus found him, Selwyn lay partly submerged in a pit of clay and mud, trussed in wet, creaking roots, smeared in mulch. "Half-blood scum!" Selwyn screamed when Severus came into view. Cracks spider-webbed his spectacles and saliva coated his bruised lip. "Spawn of a Muggle- loving whore! Your mother should have smothered you in your crib—!"

Severus waved his hand and the roots snapped around Selwyn's mouth, sealing in the vitriol. "Accio," he intoned, the former History professor's wand wriggling free of the earth to fly to Severus' open hand. Another spell cut the roots from their trees and kept Selwyn bound—bound, furious, and thrashing, trying to bite his way through the fibrous strands even as Severus squared his shoulders and levitated the wizard into the air.

Slytherin waited in the place he'd been left, leaning upon the garden wall, half-hidden in the dark shape of his cloak and the arching branches overhead. Severus dropped Selwyn on the ground at Slytherin's feet and bowed, taking a step back. He wanted to leave; Slytherin didn't require his aid in locating Selwyn or capturing him. His presence served no other purpose than stoking Slytherin's

vanity, than assuaging a self-aggrandizing need to debase his followers and put them in their place.

I've debased myself enough for this lifetime, Severus thought, though his expression remained stoic and calm. Slytherin stood.

"Ah, a marvelous offering, Severus. Thank you." He flicked his hand and Selwyn landed hard on his knees. Bones popped and the roots did little to stifle the resulting screams. "Let's make this quick."

Another flick had the roots tearing free of Selwyn's mouth. He yelped, his ragged breaths short and choppy, the bindings too tight to allow his lungs expansion. Suddenly, he spat at Slytherin, though the spit didn't have a chance to land, dismissed by a swift, irritated Impervius Charm.

"Go on then," Selwyn sneered. His pale hair came forward over his brow and fluttered with every breath. "Go on then, my Lord. Finish it."

"I never did take you for a melodramatic traitor, Otho. My mistake."

Selwyn laughed, cold and hysterical. "Better dead than to spend another day in that bloody school among the filthy curs and that blighted, half-blooded Headmaster!"

Slytherin's red eyes gleamed with repressed malice, but Severus sensed it building, surging against his Occlumency like the tides of a deep, ugly abyss. Selwyn must have felt it too because he shivered, but he didn't shut up.

"You're nothing compared to Gaunt. Nothing! He's going to change our world and you—! You've done nothing but break promises! Oath-breaker! You are no Lord of mine!"

Slytherin stepped forward and bared his teeth, freezing Selwyn in place. "Nothing?" he whispered. "You dare call me nothing, Selwyn? You kneel before the Dark Lord, boy— the Dark Lord, and I care not for what paltry political squabbles Gaunt chooses to embroil himself in. Every day I draw nearer to a victory only I, in my grand vision, can comprehend. It is too bad you won't live to see it, Otho." He stroked Selwyn's head, heedless of the mud or perspiration, soothing the man's lined brow. "The only thing awaiting you is a cold, empty grave. Severus."

The Potions Master stiffened. Again his hands twitched behind his back, and oh how he longed to curse the pair and be away from here, to be anywhere but here with the weight of what must be done now coming to roost upon his shoulders. I should have known; he never likes getting his hands dirty. Forgive me, Albus.

Slytherin retreated, allowing Severus to take his place before a genuflecting Selwyn. It seemed a cruel, ironic fate to condemn a man to die in a pose of worship for what Slytherin considered to be a crime of blasphemy. Even more ironic for one traitor to execute another.

Selwyn just stared at him and spat again, though Severus didn't stop the sputum from landing on his boots. His hand twitched about his wand as he leveled it at Selwyn's head. "How long before you're in my place, Snape? Huh?"

Never too soon and not long enough.

He knew what Slytherin desired, the spell he wished to see—that halo of green, a monster's salvation, another nail in Severus' coffin like the Sword of Damocles dropping another fucking inch toward his naked neck—. He summoned every memory he had of Selwyn and forced himself to relieve them, all those bitter, hateful conversations, every utterance of the word Mudblood in his presence. He embraced that hate, let it burn in his belly, in his eyes, and yet—.

Severus hesitated.

He'd agreed to this. He'd agreed when he fell on his knees before Dumbledore and said, "Protect her, protect them, I'll do anything, anything!" He'd agreed when he took Lily's hand in his own and let James Potter bind him to his word. What was another stain on his worthless soul? What was another crime, another body to bury—?

Steeling himself, Severus hissed, "Sectumsempra."

A slash tore open Selwyn's throat; the arterial spray hit Severus' front and Slytherin's, too, who sniffed and dismissed it with a lazy gesture. Selwyn sagged, and the roots loosened, losing energy until the body collapsed entirely. Severus looked away.

Tom Slytherin gave his wayward servant one final, spiteful glance before showing him his back. "Clean this mess up."

Severus released a breath and the ache in his chest lessened, if only slightly. "Yes, my Lord."

"Oh, and Severus?"

Slytherin turned and Severus waited, unwilling, but still he waited with every muscle tensed for what he knew would come. Red eyes watched him with unrivaled savagery.

"For your hesitation. Crucio."

x X x

It was quite late now. Moths ensconced the street lamps lining the parkway and not a single curtain twitched in the dozens of windows facing the street when Severus arrived at Grimmauld Place. He made steady, if laborious, progress through the desolate park and then across the paved road, his shoulders hunched inward, his boots dragging on loose grit and gravel. The wards surrounding the dilapidated townhouse pulsed as he entered their borders, their presence malignant and dubious, centuries of Black ancestors curling their lips at the filthy half-blood now dirtying their neglected stoop.

The patter of raindrops followed him into the dark foyer. No, not raindrops—blood, perhaps? Or water, soaked into his cloak from his writhing on the wet grass. Severus doffed his hood and let the cloak drop from his arms without ceremony. He walked down the unlit hall below the leering elf heads and managed not to stagger for the entirety of the way, though he kept his right hand braced on the wall. He could see the Vow's scar. He didn't know why he could always find it, unerringly, even in the weakest of lighting, a line no bigger than a hair caught and coiled about his wrist and palm. It seemed such a tenuous thing—like a man's word. Like a man's life.

Severus slumped into a chair by the table once he reached the kitchen, his knees too weak to take him farther. Silence reverberated as the gongs of a bell do long after the noise disappears; the vibration of it quivered, taut, and made the sluggish, pulsating beat of his heart all the louder. He braced his forearms on the table and leaned over them, fixing his blank stare on the ancient grain of the wood, and his wet hair coiled about him like the limp bodies of dead snakes.

Blood stained his cuff—Selwyn's blood. There was blood on his hands, always blood on his hands —.

"Professor?"

Severus forced himself to straighten despite the pain riddling his body. There, next to him, the girl

stood dressed in an overlarge Muggle shirt and flannel trousers, a cup and saucer extended toward the Potions Master as the smell of chamomile and spice wafted off the curling steam. How long had he been here? How long had she—?

Severus numbly took the offering. Potter said nothing; her slippered feet shuffled against the dusty floor and carried her away through the door and up the basement stairs.

He held the cup in his hands. The warmth soothed his trembling fingers.

"…thank you, Miss Potter."

END PART TWO

A/N: I always felt there was a reason Avada Kedavra wasn't used prolifically in canon, except by Voldemort, who's a powerful wizard. It's my head-canon that it is—or should be—an incredibly difficult Dark spell to use, and one with lasting consequences upon the caster.

That's it for Part Two! Phew! Are you excited for Part Three? What do you think will happen? If you enjoyed the story, think about dropping it a favorite / kudos! It's much appreciated!

Chapter End Notes

Remember, there's a Discord server now where you can stay up to date on chapter releases! Here's the link: CDT Discord.

https/discord.gg/4Mxw628

a mundane afternoon

3. THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN

never wound a snake; kill it - h. tubman

xcvi. a mundane afternoon

Like many of the other youths who populated Diagon Alley on that unseasonably chilly summer day, Harriet Potter had her nose pressed to the glass of Quality Quidditch Supplies, ogling the broom on display.

"It's the fastest broom ever made," Draco Malfoy said, admiration clear in his voice, no trace of its usual smarmy undertone present. "Better than anything Nimbus Racing has in their lineup. Their concept model for the Number Two-Thousand-and-Two is years off yet. The whole Bulgaria national team has already put in for six Firebolts."

Harriet pulled far enough away from the glass to eye Draco, one brow raised. "Have you gone begging your daddy for one yet?"

"Shut up, Potter," Malfoy snapped, scowling even as he fidgeted, adding in an undertone, "He said no."

She laughed.

"You're just jealous you haven't got a father to ask for anything."

The insult stung, but it lacked bite. "Yeah, right. Being able to buy whatever I want without asking my mum or dad is so difficult."

Draco scowled and crossed his arms, his eyes locked on the glitzy, obscenely expensive broom. The tag read, "Price by request," and Harriet had actually gone and asked the manager. The total, had it been in pounds, was high enough to give Uncle Vernon a heart attack if he'd heard it.

Behind them came the familiar voice of Narcissa Malfoy cutting through the squealing and excitement. "Draco, Harriet, come away from there now. We're ready to depart."

With a grunt, Harriet peeled herself from the glass and Draco did the same. His mother waited at the back of the crowd with Elara and Hermione by her side, the trio having finally exited the stationery shop across the lane. Mrs. Malfoy looked as suave as ever, her cold blonde hair caught and twisted into a fashionable chignon on the back of her head, diamonds glittering on the lobes of her ears. Elara wore what she typically wore: a white, high-collared blouse with her House pin sparkling in the sparse sunlight, her black robes open to reveal the blouse and a long skirt falling past her knees. Hermione's wild hair had been tamed into a French plait not unlike the one on Harriet's head, though the humidity rose a halo of fine, frizzy curls around her face. She had a new, self-inking quill in her hands and was inspecting it with a pleased gleam in her eyes.

"Come along. We've an appointment at Twillfitt's next."

Harriet huffed but followed her minder all the same. From the corner of her eye, she saw Elara give her a knowing smirk, which only forced another huff. Shopping with Mrs. Malfoy took too long and proved almost mundane. She wouldn't let them wander off and made them get all those things

Harriet usually forgot about until the last minute or just blatantly ignored—like socks and four bloody kinds of shampoo and bits of feminine things Harriet really didn't like to consider. She thought they'd never escape that flowery smelling shop.

"So, are you going to purchase a Firebolt?" Elara asked at length as they headed to the South End of the alley.

Harriet snorted. "No. Bloody thing costs more than a Muggle car. Besides, my Two-Thousand-One is perfectly fine."

"It's not your Two-Thousand-One, Potter," Malfoy put in, nose in the air. "It belongs to the team."

"Shut up, Malfoy."

"Mother! She told me to shut up!"

"Behave, children."

They clamored into Twillfitt and Tattings, finding a single, stocky witch in the establishment waiting behind her counter. She looked up when the door opened. "Narcissa, darling! Wonderful to see you, as always!"

"Patricia."

The two exchanged busses on the cheeks and polite society chatter, commenting on the newest fashion trends and which families had come to their properties in the city for the season and which were out of country and who had done such and such a thing. Harriet found all this thoroughly boring and plopped herself down on the nearest seat by the door, a wooden bench with some kind of inlaid Cushioning Charm. Elara and Hermione joined her—as did Draco, complaining until they budged over and gave him room to sit. He didn't stay long, because a minute later Mrs. Malfoy urged him back onto his feet and he disappeared into the backroom to have himself fitted for new robes.

"No wandering off, am I understood?" Mrs. Malfoy warned the trio of waiting witches, one pale eyebrow lifted. "We'll just be a moment."

They nodded and she vanished behind the heavy curtain with her son and the seamstress. Harriet slumped, legs kicked out in front of her, and released a third—and final—huff.

"Really, Harriet," Hermione chided as she crossed one leg over the other and gave her friend a consoling pat. "You act as if you're being tortured."

Having actually been tortured, Harriet didn't think much of Hermione's comparison but chose not to mention it. "I'm just bored. She won't let us go off anywhere interesting. Shopping's—boring."

"But necessary," Elara quipped. She picked up an abandoned Witch Weekly magazine and flipped through it. "Your trunk's half empty and your robes all improperly sized. As are mine. She's taking us to the Optomagitrist after this, too."

"The what?"

"Magical eye doctor, for new glasses."

"Oh. But—."

"Hermione, do you think these potions in here are actually viable?"

The abrupt change of subject put Harriet off and she sighed, looking out the window as the other two picked over the potions in the magazine. Given the dodgy weather and the fact that school had only let out a little over a week ago, Diagon Alley was relatively idle, a thin stream of witches and wizards going about their errands and business, meeting for lunch or wrangling small children. Harriet flicked aside the rather dowdy curtain to improve her vantage and watched people passing the shop. At one point, she thought she caught sight of Professor Slytherin but couldn't rightly tell; the wizard was a terror at close range, but looked unremarkable at a distance.

She'd thought on what Professor Dumbledore had told her about the Defense instructor and Voldemort for much of her summer vacation so far and had come to the conclusion the Headmaster hadn't exaggerated when he said she'd come away from the conversation with more questions than answers. Chief among those questions was why? If Professor Slytherin was connected to the Dark Lord—either directly or through whatever nebulous magical nonsense made him look like the monster—why was he allowed on at the school? She wondered if Professor Dumbledore had any say in the matter, or if the Board knew anything about Slytherin.

Merlin, she mused to herself, lips pressed in a line. Does anyone even care? They elected Gaunt as Minister and that bloke is just as terrifying. She had the very Hermione-like urge to go to the library and pull old periodicals and records to discover more about the Minister and Slytherin. Should she? It might prove dangerous to poke her nose blindly about in their business and after everything that had occurred last term, Harriet didn't want to go looking for trouble.

It frightened her that Albus Dumbledore, who was meant to be the greatest wizard of their age, couldn't handle or best everything. What did he mean when he said Slytherin was and wasn't the Dark Lord? What kind of magic was that? Harriet had never heard of such a thing, and true she may not yet be thirteen, but she had a firm grasp on the basics and the strange notion of clones— like those in Dudley's sci-fi programs—went against a lot of the magic theory she'd been taught. Besides, Gaunt and Slytherin weren't clones; they looked different, but not by much.

The ruffling of air in feathers brought her gaze up to the transom and the brown owl swooping overhead. Harriet expected the owl to drop off a letter for the witch—Patricia?—and so she yelped when a thick envelope whacked her in the face. The owl hooted, satisfied, and left through the transom once more.

"Who is that from, Harriet?" Hermione asked, and Harriet shrugged, turning the envelope over to examine the looping, exaggerated salutation. She snorted.

"Lockhart."

"Did you say Lockhart?!"

"Why on earth is that grinning buffoon writing to you?"

Harriet flicked open the thick, fancy parchment and skimmed the contents. "I suggested some stuff he could write about in his new books and the berk has been sending me post ever since he left the school, asking for more ideas. He's going to give me ten percent of his profits." She folded the letter back up and stuffed it in a pocket. "'Course, I also have to stay quiet about his past plagiarism."

Hermione's eyes boggled. "You're blackmailing Gilderoy Lockhart?!"

"What? No." Harriet paused. "Well, when you put it that way—a bit, maybe."

"Harriet!"

Behind her magazine, Elara stifled a small, unmistakable chuckle.

"Don't sit there and laugh! That's not at all funny."

"Coming from the witch who had us rob a man fully capable of cursing us into the next life." Elara flipped a page. "If I have another asthma attack in his presence, I think he'd let me suffocate."

"He wouldn't!"

They didn't mention the 'he' in question, as if collectively afraid they'd summon his dark, sneering form right out of a cupboard or from behind a rack of robes. The heavy curtain scratched against the metal rod as Draco reappeared, dodging his mother's fussing, and Mrs. Malfoy called to Harriet. "You're next."

"Do I have to?" she complained, slouching onto her feet.

"Yes, darling. I've seen the atrocious state of your wardrobe. Now do as you're told."

"I only showed you that under duress," Harriet grumbled. Nevertheless, she trudged after Mrs. Malfoy into the second room where the seamstress waited with pins ready and accepted her fate.

x X x

The sun made a valiant attempt to poke through the grim clouds but failed in the end, leaving the patio outside the restaurant more than a bit dismal. The staff had even set out fire-salamanders to give the tables heat, and Harriet watched the lizard lazing in its dish of gravel as she picked over her food. It spat out tiny flames as it snored.

Harriet didn't actually know the name of the restaurant, only that it was in a brick building on Empiric Alley and that Mrs. Malfoy apparently knew the proprietor, who kept stopping by the table to chat in French. Sighing, Harriet leaned back in her chair and studied the striped canopy overhead, fidgeting with the gold frames of her new, round glasses.

"I think they look nice," Hermione commented as she spread a bit of butter on her pumpernickel.

"Really?"

"Yes. They pair very well with your eyes."

Harriet hummed in appreciation and popped a large bite of pasta into her mouth. "'Hanks, Hermione."

Mrs. Malfoy shot her a look that clearly told her to not talk while chewing, her fork and knife moving across her plate on their own, cutting her food into tiny, manageable squares.

They'd almost finished their meal when Snape arrived. He oozed from an opposing alley and appeared on the main lane, dressed in the same thick, black robes he wore during the school year, and several of the better dressed toffs making their way to and from the Ministry startled, one witch dropping her parasol and gasping. Snape gave the lot a hard, indolent glare, then swept across the lane and marched straight to the restaurant Harriet and the others sat at with their food.

"Narcissa," he greeted with a sharp tilt of his head, glancing at the gathered teenagers. Well, teenagers and Harriet; she hated being the youngest of the bunch sometimes. He studied them, then

the empty patio and the street, squinting at every potential witness to his presence. "I trust there were no…issues."

"None at all, Severus," she replied—glossing over Harriet's less than gracious complaining and Elara tripping Draco into a huge cauldron outside Potage's Cauldron Shop. "Did you finish your business at Slug and Jiggers?"

"Yes. The school's accounts are settled."

"We missed your company today. You could have come along for a robe shopping yourself—."

"Forward the bill to Dumbledore," Snape said, earning a miffed sniff for his interruption. He attention turned to Draco and the bored boy straightened, a nervous twitch shifting his pointy nose. "I trust, Draco, that you'll forgo relaying this little outing to your father?"

"Lucius is out of country for the week, Severus," Mrs. Malfoy told him with an errant flip of her hand. "He's been so terribly busy at the Ministry, you know."

"Indeed." Snape kept his eyes on Draco and Malfoy finally nodded, throat bobbing as he swallowed. Satisfied, Snape turned to address Harriet and Elara. "Say your farewells. We're departing."

"You won't stay for a quick bite, Severus?"

"No. I've potions that need tending."

"You always were a spoilsport."

Harriet was glad to hop to her feet and abandon her overly salted food, though it did mean leaving Hermione behind and returning to Grimmauld Place with Snape. "I'll write when I can," Hermione promised as they embraced. "I don't know when exactly. Hopefully we can come back to Diagon Alley together for our school supplies before the summer ends."

Hugging her all the tighter, Harriet finally released and said goodbye to the Malfoys as well, scowling at Draco when his mother had her back turned.

"Prat," she mouthed.

"Ugly," he returned, and Harriet scowled all the more at his smug expression. He was an unbearable jerk and she hoped he didn't make the Quidditch team this term.

The Malfoys departed and Snape set off without a word, expecting Elara and Harriet to keep pace as he led them toward the nearest Apparition point. Harriet couldn't help but stare at the profile of the man's face, the hawkish nose and pale complexion, remembering how he'd appeared just a few nights ago in the kitchen at Grimmauld Place. Though it'd been dark in the dreary space, Harriet had spotted him right off when she came downstairs for a glass of water—but Snape didn't see her. No, he remained at the table with his head bowed over his arms, his hair a black, oily curtain hiding his face from view.

His hands had been shaking.

Thrown by the oddity of the situation, Harriet brewed him a cuppa and the Potions Master only moved when she'd shoved the mug into his grasp. He'd looked…tired, and in pain. Harriet couldn't fathom why, and nor could she understand why the sight had distressed her.

"Potter!" Harriet blinked and realized Snape had his hand extended for her arm, already holding Elara in the other. "Any day now, girl."

Shaking her head, she gave the wizard her wrist and Snape's fingers tightened over her sleeve. They disappeared in a resounding crack!

A/N: Dumbledore: [receives shopping bill] "I am never going to financially recover from this."

I was going to include a recap of what's happened, but honestly what bit of it I wrote sounded bloody atrocious and doesn't scrape the surface of all the small things that are snowballing into bigger issues later on. So here's the abbreviated version: Y1 - Harriet runs away from the Dursleys, meets Sirius Black's daughter, Snape made an Unbreakable Vow to Lily Potter, Hermione's a ward of the Malfoys, and a possessed Quirrell accidentally kills himself with Harriet's wand. Y2 - Harriet lives at Grimmauld, Basilisk loose in the school, finds it in Ravenclaw's Aerie instead of the Chamber, Luna possessed by Diadem!Voldemort, Elara kills snake and destroys Diadem with Fiendfyre. There we go.

his own demanding ghost

xcvii. his own demanding ghost

In the middle of the sea at the end of the world, a man sat alone in a stone cell pressing ink into his skin.

He was a terribly thin man, more bone than flesh, waxen skin stretched taut to his skull, his black hair and beard both matted into thick, stringy clumps. An old torn cuff had been sacrificed to tie the mess back from his sunken eyes. There wasn't much in his cell: a pallet laid at his back, covered in a threadbare blanket that might have been white at some point, an empty food bowl waiting by the iron gate, and in his hand he held what remained of his spoon. Time and a bit of magic had whittled it down into a passable needle, the ink fashioned from sea salt and tar, preserved in a little hollow worn into the floor.

The man pressed the needle's crude tip into his skin again, flinching ever so slightly at the sting, pulling the needle free only to heal the skin with a pulse of raw magic. He panted softly and studied the effect, moving his arm into the watery, barely-there glow of distant sunlight drizzling through the window's thick grate. The glyphs were an exhausting endeavor, mere centimeters taking weeks to form—but it wasn't as if he had anything else to do.

The only thing Sirius Black had left was time.

He scoffed, muttering "Time served," to himself as he twitched the needle about and added yet another point to the symbol above his elbow. He'd been shite at Ancient Runes in school; that'd always been Remus' forte—oh, God, Remus, Remus, I'm so—but he remembered enough to get by.

His fingers traced the rougher skin above nyd on his heart, a rune pleading dire, dire need. It came first, of course; every other word etched into his worthless hide was simply an elaboration on that single plea.

Sirius returned the needle to the ink and tugged the pallet's edge over it all—not that anyone would bloody well care should he fashion a shiv; the only one he could use it on was himself after all, and Sirius wasn't such a bleeding heart Gryffindor that he'd never considered the idea—why not, after all, a fitting end for a dog, a failure, but no he couldn't, he couldn't—.

Shaking his head, Sirius dragged in a lungful of brine-flavored air and let it out.

Distantly, he felt the pressure emanating from that part of himself where he kept the worst bits hidden— "How could you do this without telling me? How could you? How—?!"—lessen like a balloon with a small puncture, a flimsy veil lifting enough for him to hear the world outside his own skull once more. He could hear the dull, repetitive thump of the waves hitting the island, the wind howling, and—the other prisoners.

"Ooh!" came the high, girlish shriek of his least favorite witch in the world. "Looks like the Dementors are moving off!"

"It's gotta be inspection time," grunted another, a voice for a face Sirius' had never seen and couldn't place—Rowle, he thought. Not Rabastan or Rodulphus; they were either dead or, more likely, in the other ward. It wasn't Wilkes, or the Carrows, the latter too far down the way for Sirius to hear unless the witch started screaming. Bellatrix Lestrange laughed, the sound garbled and deranged, like a dragon's claw scraping inside his head—.

"Shut the fuck up, you mad bint!" Sirius shouted.

"What's that? Still breathing, cousin?" Bellatrix laughed again, and Sirius softly cursed under his breath, wishing he could wrap his hands around her neck and squeeze. Silence—true, Merlin- blessed silence—came like rain in the desert here, rare and precious and almost always spoiled by the Death Eaters he lived down the hall from.

Sirius settled on the floor, angling himself so he could somewhat see down the corridor, past the black cell across from him, toward the stairs he'd been dragged up twelve years ago and hadn't laid eyes on since. If it weren't for the sound of the waves, the whole bloody sea could've dried up, and Sirius wouldn't have a clue. He didn't know anything outside of that cell, no bigger than a coat closet.

The Dementors had, indeed, pulled back, and now Sirius could hear the steady, echoing thump of hesitant feet coming up the steps, the sound barely audible under the Death Eaters' catcalling. "He will return for us!" someone screamed, and Bellatrix crowed in appreciation. "The Lord will come for his most faithful!"

Sirius slumped into the wall and scoffed. Like hell. Images flickered in his head—a house, a ruin, a familiar dark head, irate black eyes. "You fucking TRAITOR—!"

Ashes. A smoldering plot of land. " How could you—?!"

Grunting, Sirius ground his forehead against the stones and folded his arms across his chest, squeezing. He didn't need the Dementors to torture himself; somehow, that always made it worse. He concentrated on the corridor, the footsteps, the pounding of the waves. Water. Merlin, he couldn't rightly remember what it felt like. The windows of this godforsaken place were Charmed to never let anything more than air through, so even in the worst winter storms, the rain never graced his squalid little cell. The sun never came out. The wind never blew. Warmth never came.

A short, bumbling bloke came into view, trailed by two of the uniformed guards. Sirius almost snorted; the Ministry couldn't have picked a worse wizard to send careening into the depths of Azkaban. He was from the Ministry. Only an idiot could mistake him for anything other than a bureaucrat: pinstriped robes fell past his shaking knees, and on his head he wore the ugliest lime- green bowler hat Sirius had ever seen. Rubbing his chin, Sirius squinted and tried to remember where he'd seen the guy before. Didn't he run for Minister against Bagnold and Crouch? Doesn't look like he ever won, poor sod. What was his name again?

The wizard stopped at the first cell and started up a stuttering conversation with the inmate interred within, though Sirius couldn't hear what was being said. It seemed an age since the last Ministry inspection, and Sirius couldn't say why they felt the bloody need to check on them when nothing short of death would get them to open the doors. Maybe it kept everyone out in the world nice and happy, being reminded the Death Eaters and Dark wizards and murderers were still tucked away in this frigid fucking hell. Not that he disagreed, really. They deserved it. He deserved it.

Didn't he?

The wizard—Fudge, Sirius thought his name might be, he looked quite like that Hufflepuff prat Gabriel Fudge he went to school with once upon a time—passed from one Death Eater to the next and skittered away from dear old cousin Bellatrix when the mad witch spat and cackled at him. Sighing, Sirius shuffled closer to the gate as Fudge neared. The wizard stopped, the two bored guards behind him, and he peered down at Sirius as he fished a handkerchief out of his open cloak and dabbed at his clammy, sweat-drenched face.

"Sirius Black."

"Hello," Sirius acknowledged, voice rough and grating. Fudge looked around the cell while Sirius looked at him—and he nearly gasped aloud when he spotted the folded, wrinkled Daily Prophet stashed in the inner pocket of Fudge's cloak. "Can I have that?" he blurted, causing Fudge to freeze. Shite. Could have gone about that better. "The paper. I miss doing the crosswords, y'know?" Sirius could care bloody less about the crossword—well, it would give him a way to occupy his mind for at least a couple of minutes. No, what he wanted was just one glimpse of the world outside his cell. Just one chance to see—.

Fudge tossed a nervous glance toward one of the guards and the witch waved her hand in answer, allowing the pudgy wizard to tentatively poke the paper through the bars. Sirius had to stop himself from snatching it out of Fudge's hand. His own hand shook as it clutched the folded bundle tight. "…thank you," he whispered.

Uneasy, Fudge nodded and moved to the cell across the way, leaving Sirius to his paper. He flipped it upright and peered at the date.

July thirteenth, nineteen ninety-three.

His heart almost stopped from the shock of it. Ninety-three? No, that couldn't be right. Had it really been so long? Days in Azkaban seemed to stretch on interminably, but at the same time, it seemed only yesterday they'd locked him here. The Dementors kept everything…fresh, all the grief and remorse and terror sitting on the tip of his tongue like a bad taste. Fuck me, he thought, swallowing. The war ended twelve years ago. Twelve years, and it doesn't feel like it ever stopped. Twelve years since—.

Letting out a shuddering breath, he flipped the paper over and sought out an article. The first he found was a fluff piece about the summer migration of Golden Snidgets in Somerset. Bloody useless information, but Sirius devoured every word, moving on to a column about Gilderoy Lockhart, then the editorials. He saw mention of some problems at Hogwarts—and his mind spiraled, memories churning, thinking of a slumbering black-haired baby cradled to James' chest. Harriet. Harriet would be at Hogwarts for her third-year. She wasn't yet thirteen, he remembered. He wondered how she liked living with Lily's sister. He wondered—.

Fidgeting, he flipped the paper again to the front fold. The main read was for a lottery drawing at the Ministry—another fluff piece, really, a ploy for better government relations with the public. He remembered how Remus used to—. Sirius gnawed on his lip and shook his head like a wet dog. "No," he muttered, focusing on the type. Arthur Weasley had won the lotto, Sirius read as he grinned. He'd never met Arthur himself, but he'd known Molly by association through the Prewett twins, who'd been Gryffindor Prefects when he first came to Hogwarts. They were all good people. Better the Galleons go to them and not some bigoted pure-blood cunts who'd managed to dodge the post-war purge.

He finished the article, then glanced at the picture of Arthur and his entire family in Egypt. Egypt! Did the Egyptian Ministry have their own Azkaban somewhere out there in the scorching sands? Merlin, he'd trade anything to be there instead of here, but he assumed the Egyptian prisoners probably felt the same way about Azkaban. What's that Muggle phrase? The grass is always greener on the other side? Huffing a laugh, Sirius looked over the picture again, studying the smiling, freckled faces, the youngest son standing by his little sister with a rat on his shoulder—.

Sirius stared. "No," he whispered louder than he had before, shaking his head. It couldn't be—it was impossible, because no matter how much it looked like it, there was no—. No—. No—! "I'm

seeing rubbish now."

He scrambled to his feet and almost tore the paper apart in his haste, rushing to the weak dint of light fluttering through the window, thrusting the picture closer. It didn't matter how he refuted it; there, on the Weasley boy's bony shoulder, sat a rat Sirius had seen more times than he could count over the years. There sat Peter Pettigrew—Peter Pettigrew and one missing finger.

Stumbling, Sirius' back hit the wall and his skull struck the stones hard. Muggle sirens peeled in the distance, loud and straining like a woman screaming. Screaming, like the women actually screaming, the ones too close, too close—. Rubble popped and skipped as it landed, dust in the air. Sewer pipes caught in the Blasting Charm's radius gurgled and frothed. His leg was broken. It was broken, and he had blood in his mouth, and on his hands, quivering, wand broken—.

Laughter. He laughed, not because it was funny, but because it was fucking tragic.

"No!" Sirius snarled at the paper, at himself. "It's not possible!"

"Going mad in there, cousin?"

"SHUT UP!"

"They only ever found a finger of him," the Auror sneered as looked down at Sirius. "Are you happy, Black?" No, Sirius didn't feel happy. He didn't feel anything at all; in fact, it seemed as if everything happened at a great distance from himself, and he had no choice but to stand to the side and watch—.

A finger.

A missing toe on a rat.

It made a sick, twisted kind of sense to Sirius, the kind of sense he knew Peter would have appreciated. He'd always been the soft one in their group, malleable, able to fit the cracks of their friendships—but he held no shape of his own, and looking back, Sirius had spent the years spotting all the little things he should have noticed before. Peter used to like getting in that last kick when they taunted Slytherins, especially that dickhead Snape who cozied up to Lily. He'd been a right nasty git when he got his back up; Sirius had come away from their spats with bruises and cuts more often than not, but not Peter. Peter never did anything until Snape was already on the ground.

If there was anyone Sirius could imagine living as a rat instead of a man, it was Peter.

He scanned the paper again, eyes flicking back and forth at a furious pace. " The Weasley family will be spending a month in Egypt, returning for the start of the new school year at Hogwarts, which five of the Weasley children currently attend."

"No, no, no..." he moaned, one hand gripping his hair, yanking it at the roots. Hogwarts. The children were returning to Hogwarts—.

Harriet.

Sirius had grown to tolerate the size of his cell—but now the walls pressed too close, his breaths coming in short, gasping pants. Peter was alive. He was alive, and headed back to Hogwarts in the hands of an oblivious boy, going to the place where his goddaughter attended school with other oblivious children. It's not safe, he told himself, fingers scrabbling at the stones, tearing his blunt nails. It's not safe, she's not safe! Peter killed twelve people just to escape. Soft, doughy, inconspicuous Peter slaughtered twelve human beings and cut off his finger to get away

from his old school chum. What would he do if cornered in a school full of children? What would he do? Oh, God—Lily, James, forgive me. I've failed—.

The hollering in the corridors morphed into shrieks and screams; ice began to form again upon the walls, and it clawed at Sirius' bare ankles, steam issuing between his chapped lips. They were coming. The Dementors were returning, and with their encroaching presence rose the onslaught of his worst remembrances, the terror subsuming Sirius like a black, inexorable tide until he couldn't see, until he started to scream like all the rest.

"How could you have done this?" Remus cried. "How could you? She's dead, Marlene's dead! Elara's—."

An Auror stood outside the blackened grounds, the hem of his red robes eddying in the ash-filled breeze. "There were no survivors, Mr. Black."

"—dead!"

Broken wood littered the cobbled street and the splinters sliced his feet. A dark figure crouched in the obliterated bedroom, weeping, a bloodied infant in his arms. Black eyes found Sirius. "—you fucking TRAITOR!"

"Lily and James—!"

Keening, Sirius sank to his knees and pressed his face to the floor, reaching for his magic. He pulled it over himself, and it was only when his limbs shifted and changed that the frigid tide receded and he could breathe. Where there once stood a man in prison-garb now hunched a large, scrawny black dog. The dog snatched hold of the paper between his teeth and brought it over to the pallet, where he settled with a growl and a whimper. Silver eyes stared at the photograph printed on the front page. He continued to stare long into the night.

I'll stop him this time. I'll get out of here and stop him, I have to. He won't get Harriet—not this time, I swear on my life. Not this time, Peter.

He's at Hogwarts. He's at Hogwarts.

A/N: There's a whole host of fan-theories revolving around Sirius' tattoos—but, as far as we know, Sirius didn't have them in book-canon, as Harry never mentioned them. Some believe they were done to him as a form of identification, but I'm going with the theory he did them to himself, and in CDT, he created them to preserve his magic (except the one on his neck; which is clearly his prisoner number, just like the one Lucius got). So, anyway, I take some creative license with the tattoos and Azkaban in general.

Chapter title from the quote; "Each of us must suffer his own demanding ghost," The Aeneid, Book VI, by Virgil.

Sirius: "AWWW YEAH. Everyone excited for when I finally appear!"

Snape, grumbling: "I hate it here."

for family

xcviii. for family

Of all the things that frustrated Hermione Granger that summer, her utter lack of a relationship with Jamie Ingham bothered her the most.

She couldn't fathom his reticence. By all accounts, they should have been friends—or at least allies of a sort, living together as Muggle-borns in the Malfoy household. However, Jamie seemed to go out of his way to avoid Hermione. He always appeared to meals on time, ate quietly, attended his private lessons, then retreated to his rooms, refraining from visiting the manor's common areas. The older wizard put Hermione off whenever she tried to strike up a conversation and would only ever reply when asked a direct question by one of the Malfoys.

To say it frustrated her was an understatement.

"It seems to me he'd get lonely, don't you agree?" Hermione commented to Dobby as the elf bobbed about the sideboard, rubbing an oiled rag against the wood struts. "He doesn't ever write to his friends and he's intolerably antisocial. Now, I enjoy studying and reading more than most people I should think, but shouldn't he get—I don't know—bored? Even the best students need a reprieve here and there."

Dobby nodded along with everything she said and Hermione repressed a sigh.

She'd formed a friendship with the elf, a fondness forged in the inequality of their status and the mutual disregard they suffered. Well, in truth, Hermione didn't like to equate their living situations because she was treated far, far better than Dobby, who complained much less than she did. He didn't have much in common with Dipthy and Delby, the other two Malfoy elves, and Hermione was ashamed to admit her own surprise when she learned house-elves could have their own personalities and quirks. It seemed a terribly narrow-minded mistake on her part, and she'd devoted a better part of her holiday getting to know Dobby better.

He finished polishing the sideboard and moved to the coffee table on the other side of the lounge, Hermione following behind. "Dobby," she ventured, perching on the edge of a convenient armchair. "May I ask you a question?"

"Yes, Miss Herme-ninny?"

Hermione plucked at a loose thread falling from the chair's fabric as Dobby turned his protruding green eyes to her. She took a moment to put her thoughts together, having witnessed how touchy elves could be and how an errant statement could send them off into a tearful fit. "This is just a hypothetical question, mind you, but what do you think…about freedom? About being a free elf?"

Dobby stopped polishing and froze, his little body going stiff as a board.

"Or—or!" Hermione rushed on before he could punish himself for a perceived fault. "What do Dipthy and Delby think about free elves? What do house-elves, in general, think about it? Hypothetically, of course. No need for—erm—punishments or the like."

He kept cleaning, though he moved with more intent, one hand coming up to tug on his flapping ear. "Dipthy and Delby not be liking free elves, Miss Herme-ninny."

"Why not?"

"They say free elves aren't good elves! They not be serving their families right, not at all! So they get clothes. That's what Dipthy and Delby and most elves think."

"Why wouldn't they think freedom a good thing? Don't you wish to be able to do things for yourself?"

He heaved a small, exasperated sigh. "Miss Herme-ninny isn't understanding elves very much."

"Well, I really don't understand the point of clothes, Dobby. Is it ceremonial? Symbolic?"

"Clothes is for bad elves," Dobby whispered, tugging on his ear again, giving it a small twist. "Bad elves get clothes from master and go free. Bad elves, bad Dobby—."

"All right, all right. Enough of that," Hermione muttered, her mind working, the thread winding tighter and tighter around her finger until she let it go and began the process again. Neither Dipthy nor Delby cared much for Dobby and she had the impression Dobby wasn't fond of his fellows either, not that he'd ever say as much. Courtesy appeared ingrained in most of their mannerisms. Hermione knew the other Malfoy house-elves didn't like Dobby because he toed the line between servitude and outright insubordination; he went out of his way to make life incrementally more difficult for Mr. Malfoy, never finishing his tasks quite right, moving furniture just enough for the elder Malfoy to slam his toes into things at inopportune moments.

It would have been funny if Dobby didn't catch the backlash for his antics more often than not.

Hermione's first inclination toward house-elf servitude was fury and indignation; it came intolerably too close to slavery and was not something she condoned. However, after two summers of living in direct contact with Dobby, Dipthy, and Delby, she knew approaching the issue with that kind of Gryffindor outrage wouldn't help anyone, and most definitely not the poor elves. They needed to be heard, not have someone else tell them what they should think or feel or how they should behave.

Of course, Hermione had no intention of sitting on her hands and doing nothing at all. She despised inactivity.

The afternoon beyond the tall windows grew cooler in temperature but warmer in hue as it wore on, the summer coloration deepening as the sky faded from crisp blue to sullen orange, the white peacocks wandering out from beneath their shelter. Hermione gazed into the middle-distance and thought she heard Draco's laughter echoing from the Quidditch pitch. Crabbe and Goyle had come over today, giving her a much sought after reprieve from Draco's bored haranguing. He'd taken to asking her if she was Petrified whenever she sat too long reading. Surprisingly, Hermione didn't believe he meant to be malicious, just that his sense of humor bordered on the outright offensive, and the little prat didn't know how to talk to anyone outside of his snotty, pure-blooded circle. He kept on with his joke until Mrs. Malfoy overhead and put an end to it.

Quiet, shuffling footsteps passed the open lounge door and pulled Hermione from her thoughts. She sat up and looked to the hall in time to spot Jamie Ingham passing through on his way to his rooms. Jumping to her feet, Hermione rushed after him and didn't even pause to give Dobby her goodbyes, instead hurrying to catch the other Muggle-born. He glanced at her once and looked away, something like irritation swimming in his tired eyes. He groaned.

"Hi, Jamie!" Hermione chirped. "Beautiful afternoon, isn't it?"

Jamie kept walking.

"Are you busy this evening? I was hoping I could ask you some questions about upper-level Transfiguration," Hermione endeavored on, wishing she could get the wizard to speak with her, wondering why he wouldn't. "The tutor was well-pleased with the progress I've made, of course, but sometimes I find her lessons rather dull. What about you? Are you keeping up with your summer assignments? If you'd like, I can look over your work. I know I'm a few years younger, but I'm quite advanced in several subjects, I assure you—."

Suddenly, as they neared the door closing off Jamie's rooms, he whirled on her and Hermione took a step back, surprised. "Stop it," he hissed in a low, warning tone. "Just stop it."

"I—what?"

"Just bugger off already!"

"I…don't understand."

"Don't you get it, Granger? I don't want your help, and I'm not giving you mine. We're not here to make friends. Why can't you get that through your thick skull? We're in competition!" he seethed. "The Malfoys are the best pure-blood family, the best placement, the best way for a Muggle-born to get a leg up in the Ministry or whatever bloody field they want. Every Muggle-born would kill to be here and they'll be perfectly fucking happy to see you and I fail everything and get kicked out. Stop talking to me, stop trying to distract me! Do you understand now?!"

Paling, Hermione nodded and tried to swallow past the sudden lump in her throat.

"Good. Leave me alone."

Jamie stormed into his rooms and slammed the door in Hermione's face, the shock of it blowing back her hair. She stood still for a moment longer, trying to make sense of what had just happened —and then it came over her, the sudden pall of enraged mortification, her cheeks hot and her hands shaking, eyes glazed in tears. It reminded her too much of school before Hogwarts, back when she'd been an isolated little busy-body the other children relentlessly teased or ignored, and all her teachers despaired of her being too much.

Hermione missed Elara and Harriet something fierce as she whirled about and stomped back down the corridor, wiping her face on her bundled sleeve. Jealousy stung in her heart when she thought of how they got to spend the whole of the summer together, but the logical part of Hermione knew it wasn't their fault nor their intention to exclude her. They didn't have families and Harriet wouldn't have a home at all if not for Elara opening her house to her. They also had Professor Snape minding them, which undoubtedly meant a summer of rules and restrictions even Hermione didn't want to consider. She just wished she could see them.

"Just trying to be friendly," she muttered as she descended the stairs and each furious thump of her shoes on the marble steps echoed in the wider hall. "Just trying to be considerate, and what does he do? Spit in my face. Why do I even bother?"

What did Jamie—Ingham—mean about competition? Yes, Hermione knew her grades and good standing had brought her to and kept her at Malfoy Manor, but was Ingham so utterly insecure of his own prowess he couldn't spare an ounce of attention to anything beyond studying? Was his situation really so tenuous? Was hers?

She entered the main foyer, which in a Muggle home would have been attached to the front entrance, but here instead resided at the heart of the Manor with a hearth big enough for several fully grown men to stand inside, an Apparition point in the middle of the floor kept clear and

marked with an inlaid insignia. Hermione loved the chandelier in here—not that she'd ever admit that to anyone. She loved the gentle, whimsical curls of white gold wrapped around glass ornaments and crystal pillars, the candles Ever-Burning and flickering, catching the wings of the faeries who resided in the holly wreaths bound to the wider arms. It was beautiful and yet whimsical, so unlike the Malfoys. Hermione stopped on the bottom step and looked up at it, sniffling.

The steady, confident click of heels approached from one of the outer corridors and Hermione jerked into motion, hopping off the step and rounding the newel post, ducking beneath the balustrade as Mrs. Malfoy neared. She didn't want to get into an argument with the witch, and seeing as crying had made her eyes puffy, Hermione knew Mrs. Malfoy wouldn't let her go without demanding what had happened. Jamie would get into trouble, and considering the other Muggle- born apparently already hated her, Hermione didn't want to fan the flames of his antagonism.

Crouched, she inched her way into the cloak closet and waited in the dark for Mrs. Malfoy to pass.

She didn't leave; no, the sound of her footsteps came to an abrupt halt when the fire banked in the hearth's belly suddenly rose, spitting green flames, and the dark shape of Mr. Malfoy came forward from the grate. The wards shifted to accommodate his entrance. Hermione watched from the ajar door as he stumbled to a knee and grunted. His cane fell to the floor by his feet with a clatter, the wand detaching from the top.

"Lucius!" Narcissa gasped, rushing over to her husband's side, reaching out to smooth back his rumpled hair. He lifted his face and, in doing so, revealed the livid bruise ringing his eye and the fresh blood smeared back into his hairline. Mrs. Malfoy's fingers grazed the injury. Hermione almost didn't hear her whisper, "Not again."

"It is nothing for you to worry about, Narcissa."

"Nothing for me to worry about?! What am I meant to do when my husband is returned to me day in and day out in such a manner?" She withdrew her wand and traced the tip against his cheekbone, knitting the open gash together. "Lucius, tell me what is happening. Tell me."

"He's displeased with what has occurred at Hogwarts," Mr. Malfoy murmured, eyes on the floor. His tongue worried at the inside of his cheek, and Hermione thought he must have bit it when struck. "Whatever plans he had failed. He goes into these silent ravings about Slytherin and the Potter girl and expresses his mood quite…indelicately when in private."

"The Potter girl? Whatever for?"

"How in Merlin's name should I know?" he grumbled, shooing her hand away from his bruises. He stood under his own power, one arm braced against his middle, every breath slow and measured.

"This can't keep happening. Circe's blessings, Lucius—."

He snapped at her, cold and short and exasperated. "Do you think I have any other choice in the matter?"

"What if you went to Slytherin? To Dumble—?"

"Gods' sake, don't finish that statement, Narcissa. If he detects even a whiff of dissension now, it would be the end. The end of me, you, Draco—." His voice hitched and lowered, parts of his dialog lilting too soft for Hermione to hear. "The family. He found Dogbane….There wasn't much left for the Dementors to Kiss in the end—."

Mrs. Malfoy covered her mouth, her eyes wide and anxious. Hermione's heart thumped too loud in her chest despite her best efforts to calm it. She hadn't heard a proper name, but who else could Mr. Malfoy be referring to if not Minister Gaunt? Who else would dare strike a Malfoy—the Lord of the whole snooty House—and not suffer repercussions? Why had the Minister mentioned Harriet? Oh, God, Hermione thought, desperate and confused. What does he want with her?

"Leave it," Mr. Malfoy huffed, jerking his head up and away from his wife's questing fingers. "I will tend to it, don't fuss. Where is Draco?"

Frowning, Mrs. Malfoy lowered her hands and brought them together. "Outside with Crabbe and Goyle's boys."

"And what of Ingham and the Granger girl?"

"I was on my way to check on them now, in fact. Both of them have been a bit too quiet this afternoon."

"Go on, then. This isn't a conversation for the foyer, dear."

She sniffed but did as he suggested, her heels snapping once more on their way up the stairs somewhere over Hermione's head. She waited for Mr. Malfoy to leave—but he remained in the foyer, eyes on his wife until she disappeared, at which point he let his shoulders slump and cursed aloud, his hand clutching his side. In her head, Hermione extrapolated a scenario: a fist whips out against Mr. Malfoy's face and, stunned, he falls, taken off guard by a following kick to the middle. She couldn't be certain of what had occurred, and yet the gruesome image held a sick integrity. What kind of rage drove a man to do something like that? What rage or—or madness?

And that madness seems directed at my best friend. Brilliant.

Hermione shivered.

Malfoy took a long, settling breath, chest rising under the dark gray cloth of his robes, then disengaged his cloak's clasp, shucking it from his arms. He took hold of it by the collar and started toward the cloak closet—the very one Hermione stood in.

Merlin! she shrieked in her head, scuttling backward into the fancy cloaks, robes, and shawls lining the wall. She had nowhere to go. Why is he even wearing a cloak?! It's the dead of summer! Hermione would never understand Wizarding fashion and would probably never understand anything ever again after Mr. Malfoy found her there. An Obliviation was assured after what she'd just heard and she doubted the wizard would be delicate about it. You're in for it now, Hermione—!

Malfoy neared, his stride uneven, pain and anger simmering in the cold, sweaty lines of his patrician face—and, all of a sudden, tiny hands grabbed the back of Hermione's jumper and yanked. She almost yelped aloud as she felt herself fall, the flutter of cloth moving against her face, and then—.

"Oof!" Landing on her back forced all the air out of her lungs, and Hermione stared at the kitchen ceiling, the smell of pastry jam and chimney smoke tickling her nose. Next to her, Dobby shuffled from foot to foot and straightened his smudged pillowcase.

"Miss Herme-ninny is needing to be more careful!" he squeaked before toddling off.

"Oh," Hermione breathed, sagging into the floor. The relief overcame her in a wave. " Thank you, Dobby."

x X x

Things, Hermione knew, were not as they seemed in the Wizarding world. She knew this because she could not return home to her mum and dad in the summer—because her best friend wore a scar around her neck like a necklace while Neville Longbottom strutted about like he was the king of the world, and because men of no relation wore a variation of the same face. She knew this because Harriet warned them Slytherin "Was, and wasn't, the Dark Lord ," however that was possible. Something lurked below—an oozing, pus-filled wound beneath a clean, tidy plaster, and despite her youth, Hermione found herself looking more closely with every passing day.

The discrepancies existed in Mr. Malfoy's mounting frustration, in Mrs. Malfoy's nervous, surreptitious fidgeting, the hushed, worried meetings they had in the drawing room in the dead of night. They existed in Ingham's exhausted studying, in an ancient Founder's tome, in Headmaster Dumbledore's empty sleeve and Professor Snape's scarred eye. The Prophet said, "Everything's fine!", and yet the older Hermione grew, the more she learned, the more she saw, the more she came to understand nothing was fine. Not in the way that people wanted them to believe.

Her summer wore on, and all she had were more questions and no answers.

She almost felt…sorry for the Malfoys, sorry for their hidden plight, sorry for the son and wife's worry every evening when they sat down for dinner and Mr. Malfoy winced. Even so, that didn't stop her from slipping a pair of Draco's muddy Quidditch gloves onto Mr. Malfoy's seat, nor did it stop Mr. Malfoy from jerking those gloves out from under his bum and berating his son. He chucked the gloves aside—right into Dobby's waiting hands.

"Master has given Dobby clothes!"

A dish shattered. " What?!"

"Dobby is free! Dobby's a free elf! Ha!"

The elf did a jig right there on the dining room floor, then vanished with a pop! Mr. Malfoy raged, Mrs. Malfoy did her best to calm him down, and Draco stared, gobsmacked, at the spot where Dobby had disappeared.

Yes, Hermione might have felt a bit sorry for the Malfoys—but she wasn't that sorry.

She allowed herself a secret smile and sipped her tea.

A/N: I saw this question a lot after the last chapter, so I think we need a refresher. From the end of Chapter IX: Where Stars Dwell; "I think his punishment fitting," Cygnus said as he sank farther into the pillows and his tired gaze roved from Elara to the far wall, focusing on the empty portrait frame there. "He doesn't know about you, after all. He gets to sit in that prison every day, gets to wake up every morning on that dismal island, and gets to remember again that his only child is dead." Sirius believes Elara is dead.

terrifying things

xcvix. terrifying things

Muggle London mystified Harriet.

She spent much of the previous summer skirting the edges of it, bouncing between various magical niches all over the country, always seeming to come back to London despite never venturing into the heart of it. The Dursleys raised her in a Muggle environment for ten years, and yet everything Harriet knew about this world felt as second-hand as Dudley's cast-offs; Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon may have tried to scare the magic out of her, but they surely hadn't instilled any respect for mundane society in its place.

The buildings, the buzz of cars on the motorway, the people—it pressed close, heavy, and… strange. Harriet didn't fancy the tidiness of the streets, the straightness of the pillars and beams and steel protrusions holding every up off the ground. She much preferred the headiness of magic, that electric spark against her skin, the give of dry summer grass under her feet. Harriet spent her prior birthday lost in the woods searching for a hidden Wizarding village; she didn't wish to offend anyone, but she'd rather be back in the tent than out in the middle of bloody London.

She didn't know whose idea it was initially; the thought to get Harriet and Elara out of the house on her birthday got levied among the witches of her acquaintance—Mrs. Malfoy and Tonks and Andromeda and Professor McGonagall—during the week before the date, and then suddenly Professor Dumbledore suggested a day trip into Muggle London. Plans got twisted, minders swapped, and somehow Professor McGonagall was landed with supervising the pair of teenage witches at the end of July. Harriet and Elara both enjoyed spending time with McGonagall outside of the classroom, but that didn't mean the witch knew the first thing about navigating Muggle London.

"My father was a Muggle," she said, tone crisp as she surveyed a map of the Underground. "A Reverend. I know how to live like a Muggle. Though, I must admit, I never did see a point in venturing out of Caithness, and this was some decades ago…."

Harriet smothered a giggle with a cough and swore aloud when Elara stepped on her foot.

They made for an odd trio, all three muddling through the signs and maps and confusing station layouts. Harriet wondered what people saw when they looked at them. McGonagall wore a tartan blazer and skirt, Harriet in a pair of simple black trousers and a green blouse purchased for her by Narcissa, Elara wearing her skirt and shirt with the high, buttoned collar. McGonagall was considerably older, true, but witches didn't age like Muggles did and not a single thread of silver touched McGonagall's coal-black hair. They looked something alike; similar in coloration, McGonagall and Harriet both bespectacled, the professor and Elara both rather stern in their bearing. Did the Muggles think her their mother?

"Harriet," Elara called, dragging her attention back down to earth. She took her hand and pulled Harriet to the waiting train, the professor following in after them. McGonagall looked a bit peaky stuck in the cramped compartment, Muggles stuffed inside, crowding all the seats. She stumbled when they jerked into motion and caught herself on Harriet's shoulder.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Potter."

"S'alright, Professor."

The train kept on and they rode it all the way to Hertsmere, exiting at the proper station and climbing back up into the muggy light of day. Elara knew where to go and so walked in front of them, though Harriet didn't miss how she wrung her gloved hands together. It was a grim sort of way to cap off the morning, heading to a Wizarding cemetery, but Elara had asked if Harriet would mind, and seeing as they rarely had a chance to leave Grimmauld Place and Elara never asked for anything, Harriet had agreed. She could spend her whole birthday among a bunch of dead people and the day would still be loads better than her birthdays with the Dursleys.

The cemetery was pretty despite its age—or maybe because of it, the trees old and full-grown, their thick branches casting shade over the Charm-preserved markers and plinths, dew staining the stone walls of the mausoleums and tombs. The smell of flowers hung in the air, redolent and too sweet where the petals of forgotten bouquets had begun to wither and rot. McGonagall told her the old pure-blood families had been burying their dead there for generations—though not the Potters, who, with the exception of James and Lily, were laid to rest at Stinchcombe House. The older witch knew of the cemetery but had never been, hence their need to take the Tube instead of Apparating. Other visitors meandered about and they stopped to exchange words with a former student of the professor's, though Elara continued to the Black tomb on her own.

Harriet hung back with Professor McGonagall after her former pupil left, watching her friend come to a stop and stand before a grave and bow her head, though if she was praying, Harriet could not tell.

"Professor McGonagall?"

"Yes, Miss Potter?"

"D'you know Elara's Uncle Cygnus? Or, err, great-uncle?"

"Not directly, no. He was a few years below me at Hogwarts, and in Slytherin House, of course. I knew his older brother, Alphard, better."

"And you taught Elara's mum and…dad, right?"

"…Yes." Professor McGonagall stiffened, and Harriet didn't have to wonder why. She knew Elara's father was imprisoned, and while no one ever wanted to get into the why of it, Harriet understood he was meant to be incarcerated for the rest of his life. She couldn't imagine it pleasant for Professor McGonagall to think of the violent crimes committed by a boy she once mentored in her classroom. "Marlene was a vivacious girl. I—." The professor smiled, the expression sad. "I don't see much of her in Miss Black, I fear."

No, Harriet agreed, glancing toward her friend. She didn't appear out of place there, dressed in black relieved only by shades of dark gray or Slytherin green, her blank, colorless eyes fixed on the grave. She had all the cold, unmoving serenity of one of the statues—and the same hardness too, Harriet knew. The kind of rigidity that could summon Fiendfyre to cook a Basilisk with a single spell. 'Vivacious' did not apply to Elara Black, but Harriet had always been most fond of odd, outcast, and terrifying things.

"Miss McKinnon—Marlene—well, there was a fire during the height of the war. It caught the whole of the McKinnon family at their estate." Professor McGonagall lowered her gaze to her hands, lost in thought. "They never discovered the cause of the blaze, but violence was prevalent and senseless back then, You-Know-Who's cohorts causing mayhem wherever they went. Your mother was particularly devastated by Marlene's passing. They were good friends. Both Gryffindors of the same year."

Harriet smiled as she thought of their mums together at school. "Did they get into as much mischief as we do?"

"No, mischief was the forte of Mr. Potter and—his contemporaries." McGonagall huffed under her breath as Elara left the grave and returned to them. "Ready to depart, Miss Black?"

Elara nodded, withdrawn and contemplative, but she squeezed Harriet's hand all the same when she took it in her own.

"Excellent. I think we've had enough of the Muggle conveyances today, yes? If you'd hold onto me, thank you, I will Apparate us back to your home. One, two, three—."

With a crack, the trio vanished into thin air.

x X x

Harriet leaned her side against the counter's lip as she stirred the dough within the bowl.

Professor McGonagall sat at the table with a cup of tea. Elara had gone off somewhere upstairs, leaving Harriet to fill the remainder of the afternoon on her own, and she decided to bake a batch of chocolate biscuits. The professor perused the evening edition of the Prophet, the sound of turning pages accompanied by the click of the stirring spoon hitting the sides of the bowl and the occasional shuffle of muffled footsteps in the potions room. Perched above the icebox, the owls Cygnus and Percival watched Harriet stir, their heads swiveling each time her hand did. Livi had come down for a time, but the owls had been put out by his presence, so the Horned Serpent had slithered back to his lair under Harriet's bed.

"You could simply ask Rikkety to provide you with sweets from Hogwarts, Miss Potter. Merlin knows the house-elves grow bored during the summer without their usual activities."

"But then I'd be bored and it'd defeat the whole purpose, Professor."

"Ah, I see."

Harriet continued mixing and eyed the oven, not certain it was in the mood for any baking. She thought Kreacher might have turned it against her, as it sometimes belched black smoke if she touched it, or burnt anything she put on the hob. Harriet bent closer, eyes narrowed, and muttered, "You better behave, or I'll have Professor McGonagall turn you into a matchbox!"

The oven didn't reply, but the hearth chose that moment to sputter green flames, and after a moment, Professor Dumbledore stepped out over the grate and the fire died back down to sullen red embers. "Good afternoon, Minerva," he said to Professor McGonagall, dismissing the soot on his robes with a wave of his hand. He spotted Harriet and smiled. "And to you, Harriet. Happy birthday."

"Thanks, Headmaster."

"What brings you here, Albus?" Professor McGonagall asked. "I wasn't aware you'd be stopping by today."

"Apologies for not saying anything beforehand. Ah, thank you, Harriet. A spot of tea would be wonderful." Harriet set a new cup and saucer in front of the older wizard and nodded her head. "I hope to impose upon Miss Black's hospitality and peruse the Black library."

"Are you looking for anything specific, Professor?"

He sipped his tea and didn't reply immediately, though his blue eyes flashed over Harriet before settling on his colleague. "No, no specific title comes to mind. Rather, I need to peruse an area of study I've not spent much time considering, as I've come across a problem in some personal research of mine and must find a solution."

"D'you need help looking?"

"No, my dear girl, but thank you."

Harriet shrugged and kept on with the task at hand, though she noticed the confused, questioning look Professor McGonagall gave the Headmaster. From the potions room came a thump and a low, irritated grunt. Harriet frowned as she gazed at the shut, scorched door and put a spoonful of dough in her mouth—despite Professor McGonagall's immediate rebuff not to do that. Snape was hardly a happy, demonstrative bloke, but Harriet thought he'd been a tad…odd all summer. Odder. Like he'd woken up on the wrong side of the bed and the mood had stuck.

"Professor Dumbledore?" Harriet asked, setting the bowl and spoon aside. She approached the table and spoke quietly, lest Snape overhear and throw a fit. "Is Sn—Professor Snape okay?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Well, he's—y'know." She made a vague, encompassing gesture. "He's not the most sociable wizard, sir, but I think he seems a bit out of sorts lately."

The Headmaster tapped one wizened finger against his drink in thought, finally saying, "Professor Snape has had many tasks asked of him of late, Harriet. I'm sure he appreciates your concern." His mouth twitched. "Even if he would not admit as much to you."

Another thump came from the adjacent room—followed by a startling crash of glass hitting the floor and a loud, flagrant curse.

"Salazar's fucking sodomites!"

Professor McGonagall dropped her cup and slapped her hands over Harriet's ears. "Severus Snape!" she cried, aghast. "There are children in this house, young man!"

He replied something that sounded suspiciously like "Sod the children," and Harriet was promptly sent from the room.

Amused—and also annoyed at having to leave her biscuits behind—Harriet dragged herself up the stairs, continuing past her own room to Elara's. She knocked on the door and opened it, finding her friend lounging on her bed, reading, her silver eyes snapping to Harriet still slouched in the doorway.

"Snape's in a mood and Professor Dumbledore's here," Harriet reported. "He wants to look through the library for something he needs to research."

Elara groaned and shut the Transfiguration book, tossing it to the foot of the bed. "Snape is always in a mood. What's Dumbledore searching for?"

"Dunno, he didn't say. He made certain not to say, in fact."

The other witch sat up and frowned as she did so, shoving her feet back into her unlaced shoes. "Why does that not surprise me?"

"Because it's Dumbledore, of course—where are you going?"

Harriet stepped back as Elara passed her into the corridor and headed downstairs. "I left a book on Animagi in the library, sitting out," she explained. "I don't want the Headmaster to see it."

"Oh, shite."

"Exactly. I probably should have put it up earlier; I think McGonagall's already suspicious."

"Has she said anything to you?" If the Transfiguration teacher found out Elara was trying to become an Animagus, trouble would rain down on all their heads, Harriet and Hermione included. They came to the second-floor landing and Elara spared a glance downstairs before crossing to the library's door.

"It's more about the looks she—."

Harriet ran into Elara's back as the witch came to an abrupt stop on the room's threshold. A harsh gasp ripped through Elara and Harriet felt the sudden stiffness in her spine before she threw herself backward, the unexpected force hurling both witches to the floor with a bang. Shocked, Harriet caught a glimpse of a man—a man!—dressed like a priest, wielding some kind of brand, before a wild curl of raw magic lashed out and slammed the library door shut.

"OI!" Harriet shouted, one hand pushing Elara behind her, the other already holding her wand. "THERE'S A BLOKE UP HERE!"

A clatter could be heard downstairs, followed by the rapid pounding of feet, and only seconds later Professor Snape came barreling up the steps—which surprised Harriet. Had he really been able to hear her all the way in the potions room? She didn't have time to think about that more once she jabbed a finger at the door and Snape threw it open, his wand raised. She glimpsed the priest again —but then, the oddest thing happened. The man's gaze flicked to Snape and his face began to twist, his body doing the same, contorting into a new shape, a new person—.

The door slammed shut again and Harriet jumped.

What in the world?!

Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall arrived then, their wands drawn. "Are you well, Miss Potter? Miss Black?"

Harriet took a breath to answer and—from within the room—Snape incanted, "Riddikulus!"

Did—did Snape just bloody laugh?!

The professors lowered their wands, relieved, though Harriet didn't know why. Seeing her confusion, Professor Dumbledore gave her a small, supportive smile and offered his hand to help her up. "It appears to simply be a boggart, Harriet."

"A—what now?"

The door flung itself open for a final time, the hinges whinging at the abuse, and Professor Snape emerged with his wand already secreted away. There was no sign of the intruder behind him. "Honestly, Potter, doesn't Slytherin teach you anything? Or do you just not pay attention?" he quipped, making Harriet scowl. He had a rather nasty burn on his hand and sweat stuck fine, stray hairs to his brow. The potions room must have been miserably hot. "A boggart is a magical creature, an amortal parasite forming in dark, unused spaces of Wizarding homes. It feeds upon

fear and manifests as its victim worst fear."

"That's awful," Harriet said, nose wrinkled. Why had nobody thought to tell her about those before? Merlin, she couldn't imagine rambling about the house and running into her worst fear without knowing what it was—which was exactly what had happened to Elara.

Her friend hadn't said a word, sitting frozen on the floor with her back to the wall, staring wide- eyed into the distance. She flinched when Harriet touched her arm—and the lamp on the wall overhead shattered, Harriet gasping when glass shards rained upon her head. Snape grabbed her wrist before she could do something stupid like stick her hand in the mess. Darkness fell over the landing and Elara bolted, running up the steps two at a time. A moment later, her bedroom door closed with an echoing crash.

Snape released Harriet's arm. "Reparo," he hissed, causing the glass to rise from Harriet's person, flowing back into shape. Her scalp prickled and stung.

Light flickered to life again as Professor McGonagall sighed, her mouth pursed in a firm, unhappy line. "We need to have a conversation about that poor girl, Albus."

"Yes, we do."

"What conversation?" Harriet asked, wanting to know what the professors had to say about her best friend. Stuff went a bit dodgy around Elara from time to time, true, but Harriet wouldn't standby and let them blame her for it. It was just a bloody lamp. Would Elara get into trouble? What if— what if they tried to take Harriet away from Grimmauld? Snape jabbed her in the shoulder. "Ow!"

"Downstairs, Potter. You're bleeding."

"Hang on—."

"Downstairs."

And so, Harriet was shuffled back to the kitchen against her will, complaining all the while. She looked back just once, thinking about the man with a white priest's collar and the glowing brand held in his hands. She remembered Elara's pale, terrified face—and felt as if her heart had landed somewhere by her feet.

A/N: Ten points to Slytherin if anyone can guess what Dumbledore wants to research.

Harriet - "Here, I found a picture of Snape."

Elara - "…This is a photograph of salt."

H - "That's what I said."

a rising howl

c. a rising howl

The pressure inside his head abated and, at last, Sirius took in a long, lingering breath, and opened his eyes.

It was time.

In the weeks that had passed since he'd first seen Peter Pettigrew's photograph, hunger had come to have a whole new definition for Sirius. Every day, three times a day, the guard would levitate a tray of food through a slot in the bars, and every day Sirius would wait for the guard to move on, then take the tray, close his eyes, and dump the food in the Vanishing chamber pot. The sustenance in Azkaban could hardly be called as such—but, Merlin! The first days bit the hardest, like a thousand furious bugs in his belly gnawing and pinching and crawling about, driving him mad despite his best efforts to ignore it. He sipped water and tried to savor every drop, concentrating on his plan.

Every day, Sirius stared at the bars of his cell and thought about all the feasts he'd attended in the past. He missed pumpkin juice the most, surprisingly; he missed the spice of it, the sudden, unexpected sweetness, the depth of flavor. Remus—oh God, Remus—had never been much of a fan, preferring a good cuppa, but James—James, I'll kill him for what he's done to you and—had loved it. All the best meals of his life were taken in the Great Hall, sitting among his friends— his brothers, his—.

The Dementors preyed on the memories, of course. Sometimes Sirius wondered if he'd only imagined the taste of pumpkin juice, if it had always tasted like ashes on his tongue, if anything would taste right ever again. Food had a joy all its own. The guards could probably serve beef wellington and chardonnay and it'd all taste like shite.

He felt the Dementors drift off, their effects lessening, and knew it was time to go.

Every month or so, the guards of Azkaban had to be refreshed with a new unit from the mainland. The Ministry kept the whole bloody rock locked down—no Apparition, no Floo, all Charms in brooms set to fail, physical approaches by sea blocked unless scheduled by specific owls. The DMLE provided the Aurors and guards who lived in the fortress on the far levels where the Dementors didn't patrol. Sirius knew so much about their rotations because James—I'm so sorry, James—had done a one-month stint during his trainee days at the Aurory and had come home to Lily—Lily, please—gray as a ghost. He'd told Sirius all about it. The guards tip-toed about the edges in the prison, skirting the Dark creatures, but they still suffered the effects.

Sirius started to laugh at the irony and swallowed the noise, shaking his head. Not now, idiot.

Changing the guards meant a shift in the wards. It meant a very small, very slight window of opportunity existed and he was not about to let that chance go. Sirius kept quiet, listening to every lingering drip of water, every tired, shifting body and Bellatrix's caterwauling, eating part of his last meal for the energy. Merlin forbid he pass out halfway through his own escape attempt. He shoved gritty porridge into his mouth and swallowed without thought, a nervous, anxious energy souring his gut and quickening his pulse. The evening cast deeper shadows than usual upon the stone and, when he breathed, Sirius could taste the static hum of a summer storm in the air.

His hands shook as he removed the Prophet from the inside of his scraggly robes one last time. He

looked at the moving photo a final time, lip curling, his resolve solidifying until it rested like a magnet inside his sternum, tugging him inexorably onward. Sirius folded the paper again and tucked it away. I'm coming for you, Peter.

The rush of his body morphing overcame him, and Sirius took a moment to let the sensation settle, enjoying how the heightened canine instinct dulled the drag of human sorrow and grief. He padded over to the bars and nosed about, sniffing, then put one leg through the slim opening. Whatever wizard had formed the bars hadn't done so flippantly; the allotted space proved nearly too small for an emaciated dog to pass through. Sirius grunted and wriggled, finally jumping over the bottom strut to put himself through the middle of the gate, letting gravity drag his front half down, twisting his hips and legs to yank them out after. A final, fur-ripping wrench dropped him to the floor with a dry thud.

Sirius winced as he rose on unsteady limbs and shook himself, hardly daring to believe that after twelve long years, he was finally—finally—outside of his cell.

The urge to run pell-mell like a madman was a hard one to resist. Free. He had to tell himself more than once not yet, not yet, because managing to shimmy his way out of the cell didn't mean he couldn't be thrown right back inside. He wasn't free. He wouldn't be free even if he put a thousand miles between himself and the cell because free men didn't have to go on the lam. Sirius sighed, breathing deep enough to make his ribs ache.

He turned his gaze to the dismal corridor, glad again for his better, canine eyesight and senses allowing him to see ahead. The breathing of his fellow inmates became more evident, most of them asleep aside from the mad bint herself cackling away. Sirius set a steady pace, the pads of his paws silent on the salt-encrusted floor, his ears perked for the approach of any wandering guards. Someone stirred in one of the black cells he passed, muttering, "I'm fecking see shite, I am…."

The stairs wended downward at a tight, crooked angle, like something a kid might draw in thick crayons on cheap parchment. His front foot missed one of the last steps and he tripped, going down in a tangle of limbs. Grunting, Sirius heaved himself upright again and surveyed the new hall, cataloging the doorways, the branching corridors. There were symbols carved into the bedrock— symbols that had been there long before anyone decided the place would make a good prison for Britain's worst witches and wizards. The elements had left long, drooling stains around the symbols all too reminiscent of dried blood.

He couldn't remember which way to go. It'd been twelve bloody years since he'd arrived and the head wound he'd attained in Peter's blast hadn't done his memory any favors. Pacing, Sirius made a circuit of the intersection and—figuring nothing out—whined low in his throat. Fuck. Which way —which way? He needed to go down, yes, but the bloody prison had been designed like some kind of sick death trap, he remembered that much. Passages looping in upon themselves, long aisles leading nowhere at all, stairs dropping into dead ends.

Get it together, Padfoot, Sirius chastised himself, knowing the window for his escape inched closed as time passed. He breathed in—and chased the fading smell of clean linens and wand polish, running from the main section of the tower down along the corridors set aside for the guards' usage. He found stairs there and a manual, Charmed lift he pointedly avoided. He had to stop once, ducking low into an alcove utilized as a makeshift broom cupboard as one of the sole guards left on duty paced by, muttering under her breath.

Sirius' claws clicked on the stone as he hurried, pausing only to smell the briny air and listen for approaching feet or signs of alarm. He kept on until the sound of waves on the rocks increased in volume, the vibration tangible under his paws, salt thick on his breath. The narrow, grungy passage

opened onto a quiet barracks, most of the beds stripped bare and waiting for new tenants and linens, though one or two beds and accompanying cupboards remained occupied, evidence of the few guards left on duty during rotation. Sirius spotted a pair of robes thrown on a chair and, after checking again to make sure no one was about, turned back into a human long enough to yank the robes on over his filthy prison garb before turning back.

Almost there. Almost—.

Further investigation revealed a kitchen, and attached to that kitchen was the prize Sirius sought: a small door and transom utilized for food deliveries and personal packages, a way for the guards to get things without compromising the prison's main gates and security. Another quick shift allowed him to throw the locks, his whole body trembling, and suddenly the door came open and Sirius took his first steps outside of Azkaban.

It was almost too much. The wind buffeting his body bit down like the maw of some great tundra wolf and the water broke upon the rocks like roaring thunder. No gulls flew in the black sky, no weeds crept along the foundation; nothing survived on that horrid fucking island except for the Dementors, who even now Sirius could sense swarming in the distance, waiting for their chance to return. The frigid spray cut across his fur and Sirius flinched, then turned his face toward the feeling, relishing the new sensation.

Voices carried in the wind—not too close, but near enough for Sirius to hop from the narrow, winding path and scramble among the rocks, searching for the docks. He found them on the southern exposure—and, sure enough, the guards lingered there still, making moves to enter the prison and resume their duties. Sirius turned his attention to the horizon, knowing that was the way he needed to swim, but not a single light could be seen at this distance. Pinpricks of water fell from the amassing clouds and static lifted his matted fur; the storm waited overhead, the eye of it settled on Azkaban, the water still as it could be, but it wouldn't remain that way for long.

Noise on the path jerked Sirius' head around, and he cursed as he ducked under the swinging glow of a Lumos Charm.

"What're you doing?" the second guard walking the path to the side entrance asked the first, his voice older, gruffer.

"Thought I saw something," answered the first, and the light roved over the jagged, wet stones, gleaming like saliva on black teeth. Sirius didn't dare move. He didn't dare breathe.

"A seal or somethin'?"

"There aren't any bloody seals on Azkaban, you idiot."

The second huffed with indignation and his body crossed the light. "Well, you can stand out here with your thumb up your frozen arse staring at the rocks if you want, but I'm going in before the Dementors return. Colder than Circe's cunt out here…."

The younger Auror scoffed as the first moved on, but he followed soon after, his lighted wand sweeping over the embankment as he went. Sirius' heart didn't stop pounding against his ribs until they'd traveled far enough for him to drag his body out of the crevice he'd wedged himself in and scramble down the slope, his paws aching, limbs shaking, the din of voices just around the bend a constant threat. He sent a prayer Merlin before chancing one final leap off the steep embankment into the pitiless waters below.

Rocks banged against his legs and had he been in human form, Sirius swore he would have

shrieked louder than Bellatrix when the cold knifed into him. He gasped and panted, kicking his feet against the slow tide trying to throw him right back into the stone wall behind him. Lunging against the breaking waves, Sirius cursed and the sound came out as a strangled growl, his body too light to push through the surging water, but he kept throwing himself forward again and again until—.

He crested the waves, and instead of drawing him toward the island, the tide swirled and whisked him farther into the sea, bobbing about like a leaky dingy desperate to stay afloat. Sirius couldn't see a bloody thing. The coming storm tightened its hold, inciting faster ripples in the swell, the colorless lights of Azkaban fading into the fog as the Dementors returned to their posts. Sirius kept swimming. He kept kicking and struggling because he couldn't go back, and so he moved forward no matter where the tide might take him, whether it be to land or to frozen, watery grave.

Exhaustion pulled at him as time went on and his weak, emaciated limbs fought the cold water. He didn't sink—his fur granting him better buoyancy than his wet robes would—but he swallowed more than enough salt water to make himself sick. Sirius swam—and swam, and swam—hope draining, the mist sinking lower and lower upon his dimming vision—but there! There! He saw it now, Muggle electric lamps like tea lights in a row, beckoning, and Sirius thrust himself toward the lure of land.

His toes brushed the shore and he sank his claws into the yielding sand, gasping for breath as he hauled himself those final few meters onto the dry, gritty sand and prickly vegetation. Rolling onto his back, Sirius shifted, the ragged panting of a dog replaced by a deeper, human wheeze. Sirius stared at the clouds overhead and—like an omen—they pulled apart just enough to reveal spots of the night sky, the North Star gleaming like a single, watchful eye wreathed in a grey, tattered tapestry.

He allowed himself to take it all in—the air, the water on his feet, the grass pressing against his sweating neck—and Sirius Black started to laugh.

x X x

Before Sirius made for the beach, before he crossed the waters but after he managed to crawl free of his cage, a form moved unbeknown to him in the opposing, lightless cell and bore witness to his escape.

Two golden eyes watched the dog squeeze through the gate and narrowed when it pulled free. Sirius loped off on quiet paws and after a minute of contemplation, the figure in the dark cell growled, dry lips pulling back over yellowed teeth too sharp to belong to a normal man.

The prisoner sat back, thinking. He eyed his dinner gone cold on its tray—and shoved the food away.

A/N: No one guessed right. Not exactly, anyway. No points to Slytherin.

Chapter 100! That's exciting! Thank you to everyone who spends time reading this fic of mine!

Remember, there's a Discord server now where you can stay up to date on chapter releases! Here's the link: CDT Discord

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bitter boy

ci. bitter boy

The steam spiraled in enchanted shapes as it rose from the cauldron's simmering brew. Those shapes danced with one another, swooping like sparrows in flight until they ascended to the vent's hood and disappeared. Severus watched the liquid seethe, the low, whispering flame eliciting a fine rim of bubbles gleaming red and glutinous in the torchlight. He'd always found the activity soothing; it was, perhaps, no coincidence for his affinity to be water or for his Occlumency shields to be formed of ice. In his youth, his mother Eileen would brew whenever her husband actually managed to find a job or—as was more common—went to the local, grotty pub. Severus would stand with her at the counter to watch, those fleeting moments steeped in quiet, the tension leaching from their shoulders, their spines.

Until Tobias came home.

He held onto those memories when the house shook with his father's drunken ire, when Eileen cried, when his own chest felt fit to bursting with crackling fury, like brambles twisting around and around his throat until he couldn't breathe through the nasty mess of it all. He wasn't that boy anymore, but occasionally he could feel him hovering in the back of his mind—an uncertain, anxious, angry specter cohabiting his body, a ghost of indents on a parchment left long after the ink's been vanished.

"What is the matter with you, Severus? "Minerva had demanded of him just a few days prior. "You're typically surly, but this is a new level, even for you."

I killed Otho. He didn't tell her, of course—only Albus knew, or was supposed to know, though the old cat sometimes threw a questioning look his way that made Severus feel as if she might understand more than she let on. Severus didn't want her to know. He didn't want her to judge him more than she already did.

He didn't like Selwyn; he'd hated the mewling, pedantic bigot and despised the years spent in close quarters with him, all the times they sat together at staff meetings or Quidditch games exchanging snide, forced quips. Therein resided the bur of his recent attitude. Years of mutual antipathy formed a connection, a familiarity, and that connection had not been purely formed as two Knights or Death Eaters. They'd patrolled together, complained about mutual students, exchanged lesson plans when the occasion necessitated it. Otho had been a cowardly, wretched Death Eater, but Professor Selwyn had been a colleague, no matter how reluctant, and Severus had been the one to turn his wand upon the man and slash his throat.

"How long before you're in my place, Snape?"

He'd kill again before all was said and done, he was sure of it. He still didn't like it.

What does it matter who did the deed in the end? he thought, the bitter edge of his own inner voice not lost on him. The bastard's dead.

Knuckles rapped on the door, too high and firm to be Black or Potter. "What do you want?"

The harridan herself stepped inside, lingering at the threshold to peer into the stuffy, poorly lit potions room. "I'm returning to the school for the evening."

"Fine," Snape replied, eyes still on the seething cauldron. "Do warn me if you decide to strangle Black for her impertinence. At least give me time to fashion an alibi before Albus blames me." She'd spent the last three days discussing things with the girl, the particulars not imparted to Severus, not that he wanted to bloody know. He didn't much care what the girl did so long as she stopped blowing up lamps over people's heads.

McGonagall's eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared. "You might try to have more compassion for her. It wouldn't kill you."

But it just might. He sneered, and had she been anyone else, he would have delivered a cutting remark about her sanity if she truly expected compassion from him—but he resisted, if only just. "I have a meeting with Albus in an hour."

"Miss Black hasn't had supper yet and I doubt Miss Potter has either."

"Bully for them."

She scowled. "See to it, Severus—and eat something yourself, you're not but skin and bones, boy."

The door slammed shut after the Scottish harpy departed and the Potions Master hurled a hex at it, satisfied by the dark, ugly scorch mark left behind. She's confused me for a bloody nursemaid , he grumbled, stowing his wand away back in his sleeve. His calm thoroughly ruined, Severus finished the batch of Fever Reducer for Pomfrey and threw a stasis spell over the second, more dubious brew left stewing for Slytherin. Stewing lowered the potency without ruining the potion; Severus skirted the line between competency and mastery with Slytherin, not wanting to hand anything to the wizard worth a damn, unable to botch anything without risking his usefulness. As with Selwyn, he had to dirty his hands on a regular basis to appease the Dark Lord, though it never got easier.

Severus dragged his robes back on and tramped through the kitchen, his mood darkening until each step echoed in the stairwell's narrow confines. He stopped short when he saw movement from the corner of his eye and came to stand at the rear window, glaring through the pitted glass at the back garden beyond.

"Stupid girl," he muttered, going for the door.

Potter meandered in the withered grass, circling the stone fountain and the single, crooked oak growing in the yard's middle. Muggle lights pierced the evening's misty gloom and provided enough illumination for Severus to see her holding one of her insipidly named golems in her hand, hunting for small insects to feed the creature. A glance overhead showed the clouds thickening, a stray raindrop striking his cheek. He stood on the porch and watched her, finding himself unwilling to intrude on the girl's quiet wandering. She looked pitiful.

He didn't envy Potter her summer so far; both she and Black spent much of their time shut in that miserable hovel, unable to go anywhere at all unless taken for some brief stint by an adult, and a loose group of circulating nannies did not make for a family. They were strangers who barely knew these children, providing only the barest of necessities when their schedules allowed, a simulacrum of care that didn't replace needed affection. With Minerva occupied by Black's issues, Potter had been left to her own devices, and Severus could see the boredom in her, the silent, unvoiced resentment starting to build in her slumped posture. She fed the crimson snake a cricket and faced the blackened, choked waters of the fountain, seeming to stare off into space until a noise Severus didn't hear turned her head to the trees and the gathered shadows. She whispered something.

Marvelous, she's going mad.

"Potter," he said aloud, causing the girl to jump and spin about. "Get inside."

"What? Why? It's not dark out yet!"

Severus bristled. "Because I said so, you insolent girl. Have you a problem with your hearing or is your skull too thick for words to get in?"

Suddenly fuming, Potter glowered and hesitated, the snake twisting around her clenched fist. Severus stepped off the porch.

"I said get inside. Do not make me repeat myself a third time."

She moved, if begrudgingly, her shoulders hiked up by her pink ears. Severus waited with the door held open, glancing about the garden despite knowing nothing could get through the wards, and he shot a dispassionate glance at the girl when she drew level with him. Potter met his glare and sucked in a breath to shout, "You don't have to be such a bastard about it!"

The girl should have given thanks to her quick, Seeker speed, because she was already bolting up the stairs by the time Severus slammed the door shut, and had she been a mite slower, he would have snagged the impudent monster by the ear and dragged her to the basement to clean cauldrons for the rest of the night. Either that, or he'd throw her into the Floo and leave her to Dumbledore. Nervy little bint! Rage curled in his chest like hot air in a balloon and Severus bellowed, "POTTER!" up the stairs, not giving a damn that he woke that fucking portrait on the landing it started its caterwauling. Naturally, she didn't return and he didn't have the time to hunt her down. "If you think you're bored now, girl, I'll have you writing lines until September!"

He stomped back into the kitchens and threw half the bloody canister of Floo Powder into the grate, the coals belching a whorl of green flame that licked over the mantel. Let them get their own supper. Let them starve for all he cared!

Severus exited the Floo in Hogsmeade instead of Dumbledore's office, using the distance to cool his writhing temper lest he do something foolish—like curse the wizard for saddling him with this task in the first place. Why not force Minerva to spend all her evenings in that horrid house? Why did it have to be his responsibility? Why not Dumbledore himself? It wasn't as if they had shuttle back and forth and bend over backward to please a psycho egomaniac like Slytherin. This burden should not be his.

He just wanted to shut himself away in the dungeons and be left alone, goddamn it. Severus was a hateful, despicable man with blood on his hands; why, in Morgana's name, did Dumbledore think him capable of protecting anyone?

The Vow's scarring itched and Severus clawed at his hand as he passed through the school's grounds, muttering darkly under his breath. He let the worst of the anger fizzle before Occluding, given it would intensify the emotion later and he didn't actually want to strangle Potter; maim, perhaps, but not strangle. Albus called out entry into the office and he came through the door, robes snapping as he threw himself into a chair like a sullen student called to task. Albus blinked.

"I thought you were coming by Floo, Severus?"

Gritting his teeth, he drawled, "I did, simply not…this one."

"I see. Is everything well at Grimmauld?"

"As well as ever in that moldering mausoleum with those disrespectful imps."

"Disrespectful?"

"You wanted me here for a reason, Headmaster?" Severus said, cutting the conversation before Dumbledore could delve into the issue and subvert his Occlumency. If he badgered on about it, Severus might start screaming. "If it's a school matter, I believe I've already submitted my lesson plans at the last staff meeting."

Albus allowed the change in topic. "Yes, you did, thank you. They appear quite similar to the ones you submitted last year, and the year before that. If I didn't know better, I would say you're submitting duplicates every term."

"Would I do that?" Severus asked with an expression that passed for innocent. The Headmaster shook his head, beard twitching, and shuffled the papers on his desk. "Tea, Severus?"

"No."

The Headmaster called a house-elf for his own cup and the Potions Master waited, slouching lower into his chair, turning over his thought like heavy stones one by one. "Tell me; how does Tom's quest for a History professor come?"

Severus snorted. "Abysmal, or so his ranting leads me to believe."

"Oh?"

"He's struggling to find a suitable candidate to propose to the Board. Favor can only get him so far; on paper, they have to be suitable for the position."

"And he cannot find such a person?"

"No." Severus ran his fingertips over the arm of his chair, tracing the design imprinted in the brocade. "As you know, before the Board saw fit for a change, Binns taught the class—and what a farce that was, Albus."

"So Minerva has told me many a time," the Headmaster chuckled, blowing the steam from his doctored tea. "Am I safe in assuming Tom is having difficulty in ascertaining loyalty in those few individuals who progressed to NEWT level in the subject?"

Severus grunted at the obvious conclusion.

"Hmm. Yes, I can see the trouble he would have. A person who's made a study of history would not want to repeat its many mistakes, which is the weakness Tom preys upon." Albus set the tea aside. "We are fortunate Otho saw fit to retire; anything that lessens Riddle's influence over our students is a victory worth noting."

"He didn't bloody retire, Dumbledore. I killed him."

Silence fell over the office, Severus refusing to move his gaze higher than the desk, the weight of a thousand years of magical leadership leering down upon him from the walls. Nothing showed on Severus' face, but self-loathing and indignation warred in his gut, a desire to both bow his head or snarl, to hide or scream, "This is what you've asked of me!"

"I apologize, Severus. I should not have made light of the situation."

"No, you should not have." His hands flexed on the chair's arms, then stilled, a silent sigh leaving his nose. "I would estimate that Slytherin won't be able to produce a candidate for the Board's

approval in time, not without spending favors he'd rather keep close. He loses a lieutenant at the school, but it's a minor position and he'll seek to consolidate power in other places. His mind is infinitely more wily than Gaunt's or the Dark Lord's; he'll turn this into a benefit in some way, whether or not we see the immediate effect is another question."

Albus nodded, thinking, running an idle finger back and forth over his chin. "If Minister Gaunt continues to apply pressure to Tom's position at Hogwarts, his next recourse would be to seek personal power, a means to augment his own strength or reach."

"If he changes his mind and seeks a partnership with Gaunt to move against you—."

"He won't," the Headmaster stated, shaking his head. "Not at this junction. So long as we do not force his hand, Tom and the Minister will continue on at odds, and we must continue to undermine and subvert their influences where we can."

"And if Gaunt keeps seeking…allies like the Diadem?"

"That is a far more concerning question, one I fear I do not have an answer for presently, my boy." Dumbledore adjusted his spectacles and leaned into the soft cushioning of his chair. He disguised it well, but Severus detected the shadow of worry in the older wizard's blue eyes, a tension in the weathered lines of his face that had appeared when he lost his arm and hadn't dissipated since. It was a dangerous gamble, playing their enemies against one another without tipping their hand, and Severus had to concede the stalemate would not last forever. The idea of what they would do then kept him awake at night with terror.

"For now, I believe we should capitalize on the opportunity," Albus said, a small smile gracing his expression. "I have a few people of my own in mind for the position, and whether or not Tom holds the Board in his sway, I believe they will have to listen to me for once."

Severus arched a brow. "Anyone I know?"

Albus tipped his head upward, gaze on the ceiling. "Oh," he commented. "Maybe. We'll have to wait and see."

Fuck, Severus groaned in his head. The old codger's found someone I can't stand. Not that it was terribly difficult; Severus hated everyone.

Their conversation turned to less pressing issues, Severus reporting on Slytherin's stray comments in regards to different pupils and former pupils, both wizards puzzling at what nebulous, far-flung plans the Defense instructor might be concocting during the holiday. Dumbledore tried twice to ask about Potter, and twice Severus evaded the topic, wanting to handle the brat's discipline himself. He did have quite a few grungy cauldrons in need of scrubbing and needed to finish the usual foul and degrading ingredient preparation. If Potter wanted to be a rude little pustule, who was he to deny her the odious grunt work?

The Floo flared and Severus almost flinched at the sudden roar filtering through the grate, the sound of many raised voices competing for volume. "Albus!" came the familiar shout of Amelia Bones. Severus sunk deeper into his chair, out of sight, not at all fond of DMLE members. "Albus, quickly!"

The Headmaster leaped to his feet with surprising agility, coming to kneel on the rug before the hearth. "What has happened, Madam Bones?"

Severus spied the witch's floating countenance wreathed in green embers. Her expression was

grim.

"Sirius Black has escaped Azkaban."

A/N: Harriet almost died.

delinquent devilry

cii. delinquent devilry

Elara was having a terrible day.

The last few days had followed a similar pattern and she blamed it fully on that goddamn Boggart in the library. She blamed it on herself too, on her lack of control. It had been years—years!—since she left St. Giles', since she'd last seen Father Phillips. Why, then, did the panic rise up and seize her in such a vise grip? She knew he couldn't get into her house, couldn't even see it, nor would he care to try. Elara was nothing to him, a particularly burdensome child in a sea of other faceless orphans—and if by some unholy miracle he did end up in Grimmauld Place, Elara was a witch! She had a wand, a very cantankerous house-elf, and worst come to worst, she could throw something cursed at him. Or one of Harriet's snakes…preferably the large, venomous one.

They wanted her to go to St. Mungo's and visit a mind healer—but, perhaps, Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall knew better than to press her when she said no. Nothing they could possibly say would change her mind. She was not broken. She didn't need a mind healer! Even if they threatened to move Harriet out of the house, Elara would not bend on this issue, not when she didn't know what would happen, or if they'd ever let her out.

Maybe Harriet would be better off without her around anyway.

"Miss Black."

Elara grit her teeth and didn't turn her head, concentrating instead on the tuning hammer in her hand and the finicky pins before her. She'd learned if she kept preoccupied McGonagall didn't badger her quite so much.

A sigh punctuated the quiet click of a cup meeting its saucer. Elara let the hammer bang against one of the taut strings, the magical tuner wailing, and when McGonagall let out a startled squawk, Elara smirked.

"Miss Black," she said, harder this time, and Elara let out a sigh of her own. She knew she was indelibly stubborn, but so was McGonagall, and the older witch wasn't restricted by having to be polite and respectful. "We had an agreement, did we not? You speak with me, or with someone of your choosing, instead of visiting Healer Sedgewick."

"I didn't agree to anything," Elara grumbled. "Ma'am."

"No, I guess you didn't. You're certainly making this difficult, child."

"I know."

"Do you understand we only wish the best for you?"

"Yes, professor."

A pause followed her answer, and Professor McGonagall sipped her tea, the small sounds of glassware managing to echo in the cluttered, dusty music room. The space around the piano had been cleared, though many of the other instruments remained cloaked in sheets or tucked into rotting crates. "Miss Black," she started again, endeavoring on. "The scarring—."

Another long wail escaped the tuner as Elara's hand jerked. "She shouldn't have told you!"

"Madam Pomfrey is required to disclose evidence of such injuries to the Headmaster and the school's Deputy," McGonagall retorted, voice sharp. "I won't have you blaming her for that. She's rightfully concerned. Usually, your Head of House would be informed as well, but we decided it wouldn't be…prudent for Professor Slytherin to be made aware of the situation."

Elara stifled the urge to argue. "And Snape," she hissed.

"I beg your pardon?"

"And Professor Snape. He knows."

"Professor Snape has not been made aware of any particulars. He is not the Head of Slytherin House." The witch paused. "For all that he takes on most of the responsibilities, though."

Elara relaxed—if only marginally. They might not have told Snape anything, but he had a keener eye than most, and Elara did not want that eye turned to her. He'd also seen her Boggart. She didn't want anyone to know anything about her life before that owl hopped off the garden wall and into her hands.

The occasional dull note accompanied her work, the leather of her glove squeaking against the tuning hammer, the piano's knobs old and quick to complain. McGonagall eventually rose to stand near Elara, watching with interest. "I've never seen a child tune a piano before. Professor Flitwick maintains the one the choir uses at Hogwarts and tells me it's a finicky job."

I'm not a child. "The magical tuner makes it much simpler than usual."

"I'm still suitably impressed, Miss Black. Where did you learn?"

Elara removed the hammer and leaned back to test a few keys, and though she felt McGonagall's attention on her, she didn't look at the older witch. "…It was my task," she admitted. "We all had common chores and one task we were responsible for."

McGonagall perched on the end of the piano bench. "And yours was tuning the piano?"

"Yes." She moved on to tuning the unisons, adjusting the rubber mutes. "There was a choir. I wasn't—I played, and the…the Matron used to take care of the piano, but she had arthritis and couldn't manage very well."

"Do you enjoy playing?"

Elara lifted one shoulder and let it drop, concentrating on finishing the tuning. She wriggled the rubber mutes free and removed the tuning hammer, dropping the magical tuner back on the shelf across the cluttered room, shutting the brass cover over the miffed horn. In truth, she didn't know the answer to the question.

"Would you care to play something now, Miss Black?"

Again, she shrugged, growing more suspicious as the professor avoided the topic she clearly wanted to discuss, but Elara decided she might as well play something. She'd tuned the piano as an excuse to ignore Professor McGonagall and couldn't think of a good reason to not test the instrument. Exhaling, she went to the bench and Professor McGonagall stood aside, letting her have her space. Elara considered what songs she knew well enough to play without sheet music and, after a minute of nervous hand wringing, started How Great Thou Art.

It sounded…off. A few pins needed readjustment still, and Elara missed a note or two as she tried to remember the song in its entirety. It was a jarring sound. She could play it better, she knew she could—but with McGonagall's shadow at her shoulder and the warbling song in her ears, Elara suddenly felt younger. She was five again, learning her scales, her legs not quite long enough to touch the piano's pedals. The music echoed in the church's empty sanctum and the Matron hummed along, adjusting Elara's hands with firm, impatient taps.

That was before the weird things began. Before the sisters started whispering behind their hands about devilry.

"They didn't like my magic," Elara heard herself whisper, her voice seeming to come from a mouth other than her own, her fingers still moving on the keys.

McGonagall folded her hands together. "We've found in that past that religious, Muggle-born families have the most difficulty accepting their child's abilities. You're not alone in that regard."

Elara let out a derisive sniff.

"Children in orphanages have an especially difficult time as enforcing the Statute of Secrecy can be all but impossible in those situations. It's been written into the bylaws since my own school days for magical students to be removed from group homes and placed with magical foster families."

"Like the MPA?"

Lips thinning, McGonagall's expression tightened. "No. Not like the MPA." She moved into Elara's eyesight as she tilted her head, the anger replaced by something more curious. "Is that what you wanted before Hogwarts? To be fostered into a family."

"No."

McGonagall's brow rose at her definitive statement. "Why not?"

Elara missed a note and her hand bounced across the keys, the song coming to a horrid, discordant end. "I don't want to talk about this, professor. There's no point."

"It's important to express your problems for your health. Things can seem much less pressing or impossible to handle once they're given voice." She made as if to touch Elara's shoulder and didn't, which Elara appreciated. "Harriet's life with her relatives wasn't proper. You know this."

"Yes."

"Do you think she should hide the things she went through? Wouldn't you want her to come to you if she felt overwhelmed?"

Elara stiffened and didn't answer, fidgeting.

"Come then, Miss Black. Can you play us another song?"

She did as requested, starting Abide With Me, which McGonagall commented had been one of her father's favorites. The music rose around them, still not quite right but preferable to their current conversation. Elara knew what the witch wanted her to say, what she wanted her to talk about— and a terrible, impetuous part of her wished to blurt it out, to let the words leak from her like poisoned bile being purged. The memories kicked inside her head, boots against a shut door, and the door kept shaking, kept wobbling—.

Her bedroom door creaked on the old hinges as it came open. The Matron stirred her from her bed, Father Phillips and three other priests waiting in the hall, and Elara didn't know what time it was, what was going on—.

"They hated my magic at St. Giles'," she reiterated, talking to her hands, to that pale sliver of flesh visible between her sleeves and gloves. "They said it was devilish and unnatural. And the more I tried—tried to not do it, the more it did happen."

Father Phillips had his hand tight on her arm, her tired questions going unasked, her bare feet scraping the floor.

"This isn't right," said the youngest priest, a man Elara didn't know. "The assessor—."

"The assessor is wrong."

"The more I apologized for it, the more they didn't believe me."

The cold of the cellar floor bit into her skin as they pounded down the stone steps and fear built in Elara's heart. Something shattered in the dark, spurring the priests faster.

"Father Phillips, the church won't allow the rite to be performed on a child—!"

"I won't abandon the girl to the demon simply because the monsignor won't see reason—."

The song continued off-key, as lopsided as crooked witch's hat. "They thought there was something—wrong with me. Something evil. Something that needed to be…removed."

The iron key twisted in the thick wooden door's lock, the door Elara had never been inside before, revealing the stone bunker beyond, cracks liming the blocking, candles bracketed to the walls. It must have been there since the war. There sat a lone, narrow bed inside, one with no mattress or linens, only a thin mat and restraints trailing from the metal posts like snake tongues—.

"And I—I just—."

Male voices raised, shouting, bellowing godly verses, not letting her rest or think or breathe—and Elara just wanted to go home, home to a place she'd never known. The longer she stayed, the more devilish things happened, that unseen force slamming the priests into the floor, the walls, groaning and shrieking and crackling like lightning—.

Abruptly, Elara yanked her hands from the keyboard and slammed the cover down. "I was exorcised." The admission came out blunt and rough, jagged as broken glass. She stared at the Black insignia inlaid on the top of the cover, concentrating on it as she gasped for breath and told herself she'd never go back there, would never have to pretend again, that she was blessed, not cursed, and Father Phillips could rot in Hell for all she cared—. "I don't want to talk about this anymore!"

The ancient violins displayed in the far cabinet moaned and whined, the chandelier shaking free fat cobwebs as it swung back and forth. Professor McGonagall was sitting next to her and Elara hadn't realized the witch had moved, her hand rubbing soft, slow circles between Elara's hunched shoulders. Water speckled her gloves. When did she start crying?

"There now, just breathe, Miss Black. You're at home, safe. Just breathe and calm yourself down…."

McGonagall continued rubbing her back and uttering low, comforting words until the objects in the

room stopped jittering about and Elara's breathing evened.

"Look at me, Miss Black."

She did so, raising her stinging eyes to her professor's, McGonagall's expression stern but not without compassion. Her own eyes looked suspiciously pink, her cheeks flushed, and Elara wondered if McGonagall was angry—but no. She couldn't think of a reason why she would be. "They were wrong. They were wrong in what they said and in their treatment of you."

"I know, ma'am."

"There is not a single thing evil about you, young lady. You are a loyal friend, a good person, and a talented witch. You belong at Hogwarts. Do you understand?"

Elara nodded, lowering her head.

McGonagall removed her hand but didn't leave, the two of them remaining silent on the piano bench, the professor radiating furious tension as if she direly wished to yell at someone or something and couldn't. Elara just felt tired.

"It's getting late," McGonagall said, attention on the curtained window and the slip of darkening sky visible under the valance. "I need to return to the school. I'll return again in the morning, Miss Black."

"I don't want to discuss this again," Elara told the professor as she rose and straightened her robes. She injected as much sincerity as she could into her voice, dreading the next day already, wishing she hadn't said anything at all, that she'd kept her wits about her—.

"Then we'll discuss something else. The point is to make you comfortable and to unburden your mind, child, not make it worse."

Elara grimaced, a slight twitch in her brow and her cheek, hands clenched tight on her knees.

A warm weight settled on her arm, Professor McGonagall giving it a light squeeze. "Tomorrow, then. You should go off and find Miss Potter. Merlin knows what mischief she's gotten into with only Severus watching over her…."

"Okay."

"Promise me you'll go and stay with Harriet. I don't wish for either of you to be alone."

"I promise."

The professor left, and though she'd made a promise, Elara remained, shutting her eyes and listening to the footsteps fade. She leaned against the piano's cover, buried her face in her hands, and cried.

x X x

A half-hour or so passed, in which Elara gathered her composure and forced herself to play one of the only non-religious songs she knew, Für Elise, taught to her by an older girl at the Institute before the Matron caught her and punished them both. Anna, her name had been. The music helped calm Elara, and so she felt almost normal by the time someone bolted up the stairs outside the room's door and Snape's menacing yell of "POTTER!" chased after them.

She heard the wizard say something else, something equally menacing, and the portrait of her grandmother on the landing started screaming. Heaving a loud, irritated breath, Elara shoved the bench back and stood, letting the cover come closed on the keys a final time. The screaming intensified outside the door and didn't stop even after Elara told Walburga to shut her gob. Kreacher came hobbling from whatever dark corner he preferred and wailed over Elara's "mistreatment" of the portrait, the whole scene cumulating in a harsh telling off for both the house- elf and the painted hag on the wall. She dragged the drapes closed with a grunt, Walburga huffing in rage until out of sight.

"You'd better leave those curtains alone, Kreacher!" she snapped when he made to open them again.

He snatched his hands back. Sneering, Kreacher croaked, "Kreacher only meant to check the curtains, Mistress."

"Is that right?" Elara snarked, a headache building in her temples. "Go check some other curtains, then. Don't wake the portrait up in the middle of the night again, or Professor Snape will put your head on the wall with the others."

"Kreacher would never do such a thing…."

Elara went upstairs—ignoring the backbiting drifting after her—and sought Harriet. She needed only to follow the stilted susurrations of Parseltongue drifting under the girl's shut bedroom door, and though she almost walked in unannounced, Elara decided to knock.

"Bugger off!" Harriet shouted, voice high and reedy.

Well, then. Elara eased the door open and peered into the shadowed room, Harriet sitting in the middle of her unmade bed, Livius wrapping his thick coils around her scrawny torso. Red rimmed her green eyes.

"Are you all right?"

Harriet spotted her in the doorway and slumped. "Oh," she sniffled, wiping her nose on her sleeve. Elara cringed. "Yeah. Sorry, I thought you were Snape."

"Not to be dramatic, but if that's how you answer him knocking, I have to ask if you have a death wish."

A hiccup of laughter escaped the bespectacled witch and she twitched Livius' weight into a more comfortable position. The Horned Serpent had grown in Elara's estimation, dwarfing Harriet considerably. "I guess I do. I called him a bastard downstairs."

"I'm surprised he didn't curse your mouth shut. Can I sit?"

Nodding, Harriet kicked a rumpled jumper off the bed and Elara took its place. She almost crushed Kevin, who wriggled out of the way in the nick of time, diving beneath Harriet's folded knee.

"Well, he can go bugger himself, the arsehole," Harriet grumbled as she fished the green snake out, Rick making a mess of her already impossible hair, skinny body draped over an ear. "He came outside and started telling me off for minding my own business. I don't care what his issue is; where does he get off?"

Elara laid back and stretched, gazing at the ceiling, stifling a yawn. "He's not going to let that go unanswered."

"No, definitely not." Harriet prodded Rick off of her glasses. The defiant cast in her eyes dimmed and she dragged the quilt over her head, hiding her face from the single candle left burning on the nightstand. "How's meeting with McGonagall going?"

The initial response Elara wanted to blurt out was, 'Horrid,' but Professor McGonagall devoted a lot of time attempting to help her and Elara had no desire to belittle her efforts. Discussing the… therapy meetings with Harriet made her feel a tad queasy, however. "Fine, I guess. She…she wants to talk about how things were before. In the—the orphanage."

A scoff left the other witch and when Elara turned her head, confused, she explained. "Dumbledore tries to catch me out and asks about the Dursleys. One second, he'll be on about some kind of sweet or something he did in his own days at Hogwarts, and then he's asking about the cupboard, or my cousin, or how the teachers in primary treated me." Harriet blew air through her lips in a raspberry. "Then I start remembering things I didn't even know I knew, and it makes me feel like shite."

Elara folded her arms against her middle. "Well-meaning people are the worst, aren't they?"

"They are!"

They laughed, two weak chuckles that nonetheless relieved the looming cloud of depressing thoughts pressing upon them both. Professor McGonagall had compared Elara and Harriet's situations, but Elara hadn't equated them as equal in her head; the Dursleys denied Harriet basic human rights like food or hygiene or companionship, whereas the sisters gave Elara all of that. Against her will, Elara seemed to have decided that she deserved some of what happened to her at St. Giles', at least in part, whereas Harriet had been blameless. Innocent. Her family should have loved her as Elara did.

Elara admired the other witch's strength; Harriet was happy and unreserved as Elara could never be, outgoing and joyful. She rose above the terrible things that had happened to her—that kept happening to her, while Elara gasped and struggled like a diver being dragged down by a kelpie. Harriet had survived attempted murder as an infant—had been poisoned, kidnapped, attacked, tortured, and terrorized, and still, she beamed when Elara greeted her in the morning at the breakfast table, always quick with a joke, concerned for others' well-being and conscientious in her behavior. Even in calling Snape a bastard, there hadn't been any guile or bitterness in the statement. Just Harriet being Harriet.

Elara wished she could be as strong as her.

Their conversation veered into safer waters, commenting on nothing and everything. Harriet lamented the lack of a telly, though both witches admitted to never being able to watch much of it in their respective childhood homes. Elara speculated on Snape's reaction if they asked him to take them to see a film and Harriet laughed hard enough for her familiars to start mocking her with loud hissing.

Eventually, they dozed, though Elara couldn't recall drifting off, only the shuddering bang! that woke her. The candle still burned on the nightstand; only an hour or so had passed.

"Hmm?" Harriet said as she sat up from her tangled blankets, glasses askew. "What's that?"

The banging reverberated through the floor and followed itself into the house proper—waking Walburga again. "Someone's coming."

"Oh, fuck. It's probably Snape—."

The sudden appearance of a black, looming shape barreling to the bedroom at full speed scared Elara breathless and Harriet emitted a sudden yelp. It was, indeed, the Potions Master; he had his wand out, held in a tight, pale hand, his eyes wild and almost deranged as he searched every corner of the room. Walburga kept screaming like a ghoul downstairs.

"Up, up now!" Snape thundered.

"What the hell—!"

The wizard grabbed Harriet by the arm and dragged her out of the bed, Livius falling to the floor, Harriet tripping and landing on one knee, not that Snape noticed. He was too busy flicking his wand in silent incantations, sending Harriet's possessions spiraling haphazard into her trunk, slamming the lid shut.

"Black! Up!" He released Harriet long enough to take Elara's arm, the dry touch of his skin on her own startling. He pulled her to her feet with a hard tug. "Pack, now!"

"What's going on?"

"Pack!" Snape shouted, sending Elara skittering out the door and into her own room without another word. He followed but stayed in the corridor, holding Harriet by the upper-arm again, seeming ignorant to her attempts to pull away, her trunk shrunken and stuffed in his robe pocket. He kept scanning the hall and dark stairwell as if…as if expecting someone else to appear.

"Professor, what—?"

"Expecto Patronum!" A watery mist bled from his wand's tip and Snape barked a foul curse. He tried the incantation again, prompting the appearance of a peculiar specter, the vague outline of something four-legged and wispy, the mere suggestion of a shape. "Coming now with Potter and Black." The creature vanished through the nearest wall and its absence left Elara more frightened than before.

"Professor!" she demanded, wringing the life from a Slytherin scarf. His attention snapped to her like a hawk sighting prey, Harriet dangling from his ironclad grip, Livius tangled about his mistress and Snape's stiff arm. Distantly, Elara wondered if he should be worried about being bit. "What's happened?"

The look he gave her exuded more hatred and repugnance than Elara had ever seen a person express before. It poured from his black eyes in nothing short of a tidal wave, the kind of animosity and contempt that could drown villages or tear furrows in a man's soul. When he spoke, it came in a low, menacing sibilance like some hissing creature prying back the rocks barring passage into Hell.

"Your father has escaped from Azkaban. Grimmauld Place is compromised—we must leave, immediately, before he decides to show up for a family reunion."

Elara forgot how to breathe.

A/N: Sorry this chapter repeats the last one a bit, but I wanted to get the perspective of both Snape and Elara.

A lot of victims of neglect or abuse rationalize their punishments as their own fault. Conceptually, Elara probably understands things at St. Giles weren't right, but internally she

probably felt as if she deserved to be punished or simply didn't understand—like Harriet with the Dursleys not truly conceptualizing a life outside of their hold.

by the sea

ciii. by the sea

By this point in her life, Harriet was no stranger to trouble and dire circumstances.

She'd lived through Professor Quirrell's kidnapping. She'd escaped a wizard intruding into her tent. She'd even survived an encounter with a Basilisk—and yet, none of those happenings had the same fervor she encountered at this moment with Snape's hand welding a bruise into the skin of her arm. His harried movements dragged Harriet and Elara both through the entirety Grimmauld Place and didn't stop until they reached the kitchen.

"Your father has escaped from Azkaban."

Harriet didn't know much about Elara's father. She knew he'd been imprisoned for all of Elara's life and that he'd committed a crime violent enough to ensure a permanent life sentence. He was the Head of the Black family and Harriet had a nebulous understanding of what that meant, more so in what responsibilities it gave Elara as the family's proxy. She'd always thought of him in the abstract—that he existed, or had existed, and was now beyond their reach and rightfully so.

Hearing Snape tell Elara her father had escaped prison was like having him turn to Harriet and say her dad had just popped out of his grave.

"Hogwarts, Headmaster's Office!"

The Potions Master threw Harriet and Elara into the green fire headfirst, Harriet sucking in a mouthful of ash, choking, her cheek scraping the inside of the hearth. By pure luck did she manage to hold onto Livi as the Floo activated and the horrid, crushing pressure yanked them away. Harriet slammed her eyes shut and held her breath, waiting for it to end, the spiraling seeming to go on and on until—

She slowed and blinked, gasping at the sudden burst of fresh air smacking into her face. Harriet yelped as something hard knocked into her ankles and she fell with a thud.

When her ears stopped ringing and her head stopped spinning, Harriet heard retching, followed by a wet splat.

"Wonderful, Black."

Snape's drawl emanated from somewhere above and Harriet felt the hem of his robes brush her legs as he came out of the fire and stepped over them. She peeled her stinging cheek off the floor and grabbed her glasses, almost putting her hand in the puddle sick as she sat up. Cloth rustled and Professor Dumbledore appeared in her line of sight, the older wizard frowning at Snape as he waved his hand to vanish the mess and helped a nauseous Elara to her feet.

The exhaustion of traveling by magical means from London to the highlands settled on Harriet's already tired shoulders and she slumped forward, shaking her head to rid herself of the sudden spots blooming in her vision.

"Potter!" Snape snapped, much to her irritation, and when Harriet glanced up, she found his arm extended toward her. For one mad second, she thought he meant to help her upright. "Get these off

of me."

"Ssss…."

"Kevin bitesss!"

"Bitesss the rude one!"

In the mad rush from the house, Snape had managed to snag hold of Kevin and Rick—who had, in turn, sank their tiny teeth into his flesh in several places, his wand still clenched tight in his fist. Harriet lurched forward to detangle them—all while Snape glared at the top of her head like he wanted to set her on fire and Livi made aggressive hissing noises at the wizard. Meanwhile, Professor Dumbledore settled Elara in one of his visitor chairs, pressing a cup of tea into her shaking grasp.

"Let go, Kevin," she told the green snake, coaxing him free. It was then that Harriet noticed a curious scar on Snape's hand; it looped around his palm and part of his knuckles, disappearing into his sleeve. It couldn't be wider than a hair, white in color, and almost shiny. She'd never spotted it from a distance before and thought it odd-looking. Snape seemed to realize where her attention had gone and hurried to pry Rick loose, shoving him into her hands before stepping away.

"Good evening, Harriet, Elara," Professor Dumbledore said in greeting. "I apologize for having disturbed your night, but these are dire circumstances. Severus."

Snape took a conjured handkerchief from the Headmaster without comment and wiped off his bloodied hand, making a shoddy job of it. Harriet sank into the seat next to Elara and tried not to fall asleep, though it was a near thing. Professor Dumbledore resumed his own seat behind the desk, though he appeared to carry on a silent conversation with Snape that mostly consisted of him giving Snape hard, disappointed glances while the other man sneered. Harriet thought he deserved a good telling off.

"Tonight, I was contacted by the Ministry and was informed that Sirius Black has escaped his cell in Azkaban sometime earlier this afternoon." The headmaster paused to let the news sink in. Elara hadn't regained her color after traveling through the Floo and Harriet worried she might be sick again. "A thorough search of the prison and the island itself have been completed. Further sweeps of the neighboring countryside have already begun."

"I take it they found nothing, sir," Elara remarked, voice dull.

"Not yet. The Aurory is hopeful he'll be recaptured soon, however—." His eyes flicked from Elara back to Harriet. "It was necessary to remove you from the house, given that Mr. Black is still recognized as the owner and would unimpeded by the wards."

"How did he manage it? I thought no one has ever escaped before."

"No one is certain at this time."

Livi stirred on Harriet's lap. " We are at the ssstone placcce," he hissed, Kevin and Rick echoing his statement from her front pocket. "It isss too early to be at the ssstone placcce."

"There's been an emergency," Harriet murmured. She didn't know why Professor Dumbledore or Snape thought it so imperative they had to leave the house in the middle of the bloody night with barely a moment's notice. What had Sirius Black done? Was he really that dangerous? Did they think he would actually hurt his own daughter? If she had escaped from prison, she would've skipped town, not gone gallivanting through London, so why did they think he would stick around?

"I don't mean to frighten you both—."

"Perhaps they need to be frightened," Snape interrupted, hovering somewhere behind Harriet's chair. She wished he wouldn't. "Better them frightened than foolhardy, Headmaster. Certain crimes should also be brought to light—."

Tired as she was, Harriet didn't see Elara pale further and shoot a panicked, pleading look in Dumbledore's direction. The wizard pursed his lips.

"That's enough, Severus."

Snape subsided into a furious, ill-tempered silence, busying himself with removing Harriet and Elara's trunks from his pocket, Charming them back into the proper size. He dropped them with loud bangs.

"Professor…" Harriet began, hesitating while she rubbed at her eyes. "I'm not sure I understand. I don't—are we in danger? Is Sirius Black dangerous? Would he hurt Elara?"

Dumbledore considered his answer for a moment, studying his hand pressed flat on the desk's surface, then Elara, who watched the headmaster with tentative resignation. "We cannot predict the goals or behavior of a wizard like Sirius Black, Harriet." Snape snorted. "I can tell you we believe him to be a danger to a great many people and until he is returned to Azkaban, neither of you can reside at Grimmauld Place."

"But where are we supposed to go, then?"

"That is the question now, dear girl." Professor Dumbledore leaned into his chair, stroking his beard. Fawkes, on his perch, chirped and watched the proceedings. Harriet kept a hand over Kevin and Rick's pocket lest the phoenix decided he wanted a snack. "I've spent the time Professor Snape used in retrieving you to consider a few options—."

"Not the Malfoys," Elara interjected, flushing at her own rudeness. "Sorry, sir. I won't go to the Malfoys. I'm not entirely convinced they'd allow me to leave."

"Color me surprised, Black. You have a measure of sense in that empty head of yours."

Unruffled by the snide side comment, Dumbledore replied with, "No, Miss Black, not the Malfoys. We don't wish for Harriet's living situation to get back to the Ministry, after all. Would you be amenable to me asking Xenophilius Lovegood? I'm certain he would freely open his home to both of you after your daring rescue of his daughter, Miss Lovegood."

"No!" Snape strode closer and leaned over the man's desk. "Have a care, Albus! Xenophilius Lovegood?! I wouldn't trust that airhead to look after a crup!"

"Have you a suggestion then, Severus? I would enjoy hearing it."

Given his lack of response, Harriet guessed Snape didn't have a suggestion and it galled him to admit as much to the Headmaster. It didn't last for long, and soon a pinched expression overcame his face, Snape muttering, "The Weasleys," as he straightened. "Loathsome as the brood of redheaded Gryffindors are, the Burrow is defensible and well-protected. I also believe these two miscreants have formed a friendship with their daughter."

"Ginny?" Harriet blurted. "How d'you know that?"

Snape turned his baleful gaze on her. "She's one of your many pen pals."

"Oi! How d'you know that?! Are you reading my letters?!"

"Don't be daft! You write them at the kitchen table, you stupid girl—."

Professor Dumbledore cleared his throat and Snape shut his mouth, the muscles in his jaw flexing. "As enlightening as this conversation it, I believe we have other issues to discuss."

Scoffing, Snape moved off, coming to settle at the closest window like a great, unhappy owl, staring past his hooked nose toward the inky blankness of the grounds below. "The Weasleys, then?" he asked in a more reasonable tone. Though reasonable seemed an awfully bold word to apply to Snape at the moment. Harriet didn't think she'd seen him this agitated before.

"A good idea, but not a plausible one for now. Arthur and Molly took their children out of country for a much needed holiday."

"Then what will you do?"

"Spinner's End, perhaps?"

"God no. Are you mad, Dumbledore? I cannot watch them all hours of the day and night, nor would it be proper."

"Yes, you're right…."

They exchanged a few names Harriet wasn't familiar with while she dropped her gaze to her knees and rubbed at her eyes again, giving her scraped cheek a hard pinch to wake herself up. It seemed surreal, fleeing their house because a dangerous criminal had escaped prison and might pop by like an unfortunate aunt coming round for tea. Elara hadn't said anything after rejecting the Malfoys, her posture rigid, her thoughts unknowable behind the flat surface of her eyes. Harriet reached over to give her forearm a nervous squeeze and still she didn't react.

"Could we stay here at Hogwarts, sir?" Harriet asked. Despite everything happening, spending the rest of the summer at the school excited her. Hermione would be fuming with jealousy at the idea of them having unrestricted access to the library.

"That would be impossible, I fear. Hogwarts is a very large and very old building, and should one of you come into harm's way, there wouldn't be anyone about to assist. Most of the staff return home."

"What if we stayed in the dormitory?"

"And there we have our second issue; Professor Slytherin has the unfortunate habit of spending more time than most at Hogwarts, even during the holidays, and he is a terribly nosy sort."

Harriet scowled in frustration. Dumbledore smiled, though his attention was much farther away, the cogs of his impressive brain visibly churning. "I believe…" he stated after some contemplation, voicing his decision with careful thought. "I know of someone who would be happy to take you and Elara into their home."

From the window, Snape turned his head and narrowed his eyes. "Who, Albus?"

"I will have to write a letter and wait for a response before I can be sure." Dumbledore stood. "For now, I will show Harriet and Elara to a room for the rest of the night. I know you must both be tired."

Snape grunted his assent, then whipped around and stalked away from the window back to the hearth. "I'm returning to Grimmauld."

If Dumbledore wanted to argue, the Potions Master didn't give him the chance; he threw a snatched handful of Floo Powder into the flames and disappeared in a whirl of green and black. Harriet stared at the spot of soot left behind and wanted to know how the wizard handled so many trips back and forth when it only took one to wipe her out. Maybe that was why Snape was so bloody crabby.

The Headmaster gently chivvied both witches out of their chairs and up the stairs, Charming their trunks to float along behind them. Harriet had never studied the doors leading off the Headmaster's upper mezzanine before, having decided they led into his private rooms—and the professor proved that deduction correct when he unlocked the door and let them inside the corridor beyond. "The Headmaster or Headmistress, having to spend much of his or her time at the school, is allotted extra quarters for their family to use," Dumbledore explained, the light at the end of his wand leading them through the quiet, slightly musty space. "The quarters haven't seen much use during my tenure. Ah, here we are."

He opened another door and inside waited two beds with walnut posts, the headboards positioned against the far wall, a large, half-circle window of stained glass situated between them. Above, an image of the celestial sphere had been painted on the ceiling and the stars had been Charmed a bold, glittering gold color. A fine, thin film of dust covered the surfaces, the small hearth clean and empty. It clearly hadn't been used in a number of years.

Professor Dumbledore pointed out the attached washroom and left them to get situated, promising to return in the morning with news. By then, Harriet shook with fatigue and didn't try questioning him further on what was happening and where they had to go. Elara still didn't say a word as they changed into their night things and got ready for bed, slipping into the unused sheets of their beds, dimming the sole lantern left burning on the nightstand.

Harriet laid on her back and watched the constellations form on the ceiling, each spot glittering and gliding like real stars across the sky, Livius' weight heavy on her legs, the blankets warm—if a bit stiff. It was a beautiful room, and a sudden, inexplicable melancholy struck when Harriet considered how long it had been empty. In the privacy of her own thoughts, she dared to wonder why Professor Dumbledore didn't have a family of his own. She would have liked having a grandfather like him.

Harriet dozed, and when Elara tugged the sheets down and came to lie next to her, she didn't open her eyes. She tucked her friend's hand into her own and, together, they fell asleep.

x X x

Dawn had only just broken on the eastern horizon when Harriet, Elara, and Professor Dumbledore appeared on a quaint country road far from the soaring climes of the Scottish highlands.

The Headmaster had woken them quite early and still hadn't told them where they were headed. "It's a surprise," he'd said over a quick breakfast of scones and jam. "Though we'd best be punctual. He doesn't much care for lateness." Harriet ate and Elara sipped an Anti-Nausea draft in preparation for the journey, neither saying much of anything until a house-elf cleared away their plates and the Headmaster said it was time to go. Harriet closed Livi and the other snakes away in

his terrarium inside her trunk, and—together with Elara—took Professor Dumbledore's arm and Disapparated from his office.

"Excellent," the wizard said as he straightened his spangled hat and surveyed their surroundings. Green trees surrounded the dirt road, though Harriet could smell the sea and hear the sloshing waves over the warbling of summer birds. A crooked wooden sign stuck up from the brush at the road's side, shaped like an arrow and pointed deeper into the sun-dappled trees. The face bore the word TREFHUD.

"Can you say where we are now, Professor?" Harriet inquired.

He nodded. "Certainly. We are in the Wizarding hamlet of Trefhud, a lovely stretch of land in Devonshire."

"Trefhud?" They started walking, shoes kicking up small puffs of dust. Harriet looked to Elara and the other witch shrugged. "I haven't heard of it before."

"It isn't terribly well-known, even in magical society. It was Charmed quite a long time ago and hidden from Muggles, much like Diagon Alley, hiding it from view and from their maps. See?"

As the trees thinned, revealing the rolling, wooded hills, Professor Dumbledore pointed to a distant, familiar shimmer like gossamer light rippling the air. Beyond the ripple, Muggle power lines suddenly veered away and circled away, staggering around the hillside. The road ahead split again, one fork leading downhill toward a little charming village situated on the glistening shoreline while the other climbed inland and disappeared into the thickening forest and rising hills. Dumbledore took the latter path and the young witches followed.

They stopped at an iron gate set in a wall of weathered red bricks, strange stones and baubles tied to the wisteria vine twisting around the gate's high arch. Professor Dumbledore needed only push the gate in and it offered no resistance, but Harriet felt powerful magic come awake and stir like a drowsy guard dog deciding whether or not to give chase. They entered a tidy garden bearing standard English flora and a healthy mix of plants she'd seen in Professor Sprout's greenhouses— and, beyond that, the gray face of a stone house loomed, the red tiles of the roof limned in the coming light of day. A pond bordered the garden and the woods, a large white egret balanced above the waters watching as they passed by.

Professor Dumbledore didn't have a chance to knock before one of the front doors popped open and a wizard stepped out onto the porch. He was middling in height and age, silver threading his dark, curly hair and short beard, his face creased with easy laugh lines and crow's feet. He wore fitted trousers and boots, his waistcoat open over a shirt with loose, billowing sleeves.

He raised a callused hand and waved. "Albus! Vous êtes en avance, eh?" The wizard looked to Harriet and smiled, his dark eyes dancing. "Hello, petit oiseau."

Harriet gaped, because of all the people she expected to meet that morning, she would have never guessed Nicolas Flamel.

A/N: Bam! Who saw it coming? I've said it before and I'll say it again, I've never seen the second Fantastic Beasts movie (idk, the first just bored me and I can't find the energy to see the second. Anyway) so my Nicolas Flamel is nothing like that one. He's basically an OC. Also, for a quick recap: Harriet doesn't know what Sirius did and she definitely doesn't know about him being her godfather. Elara does.

Remember, there's a Discord server now where you can join the community and stay up to date on chapter releases! Here's the link: CDT Discord

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as the crow flies

civ. as the crow flies

At first, Harriet could do nothing but gawk at the ancient wizard she'd been exchanging letters with for over a year. Then, she finally sputtered, "You—you're Nicolas Flamel!"

He laughed—a bright, pleased sound. "I am! It is nice to finally meet face to face, Harriet." Mr. Flamel took her hand between both of his, giving it a friendly squeeze. "And your amie, Miss Black. Comment allez-vous?"

"Um," Elara replied, just as surprised—and articulate—as Harriet. "Er, well—nice to meet you, Mr. Flamel."

"Ah, where are my manners? Come in, come in!"

Mr. Flamel stepped back. Harriet hesitated, but a small nudge from Professor Dumbledore propelled her forward over the threshold and into the house proper. Dark wood paneling appointed the foyer's walls, the tiles underfoot weathered and chipped but nonetheless charming. Far too many cloaks hung from a convenient chifforobe, boots cluttered on a bench, a woven basket on a stool stained green from old garden trimmings. More of those curious baubles hung from the iron chandelier and gleamed in the morning sunlight.

"Perenelle and I just sat down for tea. Will you be joining us, Albus?"

The Headmaster shook his head. "No, no. I'd best be off. My schedule doesn't appear to be getting any lighter these days, I fear."

"You work too hard, mon ami. One should make the most of their holidays."

"I'll be sure to take that under advisement, Nicolas." Professor Dumbledore turned to the two witches. "Try not to get into too much mischief during your stay."

Mr. Flamel grinned. "Mischief is what makes life worth living, Albus."

"Well, in acceptable doses, I suppose." Professor Dumbledore winked, or at least Harriet thought he did. "I'll see you both when school resumes. Feel free to write if you need anything."

Elara stopped the Headmaster before he could leave with a softly uttered, "Professor? Will you tell me…?"

Harriet didn't know what she meant, though she did realize Dumbledore seemed in a hurry despite his best attempts at subtlety. "I will send updates as they come, Miss Black. I promise."

"Thank you, sir."

Professor Dumbledore nodded to her, and then to Mr. Flamel. "Give my best to Perenelle, will you?"

"Bien sûr. Feel free to Apparate if you wish, Albus."

The Headmaster did just that, giving a few final words in salutation before turning on the spot and disappearing into thin air. An awkward moment followed in which Harriet glanced at Mr. Flamel,

unsure of what to say, a bit flummoxed by this rather sudden turn of events. Yesterday afternoon they'd been at Grimmauld, Harriet bored out of her skull, and this morning they were standing in the home of a wizard who'd created a Philosopher's Stone—a wizard utterly unaffected by the awkward pause who now ushered them along the hall toward the smell of cooking food.

"Come, come. Have you eaten? We expected you both later, but Perenelle and I have always been early-risers. She makes the best tea, my lovely wife, better than the English! Or so I believe."

Mr. Flamel kept up his easy, affable chatter as he walked through his sprawling house and Harriet peeked into the open rooms they passed. It was cluttered—way more cluttered than Hogwarts or Grimmauld, strange and mystical items left sitting out for casual use like a kettle or a stray book. The rug in the hall looked older than her great-grandparents—and shimmied when Harriet stepped on it. Mr. Flamel told the rug off in a language other than English or French before moving on.

They came into a kitchen and Harriet inhaled the smell of toasted bread, tea, and the more bitter scent of coffee. A witch sat at a small table tucked in the room's corner under an oval window, a newspaper unfolded before her, and she looked up when they tromped into the room. Her blue eyes brightened and a smile quite like the one her husband wore quirked her lips. She stood to greet them.

"'Arriet! It is so nice to see you at last! And Miss Black. May I call you Elara? Pleased to meet you."

Mrs. Flamel had no compunction in pulling Harriet and Elara into an embrace, bussing their cheeks, her affection easy and profuse enough to leave both witches rather embarrassed and pink in the face. Mr. Flamel conjured two extra chairs and Harriet sat in one, fidgeting as Mrs. Flamel poured tea and placed fresh cups before them.

"Erm," Harriet began, searching for the right words. The tea smelled heavenly, though she couldn't say what it blend was. "Thank you for letting us stay with you."

"Oh, it iz not a problem," Mrs. Flamel said, patting Harriet's hand. "I am looking forward to having the company. I have been terribly lonely this summer."

Across the table, Mr. Flamel put down his tea and frowned. "Am I not enough company now?"

Humming a soft note, Mrs. Flamel shook her head. "Non! No, you are plenty of company, Nicolas." She paused, and then as aside to Harriet and Elara, added, "But after six hundred years, his stories start to get…redundant."

Mr. Flamel pouted.

Elara snorted into her cup.

x X x

Much of the first day passed in a blur, Mr. Flamel giving them a tour of the house and the property, keeping up a steady stream of conversation. Harriet found it surprising how easy it was to get along with the wizard; they'd exchanged many letters, but she'd never thought Mr. Flamel would want to meet her, let alone have both her and another teenage witch invading his home for an indefinite amount of time. She wondered what exactly Professor Dumbledore told him in his letter.

They had lunch and supper in the kitchen just the same as they'd had breakfast, Mrs. Flamel insisting they call her Perenelle before introducing them both to a French house-elf named Bigsby —who went into joyful hysterics each time Elara or Harriet attempted to thank him with an

uncertain, "Merci."

The house was big, but the Flamels only had one proper guest room. "We do not have visitors very often," Mr. Flamel had explained when he showed them the room on the second floor. Harriet and Elara had to share the bed, but it was roomy enough for both of them and Elara didn't complain about Harriet's kicking habit. Perenelle plied them with far too many quilts and hot cocoa before they turned in for the night.

In the morning, fog crept about outside the window and shuttered the early light. Given she stood in a wizard's home, Harriet tugged her wand free of its brace and whispered, "Lumos," and sat down at the empty desk. Elara still snored into her pillow, having tossed and turned well past midnight. She had kept at it until Harriet threatened to go sleep in her trunk with the snakes.

She must be scared, Harriet thought, frowning as she set up her parchment and pulled out her Occamy quill. Fear preyed on Harriet a lot in the past, so she didn't blame Elara for being restless. She had nightmares all the time and had grown used to them—for the most part—but that didn't mean others should be inured to them too.

Lost in thought, she made a few idle marks on the parchment's corner, then started her letter to Hermione. She couldn't tell her where she and Elara were, not when Hermione lived with the Malfoys, but she could let her friend know they were safe from Elara's father. Harriet paused and picked her quill up.

Actually, she wondered. Would Hermione know about Sirius Black? Would she know he's escaped? Has the Prophet reported on it?

Huffing, Harriet used her wand to erase the beginning of the letter and began a new one. She wrote to Professor Dumbledore instead, apologizing for writing so soon, and asked what she was allowed to tell Hermione. Really, she wanted to tell Hermione everything and would the second they saw one another, but letters sent to her always had the risk of being intercepted by Draco or his mum or dad. Mr. Malfoy made a lot of trouble for Elara whenever he could and Harriet didn't want to inadvertently make her problems worse.

The quill scratched a quiet noise against the parchment. Harriet finished her short letter and folded it, sealing the edge with a spell. Now, how to send it? Usually, she asked Elara if she could borrow Cygnus or Percival—the latter only capable of making short jaunts around London and the closer boroughs—but Snape hadn't taken Cygnus from Grimmauld. Kreacher would take care of him, but that did leave them without an owl.

Harriet hopped to her feet and got dressed, dragging on a pair of trousers and a jumper that she was fairly certain belonged to Hermione, giving the snakes some of the preserved food she had stored in her trunk. Then, she grabbed her letter off the desk and left the room.

She decided to look in the kitchen first, but it wasn't quite daylight yet and when she found the room dark, Harriet guessed the Flamels weren't awake yet. She passed an open arch on the way— and stopped, hearing the gentle rustle of turning pages. Harriet peeked into the cluttered room and spotted Mr. Flamel, his back turned to the entrance, standing at a lectern or some kind of raised desk, a smattering of pages spread across its tilted surface. He hummed off-key as he read. He wore a brace like Harriet's on his wrist, his wand stuck inside.

"…Mr. Flamel?"

"Oui?" he said without looking, finishing whatever it was that held his attention. He turned his head after a moment and smiled. "Good morning, petit oiseau."

"G'morning." Harriet shuffled closer, not sure if she was allowed in the room or not. He hadn't told them to stay out of anywhere specific on their tour the day before. "Err, do you have an owl I could borrow? To send a letter to Professor Dumbledore?"

"Tired of us already?"

Harriet blinked. "What? Oh! No—not at all! I—I just want to write to Hermione and I don't know what I'm allowed to say about what's going on."

"Ah." Mr. Flamel leaned away from the desk and turned his back to it. "Your friend will know about Monsieur Black's escape. It was in the papers yesterday. I believe it reached the Demoyennes as well."

"The—the Muggles? Why would they know about it?"

Mr. Flamel opened his mouth and then shut it, his expression going a bit funny. Harriet had seen that look before; it was the look of someone who'd realized they'd probably said more than they should have and needed to stop lest they put their foot in it again. "We don't 'ave an owl, I fear."

"Oh?" Harriet puzzled how he managed to get anything done, then recalled the wizard used a raven. She'd gotten so used to the bird, she didn't even think about it anymore. Would he let her use it?

The wizard seemed to know what she was thinking. "I could lend 'im to you. Or—." He balanced a hand on his hip as he considered her. "We could go find your own."

"My own? My own raven?"

"Oui! My bird is not usual, you see?" Mr. Flamel stuck his hand in the pocket of his waistcoat and withdrew a small skull. Harriet had seen wizards and witches drag weirder things out of their pockets before, so she didn't so much as flinch when he held it up and she came closer to inspect it. The skull belonged to a bird of some kind—probably a raven, given their conversation. It was a bit yellow with age and had runes etched into the bone, darkened with black powder. Mr. Flamel took out his wand and gave the skull a sound tap. The raven who delivered his mail appeared in his outstretched hand.

Harriet gaped. "I love magic!" she exclaimed, much to Mr. Flamel's amusement. "But is it—is it Dark magic? If the bird isn't actually alive?"

"Non, non—well, peut être? Maybe?" He let out an uncertain chuckle. "I do not think it is something Albus would like for me to teach you, but it is not harmful, non. There are other spells like it, older. They have menace to them, meant to 'urt people, but this one—how do you say?" He tapped his mouth in thought. "You have heard of Odin, yes? The Norse god?"

"I think so."

He mumbled something in French, then flicked his wand. A book wiggled free of its dusty shelf and came sauntering over, landing in his free hand. He gave the other a slight shake, closing his fingers over the skull, and the raven blinked out of existence. "Here we are. Look."

Harriet did as bid, Mr. Flamel pointing to an illustration of a bearded man—wizard—in armor, a blackbird on each shoulder, his wand in hand, two dogs at his heels.

"Like most figures in the Demoyenne myths, Óðinn, or Wōden, was a magical being. A wizard much like your Merlin. You see here? His wand was Gungnir. I once spent a week in the fjords

arguing with a man convinced it was the Bâton de la Mort—but, ah, that is a different story."

Harriet wrinkled her nose. What's a Bâton de la Mort?

"He is said to 'ave had two ravens, Huginn and Muninn, and in the stories, he would send them flying all over the world. They would come back to him and say all that they had seen in their travels."

"That sounds like a fancy way of saying they brought him letters."

Mr. Flamel grinned. "Exactement! The spell, it is very old and uncommon, but it is not meant to 'urt anyone. It comes from before Odin. Even older than me!"

Giggling, Harriet asked, "But what would I have to do? I don't know runes, Mr. Flamel. Is it difficult magic? Would I—I wouldn't have to kill a raven, would I?"

He shook his head. "No, that would be exactly not what to do. Come, we will go search outside and I will show you."

"Can I bring Livi? He gets crabby being cooped up."

"Oui. Go on."

Harriet hurried back to the bedroom and unearthed Livius from her trunk. Elara sat up when Harriet opened the door—but she was still asleep, given her eyes barely opened and she flopped over the moment her exhausted mind recognized the other witch. Harriet snorted and left again, wrapping Livi's heavy coils over her shoulders.

"Ssss…."

"You have to behave."

"Why?"

"Because we're guests here. We don't want to make trouble for our hosts."

The Horned Serpent lamented the stupidity of manners and Harriet ignored him. Mr. Flamel waited by the front door and, since she didn't have any wellies, he had her put on Perenelle's and then shrunk them down to fit her feet. They set off, heading not toward the road but the back of the property, toward the forest proper, where the trees grew taller and the mist hung in wet clumps. The ground became more of a mire the farther they traveled and Harriet realized this was why he'd given her the boots. The grass squelched underfoot.

Mr. Flamel asked Livius questions along the way—or, well, he asked Harriet questions to ask Livi, and she answered for him. He wanted to know all about what life as a magical snake was like. Harriet couldn't help but drawl a bit when she told him it was a life full of bossing about silly humans, sleeping on the nearest warm surface, and generally being a lazy pain in the arse. His laughter boomed in the loose trees.

When Livi slithered off her shoulders in a huff, she made sure to also tell Mr. Flamel how brave the serpent was, how he'd saved her life on several occasions. They were quiet for a while after that.

"What exactly are we looking for?"

"A dead raven," Mr. Flamel replied, short and to the point. He renewed the Warming Charms he'd placed on them and, as an afterthought, flicked one over Livi. The snake hissed in appreciation. "One that has died a natural death. That is very important. It cannot be, ah…rotten, either. We have our work cut out for us."

They picked through the underbrush, not fussed with being quiet, Mr. Flamel telling Harriet all about the time he visited Norway with Perenelle many years ago and studied the magical implementation of the Elder Futhark under a seiðkonur.

"She was the granddaughter of Nerida Vulchanova, who founded Durmstrang, oui? They had a terrible blood feud against the Munters—terrible. Oda—that was her name, I remember now, Oda —knew Harfang Munter murdered Nerida when she was Headmistress."

Harriet peeked under a bush, then looked to Mr. Flamel. "Why would he do that?"

"Hmm?"

"Why would anyone murder the Headmistress?"

"Je ne sais pas." He shrugged. "Why does anyone murder anyone? It is a position of authority among magical kind, you know? We 'ave different Ministries, different governments, but it is not like ze Demoyennes—the Muggles. Wizarding kind consider educators…what is the expression? They hold them above others. It is a position of power, educating. Teaching magic to a people who define themselves by its usage."

Harriet mulled his statement over as they kept walking and Mr. Flamel kept talking.

"Oda and her family knew 'Arfang—Harfang—had killed Nerida. And Harfang had the entirety of the Vulchanova family banned from Durmstrang. All her descendants, even to this day! It was written in the Durmstrang's statuts, in the very laws themselves, that House Vulchanova could not return. It is very hard to change those bylaws! So Oda became a seiðkonur. Oh, and Harfang was quick to poison the Institutes's image. Nerida had a vision for it. She admired Hogwarts very much and wished for something like it closer to home…."

Time passed. Their search turned up one rook, a magpie, a jackdaw—and a Hinkypunk who had a go at Harriet and only scampered when Livi burst out of a nearby blackthorn bush. Mr. Flamel inspected the birds and pronounced that the rook and the magpie had been killed by cats and were thus unusable. The jackdaw had been shot.

"Ç'est malheureux. The Demoyennes are not so far away and it must have been clipped by buckshot and kept flying—non, do not look, silly girl. I will bury it."

Mr. Flamel needed only two flicks of his wand to inter the bird and Harriet sighed, her feet sore from tromping about in unfamiliar boots. She didn't know how long they'd been out there, but the mist hadn't relented and the light hadn't grown brighter. They'd scoured acres of forests. Mr. Flamel patted her head.

"Hmm. Perhaps your Livius could give us his expertise? Yes, Monsieur Livius?"

The Horned Serpent preened—if a snake could preen. He just looked insufferably pleased with himself in Harriet's opinion, especially after having eaten two squirrels, a rabbit, not to mention a good attempt at snatching that squealing Hinkypunk.

"Can you find us a raven?" Harriet asked him, a brow quirked.

"I can find anything," Livius retorted. " Humansss are ssslow. I am a better hunter. Sss…."

Livi took over their search—getting sidetracked once or twice by small, scared creatures skittering about, though he did far better at composing himself than Kevin or Rick ever did. He managed to find a bird, a great black thing settled in the hollow of a tree where predators couldn't find it, up high off the ground. Mr. Flamel Charmed the roots into a rudimentary step ladder so he could inspect the creature.

"Is it actually a raven?" Harriet asked, not able to see the bird very well.

"Mmm, non, not exactly. It is a carrion crow, much bigger than a raven, but it will suit." Mr. Flamel conjured a cloth sack and, with another spell, popped the deceased bird inside of it.

A flicker of silver light stealing through copse startled Harriet, and it must have startled Mr. Flamel too, though the wizard made a good show of pretending it hadn't. A fish flitted about his head—a wispy, ethereal shape, shining bright as a moon. It spoke, and Mrs. Flamel's voice came out.

"Nicolas, you and 'Arriet will miss lunch if you don't quit your playing about! You 'ave already missed breakfast!"

The fish vanished in a whorl of spangled smoke. Mr. Flamel grumbled something in French and gave his wand a small flick, summoning a silvery, see-through creature of his own. It really was a beautiful spell, and Harriet felt like she'd seen it before. Hadn't Snape done it just the other day Grimmauld? But his hadn't been an animal, just a four-legged blob, a shiny imprint hovering in the air.

Harriet frowned.

"Ouais, Perenelle. We are coming." The creature—a lizard of some sort, a salamander— disappeared, scuttling off through the trees in the direction the fish had come from. "We had best take our new friend home else Perenelle will leave us to starve."

She knew he was making a joke, but seeing as Harriet had actually been denied food and starved for being late before, her answering smile was strained. Mr. Flamel led the way through the woods again, never losing his footing, seeming perfectly at ease. He hummed, something quiet and foreign and pretty to Harriet's ears.

They came out of the woods on the other side of the village. The path flanked the sea—and it, too, was pretty, just like most of what Harriet had seen so far in Trefhud. The waves crested and crashed on the beach, gray and white and blue, a wizard out fishing on a floating dock, his pointed hat three times the size of his wizened head. In the village itself, the magical folk greeted Mr. Flamel warmly and gave curious hellos to Harriet, the alchemist quick to make their excuses and hurry them along. Harriet didn't think it actually mattered if she was seen as long as no one went back to the Ministry and told them Harriet Potter was puttering around a seaside town in Devon.

Well, maybe she should keep a low profile. Maybe. There was no telling where Lucius Malfoy might pop up.

At last, they made it back to the house and found Elara and Perenelle in the kitchen, deep in conversation, waiting by a wooden serving bowl filled with cheesy pasta. Bigsby was cutting a fresh loaf of bread into slices. It smelled wonderful to Harriet after tromping over what felt like half the countryside. She didn't need to be told twice to dig in.

"Nicolas! The poor dear is famished!" Perenelle reached out to smooth Harriet's hair from her face.

"Where did you go off so early?"

"Searching for materials."

"Materials?"

He wiped his mouth after chomping of a piece of bread. "Oui. Harriet wants a bird."

"A bird? Oh." Perenelle shot her an inquisitive look, smiling, then set her gaze on her husband. "You will be cleaning it, yes? You cannot 'ave her do that! It will give her nightmares."

Harriet was a mite peeved Mrs. Flamel thought her squeamish enough to get nightmares over something as trivial as ingredient prep. True, she hadn't considered that they'd have to get the skull out of the bloody bird after they found it, but Harriet had handled other animals in detentions with Snape or in Potions class. It was a necessary part of magic sometimes.

She'd seen far worse, but Perenelle didn't know that. Mr. Flamel didn't tell her everything. Harriet didn't tell Mr. Flamel everything.

The wizard held his hands up. "Oui, oui! Do not worry so. I will do it."

Elara nudged her foot under the table and Harriet settled for drinking her pumpkin juice.

Once lunch had been eaten, Harriet munching on far too much and Elara still saying far too little, Mr. Flamel kissed his wife's cheek and he and Harriet returned to the study she'd seen earlier that morning, passing through it to the potions lab on the other side. It resembled the one at Hogwarts in many ways, the walls comprised of rough stone, ingredients all sorted in tidy jars and bottles on long wooden racks, each slat labeled in the same, slanted script.

The resemblance ended there; there was no surly Snape marching about, and bizarre glass beakers and contraptions cluttered most of the counters. Harriet peered at the nearest instrument and watched how the candlelight glittered like a rainbow over the thick, clouded glass, green sand swirling within the wide, flat belly.

Mr. Flamel lit a fire in the hearth with a snap of his fingers and settled Harriet at a little round table stationed at its side. She yawned as she watched him dart about—settling the white cloth sack on the bench, tossing a bit of wood into the flames, tugging a slender volume from his crowded bookcase. For a six-hundred-year-old wizard, he sure had a lot of energy.

"Here we are!" He set the volume in front of Harriet. It didn't have a title imprinted on the front, just a smattering of peeling, silver gilt, so Harriet carefully opened the cover to the first page.

"What's this for?"

"I need you to research trois—three—runes in there. It is important for the spell."

Harriet forced herself to sit up straighter and nudged her glasses higher up her nose. "I can do that."

"Perfect." Mr. Flamel went to the bench and gathered the crow, moving out of Harriet's line of sight. "You need to look for raidho, jera, and laguz."

Harriet flipped through the old, withered pages, squinting at the tiny writing and drawn symbols. The fire crackled and she slumped, yawning, balancing her weight on her arm. A muted thump came from the worktable, metals instruments clicking against one another in a ceramic dish.

"What does it say for raidho?"

Blinking, Harriet turned another page. "It represents direction. A journey. It teaches balance. In Merk—Merkstave, it means stasis or even death. What's Merkstave?"

"It means reversed. When it is cast opposing its usual orientation."

"Oh."

"Jera, now."

Harriet had to peruse the pages again, rubbing her eyes. "Hmm. It means year. Has a whole bit here about harvests and waiting. Life-cycles. In Merkstave is can mean conflict or…regression, repetition."

"And now, laguz!"

Whatever laguz meant, Harriet didn't find out. She nodded off reading an interesting bit about perthro and how it was a mysterious thing that had come to represent witch-kind and their perceived capriciousness. The heat in the room, coupled with her large lunch and excessive morning exercise, put the witch right to sleep—until suddenly, Mr. Flamel returned to the table and Harriet startled awake. He set a perfectly cleaned crow skull on top of the book she'd snoozed upon. The wizard had finished preparing it already.

Harriet flushed. "I would have done it, sir," she mumbled. "You didn't have to."

"I know, petit oiseau." He gave the top of her head a fond pat and sat in the chair next to hers. He picked up the skull "Raidho. Jera. Laguz." He pointed at the runes in turn, each carefully carved with a small, sharp blade along the bird's crest. "Laguz means lake. It represents water, and water represents life."

"I thought—I read something about sowilo representing life? Something about fire?"

"Life-giving. A small difference, but a difference nonetheless, yes?" Mr. Flamel shrugged. "Now, take out your wand."

Harriet pulled her wand free of its brace and waited for instruction. The wizard set the skull before her again and smiled, the firelight sparkling in his dark eyes in an uncanny imitation of Professor Dumbledore. "Now, you use the spell avolare. Avolare. Go ahead."

Nodding, Harriet pointed her wand at the skull—at the largest rune, raidho—and whispered, "Avolare!"

The skull remained on the book but a glossy, black-feathered bird appeared above it—a crow, not a raven like Mr. Flamel's. Its talons clicked on the table as it turned and eyed Harriet, its eye pale and milky but otherwise alert. The runes upon the skull under its feet had turned from coal black to red.

"Now what happens?"

"You send me a letter to test."

Curious to see what would happen, Harriet fished out the note she intended to send to Professor Dumbledore—still in her pocket, wrinkled by her running about—and gave it to the crow, its thick bill clamping shut over the parchment's edge. "Err, go to Mr. Flamel? Nicolas Flamel?"

Obviously, it didn't need to go far, and yet the bird blinked and hopped two steps to its right, dropping the letter into the wizard's outstretched hand. "Nicolas Flamel!" it cawed, startling Harriet with its volume.

"Merci."

The crow cawed again, pleased with itself, and vanished in a sooty puff. The runes upon its skull returned to their dark color.

"It is not actually alive, you see," Mr. Flamel explained as they both sat and gazed at the little white bone atop the book of runes. "It is a—how do you say? A fantôme? Or a…projection of ze bird. Like a memory. It is why it is important it had a full life, not one cut short."

Thoughtful, Harriet traced a fingertip along the beak, then reached a decision and tugged on the cord tucked under her jumper's collar. Puzzled, Mr. Flamel watched as she pulled out the long leather strip on which hung a single, small white spoon. "It was carved from Bavarian Erkling bone," she told the alchemist as she fidgeted with the knot, managing to get it undone. "It can detect poison. Elara got it for me after—."

Harriet didn't say anything else, but understanding flashed in Mr. Flamel's eyes. She hadn't told him about the poisoning, but she wagered Professor Dumbledore had.

"I understand. It is a good thing to have, and a good idea to have your new compagnon close as well."

He helped her feed one end of the leather strip through the skull's ocular sockets, then cinched the knot tight once more. Harriet looped the cord around her head once more and the bones jangled ever so slightly as they came to rest over her heart.

"No excuse not to write to me now, oui?" Mr. Flamel pointed at the macabre necklace. He adopted a stern, but teasing tone. "I will expect a letter every week, young lady!"

Embarrassed but pleased, Harriet beamed and nodded, hand closing over the crow's skull. Mr. Flamel smiled, the gesture close-lipped but warm, genuine. He touched her shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

"Good. Now, let us go see what mischief we can find for you and Elara to get into. We wouldn't want to disappoint Albus, after all."

A/N: Okay, so, I don't understand why Durmstrang is coded so heavily as Russian / Slavic in canon. It's in Norway or Sweden. Koldovstoretz is in Russia. I mean, it's just a giant missed opportunity that I think I've touched upon a bit more in this au-canon.

Harriet got a new pet and it's not a snake! I'm so proud of her.

Is the magic theory boring you? Let me know.

moment of the yew-tree

cv. moment of the yew-tree

Elara had never been to the sea before.

She'd seen it on the telly and had heard one of the parishioners chatter about her holiday to the Spanish coast, but she didn't have any personal experience with the ocean—and the first day Mr. and Mrs. Flamel took them to the shore, she didn't much like it. The sun was too bright, the sand got trapped in her socks and gloves and hair, and she was too hot in her long sleeves and skirt. She ended up with a headache, terribly sunburned, and stinking of aloe vera.

She grew fonder of it as the days passed. She would wake too early in the morning, anxious and irritable, and would walk from the Flamel house to the shore by the village. Once there, she'd sit on the rocks and watch the fishermen on the jetty pull cod and bass from the water, a merperson stopping by sometimes to barter with fish from deeper depths. Elara would wait for the first light of dawn to peek over the forested hills and whisper, "Amato animo abunati animagus," with the tip of her wand over her heart.

She'd roll the new wand between her fingers, testing the unfamiliar grain and handle. Ebony wood. Rougarou hair. Mrs. Malfoy had taken her to get the replacement early in the summer, and Elara had been surprised when Ollivander looked at her, at her scarred hand, and came back with a wand he claimed he hadn't made.

"It's from a wandmaker in America," he explained. "We wandmakers exchange a choice selection every few years as not every person of a region is perfectly suited for the elements located there. Normally I would send you off to Gregorovitch, but there's no need for that. This particular wand comes from Violetta Beauvais in America. Eleven and a quarter, quite rigid. Ebony, with one Rougarou hair. Go on, then, give it a wave…."

Her first wand had been blackthorn and dragon heartstring. "A bit temperamental, but good stock nonetheless," Mr. Ollivander told her the first time. "A wand meant for a warrior, no doubt in my mind."

He didn't say anything about the new wand. Elara had gone back home and looked it up in an old wandlore book she scrounged in the library. She realized why the wizard hadn't told her about it when she read Rougarou hair was drawn to Dark magic.

Elara spent early mornings on the shore and grew accustomed to the quiet, to the iron-gray curtain of fog that balked and tip-toed away once the sun came out. If she stayed too long, Perenelle sent a Patronus summoning her back, so Elara always left before the sun could clear the treetops proper. She'd walk into the house and hear the clatter of dishes being set out by Harriet, Mrs. Flamel cooking, Mr. Flamel sitting at the table with the Daily Prophet or a paper from aboard. She'd sit down without saying a word and let the scene enfold her.

It was…nice. Surreal in a way magic never had been for Elara. The sisters had talked about the devil and his cheap tricks a lot more often than they ever discussed anything familial, and so Elara wondered what would scandalize her old caretakers more, the wand waving or the group of heathens sitting down to a meal together like normal people?

They went to the village or the beach during the day more often than not, and Elara grew to love the afternoons by the sea. Sometimes it was just her and Harriet, and Elara would wear shorts and a

t-shirt just like the other witch—or least she did once Perenelle fashioned a pair of bracers like Harriet's for both her wrists, covering the marks. They'd play in the water or lie on the beach with their feet buried in the sand, or they'd duel with Mr. Flamel on the dock and he'd send them sailing into the cool water more often than not. Harriet finally managed to trip him in and he came up sputtering, soaking wet, and shocked, much to Perenelle's amusement.

They'd return, count new freckles on their cheeks and arms, and help with chores about the house. In the evenings, they would sit in the den and eat sweets made for dessert, listening to the wireless or to Perenelle chattering on about Astronomy while Mr. Flamel smoked his pipe and read periodicals. With her day so full, Elara found it surprisingly easy to fall asleep at night—but always she woke too early.

Yes, she'd never been to the sea before, just as she'd never had a family before, and though Elara quickly became very fond of both, she knew it wouldn't—couldn't—last. Reality threatened and waited beyond the quiet, cloistered borders of Trefhud and time passed too fast that summer. Snape or Kreacher forwarded Cygnus a day or so after their arrival and though Elara sent him out each morning, he never returned with news. Sirius Black had not been caught. He was free, and he was out there. Waiting.

She wrote Professor McGonagall every day; sometimes just a quick note scribbled at the breakfast table, sometimes a longer letter. McGonagall wanted her to write down what she felt, which meant Elara spent a lot of time trying to figure that out. What did she feel? Anger, mostly. Inexplicable in its intention and arrival. Anger for her father, for Dumbledore and Snape, for McGonagall, herself, the Flamels, Harriet. It was irrational, that anger, but Elara carried it with her, bound tight in anxiety, nervousness, and dread.

"I'm afraid," she told the professor. "Not for myself. For Harriet. I'm afraid he'll come after her. I'm afraid of what will happen when she finds out the truth."

"Miss Potter is a kind and level-headed girl," McGonagall wrote back. "She will not blame you for your father's faults."

Elara wanted to tell Harriet the truth, wanted to tell Harriet Sirius Black was her godfather and he betrayed her parents—because it seemed everyone else already knew. Dumbledore knew. McGonagall and Snape knew. The Flamels knew—and Harriet wasn't as unfailingly kind as McGonagall assumed. She didn't have a cruel bone in her body, but Harriet had a distinct stubborn vindictive streak in her like a knife held to someone's back, no matter how slight. She'd never forget, and she might not forgive. The longer it took for Elara to come clean, the harder the reaction would hit.

I'm afraid he'll come after her.

Elara spent the days in the sunshine and for once in her life lived like a girl and not a strange, cursed burden. At night, she slept next to the witch she loved like a sister—and always she woke too early in the morning, dreams haunted by a stranger wearing a face too similar to her own.

Your father has escaped from Azkaban.

She would dress and walk to the shore before the sun rose and watch the men toil with the sea.

I'm afraid—.

She would sit on the rocks and memorize the feel of her new wand in her hands. Elara would turn it over and over, remembering Mr. Ollivander's haunted eyes, the way his fingers trembled ever so

slightly when he let the wand go. She'd think about her father, about the life he threatened, and the anger would return.

She'd never hated a man as much as she hated Sirius Black.

x X x

Elara stared into her father's face and sneered.

The Prophet had taken to posting his original mugshot on the front page. He'd been young when he was arrested; tall, dark, and handsome, Elara imagined Sirius Black had never been denied anything in life—not until they put him in a prisoner's robes and dragged him in front of the camera, a sign held before him, an Auror on each arm. His gray eyes looked hollow and spiteful, and his mouth moved in a slight repetitive motion as if he was grinding his teeth.

They had the same jaw. The same brows and eyes and nose.

Elara took joy in tearing his image up and putting it in the compost bin.

"Elara? Come hold this for me, dear."

Brushing off her hands, Elara rose and returned to Mrs. Flamel and took the sack of soil from her, shifting it so the weight settled on her arm. They leaned over Perenelle's planter of Shrieking Violets, the blooms' screeches muted by a Silencing Charm. She could hear Harriet and Mr. Flamel inside Mr. Flamel's study, his voice carrying through the open window, occasionally accompanied by the pops or swoops of spellwork. Livius explored the garden somewhere, and though she hadn't mentioned anything, Elara got the impression the Horned Serpent unnerved Mrs. Flamel quite a bit.

Well, she thought as Mrs. Flamel gestured for her to pour out some of the soil. I guess I've become inured to his presence, but Livius is hardly the pet anyone would think a witch would have.

"Parfaite," Perenelle hummed as she settled the soil around her plants. "They will need the extra cover once autumn begins."

The mention of autumn sent a bolt of anxiety through her. Conceivably, the Ministry had to capture Sirius before school began, right? There were only so many places a convict could hide in Britain, so if they didn't find her father before September began, should they assume he left the country?

Please God, Elara prayed without realizing it. Please let him be caught or leave Britain. Please.

"Elara?"

Blinking, she looked up at Mrs. Flamel, who had her hands out waiting for her to give the half- empty sack over. She did so—almost dropping it—but Perenelle caught the lip of it and held on. "Oups! Careful of the flowers there, they bruise so easy."

Elara was always careful of plants and didn't know how she wound up as the one helping Perenelle in the gardens, but she knew to never touch anything green with her bare hands. The older witch knocked dirt from her gloves and, seeming to know Elara's mind had wandered, folded them up and stuck them in her apron pocket. "That is enough gardening for today. Let us go see what those two are up to."

They headed inside. Perenelle popped open the study's door and Elara heard Harriet incant, "Confundo!" A pale pink spell flicked through the air and collided with a crooked wooden dummy.

The dummy creaked but didn't otherwise move.

"Non, non," Mr. Flamel said, shaking his head. "Your wrist needs to twist. Twist et flick. Like so: confundo!"

His spell didn't fizzle quite like Harriet's had and it hit the dummy with a lighter touch, encompassing its dented head with a wispy cloud instead of smacking into it. Harriet frowned and wrinkled her nose.

"Nicolas, what are you teaching her?" Perenelle said with a frown of her own.

"It is a good spell to know!"

"She is only thirteen."

He spun his wand through his fingers, the motion idle like a stage magician spinning a coin. " Elle devrait savoir se défendre."

Perenelle huffed as she came into the room proper, skirt swishing by her knees, and she took Harriet's face in her hands. Harriet complained and Perenelle let go, taking her hand instead to reposition her wrist. "Try again, but like this."

She did so, rounding the twist more with motion from the wrist. "Confundo!"

Pink mist warbled over the dummy's head and it shuddered.

"Better!" Mr. Flamel cheered. "Almost there!"

Mrs. Flamel huffed again as she eyed her husband. "You had best teach Elara as well."

"Oui, okay."

"And then we will go somewhere. Take our minds off things for a bit."

If the wizard had any questions about what she meant, he didn't mention them. "Okay, yes. Elara! Come, come. Show me what you can do…."

x X x

After an early supper, the Flamels, Harriet, and Elara found themselves in Cumbria, walking on a barren country road among the rising gray plinths and tipsy dolmens littering the summer plain beneath Elva hill. The shadows stretched long as the evening settled. The last dregs of sunlight glittered opalesque in the old wards dotting the vicinity, and as it grew darker still, small lights began to appear in the tall grass. They danced among the thin trees and disappeared when Elara concentrated on them. Soon enough they heard voices, music, laughter, and above their path swayed a purple banner with golden letters.

WELCOME TO THE NIGHT MARKET.

The letters swiveled and swirled, changing languages and alphabets. Elara almost tripped trying to watch it, but she had her gloved hand in Perenelle's and the older witch caught her. Both she and Harriet grumbled about being too old to hold hands, but it seemed from one step to the next they stumbled into a large crowd of magical people and beings, and Elara admitted to herself having Perenelle there made her feel more secure. Harriet was a different story.

"I've been here before," she grumbled, giving her arm a tug. "I'm not going to get lost."

"Comment? What do you mean?" Mr. Flamel asked, brow raised. "The Night Market is not a place for young witches to go about on their own."

"Well, no one told me that."

Mr. Flamel shook his head and Elara saw something like concern in his dark eyes, if only for an instant. "Ah. You know the rules then, yes? Be careful what you barter. The fée can be tricky beings…."

They wandered from stall to stall and Elara marveled at the things for sale, some of it legal, some it…not. A wizard sweating in a parka had a cage full of Erklings dressed like house-elves. One Erkling pilfered his pockets as the wizard stood too close, arguing with a bloke in maroon robes— an Auror, most likely. Perenelle bought them Marvelous Macarons, sweet biscuits sandwiching a Charmed ganache that made their breath glow like an aurora. Mr. Flamel paid by winning two games of noughts and crosses.

Perenelle finally let them off on their own so long as they stayed within sight of a large, scraggly oak in the market's middle, its limbs decorated with charms and long, flapping pennants. The Flamels went to barter with a vampire for a jar of Wallachian dirt. Harriet stopped to chat with a Centaur bearing vibrant, forest-green hair. For the moment, Elara was alone.

She didn't wander from the tree as she walked. She could have reached out and brushed her fingertips against the rough, peeling bark as she observed the people around her. Elara didn't believe Sirius Black would show his face here—she needed only to glance back in the direction of the Auror to know the Ministry kept just enough presence here to ward off an escaped convict. No, she didn't think her father would prove a problem, but her scarce years in the Wizarding world had already convinced Elara it wasn't always a safe place to be, especially on ones own, so she kept Harriet and the Flamels in sight and stayed by the oak tree.

"You, girl."

A witch stood in Elara's path, dressed in dark tailored robes with a hem that came to a point down by her boots. With her slick, ink-black hair and severe, hawkish features, the woman could have passed for a distant cousin of Snape's if not for her wide, golden eyes. The sudden brunt of her attention unnerved Elara and she forced herself not to step back from her.

"…hello," she greeted, her tone flat and suspicious.

The witch canted her head to the side. "You're an enterprising sort, are you not?" she asked, sharp and commanding like a schoolmistress calling her to task. "Well?"

"…sometimes."

The woman flicked her hands—Elara staring at the long, black nails tipping her fingers—and a pelt appeared from nowhere. "A Shifter's coat. Interested?"

"No." Given Elara didn't wish to see the inside of Azkaban, she had no desire to own a Shifter's coat.

A subtle, indifferent motion dismissed the pelt and replaced it with a small cloth doll, its eyes comprised of frazzled red stitches. "A poppet for the little girl?"

The witch sounded snide when she held the cursed object out and Elara leaned back, scowling. "No. I'm not an idiot."

Laughing, the witch dismissed the poppet—and it disintegrated into a pile of gray ash. Distracted by the ash catching the wind, Elara didn't see the witch's other hand until it grabbed hold of her wrist and squeezed.

She gasped and pulled, fear spiraling through her. The charms hanging from the tree shook, leaves flying, and the candles on the nearest stall guttering one by one. The witch's eyes burned, her fingers pressing cold, searing magic into Elara's skin until—

Elara pushed back.

The tingling sensation alighted over her covered palms and the witch released her wrist. For a moment, Elara thought she saw a new mark on the woman's hand, a raw spot glistening in what little moonlight shone through the oak's leaves—and then, like the pelt and poppet, it disappeared. The witch stepped back.

"Hmm." She tilted her head, face lost to the shadows, and her fingers continued to rub against one another as if memorizing the feel. "Unexpected."

Harriet's voice sounded in the distance. "Elara?" she called as she peered around the accrued people. "Where'd you go?"

Elara startled when the witch pressed something into her hand. She peered at the smooth obsidian pebble—an small, unremarkable stone, if not for the forked rune cut into its face. It felt heavy to the touch but not magical. "Come see me when you're older, girl."

"What—?" Elara jerked her gaze away from the stone—and the witch was gone.

"There you are." Harriet bumped into her arm, carrying a box of teak dowels. Elara couldn't fathom where she'd gotten those, or why. The bespectacled girl looked at the stone still in Elara's grasp. "D'you find something?"

Elara closed her fingers around it. "I…don't know."

She should have dropped the rock. She should have tossed it away from her, but she didn't; Elara tucked it into her pocket, and later, when she laid in bed about to fall asleep, she turned it over again and again, flipping the rune around and around.

She kept it—because that ice-cold feeling in her hands had been familiar, and Elara had to wonder why that was.

A/N: I'm not overly fond of giving characters "special" wands unless it serves a greater purpose, but the canon lore behind the Rougarou and its symbolism were too choice for me to overlook. Elara chapters are so hard to write, I swear. I don't know why.

Chapter title from T.S. Eliot's Little Gidding. "The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree / Are of equal duration." Meaning life and death have equal worth and presence in a person's life.

Witch: "Aha! Let me curse you—."

Elara: [whips out UNO Reverse card]

cursed twice-over

cvi. cursed twice-over

The snickering coming from the next aisle could mean nothing good.

Exhaling, Remus Lupin set down the history textbook before he could shelve it and straightened from his kneeling position by the open box. His joints popped as he stood, having spent too long on his knees stocking inventory, and so he took a moment to stretch out the stiffness in his limbs.

He was a tall man, thin and a bit slouched, the shirt and trousers under his apron both rather threadbare while gray flecked his brown hair like new snow on a wheat field. The most distinct feature of the man wasn't his green eyes or his height or his patchy clothes; rather, it was the prominent red scars slashed across his face, the largest crossing his cheek and the bridge of his nose. His hand came up to scratch the tail of the scar—then dropped limp by his side.

He was young despite his weathered state—but Remus didn't feel young. He felt quite a bit like an old flannel too often used and wrung out, left out to dry in the sun until stiff and malformed. He didn't much want to go and deal with those snickers. He'd much rather be in his flat, dowdy and dubious as it was, preferably with a good book and a hot cuppa, but he would settle for his own bed and quiet evening's rest. He didn't want to go into the next aisle, and yet he heard the tearing pages and knew he couldn't pretend otherwise. He couldn't take the cut to his paycheck for damaged inventory.

Brushing off his hands, Remus paced around the corner and found four Muggle youths in patterned jumpers and torn jeans egging on the fifth member of their group, an older boy with a book braced between his two hands. Pages littered the carpet about his scuffed trainers. The group caught sight of Remus when he approached and he got the impression they would have kept on with their vandalism if they hadn't seen his scarred face. His visage frightened Muggles, whether they wanted to admit it or not.

"Can I help you, gentlemen?"

The younger boys looked to the eldest, who had the good sense to toss the book in his grip onto the nearest stack without damaging it further. "Nah, mate. We were just on our way, weren't we?"

Heads nodded in agreement.

"Mmm," Remus hummed, his smile tight-lipped and more of a grimace than anything else. "You wouldn't happen to know what happened to these books, would you?"

The leader shrugged and sneered. "Strange, innit?"

"Strange indeed. Do you need help finding the door?"

They did not, in fact, need help finding the door, though Remus watched their retreating backs until they were back on the street, disappearing into the evening crowd. He picked up the damaged books and glanced at the pages on the floor. It seemed an ill portent that he opened the first volume to the section titled, "Gray Wolf, Canis lupus."

Remus' fingers tightened, wrinkling the page.

He looked around to see if anyone was about, then tugged his wand from his trouser pocket and

whispered, "Reparo," mending the book, replacing it on the shelf. A long sigh left him as he finished fixing the others and reorganized them. Another simple spell could have managed the lot but taking his time gave his mind something to focus on.

Working among Muggles proved more challenging than most wizards or witches would assume; Remus had been flitting about London from job to job for years and still struggled to consciously not use magic in their presence. That was why Muggle-borns usually decided on one life or the other, at least in his opinion. Magic became part of a person's life as essential as breathing or walking or talking, and the constant need to remember not to use it in the presence of certain people became grating.

He could find work easier in the Muggle world than in the Wizarding one, given his…affliction, but without GCSE marks or A levels, Remus could never qualify for anything well-paying or permanent. He'd been dismissed for sudden absences around the full moon more than once and couldn't work anywhere more technologically savvy than a pub. He assumed it was better than being chased from the village with pitchforks, though.

Remus finished up his shift and returned his apron and name tag to his locker in the backroom, exiting through the rear door into the tidy alleyway behind the store. He left Waterstones, walking toward Tottenham Court Road and Charing Cross beyond, savoring the summer warmth after spending the afternoon stuck in the artificial chill. He walked all the way to the Leaky Cauldron, pausing to chat with Myrl Cork, a Ravenclaw alum a few years his senior, and Tom, the bartender.

"Heard there's been a Black sighting out near Aylesbury," Tom said.

Myrl put down her pint. "Aye? When?"

"Sometime yesterday apparently. Calvin Hopkirk says he saw him clear as day, nicking robes from his clothesline."

"Calvin Hopkirk is full of shite and always has been."

"Mafalda went out to check herself and send someone definitely tripped the wards."

"That doesn't mean it was Sirius Black, though. Probably Calvin's daft neighbor or the bloody wind, for Merlin's sake…."

Remus excused himself and exited into the Alley proper through the moving wall. He took half a dozen steps before he had to stop again, his breath seizing in his lungs, something cold and painful dragging along his spine. The Ministry had plastered the whole of the English Wizarding quarter with wanted posters; this one was no different from the others, if perhaps positioned a bit higher, illuminated by a convenient lamp. It shouldn't have caught him off guard each time he passed it. Remus stared into the convict's hard, unflinching gray eyes and tried to breathe.

"Marly's pregnant!" A hand grasped his and squeezed. "D'you know what this means?! We're going to be par—!"

Jerking his gaze away, Remus forced his body to shuffle onward. His feet led him through the busy lane until he reached Knockturn, at which point he ducked into the looming warren and meandered until he reached the grubby outer estate bordering the quarter's outer edge. His flat resided above a dowdy pub that didn't actually have a name; Remus assumed it amassed there one night like bio- luminescent fungus attracting drunks moths and no one with any official power had thought to clear it out yet. The volume in the evenings could get rowdy, so the rent for the flat above came at an irresistible discount. Still, Remus wished they weren't quite so loud.

At the top of the steps, he caught sight of something leaning against his door—a copy of the evening Prophet. He bent on instinct to pick it up—then stopped, hand recoiling as if burnt, and straightened once more. Remus unlocked his door, disabled the wards, and stepped over the paper, leaving it on the mat to most likely be nicked by someone passing by. He didn't care.

His flat didn't reflect Remus' person very well; it didn't have a bookcase, a nice desk, or even a comfortable reading chair. It did have a decent enough kitchen, however, and Remus relaxed for the first time in hours when he took out his wand and freely started prepping himself a cup of tea. The tin rattled with the last few dregs of stale honeybush and he rubbed his scarred face, plopping onto a crooked chair by the little table. Remus told himself to get up and go buy some more but he didn't move from his spot. Instead, he leaned back in the chair and shut his eyes. Already thuds and voices echoed from the pub below and Remus listened to the noise, not bothering with a Silencing Charm. It never worked well or for very long.

Just as the first whispers of sleep started to tug at him, a knock came sounded on the door.

Remus frowned. He didn't live in the kind of place where one expected friendly visitors; typically it was the landlord—a rough gentleman from Koldovstoretz, and if a salesman popped by, he would more than likely be selling something dubious, like freshly harvested fingers or other anatomical…ingredients.

It could be the Ministry, Remus considered as he stood, wand in hand, and crossed to the door. He imagined someone, somewhere, would read the news and recall that tall, ragged boy who used to be best mates with that man. Really, Remus had expected them before now—but people had touchy memories, and despite his menacing visage, Remus was as forgettable as they came.

Taking a breath, he twisted the knob and cracked the door ajar. He nearly jumped from his shoes when he peeked out and found a familiar face watching him.

"H-Headmaster!" Remus sputtered in surprise.

"Good evening, Remus. It's a pleasure to see you again."

"W-what can I do for you, sir?"

"Hopefully an old wizard can beg your hospitality for a minute. This isn't a conversation to be had on the threshold."

"Yes, I'm terribly sorry. Where are my manners? Come in, come in."

Albus Dumbledore smiled, the corners of his blue eyes crinkling further, and came inside. He wore plain, russet-colored robes—a very understated choice for the wizard in Remus' opinion. Why was he there? When was the last time Remus had seen him—?

He choked, then swallowed and cleared his throat. He remembered now. The last time he'd laid eyes on the Headmaster, they'd been standing by a grave in Godric's Hollow on a crisp November morning in 1981 and the older wizard had kept his hand on Remus' arm to stop him from shaking into pieces. Professor McGonagall and Hagrid had been present, the latter weeping into an over- sized handkerchief. Snape of all people had been in attendance—well, Remus thought he had. There'd been so many funerals that year. So many.

He shook himself. "Would you care for something to drink, sir?

"Tea would be lovely, thank you."

Remus started toward the kitchen, then stopped. "Oh. I—I'm afraid I don't have any tea at the moment."

"Not a problem! I never go anywhere without my own." Dumbledore's wand appeared in his hand and he gave it a swish, conjuring up a porcelain pot and a kettle that hopped itself onto the hob, settling like a hen over her chicks. "Have a seat, Remus."

He sat, and Dumbledore did as well. As the older wizard returned his wand to his robes, Remus realized he'd been using his left hand and that the sleeve of his right appeared…empty. It fluttered with his movements, the arm inside clearly not in residence. What in the world? An accident, perhaps? He couldn't imagine the kind of accident that could take a man like Dumbledore unawares, but if he'd lost his arm, it had to have been a magical incident. An alchemical project gone wrong? A curse?

"I take it you've seen the news about Mr. Black?"

Remus realized he hadn't stopped staring at the sleeve and forced himself to look away. "…yes. Bit hard to miss."

"Of course. I must apologize for broaching the subject; I imagine it's difficult to discuss your old friend."

"Friend is a strong word, isn't it, professor? We just knew each other in school, that's all."

Headmaster Dumbledore pursed his lips and Remus shut his eyes, ashamed. The water came to a boil and Dumbledore served them each a cup of tea. Merlin, how it burned to lie like that, but it'd become all too common for Remus in the time that had passed since 81', the worst year of his life. Each time he came across an acquaintance he knew in school, they would ask, "Weren't you friends with Sirius Black?" and he would say, "No, you're mistaken." Or they would question, " Do you know whatever happened to Lily and James? Did they stay together? Did they leave the country?" And Remus would say, "No, I believe they died." They didn't ask as often as the years passed, and yet Remus still lied. I didn't know him. I didn't know him. We weren't friends. The Potters died.

He lived with the lies every day. He woke up and shouldered them like an old, hideous pair of robes, his own personal hairshirt, and pretended those years of friendship, war, and tragedy hadn't come to define his daily routine. Nobody really cared what had happened to the Potters. Anyone who thought of Hallowe'en in 1981 remembered only Voldemort and his defeat at the hands of the Longbottom boy. They didn't think of James or of Lily, and if anyone cared to consider Peter, they only shook their heads and muttered, "Poor Pettigrew. Such a tragedy."

They didn't think about those twelve Muggles lost in the blink of an eye. They didn't think about Peter's ailing mother, who couldn't handle the stress of her son's death. Remus was the only one who showed up for her funeral, and for Peter's. No one mourned that gray-eyed boy in a Gryffindor tie who died the moment he deceived everyone who had ever loved him; they immortalized the monster, made up stories, forgot all the good he'd ever done or ever pretended to do. Remus was cursed in more ways than one because he couldn't forget, though he pretended not to care, just like all the rest.

He pretended it didn't plague him still, and he prayed one day for his indifference to be true.

"Is that why you're here, professor?"

"What's that?"

"Are you here because you want to talk about…Black?" Remus didn't want to discuss Black. He never wanted to hear the name again, for as long as he lived.

"No, not explicitly, dear boy." Dumbledore poured a dash of cream and a heavy dollop of sugar into his cup. The conjured dishes crowded around him, eager to serve. "How are you these days, Remus?"

The younger man blinked at the non sequitur. This couldn't possibly be a social visit. "Well enough, I suppose. And yourself?"

"Oh, wonderful as could be. Though, I am a bit less handy these days." The Headmaster chuckled as Remus sucked tea down his air pipe and coughed. "Are you keeping yourself employed? It must be difficult with the Senior Undersecretary's new laws regarding werewolf registration."

Remus twitched at the mention of the word. "Yes, I've…opted to find work in the Muggle world."

"I must say that was a wise choice." Dumbledore set his cup down. "Ah, times are not rosy as others would have us think, my friend. The darkness is everywhere, even at Hogwarts. The students need brave, good hearts like yours, Remus."

"What do mean, professor?"

"Well, I'm here to offer you a job."

Remus' brow rose, stretching his scars. For a moment, he didn't know what to say. "A job?"

"Yes, a job. The post of History of Magic professor. Your NEWTs in the subject were exemplary and I believe you would have no difficulty teaching the subject. The previous professor has seen fit to abandon his post and shed this mortal coil. The Board has not been able to find their own candidate, leaving the position as mine to fill."

"That's—Professor, you couldn't possibly hire me. No one would want me near their children with my—condition. No matter the role."

"But you are not registered, are you, Remus?" The Headmaster peered over the rim of his half- moon spectacles. "Your condition, as you put it, would not need to be known by any but a select few members of staff."

"But it's not safe, sir. I'm—." A monster.

"It would be perfectly safe, I assure you. The current Potions Master is capable of brewing the Wolfsbane Potion. Have you heard of it? He would be—." Dumbledore blinked. "Amenable to producing it, should I ask. With proper administration and availability, you would not pose a threat to my students."

Remus' mouth went dry as the Headmaster spoke and he couldn't seem to unstick his tongue to respond. Of course he'd heard of the Wolfsbane Potion. He'd even tried a dose once, years ago, after applying for an experimental trial done by a budding Potioneer out of Exeter. It had been part of the man's mastery and, unfortunately, it hadn't fully worked as intended—but Remus could recall the sensation, the feel of his own mind slipping over that of the beast's, and it had been… indescribable. He would never be able to afford another dose. The ingredients alone could bankrupt a man, and that was without the cost of preparation and brewing.

"I—." Remus swallowed, his tone thready and weak. He wanted it. Merlin, how he wanted it; a career worthy of his skills, control over himself, a life outside dusty hovels and part-time Muggle

jobs. He couldn't. He couldn't. Everything he'd ever touched had died or gone to pot. "I would have to think about it."

Dumbledore nodded, then stood, dismissing his tea service—though Remus noticed the full tin remained on the counter. "Yes, of course. Think on it. I will need your answer soon though, so I do hope you'll owl within the week."

"Yes, Professor."

The older wizard turned to leave. Remus was staring at the table, so the sudden touch on his slumped shoulder startled him. "You are not a monster, Remus," Dumbledore said, his voice soft. It wasn't the first time Remus had wondered if he could read minds. "No matter the phase of the moon. There are far, far worse people out there."

"…thank you, Headmaster."

"You may call me Albus, you know." Dumbledore patted his shoulder. "Be sure to write."

The door opened, then closed. Distantly, Remus heard the faint 'pop!' of Disapparition and he released the shuddering breath held captive in his chest. Dumbledore hadn't stayed for more than half an hour, and yet he'd tipped Remus' world on its ear. A job. A chance.

Hogwarts. His heart swelled in his chest at the mere thought of the old castle, the green forest and the dark, rippling waters of the lake. Could he go back? Could he really return and not lose himself to the memories? No one remembered the Potters. No one remembered Sir—Black, or Peter. No one gave a thought to that wicked fire that took Marlene and E—.

Somebody had to remember, didn't they? Somebody had to remember so they wouldn't be lost forever.

He rose and stumbled into the bedroom, where he sat on the edge of his bed and, after a pause, gave in to the urge to open the nightstand's drawer. From inside, he pulled out a folded photograph, and with slow, careful movements, Remus opened it just enough to peer at the image of a small, black-haired toddler in her mother's arms.

He had already made his choice.

x X x

Not terribly far from that London flat, a black dog slunk through a darkened lane on his way to see his goddaughter.

He came to a stop behind a bin to wait for a dotty old bat in carpet slippers to trundle past. His nose scrunched as he watched her, the smell of cats almost as thick as the smell of rubbish coming off the bin. He waited, and when the woman's vague muttering dwindled, he darted out from his hiding place and hurried past Wisteria Walk along Magnolia Crescent, pausing only to circle and sniff a sign that read 'Privet Drive.'

It looked just as it did in Sirius' head—ridiculously Muggle and plain, with that itchy feeling all wizards and witches felt in the presence of too much electricity. He'd visited once more than a decade ago; Lily had been a few months pregnant and visiting her sister, for what reason, he couldn't recall. The details had long since gone fuzzy. He'd come roaring up the drive on his motorcycle to pick her up because she couldn't Apparate and James had been called off by the Aurory—he didn't know why. All he really remembered was Lily's sister, Petunia, and her horrified face upon spotting him loitering by their house. The bint had been gobsmacked as if he'd

stripped starkers and gone frolicking through her begonias.

Good times, he thought, panting. Good times.

Sirius padded up one walk and then another, sniffing plants and bushes, pretending he was an average stray minding his own business. He didn't rightly remember the number of the house but it hadn't been far from the corner…right? Things muddled themselves in his mind, bouncing about like pixies in a sack. He kept his nose down and sniffing, trying to find some hint of Harriet. Would he remember what she smelled like after all these years? Would she recognize Padfoot? Would he recognize her?

He trampled through the flowerbeds of Number Four, making a full circle of the garden before passing under the open den window. He stopped upon hearing a familiar, nasally voice.

"—matter, this is our home, and we won't have any of your sort in here!"

"Damn straight," echoed a louder male voice. "The wretched girl isn't even here! This nonsense with this Black fellow—."

Sirius peeked over the sill, unable to help himself. He recognized Petunia right off, and the fat bloke at her side had to be her husband—Vern? Bernie? Dursley. There were two others, though, that he hadn't thought to find; Emmie Vance and bloody Diggle, the wacky tosser! They'd been in the Order and both had been a pleasant sort, Diggle a bit too eccentric for even Sirius' taste, but pleasant all the same. They didn't appear pleasant at the moment, however. Both stared down the Dursleys like they'd spotted a nasty bug on the carpet.

"Whether or not Harriet is here is immaterial," Vance said, her tone cool enough to droop Sirius' tail. "You're related to her and Black knows she was sent to you."

Outside, Sirius huffed, breath fogging the glass. Oh, shite. She's not here?

"We're here for your family's protection, Mr. and Mrs. Dursley," Diggle squeaked.

The bloated Muggle hauled himself to his feet, his face gone red as a beet. "You listen here!" he thundered, pointing one sausage finger at Diggle, who stumbled and lost his garish top hat. "We don't need your sort coming round here, hanging on the bell at all hours—!"

Someone tossed out a Silencing Charm—sending both Muggles into hysterics—and Sirius decided it was time to leave. Disappointment weighed him down, but he stiffened his spine and set off at an easy lope, no one taking note of the great black dog running down the street. If Harriet wasn't here, then it was time to move on.

He had to get to Hogwarts.

A/N: Yay, Remus!

the burrow

cvii. the burrow

Harriet ran for her life.

She couldn't remember when she began running; from one moment to the next she became aware of her pumping arms, her straining legs, her sore feet. The corridor spiraled on before her like unraveled yarn. It was cold, her breath cutting and sharp as it filled her lungs, but a fire flickered outside the windows. Fire, and something else, something black and shapeless like a moonless night sweeping over the countryside, coming closer and closer and—.

Harriet ran. She ran while the stone walls twisted, the bookshelves buckled, splintered, frayed. She recognized the Aerie only in the vaguest sense; everything had gone wrong with it, the ceiling a teeming mass of eagle bones screaming and calling, "Harriet Potter, Harriet Potter, Harriet Potter—."

"Let me in," the voice cackled. Glass cracked behind her but Harriet didn't look. "Let me in, LET ME IN—."

She crashed into something heavy and solid, gasping aloud when her back landed on the floor. Weight wrapped around her, pinning her arms—coils, snake coils thicker than tree trunks squeezed the air from her chest. Harriet kicked her feet and tried to wriggle free to no avail. The shadow rose over her, higher and higher until it bowed its unnatural neck and stared at her with eyes like red, gaping maws rimmed in fangs instead of lashes.

"You are nothing," the voice hissed. The snake squeezed tighter and tighter still. " A worthlessss, forgotten girl, left to die in the rubble."

Harriet slammed her eyes shut and clawed at the coil wrapped around her neck.

"An insssignificant worm!"

It's not real, she told herself, holding her breath, her heart racing. It's not real—.

"LET ME IN!"

"No!" she shouted—and suddenly Harriet sat up, gasping, in the quiet of the Flamels' guest bedroom. She gulped in air and trembled, the blankets kicked down by her feet. How Elara managed to stay asleep next to her she'd never know. On the nightstand, Kevin and Rick curled about a gray brick Charmed to stay warm and Harriet knew Livi would be coiled somewhere underneath the bed, fast asleep. Moonlight stole through the window and the shadows parted the milky glow; Set formed on the wall and seemed to turn to Harriet, considering her. They observed one another for a long moment before he vanished again, leaving only the spindly outlines of tree branches shivering in the breeze.

Harriet extended one small hand to cast her own shadow and stared at the shape of her blurred fingers.

"Set," she whispered as her heart slowed. There was no answer.

As she'd grown older these last few years, Set had shown himself to Harriet less and less, appearing and disappearing at his own unknowable will, sometimes going before Harriet had the chance to realize he'd been there at all. Harriet didn't know how she felt about that. It seemed like Set had been with her forever, from her earliest memories in the cupboard, doing chores about the garden or the house, hiding in the loo from the mean girls and Dudley in primary. But now he faded more and more or acted less and less, replaced by real, physical people in Harriet's life, and it…scared and relieved her in equal measures.

It was frightening to let go of what she knew, but relieving to think she might be normal—or as normal as a girl like her could be. True, she hadn't done much research on Set, but Harriet had never heard of anything like him before in the Wizarding world and had never considered telling Elara or Hermione about him. She worried they'd think her mad or—possessed or something.

Another part of Harriet agonized over the idea that maybe she was possessed or she was mad.

The nightmare faded as they always did, chipped away piece by piece until all Harriet could remember was the terror and churning unease, the amorphous mass of an unknown entity hunting her in her mindscape. She twisted and dropped her legs over the bed's side, standing, and glanced once at Elara to ensure she remained asleep before slipping her feet into an untied pair of trainers, snatching up her glasses, and leaving the room.

No matter the time of day or night, the Flamel house was never really quiet. Not fully, at least. Harriet could always hear a popping or a humming sound coming from one of the rooms and the surrounding countryside echoed with sound from the village and the crash of ocean waves. During the day, Mr. Flamel made a lot of noise in his study and Perenelle chattered even if no one stopped to listen. Harriet liked it—she liked them, their home, and the whisper of magic they imbued in even the most mundane of things.

She tip-toed down the hall to the front door, pausing when the hinges creaked and complained. Harriet stepped out into the garden and shut the door behind her, but she didn't wander far. No, she stepped off the path, shuffling through the wet grass, and dropped her backside onto an iron bench set by a lurking hedge. The cold night air cut through her sweaty t-shirt and flannel pants and Harriet shivered, crossing her arms against her middle. The click of bones coming together gave her pause and she tugged out her necklace, settling the crow's skull in the palm of her hand.

She'd named it Hugh.

Harriet held Hugh up and ran her fingers against the cuts and grooves of the runes carved into the bone. They shone red, the crow gone off early in the evening with another letter bound for Hermione, but soon they'd be black once more.

Hinges creaked and she turned her head to see Mr. Flamel stepping outside, the wizard glancing about until he spotted Harriet on the bench and the stiffness went out of his shoulders. He still had on the clothes from the day prior and looked frumpier than he had earlier, which meant he'd definitely not gone to bed yet. His hair stuck up in all directions like Harriet's did when it was cut too short, and the shadow of his beard had grown from a suggestion to a thick outline. Harriet guessed he'd fallen asleep at his desk. Again.

"'Arriet, what are you doing out here?" Flamel asked.

"Sorry. I had a bad dream." She shrugged her skinny shoulders. "I just wanted to clear my head."

Mr. Flamel didn't reply, but he did leave the cottage and shut the door, coming out into the garden to sit next to Harriet on the bench. "Is it anything you wish to talk about?"

Again, Harriet shrugged. "I can't remember what happened. It's just—a feeling, y'know? I wake up and, I dunno, it makes me want to be sick."

Mr. Flamel studied her for a moment, his eyes flicking once toward her neck then away. "Ah, I know what it is you mean. You are taking Divination this term, oui?"

Puzzled by the question, Harriet nonetheless said, "Yeah. That and Care of Magical Creatures and Ancient Runes."

"All good choices. You should ask your Divination professor to teach you about lucid dreaming. It is something I 'ave no talent for, but it said to…help."

Harriet nodded and thanked him for the advice. She stared at her shoes, the laces limp as noodles in the dark, trodden grass, mud creeping up around the treads. Mr. Flamel looked toward the trees, lost in thought, leaning forward to rest his elbows upon his knees, his posture tired and relaxed. They enjoyed the quiet together for a time, until Mr. Flamel reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and pulled out a small vial.

The vial itself wasn't much to look at; Harriet was certain she had half a dozen just like it in her potions kit, the lid sealed with a simple cork, the glass thick and unlabeled. What the vial held made it truly remarkable, and Harriet gawked as she watched the small measure of red liquid gleam like crimson sunlight gilded in gold, seeming both solid and fluid at once, glittering in Mr. Flamel's rough palm. The wizard uncapped the vial and pressed his thumb to the lid, tipping it once so a single drop formed on his fingertip, looking like a smooth red pearl. Without care, Mr. Flamel pressed the thumb to his lips and licked it clean.

Harriet gazed at the vial, realizing what she was looking at. Fear swirled in her middle and bubbled like a bad potion.

There's so little left.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, and Mr. Flamel looked around as if he'd forgotten she was there. Harriet couldn't bring herself to look at him. In her head, she could still hear the crunch of the Mirror of Erised shattering, shards pinging off the stones as Quirrell fell amid the ruin. More than one life was lost that afternoon. "I'm sorry for what happened to the Stone. It was my fault—."

He raised his hand and cut off her apology with a wave. "Non. I have said before it was not your fault, Harriet. You cannot apologize for the evils of others."

Harriet had nothing to say to that. Mr. Flamel turned the vial in this hand so what little of the elixir lingered in the glass crawled up the sides and threatened to spill out. "It is okay. I have been alive a very long time, and what I 'ave learned best is that nothing is forever. I could remake the Stone—it is not as if I forgot how, oui? But I won't. Others would disagree, but I think it best such a thing is not brought back into this world and should instead remain lost. Mortality is a precious thing, petit oiseau. One day we all meet our end and it makes what time we 'ave all the more important. To deny death forever is to cheapen our lives and the people who make it special."

He replaced the cork and pushed it into place, sighing. "Perenelle and I 'ave lived for more than six hundred years. I do not believe most can conceive of it, the things we have seen, the way the world has changed. It is exaltant, and terrifying, but our families, our friends, they are all gone. We have lost everyone. I would not trade the memories I have made with zem for anything, but it…." Mr. Flamel shut his eyes. "It has been difficile. So difficult. It wears upon the heart to know those you come to love will go on without you one day. Immortality is not real, Harriet. If it was, I would pity the one cursed with it."

Harriet squeezed Hugh's skull and held it close. The vial disappeared back into Mr. Flamel's waistcoat, secreted away from the world once more. The wind came again, colder now, a subtle reminder that the summer would end soon. September was coming.

For once, Harriet didn't want to return to Hogwarts. At Privet Drive, school had been its own kind of torture, but it had provided sanctuary away from her aunt's sharp tongue and Uncle Vernon's threatening presence, and Hogwarts was—well, Hogwarts was home despite all the danger Harriet had and would continue to encounter there. Here though, in Trefhud, Harriet had experienced what it would be like to have a real family for the first time in her life.

She'd seen what it was like from the outside before, watching Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon and Dudley. A mother, a father, and a son doted upon at every turn. Harriet had never been doted on before. Mr. Flamel wasn't her dad and Perenelle wasn't her mum and yet…in her heart of hearts, she wished it could be true. The only mother and father she'd ever known resided six feet under and Harriet wanted to keep this for herself because next summer would be different. Black would be back in prison and she and Elara would go back to Grimmauld Place. Like a bubble doomed to burst, this interlude could not last.

It had almost been a month and September loomed. The days slipped through her fingers like loose sand on the beach, the final taste of childhood savored and now bound for memory. Time was inexorable, as Hermione would say. Harriet was no longer a child and even if she visited Trefhud again, things would not be the same. She would not be the same.

"Y'know, when I first learned about ghosts, I was…angry," she told Mr. Flamel.

"How so?"

"Because…because my mum and dad didn't come back to take care of me. When I learned they must've had a choice, I—. It was selfish, but I was upset. I didn't tell anybody, didn't even want to admit it to myself. How could they go on without me? I was angry, and Voldemort—he knew that. He used it against me, tried to tempt me, and I was tempted. Sometimes I'm afraid I'll be tempted again, but I know better now. I know nothing is forever."

"Oui. It is a thing you have learned too young, but oui."

It was grower colder, the night deeper and darker than before. The starlight felt so very far away.

Mr. Flamel straightened and stood. "This conversation is too serious for it being so late. Back to bed with you now, petit oiseau. Time to lay such weary thoughts aside. You need to be well-rested! We have dueling practice again tomorrow…."

x X x

It was decided that Harriet and Elara would not spend the last two days of the holiday with Mr. and Mrs. Flamel. Harriet didn't know who exactly made the decision—though she expected it had been a pooled consensus more than anything and had the ridiculous image in her head of the adults in her life sitting around a table casting ballots on her life. She knew she and Elara needed to visit Diagon Alley for their school supplies and couldn't go with the Flamels; visiting the Night Market was one thing, but skipping about the heart of the British Wizarding quarter with two world- renowned alchemists in tow wouldn't be prudent for either of them.

Harriet knew that, but she didn't have to like it.

Their possessions were packed back in their trunks, clothes cleaned and folded, mud Vanished from the bottom of their shoes. Cygnus returned to his cage and Harriet made her snakes comfortable in their terrarium, though Livius remained displeased, the Horned Serpent not keen on leaving the prey-rich forest surrounding the seaside village. Item by item and inch by inch, they retracted their presence from the cottage until the guest room looked just as it did before, as if they'd never been there at all.

The Flamels Apparated the two witches to a small road not terribly far from Trefhud, to another part of Devon near a Muggle village called Ottery St. Catchpole. It was outside any magical community and Harriet could spy powerline poles popping up over the swaying fields and woods. The house itself was definitely magical, made of a hodgepodge of rooms stacked atop each other at impossible angles, leaning a bit too far to the left, chickens scratching about the garden, pecking at dry earth. Harriet could hear the wireless playing through an open window.

"Here we are," Mr. Flamel said, glancing over the house—'The Burrow,' as a crooked sign on the gate proclaimed it to be. Elara shared Harriet's dubious look and they both grimaced—not because of the house, but rather the idea of having to leave the Flamels and spend two days with near- strangers instead. Harriet didn't know any of the Weasleys outside of Ginny; she and Ron weren't friends, she'd shared maybe a handful of words with the twins, and Ginny had told her Percy Weasley had been made Head Boy, which meant he was going to be a right pain in the arse for Slytherin House next term. Harriet like meeting new people well-enough but Elara disliked strangers and had been more moody than usual since the Flamels told them of their early departure.

The Flamels pulled them into a hug a piece, Harriet wrinkling her nose when Perenelle kissed both her cheeks. Both alchemists held on tight and seemed reluctant to let go, though that could have been Harriet's imagination. "Keep up with your letters, oui?" Mr. Flamel told her, a warm hand on her shoulder. "Write if you need anything. Stay safe—that goes for the both of you."

Harriet and Elara muttered their acquiescence and, at the Flamels' insistence, they passed through the garden gate and started toward the house's door. Harriet stepped onto the porch and looked back; standing together, the Flamels waved and, after a moment of hesitation, Disapparated into thin air.

Elara stopped on the first step and glared at a chicken. Harry felt sorry for the poor bird.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Elara replied, her tone rather short, her face a bit green from traveling. "I'm just annoyed at being handed off like luggage and taken in out of pity."

"It's not pity." Harriet paused because she couldn't be sure it wasn't pity, really. "Err, well. It's not forever. Just until Black's captured, and then you'll be safe again and we can go back to Grimmauld."

Elara closed her eyes and, for half a second, Harriet thought she saw a flash of pain cross her face. "Let's just get inside."

"…Okay."

Harriet rapped her knuckles against the door. A moment later it opened, revealing an older, red- headed witch on the other side. She wore an apron over her patched robes and flour smudged her plump cheek.

"Oh, you must be Harriet and Elara! The Headmaster said you'd be here this morning, but I didn't think you'd be this early. Come in, come in!"

The witch waved them inside and Harriet stepped into a warm kitchen smelling of cooked bread and bacon, the skillet and spatula on the hob Charmed to move on their own, the announcer on the wireless chatting on about the expected weather. It actually reminded Harriet quite a bit of the Flamels' house, except where the items there exuded mystique and whismy, the Weasley house had a practical feel to it, everything in its place and with its own purpose. An empty owl perch waited by the open window, a bunch of lettered jumpers hung on the line outside. A book of household Charms lay open on the cluttered counter.

"You can put your owl here if you'd like, dear. We're not expecting Errol back until later." The witch took a tea towel from the table to wipe her hands.

As Elara let Cygnus out of his cage, Harriet said, "Thank you for having us, Mrs. Weasley."

"You're most welcome! Call me Molly, if you'd like. Now, tell me if I have this right—." She pointed first at Harriet, then Elara. "You're Harriet, yes? And you're Elara?"

They nodded.

"Excellent. You're just as Ginny described. She and the others should be down soon enough. Breakfast won't be ready for a bit, but if you're peckish, I can whip something up?"

"Err, I think we're fine—?"

"Or maybe just a snack? Have a seat, let me get tea started…."

All too soon, they found themselves seated at the table with tea, biscuits, and juice, begging off the helping of pancakes Mrs. Weasley tried to press on them before she resumed her station in the kitchen. A few minutes later, stairs creaked somewhere in the house and a wizard passed through the swinging door, thinner and taller than Mrs. Weasley, his red-hair thinning at the crown of his head. Mr. Weasley spotted them right off and started, surprised by their presence. Mrs. Weasley came to his rescue.

"This is Harriet and Elara, Arthur. Ginny's friends. This is my husband, Arthur."

"Right! I'd forgotten Albus said you'd be staying with us for a few days." Mr. Weasley shook their hands, his puzzled expression replaced with a welcoming one. "Nice to meet you both. Having a lovely summer? Just the tea, Molls, I've got to be off soon…."

Mr. Weasley joined them at the table with his own cuppa, asking after their holiday while Harriet skirted the details on where they'd been exactly and instead asked about Mr. Weasley's work, which was apparently at the Ministry and involved something with cursed Muggle artifacts. "Magic makes Muggle objects go wonky, you see?" he explained. "Something about the exposure to a new element, but they go over that more at Hogwarts. Do you know anything about Muggles…?"

They conversed for a while, avoiding the proverbial elephant in the room that was Sirius Black's daughter spreading butter on a hot crumpet. Harriet wondered if the Weasleys knew who Elara was, but she decided they must, if only because Professor Dumbledore would want them to be wary in case Elara's dad came looking for her. Not that he will, she reminded herself. He can't know she's here at the Burrow, after all.

Ginny was the first of the children to come rattling down the steps and she hugged both Harriet and

Elara, exclaiming happily about them visiting. Next came the twins, Fred and George, who grinned in mirrored mischievousness.

"Oi, mum, there's a pair of snakes at the table!"

"Never a good sign to have snakes in the house, is it, George?"

"Never."

"Boys," Mr. Weasley said with a warning look in his eye. "Be polite."

"Yeah," Ginny piped up. "Stop being berks."

"Ginny! Watch your language!"

Next came Ronald and, to Harriet's displeasure, Neville Longbottom, who had the good sense not to say anything about their presence because Harriet thought Elara might chuck her hot tea in the prat's face if he did. Percy was the last to arrive, strutting about with a shiny Head Boy badge pinned to the front of his pajamas—though strutting was a strong word, considering how crowded the kitchen had become in a matter of minutes. Plates of food had to be passed around the table, extra chairs conjured, pitchers of milk, pumpkin juice, and coffee making their rounds.

Harriet already missed Trefhud but this was…surprisingly nice. Comfortable. The Weasleys were kinder than she'd expected them to be.

Mr. Wealsey went off to work, Disapparating from the road like the Flamels had. Mrs. Weasley rebuffed Harriet's offer to help with the dishes and Ginny instead showed them about the house, chatting about her summer abroad in Egypt. "We just got back a few days ago," she said, flipping her long hair back over her shoulder. "That's why Ron still looks like a tomato. It was fun, but Mum wouldn't let me go see the ancient Wizarding tombs even with Bill there. Oh, Bill's my oldest brother—he's a Curse-Breaker for Gringotts. Have I told you that before? No? He gets to see all sorts of things. Anyway, I'm excited to visit Diagon tomorrow. Luna said she should be able to meet us there, if her dad ever lets her out of the bloody house again. Have you heard from Hermione? Will she be there as well…?"

Ginny finished the tour by showing off her own room on the upper floor, two extra camp beds already set up and waiting. Harriet and Elara took their shrunken trunks from their pockets and resized them, which immediately took up what remaining space could be found. They split ways from there, Elara deciding on a nap while Harriet went outside with Ginny to help her feed the chickens. They spotted Neville and Ron in the garden taking care of the gnomes, and when Fred and George came out, they all begged off their chores and headed into the neighboring orchard, behind which resided a small, makeshift Quidditch pitch.

Harriet didn't have her Nimbus—because it technically wasn't her Nimbus—so she took turns with the rest of the Weasleys on their rickety Cleansweeps. Neville had his Nimbus Two-Thousand but left it aside, given how it outstripped the others too much and the pitch didn't have much room to maneuver around. Hovering at the tops of the trees, Harriet could glimpse the roofs of the Muggle village waiting much too close for them to get careless.

The afternoon wore on as the Weasleys, Longbottom, and Harriet played pick-up matches of three- on-three teams, two Chasers and a Keeper each, no Beaters or Seekers. It was fun to forget about the first of the month coming upon them in just two days, and no one said a word about Sirius Black, which Harriet appreciated. They ate cheese sandwiches at lunch sitting in the tall, browning grass, and they only came in for supper when Mrs. Weasley herself came from the house and

waved them down. Elara had spent the afternoon debating the efficacy of astrological predictions with Percy and both bore the twins' resulting teasing with ill-suited grace. Mr. Weasley returned just as Mrs. Weasley dished out the food—bowls of a tasty beef stew—and they all tucked in.

It was later, after she'd washed and readied for bed, that Harriet chanced a look into her trunk to feed and check on the snakes.

"Ginny's in the lavatory," Elara mumbled from where she'd stretched out on her bed, reading a letter from her solicitor. "You won't get another opportunity tonight."

"Yeah." Harriet undid the latch for the proper compartment and lifted the lid, poking her head inside to look down into the illuminated depths. She'd positioned the terrarium at the bottom of the ladder so she needn't go inside to see her familiar—but when Harriet glanced downward, all she spotted was an empty glass box of sand and stones and a lone teacup.

"Livi?' she said, holding the trunk's edge so she could stick her head inside. "Livius?"

Rick and Kevin stirred from their cup, raising their little heads to peer curiously at Harriet hanging above them.

"Where's Livi?"

"Gone," Rick reported.

Harriet choked. "What do you mean 'gone'?!"

"The big one isss not here, Misstresss," Kevin added, swaying. "He doesss not like the box."

"Doesss not like it at all, Misstresss."

"Hasss gone exploring."

Harriet snapped the lid shut and began to panic. "Livius!" she hissed. Elara lowered her letter.

"What is it?"

"That great bloody arse of a snake got out somehow!" she said, rushing over to Ginny's bed to check underneath of it, riffling through the knitted blankets. "Oh, shite! If one of the Weasleys find him—."

"He did manage to escape the Menagerie," Elara pointed out. She left Harriet to her searching. "It was only a matter of time before he got out of the trunk. That and he can become invisible."

"Yes, I know that!" Harriet rushed to the door and popped it open, peeking into the dim hallway. "Livius, get back here!"

Her familiar didn't answer, but when she managed to take a breath and calm her pounding heart, Harriet thought she heard the softest whisper of scales scraping wood—the sound coming from somewhere above her. "Livi? Livi, I swear I'm going to take you back to the bloody store one of these days—."

Harriet hurried up the stairs, walking as silently as she could past the shut doors leading into the Weasleys' rooms. Some of the steps creaked and she felt certain someone would come out at any second and find her sneaking about like a thief or a creep, but thankfully her luck held until she neared the top floor. She walked by a loo door, the water running inside, just in time see a familiar

tail—a familiar, visible tail—slipping into an open room.

Merlin, whose room is that again? I hope it's not Mrs. Weasley's. Livi's going to give that poor woman a heart attack.

"Potter?"

"Ah!"

Harriet almost jumped out of her skin when Longbottom spoke from behind her, the Gryffindor standing on the landing by the shut loo door carrying what looked like a stack of freshly cleaned laundry. He took in Harriet's pale, startled complexion and narrowed his eyes. "…What are you doing?"

"Nothing."

"It doesn't look like nothing."

Harriet scowled. "Mind your own business, Longbottom."

"It is my business when you're standing outside my room like a sweaty stalker."

"You'd know all about stalking, wouldn't you?" she quipped, fighting the color rising in her cheeks. "You sure got your fill of it last term—."

From inside the room came a sudden, panicked squeaking and low hiss. Harriet lurched away from Longbottom and rushed inside, almost tripping on the top step, and found her Horned Serpent by one of the two beds inspecting a glass fishbowl. The bowl didn't hold a fish, but rather a fat brown rat now scurrying for its life as the looming reptile watched, his blue eyes wide and gleaming in the lantern light. In a way, Harriet was lucky it was Longbottom who'd caught her searching, since he at least knew about Livius after seeing him in the Aerie.

"Bloody hell, Potter! What's your familiar doing in here?!"

"Livius!"

"Misstresss," the snake finally acknowledged.

"What have I said about eating other peoples' pets?!"

"I wasss not eating," he said, forked tongue flickering. The rat hadn't stopped circling and squeaked all the louder when Livi nosed the glass, but it stopped upon seeing Harriet. "I would not eatsss it. Sss…the prey sssmellsss…wrong."

"You're not supposed to leave the trunk while we're here! You're gonna get me in so much trouble…." Harriet picked up his tail and gathered the serpent up like a heavy coil of unwound rope. Neville watched from the doorway, torn between irritation and frank terror as the small witch hefted a large, venomous creature into her arms like an errant puppy. Livi, for his part, went without complaint, though he never stopped watching the rat. "Listen, Longbottom. I, uhm, sorry about this, he's really quite well-behaved normally…."

"Just get it out of here before Ron gets back. Merlin!"

Harriet did as he said, chastising her familiar as she went. Neither she nor Longbottom gave much thought to the rat—but the rat gave much thought to her. Beady little eyes watched the girl

disappear to the landing and the darkened stairs beyond, watching until she faded from sight.

His nose twitched in curiosity.

A/N: A few people mentioned Dumbledore is awful for not telling Remus about Elara, but I have to ask: why would he? Dumbledore doesn't know everything about everyone's personal lives. The story looks at and explores the dynamic of the Sirius-Remus-Elara Depression Triangle and I don't want to give it all away, so I'll just say Dumbledore doesn't know that Elara would mean anything to Remus; if anything, he probably expects Remus would hate her if he knew she was Sirius' kid and is protecting Elara by not telling him.

mischief maker

cviii. mischief maker

It took only ten minutes for the morning to descend into chaos.

Harriet woke early as she usually did and went about getting herself ready for the day, squeezing around the extra beds in Ginny's room to get her clothes and find the loo. Once clean and passably presentable, she dithered on the dim landing until she decided to head down to the kitchen. Mrs. Weasley joined her there only a few moments later, taking over the tea preparation, shooing Harriet off to have a seat at the table. Then, Mrs. Weasley started waking up the house.

They were set to go to Diagon Alley that day and, according to Molly, spend the evening at the Leaky Cauldron so they could make it to the station tomorrow in a timely—and safe—manner. The Weasleys descended to the kitchen in a loud, braying mass of tired complaints and clumsy stumbling after Mrs. Weasley went and banged on more than a few doors. Breakfast got underway and trunks came whizzing down the stairs—but Ron and Neville hadn't finished packing, so they had to run back up, and then Ginny misplaced her trainers and those had to be summoned—and then Cygnus frightened the Weasley owl, Errol, so badly, the elderly bird flopped over face-first into the porridge and left a mess of molted feathers behind.

All in all, Harriet found it a relief to escape into the garden after cleaning her dishes.

"Hey, Potter! Got a second?"

She glanced over from the hedge to see Fred and George dropping their trunks with Percy's by the gate. She thought the one who'd called her name might be George, but she wasn't certain. "Yeah?"

"There's a rumor goin' round about you," George said as he and his brother wandered over to her.

The hair on the back of her neck prickled. Uh-oh. "Err—what're you on about?"

"Word is you can get through those Moon Mirrors like ol' Snape can."

"Oh." Harriet let out a relieved breath. She'd worried they knew about her talking to snakes—or any of the other numerous secrets she wasn't supposed to let others know about. Sometimes all the lies got muddled. "I mean—I don't know what you mean."

Fred propped his arm on her shoulder and leaned on it. Harriet had a feeling she wouldn't like what he had to say. "See, that's not what we heard. Is it, George?"

"Not at all, Freddie."

"We heard you have a bit of a…snakey talent—."

"A talent of the linguistic sort—."

"That lets you get through."

Harriet gaped—and, all at once, heat rushed into her face. "I'll kill Longbottom," she seethed, fully intending to march right back into the house and hex the blighter. What was he thinking?! In

hindsight, she probably should have feigned ignorance and told the twins she didn't understand what they meant—but even if it wasn't true, they'd undoubtedly believe Neville over her!

"Oh, don't go cursing poor Neville," Fred told her.

"Because we heard it from Ronnikins."

"Ron?!"

"Who, on further thought, probably did hear it from Neville in the first place, I reckon."

Groaning, pure dread sunk through Harriet like a stone in water as she imagined the repercussions of this rumor getting out. Well, Snape would probably murder her whether or not it was her fault and Dumbledore would be disappointed—which was somehow worse. If Slytherin found out…. "You can't tell anybody," she said, deciding to ditch ignorance and emphasize the severity of the situation. "I'm serious. Longbottom wasn't supposed to go telling Ron anything!"

"Well, what are you willing to give us to stay quiet, eh?"

Again, heat blazed in Harriet's face and prickled along her neck. Bloody Gryffindors! "I'm not giving you shite!" she snapped. "I'll just go tell Snape and he'll Obliviate you both! So, bully for you!"

Fred lifted his arm off her shoulder and held up both his hands. "Whoa, hang about! We were just having a laugh!"

"Didn't mean anything by it! No need to turn us into the Dungeon Bat."

"We actually wanted to propose a trade, if you're interested." George reached into the front pocket of his jumper and pulled out a folded bit of parchment, the color of it off with age, the edges softened and a bit tattered.

Harriet narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms, still peeved. "What's this, then? A spare bit of parchment?"

Fred tutted under his breath as he withdrew his wand from his trousers. "Hear that, George? 'A spare bit of parchment!' Come on, Potter, have you no faith in us at all? I'm shocked."

"Shocked and wounded, Freddie."

"Shocked and wounded." Fred held his wand over the parchment and said, "I solemnly swear I am up to no good!" before giving it a sharp tap.

Harriet couldn't help but lean in closer as smudges of black ink appeared on the paper and spiraled outward, forming letters and shapes. "'Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs, Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers, are proud to present the Marauder's Map.' The Marauder's Map? What's this?"

"You're in for a treat!"

"And it's a secret, too! If that makes you feel better."

"We haven't shown it to anyone. Just you, our favorite Slytherin."

"You're our favorite because you beat up Ronnikins."

"I didn't—." Harriet huffed. "Just tell me what it is."

"Right you are." George pressed the parchment into Harriet's hands and she realized it was thicker than she originally thought, folded into numerous flaps and creases, the ink sprawled over the flat surfaces seeming to teem under her fingertips. After a moment of inspection, she let out a soft breath of surprise.

"That's the Transfiguration corridor," Harriet said. "This is a map of Hogwarts."

"Yup," Fred replied, popping the last letter.

"D'you two make this?"

"Nah." George wore a toothy grin as he admitted, "Nicked it in our first year out of Filch's office. Dropped a load of Dungbombs and pulled it from a drawer. It took a bit of finesse to figure out how it works—but oh, was it worth the effort. You're missing the best part. Here—it's hard to tell, given school hasn't started yet, but look." He reached out and folded a few flaps about, stopping when he found what he was looking for. Harriet had to squint slightly to see a pair of footprints in a room labeled, 'Staff Lounge.' Above the footprints hovered a tiny unfurled banner, and in the banner was the name, 'Minerva McGonagall.'

"Wait, wait," Harriet sputtered. "Does this map actually tell you where people are in the castle, too?"

"Yup!"

"That's wicked." She paused. "A bit creepy, too, if I'm being honest."

Fred and George wore mirrored chagrined expressions. "Well, it can be, I guess," Fred admitted. "But me and George here never used it to watch or—stalk anyone." The mention of stalking pricked Harriet's nerves, her mind flashing back to all those times she spotted Longbottom lurking in the corner of her eye, following her from class to class. "Like the title there says, we use it to help make a spot of mischief."

Harriet hummed, neither agreeing nor disagreeing as she continued to inspect the map. She spotted Headmaster Dumbledore and Professor Flitwick in the Charms classroom, and on the fifth floor there seemed to be a meeting going on with a bunch of people she didn't know. Board members, maybe? "Does this really have everywhere at Hogwarts on it?"

"We thought so, originally. It does have most everything, yeah—."

"Loads of secret passages in and out of school, tons of rooms we'd have never seen otherwise—."

"But there's also loads that it doesn't have, which is why we've come to you…."

Harriet wasn't listening. Blood fled her head, leaving her ghastly pale, her ears roaring as if she'd done one too many loops on her broom. She'd turned a flap and found a name she never wanted to see again. "Why…." She swallowed, her tongue dry and tacky. "Why does it say Tom Riddle?"

Fred and George peered at the map. "Oh, that's Slytherin, in his office. It always says that—see, we either think that's his real name—." Fred snorted. "—or the Map's a bit dodgy. It's old, innit? Charms can get iffy as they age. A couple of times we've seen names that aren't right—or it's shown people who're—well—dead and not there."

Harriet swallowed again, blinking, trying to shake her sudden shock. Tom Riddle. Headmaster

Dumbledore told her Professor Slytherin and Gaunt and—and him, the Diadem, were all the same person, but also not, all of them some kind of magical copy of one another with disparate identities and goals. Harriet still didn't understand, but seeing the man's name on the map chilled her to her core. She felt cold despite the sunshine. "I, uh…what d'you want with me? Why show me this?"

"We want to trade." George slipped the map from her clammy hands and Fred gave it another tap with his wand, saying, "Mischief Managed!" The ink dissolved back into the parchment. "We've had the map for years, you see, so we've got most of it memorized. It'd be difficult for us to let go —but what we're really keen on is those Moon Mirrors."

Tearing her eyes away from the blank map, Harriet looked up at two fifth-years. "But you can't use them."

"We could if you taught us. Ron said all you had to do was tell them to open in Parseltongue. We should be able to mimic it, right?"

Her brow lowered. "How much did bloody Longbottom—? Never mind. It's not that easy. I don't know if I could teach you how to open them, and I haven't had much of a chance to explore the passages. There's no telling where they go."

"Well, the offer's on the table." Fred shrugged. "If you map out the Mirrors and tell us how to use them, we'll trade the Marauder's Map."

Harriet glanced at the pocket the map had disappeared into. It would be awful handy to have that. Come to think of it, it'd be fantastic to have a map of the Moon Mirrors, too. Harriet kicked herself for not thinking of it first. How'd that map get made? It's dead useful. I bet Hermione would know. "…I'll think about it."

"Excellent."

A window clattered open and a frazzled redhead popped outside. "Fred! George!" Mrs. Weasley shouted. "You get back in here and clean up your mess this instant!"

The twins glanced at one another and George waggled his brows. "We might've lit a few of Filibuster's Best Sparklers in our room."

"All in the name of creativity! And some experimenting."

"Might've singed the ceiling a bit, though."

"Just a bit."

Smirking, the twins loped back inside, leaving Harriet standing flustered by the hedge, wondering if she needed to tell the Headmaster about Fred and George. If they'd kept the Marauder's Map a secret for so long, maybe she didn't need to worry they'd blab about her being a Parselmouth—but she still had half a mind to punch Longbottom right in the gob. Where in the hell did he get off?

Two dark green cars rolled to a stop beyond the gate and Harriet would have been alarmed if she hadn't seen the familiar golden 'M' emblazoned on their doors. She didn't know what kind of cars they were—only that they were large with sharp angles, nicer than Uncle Vernon's company car had been. A wizard and a witch in maroon robes stepped out of the cars and Harriet recognized the former, though she didn't know why Neville's dad would be here.

It must be because of Sirius Black, she thought, approaching the gate. So the Ministry will send cars and Aurors for the Prat Who Lived but only loans out Lockhart when a deadly serpent's on

the loose?

"Hello!" Mr. Longbottom greeted with a welcoming smile. The resemblance to Neville couldn't be mistaken; they had the same ears and soft jawline, though Mr. Longbottom appeared more genial than his son. He studied Harriet, his eyes lingering on the scarring peeking above her collar. "You must be Harriet."

"Yes, sir."

"I'm Neville's dad—oh, and also part of the escort taking you lot to Diagon Alley today. It's nice to meet you!"

"It's nice to meet you too."

The Weasleys dribbled out of the house one by one, hurried on by their mother. Elara was the last to step over the threshold, looking tired and a bit short-tempered, carrying Cygnus' cage under one arm. Harriet sidled into the second car with the lady Auror and the Ministry driver, joined by Elara, Ginny, Percy, and Mr. Weasley. Elara commented on the oddity of the Ministry of Magic keeping Muggle cars—but, of course, the car hardly qualified as Muggle anymore. The backseat sat five comfortably, and the engine turned over only when the driver gave the dashboard a solid thunk with his wand. Harriet wondered if there even was an engine in there.

The journey to the Leaky Cauldron took a few hours, during which Harriet chatted with Ginny or flipped through a book on useful Charms. They settled into their rooms once they arrived, then met up in the pub before heading out into the Alley proper.

"You lot will need chaperones if we're splitting off," Mr. Weasley said, standing just outside the brick archway. Collective groans escaped the group. "Now, now. It's important we stick together. Neville, Ron, you're with Frank. Fred and George, you're with Percy—."

"Oi, what's he going to do if we're in danger?"

"Flash his Big-Head Boy badge at it—?"

"Harriet, Elara, Ginny," Mr. Weasley continued, ignoring the twins. "Stick with Auror Hopswitch."

The blond witch they'd taken the car with gave a friendly, if firm, nod of her head that Harriet returned, feeling awkward. Really, she didn't understand the need for chaperones in a place like Diagon Alley; she'd tromped over half the United Kingdom on her own at eleven and, for the most part, got on just fine. The continued restriction to her movements chaffed—and yet Harriet kept her mouth shut because if Black decided to show up, she wanted Elara to be safe.

They found Luna loitering outside of Florean Fortescue's, enjoying a fig flavored scoop of sherbet as she hummed along to the wireless. "Daddy's at Wiseacre's," she informed them as she hopped off the iron fence separating the patio from the path. She wore a pair of hoop earrings with what looked like stuffed canaries perched inside. "But I told him you'd be here soon enough. Hello!"

From there, they popped by Wiseacre's Wizarding Equipment to see Mr. Lovegood—who shook Harriet's hand like a man trying to strangle a chicken—then hurried on to Gringotts. Hermione was there with the Malfoys, Mr. Malfoy meeting with an account manager or something—Harriet didn't much care where he went off to, so long as she didn't have to see him—and Draco stood deep in conversation with Goyle and Crabbe. Mrs. Malfoy pursed her lips when they asked if Hermione could come with them and Harriet thought she'd say no—until her gray eyes swept over

the Auror. She agreed, so long as Hermione returned to the bank before they left for home.

"Oh, I've missed you both terribly," Hermione exclaimed once they'd come outside onto the marble steps. She hugged Harriet and Elara, squeezing tight. "Draco's been driving me spare these last few days. Hello, Luna! Ginny! How have your summers been? Have you finished all your homework?"

"Good enough, I suppose."

"Just lovely, Hermione, thanks."

Hermione looked at the older witch. "And, um…?"

"Auror Hopswitch."

"A pleasure to meet you. I'm Hermione Granger."

The witches made quick work of buying the things they needed for school. Hermione had the lists for both third and second years memorized and Harriet knew the layout of Diagon Alley better than most people, so they didn't get lost or turned around on their way. Hermione asked Ginny dozens of questions concerning Egypt, and Luna chattered on about astrology with Elara—who didn't chatter so much as respond with "Mmm" and "Ah" in the appropriate places. The group had to drag Harriet away from Quality Quidditch Supplies when she stopped to stare at the Firebolt displayed in the window again. They happened upon Gilderoy Lockhart outside Obscurus Books— his publisher—and the wizard bought them all lunch at the nearest cafe just so he could talk Harriet's ear off about his latest story idea.

"A quartet of singing trolls. Ballerinas! No? Swimming hippogriffs and a pygmy giant rider racing kelpies to his inevitable doom! No…? Well, how about this…."

Harriet imagined she'd have half a dozen owls from him by the time she reached Hogwarts tomorrow.

"Where else do you lot want to go?" she asked as they left Flourish and Blotts, their school books shrunken and tucked away in their pockets. The afternoon had worn thin during their time inside the shop and soon they'd have to head their separate ways. "I think we can make it to one more place."

"Well…." Hermione said, fidgeting with the front of her blouse. "I asked the Malfoys if I could get a familiar and they agreed. I say asked, but badgered would be a better word for it, really."

"That's brilliant," Harriet laughed. "What were you thinking about getting?"

"An owl, maybe. Or a toad would be nice."

"A toad?" Elara wrinkled her nose and scoffed.

"The secretions from some breeds have exceptional magical value!"

"It's still gross, Hermione."

The pair continued their bickering until they reached the Magical Menagerie—which Harriet entered with a feeling of profound guilt, anxious sweat warming her palms. Missing posters still speckled the windows.

"You needn't be so nervous," Luna said, speaking too loud for Harriet's comfort. "No one would recognize your snake as the one that went missing, you know."

"Shh! Bloody hell, Luna…."

Her nerves took a further beating when they came upon Neville and Ron haggling with the shop keeper by the main register. Neville had a glamor on that tweaked his features just enough to make him unrecognizable, and his dad hung back by the entrance, half-hidden behind an open Daily Prophet bearing yet another reprint of Sirius Black's mugshot. Elara's eye ticked every time she saw it and she purposefully turned away.

"Potter," Longbottom acknowledged.

"Prat," she replied. He snorted.

"It's a real shame about that snake, isn't it?" he said with a short, jerky nod to the wall behind the counter. One of the posters had been tacked up there, the print beginning to fade from age. "The reward for information is quite tempting…."

"It's going to be a real shame when someone uses a Permanent Sticking Charm to seal your mouth shut. It'd probably be an improvement, though."

"—That's bloody robbery!"

Ron had been the one to speak, and the clerk—the same mustachioed wizard who once told Harriet off for looking at Livius in his tank—scowled. He had a little bottle in his wizened hand, and Harriet noticed for the first time that Ron had laid his rat out of the counter between them.

"What's wrong with his familiar?" she asked Longbottom. It didn't have anything to do with Livi, did it? Did her snake actually manage to scare the poor thing to death?

"Dunno," Neville said, shrugging one shoulder. "I guess Scabbers has been off since they came back from Egypt. Honestly, the trip was probably a bit much for him."

"Oh." Harriet looked again at the creature, its fur patchy and lackluster. She didn't much care for rats—she fed enough of them to her snake, after all, and dismembered them in Potions for ingredients when the recipe called for it. Still, she sympathized with Weasley worrying over his familiar. She'd be heartbroken if anything happened to one of her snakes.

A flash of orange barreled toward them from one of the upper shelves, and Ron let out a howl as a huge ginger cat landed on his head. It made a go for the rat—Scabbers—and the rodent squealed in terror.

"No, Crookshanks!" the clerk cried, grabbing the bandy-legged feline. "Bad!"

Neville dove for the rat as it leapt from the counter, but it was Harriet who managed to catch Scabbers, snagging him mid-jump. It turned beady little black eyes on her and stared, thrashing in her hand. Its nose twitched.

Meanwhile, the cat hadn't given up the hunt quite yet, and only the clerk's strangling grip around its middle kept the feline from leaping at Harriet. The bespectacled witch thought it best for all parties involved if she went outside, Longbottom and Ron following behind her.

"Scabbers!" Weasley said, relief in his voice as he accepted the wriggling rat from Harriet. "Are you all right?! Thanks for the help, Potter."

"No problem." She wiped her hand off on her robes. "I'm sorry your familiar's not feeling well."

"He just got a bit too much sun is all!" Ron tucked the quivering rodent into the front pocket of his shirt. Longbottom and Harriet shared a glance and a rare moment of understanding, because Scabbers looked more than a bit fatigued by too much sun. How long did rats live? And how long had Ron had it? "And the bastard wants three Galleons for rat tonic! Three! I bet there's nothing in the stupid bottle other than water and bloody fairy farts!"

The door opened, the bell clanging above the sill, and out came the remainder of Harriet's group— including Hermione, now cradling the ugliest ginger fur ball Harriet had ever laid eyes on.

"Did you buy that thing?!" Ron sputtered as he clutched his hands over his shirt pocket, covering the lump. "It's a menace!"

"I think he's quite clever. Isn't that right, Crookshanks?" Hermione ran her fingers through the cat's thick coat and it purred, its face squashed as if it'd collided with a brick wall at considerable speed, its fur sprouting like a lion's mane around its thick neck. "The clerk said he's been there for ages and no one would adopt him. Poor baby. I couldn't leave him behind after hearing that."

"Poor—?! That thing has it out for Scabbers! You keep it away from me, Granger!"

Hermione rolled her eyes and didn't give Ron another thought. Crookshanks certainly did, because it—he—didn't let his yellow eyes waver from Weasley for a second, not until Ron had all but sprinted away. Aggravated, Neville was quick to get his dad and go after the berk.

"It's not Crookshanks' fault he wanted to eat that yummy rat, is it?" Hermione rubbed the cat's ears as she hiked him higher against her chest. They turned and started back toward Gringotts where the Malfoys would be waiting for her. "You're such a clever boy!"

Crookshanks continued to purr, his fat tail flicking back and forth, totally pleased with himself.

x X x

The village was quiet, drawn, the cobbled streets caught in summer's waning grasp. The station, too, was quiet, the empty husk of the scarlet train waiting idle on the tracks. There it'd remain until tomorrow, when it would journey south and gather Hogwarts' students for the start of the autumn term. At the station's end, Albus Dumbledore stood and gazed across the lake, glimpsing the high wall of the castle's West Tower, the roof cast like gold in the fading light of day. From somewhere farther east came the echo of young children playing in their gardens.

"Bonsoir, Albus."

A shorter wizard joined the Headmaster, hopping onto the platform the dirt path, his hands in his pockets and his posture relaxed. He went without robes and could have passed for a Muggle had his waistcoat and trousers not been of such a dated design.

Dumbledore turned his head and smiled. "Bonsoir to you as well, Nicolas."

Nicolas Flamel stood by Dumbledore and looked everywhere but at the younger wizard. Something weighed upon him, Albus knew. It resided there in lines about his eyes and the deepening furrow between his dark brows. "Hmm. It is nice weather tonight, yes? A rarity here!"

Flamel shivered. "It is still too cold for my taste."

"I've always been fond of it. Though these old bones of mine prefer the warmer climes."

They said nothing more for a time, two friends sharing an amicable moment while Hogsmeade readied itself for the night. They had not met here by chance. The impending conversation lay upon their shoulders with all the weight of a physical mantle, and Albus had opted to not speak within the castle itself. Not where Slytherin or his spies might be lurking.

At length, Flamel drew in a breath, his chest swelling. "Ah. I know you are hoping for good news, but I have none to give." He exhaled. "I studied the curse mark, I studied her, but—. It is a magic…sans précédent. I….I do not think it can be removed."

The levity in the air slipped, dimming like the sun did as it eased deeper into the trees. There was an ache in the alchemist's voice. "I must admit, I'd hoped you would know what to do. My own search has been fruitless."

"Horcruxes are horrid magique. Few have ever attempted their creation, let alone something this… monstrous."

Albus thought of Harriet Potter, of that slight flicker of red in her emerald eyes, shouting, "Why haven't you done anything?!"

"Much of everything Tom Riddle has ever done can be described as monstrous."

"What do you plan to do, Albus?"

Before, in his youth, when he trusted the word of a charismatic Durmstrang boy and believed himself so much more than he really was, Dumbledore would have done the unspeakable. He would have said, "The girl must die," because it was for the greater good, because it was crueler to have hope when there was no light—but that was before. He had watched so many people die to Tom's avarice, his cruelty, and he could not bear to think of those they would still lose. The war had been lost, for all that it appeared to have been won. Albus and the Order had lost. He could not decide if saying the girl must die so Tom Riddle could follow was cowardice or bravery, but at some point the greater good no longer means anything at all. It was just—words.

Albus and the Order had lost, and yet…and yet people like Harriet Potter persevered. People who came from adversity, children growing up in these dark, perverse times—and they did not bow or bend or break as Albus and the Order had. They did not compromise with the likes of Tom Riddle. They flourished in the places that Dumbledore had once considered fallow ground—and, Merlin, if only he could go back, seize his younger self by the shoulders, and shake him until he saw sense.

"Albus?"

"Nothing has changed," he said, sighing. "Voldemort must be trapped, subdued, and held. There are ways to make a man—or a monster—sleep as if dead."

"Oui. Though it is a fate too good for the likes of him." Flamel scuffed the heel of his boot against the stone platform. "She is a good kid, Harriet. Miss Black as well. Perenelle is heartbroken to 'ave the house so empty again."

"They are remarkable children." Dumbledore's gaze turned to the lake and the hint of Hogwarts' silhouette on the darkening sky. "They all are."

"I will help you in whatever way I can." Mr. Flamel turned away. "For as long as I can."

After he Disapparated, the Headmaster remained there at the station's end. He repeated the words, "For as long as I can," too quietly for anyone but himself to hear.

A/N: The Marauder's Map has always sounded neat to me in concept, but also really… invasive. Like how Harry used it to stalk Malfoy in HBP. We can argue he was doing it for the "greater good," but that there is the most slippery of slippery slopes.

in want of happiness

cix. in want of happiness

In hindsight, they should have expected the staring.

For the most part, Harriet and Elara had enjoyed the anonymity of the greater Wizarding quarter since they first heard news of Sirius Black's escape. No one in Diagon Alley or Trefhud knew of Elara's connection to the convict—but the same could not be said of those at Hogwarts.

They raced to the platform, dodging through the Muggles going about their business, and just barely managed to cross the brick barrier before the clock struck eleven in the morning on the dot. The scarlet steam engine let loose a billow of steam as the whistle trilled and they ran again, the Weasley parents shouting their love for their children, Harriet dragging Elara along even as the other witch wheezed for breath.

"Merlin's beard," Harriet panted once the train doors came sliding shut behind them. The train had already begun to move seconds after they arrived, the brakes releasing the wheels, the fixtures rattling, but now it heaved itself into proper motion and pulled from the station. Straightening, Harriet looked at Ginny. "Does this happen every year with your family?"

The Ministry cars had arrived promptly at ten to take the group to Kings Cross Station—but another round of misplaced possessions and last-minute packing delayed their departure from the Leaky Cauldron until half-passed the hour. From there, they'd hit an inevitable wall of traffic even the magical vehicles couldn't squeeze around. They'd hit the parking lot not five minutes ago and had to sprint the whole length of the station. Harriet hoped the Ministry had someone on hand to Obliviate all the Muggles who heard their group shouting about familiars and letters and spellbooks.

The redhead snorted. "Feels like it," she replied, running a finger over a large scuff on her trunk. It was second-hand and had already seen better days, and yet their mad dash had managed to put a few more marks on it. "We never seem to be on time for anything."

Smirking, it was then that Harriet finally noticed the whispering, the half-veiled attempts at subterfuge as faces peeked from their carriages and stared not at her or at Ginny, but at Elara, who leaned against the wall in an effort to catch her breath. Harriet scowled at the watching berks and straightened to her full—and rather unimpressive—height. "C'mon, then. Let's find our seats."

They hurried along the narrow corridor down the train. Ginny's brother and Longbottom had gone ahead or had jumped on at a different entrance. Percy would be in the front compartment with the prefects. The whispering swelled around them like a fat souffle waiting to collapse, joined by laughter and nervous, frightened tittering. People shuffled bags onto unoccupied seats as they neared, not that Harriet had any intention of sitting with those people. Numpties, the lot of them.

"That's his daughter."

"The Madman's Daughter, that's what they call her—."

"Can't believe they let her come to school this year—."

Elara's cheeks grew progressively pinker the farther they went, her eyes glassy and her fists tight at

her sides. A Hufflepuff second-year had the gall to pop open his door to stare at her—until Ginny flicked him right between the eyes.

"Oi! Bugger off, Williams!"

Williams did, in fact, bugger off, and the brief show of violence prevented any other curious students from stepping out into the corridor for a look of their own. Still, Harriet couldn't help her sigh of relief once they found Hermione and Luna and slipped into the compartment.

"What took you so long?" Hermione demanded, already dressed in her Slytherin robes. "I thought for sure you'd missed the train!"

Ginny hefted her trunk into the overhead rack with Harriet's help. "Listen, Granger, you can't say that being punctual is really a trait in my family…."

Harriet slumped into the seat by the window and Elara sat across from her, rigid as a board, settling Cygnus' cage next to her. "All right, Elara?"

"I'll be fine," she snapped.

Whether or not that was true, they'd have to wait and see. Harriet didn't dare ask her again.

The train rolled on into the English countryside and London's boroughs dwindled in the wake of its sooty plume. Elara was quick to cross her arms, lean back, and doze in her seat while Hermione and Ginny argued the chances of perpetual tardiness being an actual human gene. Luna had a pad of parchment and a collection of pencils she shared with Harriet, who used them to pass the time by doodling and sketching. She wished she could use Livi as a model and draw him, but the Horned Serpent was tucked into her shrunken trunk still—and all the surlier for it. She did have Kevin in her shirt's front pocket, not that'd she'd ever get him to stay still long enough to draw him. Plus, Ginny and Luna didn't know about her Parseltongue ability and it'd be awful hard to explain why she'd got a snake in her pocket like a lucky Sickle.

The muffled sound of Exploding Snap emanated from the compartment behind her, laughter shaking the divider. People kept passing by trying to peek inside, but Ginny nipped that in the bud when she jerked the curtain closed over the window. The trolley came by around one o'clock and they stocked up on sweets for the remainder of the journey.

"Hermione?" Harriet said after a time, the other witch looking up from the book splayed in her lap. Outside, the landscape had grown wilder and the sky thickened with encroaching clouds.

"Yes?"

"What kind of magic is it that would show you people in an area?" Harriet kept her voice light as she worked on her sketch, using her thumb to smudge the graphite. "I know there's Tracking Charms and stuff, but those only track one person at a time, don't they?"

"Usually," Hermione replied. Her mouth formed a slight moue of thought. "There's a host of tracking spells to suit different needs. Hunters can track animals of a specific age and genus—and Aurors, when they're looking for someone and can't resort to—um—Darker spells, can utilize a reactionary trigger that pings or hums when in the vicinity of someone matching their query. Spells that track specific people over a distance are almost entirely unheard of."

"Hmm." Snape had managed it somehow, though Harriet guessed the fewer questions asked about that, the better. "But what about something that could show you everyone around you or in a certain place?"

For once, Hermione appeared stumped. "Well, I—. I'm not sure, actually."

"Hypothetically, then? If you had a spell that could do it, how would it work?"

"Hypothetically, it wouldn't. There's no—." Hermione huffed and her brow lifted as she shut her book. "I wouldn't use a spell. You'd have to tether the magic to each individual and it'd be draining —not to mention pointless. I'd use a ward."

"A ward?"

"Yes. Witches and wizards set up all kinds of barriers over their homes or businesses—you know this. Hypothetically, the wards of your projected area would have all knowledge of who passed in and out of them. You wouldn't need a spell that tracked people—rather, you would want one capable of reading and interpreting the information already stored in a ward." Hermione looked rather pleased with herself for figuring this out—then shot Harriet a suspicious look. "…why do ask?"

"Just curious, I guess."

"Harriet, what kind of trouble—."

"Really! I promise, I'm just curious." Harriet wouldn't—couldn't—tell her about Fred and George's map, but the more thought she'd given it, the keener she had become on getting it. Worse come to worse, if she couldn't follow the Moon Mirrors and couldn't fulfill her bargain, maybe she could talk her friends into making their own version of the Marauder's Map.

Harriet set down the pencil and turned the drawing over, showing Cygnus his slightly lopsided likeness. "What d'you think?"

The owl screeched and buried his head under his wing.

"There's no need to be rude. Ruddy bird."

"I think it's lovely," Luna said, inspecting the picture. "You captured his off-centered eyes perfectly."

"Don't let him hear you say that. He'll claw my face off at breakfast, just wait and see…."

x X x

The clouds Harriet first noted outside London followed them like a bad mood, and as night approached and became an imminent threat, the clouds let loose a deluge of cold, lashing rain that painted the train's windows and plunged them into darkness. Harriet couldn't suppress a shiver and found herself thinking with longing of her four-poster bed beneath the Black Lake, or the comfortable stuffed ottoman by the fire in Trefhud. She wrote a letter to Mr. Flamel—and didn't censor her questions about the Marauder's Map quite as much as she had with her friends.

They changed into their robes as they neared Hogsmeade and Hermione layered them all in Impervius Charms. The Charms lasted once they reached the station but started to degrade with frightening speed, the rain coming down too fiercely for the magic to keep up. Hagrid and Professor Sinistra could barely be seen beneath the former's large umbrella, Hagrid's booming

calls for the first years to join them competing with the thunder's lowing. The older students ran for the Thestral-drawn carriages, several people sliding and slipping into the mud, elbows getting thrown as they competed for the closest carts. Harriet—as short as she was and blinded by the bloody rain—got shunted toward the back and separated from her friends in the confusion. She wound up in a carriage on her own and sat on the padded bench dripping, shivering, and eager to get on with the rest of the trek.

The wheels clattered and wobbled through the mud as the carriages meandered toward the castle. Harriet could just barely make out the welcoming glow permeating through the mist, her Threstral flicking its wings out every so often, just enough so she could spot it through the window. Harriet gripped the edge of the bench and sighed. Her breath escaped in a puff of white.

So much for it still being summertime.

Judging by the thump of droplets hitting the roof, she thought the rain might have abated— somewhat lessening from a barrage to a pelting, though that might be because of the thick tree limbs arching over the road. She could see the gate now, the individual posts tall and unyielding, each flanked with a torch doused in Ever-Burning oil. Sometimes Harriet wondered how long those torches had been burning—if, perhaps, one of the Founders had fixed them there and lit the match that would still illuminate the grounds a thousand years later. Hermione would probably tell her she was silly, though, since she doubted Ever-Burning oil had been invented back then.

The carriage slowed and came to a stop.

A minute passed, and then another. Puzzled, Harriet leaned in her seat to look out of the window belonging to the door on her left, but she couldn't see much from her vantage aside from the shape of the gates and the back of the carriage in front of her. The Forbidden Forest hemmed both sides of the road. Maybe one of the carriages had gotten stuck—a broken wheel, or perhaps a fallen Thestral. They appeared rather sure on their feet—err, hooves—but Harriet knew the mud got treacherous on the hills and slopes around here.

She shivered harder, teeth chattering.

Suddenly, a shadow fell across her and Harriet started, a vague, looming shape approaching the right door. It threw itself open, the carriage rocking, and a monster filled the entrance.

Harriet couldn't rightly name the feeling that came over her as the cloaked figure lowered its head and leaned in close. The hand it had braced on the door's frame belonged to a withered, dead corpse—the puckered limb of a clammy body dredged from the bottom of a salted mire. Dust desiccated its cloak like an ancient funerary shroud. A sound came from the black hood—a heinous, forced rattling—and as it sucked, it seemed to pull in more than just air.

She wasn't afraid. It struck her as odd, because in that instance, Harriet thought she should be fucking terrified. Instead, a hard, frigid chill settled in her chest and circulated through her blood, and Harriet felt only a sense of detached horror, a buzzing numbness striking her with a painful, unshakable rictus. Every bad thought she'd ever had welled and bobbed to the surface of her mind until she drowned under a cresting wave of grief and hate and anger.

Somewhere in the distance, Tom Riddle stood over her, the echo of her own tortured sobs bouncing on the stone walls, and he hissed, "Did you like that, little girl?"

Quirrell kept mumbling, "M-master, M-master ," while the Dark Lord whispered, "What Voldemort takes, he can return," and Harriet suffered again and again in the knowledge of her own weakness, her own temptation, her disappointment.

Worse of all was the chilling passivity of a summer's day in which she was again nine-years-old, hungry, tired, sprawled beneath a hedge and thinking it might be better if she simply ceased to exist.

"N-no," Harriet stuttered, hand clawing at the door, her back pressed to the glass. Ice crawled over the lenses of her glasses. She'd never been so cold and empty in her entire life. "Stop it!"

A white fog descended. Far away, a woman was screaming, pleading. Harriet just wanted it to stop.

Her fingers spasmed against the door—and then she fell, soaring down, down into the dark until it swallowed her whole and Harriet knew no more.

terrible reunions

cx. terrible reunions

Remus fell asleep almost the instant he found a compartment for himself and sat down.

He couldn't help it; the full moon was two nights away after all, not that many would take notice of such a thing. Mostly potioneers would these days, or lunarologists, diviners—or women picking up a copy of Witch Weekly to read their horoscopes. Remus had never set much store by the stars but sometimes he thought on the sheer power every revolution of the earth held upon his life and wondered.

Muggle fiction suggested werewolves could actually feel the moon, as if it held true, tangible power over their being—but that was superstitious nonsense, like most werewolf lore. To suggest werewolves had lore meant they had culture, and Remus was steadfast in his denial of such a thing. It was a curse, not a way of life. The moon held no power over Remus until it rose full above the horizon. His reaction to it otherwise was psychosomatic; he knew it would be time again to weather the transformation and no matter if he retained a sound mind or not, his bones still broke, his skin would tear, his limbs would contort. He'd end up a screaming, howling mess.

The full moon neared and Remus grew wearier and wearier until he could barely stand the fatigue.

He should have gone to Hogwarts earlier in the week, he knew. It would have been the responsible thing to do—but Remus had left his tasks to the last minute in a fit of self-doubt and recrimination, allowing Dumbledore all the time in the world he needed to renege on his appointment. However, the Headmaster never appeared on Remus' doorstep again no matter how long Remus sat and stared at the door. The only owls he received contained vital information for his new post, requests and advice for lesson plans, needed signatures, etcetera. Albus had even forwarded several historical periodicals to which he could submit a few articles or topics of research. Hogwarts professors needed to stay published and relevant in their fields, after all.

So Remus spent the vast majority of his remaining summer holiday with his head in a book or visiting the national Tome Archival and Depository kept by the Ministry beneath the Radcliffe Camera. He'd visited once many years ago with his mother, so he noticed right off how many of the shelves, including those in the sections relevant to his studies, had been purged of their books and scrolls. Dumbledore had said times were darker than the media would have him believe, and so Remus wasn't overly surprised by the sudden dearth. After all, the best way to control a population was to spread ignorance and control information.

He kept his articles tame but insightful enough to garner back page listings in the periodicals; he maintained a low, unassuming profile, lest someone dig deeper into the identity of R.J. Lupin. Still, it was with some wonder and excitement that he looked upon his first published piece in the Journeyman's Journal. Then, the melancholy rose up and overcame Remus because he had no one to write to, no one to celebrate with. Just him and a dram of Ogden's Best.

Being busy and procrastinating on his move wouldn't have been a big deal if not for his furry little problem, as Sir—as certain people used to refer to it. Magical means of transportation—such the Floo, or Apparating, or the use of a Portkey—had serious consequences on his weary body during these few days of the month. He could have flown, of course, but that would be exhausting for its own reasons. Albus had offered the suggestion of taking the Express and Remus had jumped at the opportunity.

Dozing in his seat, Remus remained distantly aware of his surroundings: the call of voices, the scuttling feet, scraping trolley wheels, and when the train set off, the windows' rattling as the carts went along the track. The door to his compartment came open and he heard what sounded like a few boys entering, their conversation stilted and hushed as they took their seats and tried not to wake him. Rain thumped against the glass by Remus' head, the sun hidden behind amassing thunderclouds, and the occasional word broke through the tired haze in his mind— "Quidditch," "Mum," "Scabbers," "Charms," and "Potter."

The last word, of course, had Remus' heart leaping into his throat and he almost sat up, half-asleep or not. Potter. Harriet would be a student at Hogwarts, a third-year. He would get to see her again. More than once over the years, Remus had wanted to write her a letter, but he didn't know what to say. He still didn't. In his mind, Harriet belonged to that year of his life he tried so very desperately to blot out and Remus lied so often to others and himself about his depth of friendship with Lily and James and Sir— well. He didn't know what to say. He thought she might find it a bit strange if a man claiming to be a friend of her deceased parents wrote her out of the blue. He'd wanted to see her. He'd wanted to see her grow up because he would never see—.

He doubted Harriet's aunt and uncle would have wanted an odd, scarred man showing up on their doorstep asking after their little niece.

The train continued to rattle. It felt like sitting with an old friend, that nervous trepidation of bygone years humming in his veins. His first trek from Platform Nine and Three-Quarters had signaled the start of a new life—and, again, here he sat on his way to something new and terrifying and exciting. Being here was…comfortable. It lulled him into deeper dreams and Remus slept soundly for the remainder of the trip.

x X x

He woke when one of the boys—a freckled redhead in Gryffindor robes—gave his shoulder a hesitant pat and said they'd arrived. The rain went a long way in helping clear his groggy head and Remus welcomed it once he stepped onto the dark platform, pausing to turn his face into the downpour, water trickling over his brow and cheeks. Remus simpered, hearing the familiar, booming call of Hagrid beckoning on the first-years, and he would have stopped to say hello if not for the inclement weather. Instead, Remus kept on the path with the students—the students that would be his starting tomorrow. What a thrilling thought.

He didn't rush the carriages like they did, preferring instead to wait and take one near the rear of the procession. Once inside, a quick incantation dried his patched robes and heated the carriage's interior, so Remus relaxed on the bench, leaning with his elbows on his knees as he turned his idle gaze toward the window and the forest beyond.

When the sudden, inexplicable chill began to erode his Warming Charm at an alarming rate and the carriage rolled to a stop, Remus realized something was amiss. His breath fogged before him and the errant mist on the glass coalesced into a creeping frost. Another kind of cold needled along his spine, emanating from those dark, hidden recesses of his mind, that place where the war and 1981 had long been buried deep. Remus yanked his wand from his pocket and stood, crouching under the abbreviated height of the carriage, and he opened the door to lean out into the rain.

He spotted nothing unusual at first; the school's gates loomed ahead, illuminated by torchlight despite the downpour, and he could see the shadow of a person pacing through the yellow light. Movement drew his attention away from the gates to the line of waiting carriages—and Remus almost lost his grip when he saw a skeletal, robed form hovering in the air, rippling on an unfelt breeze as it descended upon a carriage two in front of Remus' own. The Dementor pressed its head

into the open door—and suddenly a small student came toppling out the other side, hitting the wet ground in a solid, limp heap. They did not move.

Remus scrambled down the carriage's iron step and ran. " Expecto Patronum!" he shouted, and silver flare warbled from the end of his wand with a burst of warmth and joy as ephemeral as a puff of smoke coming off the backside of a Filibuster Firecracker. Weak as it may be, the Charm served in warning the Dementor away, as the Dark creature reared back from the silver dart worming its way and retreated toward the unlit trees. Remus watched it go for only a moment, then rushed past the uneasy Thestral to the girl crumpled by the carriage wheel.

He almost choked when he realized who it was.

Fate delighted in throwing Remus off-kilter—cursed, he often reminded himself with a chagrined sigh. He'd sat lost in thought about Harriet Potter a few hours prior, but he could not have guessed he would meet her again in the middle of a rainstorm as he knelt by her side and turned her ghostly face out of the muck. She didn't much resemble Lily or James; he could see that through the mud and rain covering her. He recognized the scar more than anything, the thin lines curling under her jaw and around her neck like pale spider limbs. Remus first saw the mark at her parents' funeral, when Petunia had arrived stone-faced and sober, carrying the unhappy toddler in a stiff, unyielding hold.

Remus shook himself. Someone approached, their heavy footfalls breaking through the puddles.

"Incarcerous!"

On instinct, Remus shielded himself, if only just. The spell pinged off his protego and spiraled into the trees, rustling leaves. "Hold your fire!" he yelled.

One of the figures he'd spotted by the gate came nearer and the glow of the carriage lantern gave relief to his maroon robes. An Auror, then. He'd know those robes anywhere. How many times had he seen James—? But now wasn't the time for that.

"Identify yourself!" the Auror demanded, his wand trained on Remus, who kept his hands raised.

"My name is Remus Lupin and I'm to be the new History of Magic professor at the school," he said. "There's a student injured here."

The Auror lowered his wand and came nearer, squinting against the lashing rain. He looked young —younger than Remus, perhaps, still green enough for his collar to be overly starched and his aim less than perfect. "Shit," the Auror muttered as he holstered his wand. "There was bound to be one."

"Why on earth is there a Dementor here?"

"Ministry orders. They're stationed outside the grounds, searching for Sirius Black."

"Searching the children?!" Remus snarled. He shook Harriet and when she didn't rouse, he placed his hand over hers. It was ice cold to the touch and the rain wasn't helping matters. What was wrong? He'd never heard of such a strong reaction to a Dementor before. Remus bent at the waist and hoisted her up, careful to hook one arm under her knees and the other around her shoulders. "She needs to get inside."

"Right, go on through, then. I'll make sure your effects reach the castle Mr.—err, Professor Lupin."

Remus broke into a light sprint, hurrying past the line of waiting carriages and through the

checkpoint where another Auror appeared to be having students turn out their pockets. Oh, Remus didn't think that would go over well at all with the parents when their children inevitably wrote home in the morning. He ran up the path toward the waiting light of the castle's entrance, marveling that Harriet's sodden robes seemed to weigh more than the witch herself, but his burst of strength flagged as he mounted the castle steps. Panting, he banged on the door and almost dropped the girl when it flew open.

A woman gasped. Remus thought another Dementor waited in the entrance hall when a dark, looming figure stepped forward—but no, the wizard who yanked Harriet from him was definitely flesh and bone. "Give her here," the man snapped in an irritated baritone, lowering Harriet to the floor. He crouched and propped her head up against his knee.

"Term hasn't even begun! What mischief has she gotten herself into now, Severus?" McGonagall sighed—and it was McGonagall, the same witch who'd taught him in school. She had a few more lines gracing her face now but she otherwise hadn't changed a bit—.

"There's a Dementor out by the gate," Remus explained, trying to catch his breath. "She fell from the carriage and hit the ground quite hard—."

Wait. Did she just say Severus?

Reeling, Remus looked again at the wizard, at the head of oily black hair that parted at the nape of his neck, revealing a scant inch of skin. Long, pale fingers prodded at Harriet's scalp until they came back speckled in blood and mud. Merlin! "…Snape?"

The wizard stopped inspecting Harriet's head and stiffened, raising all too familiar black eyes to Remus' face.

During their time at Hogwarts, Snape had always been something of an oddball. He'd been gawky and ungraceful, always too tall and too skinny for his second-hand robes, mocked for his overlarge nose and for the fact that he'd always smelled like a cauldron. Pitiable—if not for his menace, for that quintessential Slytherin arrogance and predilection for Dark magic. That had always been the problem with Snape; he'd made it difficult to feel sorry for him when his bite had been infinitely worse than his bark.

The wizard before Remus had grown into his skinny frame, gawkiness eschewed for a sharpness so acute, it pricked against Remus' skin like a torch held too close for too long. He had scars on his face, too—small ones accrued around his left eye, a larger cut interrupting his brow and dividing his lashes. The eyes fixed on Remus had lost their teenage anger and frustration. They held only sheer hatred now, cold and unremitting, festered by time and unvoiced terror.

How could I not recognize him? Remus wondered. Sweet Morgana—Lily said he became a Death Eater. Why is he—?

"Lupin," Snape drawled almost too quietly to hear. To himself, he added, "That would explain the request for Wolfsbane. Fucking Dumbledore and his sodding misdirection." He flicked his wrist and his wand appeared in his hand. Remus couldn't fight the nervous fidget that shook him and Snape smiled—a smile sharper than his look and all the nastier for it. He pointed the wand at Harriet's chest and Remus' throat tightened. "Rennervate."

Harriet woke sputtering and gasping, nearly head-butting Snape when she sat up and swayed. She blinked wide green eyes—Lily's eyes—up at the three adults surrounding her and croaked, "What the fuck was that?"

"Miss Potter!" McGonagall exclaimed, her cheeks red with outrage and—perhaps—a tinge of relief. "How many times must I inform you that that kind of language is not tolerated at Hogwarts?!"

Harriet stared at Professor McGonagall as if the witch was a pixie short of a parade, and Remus chortled. She looked so much like James just then, and emotion blazed through Remus with such fury, it pricked in eyes.

The girl looked at him when he laughed and gave a dozy, shy grin.

"That, Potter," Snape said, grabbing her under the arm. "Was a Dementor. Up."

He straightened, dragging Harriet upright, and she sagged in his grip, struggling to get her feet under her. "Why'd everything go cold and—funny?"

"Because that's what Dementors do, you halfwit."

A sharp pain cut through Remus' cold hand and he flinched, turning it over to inspect the pain's source. A little green snake hung from the meat of his palm, tiny fangs clamped tight to the flesh— and he swore it glared at him as it wriggled about. "What in the world?" Alarmed, Remus raised his wand to vanish it—.

"Kevin!" Harriet blurted.

Snape snatched the snake before Remus could react and secreted it away in one of his robes' many pockets. Harriet made a move as if to reach for the reptile and the dark wizard slapped her hand away, his impassive glare daring Remus to question him.

Before he could, feet clattered on the castle steps and Remus let out an "Oof!" when a body hit his back. "Harriet!" a frizzy-haired witch cried. Heedless of the collision, she came around Remus and ran to her friend, dripping wet and shivering from the cold. Given the state of her shoes, Remus guessed she'd abandoned her carriage and ran here as he had. "Oh, Harriet, are you all right? We saw you getting carried to the castle and thought—."

"Great, did everyone see that? I'm fine, Hermione."

"You're going to the hospital wing," Snape interrupted.

"What?! No! I've only just got here!"

"Think about that before you dive headlong into the ground then, Potter!"

"I didn't mean to! Gerroff, Snape—."

Snape did not, in fact, gerroff; he redoubled his grip under the flagging witch's arm and marched her toward Madam Pomfrey's old domain, Harriet's complaints dwindling into ill-tempered grumbling. The other girl—Hermione—made to follow but McGonagall called her back. "Miss Granger, if you'd come with me. We have to discuss—well…."

A second witch jostled Remus and darted past with an uttered, "Pardon me." Without pause or consideration to those in the hall, she ran after Snape and James' daughter.

"Remus?" McGonagall said. He had to tear his gaze away from Snape's back to pay attention. "You can go and get settled in the Great Hall."

"Yes, thank you, Professor…."

"It's Minerva. We're colleagues, after all. Congratulations on your appointment."

"Right…."

Remus caught one final glimpse of the retreating trio. The second, dark-haired witch glanced back, and in the hazy gleam of lightning blazing across the sky, her profile became visible before she, Snape, and Harriet vanished into the dark.

He thought she looked…familiar.

A/N: According to the calendar, the full moon was on Sept 1st, 1993, so technically Professor Lupin shouldn't have been on the train, nor attended the Welcoming Feast in canon! For the sake of the story, I've moved time and space and bumped the full moon back a night. And, even without Hermione and Luna saving them seats, I have my doubts that a bunch of girls would sit alone in a compartment with a strange man. So no train ride with Remus!

Dumbledore: "We're gonna have a nice, normal year this year."

Snape: "Good."

Dumbledore: "But, y'know, with a murderous convict on the loose."

Snape: "Wait, what—?"

Dumbledore: "And some Dementors."

Snape: "You can't—."

Dumbledore: "And a werewolf, for flavor!"

Snape: "Somebody stop this man, please."

magical creatures

cxi. magical creatures

"Stop looking at the doors."

A guilty flush rose in Hermione's cheeks when Elara said those words because she had, in fact, been staring at the Great Hall doors. She'd been staring at the doors from the moment she sat down to breakfast, and now she returned to stirring her cold porridge around in its bowl and pretended nothing was amiss. "I'm not staring. I'm simply checking."

"Continuously checking. Which could also be construed as staring."

Glowering, Hermione gave up fussing with her food and leaned forward. "I'm just concerned," she hissed to Elara across the table. "Shouldn't she be here by now?"

"Pomfrey probably fed her in the infirmary," Elara replied, sipping a cup of orange juice, the picture of cool, unruffled ease. "You needn't be so worried."

"How can I not be worried? What if she stumbled into another secret chamber or—or oubliette, or bloody hidden trench?"

Elara arched a brow. "If Harriet managed to find certain doom before breakfast, we'll invest in a leash or something. Either we will, or Snape."

Hermione glanced toward the High Table at the mention of the Potions Master and found him absent from his seat. Instead, there was an empty chair between Professor Slytherin and the new History of Magic instructor. As Hermione watched, Slytherin lifted his red eyes from his untouched tea to look the drab wizard over, then turned away, unimpressed.

Hermione concentrated on her breakfast and her patience was rewarded when one of the Great Hall's doors creaked open far enough to admit Harriet. Snape arrived seconds after, a foul look on his face as Harriet darted forward, head down, and all but ran to the Slytherin table—not that it spared her the attention of the amassed horde. She didn't have time to sit down before Malfoy called out, "Poor little Potter, did you get frightened by the big bad Dementors and faint?" Accipto Lestrange cackled and Lucian Bole must have muttered something obscene that Hermione didn't catch, as the older Slytherin boys continued to howl with laughter.

"Bugger off, Bole!" Harriet snarled. "And you too, Malfoy! I didn't faint!" Given she flushed scarlet to her roots, Hermione wagered she had, in fact, fainted.

"Oh, Harriet," she muttered as the other witch settled, furious and scowling, leaning her elbows on the table. "Are you all right? We were terribly frightened. We saw that new History of Magic professor—Professor Lupin—carrying you to the castle and we didn't know what to think—."

"I'm fine!" Harriet stabbed the serving spoon into a bowl of scrambled eggs and heaped them on her plate, though she showed little interest in actually eating them. "I didn't faint. That—that thing startled me and I fell out of the carriage, hitting my stupid head on the ruddy ground." She glared along the table toward Malfoy, who caught her eye and swooned with a dramatic hand placed on his brow. "First bloody night here and they made me stay in the infirmary despite there being nothing wrong with me. I missed the whole feast!"

"Well, you didn't miss much. Just the Sorting and Professor Lupin's introduction."

"Did Dumbledore talk about what in the hell that thing was? Because neither Snape nor Pomfrey would tell me anything."

Hermione glanced again at the High Table. Professor Dumbledore savored his morning tea despite the teetering stack of letters being dropped near his plate by impatient owls. As Hermione watched, the wizard spoke and a house-elf appeared, gathered up the notes, and disappeared once more. Snape assumed his seat, pointedly ignoring the new wizard seated to his left.

"It was a Dementor, one of the guards from Azkaban. They're outside the grounds on the Ministry's orders." Nervous dread swelled in Hermione's chest as she remembered her own encounter with the monster and she couldn't stop the sudden stream of words coming out of her mouth. "A Dementor is an amortal non-being, a very dangerous Dark creature not even recognized on the quintuple-ex beast scale—which is what a Horned Serpent is rated, by the way. Known wizard-killers and un- domesticated beings—."

"Hermione."

"Yes—yes, 's not much known about Dementors—where they came from or how they breed or come into existence, but it is known that they feed upon positive emotions and memories: joy, excitement, erm—pleasure. Pulling these from people leaves them no buffer to their negative memories and feelings. It's a barbaric law but various Ministries have been using Dementors in their Wizarding prisons for centuries as a means of 'repentance,' the thought being their suffering can be a form of rehabilitation." Hermione fidgeted. "If a Dementor Kisses you…well. There's no coming back from that."

Harriet stopped destroying her breakfast and stared, horrified. "What?! If it kisses you?!"

"Not a normal kiss, mind. A Dementor's Kiss. They suck out their victim's soul."

"Great. Real great—perfect idea having those ghastly things hovering outside the fucking gate."

Hermione pursed her lips in disapproval but didn't say anything. Harriet let out a low, ragged sigh.

"I'm sorry. I hate the hospital wing and couldn't get to sleep. The daft woman tried to keep me through the morning, d'you know that? There's nothing wrong with me. I must have drunk a gallon of hot chocolate."

Reaching out to touch her arm, Hermione gave it an idle squeeze. "There's no shame in having an adverse reaction to a Dementor—not that I'm saying you did!" she hurried to say when Harriet's face flushed with new anger. "I'm only saying there's no shame if you did! I know for a fact Malfoy over there came into the castle white as a ghost and Elara—."

A foot slammed into Hermione's shin and she yelped. Right, she told herself, wincing as she reached down to rub the throbbing bruise. Elara has enough problems this year without me telling the whole of Slytherin House she sicked up in the carriage. Still, her acquiescence of the possible foolish mistake did not stop Hermione from narrowing her eyes at the quiet witch picking at her French toast.

"Can we not talk about this anymore?" Harriet grumbled. "Merlin knows I'll hear enough from people like Malfoy for the rest of the week. Have our schedules been given out yet? I need to grab my books and check on Livi still."

"Not yet, no."

Hermione spoke too soon, for Snape came down the aisle a moment later and started shoving

sheets of parchment into waiting hands. He paused long enough to exchange bitter scowls with Harriet before turning to Hermione.

"Granger, I don't appear to have your schedule."

"Oh, that's fine, sir." Snape's scarred brow rose and Hermione cleared her throat, hiding her twitching hands in her lap. "Professor McGonagall gave it to me last night."

"Is that so?" He moved off, unbothered and unquestioning. Harriet scrutinized her schedule while Elara studied Hermione, who again fought her unhelpful urge to fidget. The skinny gold chain hiding under her collar felt hotter than it should.

"We've got Care of Magical Creatures first thing today!" Harriet reported with sudden cheer. "Then Transfiguration. No Defense or Potions! And History of Magic with the new professor after lunch and a free period before dinner. Hmm. I'll have to thank—Professor Lupin, was it? I didn't get a chance last night."

Elara leaned in her seat to read Harriet's schedule. "I've a second free period this morning."

"What? You're not taking Care of Magical Creatures?"

"Considering I can't even care for a house plant, I decided it better not to tempt fate."

"…You might have a point there."

They finished breakfast and hurried down to the dormitories, Harriet quick to placate her irritated familiar with a bit of sausage stolen from the table while Elara made good on an idle threat from that morning to go right back to sleep. Hermione couldn't help but envy her, considering how bad her own dreams had been the night before. Nevertheless, she put on a brave face and marched back upstairs. She and Harriet rejoined the student body than the whispering and pointing began in earnest.

"Bunch of prats," Harriet muttered, hands shoved into the pockets of her robes, bag slumping off her shoulder. "I bet half of them cried like ninnies when they saw that thing. I thought I heard someone screaming before I pa—fell."

Hermione uttered a noncommittal hum. She hadn't heard any screaming—a few loud exclamations and sniffling by first-years, but no screaming, no other bodies falling from their carriages. But, the rain had been loud, so who was to say Harriet was wrong? Perhaps Hermione only missed the sound. Her own senses had been…impaired by the Dementor. She'd suddenly felt like a child again, sitting alone, chastised by her parents, teachers, peers. It had been as if every tiny barb uttered in her presence had been repeated in an instance and it had weighed heavily on Hermione's mind all through the evening and night. So, maybe she didn't hear the screaming. Maybe.

Following the lingering train of their classmates brought the pair of witches nearer the Forbidden Forest, not terribly far from the track Harriet ran on for Quidditch. Harriet looked more and more green as they neared the edge of the grounds and Hermione quickly nudged her arm to spur the witch forward. "They're supposed to be posted by the gates," she whispered. "I'm sure Headmaster Dumbledore would never allow them anywhere near a class."

"Yeah, no offense to the Headmaster, but I'm sure he didn't allow that Basilisk to have a go at the Muggle-borns last year and it still did."

Hermione sighed. She's not wrong, a small voice in the back of her mind said. The best intentions are, at times, ineffectual against reality.

She shook her head.

"Hey, Granger! Potter!"

Terry Boot and Anthony Goldstein jogged over, the former the one who called out their names.

"'Lo," Harriet replied, distracted.

"Are you taking Care of Magical Creatures as well?" Hermione asked, her enthusiasm making up for Harriet's inattention.

"It was either this or Muggle Studies," Terry admitted with a shrug. "I'm not exactly keen on the subject."

"Oh, but there's been so many exciting inventions and innovations in Muggle society, especially in the last few years!"

"I know, I know—but Muggle Studies covers stuff like the function of a spring and Velcro. They pass around a bit of plastic to glory over." Terry laughed. "My brother took it a few years back."

To be honest, the news didn't surprise Hermione, though she still felt a niggling worm of disappointment. She'd gotten over the absence of Muggle things in her life rather quickly—magic did, in many ways, match or exceed Muggle advancements—and though she wished for simple biros from time to time, the ability to Transfigure and spell magical ink made up for the hassle. More than anything, Hermione missed the familiarity of Muggle things and had hoped to find a sliver of comfort in Muggle Studies. It sounded as if she'd only feel more alien and off-put.

Hermione rubbed at her sternum and the delicate, golden timepiece resting over her heart.

"It's an experiment the Department of Mysteries has agreed to try with the Headmaster and the Board of Governors," Professor McGonagall said as the last of the chain slipped into Hermione's trembling hand. "It was agreed to use a younger student to make certain any failures wouldn't interfere with later O.W.L and N.E.W.T studies. It took quite a bit of cajoling, but you are a perfect candidate, Miss Granger. It's a lot of responsibility, however, and its usage with be monitored."

"Yes, Professor."

She hadn't used it yet—not yet, but the itch was there, the curiosity. Soon, Hermione told herself, pulse fluttering. Soon.

Anthony's voice pulled Hermione out of her thoughts. "I think this is us, isn't it?"

Others in their year had gathered at a wooded paddock with a short, gray-haired witch manning the gate. Some had climbed up the fence's rungs but a stern warning from their prospective professor kept anyone from getting cheeky and jumping over. "Hurry yourselves along, now. Class is about to begin."

The bell rang, the peels echoing over the long, sweeping lawns and rolling hills, and the witch gave her head a firm, expectant nod.

"Now! Good morning, class. I am Professor Grubbly-Plank, your Care of Magical Creatures instructor. This is third form, correct?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good. Welcome to your first Creatures class. It is a truly fascinating and practical study that will benefit all of you long after your years at Hogwarts come to an end. That being said, we will be working with many different beasts and beings over the years and I require all of my students to treat every creature presented to them with the proper care and respect. One instance of hexing or slipping a Bowtruckle Wizochoc and I'll send you right off to your Head of House and you won't be welcomed back. Am I understood?"

Scattered agreements drifted in from the students lining the paddock fence. Professor Grubbly- Plank jerked her pointed chin upward.

"Best remember that. Let's stop dallying and get on with our lesson. Our groundskeeper has assisted me in procuring a few subjects for today." Grubbly-Plank unlatched the gate and held it open. "I'm going to ask the ladies to come forward while the lads stay a step back."

The class exchanged puzzled glances—but not Hermione. Girls first? It must be…. She lifted her gaze to scan the sparse, skinny saplings growing in the paddock until she spotted the tell-tale glow of white fur peeking through the greenery. She let out a soft, surprised breath.

The girls—and several of the boys—cooed and gasped as the three unicorns came carefully picking their way through the wispy underbrush. Two appeared to be foals, one still sporting its golden, downy coat, the second pure white but its horn yet stumpy. The third was full-grown and regarded the accrued humans with eerily intelligent—and distrustful—eyes.

"Can anyone tell me what we have here?"

"They're unicorns!" Hannah Abbott from Hufflepuff blurted out. Her friends Megan and Susan giggled.

"Correct, but do remember to raise your hand next time. Why did I ask the lads to stay back?" Hermione raised her own hand when Hannah shook her head but the Professor called on Terry instead. "Yes, Mr…?"

"Boot, ma'am. Unicorns, particularly the breed that lives in the United Kingdom, are more distrustful of wizards than they are of witches, especially as the respective unicorn or witch or wizard ages. The legends say it has to do with purity and—um—virginity."

A few boys snickered.

"Yes, yes. Thank you, Mr. Boot. Three points to—?"

"Ravenclaw, Professor."

"Three points to Ravenclaw, then. There is some credence to those legends as unicorns react more favorably to the fairer sex—young maidens especially, and those untouched by Dark magic."

The inner feminist in Hermione bristled, but it wasn't as if she could march up to a unicorn and argue the silliness of virginity or the perceived purity of men versus women. She couldn't help but study Terry for a moment longer, have turned when he spoke to answer, until he caught her looking and blinked in question. Hermione straightened herself, cheeks pink.

Professor Grubbly-Plank encouraged them to leave their bags and books by the fence and they did so before creeping nearer the waiting creatures. The youngest foal had its nose on the professor's sleeve, snuffling with interest. The oldest unicorn watched, pawing the spruce needles underneath its golden hooves.

"Be careful when you approach. Extend your hand like so—. Boys over here with this youngster, he won't mind so much…."

The large unicorn seemed more at ease the farther the boys of the class drifted away, though Hermione noted how it still watched the foals close. Was it a mare? She'd read mother unicorns were warier than most of their ilk.

The mare allowed Padma Patil to approach and gently rub its nose. She stepped back and Harriet took her place—only for the mare's eyes to flash and for it to jerk its head back with a harsh snort.

"You there, girl. Back up!"

Puzzled, Harriet did as told, taking several steps backward until the mare stopped tossing its head in a threatening manner.

"Hmm," Professor Grubbly-Plank frowned as she studied the unicorn, Harriet, and then the foals. "Not quite sure what the problem is there, but it's best for you to stand back. Respect the creature's choice."

"Yes, Professor."

When Grubbly-Plank returned her attention to the line of boys, Pansy glanced over her shoulder at Harriet, a wicked grin spread on her powdered face. "Ooh, Potter. You know what that means. Have you been having it off with some unlucky bloke this summer?"

Harriet gaped and her face went scarlet. "You're disgusting. Shut it, Parkinson."

"Aw, did he have a change of heart? Or maybe take the sack off your head?"

"I said shut it, Parkinson!"

"Quiet over there," the professor warned. Pansy smirked and twirled herself back around, giggling with Runcorn. Hermione thought it quite possible Harriet might actually hex Parkinson, so she shook her head and gestured for her friend to let it go. Harriet stomped over the paddock and, with unexpected grace, leapt up to the top rail to sit, arms crossed and expression sour.

"Oh, dear," Hermione murmured. Harriet wasn't having a good start of term, it seemed. Pansy's uncouth retorts aside, Hermione did wonder why the unicorn rejected Harriet's approach. Dark magic, perhaps? Whatever residual energy resided in the curse-scar marring her neck? They'd theorized before that the old curse might be what repelled the ghosts as well, though specters and unicorns existed on opposing scales and the theory didn't hold much traction. Maybe something of Tom Riddle's magic yet lingered. Madam Pomfrey had warned that consequences of the Cruciatus Curse could present themselves long after the last of the symptoms disappeared.

Nearby, Terry had one hand on the silver foal, gently carding his fingers through the short mane. Lisa and Morag from Ravenclaw 'oohed' and a few other girls cheered. Terry gave them a sheepish smile as the foal nuzzled at his loose palm. The corners of Hermione's lips turned up to mirror his expression.

A sullen scoff rose behind her. Malfoy glared at the back of Terry's untidy brown hair as he pushed away from Goyle and Crabbe. "Big deal," he hissed. "It's just a stupid horse. Watch—."

It happened fast; Malfoy shoved past Sally Smith and stuck his hand out to the unicorn, a cocky sneer on his pointed face. The mare reared, kicking—and Hermione grabbed Draco by the collar of his robes, yanking him back a mere moment before a hoof could strike him. "Protego!" she called,

wand already in hand, and the horn set on goring the fallen Slytherin glanced off the magical shield in a sudden glint of golden light. The angry mare snorted and chuffed, galloping several yards away. Professor Grubbly-Plank started to shout.

"You absolute prat," Hermione snapped, letting Draco go. He crumpled in the dirt. "What on earth were you thinking?"

Gobsmacked by the speed of things, Malfoy could do nothing but blink and stare at the witch standing above him. "I, you—."

Hermione stashed away her wand and flipped her hair back over her shoulder. "Honestly!" Some people just had no brains in their skulls!

Unbeknown to Hermione, Draco continued to stare in stunned silence as she strutted off to join a laughing Harriet by the fence. He didn't notice when the professor hauled him up by the ear for a sound telling off; he just stared at Granger as if he'd never seen the witch before.

A/N:

Harriet: "Just let me pet you."

Unicorn: "Nay."

Harriet: D:

Hermione would 100% argue with a unicorn and the unicorn would lose.

Remember, there's a Discord server now where you can join the community and stay up to date on chapter releases! Here's the link: CDT Discord.

https/discord.gg/4Mxw628

liar

cxii. liar

The rest of Harriet's first day back at Hogwarts proved relatively uneventful.

After Draco nearly got trampled by a unicorn and sent to stand off to the side by himself, Professor Grubbly-Plank lectured about the properties of unicorns, the various sub-species found around the globe, and their proper care. Though the subject interested her, Harriet found herself distracted by the sunshine and the slight, creeping chill still wheedling through her veins.

Madam Pomfrey had said coming in close contact with Dark creatures just a few months after what happened in the Aerie hadn't done wonders for her health—nor had the spill from the carriage or the time spent in the freezing rain. She'd probably come down with a cold in the next few days and would have to go back to the Hospital Wing—not that Harriet would go back, not unless dragged there by wild Thestrals or her well-meaning friends. She was bloody sick of waking up in the ward.

She saw Fawkes soaring across the sky during class, a mere smudge of Gryffindor red and gold flitting between gray clouds and dappled daylight. If she concentrated, she could hear the slightest whisper of his warbling song and it lifted some of the weight hovering around her heart.

When class came to a close, they gathered their bags from the fence, the bottoms slightly wet from the grass, and headed inside. Pansy whispered another nasty insinuation about Harriet under her breath to Daphne Greengrass, so Harriet muttered, "Offendimus," under her breath and sent the witch tripping down a—short—set of steps. As Pansy whinged about her skinned knees and broken inkwell, Harriet tucked her wand back into its brace and kept walking.

They found Elara in the Transfiguration corridor and took their usual seats in the front, waiting for Professor McGonagall to arrive. The professor opted to lecture instead of giving a practical lesson, discussing the history and typical application of the Animagus transformation. Harriet struggled to concentrate on her notes, but Elara watched Professor McGonagall change into a tabby cat and back into a person with rapt attention.

By the time lunch rolled around, Harriet felt tired and irritated—mostly by the continued, faux- fainting damsel shite being perpetuated by the older Slytherins and a few Gryffindors. She thought the people in her House might be doing it to get a rise out of her, but Harriet didn't appreciate the teasing. She wouldn't admit it, but running into that Dementor had been a horrid experience, and the less she was reminded of it, the better. She would've skived off History of Magic if not for the novelty of having a new professor and needing to make a good impression with the teacher she'd have for at least another three years. What she wanted more than anything was to go crawl into her bed and not wake up for a week.

Harriet shuffled into the History of Magic classroom after Hermione and Elara, and though the venue hadn't changed, the room felt…more welcoming than it had when Selwyn had darkened the front desk. Professor Selwyn hadn't kept any personal possessions in the room and the new professor hadn't set anything out yet, but the desk, floors, and windows had all been cleaned and the shutters opened to the afternoon light. Harriet took a seat between Elara and Hermione in the first row and put her head down on the desk. It smelled of polish.

Elara sighed. "Go see Madam Pomfrey for a Pepper-Up."

Harriet grunted.

"You are looking a bit peaky," Hermione mentioned as she rifled through her bag for the right textbook. "Maybe you should head to bed early after supper?"

Again, Harriet grunted. Elara nudged her in the ribs until she sat up in her seat with a baleful glance at her friend. "No, I'm not going to bed early. I'm going to do something else." The free period after History of Magic would give Harriet the perfect opportunity to go snooping about looking at Moon Mirrors, given much of the castle's corridors would be empty.

"What?"

"I'll tell you later."

"Tell us what—?"

The professor arrived a moment after the bell, a skinny bloke with a relaxed expression and faded, drab robes. Harriet couldn't guess at his age but thought him far too young to have so much gray peppering his brown, floppy hair. She didn't notice the facial scarring until he set his textbooks on his lectern and Wayne Hopkins leaned toward Oliver Rivers whispering, "Merlin, what d'ya think happened to him?"

"Hello, I'm Professor Remus Lupin. Welcome to your third year in History of Magic." He beamed, his green eyes flicking toward the front row, then away. Harriet hadn't seen the wizard teach yet, obviously, but she thought he had easy, unassuming confidence about him, his voice tinged with the slightest bit of nervousness that would probably fade by the end of the week. "I'll have to ask you to bear with me as I acquaint myself with life as a professor and learn how far we all are in the curriculum."

He retreated from the lectern to the desk and gave the scrolls stationed there an uncertain shuffle, peering at the titles. "As far as I understand it, before the summer holiday you were wrapping up studies on the International Warlock Convention?"

Heads bobbed in agreement. Someone had a packet of Bertie Botts open because Harriet could hear the distinct rattling sound of beans being shared, though she couldn't say who it was. Her bets were on Crabbe.

"Potter," Malfoy hissed behind her.

She didn't turn around. "What?"

"Switch me seats."

"Don't be stupid."

"Excellent!" the professor said, unperturbed by the silent argument and illegal sweets distribution. "That means you're ready to move on to the witch hunts and famous figures of the fourteenth century. Exciting stuff!" Professor Lupin looked up and gave them all a tight-lipped smile as he tidied his lesson plans, finding another sheet of parchment near the top of the pile. "I'm going to take attendance—apologies in advance if I mispronounce your name. Hannah Abbott?"

"Present."

"Thank you. E—?"

The professor froze and sucked in a sudden, short breath. He had one hand on the desk still, fingers splayed, and Harriet wondered if he'd pulled a muscle or something because he looked strange.

A full minute passed.

"…Professor Lupin?" Hermione ventured after exchanging uncertain glances with Harriet. "Are you all right?"

"I—." The wizard shook himself, a soft noise leaving his throat. "Yes, perfectly fine. I—bit of a cold I'm getting over. Not at my best—." Harriet could believe that. His face had the same peaky pallor as Harriet's. Had he gotten sick in the rain too? "E-Elara Black?"

Elara stiffened, perhaps sensing the same hesitation in the man's voice that Harriet did. "Present, Professor."

Lupin looked at her—wide-eyed and pale, the scars stark in relief. His eyes switched to Harriet, then back again, and the muscles in his jaw jumped in protest as he forced a smile. "Any relation to —." Elara's hand closed in a fist. "—M-Marlene McKinnon?"

Elara relaxed, though her puzzled stare conveyed her confusion. "…Yes?"

"Oh." Professor Lupin swallowed and looked away. He sat down suddenly, very nearly missing the chair only partly tucked under his desk. "Oh. That's—. Where was I? Attendance, yes. Ah, Susan Bones?"

"Here!"

He continued on down the list, staring at the parchment with total single-mindedness. Elara turned in her seat and mouthed the word, "What?" but Harriet didn't have an answer for her, so she shrugged. Maybe it had something to do with Sirius Black. Why else would the bloke act so weird when saying Elara's name?

Frowning, Harriet fidgeted with the corner of her textbook, folding the first page back and forth.

When he finished attendance, Professor Lupin moved on to the lecture without pause, using his wand to throw key words on the blackboard without bothering to stand and write them himself. Harriet pushed his strange behavior to the back of her mind in favor of taking notes—or drawing wobbly concentric circles and lopsided trees in the margins of her parchment. Twice Hermione muttered a soft admonishment under her breath and twice Harriet returned her concentration to the lecture only for her mind to wander a few sentences in.

Professor Lupin kept talking like he couldn't afford to stop.

"Circe's knickers, is he always going to be like this?" Zabini moaned from somewhere behind them.

"I hope not, he's going so fast," Nott whispered. "What was that bit about Balinda the Benevolent?"

"I thought it was Malinda the Malevolent?"

"Shite, seriously?"

Class came to an end with Harriet having little to show for it aside from a headache and ink splotches on her cuff. She shoved her things away into her bag as the others filtered out. Professor Lupin slumped when the bell rang and didn't stir.

"Can you wait a second?" Harriet asked her friends before they followed the rest of their peers.

"Is something wrong?"

"No, just—. I'll be right back."

Hefting her bag a little higher on her skinny shoulder, Harriet returned to the front of the room. Professor Lupin heard her coming and lifted his head, startled eyes finding her own so quickly, Harriet almost stumbled.

"Err—Professor Lupin?"

He blinked and lifted his head a touch more, clearing his throat. "Yes, Har—Miss Potter? Can I help you with something?"

"No, I—thanks. For yesterday, I mean." Harriet dropped her gaze to her shoes. Had the professor heard the screaming, too? Merlin, it hadn't been her, had it? "For when I fell."

Professor Lupin fidgeted. He brought his hands together on the desk and squeezed hard enough for Harriet to see his knuckles turn white as bone. He was definitely odd. "Think nothing of it." His smile didn't quite reach his eyes, the motion strained and uncomfortable. "You're feeling better, I take it?"

"Yeah—I mean, yes, sir." She glanced over her shoulder toward Hermione and Elara. Professor Lupin followed her line of sight and blanched, clearing his throat again as he shuffled the mess of papers in front of him. "I just wanted to thank you."

"Of course."

Harriet departed then, rejoining her friends on their way to drop their belongings off in the dorm. She didn't know what to make of Professor Lupin yet, nor of the man's rather strange behavior. Why had he reacted to Elara's name that way? And had he almost called her Harriet?

Well, she decided with a snort. As long as he doesn't unleash a prehistoric monster on the school, he's still better than Selwyn.

x X x

Remus started to tremble when the door shut with a gentle click behind the last of his students.

He'd woken that morning ready to face whatever the day had to throw at him—nervous, yes, but excited and pleased, eager to see James' daughter again, though he hadn't a clue what he'd say to the girl. If he'd say anything at all.

He should have known the day would turn when Harriet entered the Great Hall, fresh from the hospital wing, and sat at the Slytherin table.

There was no excuse for his ignorance; the green on her uniform could be seen from where he sat, as green as her eyes, as green as the uniforms of those surrounding her—and yet it had never occurred to Remus that she might have been Sorted anywhere other than in Gryffindor. Definitely not Slytherin. By Merlin, he'd take the knowledge to his grave, but James would've had kittens. He'd once—jokingly—told Remus that he'd disown any of his children if they became Slytherins, and though Remus knew the statement had been given in jest, he couldn't deny James' probable disappointment.

Lily wouldn't have minded, though. She was the most open-minded of them all. No, she wouldn't have cared in the slightest, not when she—.

Remus' gaze had slid to the dark-haired wizard seated next to him at the High Table. Snape refused to acknowledge his existence.

He'd prepared for her class. He'd prepared himself to see her again, to accept the reality of her Sorting, but—.

Nothing could have prepared him for her.

Standing, Remus wiped his sweating palms off on his trousers and started to pace. His thoughts jumped and jerked from place to place, disoriented as if scattered by a physical blow, and the urge to vomit curdled in his middle like something living. It burned in his chest, his tongue moving listlessly in a parched mouth. His knees weakened and he caught the rough stone of the wall to keep his balance, forcing his lungs to expand and permit air into his body. It rattled low and heinous in his dry throat.

The smell of charred earth and blackened rock. Ash eddying in the breeze, the perverse glint of sunlight where the water puddled in the new ruins' cradled arms—.

Gray eyes in a still face—confused, suspicious, rimmed in black lashes, a quirk of her brow that once belonged to her mother. "Present, Professor—."

Snow where the fire had ravaged the manor. He could smell the burning flesh still, God have mercy—.

"There were no survivors."

"He lied," Remus managed to gasp, heart racing. "He lied."

He lied about everything, didn't he? He lied almost as much as you lie to yourself.

An abbreviated knock hit the door before it jerked open, revealing the black silhouette of the castle's resident Potions Master. Snape appeared as murderous as he had the night prior—perhaps even more so in the light of day. His movements oozed displeasure and aggravation, his stride quick but stilted as if he fought the urge to kick someone, hard.

Remus knew that stride. In the past, it had usually preceded a violent confrontation.

Snape spotted Remus half-slumped against the wall and hesitated, his robes curling around his legs when he stopped short. Remus didn't miss how he palmed his wand.

Ah, Remus thought in a voice little resembling his own. Still afraid of the big bad wolf, Snivellous?

"Lupin," the man drawled, teeth cutting into the final consonant with particular force. "Slacking off already, are we?"

"No, no," Remus assured him, plastering a fake grin on his otherwise slack face. "Just lost my… equilibrium for a moment."

Gray eyes in a still face, a gloved fist held loose on the table between her and James' daughter—.

"Do you plan to stand there like an ignoramus or are you going to take this?"

He noted the goblet in Snape's hand, the man's pale fingers crimped tight around the stem. Smoke curled from the liquid's surface.

"Oh, thank you, Severus. Could you put it on the desk there for me, please—?"

"No," Snape spat, lip curling. "No, you're going to take it now, in front of me. I won't be held accountable if you have a sudden…lapse in judgment."

What does he mean by that? Sighing, Remus straightened and approached, crossing from one side of the room to the other. With each step, Snape held himself stiffer and stiffer, nostrils flaring, black wand clenched in a shaking fist hidden in the folds of his robes. Remus took the goblet from him and Snape recoiled, one of the tables screeching against the stone floor when the man's side struck it.

The sound lingered as Remus held his breath and drank.

Were he an uncouth man, Remus would have said the Wolfsbane Potion tasted like piss. Perhaps not uncouth so much as blunt: it tasted of piss with the curious undertone of Muggle battery acid, and he almost vomited the mixture right back onto Snape's shoes the moment it hit his stomach. "Can't you—? Is there no way to maybe…change the flavor?" he croaked, one hand braced against his middle as the remainder crawled down his throat.

Sneering again, Snape summoned the empty goblet from Remus' grip. "Even if it were possible— which it is not—I would not waste my time for your benefit."

"Thanks for that."

The Potions Master turned to leave.

"I mean that sincerely. Thank you for doing this. It means so much, and I know—."

"I don't want your fucking gratitude. I want you to shut up and never speak to me again if it can be avoided."

Snape was almost to the door.

"Severus?"

He kept walking without pause.

"Severus, I—wait! You have E—Miss Black in your class, yes?"

Snape stopped dead, one hand on the door's handle. The barest tip of his dark head indicated that Remus had his attention, no matter how fleeting. "Obviously."

"Can you—what…what do you know about her?"

"…Why?"

"I—." Why? What possible reason could Remus have for wanting to know about a young girl he had only met this afternoon? How could he possibly ask that? "No. Never mind."

Snape turned and fixed Remus with a harsh, calculating look, and again the werewolf had to reconcile the image of a scrawny, cruel Slytherin boy with that of the menacing Dark wizard before him. "If you have any sense at all in that cavernous space between your ears," he said, voice soft, cold. Emotionless. "You will stay away from Potter and her friends. I am not that Headmaster. I am not a fool—because I remember with perfect clarity the people you once called friends at this school. How far do those old loyalties extend, hmm?"

Remus swallowed. "I don't know what you mean."

"You know exactly what I mean."

"I have nothing to do with Sirius Black."

"And I do not believe you."

Anger flared in Remus, kindling alongside the memories of old laughter, boyhood antics, and the smell of his life burning to ashes. "And you, Severus? What of your old loyalties?"

In a whorl of black fabric, Snape disappeared once more into the hallway and Remus remained alone in the empty classroom. He straightened the desk the Potions Master had collided with—and only when he had his hand pressed to the wood did he notice the tears splattering on the surface.

Only then did Remus begin to sob.

A/N:

Remus: *Drops to the floor in a panic, caterpillars out of the room.*

Class: "…"

Harriet: "Still not the strangest professor I've had."

100% believe Snape is irrationally terrified of Lupin and werewolves in general.

insidious little things

cxiii. insidious little things

Somewhere on the fifth-floor corridor, while much of the rest of the student body tucked into their lunches and enjoyed their midday break from classes, Harriet Potter's head peeked from an oval mirror set high on the stone wall. She turned in place, squinting, and studied the ground, the wall, and then the corridor itself, blowing her hair from her eyes as she did so.

Mrs. Norris happened to be passing by—and when the old cat glanced up to see a head hanging from a mirror, two green eyes blinking at her, Mrs. Norris yowled. Harriet stuck out her tongue and the cat went sprinting in search of her master, which meant it was time for Harriet to scamper. She jerked back, the cold prickling over the crown of her head and against her cheeks until she appeared once more in the seventh-floor reading room.

"That one leads to the fifth floor," she said to Hermione and Elara as she hopped off the mantel. The smell of old soot tickled her nose, the rug underfoot dusty and frayed "Could be a bit dangerous to go through, though, since it's out in the open and high on the wall. I think I scared Mrs. Norris half to death."

Elara snorted and took another bite of the sandwich she'd stolen from the Great Hall, flicking specks of dirt from her thigh. "At least we know where Filch is now."

"How does he understand what that daft cat is saying? D'you think he can speak feline?"

"Don't be silly, Harriet."

"I don't think it's silly. I mean, I can talk to snakes, after all."

She dropped onto the ratty couch next to Hermione and dragged the sheet of parchment she'd been using closer, beginning a loose sketch of the seventh floor. Hermione watched her do so for another minute before speaking up.

"It seems a waste to put all this on paper. It could be ruined so easily."

"It's a map, though, Hermione. Isn't this how you're supposed to make maps?" Harriet studied the ornate hearth flanked in badgers and drew the shape of it in minuscule, biting her lip as she concentrated on holding the quill steady. "I guess I could use an Impervius Charm, but then I couldn't add anything more to it."

"Even an Impervius Charm would only protect it from liquid—not from fire, or tearing, or crumpling." Hermione crossed her legs, the lifted foot bobbing as she thought. "We're magical for goodness' sake. There has to be a better way."

"Well, I left my stone and chisel in the dorm, so unless you've got a better idea, I'm going to keep using the quill." Harriet finished a notation and sighed, eying the mess of convoluted directions and half-filled in sections. In theory, finding the Moon Mirrors sounded like a thrilling afternoon adventure, but it consisted mostly of them blundering through rooms that hadn't been touched in a few centuries, getting chased by pixies and Elara's persistent dusty allergy. "It feels impossible to actually map all these bloody things. A third of the mirrors don't exist half of the time—look, like this one. The reading room disappears on Tuesdays!"

"That was probably by design," Elara remarked after finishing her food, wiping her hands clean. "I

doubt anyone other than Rowena Ravenclaw herself was aware of all the Moon Mirrors and their positions."

"What about Slytherin?"

"Maybe, but doubtful. He may have assisted in creating them, but I would assume he didn't help place them all."

"True." Harriet folded her splotched map after drying the ink, then had a sudden thought. It was likely only the Founder could locate every Moon Mirror—but Harriet knew exactly where to find Rowena Ravenclaw to ask. "Huh."

I'd have to go back to the Aerie, though, she reminded herself with a grimace, choosing not to say anything. Merlin, I don't want to do that. The portrait might not be there, either. It could have been toasted along with the Basilisk.

They gathered their school things and the rubbish left over from lunch and departed, dragging wary feet down the long path to Defense Against the Dark Arts. They passed the Headmaster and Filch on the fifth floor, the latter gesturing wildly about with a yowling Mrs. Norris tucked under his arm. Professor Dumbledore gave the three Slytherin witches a knowing smile as they hurried by.

"We could probably look for more Moon Mirrors after dinner," Harriet mentioned as they walked. "We have plenty of time before Astronomy, after all."

"Can't," Elara replied.

"What, why?" Elara muttered something unintelligible and Harriet raised a curious brow. "What d'you say?"

"I have choir practice," Elara repeated, louder, and from the way her eyes shifted about, Harriet knew she wasn't entirely comfortable admitting as much. "McGonagall signed me up for it."

Hermione brightened at the mention of something extracurricular that didn't involve charting broom cupboards for three hours. "Oh, that should be fun, shouldn't it? I didn't know you could sing!"

Elara went decidedly pink in the face and scowled. Harriet coughed.

"I've signed up for the debate club," Hermione rushed on with a tentative smile. "I would have done it last year, but what with things being as they were….Anyway, it'll be good for both of us to have a hobby outside of schoolwork!"

Harriet barely suppressed a snort as she didn't really consider "debate club" too far from the realm of schoolwork, but she kept her comments to herself. She wouldn't judge her friend on what she found enjoyable. "Say, isn't that the club with all the Ravenclaws in it?"

"Yes—I mean, I'm not sure. It probably has a good few—." Hermione cleared her throat. "Why do you ask?"

Smirking, Harriet said, "No reason, really. I was just wondering if Mr. Boot would be joining you —ow."

Hermione whacked her arm.

They rejoined their class in the first-floor corridor outside the Defense room, finding spots against

the wall while they waited for their inimitable professor. Nearby, Longbottom stood with Seamus and Weasley, the Gryffindor trio looking put out and sullen. Neville didn't have his shirt tucked in and Ron had foregone his tie, a trend Harriet noted was popular with the older boys—well, popular until Professor McGonagall came around docking points for disheveled uniforms or too much makeup.

"I was hoping he'd get the sack," Ron said under his breath, having enough sense to check the corridor before speaking. Merlin only knew where Professor Slytherin might suddenly appear. "It was almost nice having that Lockhart bloke substitute last term. The daft tit didn't have a clue what he was talking about, but at least we weren't afraid of getting hexed."

"Dad says Slytherin's got the Board in his pocket, basically." Longbottom ruffled his own hair, exhaling. "I don't understand it much, but he told me it's more complicated than it seems."

"Bloody Basilisk could have at least done us a favor and eaten him before it croaked."

Next to Harriet, Hermione stiffened and grit her teeth. She turned as if to give Weasley a piece of her mind, but the door chose that moment to sail open and crash against the wall, so she snapped her jaws shut and followed the rest of their peers into the cold room.

Harriet hadn't missed Professor Slytherin in the slightest over the holidays. Seeing him again— appearing like a summoned demon in the thicker shadows bleeding between the lit torches— sparked anxiety in her veins and it prickled along her arms. The uncanny resemblance to Tom Riddle stirred those haunting memories of the Aerie as the Diadem's specter looked down upon her with mad red eyes and screamed his rage at her.

"Welcome to your third year of Defense Against the Dark Arts under my instruction," Slytherin said as he approached his lectern, his movements calm, almost apathetic. Gone was the frantic, hate-filled ire of the previous year; the elimination of the Basilisk and the person framing their professor had returned Slytherin to usual calculating self. Harriet almost preferred the angry version. At least then he would only set them to reading and ignore their presence until the bell rang. "Quite the achievement. Despite the…interruption incurred in your previous year of study, I have sufficiently taught you basic shielding and offensive spells. You have all matriculated…to the minimum standard."

People twitched under Slytherin's judgmental gaze but the class remained otherwise silent.

"For your third year, your studies will progress from practical spell knowledge to theory and its possible application. In particular, we will be concentrating on learning and recognizing various Dark creatures." He smiled and Harriet shivered, because a smile like that couldn't mean anything good for the rest of them. "Today's lesson will introduce you to a rather banal and common monster called a boggart."

A small snap! came from somewhere on Harriet's right, and she turned to see Elara had broken her quill in half.

Professor Slytherin didn't notice or, more likely, didn't care; he waved his hand toward a large trunk hidden behind his desk and it rose up over the barrier, drifted through the air, and landed with a bang in front of the class. Everyone stared at it—and when the trunk jumped, Lavender Brown shrieked.

"Now, now, where's that Gryffindor courage?" Professor Slytherin soothed as he swanned over to the trunk and placed a placating hand on it. "There's nothing to fear—so long as you have no fear, of course." He laughed—the sound higher and colder than his usual voice, a keening, unhinged

sound Harriet despised.

"Can anyone tell me what a boggart is? Yes, Mr. Malfoy?"

"It's an apparition that takes on your worst fear."

"Close, but not quite. It is not an apparition; it is, by common terms, a parasite." Professor Slytherin flicked his fingers and stepped back from the trunk, receding once more into the shadows. "Boggarts infest magical homes and gain their sustenance through the emotional energy of fear. To harvest this emotion, the amorphous being takes the form of the greatest fear of the nearest witch or wizard."

He suddenly waved his hand and the trunk's lid opened, the belts securing it closed flapping like broken bird wings. Vapor rose from the trunk's insides, coiling in upon itself until it congealed like lumpy toothpaste, twisting and expanding, the class taking in a collective gasp and leaning back in their chairs as the moving shape landed before Parvati—.

The Gryffindor let out a shriek as the form solidified into a twitching, lopsided mummy. Bedraggled bandages covered its withered form and black blood oozed from the crevices where the bandages didn't reach. The mummy bellowed, groaning like wind through dry reeds, its joints creaking and snapping as it reached for Parvati—.

Slytherin gave his wand an indolent twirl. "Riddikulus!"

The mummy disintegrated back into a whorl of smoke. The Professor dispersed it the trunk before it could take another shape, and once the lid shut, silence held the room like a stiff, painful spell. Overcoming her shock, Parvati started to sob. Lavender put an arm around her shoulders to comfort her and the witch only cried harder, the trunk jostling itself not two yards away.

"Five points from Gryffindor. Come now, Miss Patil. I do hope you paid close attention to the lesson, lest you wish to fail the test."

Truth be told, if Harriet hadn't heard Snape dispatch a boggart over the summer at Grimmauld, she wouldn't have the slightest idea of what occurred. The bottom of her hands felt tacky with sweat and her heart had fallen somewhere down by her feet. The mummy had looked so—real. Had it been real?

"Professor Slytherin," Lavender said in a strained voice, holding onto her friend. Parvati's shoulders heaved up and down. "I think Parvati might need a Calming Draught."

The professor sighed as if terribly put upon. "Yes, yes. See her off to Pomfrey if you must, Miss Brown. That'll be a fail for both of you for the day."

Lavender helped Parvati to her feet, who needed no more prompting to bolt down the middle aisle stretching between the Gryffindors and Slytherins, forgetting her things behind her. Her crying continued into the corridor where it echoed back to them from a fading distance. Slytherin's lip curled as the girls disappeared, and another flick of his wand slammed the door in their wake.

"Longbottom. You're first, then. Approach and perform the spell."

Neville grimaced, but—to his credit—he got up without comment and came to the front of the room. He didn't blink when Professor Slytherin stared him down, nor did he flinch when the trunk crashed open again. Harriet gripped the edge of her desk as the boggart writhed, transforming into a wild-haired woman in black robes, her face twisted as if caught in the middle of a malicious laugh. Neville didn't let the boggart gather itself. Instead, he shouted, "Riddikulus!" as soon as he

could and turned the boggart into a scarecrow that swayed and toppled over.

A new, cutting smile appeared on the professor's face, his head tilted so only the barest glimpse of torchlight could gleam in his terrifying eyes. "Very well. A passable demonstration, Longbottom. As you can see, laughter is the weapon of choice against a boggart. It's a simple-minded creature. Fixing a humorous image within your mind and using the incantation will force it to assume a less frightening visage, and will—in essence—starve the parasite to death. The rest of you should have no difficulty with this exercise. Next, Mr. Weasley."

Several students followed Longbottom. If they ignored Slytherin's snide comments and concentrated, most were successful to varying degrees, the boggart flopping from shape to shape as students obeyed their professor's command and stumbled up from their desks, though no one actually laughed, no matter how funny looking the creature became. If the boggart turned toward Slytherin, he struck it with a silent variant of the Knockback Jinx and forced it closer to the class once more.

Harriet didn't know what the wizard meant by humorous image, and she wasn't sure what her boggart would become. Sitting in her chair, listening to others worry and shout and cry over the cracking sound of the boggart's shifts, Harriet tried to think of what could possibly be her worst fear and couldn't decide.

Most everything scared her, honestly. Harriet wasn't very courageous—just stubborn, stubborn enough to persevere despite her doubts, racing pulse, or clammy hands. What would the boggart become? A Basilisk, perhaps? Or—the Dark Lord? Tom Riddle? What would happen if Riddle showed up in the middle of the classroom with Slytherin to bear witness?

Merlin help me if it does , Harriet griped, chewing on her lip. What was a 'humorous image'? Riddle with clown makeup? A Basilisk sock-puppet? Turn Quirrell into a two-headed penny?

"Miss Black," the professor called.

Next to Harriet, Elara didn't move.

"Your turn, Black."

"No thank you, Professor."

Heads turned in the resulting hush. Fay Dunbar gasped.

Blinking, Slytherin's expression shifted from one of perverse delight to distaste, and he flung the boggart back into the trunk as he strolled out from behind the lectern and crossed the aisle. Harriet swallowed past the lump forming in her throat, Slytherin coming to stand before Elara's desk and, by extension, near Harriet's own. He braced his pale, skinny fingers on its edge and lowered his face nearer Elara's. She shrunk farther into her seat.

"You will either do as you're told," he said, voice quiet and deriding. "Or you will receive a failing mark for the day."

"Yes, Professor." Elara crossed her arms and yet still didn't move. Harriet almost kicked her for bringing his scrutiny onto herself—but doing so at the moment would be unwise. Slytherin's lip pulled back to bear his sharp white teeth.

"Detention, Black. Tomorrow afternoon."

"Of course, Professor."

He straightened and, as if sensing her attention, jerked his head toward Harriet. "You," he snapped. "You're next, Miss Potter. Approach the trunk."

Nodding, Harriet stood, expending the effort to put as much space as possible between herself and Slytherin, and hurried forward. She could feel all eyes upon her as she faced the front of the classroom, her fingers clumsy and cold as she tugged her wand from its brace and held it in her fist.

What would it become? Quirrell? A Basilisk? Riddle? A Dementor—?

Bang! The trunk lurched and skittered several inches on the stone floor. Without warning, Slytherin again cast a spell and the lid opened, allowing the boggart to come spilling out like bubbling tar. Harriet sucked in a deep breath, preparing herself—.

The boggart stiffened and expanded, becoming larger than anything it had so far. It grew large enough to almost blot out the torchlight and Finnigan, in the second row, swore aloud and almost fell out of his chair. The boggart grew—until it stopped. Confused, Harriet took a step back as her classmates exchanged puzzled murmurs.

After all, how odd was it that Harriet Potter feared a boot cupboard?

The little door came open and the innocuous brass chain rattled against the painted panel. The hinges complained, a noise so ingrained in Harriet's memory, she jumped as if jolting awake from terrible dreams, ducking to avoid the stair riser. A black haze of tiny spiders spewed from the inside and the class shrieked, Ron Weasley screaming louder than anyone—and yet all Harriet could do was stare at the unrelieved darkness bared within.

"You don't have the right to anything, you ungrateful freak!"

Her mouth was dry, dry as a bone.

"See if we let you out before Christmas!"

Harriet didn't understand. She hadn't expected this, not in the slightest. Why the cupboard? Why the cupboard?

"You don't talk to me like that!"

The voices were only in her head. They weren't here. She wasn't afraid of—.

"There is no such thing as magic."

The darkness seemed to swell and creep closer and closer.

"There's no such thing—."

She wasn't afraid of—!

"—As magic."

"Potter!"

Stumbling, Harriet turned to her professor, who once more had his wand trained on the immobile boggart-cupboard. She gawked at him, breathing hard, and Slytherin rolled his eyes as he again defeated the boggart and dismissed the ugly, creeping mist into the trunk. The torches flickered in their brackets. "What a dismal showing. Return to your seat, Potter."

Harriet did so. She dropped into the chair behind her desk, her wand still in hand, and didn't hear the giggling or whispered speculation over the roaring in her ears. She didn't feel Hermione's hand on her arm or see Elara glowering at their instructor. Harriet just stared at the empty blackboard and tried to remember how to breathe.

What in the hell had that been?

A/N:

Harriet: "Professor Slytherin looks like he's in a good mood."

Slytherin: "Good morning, children! It's trauma time, my favorite time!"

Harriet: "Why do I go to this school."

fortune teller

cxiv. fortune teller

The first weekend proved a welcome distraction after only two days of class.

Harriet loved Hogwarts. She loved learning and exploring the old, twisting corridors, discovering new magic and figuring out how it all came together—but she didn't love the gossiping or the snide, sideways glances she got in the Great Hall or common room. She could do without that quite nicely.

In a strange twist of fate, so many strange rumors about Harriet had occurred in a such a limited time frame—the Dementor, the unicorn, the boggart—that no one could get their story straight, and the gossip-mongers started making up ridiculous tales even the most gullible of people didn't believe. Besides, they much rather talk about Sirius Black than some weird third-year Slytherin witch.

The rampant discussion regarding her criminal father meant Elara didn't want to leave the dormitory much, spending an awful lot of time writing to her solicitor, Mr. Piers, while Hermione claimed she had far too much homework to complete to do anything else. Harriet didn't know how Hermione could have so much homework after only two days of class. Had Harriet missed an assignment somewhere?

Harriet spent much of her weekend on her own, occasionally running across Luna and Ginny or the Weasley twins, who helped out in her map-making expedition by showing her a few hidden areas around the castle where she did, in fact, find another Moon Mirror. This one dumped her somewhere in the lower dungeons, and it took Harriet almost two hours to find her way out.

She avoided the second-floor corridor and the hidden passage by the library, knowing full well her best choice would be to find Rowena Ravenclaw and ask about her system of mirrors. She would have to go eventually, just to check…but not yet. Not quite yet.

So Harriet wandered about, made notes, and drew places around the castle that served as landmarks. Alone, she had ample time to sit, write her own letters, and also reflect on what had happened in Defense Against the Dark Arts.

It didn't make sense. The cupboard at Privet Drive, for all that it had been small and cramped and spider-infested, had more often than not been a refuge away from her relatives and their insults. It hadn't frightened Harriet, no more than Uncle Vernon or Aunt Petunia had, and definitely not more than Tom Riddle.

Harriet decided to push the why of the situation to the back of her mind, no matter the lingering splinter of disquiet still needling her. It wasn't important. When she crossed a boggart again, she'd be ready for it—and Professor Slytherin could just go stuff himself.

Sunday afternoon found Harriet farther afield than she knew she should be wandering, perched on a column outside Gagwilde Tower in the Sunweather Courtyard. The weather definitely wasn't sun-weather; the rain drizzled in intermittent bouts and mist clung to the forest's roots, pawing at the edges of the grounds like ghostly cat claws. She kept an eye out for Dementors but had failed to see any daring to cross the boundary.

The column wasn't very tall, perhaps only four meters or so in height, the flat top of it plenty wide enough for Harriet to sit cross-legged upon. She'd scrambled up it without problem from the stone railing below—and besides, it wasn't as high off the ground as the column in the courtyard's middle.

The upperclassmen called it "the Angel's Plinth," but on closer inspection, Harriet didn't think the statue on the raised platform looked much like an angel. It looked like one of the old woodcarvings depicting the fae. The summer before last, when Snape had been in one of his more contemplative moods, Harriet had chanced to ask about the fae she'd read in a Wizarding book, and Snape had said they were a part of an old belief about the origin of magic. Legend said they'd descended from the fae—but Snape attributed it all to a kind of creationism or a pagan religion that had existed before other religions like Christianity spread. Namely, it only held as much truth as one ascribed to it.

But that was neither here nor there; the statue didn't matter so much as what it held. The crumbling stone fingers were wrapped about the frame of a mirror, and Harriet knew it to be a Moon Mirror because Hermione had taught her a spell to test for the presence of Occamy-silver. It could only be seen from a higher vantage, and only by chance had she thought to jump onto the railing to check the odd, murky glimmer. She couldn't get close to inspect it, but the spell indicated from a distance, and Set had been the one to point out its location the day prior, all but tugging Harriet off her feet as she passed the tower on her morning run. Without a way of telling whether it was an entrance or an exit, Harriet settled for drawing the mirror, its statue—and the thick boards covering the grunge-encrusted surface.

She hoped it wasn't an exit, or her indiscriminate explorations might land her with her head stuck between two planks like an old stockade.

The breeze kicked up and played with the edge of her parchment, Harriet leaning on her palm to hold it steady. A sigh escaped her. "Hermione might have been on to something about paper being rubbish," she mumbled, studying the damp spots and stray streaks of ink caught by the rain. She cast another Impervius Charm on the stone beneath her, but the dew still welled and dripped over the top, soaking into the page and the seat of her trousers.

Water fogged her glasses and Harriet directed a second Impervius at the lenses. A glimmer of gold caught her eye—and she didn't almost fall off her perch when Fawkes suddenly appeared before her, though it may have been a near thing. "Hullo," she greeted as the phoenix clacked his beak and preened his pretty feathers. "You've been out and about more often than not this week, haven't you?"

Fawkes trilled a lovely sound and Harriet grinned—until he started nosing about in her open satchel. "Hey!"

He managed to scavenge a Chocolate Frog, making quick work of the packaging with easy snips of his beak. Harriet frowned as he tore the frog apart and tossed it back. "What if you get sick, you numpty?" she chastised, gathering the rubbish before it could blow away. "Oh, look. A Dumbledore card." She showed the bird and Fawkes cocked his head to study the portrait with one black eye. "I have a feeling you don't listen to him either—oof!"

Harriet got a mouthful of tail feathers when Fawkes spun around, graceful as could be, and hopped into the air. Harriet thought that to be it, his mischief accomplished—so she was not prepared for the talons that sank into the back of her jumper and hoisted her up as if she weighed no more than a biscuit. "Put me down, you bloody birdbrain!" Harriet cried, locking her arms so she didn't slip out of her overlarge jumper. The phoenix chirped—and then dropped the struggling witch a

respectable two feet or so from the ground, letting her land in a heap by the waiting Headmaster.

"P-Professor Dumbledore!" Harriet exclaimed as she clamored to her feet, snatching her satchel up from where it had fallen in a puddle. "Sorry, sir!

"Hello, Harriet," he returned with a gentle smile. "It appears you and Fawkes share a fondness for high places."

"Oh, err—yeah?" She shot a sour look at the bird in question, who'd fluttered down to settle on Professor Dumbledore's shoulder, feigning innocence. "What brings you out here, Headmaster?"

"I thought it a lovely afternoon for a walk." Given the increasing rain and the low temperature insulting the summer date, Harriet knew he was telling a fib—or a bad joke. Did Professor Dumbledore do sarcasm? Either way, he knew he'd find her there. "What have you got there, dear girl?"

She'd had the presence of mind to snatch hold of her map before Fawkes snatched hold of her, and Harriet quickly stuffed it into her bag. "Nothin'. Just scribbles."

Professor Dumbledore wasn't convinced; in fact, he spared both Harriet and the Angel's Plinth a knowing glance and quirked a brow. Harriet blushed.

He brought her back to the school proper and Harriet expected one of those light but firmly-worded reprimands against climbing and wandering off, but the Headmaster said nothing about her misbehaving, only wishing her a wonderful evening. Later, when she returned to the dormitory after supper, Harriet found two books wrapped in paper and twine left on her trunk's lid, dropped off by an owl or a helpful house-elf.

There was no note, but Harriet knew where they came from all the same.

x X x

The Proteus Indices sounded like the title of a science fiction novel. The language inside certainly appeared as if it belonged to some forgotten alien species—but the book was not a novel. Rather, it was a text cataloging and discussing the existence and various applications of spells derived from the term proteus, the most notable being the "Protean Charm." Harriet managed to read—and understand—just enough to know the Protean Charm, in its most basic form, affixed one object to its mimic, changing it as it itself was changed.

Harriet scratched her head as she read this in the dead of night, her wand-light hidden by the closed curtains around her bed. Why would the Headmaster give her this? After some time, and shameless picture hunting, she learned the charm could be used in all sorts of ways—like potatoes at supper time. It had to be the daftest comparison she'd ever thought up, but it made an odd sort of sense to Harriet; you could boil, fry, slice, dice, or mash them up to your preference, and so too could the Protean Charm be tweaked or applied in clever ways to make something seemingly new or inventive.

For instance, it could—theoretically—be applied to another spell to create a magical relay of sorts, one capable of mimicking information to another spell or—perhaps—onto a map.

Harriet fell asleep reading and woke with the alarm in the morning, slurring, "It's all potatoes."

Daphne Greengrass looked at her like she was a deranged goblin.

The next book didn't pertain to one spell in particular, being a part of an encyclopedia set Harriet knew she'd have to return to the Headmaster at some point, lest he forever be missing The Jargogle Jargon of Charms, Hiems Glassius through Illegibilus. One particular section had been marked for her review.

"The Homonculous Charm," Harriet read while sitting outside Ancient Runes on Tuesday, "is a circumstantial, non-renewing Charm specific to the schools of Animation and Translocation, as defined by the British Circle of Magical Mastery and Manifestation. The Charm, when applied to a proper medium, displays information pertinent to identity and movement of Ministry defined species classifications Beings and Spirits [Stump, 1811]. It should never be confused with the object known as a homunculus [pl. Homunculi, ref. The Jargogle Jargon of Transfiguration, Vol. 14, p. 321, an item of decidedly Dark origins sharing a Latin root with the Homonculous Charm."

"So that's how they made it," Harriet murmured under her breath. Dumbledore obviously knew she was making a map—and maybe knew about the Marauder's Map himself, though she couldn't say for sure. She would need to show this to Hermione and Elara when she got the chance. Both the Homonculous Charm and the Protean Charm built upon a knowledge of Charms Harriet hadn't had the chance to accumulate yet, and yet she wanted to understand it. The deeper she peered into the magic of it, the more fascinated she became.

The teacher arrived before the bell and shooed her waiting students into the classroom. Professor Babbling was a short witch with a cloud of red curls escaping from under her hat—and she spoke with both a lisp and the strongest Glaswegian accent Harriet had ever encountered. That meant she spent much of their first lesson gesticulating and drawing funny symbols on the blackboard, and by the time class ended, Harriet wasn't sure she hadn't been speaking a foreign language for the duration of her lecture.

After another grueling session of Defense Against the Dark Arts on Wednesday, the trio of Slytherin witches trudged their way up to the very top of the North Tower, Harriet especially grateful to Hermione for memorizing the way, as she believed they wouldn't have ever found it without her. They arrived first to the circular trap door at the tower's top, attached to which was a slender brass plaque.

"Sybil Trelawney, Divination Instructor," Hermione read aloud, a small moue forming on her upturned face. "That's curious."

"What? The professor's name?"

"No, not that so much as the fact that her name is there to begin with. I haven't seen such a plaque for the other professors."

Harriet leaned against the wall and rubbed her tired eyes, listening to the wind rattle in the high windows.

"Maybe she lives here," Elara said. "I haven't seen this Professor Trelawney out in the commons or the Great Hall before. Have you?"

"No, I suppose not."

More people joined them as the end of the break loomed, Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws and a few other Slytherins dashing up the long, spiraling steps. Last of all came the Gryffindors—led, of course, by their intrepid leader, Neville Longbottom.

"Merlin's arse," Harriet groaned aloud when the Prat Who Lived came around the corner, him and Finnigan and Weasley all panting for breath.

"Got a problem, Potter?"

"No. Never mind."

Neville scowled and appeared on the verge of instigating an argument, then paused and glanced at Hermione. Kneeling, Hermione had her hand in her bulging school bag searching for something, so she didn't notice Longbottom until he said, "Granger? I thought you had Ghoul Studies."

Hermione flinched and straightened, nearly knocking her head into Harriet's elbow. "Why would you think that?"

"Because Sophie's taking it and said you were in her class."

"Well, I'm here, aren't I?" She flipped her hair over her shoulder and turned away from the puzzled Gryffindor.

"But—."

"Leave off, Longbottom," Elara interrupted. Harriet gave him a steely-eyed, foreboding look— though, in her mind, she thought it was a strange kind of mix-up for Sophie Roper to make. But, then again, here Hermione stood, and it wasn't as if she could be in two places at once.

The trapdoor popped open and out tumbled a spindly silver ladder. Of course, Harriet and other girls gathered on the landing—all dressed in their uniform skirts and robes—frowned. Some of the boys, catching on, snickered, and Dean Thomas whistled. Neville lived up to his shining-hero persona by ordering his group mates up the ladder first.

"This is ridiculous," Hermione huffed as Malfoy shoved Crabbe and Goyle over to the ladder. "It's sexist and—stupid. Why do we have to climb a ladder to get into our class like it's a—tree fort?"

"At least I know to wear my shorts next time." Sighing, Harriet readjusted her bag over her shoulder, poked Kevin and Rick to still them in her robe pocket, and then climbed into the classroom.

The heat pressed upon her as soon as her head breached the floor, somehow both sticky and dry, fueled by a thick fire raging in a soot-stained hearth mixing with melting condensation. Harriet sucked in air laden with patchouli and frankincense, a tangible haze of it sticking to the rafters of the circular attic room, swirling around twisted baubles hung on frazzled twine. Among the low tables, chintz armchairs, and spongy poufs stood a skinny woman who had a striking resemblance to large, a bejeweled dragonfly. She'd draped beaded shawls over her bony shoulders and wore thick, bulbous glasses that accentuated the bugginess of her dark eyes.

"Greetings, greetings," the witch—Professor Trelawney—rasped, wafting her hands in a wide, lofty manner. The bangles on her wrists clattered together. "Find your seats, my children, find your seats."

Elara needed only take two steps into the room before she sneezed, twice, and cast an aggravated, teary-eyed glare toward the line of burning incense sticks stuck to the stained mantel. They went to the table set farthest from the hearth—which was, unfortunately, already occupied by a smarmy, pointy-faced git.

"Potter," Draco drawled as she dropped onto a pouf. He'd taken the only armchair available.

"Malfoy."

"Good to see you didn't faint on your way here."

"And you didn't get trampled by any sparkly horses this morning."

Hermione hissed at them both to be quiet as Professor Trelawney continued speaking.

"You have all found your way here—as I have foreseen. Today, you shall begin your spiritual journey in Divination, the most difficult of arts for one to accomplish—the art of divining that which has not yet come to pass. You!" She suddenly pointed at Michael Corner. "You, boy. Your name?"

"I—? Michael Corner, ma'am?"

"Beware the color green. It is not your friend this week!"

Michael's eyes widened—and he glanced at the Slytherins in fright. Harriet huffed.

"I am your guide, your adviser, your professor—Sybil Trelawney, and together we shall open your Inner Eye to the many wonders of the astral plane!" Again, the bangles clacked together like checkers on a board when she threw her hands in the air. The class stared. "But, alas, not everyone is capable of truly appreciating the marvelous gift of Divination. Few will prove themselves, as the Sight is a flighty wonder whose touch is felt by so very few! Books can only deliver one so far into this practical realm."

Hermione dropped Unfogging the Future onto the table and almost knocked over the candle.

"Disappointed, Granger?" Malfoy snorted, leaning his elbow on the table's edge.

"What are you even doing in this class, Draco? Didn't your mother tell you to take Ancient Runes instead?"

"Yeah." The slightest of pink tones tinged his pale face. Harriet guessed it could be from the stifling heat. "But Father said an 'O' is easier in this class, and it's not like I'll need an Ancient Runes N.E.W.T for Ministry work, is it?"

"Hmm."

Professor Trelawney came nearer their table, swaying in the dull, crimson light struggling to pass through the covered lamps. "This term we will be concentrating solely on tasseomancy—that is, of course, the study of tea leaves. A very important cornerstone of any magical ritual. One should never risk venturing from their home without first consulting the vagaries of the tea leaves."

Elara sneezed.

"You, girl!" Elara froze. "Fetch me the teapot there. The big silver one."

Elara did as bid, rising and walking over to one of the many shelves lining the rounded walls to pick up a large teapot and bring it to their professor.

"My thanks. Oh, and dear? That which you are fearing will come to pass will happen before the Yuletime."

A ghastly pallor overtook Elara as she sank onto her pouf like a water droplet falling down a windowpane.

Professor Trelawney gave them further instructions while she quickly brewed a plain tea and distributed cups of the murky liquid. They split into pairs—Hermione drawing the short straw and grumbling when she turned toward a smug Malfoy—while Elara and Harriet settled on the other end of the table, drinking the tea and swirling the dregs about until they flipped the cups over to drain.

"Remember to consult the figures in Unfogging the Future! The references there will help uncloud your Inner Eye."

"My inner bullshite," Harriet muttered as she flipped through her book and looked for the index, more than a bit ticked off. The professor had no business saying something like that to Elara. Her friend was under enough stress as it was. "Hmph. All right, give me your cup, lemme see…."

Harriet spun the cup around in her hands a few times. She couldn't make heads or tails of what she was meant to be looking for and the low, obfuscating light played tricks on her eyes. "Erm, I think it's a—uh…a person, maybe?" She tilted the cup, face scrunched. "Or a gnome, or a dwarf? Let's see….dwarf…it says—oh, projections of calamity and disgrace. Let's just—." Harriet poked her little finger into the cup and manipulated the dregs about. "There we go! Now he's a cow! And cows mean…a profitable transaction! Brilliant!"

Elara rolled her eyes and dragged the book closer for her own inspection. Harriet did see a small smile at her lips, though.

Perhaps sensing Harriet wasn't taking this seriously or seeing her cup still face down on its saucer, Professor Trelawney picked her way over and snatched it up, leveling one owlish eye in her direction. "What do they call you, my dear?"

"Er, Harriet Potter, ma'am."

"Potter…Potter…ah, yes! There's a touch of destiny about you, I See it!"

Harriet glanced down at herself. A bit of dirt clung to her sleeves and arms from where she'd gotten down on the floor to talk with Livius under her bed. "I think that's just dust, professor."

Malfoy and Hermione pretended to be fascinated with their own cups as to not laugh aloud. Either Trelawney didn't hear Harriet or she just didn't care, because she kept going.

"Ah…geese in a flock…an unwelcome visitor will come to call upon you soon. And here—." She gave the cup a practiced swivel. "A tiger! A poor omen indeed. Your protectors will place you in peril through inaction or poor decisions! And last—the gallows! Tragedy awaits you, Miss Potter!"

Harriet gawked at the woman, her heart worming its way up into her throat, choking her breath. It doesn't mean anything, she told herself, tension making her neck and shoulders ache. She's just having a laugh, spooking the new third-years….

"Poppycock," Hermione grumped just loud enough for Trelawney to hear. The professor gave her a peeved once over as she set Harriet's cup back down.

"Your name, if you would be so kind?"

"Hermione Granger."

"Well, Miss Granger, it is a horrid fate indeed that we cannot all be blessed with the splendor of an Inner Eye. Oh, to live life so myopically—you have my sincerest pity, dear child…."

Trelawney may have been batty, but she had the good sense to flutter away before Hermione could recover from her shock. Fuming, Hermione slammed her book shut, face flushed and tea forgotten. "That—that daft cow!"

Malfoy started to laugh.

Harriet, on the other hand, didn't join in, her mood thoroughly ruined by prophecies of doom. Instead, she nudged Elara's cup aside to rest her head on the table, and by the time Trelawney flipped Neville's cup over and started to wail about finding a Grim, Harriet stopped paying attention and took a much-needed nap.

She didn't think she was going to like this class very much.

A/N: Petition for the wildlife to stop harassing Harriet.

Trelawney is honestly one of the hardest characters to write, wtf. And 90% of tasseomancy symbols are just "Doom awaits you, dummy."

brother mine

cxv. brother mine

Severus Snape released a low, aggravated sigh as Gabriel Flourish continued to sob.

Few would believe it of him, but Severus did actually keep office hours and those office hours were, on occasion, taken over by blubbering, homesick children or supercilious teenagers with a grudge. He would sit behind his desk with his markings and allow them to talk themselves to death —or to their own amelioration, whichever occurred first, and sometimes he had to send an owl to their parents or Pomfrey or the Headmaster. Rare were the times in which he had to drag Slytherin into his office to deal with what, by all rights, should be his duties to begin with.

He pinched the bridge of his nose as Flourish sniffled.

Slytherin enjoyed the perks of being Head of House—the prestige, the access to more information, being the entitled figurehead of his Death Eater breeding grounds, and, more specifically, having a direct line of ascension to the role of Headmaster if—when—Albus passed or stepped down. God help them all if—when—that day came to pass. What Slytherin did not enjoy, however, was the menial and more routine duties assigned to a House's Head: namely, taking care of the bloody students.

It fell to Severus to enforce the wizard's wayward demands, to offer begrudging counsel and discipline as needed, to chase errant students down after hours or wake in the dead of night when one of the idiots passed the ward on the common room entrance. Oh, they only dared come knocking on his office door if left with no other recourse, and for that small mercy, Severus gave thanks to whatever cosmic force looked over his shitty soul. He couldn't imagine what kind of nauseating coddling Pomona or Filius had to dole out on a daily basis.

He retrieved his pocket-watch and judged it against the hour on the carriage clock, exhaling when the first-year sitting before his desk sniffled snot up his nose. "Mr. Flourish," he said, drawing upon the vestiges of his patience. "I will have a word with your dormmates regarding the…reallocation of your possessions, and if they are not summarily returned, consequences shall follow. I will write to your father in regards to your damaged textbooks."

"I don't want to bother my Da about this."

Severus rolled his eyes. "I doubt your father would be bothered by such a thing, but I will refrain from writing for the time being." He ground his teeth and jerked a handkerchief from his pocket when the boy wiped his dripping nose on his sleeve. "Pull yourself together, Flourish. That's a disgusting habit."

He jumped at Severus' brusque tone and accepted the handkerchief, using it to clean his nose. "T- thanks, sir." He sucked in a breath, hiccuped, and found another, calmer one. "Professor?"

"What is it?"

"What i-if they don't stop? What if they keep taking my things a-and taunting me?"

Frowning, Severus bit back the first retort to come to mind—to hex the lot and cover his tracks. That's what he had done when the pure-blooded cunts in his year had nicked his things. "Then your dormmates will suffer the consequences of failing to behave in accordance with the

rules all students of this school must adhere to." He paused. "You need not associate with them, Mr. Flourish. If they do not respect you, they are not worthy of your time—or your tears."

Flourish blew his nose a final time and made some vague attempt to hand the handkerchief back— but Severus' scowl had him quickly stuffing it into his own pocket. "Thank you, sir."

"Off with you, then. I have other matters to attend."

Flourish scuttled through the door having survived the Potions Master's dreaded temper—though Severus surmised his dormmates wouldn't fare as well, especially if Severus had to repeat himself in regards to this matter. "Idiots," he grunted, writing himself a note to tend to later. He spared the clock another glance, then departed his subterranean office to brave the light of day. The unseasonable weather had relented, marginally, and the student-body took advantage of the sunlight breaking through the bank of iron-colored clouds.

Severus followed the shouts and laughter down from the school proper toward the Quidditch pitch, his robes eddying behind him in the cold, Scottish wind coming in off the lake. No one took note of their Potions Master out on the grounds, and so he made his way to the pitch without incident or delay, stopping only once he reached the shadow of the stands and looked out over the field. A makeshift game appeared to be happening among Gryffindor's players on the far side, while Slytherin House was holding a more regimented tryout on the other side. Members of both Houses dotted the stands, immersed in schoolwork or conversation. Hooch sat at the sidelines with a goblet of something decidedly alcoholic, ready to mediate the inevitable tiff between Houses.

Turning, Severus swept away from the entrance and the stands themselves to patrol the lower reaches, striding through the wooden supports and creaking rafters, his way illuminated by stray shafts of light peering through the boards. The occasional broom rocketed past and the wood groaned in the resulting downdraft.

He passed toward the stadium's outer edge where the struts lay bare and the ground eroded into a cliff above a wide crevasse and part of the forest. Here the wind bit harder, fiercer, with all the freezing gall of its winter counterpart, bellowing low in the open crevasse like a dying thing. His eyes slid over the dark trees and shadowed underbrush, finding nothing amiss.

"You're getting predictable, Severus."

He whipped about, wand raised—only to lower it when he spotted McGonagall watching him, her lips pursed as she shot a displeased look at the wand leveled in her direction. He didn't know how he'd missed her there, wearing her tartan cloak and obligatory hat.

"Minerva," he said, irritated by her sudden intrusion. Severus did, however, lower his wand and let her approach. "It's hardly being predictable when I'm set to do rounds, now is it? Aren't you to one who creates those timetables?"

The old cat snorted, briskly rubbing her arms as she came out into the wind. Her pointed hat jostled but stuck firmly to her head. "Rounds inside the castle, yes. Not out marching about the woods."

"It's hardly the woods." Severus kept walking, taking the narrow path looping around the stadium, dipping into the crevasse, revealing the beginnings of a briny delta bridging the Black Lake and a smaller tributary disappearing into the forest. Below lurked Hinkypunks and the occasional kelpie, and all along the silt-covered shore bobbed the bulbous heads of grindylows. He continued on, Minerva keeping pace.

The Transfiguration professor was silent until the path rose again and they climbed the stone steps

carved into the side of the slope and fell once more into the stadium's chilling shade. "I suppose we had the same idea," McGonagall admitted—and when she shifted her arm, Severus could spot the familiar handle of her wand tucked into her buttoned sleeve. "But I doubt Black would come this way, even if he did access the grounds through the Forbidden Forest. Nor would he show himself in the middle of the afternoon."

"If he can escape Azkaban, he can cross a bloody bog." His statement lacked conviction. Weeks had passed with little news of Black's whereabouts and Severus had begun to dare hope the bastard had been flattened by a Muggle lorry, but still he made it a point to check the weakest points in the warding—if one could consider a mire infested with Hinkypunks, kelpies, and grindylows weak. In truth, Severus didn't believe Black needed to tromp through the wilds to gain access to the school; he felt certain the bastard need only ask his old acquaintance for assistance. "And should he decide to hunt Potter or Longbottom, he won't care about witnesses. He's shown that shining quality already."

"No, I guess not." Minerva frowned, her expression gone melancholic as she thought of times long passed. Severus didn't share in her reverie; it only served to fuel his rage and his sick vindication that Black was at last seen for the monster he'd always known him to be. That vindication wasn't worth twelve Muggle lives, Lily, and two orphaned brats though, and so the feeling curdled in his gut until Severus wanted to vomit to purge himself of it.

"I don't think I'll ever understand why he did it," Minerva sighed. "He loved James and Lily—."

"Spare me," Severus spat. "You and the Headmaster exemplify the notion of the blind leading the blind. Don't be so surprised by a trait I recognized in Black years ago." His hands flexed, fingers tightening. When he sent me down into the dark of a tunnel to die by his best mate's hands. Or claws, as it were.

They paused once they crossed under the stadium's supports and stood at the field's entrance, watching their respective students fly about. The Gryffindors continued to play their game, members of their House not on the team dotted around the goal post, taking turns in the air, the mood genial and decidedly Gryffindor. The Slytherins had not ceased running drills.

"The girl needs to be told," Severus intoned as he leaned a shoulder against the wall, the exposed wood snagging on his robes. "She needs to be told her life is in danger. Albus found her out at the Gagwilde last weekend. Merlin only knows how she managed to tear off without any of us being the wiser."

"We can't know what Black intends to do. Her life may be in danger, yes, but so too are the lives of the others—Mr. Longbottom, Miss Black." Minerva gestured at the field before them, a scowl deepening the lines on her face. "They are all in danger while that—man is on the loose, Severus, and you cannot deny that Miss Potter is having a rougher time than most this year. Why would you wish to burden her with knowledge of Black's relationship with her parents?"

"Is it our place to coddle the girl, now? Where was this vaunted Gryffindor compassion when Potter was living in a cupboard?" The staff had all heard about the boggart by now; Slytherin took particular delight in taunting children over their fears and did so every year, always enumerating the manifestations he found most amusing. He thought Potter feared the dark—but Severus knew better.

Color rose in Minerva's cheeks. "Don't get shirty with me, Severus!" she snapped. "I see you haven't taken the liberty of going against Albus' decision and telling her yourself. If you believe she needs to know so badly, then do so. On your head be it!"

He clenched his jaw. The damn witch has a point.

A sudden whistling drew their attention upward in time to see two brooms swerve hard and clip the stands, Marcus Flint driving the object of their conversation into a bench, the resulting bang echoing in their ears. Flint shot off again, laughing, and Severus barely had time to register the tingling in his wrist before the girl flung herself after him with a growl.

"Och, they're going to break her neck, playing like that!" McGonagall exclaimed. "Can't you do anything about those boys—Severus?"

The Potions Master hadn't heard a word she said. Distracted, he stared at his hand, at the fingers as pale as cut stone bleached by the sunlight, feeling the phantom sting wend through his veins until it discharged like unwanted static. Minerva stared at his hand as well, until he jerked it back and hid the offending limb once more in the folds of his robes.

"Severus—."

"Don't."

His footsteps made little noise, but still the crunch of gravel could be heard in the silence strung between the pair as Severus strode away. McGonagall followed, of course, and while the witch might not match him in height, she certainly matched him in speed. "Your vehemence over this issue will not put me off, young man! What if you drop dead, for Circe's sake! What would have us do?"

"I'd be dead and beyond caring, witch!" Severus stopped and glowered, willing Minerva to let it go, to return to her pride of disobedient dunderheads and leave him be. He was the only person alive who knew of his Vow and it belonged to him. It was penance branded into his flesh, his promise, and he didn't owe McGonagall a damn explanation. Severus took a breath, then another. "If I drop dead, do yourself a favor: find a ditch, shove me in it, and move on. You'll have far more pressing issues to deal with, I assure you."

"You're being ridiculous."

"Have you mistaken me for some maudlin fool all of a sudden? It is none of your business—and it certainly isn't Albus' either. It is mine. Keep your nose out of it."

With a final glare, Severus continued on to the school, leaving Minerva and the daylight behind.

x X x

Naturally, the interfering witch didn't leave the issue be.

She stepped out of his office Floo not ten minutes before curfew, arching a brow when he cursed under breath and dropped the book he'd been consulting. "Have you a purpose for being here, Professor? Aside from sorely testing my patience?"

"I'm not one of your students, Severus, and you won't address me as such." One uttered incantation later and Minerva had a comfortable wing-chair to sit in, sniffing in disdain as she glanced over the shelves of preserved specimens. "We haven't finished our discussion. No—you needn't raise your hackles. You've said what you wish to say, and now you will listen to me."

She folded her hands together on her lap and cleared her throat, square spectacles catching the dim glow from the fire. Haven risen partly from his seat, Severus dropped back into it with a huff. "Have you ever been told what happened to my younger brother, Robert?"

"Given the trajectory of this conversation, I postulate it was something…unsavory."

"You could say that." Minerva exhaled, her tone mild and yet somewhat disquieted. "He died in the first war. To Death Eaters, in a manner of speaking."

The fire crackled, and beyond his door echoed the footsteps of Slytherins hurrying down to the common room, eager to be shut in before their Head of House emerged for his rounds. While Severus and Minerva sat in strained silence, guilt swum in the wizard's chest. Not because he had anything to do with Robert McGonagall's fate; no, Severus hadn't participated in the raids, relegated instead to the horrors of the laboratory, which provided their own abominations and night terrors. However, he'd enabled those who'd killed Minerva's brother, blinded himself to the atrocities committed by and in the name of the Dark Lord. He traded his soul like a rumpled quid for a packet of rotten crisps. That Minerva could stand to be in the same room as him was a testament to her strength, not his.

"He was always very impetuous, my brother Robert. You would have thought him the quintessential Gryffindor. Our brother Malcolm and I spent years trying to bring into line, but he also proved wilier than our efforts. When Rookwood broke down his door and threatened his family, Robert did the only thing he could to protect them."

When she didn't continue, Severus cleared his throat and forced himself to speak. "And that was?"

"He took an Unbreakable Vow. That was what Rookwood was after, in the end. He was spying at the Ministry but sought all forms of information, anything he could gather and present to You- Know-Who. The movements of Order members were especially coveted at the time." A grim smile ticked the corner of Minerva's mouth. "Rookwood swore Robert to report on all of my activity in exchange for his family's lives. Part of the Vow ensured he could not reveal his duplicity to me or anyone in the Order, and still Robert swore to it."

Severus waited again while Minerva gazed into the hearth, lost in thought or memory. She met his eye and grimaced.

"As I said, he was horribly Gryffindor. Not an ounce of sense in the poor lad's skull. He moved Allana and his boys into hiding and did the stupidest thing he could; he told me of the Vow." Again Minerva exhaled a long, drawn-out sound. "The fool died in my arms."

Severus shut his eyes. "My condolences."

"Well, he's been dead for quite some time. There's nothing for it." Minerva straightened her robes, her expression somber, but her eyes remained dry, steely. "But don't you dare tell me to stand by while you kill yourself, Severus Snape, and then tell me to shove you off into a ditch. That is a level of callousness I refuse to accept, even from you!"

The Potions Master steepled his hands together and rubbed at his brow. A headache brewed there, brought on by the constant worry he maintained to stay alive in Slytherin's presence, and now by Minerva's well-meaning—but ultimately misplaced—haranguing. "What would you have me do, Minerva?"

"I would have you place some measure of trust in me. We've been colleagues for over a decade."

"I am not afforded the luxury of trust."

His clock chimed once in recognition of the hour, and Severus turned a pointed look to the door. Minerva rose to leave, the disappointment clear in her face. She went to the exit, but paused with

one hand on the knob, delivering a final, parting remark. "And what would Miss Potter think if you were to die without a word? Without anyone the wiser as to why?"

Severus couldn't help himself; dark laughter rose unbidden inside him and escaped in a cold, unfeeling chuckle. "I imagine she wouldn't think anything at all."

though hate were why men breathe

cxvi. though hate were why men breathe

"We don't have to go, you know. We could stay with you."

Elara had been repeating something similar for the duration of the week leading up to Hallowe'en. She repeated it again now and still Harriet shook her head and repressed the morose little sigh trying to escape her middle as she watched the other students march by Filch and file out the door.

Harriet wanted to go to Hogsmeade. She wanted to go just like everyone else, her entire class fit to burst with excitement over the prospect of visiting the Wizarding village, but she couldn't. She hadn't given the permission slip that came with her Hogwarts letter this summer much thought, considering she chose to pretend her real, legal guardians didn't bloody exist most of the time—but without the slip, Harriet couldn't leave the castle. She'd asked Professors McGonagall and Dumbledore if they'd sign—if anyone but the Dursleys could sign—but both had gotten a curious, unsettled glint in their eyes when they said they couldn't sign and that it'd be best if she stayed in the castle for now.

Harriet knew she had moments of stupidity and dense-thinking—she was thirteen, it came with the territory—but she recognized lying well enough when she saw it. Something went unsaid in her professors' answers, a reason for why they didn't push and prod at the rules to give Harriet a bit of leeway. She wasn't looking for special treatment necessarily, but she hadn't seen the Dursleys since she was ten and imagined popping by for them to sign a magical permission form wouldn't go over well—not after leaving a few dozen snakes in their foyer. The professors preferred Harriet remain at Hogwarts and she wondered why.

It also didn't help that the permission slip had burst into flames when she tried to forge Aunt Petunia's signature, putting paid to that idea.

"No, I'll be fine here," she said to her friends, smiling as best she could. "I might work on Transfiguration homework—or my map."

Hermione fussed with the fastenings of her cloak. "Don't experiment with that Charm while no one's here," she warned, holding a finger up. "According to the books, the Protean Charm can react unpredictably and potentially spark fires if overheating occurs—."

"Yes, I know, Hermione. I won't try it."

"But maybe we should stay. It's not fair to you—and it's just a silly village, after all—."

Hermione's statement ended in a yelp when Harriet pinched her side. "No, go to Hogsmeade and stop dithering. Get me something from that candy-shop everyone's always talking about."

"Honeydukes?"

"Yeah, that one."

Elara fidgeted with her robe pocket and pulled out a slip of parchment and a small pencil. "What do you want?"

"Oh, um. Chocolate Frogs? And one of those nice gift assortments—you know the ones the pure- blood families always use for their Yule gifts? It'd be great to not have to owl order this year."

"There's usually another Hogsmeade trip before Yule."

"And they'll be sold out, knowing my luck." Harriet snorted. "Could you get some Cauldron Cakes, too?"

"Mhm."

"And some parchment? I'm almost out. And quills. And—."

"Mhm."

Elara dutifully wrote all of Harriet's rambling down. "I don't have my money on me, I have to pop back to the dorm—."

"It's fine."

"But I—ow!"

Harriet jumped when Elara flicked her between her brows. "I said it's fine."

"Girls!" came McGonagall's firm reprimand, the professor having appeared at Filch's side. Harriet guessed she might be there to make sure she didn't slip out. Not that Harriet couldn't; she'd found a classroom on the upper floor with a wonky window opening onto an eave she could, theoretically, slide down into the tree growing below it. She could cut across the grounds easy enough—but she'd never get past the bloody gates, even with her Invisibility Cloak. She couldn't fathom the kind of trouble she'd be in if a professor caught her. "Miss Granger, Miss Black, are you heading to the village, or are you staying behind?"

"Going, ma'am."

"Then hurry yourselves up."

Harriet hugged her friends one last time and saw them to the door, watching as they caught up with Terry Boot and Anthony Goldstein and turned just once to give her a wave. Harriet returned the motion, then allowed her face to settle into a frown, crossing her arms against her middle. "This is bollocks."

"Two points from Slytherin, Miss Potter," scolded Professor McGonagall. "You need to keep your language, and your temper, in check."

"Yes, ma'am."

Sullen, Harriet shuffled away from the entrance hall, taking the steps into the dungeons. She had to duck into an unused classroom when she heard Professor Slytherin come stalking past, not at all inclined to explain to the wizard why she wasn't in the village with everyone else. When he disappeared farther down the corridor, Harriet continued to the common room and slipped inside, slumping over to her preferred table by the window.

"I don't want to do stupid schoolwork," she grumbled at the textbooks they'd left behind before Elara and Hermione departed. Harriet stuffed her unfinished assignments away in their proper folders, then shoved her books into her bag, staring glumly out the window into the depths of the lake. A fish swam through the scraggly reeds and paused to look her over, then went on its way.

All right, Potter, Harriet told herself, heaving a large sigh. Time to stop brooding, lest I turn into bloody Snape.

Like last year and the year prior, Hallowe'en had proved a difficult day for Harriet to endure. She felt morose—and sore, because though Professor Slytherin's new curriculum meant he'd stopped hexing her into the floor or the desks, Flint and the Quidditch team seemed to be personally affronted by her perceived weakness after the Dementor incident and had taken it upon themselves to toughen her up. It was either that or they'd decided to pound her into a pulp one Bludger at a time.

Stretching, Harriet cast a look around the common room. She was the oldest student present, naturally, and the second-years were taking full advantage of their seniors' absences to crowd near the main hearth, taking up the best armchair and chaise. Harriet cast her gaze toward the other end of the dim room and spotted a few first-years milling about. A particular pair caught her attention, as the shorter boy was trying to grab his book while the other held it out of reach. Harriet pushed herself to her feet and wandered over.

"—give it back, Mullins!"

"You're making a scene, Flourish. Don't whinge like a mutt—."

Having walked up behind the one called Mullins, Harriet snatched the book from his hand and whacked him in the back of the head.

"Ow—! What the hell, Potter!"

"Stop being a prat," she told him, shoving the first-year Transfiguration textbook into the hands of the shorter, red-headed boy.

"Mind your own business, half-blood!"

Harriet snorted. "Yeah, I'm real scared. Bugger off, smart-arse." Mullins' mouth popped open in a way eerily reminiscent of a certain pompous pure-blood prat in her own year, and Harriet was quick to cut him off. "Before I go get Snape."

"You can't! He's in the village today!"

"Slytherin, then."

The boy paled, his skin gone blotchy behind new acne. It'd only been two months, but the first- years already knew better than to bother the Head of Slytherin with trivial matters. "You wouldn't."

"I just might." She wouldn't, actually. Calling on Slytherin was like playing Muggle Russian roulette; at times, the wizard almost seemed to care about his House, moments of chilling competency hinting at a calculating mindset Harriet would never truly understand—and then he did things like hex his own House members and laugh when third-years broke down in tears before their worst fears. She'd rather smack Mullins in the mouth than go to Slytherin—and she really didn't want to do that either.

Mullins hesitated, then decided his pride wasn't worth calling Harriet's bluff and stomped off to join his mates by the fire. The other boy—Flourish—clutched his book close and gazed up at Harriet with a suspiciously dewy-eyed look that made her uncomfortable. "Y'know, next time, you can just get a prefect—or, well, bugger there's none here—or just, I don't know, kick him in the shins. Don't let him walk all over you is what I'm saying."

"O-okay. Thanks, Potter!"

"Right."

Harriet quickly scuttled from the common room after that, feeling self-conscious and not wanting to get in another tiff with Mullins. Without anything else to occupy her time, she journeyed deeper into the dungeons to avoid Slytherin lurking somewhere around the Great Hall or his office, and took one of the Moon Mirrors she memorized to a higher floor. Her foot caught on the gilded frame and she toppled to the corridor floor in a graceless heap.

"Stupid thing…." She winced at the resounding ache throbbing in her sore knees. "Shit…."

"Ha—? Miss Potter?"

Harriet rolled to her side and spotted Professor Lupin stopped on his way to his office, carrying what looked like a towering stack of student essays. She got to her feet and gave a hasty greeting.

"What are you—?" He gave the mirror a baffled look. "How—? Why aren't you at Hogsmeade with your friends?"

"Oh, um. I'm not allowed." Harriet brushed the dust from her robes and winced when her fingers probed another bruise. Ruddy Flint. "My rel—guardians didn't sign my permission slip."

"Why ever not?"

"They—. I don't know, you'd have to ask them, Professor," she fibbed, shrugging. "D'you need any help with those?"

Blinking, he let several of the loose scrolls in his pile spill into Harriet's arms and she followed him to his office, dropping the stack off on his desk. "Would you care to join me for tea, H—Miss Potter?"

"Okay, sure."

The professor went about ordering a fresh pot from a helpful house-elf while Harriet settled in the visitor's chair. She grimaced at the hard seat and stiff, wooden backing, guessing the chair was a holdout from Selwyn's time in residence. She'd never visited the office before, the wooden shelves mostly bare aside from a few tattered tomes left here and there. There were no framed photos on the wall or on the desk, the simple mantel above the cold hearth left empty except for a few candles. She hoped the professor wasn't thinking about leaving. It hadn't been very long, but Harriet liked Professor Lupin. His lectures had leveled out from the initial, nervous rush to a more sensible stream, and he did his best to engage them in fun, history-related activities.

"You can call me Harriet if you like," she commented, eying the scarred wizard. "Since you've almost said it a couple of times now."

Lupin flushed and fidgeted with the cups as he poured the tea and slid Harriet's across the desk. She accepted it—and dipped her Erkling spoon inside when the professor looked down to doctor his beverage, just to be safe. "I apologize. I don't mean to make you uncomfortable. I—." He cleared his throat and folded his hands around his teacup, eyes on the amber liquid inside. "Well, I was… friends with your parents in school and—after. It seems like only yesterday to me that you were born."

"Really? You knew them?" Harriet asked with a sudden smile.

"Yes. James more so than Lily. I only got to know her better when they married."

"What were they like?"

Something in the eagerness of her tone gave Professor Lupin pause, but he sipped his tea and forged ahead. "They were good people. Honest and—very kind. We were in the same House— same year. Gryffindor. I imagine you already knew they were Sorted there."

"…yeah."

Remus set his cup down. "They would have been happy to see you doing so well in school. Professor Dumbledore told me you were in the top ten of your year last term."

A soft snort escaped her. "Hermione and Elara were first and third, and I was only ninth. They're much cleverer than I am."

Emotion flickered over the professor's face, gone as soon as it appeared. "Yes, well…."

They chatted for a time, enjoyed their and eating the chocolate biscuits delivered with the tea service. Harriet didn't want to reminisce about her parents overly much—not today, not when the memory stung deeper than usual—and so she moved the conversation away and asked Professor Lupin if he enjoyed teaching so far.

"I like it very much," he said with a smile. "I always wanted to teach, but I feared I wouldn't have the constitution for it. I get sick rather often, you see."

"I'm sorry. You're much better than Professor Selwyn. He was a bit of an ars—not nice bloke?"

Remus chuckled. "So I've been told. His lesson plans alone have given me an unfavorable impression of the wizard. Truth be told, though I wanted to teach, I never saw myself as a History of Magic professor. I would have preferred Defense."

A muscle twitched in Harriet's mouth and she swirled her cooling tea around the dregs in the bottom—thinking about Professor Slytherin and Divination in equal doses. Slytherin had moved on from boggarts in September, but the thought of the cupboard still lingered in Harriet's mind like a splinter in her skin. It didn't bother her for the most part, but sometimes it caught and pulled, resulting in a nasty sting. "Professor? D'you know anything about boggarts?"

"Boggarts? Yes, a fair amount. Why do you ask?"

"Why would a boggart become something that wasn't…scary?" She set her finished cup down on its saucer and gripped the edge of her chair, taking a moment to think of the right words. "My boggart—well, I'm not afraid of it, at least I don't think so. It could have become something a lot more frightening and I guess I just don't understand."

"You didn't ask Professor Slytherin?"

Harriet choked. "Have you met him? Sir?"

Professor Lupin conceded her point, leaning back in his more comfortable chair, elbows on the arms, hands clasped against his middle. "Most people have uncomplicated fears. They fear things with tangible presences: insects, spiders, dogs, snakes. But other fears are less tangible: a fear of heights, deep water, darkness, etcetera. In an effort to match your worst fear, the boggart must become something that best symbolizes it, and the more abstract the fear, the odder the boggart's choice may seem." He sighed and unlaced one of his hands to idly rub at his scarred cheek. "I knew of a man who…lost a child in a fire. His boggart became a pile of ashes."

"That must be terrible to see."

"I imagine it is. My point, however, is that this man didn't necessarily have a fear of ashes or even of fire, but still the boggart became exactly what it needed to become in order to evoke his terror. A trigger, you could say."

"Oh." Harriet again pictured the cupboard in her mind, the angular door with the brass vent, the dusty, unfinished underside of the stairs. If she closed her eyes, she could almost see herself there; the stuffy darkness, the smell of pine cleaner in her nose. Hunger rippled in her middle and somewhere overhead Dudley sat in his room playing a video game, the controller rattling in his pudgy hands, the sound drifting down the stairwell. Aunt Petunia walked by, heels clicking on the floor.

But what did it mean? She didn't care about the cupboard, and the Dursleys—she wasn't afraid of them. She was a witch, for Merlin's sake, and she wasn't afraid of being locked in the dark when she knew how to open a door and how to make light, and she knew no one would ever make her go back to Privet Drive. If Uncle Vernon ever laid a finger on her again, Livi would eat the bastard alive. So why did the boggart choose the cupboard?

She guessed, like Professor Lupin had said, the cupboard itself was just a symbol—inconsequential in and of itself. Ashes were just ashes, but they spoke of a ruin once belonging to something precious. As Harriet thought about her relatives' house, the image of Uncle Vernon looming overhead flickered in her mind, the man's face beet-red, walrus mustache bristling as he hissed, "There's no such thing as magic!"

Harriet shivered. That would be a nightmare worthy of a boggart. Maybe it was selfish or foolish, but the terror of Voldemort and Riddle or any of the monsters she'd come against so far paled before the horror of somehow waking up alone in her cupboard and realizing all of it—Hogwarts, her friends, magic—had been a dream. She would much rather be here, fighting adversity and facing danger, than back at Privet Drive, suffering under the heel of normality.

"Thanks for the tea, Professor Lupin. And the information."

"You're quite welcome, Harriet."

x X x

Elara and Hermione returned from Hogsmeade with the rest of the school minutes before the Feast was due to begin, which meant they only had time to drop their belongings off in the dormitory before they were all escorted to the Great Hall. Harriet's mood remained strained, but she brightened when greeted by her friends, and they told her stories about the shops and landmarks dotting the village and its exterior setting.

"It's one of the only fully magical villages in the kingdom," Hermione explained as she spooned yams onto her plate. "So there aren't roads, really. The streets meander a bit back into the mountains—there's farmland back there apparently utilized by the school to help procure meals —."

"What she means to tell you," Elara interjected. "Is that the village streets loop back upon themselves—all bordered by the Forbidden Forest, the Black Lake, canyons, or sheer rock face. It can't be approached on foot or by car by Muggles."

"Yes, that," Hermione said with a nod. "It's rather fascinating to see, really! Magic being used openly without the thought of hiding it. It reminded me of Diagon Alley—but more domestic, and a bit tamer in its approach."

Harriet, who'd already seen several Wizarding villages on her trek across the country, hummed in agreement and stuck another spoonful of potatoes into her mouth.

"Hey, Potter," Malfoy said from his spot next to Hermione. Harriet wondered why he was sitting there when, in the past, he'd stuck his nose in the air and claimed he couldn't be bothered to join such company. "Why weren't you in the village?"

"I got in trouble over the summer," she said. After leaving Lupin's office, she'd gone off to the library to poke about and had time to imagine a better story for her absence. "They punished me by not signing the slip."

"That's barbaric. What did you do?"

"I—err, set my uncle's trousers on fire."

Malfoy snorted and returned his attention to his food. Hermione arched a brow in question and Harriet shrugged. "It actually happened once."

The Feast ended when the final dish of treacle tart was swept away and tired students toddled off toward their common rooms. The trio of witches stopped at their favored table, the same table by the window Harriet had glared out of that morning, and they delved into the veritable hoard of sweets, confections, and necessary stationary Hermione and Elara had dragged back with them.

"What did you two do, buy out the store?" Harriet asked around a laugh as she surveyed the mountain of boxes. She swore she was too full for another bite—and yet she unwrapped a Cauldron Cake and ate it anyway.

"Close enough," Elara admitted. "You did have a point about it being easier to buy the gifts now rather than wait and order by owl. Those there are mine, so keep your sticky fingers to yourself."

"What kind did you get?"

"I said don't touch—."

"Honestly, Harriet, we just ate…."

They wandered to their beds not long afterward and, in the quiet of the unlit dorm, Harriet laid on her back and stared at the canopy above her, listening to the other witches breathe evenly until they dropped off into sleep one by one. Livius crawled his way up from his nest beneath the bed's skirts and made himself comfortable under Harriet's body, hissing soft, nonsensical things in her ear as he dozed.

"That boggart's an idiot," Harriet murmured to herself, eyes sliding shut, heavy with lethargy. "Magic's real…."

She would have joined the others in slumber—if not for the door coming open with a sudden, forceful bang, Prefect Farley standing at the threshold, illuminated by the dim silver lamps flickering in the corridor. "Up!" she shouted. "Up, now! We need to report to Great Hall, immediately!"

The prefect disappeared before anyone could ask a question, already throwing open the door to the next dormitory. Startled awake, Harriet hurried to her feet and pulled on her dressing gown, her heart thumping in her chest, her hand sweaty on the handle of her wand. Already the sleepy calm that had settled upon their room shattered, replaced by a high-strung tension mirrored in the echoing shouts of Prefect Farley moving farther away.

Parkinson dragged herself out of bed with a reluctant cry. "I swear this stupid holiday is cursed!"

It just might be.

Tight fingers clasped hold of Harriet's forearm, and she followed the arm up to Elara's pale, stricken face. They moved into the corridor, and from there into the common room, the Slytherins little more than dark shapes moving under the doused lights, muttering and rustling. Unease prickled in Harriet's neck. Was it possible she was asleep already? Merely dreaming?

"What's going on?"

Motion stirred in the darkness of an open door and stepped forward, Harriet balking and almost tripping over Hermione in her rush to move. There stood Professor Slytherin, red eyes gleaming, the wizard a pale and ghastly figure framed in the black of night. His smile was wide and almost manic as he looked upon the three witches.

"What's happening?" he repeated in a soft, sibilant voice. He turned his eerie gaze to Elara and held it there. "Allow me to spoil the surprise. It appears your father has come for a visit."

A/N:

Remus: "Harriet's so quiet and studious, just like her mother."

Harriet: [topples out of strange mirror, swearing.]

Remus: "Welp, never mind."

Chapter title is from E.E. Cummings' poem "My father moved through dooms of love," about a father who, despite the hatred, hardship, and evils of life, lived true to himself and his own convictions.

in the ashes

cxvii. in the ashes

Remus met Sirius Black in the early morning of September second, 1971.

He remembered himself being a tentative and wary boy—a byproduct of a childhood spent terrified of discovery, moving from village to village before the neighbors caught on that the howling around the full moon was not, in fact, a dog. He'd come down to breakfast earlier than all but a few studious Ravenclaws, looking up at the High Table to see Professor Dumbledore glance his way and smile. He had been excited to begin class—and anxious about being around so many children his own age. His experiences in a dozen different Muggle primary schools had taught him that strange, scarred boys did not make friends.

Students had trickled into the hall—and then Sirius Black tromped in with James Potter, the pair familiar with each other in the way most pure-blood children were, having met once or twice before at some far-flung common relation's birthday party or wedding. Despite being in their year —in their dorm—Remus had felt excluded and ready to accept that exclusion, to exist in the peripheries, grateful just to be allowed into the school—and then Sirius Black had thrown himself onto the bench at Remus' side, arm brushing his with shocking casualty, and had held out his hand.

"Hey, nice to meet you! I'm Sirius."

Remus had shaken his hand, had blinked up into the blinding smiling directed toward him like a starstruck fool, and had said, "I'm R-Remus."

Sometimes, Remus looked back and thought it would have been better if he'd said nothing at all, if he'd stuck by his initial plan of keeping his head down and completing his studies—but there were certain things he could not bring himself to regret no matter the pain later inflicted upon him and his heart. Even so, he could not help but wonder how his life would have changed had he not shaken Sirius Black's hand.

He'd only just settled into his bed when Dumbledore's Patronus came sailing through the wall of his quarters, the spectral phoenix's beak opening to tell him Sirius Black had attacked the Fat Lady, had slashed her portrait to ribbons. Remus sat frozen in the dark after the Patronus vanished, feeling as if he'd had a close encounter with a ghost—which wasn't terribly far off from the truth. Then, he moved, bolting upright with enough force to throw his blankets to the floor, and he ran for the door, pausing only to shove his feet into his shoes without socks and to slip on his robes over his pajamas.

Panting, Remus met with the rest of the staff on the main floor, the lot of them making a show of being cool and collected—but Remus could feel the nervous tension in the air, the unbearable tang of fear burning in the back of his throat. Maybe they had a reason to be frightened, no matter their age or experience. If Black could escape Azkaban, if he could—could murder so many people and laugh about it—maybe they all needed to be a bit fearful.

"Severus has gone ahead to scout the dungeons," the Headmaster was saying as Remus joined the group. "Professor Slytherin is—." Remus could see Slytherin already, standing with his back to the wall inside the Great Hall while the last of the students were ferried inside the doors. He looked bored, for lack of a better word. Remus didn't trust the wizard at all, not after Albus had taken him

aside the first day and strongly cautioned him against conversing with or even meeting the eyes of the Defense professor. The students shuffled onto Conjured sleeping mats and gathered spangled blankets. "Minerva, you will stay here, and Remus—?"

"Yes, Headmaster?"

"The third floor, if you would. Quickly."

Remus nodded and departed, shaking off the vestiges of his exhaustion as he pulled out his wand and strode through the unrelieved corridors. Sometimes he forgot how menacing the castle could be at night when the students were meant to be abed and the torches dimmed or doused themselves. It became an entirely different place—menacing and watchful, each footstep caught and magnified in the empty stone passages. He imagined it must have been similar, if not the same, centuries ago.

Of course, he didn't think the Founders ever had to root out a serial killer hiding in their castle.

He reached the third floor, and Remus' traitorous mind jumped to thoughts of Gunhilda of Gorsemoor—the One-Eyed Witch and the secret she hid inside her stone hump. Sweat prickled the back of Remus' neck despite the pervading chill. He couldn't be using the tunnel, could he? Surely someone in Hogsmeade would have seen him, and the map—. Remus had checked Filch's office for the Marauder's Map back in September but had come up empty-handed. Either it had been destroyed or misplaced—hopefully permanently.

Rounding a corner, he found Gunhilda in her usual place and inspected the statue, relieved to see undisturbed cobwebs linking the hump to the wall, a thin layer of dust laying atop the seal. He didn't come this way. Perhaps the passage behind the mirror on the fourth floor? But, no—I checked that in September as well, and it's closed off. Remus huffed a breath and moved on, his wand illuminated. Maybe we should start asking students if they've let in a great, black shaggy dog.

He nearly froze in place as the thought crossed his mind. It could not be possible; Remus couldn't fathom Black still having the ability to change forms, not after twelve years in Azkaban. From everything he'd heard and learned over the years, it took a measure of thought, patience, and clarity of mind to hold the Animagus transformation; Black had to be barking mad after a decade in the Dementors' loving care. There was no possible way—.

Anxiety crawled in Remus' skin as he chewed his lip and checked behind a tapestry. Again he played the old worries in his mind, wondering if he should approach Dumbledore with concerns of his old map and Black's illegal Animagus status—but that would mean informing the Headmaster that he and James and Peter had all direly broken his trust in their schoolboy years. What would happen to Remus then? Would Albus chuck the lying werewolf out on his ear? Merlin and Morgana be kind, he didn't want to go back to Knockturn Alley. He didn't want to go back to minimum wage jobs in Muggle stores, buying stale crumpets at the corner shop, his tea tin empty and his flat dark as a tomb. Having tasted this life, it'd be all the crueler to return to the dire straits he'd been living before.

And what if your negligence gets someone killed?

It wouldn't. It wouldn't. He just needed to pay more attention, be a bit keener in looking after the children—more so Neville, as it seemed the attack on the Fat Lady proved Black meant to go after the poor boy. The sheer relief Remus felt in realizing the bastard hadn't tried to sneak into the Slytherin commons disgusted him, but at least Harriet and…her should be safe. Hopefully.

Remus became so absorbed into his own thoughts, he neglected to notice when a curtain of black

parted from the greater shadows clinging to the stairwell, and he nearly shouted when that shadow collided with his side and threw him into the wall.

"For God's sake, Snape!" he snapped, heart beating out of his chest, his embarrassment at being caught out quickly overshadowed by anger. "Are you out of your mind—?"

Snape had his wand raised, the edge dangerously close to Remus' face, and so he kept his mouth shut even as he glared. The other wizard had a wild look about him, dark eyes glinting, hair disheveled, and Remus noted he still wore the entirety of his teaching attire, right down to the dragon hide boots and cinched cravat at his throat. He held Remus at arm's length and jostled him, hard, startling Remus' gaze back to his own. The wand twitched, and then—.

"Legilimens!"

Remus felt a sudden cold force hit his face, like opening a window in the dead of winter, the biting chill of it sinking into his flesh and bones in an instant. He was assaulted with a barrage of images ripped out of his subconscious, violent bursts of color like Muggle bombs falling from an unseen sky. At the forefront of it he could sense something other, a presence he quickly realized was Snape suddenly inside his head like a bloody jetty in the tide. From him rose a single idea—a thought, a name, a beacon, a tuning fork shivering to a very specific tone, searching for what matched it. Sirius Black.

He was a skinny lad in new robes, prefect badge on his chest, and Sirius reached out to straighten it—.

—Sirius' hand was on his shoulder. They were older, seated a table, two plates of breakfast and The Prophet thrown aside—.

"—SIRIUS BLACK ESCAPES," the headline proclaimed, Remus unable to look away as he dragged his weary feet past the newsstand, "MADMAN WANTED FOR—."

"—the murder of twelve Muggles and the wizard Peter Pettigrew. He has been taken into custody by the Aurory." He couldn't believe what the wireless had just reported. He couldn't breathe. No, no—not James and Lily and little Harriet—.

—Potter sat in his classroom, an open, curious expression on her small face. A pity she didn't resemble James or Lily more, but she was a darling thing all the same. Her look was a bit harder than anything her parents had ever worn. Remus glanced at the girl next to Harriet and met a pair of familiar gray eyes—.

"—She has my eyes, of course," Sirius said as he cradled the infant to his chest. "But there's a little of her mother in there too." Laughing, he carefully extended the wrapped bundle to Remus, and he accepted the slumbering child with exceeding care. "Isn't she beautiful, Moony? Our—."

"—daughter is dead," he choked out between strained breaths, handsome face painted in soot and ash. "Marlene, her whole family, Elara—they're all fucking dead—."

—the remains of a burnt cradle like a hollow ribcage reaching through the ashes. Remus can't stop sobbing—.

"—Where is she?" Remus ask as he came into door, tired and spotted with rain. Sirius didn't stir from the armchair.

"I thought it best," he said, quietly, "if she went with Marlene into hiding."

"What? How could you—? How could you decide this without asking—?!"

—Shock bled from his heart—shock and betrayal and—.

—Rage, all he felt was rage as he screamed at the man he lo—.

—Despair, the ashes of a once grand home still drifting in the morning breeze, scorch marks and snow upon the cinder of walls, furniture, bones—.

"—no survivors," the Auror said as he stood with Remus amid the wreckage. His face began to distort when Remus choked. "No survivors."

All at once, the presence in his head retreated, and Remus sucked in air like a dying man as he blinked and focused on the wizard in front of him.

"Ah," Snape commented, voice quiet. "So that is why you asked after the girl."

Remus saw red.

"You son of a bitch." He threw his fist into Snape's face and they toppled, slamming hard into the stone floor below. "You had no right—!" Beyond reason, Remus aimed another blow at Snape's face, only to get caught by a strike to the middle forcing the air from his lungs. They rolled, his head bouncing on the floor—but he had enough sense to jerk out of the way just far enough for Snape's own fist to crack against the flagstones instead of his nose.

"Fuck—!"

They struggled, flailing like drunken Muggles outside a dingy pub—right up until somebody else dashed into the corridor.

"Enough!" Headmaster Dumbledore shouted, and the two men were yanked apart by a spell gripping the collar of their robes. Snape landed hard on his knees, not quite steady on his feet, while Remus stumbled but remained upright, blinking stars out of his eyes. Professor Dumbledore, marching forward to stand before them, looked less than pleased. "I will not have you fighting in the halls! What is the meaning of this?"

The uncharacteristic anger in the Headmaster's voice made Remus feel thirteen again, standing with his three cohorts under the looming stare of his Head of House. Even Snape was here—just as sullen and snide as ever. The more things change, the more they stay the same .

"He accosted me," Remus said, swallowing. "And invaded my memories somehow."

Dumbledore turned his head toward Snape. "Albus, see reason," the Dark wizard retorted, blood dribbling from his split lip. "How else would Black be getting into the school, if not without help from his faithful wolf—."

"Severus."

The Potions Master quieted.

"I have told you that Remus has my trust."

"He does not have mine."

"Be that as it may, you will have to hold faith in my judgment, then." The disappointment in his tone couldn't be mistaken, and even in a daze, Remus could see how it rankled Snape against his

will. "I won't accept this kind of behavior from either of you. We are colleagues and cannot be driven apart by petty grievances in these dark times." Dumbledore rubbed at his brow, sighing. "I take it by your presence here the dungeons have been checked over?"

Snape nodded, his black hair falling forward to hide his face when his head dipped. Blood welled and dripped from his mouth.

"Good. Return to the Great Hall and watch over the students now."

Again, Snape nodded, spinning on his heels to stride—limp—toward the stairs. Remus watched him go and exhaled, shaking hand coming up to prod a shallow graze on his cheek. He was pleased Severus hadn't resorted to magic. He knew from experience that, by seventh year alone, his hexes had begun to far outshine the Marauders' in both variety and viciousness. Remus didn't much fancy spending the night in the infirmary. He already had a sizable bump on his skull.

"I do hope you'll forgive Severus," Headmaster Dumbledore said, his sad eyes also trained on the now empty stairwell where Snape had disappeared. "His occupies a rather…stressful position here. More stressful than my own, I daresay. He did not react well to your appointment."

Remus grunted, not finding that surprising in the least. "I struck him first," he admitted. "He…I wasn't prepared for the memories he…stirred up."

"He had no right to do such a thing. I will be speaking with him later."

"I—." He imagined that would only embitter the wizard all the more. What in the world had that spell been? Remus had heard of mind magics before but had never seen them in action, the art terribly esoteric and mostly relegated to lying, back-alley tricksters and frauds. That had not been a fraud. "I don't understand why he seemed so—."

"Angry?"

"No." Not angry. Not a day passed in which Remus witnessed Snape in a mood varying from irritated, indifferent, or angry. This had been something else entirely; the fervor of his movements, the tightness of his grip, the tremor in his breath. "…afraid."

Surprised, Dumbledore hummed in thought and furrowed his brow. They stood together in the barren corridor and all was silent, not a madman to be found, the night beyond the windows clad in dark clouds and nascent fog creeping in from the mountains. Remus knew the Headmaster wouldn't be there if the rest of the castle hadn't already been scoured. He knew Black must have gotten away. Merlin, how he hated Hallowe'en.

"I believe Severus has a lot to lose if Mr. Black were to attack the students."

That puzzled Remus. "What would he have to lose, sir?"

Dumbledore just smiled and didn't say a word.

A/N:

Dumbledore: [banging pots together in the corridors] Wakey-wakey, escaped murderer in the school! Slumber party time!

between these yearning stars

cxviii. between these yearning stars

The gentle scratching of quills was the only sound to be heard in the quiet classroom.

Professor Babbling sat at her desk, idly turning a page in her book as her students identified and copied the long lines of runes drawn upon the blackboard. Most had blank, tired looks on their faces, resting their chins on their folded arms. Some watched the clock in hopes of time going faster.

A moratorium had been placed on all conversations concerning Sirius Black after Hallowe'en, but that hardly meant much to the students, who spent their free time in the corridors gossiping and glancing about as if expecting Black to come popping out of a suit of armor. In an effort to curb the panic and rumor-mongering, some professors—like Babbling—had implemented assigned seating and separated chatty groups, a consequence Harriet loathed. Even so, It hadn't taken Hermione more than a quick trip to the library to find a work-around.

Seated near the front, Harriet paused in her transcribing to glance at Professor Babbling, then over her shoulder toward her friends. 'Do you think they're going to send Aurors?' she scribbled on a note. 'For the Prat Who Lived's protection?' Harriet folded the slip of parchment, eyes still on Babbling, and when the professor paused in her reading to yawn, Harriet twirled her wand below her desk and muttered, "Permuto."

The folded note flickered—suddenly replaced by a different slip of parchment, her own note landing either on Elara or Hermione's desk. Harriet was never certain which one it'd make it to; she could use a bit more practice with the Switching Spell. Pretending to work, she unfolded the new note, spotting Elara's handwriting. 'The breach is on the front page of the Prophet. They're citing Dumbledore's incompetence as Headmaster and Slytherin's lack of efficacy. As usual.'

A soft scoff left Harriet as she dipped her quill in the inkwell. 'Of course,' she replied. 'The Prophet's basically run by the Ministry, innit?' She folded the note, returned it to the corner of her desk—and it switched on its own, swapped out for her original note. Glancing at Babbling again, she opened it and read Hermione's response.

'Well, the Ministry doesn't seem very keen on action, do they? They seem more amiable to the idea of giving Professor Dumbledore just enough rope to hang himself with, if you'll excuse my expression.'

Harriet replied, 'As long as they don't post a Dementor INSIDE the school. Or send another tosser like Lockhart.'

'You write to that "tosser" at least once a week.'

'He's a funny tosser. But, at heart, still a tosser.'

Harriet heard a muffled laugh from the back row and Professor Babbling raised her gaze, surveying the busy students, then went back to reading. The note flickered again, replaced by Elara's parchment.

'The Prophet presents its own bias but provides a powerful tool in swaying public opinion, don't you think?' Another line below that read, 'We need that map.'

'The Weasleys' map?'

'Yes.' A large inkblot marred the page as if she'd held the quill above it, pausing for thought. ' It would be prudent to have if Black has managed to infiltrate the school. If he can do it once, he can do it again.'

Unease wriggled in Harriet's middle as if she'd swallowed a worm. She was pleased Sirius Black apparently wanted to get into Gryffindor Tower and murder Longbottom—not that she was necessarily happy about someone wanting to kill Neville, rather more relieved the madman hadn't tried to go after Elara. Still, Harriet had learned from Quirrell that attacking one student didn't make a bloke incapable of attacking another. It'd be dead useful to have a map that could tell them if a bloody murderer was in their school with them.

The night before had been a startling experience for the entire student body, but more so for Elara, who'd spent hours staring at the Great Hall's ceiling, her blankets bundled in white-knuckled fists. Everyone they passed in the halls kept whispering or pointing. An older Hufflepuff prat told Elara, "Hey, can you ask your dad to take it easy on the rest of us?" and Harriet hexed his shoes to the floor when he wasn't looking. Hearing the thump! and alarmed cry of his body falling behind them had been satisfying.

'We have to finish the Moon Mirror map, then. Or rob the Weasley twins. Think we can break into Gryffindor Tower? They got that portrait of Sir Cadogan now, y'know, the nutter from the south tower? Apparently, he changes their passwords fifteen times a day.'

'We obviously need to finish the map.'

Harriet stifled a groan. She didn't want to finish the map. Finishing it meant finding Rowena Ravenclaw's portrait—which meant returning to the Aerie.

She could almost feel Elara's gaze burning a hole in the back of her head, waiting for a reply, and Harriet was saved by Professor Babbling, who dropped a clean quill into her book to mark her place and returned to her feet. "All right, class. Eyes up front! Let's see what you've come up with…."

When the bell rang and released them, Harriet needed only to wait a moment in the corridor for Elara to turn to her with an expectant look. Elara didn't often look at her like that; really, Elara didn't often want anything, which made denying her all the more difficult. "Bugger it," Harriet whispered under her breath as she shook the nervous, buzzing tension out of her hands and wrists. "Okay," she said louder, shoulders slumped. "Okay, you're right. We'll finish the map. Let's go to the Aerie."

Hermione—who had only ever heard the stories of the Aerie and the vast aisles of books— brightened, then paused. "But we have Charms right now."

"Flitwick is out with the flu," Elara reminded her, the upper-year Slytherins having told much of the rest of the House they'd arrived to class earlier in the day only to find a substitute waiting for them. "We can skip it."

Sputtering, Hermione said, "We can't just skip a class!" then lowered her voice despite the lack of other people in the corridor. "Are you mad? We'd be in so much trouble!"

"What else is new?" Harriet shrugged. "Who's teaching it, then?"

"Madam Pomfrey, they said."

"Hmm." Harriet waffled over the idea, weighing the threat of imminent detention over the looming drudgery of two hours in what would basically be a study hall. Swaying, she took a decisive step in the direction of the Aerie and Elara grinned. Hermione put up a fuss as they walked, but it was half-hearted at best, and soon the idea of wandering into Rowena Ravenclaw's hidden trove of knowledge won out. They reached the library's floor by the time the bell rang to signal the end of break and hurried onward, worried they'd cross a professor curious why they weren't in class. All the while, Harriet's hands continued to shake.

Don't be stupid, she chastised herself, wiping her sweaty palms off on her robes. It's empty now. It's just like the library. Perhaps better, given Pince isn't in there lurking.

Exhaling, Harriet concentrated on their destination and the hidden passage revealed itself, the three witches taking the corner past the portrait of the goose wrangler to find the faceless bust waiting for them. The uncanny eyes seemed to watch as Harriet approached.

"Once I thought, but can no longer. Once I saw, but now am blind. Empty, empty am I."

Frowning, Harriet glanced to her friends, both of whom shared thoughtful looks as they considered the statue's riddle. Hermione figured it out first. "You are a skull?"

The bust slid backward, receding into the wall, replaced by the smooth, flat surface of the Moon Mirror reflecting the trio of Slytherin witches. "Open," Harriet hissed in Parseltongue, and she slipped through the Mirror with Elara and Hermione coming right after her. Hermione blinked to get her bearings—then gaped, taking in the new corridor and the solemn bookshelves stretching in either direction as far as they could see.

"Wh—? Are all these shelves filled? How large is this place?!"

"Bloody huge," Harriet answered as she peered first one way, then the next. Either passage looked identical, and Harriet couldn't remember which way she ran the first time she entered the Aerie. Had they entered at the same place as before? She couldn't tell.

"It's about intent," Elara reminded her. "The Aerie leads you to where you intend to be."

"Right. You're right." Taking a deep breath, she added, "Hopefully Slytherin and Ravenclaw are still there."

Standing about wouldn't get them anywhere, and so Harriet chose a path and took it, picturing in her mind the lounge with the brass armillary sphere and the portrait above the hearth, one of the few memories of this place Riddle's Cruciatus hadn't scrambled or distorted. It didn't appear with any expediency—and Harriet fully blamed Hermione for that fact, seeing as the other witch couldn't take more than a dozen steps before getting distracted. Her friend's propensity to get lost in knowledge was both endearing and—at the moment—incredibly frustrating, so Harriet resigned herself to mindless feet shuffling while she waited for Hermione to sate her curiosity.

An hour passed. As Hermione studied a shelf of books on the idiosyncrasies of magical Byzantium emperors, Elara came to stand next to Harriet, her hands folded behind her back, her expression contemplative. "We haven't seen any evidence of the fire," she commented, turning her head as if searching the corridor again. "Even if we didn't encounter direct damage, we should have seen ash on the shelves or smoke damage. Both are pervasive after a blaze."

"The Aerie's huge," Harriet repeated, glancing toward one of the windows and the gentle orange glow beyond. "I've seen it with Professor Dumbledore, remember? I mean, it's actually tiny, only about the size of my palm—the relative size is massive when you're inside. It's possible we just

haven't found anything yet."

"Perhaps it has something to do with the Aerie itself."

"What d'you mean?"

Elara gestured ahead of them, toward the far end of the corridor that never appeared to end and yet continued to turn and twist in upon itself. "There's some level of…cognizance here. Of intelligence. It's possible the Aerie is keeping us away from the area. The Founders concerned themselves with the safety of their students, so I would assume Ravenclaw's Aerie would actively seek to route us away from perceived danger. It would also explain why it took so long for Longbottom and I to find you, if the halls kept counteracting our desire to run straight into Riddle's clutches."

"Maybe," Harriet said. The Aerie's ability to read intent might be picking up on Harriet's wish to avoid the corridors the Basilisk had traversed, or the atrium where Riddle and Luna had been. Her entire body vibrated with gratitude as her shoulder finally relaxed.

"Or," Hermione chipped in, hefting a large tome off its shelf. "The Charms upon the space might have shut down areas where the outer containment was damaged, like an airlock on a Muggle ship. We're apparently the size of a pin's tip at the moment, and whatever spells Professor Ravenclaw used—oh, and they must have been so clever! Rendering matter this tiny without incurring disturbance or diminishing returns? I haven't seen anything like that, even in the more advanced tomes! It's far beyond N.E.W.T level and beyond most masters! Could you imagine—? Anyway, the Charms would have a limit, a boundary, and if the Fiendfyre damaged that boundary, the afflicted area would be…wonky."

Harriet snorted and shed the last of her unease. "Is that a technical term, now?"

"Shut up," Hermione grumbled, tucking the book under her arm. At their questioning looks, she stuck her nose into the air and said, "I'm borrowing it. For a bit of light reading before bed, you understand."

"…sure we do."

Another ten minutes of focused searching brought them to the arch they sought, and inside Harriet found the lounge just as she remembered it: the arms of the astrolabe spinning at very slow increments, the ceiling above spangled in painted stars. She immediately looked to the portrait above the stone mantel—and discovered it empty.

"Oh, come on," she muttered, peering into the flat, barren backdrop within the frame in hopes of spotting the Founders. Dropping her school satchel by a sofa, she shoved an ottoman closer to the hearth and stood on its pillowed top, pushing her face nearer the canvas. "Erm—Salazar Slytherin, sir? Mr. Slytherin?"

"According to his book, he was a professor, master, and Hogwarts' almoner. Those are his titles. Ravenclaw was a professor and a master—Mistress of Charms and Transfiguration. Gryffindor was a Grandmaster and Hufflepuff was Hogwarts' first Headmistress."

"What's an almoner?"

"Well, back in his time, he was in charge of—never mind that now. Just call him 'Master' or 'Professor.'"

Tossing a funny look over her shoulder, Harriet returned to the task at hand. "Professor Slythe—.

No, that's bollocks. Master Slytherin? Master Slytherin?"

The use of Parseltongue appeared to have the wanted reaction, as the dark-haired wizard with his oiled beard and knowing eyes shifted into view, his brow jumping when he came face-to-face with Harriet. "Ah, child of mine House. You have escaped the guardian."

"Oh—er, yes, sir." Harriet cleared her throat and tried not to fidget. "That's been taken care of now. The, um, Basilisk was killed. Sorry."

Slytherin waved a ringed hand. "'Twas a simple beast corrupted to madness, its purpose perverted from mine goals. Tell me of what fate met the pretender?"

"The pretender?" Harriet blinked. "D'you—do you mean the Heir?"

"Bah!" The sharpness of the portrait's exclamation made Elara and Hermione jump. "You say Heir and I say nay; he is no Heir of mine—besmirched! A wreck of a boy, a monster of a man, I tell you. To see my House so far in disgrace, taken by the errant mewlings of an inane cur!"

It fascinated Harriet to learn Salazar Slytherin had no love for Riddle, and though she wondered if he knew more of Voldemort and what had happened to him, she decided they didn't have time to explore the issue at present and the topic seemed to only infuriate Slytherin. They needed him compliant, not belligerent. "He died with the Basilisk ."

"Then perhaps Fate has levered itself at last in veritable recompense."

Hermione—all but bursting with excitement—whispered, "What is he saying?" Slytherin glanced past Harriet to her two friends.

"You have brought compatriots. Maids of my House."

"Yes, sir," Harriet said. "This is—oh. I haven't said my name, have I? I'm Harriet Potter, and this is Hermione Granger and Elara Black."

Slytherin's eyes sharpened on Elara. "Of the Black Circle?"

"I—don't know?" What was he referring to? What circle? The mention of it tickled her mind, and Harriet dredged up a vague memory of Elara once mentioning 'Circles' existing before the Wizengamot came together. "It's an old family, the Blacks, but I'm not sure."

Master Slytherin feigned disinterest, but Harriet had been around enough Slytherins to notice how his eyes brightened ever so slightly in curiosity. "Hmm. You have come calling for a reason, yes?"

"Yes, sir. We were hoping to ask you and Professor Ravenclaw a few questions about the Moon Mirrors."

"Very well. A moment."

Slytherin disappeared out of the frame once more and Harriet exhaled, wiping her hands off on her school robes again. Conversing with one of the Founders was nerve-wracking, like Merlin suddenly turning up on the doorstep for a spot of tea and a nice chat. It left her feeling decidedly wrong-footed. "Hermione? Could you grab Mr. Flamel's translation primer from my satchel?"

"You're carrying it around with you?"

"Sometimes. It helps in Ancient Runes, not that we needed it today."

Hermione fished out the requisite book and joined Harriet on the ottoman, the stool just wide enough to accommodate them both. She set the primer on the mantel and flipped through it, glancing over the pages until she found the well-used section on old Anglo-Saxon English. Master Slytherin had returned by then, Ravenclaw joining him inside the portrait. The other Founder smiled when she saw Harriet, and Harriet guessed she was pleased she'd survived the Basilisk as well.

Hermione jumped into a rushed, breathless introduction and Professor Ravenclaw latched onto the attempt at conversation. Slytherin raised a bemused brow at the exchange and addressed Harriet in Parseltongue. "There is much change to the language in these intervening years. Your companion speaks with…an odd tongue."

Harriet coughed to cover a laugh. "It's a lot different now. It's been a thousand years, after all."

"A thousand years…."

Slytherin looked away, expression distant, and Harriet wondered what it was like for portraits, if they were conscious during that passing time, or if they slept like the portraits in the Headmaster's office and just didn't wake for long, uninterrupted years. Maybe they only came to life in the presence of magical beings. A lesson in Transfiguration earlier in the year had discussed the exchange of menial energy between magical items and the people who made them. That continued exchange fueled Harriet's magical golems past their projected expiration dates, and it explained why Muggle things didn't mesh well with magic. Harriet thought it was the reason why Hogwarts remained so very alive centuries and centuries after its construction.

"She asks after the glasses of silver."

Roused from her thoughts, Harriet nodded, pushing her glasses a little higher up her nose. "We're trying to understand them more and make a map. I've started one but it's been difficult finding them all."

Slytherin raised a brow again and, for an instant, Harriet thought he looked so eerily like Snape, she almost laughed. Shaking her head, she pulled her rough map out of her pocket and opened it with all the tentative, bashful awkwardness of a child showing a stern adult something they'd made themselves. Slytherin huffed—but it wasn't the outright derision Harriet thought he would give. "Do they not offer tutelage in cartography in the school?"

"No? Did they before, sir?"

"At a time. A passable attempt, then."

Shrugging, Harriet folded her map again, pleased to have at least been given a 'passable.' Hermione tugged on her sleeve. "Professor Ravenclaw says she has a map we can use. We have to go to her workroom."

"Where's that?"

"Apparently where everything else is here: just a thought away."

Bidding Slytherin a quick farewell, Harriet hopped off the ottoman and the trio of witches returned to the arch. This time, she allowed Hermione to go first, the other witch's face scrunched in concentration—and they walked right from the lounge to a new, broad room filled with towering shelves and vibrant, glittering spheres of light hovering above their heads. The lights followed them like small moons encircling their planets as they took a few hesitant steps into the workroom.

The space brightened, orange light fluttering from a circular window set high on a tall, stone wall.

There were books, of course, hundreds of books and journals and tightly bound scrolls sorted into a rack resembling a wooden lattice, but there was also an inordinate amount of stuff. Harriet couldn't think of a better descriptor for the crates and boxes overflowing with all manner of objects—broken quills and polished horns, bones, stone slats, withered plant bushels, rumpled balls of parchment, and bolts of fabric. A barrel by the entrance had been filled with bricks, runes etched into the dry clay—and against the wall where the single window resided could be found a massive, flat workspace Rowena Ravenclaw must have utilized to conduct her experiments. It contained dozens of odd glass beakers and brass contraptions.

"It's almost a bit sad, isn't it?" Elara commented, voice soft, unwilling to break the strange, solemn sanctity of the room. She brushed her fingertips against one of the larger glass receptacles, a gray, undefinable powder left inside.

"What is?"

"The thought that Ravenclaw left here one day and simply never came back. Here it's sat for a thousand years, untouched and unknown. Lost."

Harriet nodded, gaze sweeping upward, studying the many portraits and paintings and diagrams framed and hung above the well-used desk. The landscapes showed sweeping vistas and forests, rising gray mountains and tumultuous storms boiling on distant, unknown horizons, but most of the portraits had long been abandoned by their inhabitants. One, a younger witch with a striking resemblance to the Founder, shot them a haughty, unfeeling glare before staking out of sight. Professor Ravenclaw appeared in a small frame positioned above an empty cauldron and addressed Hermione, speaking in that too fast rush of Old English Harriet had no hope of following.

Hermione listened to Ravenclaw, then turned to survey the rack behind her, her sharp, quizzical eyes searching the tomes and bound papers. "She says it should be—here."

She snatched up a large scroll almost as large as she was and Harriet rushed forward to help her lift it. Elara rolled her eyes and used a Levitation Charm to lift it out of their arms and dropped it onto the desk, rattling the glass containers.

Blushing at her lapse into Muggle habits, Hermione undid the ties binding the scroll and spread it flat. Harriet scrounged about the bins until she found several heavy geodes she used to weigh down the corner threatening to curl back up, and the three witches brought their heads together to look at the revealed design.

"These…these are the original architectural plans to Hogwarts," Hermione breathed with reverence, daring to touch one of the faint lines made by a quill and a steady hand. It was a marvel to see in Harriet's opinion; each floor had been sketched and inked onto a single sheet, every passage and door, window, tunnel, and parapet, done in loving, exacting detail. Had it been made by magic? Or had the Founders pored over this as she, Elara, and Hermione did now, creating their dream one inch at a time?

"They're not entirely accurate," Elara said, pointing at various sections. "This tower isn't there any longer, and there should be another wing here. The greenhouses moved from there to the other side of the castle. However, look—the Underneath is shown here. Ha, so much for Slytherin's secret chamber."

"It would make sense for the castle to have experienced renovations over the years," Hermione conceded. On the wall, Ravenclaw watched the trio with interest before calling Hermione's

attention again. Hermione listened, consulting the translation primer, then returned to the rack for another scroll, this one roughly the same size as the blueprint but far thinner and lighter. Harriet helped her unroll the sheet and winced at the oily texture of the transparent vellum, realizing it must have been made from the skin of a magical creature.

"This is a celestial map. An old one."

"Why's it on something so thin? Why not parchment?"

"I'm not sure."

Sighing, Elara leaned past them both to flatten the new page, using both hands to press it firmly to the sheet below. Only then did they see how those lines and arches creating the constellations fell into place over the inked walls of Hogwarts, and Hermione gasped, smoothing more of the vellum out, ogling at the revealed design. "Oh," she uttered in pleased shock. "They match. They—the Founders mapped Hogwarts in relation to the stars. See, here? Polaris? It's the Sundial Garden. And the three points of the West Tower? Orion's belt. The curtain wall here makes the arm of Aquarius."

Harriet dipped into her pocket and retrieved her map again, unfolding it to make note of where the Moon Mirrors would land on Ravenclaw's constellation chart. After a minute of consideration, a snort escaped her. "The Moon Mirrors are planets—and moons. Bloody cheeky. But how would Ravenclaw know all their names? While we learned in Astronomy that a lot of the moons were discovered earlier by wizards than they were by Muggles, they didn't have the names they do now back in Ravenclaw's time."

"The paper must be self-adapting," Hermione said, running a reverent finger over the oily vellum. "Consuming and replicated knowledge, just like the Aerie itself, feeding on Hogwarts' collective knowledge. Oh, this is the most fascinating place I've seen in all of Hogwarts…."

On the wall, Ravenclaw interrupted with new information, and though Harriet didn't know what she said, the Founder sounded awfully smug.

"Really?!" Hermione blurted, checking the primer again. "She says the relative position of the Mirrors serves as their passwords!"

Harriet opened a drawer and searched for a quill, ferreting about until she found a magically sealed inkwell that was still usable. She almost burst into giggles when she realized she was using Rowena Ravenclaw's quill. Surreal.

It came as a pleasant surprise to learn that Harriet had managed to find many of the Mirrors on her own sporadic wanderings, but it was less pleasant to learn how many of the Mirrors had been lost to the slow ravages of time. Those places she'd taken to be exits she now theorized might have been connected to Mirrors that either never came into being or were no longer in existence. Several towers and the Moon Mirrors noted on the blueprints weren't part of modern-day Hogwarts. Had they ever been built? Where had they gone?

"I think I've been using the Moon Mirrors wrong," Harriet muttered to her friends, leaving an inky smudge on her nose as she scratched it. "I don't think they're actually passwords. Not exactly."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, I think, when I tell the Mirrors to open in Parseltongue, it kind of…forces them the wrong way, like a door bending on its hinges or something. We keep considering them in terms of single

passages, but they're not. Like these Mirrors here—." Harriet placed her map next to a spot on the blueprint, the desk's wooden edge digging into her hips and she strained to reach. "This is the Underneath—and bloody hell, I didn't see even half of all of this while I was there! Slytherin must have been part mole, I'm telling you. Anyway, the Mirror here, in his study? It's Jupiter."

"And?"

"The Mirror I came out of when I landed on top of you? The one over…here? It's Ganymede, one of Jupiter's moons. I think—I think giving the password, Ganymede, to that Mirror would take me back to Jupiter."

"And Jupiter takes you to Ganymede?"

"Not necessarily. I'm just guessing here, but from Jupiter, I think you can go here—to Callisto. Or even here, Europa. But those could only go to Jupiter. It might be why I couldn't open them when I tried before."

Elara and Hermione considered this information while Harriet continued adding new Mirrors to her list and naming the ones already sketched within. "You can't add Jupiter and its moons to the map you give the Weasleys," Elara said, considering her words. "From your own account, the Underneath is dangerous, isolated—and patrolled by Slytherin."

Harriet shook her head. "I'm not telling them where to find that. I'm not telling them where to find the Aerie, either. Which, for future reference, is Neptune."

A strange expression crossed Elara's face and she glanced from the work table to Ravenclaw's spectating portrait.

"Well, write down what you can for now," Hermione said. She was looking at her watch and nibbling on her lower lip. "We'll have to come back for the rest—because we've been here far too long. Charms ended an hour ago and supper's halfway over!"

A bolt of dread went down Harriet's spine. They needed to get back before Snape realized they were missing!

They scrambled to gather their things, leaving the maps as they were, stopping only to give polite goodbyes to Professors Ravenclaw and Slytherin when they grabbed their bags from the lounge. They dashed to the nearest Moon Mirror they could summon—Proteus—and Harriet was delighted to find her theory worked, as a single utterance of the moon's name sent them right back to the Mirror Neptune beyond the faceless bust. Their proximity to the library made it possible to feign coming from there, having gotten lost in the archives if anyone thought to ask. Hopefully Snape— and the rest of the staff—were distracted enough by Sirius Black to not notice their absence.

The trio neared the entrance hall, and then slowed to an easy, unassuming walk, listening to the general warmth of voices and clattering flatware meet their ears through the open doors. Elara paused by Harriet and faced her, the pair stopping just shy of the entrance while Hermione continued on to the Slytherin table. "I know Hermione doesn't believe much in astrology, nor does she seem to recognize its symbolism."

Confused, Harriet furrowed her brow. "What symbolism?"

Elara shrugged, lifting one shoulder and dropped it again. "I found it curious, the planets Ravenclaw chose for her and Slytherin's respective domains. Neptune and Jupiter."

"How so?"

"When Neptune is in aspect with Jupiter—when they are together—it can reference a desire for escape." Elara turned to the Great Hall and the welcoming glow of candlelight shone in her pale eyes. "A deep and abiding need to escape reality into a wanted fantasy."

Together, they continued on to their House's table and found their seats, but while the others chatted about classes and Quidditch and Sirius Black, Harriet sat thinking about what Elara had said, ruminating on a wizard and witch a thousand years dead whom fate had conspired to tear apart. She thought about how Rowena Ravenclaw could make all the stars align except for the ones she wanted most.

A/N:

Harriet: [Holds up picture she drew]

Salazar: I deem this worthy.

Harriet: Thanks, snake-dad.

Remember, there's a Discord server now where you can join the community and stay up to date on chapter releases! Here's the link: CDT Discord

https/discord.gg/4Mxw628

in the spirit of things to come

cxix. in the spirit of things to come

For the next several days, Harriet and her friends returned again and again to Ravenclaw's Aerie, spending as much of their free time as they could delving through the quiet, sprawling halls of the Founder's archive. Any subject they could fathom learning about leapt forward—references, encyclopedias, dictionaries, biographies, indices, all just a thought and a few steps away. Hermione had to be physically torn from whatever tome she'd buried her nose in every evening, lest she fall asleep there and never be found again.

Harriet spent hours wandering the area, familiarizing herself with the details and small quirks of the Aerie. Her anxiety lessened as she explored, but she couldn't deny it remained rather creepy, given how sound didn't travel in predictable ways and the silence pressed close enough to become its own tangible being, like a second heartbeat hovering at her ear. She spoke with Salazar Slytherin and Rowena Ravenclaw—what little she could manage—though both Founders proved their brilliance when they started to assimilate bits and pieces of the modern language the longer they conversed. She also learned, perhaps unsurprisingly, that Salazar Slytherin loved to talk about himself—and that Rowena Ravenclaw loved to make fun of Slytherin talking about himself, resulting in Slytherin stomping off in a huff more than once, chased by Ravenclaw's gentile laughter.

For the most part, Harriet sat on a stool at Ravenclaw's work table, tracing the lines of Hogwarts' design with her fingers or quill, studying those spots of carefully made illustration and embellishment. Kevin and Rick would inspect the old instruments shuffled off to the map's extremities, and Livi would wrap himself around the stool and Harriet's legs, occasionally peeking above the desk's edge to converse with Slytherin.

"We almost don't need the Weasleys' map," Hermione muttered one afternoon, partially hidden behind a tower of moldering tomes. "We have a better, if outdated map available to us—and it seems so limited! The potential for more—." She pouted and spun her wand in her hand. "If only we could figure out how it works."

Unfortunately, figuring out how one might go about making something like the Marauder's Map was more difficult than Hermione, Harriet, or Elara expected. Two successive attempts at the Protean Charm resulted in two spectacular fires, the latter of which led to a rather awkward conversation with Madam Pomfrey where Harriet tried to explain how she'd misplaced her own eyebrows. Hermione tried for a third go, but Elara put her foot down.

Beyond their peaceful escape of the Aerie, Hogwarts continued to bubble with speculation over Sirius Black—how he'd gotten inside the castle, if he'd actually gotten inside, where he could have gone and if he'd come back again. Harriet admitted to herself she was leery of the deeper, darker parts of the dungeons now, never entirely sure what might come crawling from a drafty crevice or the damp mush. Surely Fred and George would go to Dumbledore if they saw Black strutting about on the Map—but how often did they actually look at it? If they were ready to hand it off to Harriet, how much use did the Marauder's Map actually see these days?

Life continued despite all murmuring of escaped convicts, Dementors, and accidental face- singeing. The arrival of November meant Quidditch season was about to begin, and nothing proved more gossip-worthy than speculations on upcoming Quidditch matches. Not even Sirius Black could compete. Flint assigned more practices later in the evenings and Harriet savored her time in

the air, the sharpness of the cold wind against her skin, the heady feel of the world dropping away. She could do without being subjected to additional time with Malfoy—a new Chaser—or the Beaters aiming Bludgers at her head.

Friday evening provided a rare chance for Harriet and her friends to relax, waiting for Astronomy to start later that night. They gathered at their preferred table in the common room, holding their cold hands close to the jar of Bluebell Flames Hermione had conjured for them, talking about nothing specific. Hermione's familiar, Crookshanks, sat in her lap, the top of his ginger head barely visible, and Kevin wound about Harriet's wrist. Elara twirled her wand over a matchstick, idly changing it from one material to another, the soft winnowing of magic almost loud against the common room's stillness. Their dormmates had all gone off to bed, and only a few upper-years remained by the main hearth, discussing Quidditch or reading books.

"I still don't believe Professor Slytherin needed to bring in an actual Matagot to lecture about them," Hermione said, a look of consternation on her face as she scratched behind Crookshanks' ears. "Poor Dunbar might never get rid of the scarring."

"At least it's on her leg," Harriet said, tilting her chin to the side so the blue light could illuminate the markings on her neck. "That's easy enough to cover-up."

"That may be true, but it's not the point I'm making. She shouldn't have been injured in the first place."

"I know."

Light flickered in the periphery of their vision, diffused and muted, piercing the thick, liquid gloom lurking beyond the adjacent window. The light caught Elara's attention and she stopped fiddling with the matchstick to instead look out into the lake. A few moments later, thunder boomed in the distance, almost too far for the fine tremble of it to reach their ears.

"Oh," Hermione commented. "It's a storm. I had wondered when it would finally make it past the mountains."

Elara suddenly stood and startled Harriet, who jumped in her own seat and banged her knee on the table's underside. "Ow—! What are you on about?"

Lightning flickered again and Elara's eyes widened. "It's an electrical storm."

"Yeah? They'll probably cancel Astronomy unless Sinistra decides to lecture instead."

"I've been waiting for this," Elara continued as if she hadn't heard Harriet. "It's the first lightning storm of the season. The first since—."

Hermione gasped. "The first since I made the Animagus potion! Does that mean—?"

Nodding, Elara leaned on the table's edge. She looked out the window, and against the lightning tinged green by the water came, setting Elara's bright, determined eyes ablaze. "It's finally time."

x X x

They had only just departed the dormitory, the box holding the Mandrake potion cradled in Elara's careful hands, when they encountered their first problem.

The Aerie, as Hermione pointed out, was remote and all but inaccessible to the majority of the school's population. At first glance, it seemed an ideal place for attempting an illegal Animagus

transformation, but further consideration illuminated a complication they couldn't overlook. The actual transformation bit in learning to be an Animagus was the most dangerous part, and though Elara assured them she didn't foresee having any issues, there still existed a chance of something going terribly wrong.

"If you need Madam Pomfrey," Hermione said, "We'd either have to bring her into the Aerie or find a way to get you to the infirmary. And what if you're too injured to move? What if you're bleeding out or—?!"

"Thank you for the imagery, Hermione. Truly."

So they ruled out the Aerie or any of the other secret, isolated places Harriet had charted over the past months—but Harriet knew much more about the school than she had at the beginning of the year, and she was able to list several quiet, out of the way locations that were still perfectly accessible in the event of an emergency. They decided on an old, closed dueling hall on the fourth floor, a room that had seen little to no foot traffic in recent years, given the thick layer of dust covering the floor and the cobwebs swaddling the unlit torches. Old banners hung on the walls between the shuttered windows, but time and Doxies had eaten away at the color and patterns, leaving barren rags on iron bars behind.

They ventured deeper into the room past the raised, narrow platform marked with old carvings and spots of spell damage. Harriet's eyes traced the patterns and lines, wondering when Hogwarts last had a proper dueling class or club. Elara chose a spot of floor made moderately clean after liberally applying some household spells she'd learned from Andromeda. The three witches settled there, another jar of Bluebell Flames positioned in the middle of their loose ring, providing the only spot of light in the otherwise drab space. The storm roared louder here than it had in the dungeons, and Harriet flinched when the wind screamed.

"Bloody eerie, that is…."

Elara opened the latch sealing the little wood box, revealing the velvet lining and comparatively cheap, student-issue potion bottle inside. She didn't remove it quite yet, instead opting to smooth her skirt over her crossed legs and take out her wand, considering it for a moment before turning it toward her chest. Elara took a breath and slowly incanted, "Amato Animo Animato Animagus." She set her wand aside, picked up the potion, pulled out the cork, and downed it in a single gulp.

Nothing happened. Elara returned the empty vial to the box, sealed it again, and then shut her eyes.

"Is that it?" Harriet whispered to Hermione.

"Shh," Elara said, opening one eye. "That's not it. I have to concentrate."

"D'you know what you're going to become?"

"Part of the risk is not knowing what the transformation entails," Hermione stated, lowering her voice to suit the quiet, stormy atmosphere. "It's a very esoteric magic. Some reach this point in the process and can't find the 'inner spirit,' or so it's called. Most of the pure-blood tosh the Malfoys have on the subject defines it as an intrinsic magical force. Being unable to access it is seen as a sign of 'inferiority in the bloodline,' which is absolute rubbish, seeing as only a select number of witches or wizards ever even attempt the transformation—."

"Shh."

Hermione subsided into silence, muttering a brief apology.

Minutes ticked by, rain battering the windows, brief, ghoulish flashes of lightning pierces through the narrow slits on the shutters. The castle itself remained quiet as the grave. Feeling a mite uneasy, Harriet traced slow, mindless circles over Kevin's coils, the snake's inquisitive nose rising to inspect her fingertip. Life at the Dursleys' had taught her how to be still and silent without any kind of mental stimulation—but Hermione started to struggle after the first half-hour, fidgeting where she sat. Elara didn't move, her hands folded neatly in her lap.

In the distance, the clock tower tolled the hour and Harriet swallowed a yawn, rubbing her eyes. Hermione finally gave in to the need to pace, walking quiet circles around the dueling platform with her lit wand held in front of her. Harriet thought about joining her—when Elara emitted a small, stricken gasp, and disappeared.

"Ah!" Harriet yelped, leaping to her feet, kicking the jar of flames over. The blue light went out. "Elara!"

Hermione dashed around the platform again. "What's happened? Is she all right—?"

She held her wand up, and the renewed light revealed that no, Elara hadn't actually disappeared; in her place sat a rather baffled dog. At least, Harriet thought it was a dog. It could have been a wolf, or perhaps something else entirely, but what Harriet did know was that Elara—normally tall, bordering on statuesque—had become undeniably…small.

"Merlin's knickers," Harriet said, breaking the quiet. "You're a puppy!"

The dog's head whipped in her direction, large, pointed ears quirked. The face was expressive, especially for an animal, and Harriet couldn't contain the giggle that escaped when Elara's nose wrinkled. A displeased huff left her in a woof, and Harriet's giggles turned into outright laughter.

"Elara, can you understand me? Are you all right? Harriet, stop it—." Hermione jabbed Harriet in the ribs. "If you need me to, I learned the Charm to turn an Animagus back into a human—?"

Elara woofed in negation, startling herself. She looked down at her large paws—ears swiveling forward—and lifted one leg, peering at the pads under her foot. Her coat consisted of thick, pitch- black fur—which explained why Harriet thought she'd disappeared into the shadows surrounding them—except for a patch of white over her heart. She tried to stand and toppled over like a newborn fawn.

"Oops, let me help—."

Harriet reached for her, and suddenly Elara appeared again, sprawled and disheveled. She blinked wide, stunned eyes up at Harriet. "A puppy? Really?"

The sheer indignation in her tone had Harriet clasping a hand over her mouth to stifle her amusement. Hermione cleared her throat—though her mouth twitched as if trying to grin. "Well, what did you expect? You are only thirteen! It's an impressive feat of magic, but it doesn't exactly make you fully grown, does it?"

Elara exhaled, aggravated, and sat up. "Yes, but a puppy? What am I, exactly?"

"I'm not certain. A canine, for sure, but beyond that? I couldn't say."

"She looks kind of like those drawings of the Grim in the Divination text," Harriet said, crouching to Elara's eye level. "Maybe we can put you in Gryffindor Tower and give Longbottom a heart attack. Trelawney sees the Grim in his tea leaves every class."

"Don't be ridiculous," Hermione chastised. "Elara, are you feeling well? Anything injured? The books say the first transformation is the worst."

"I believe everything is well." Elara turned her arms over, glancing at her legs. "It's more difficult to hold the second form than I anticipated, but I assume it's easier with practice." She pulled in a deep, orienting breath—then scowled at Harriet. "Don't pet me."

"Aw, c'mon…."

Elara changed—and immediately collided with the floor when she attempted to rise, yelping. She accepted Harriet's help getting up onto all four paws—though not without a rather miffed bark— and ambled about, stumbling like a drunkard coming out of a pub. Harriet and Hermione watched until she tripped a final time and changed again, careening on unsteady legs. Elara caught herself on the raised dueling platform and perched on its edge, her breathing heavy but her smile radiant and unexpected. Harriet didn't think she'd ever seen Elara smile like that.

"I did it," she said, voice soft. It was the culmination of months and months of research, dedication, and perseverance—a quest she'd started when she'd been a nervous first-year on the train clutching an old family journal. Suddenly, Elara lurched forward and grabbed Harriet and Hermione by the front of their jumpers, jerking them forward into her embrace. Harriet could barely breathe past Elara's grip, and yet she hugged her back just as fiercely. The three witches laughed—the sound of their muffled amusement at odds with their grim, dirty location, but Harriet didn't think any of that mattered. In fact, she hardly noticed.

Outside, the storm continued to rage, and in the eaves of the darkened forest, a black dog turned his silver eyes to the gleaming outline of the castle. He sighed.

A/N: Yay, Elara's an Animagus! I chose her form based both on her connection to Sirius and the symbolism behind the dog spirit—which includes loyalty, constancy, friendship, and fierceness, if the dog is crossed. There are also many cultures wherein the dog represents a guide and a guard to Death or his messengers.

Harriet: "Number one doggo."

Elara: "…"

Harriet: "Best pupper."

Elara: "Sirius isn't the only Black who wants to murder you."

the burning light

cxx. the burning light

The rain didn't stop.

It continued to pour into the weekend and throughout the following week, the clouds wreathing Hogwarts in an ever-thickening band of lowing thunder, the mountains turning white under the black shroud of mist. They spent Care of Magical Creatures by the lake's swollen banks, learning about the magical wildlife flitting through the water, and Professor Sprout had to cancel Herbology after a stray bolt of lightning set one of the greenhouses on fire. Potions had become its own kind of torture in the bleak, chilled classroom.

Needless to say, Harriet was not looking forward to her first Quidditch match of the season.

The thunder woke her from unsettled dreams early on Saturday morning. She sat up in bed and listened to the lamps rattle in their silver brackets, Pansy snoring in the background. No one was awake yet, aside from her. Cold sweat dripped along the nape of her neck and she thought she saw Set sitting by her side until she turned to find no one there. Livi stirred down by her feet, so Harriet decided it best to get on with it and got up and went about finding him his breakfast.

Later, after the rest of the dorm had woken and Elara sat Harriet on her trunk so she could braid the short witch's hair, Harriet glared at the water outside their window and how it rippled under the force of the pounding rain.

"How am I supposed to play in that?" she grumbled, fiddling with the hem of her emerald Quidditch jersey. "I won't be able to see the handle of my broom, let alone the Snitch."

"Try knocking the other Seeker off the broom."

Harriet snorted. "There's a thought, but Ginny's Gryffindor's new Seeker. Flint will probably tell me the same thing, though."

"Well, if we're lucky, someone will drown Longbottom in a puddle. There's always that to look forward to."

The storm refused to relent even when the sun rose behind the gray, swirling curtain of clouds and Harriet marched toward the pitch with the rest of her team, the lot of them soaked through despite the Impervius Charms on their uniforms. Malfoy—who'd started the morning out boasting and swaggering about—didn't look quite so pleased as he tromped along the squishing grass, chilled to the bone. His blond hair was plastered to his brow and he appeared just pathetic enough to not earn an insult from Harriet.

She hadn't eaten a thing at breakfast. She'd swiveled her spoon through the bland, mushy porridge, and stared at the Great Hall's ceiling, willing the weather to calm itself, if only for an hour. Her stomach twisted itself into knots. Harriet simply didn't have the stature to play in conditions like this; she'd been a weedy, underfed child growing up and still retained that slight, peaky build in her teenage years. Shifty, the neighbors had called her, like she was a bony-fingered street urchin out to nick their garbage.

Harriet glowered at a dripping tree and it shied away.

Once inside the locker room, she plopped down on the nearest bench and tried to wring the water

out of her hair, no matter how pointless it was to try.

"This is rubbish, Flint," Cassius Warrington growled as he slammed open his locker and started putting on his leather padding. Warrington, like Malfoy, was a new Chaser added to the team this year, replacing Adrian Pucey—but unlike Malfoy, Warrington looked a lot like Flint, namely trollish and stupidly muscled. He wouldn't have any issues staying still in the wind. "They can't expect us to play in this, can they?"

"They have before," Flint replied, unlocking the Slytherin storage cupboard. The Nimbus brooms inside still looked a bit damp from their practice the night before.

"I still think someone should take one for the team," Bletchley, the Keeper, said. He looked pointedly at Harriet as he spoke. "Just a broken leg. Pomfrey would fix it up in a second, but if you whinge enough, Hooch'll postpone the game."

Harriet scowled. "Don't look at me. Break your leg."

"C'mon, Potter. It's more believable if you throw a crying fit."

"Why? Because I'm a girl?"

"It'd only take a second…." Bletchley mimicked breaking something between his two meaty hands —and, really, the fourth-year wouldn't have any problem snapping her scrawny leg like a twig. Worse yet, the Beaters Bole and Derrick were both considering it, sharing speculative looks between themselves, and Harriet swore she'd hex the lot of them bloody if they made a grab for her.

Irritated, Flint said, "Knock it off," and started to dole out the brooms, nearly knocking Harriet in the head with hers. "Listen, Potter," he snapped, shoving a finger in her face. "These conditions are shite and none of us want to be out there freezing our bollocks off. Your only job is to catch the bloody Snitch as fast as possible, do you hear me?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah, what?"

"Get your finger out of my face, Flint. I heard you." Harriet smacked his hand aside and Flint turned away, handing a broom to Malfoy. The prat sat next to Harriet on the bench, perching on the end of it as if nervous, both of his hands gripping the broom to his chest. More than a bit nervous herself, Harriet snapped her goggles into place and ignored him.

"Err, is he always so…uncouth?" Draco asked, eying Flint and the bigger, meaner boys. Harriet shrugged a shoulder as she tugged on an arm-guard, wriggling her fingers to make sure they were free to move.

"He's been a bit of a bastard this term," she replied—then paused, frowning. She hadn't given it much consideration before, but Flint's behavior had been more…abrasive than last year. Quidditch with the Slytherins was always rough, and yet the team had been…discouraging of late. It didn't make sense. "I'm not sure why, honestly."

Flint called Malfoy closer and started going over their plan for the game. Harriet listened with half an ear as he explained how the Chasers would focus on defense, preventing Gryffindor from making any points while Harriet went after the Snitch and, hopefully, ended the game as quickly as possible. They disparaged Ginny's ability despite having never seen her play, and though it rankled, Harriet kept her trap shut and stayed silent.

No one could hear when the crowd arrived, not with the storm settling itself atop the school like a fat, loathsome hen. Madam Hooch had to come banging into the room and ordered them out onto the field because no one wanted to open the doors and wander into the pelting rain. They marched out two by two—and a burst of wind struck Harriet hard enough to push her into Bole, who shoved her forward again. The mud sucked at their feet and dragged on their cloaks. Harriet wondered if she could flop over and pretend to be dead to get out of it, or if that was the kind of overly dramatic stunt Snape would give her a verbal hiding for.

They met the Gryffindors in the middle of the stadium, the House of Lions not looking anymore pleased to be in the deluge than the Slytherins did. Harriet couldn't hear a thing, the flat turf transformed into a shallow mire, the crash of water on water as loud as the storm itself. Across from her, Ginny shuffled from one anxious foot to the other, glancing toward the section of red and gold in the stands. Harriet gave her a reassuring smile and a thumbs up, which Ginny returned. Flint wouldn't like it but Harriet didn't much care what Flint liked.

Madam Hooch tried telling them to get on their brooms, then resorted to miming the action, the teams moving to get into the air and—hopefully—finish the game. The sound of her whistle managed to pierce the din, and Harriet jumped upward only for the wind to strike, forcing her feet into the mud. Merlin! She marveled as she shook her head to rid her ears of the ringing. She threw herself skyward with all of her strength and managed to get airborne.

The rain drove itself into the bare skin of Harriet's face and hands like dozens of sharp, twisting needles. She winced, cursing as the wind came again and forced her off course, swerving close enough to the stands for her knee to smack the wood. The resulting bruise throbbed.

Never mind catching the Snitch, Harriet would be lucky to make it back to the ground in one piece.

The odd word from Lee Jordan drifted through the storm but not enough for Harriet to make sense of the game's progression. Smears of green or red streaked along nearer the field, much of the stands lost to the creeping white mist coming in off the lake. It seemed unusually cruel of the universe to make it both rainy and foggy at the same time, and yet the intemperate weather denied all hopes and prayers and persisted. Harriet flew repetitive laps, straining to see even the vaguest flash of gold in the thickening sleet, fighting her broom with every spiraling pass. She paused near the staff section just to see the scoreboard under Lee.

Zero to zero. Bloody hell.

An hour later, Harriet reconsidered the idea of throwing herself face-first into the mud and feigning injury, even if it meant getting an earful from Madam Pomfrey or Snape or Dumbledore himself. She'd let Bletchley break her bloody arm if it meant going back inside. The dungeons would be downright balmy, her four-poster bed practically heaven after flying in this wretched weather. When Madam Hooch blew her whistle again, Harriet could have wept with joy, thinking they'd called the game—but no, Wood had used one of his time-outs, prolonging their miserable suffering.

Harriet landed by her teammates and only then realized how hard her legs trembled, her entire body vibrating from the chill. Harriet had always found it difficult to get warm, and now she felt closer to frozen than merely cold. Hooch had to hit her hands with a Warming Charm so she could release her broom, and Harriet stuffed her trembling fingers into her armpits, bowing her head against the stinging rain.

"Potter!" Flint snarled, stomping over to the hunched witch, his uniform sodden and streaked with muck from a nasty fall. "What part of catch the Snitch didn't you bloody understand?!"

"I'm t-t-trying!"

"Bullshite!"

"Five points from Slytherin!" Hooch bellowed. "That kind of language is unacceptable!"

Flint grit his teeth.

Too soon, the referee sent both teams back into the air and Harriet returned to her monotonous, pointless circling. A Bludger came sailing by her head and Harriet dodged, grunting at the resulting strain in her arms.

"Derrick!" she yelled. "What are you doing?!"

"Can't see what I'm aiming at in this!" came the exasperated reply. After that, Harriet decided it best to put as much space as she could between herself and the Beaters, rising higher and higher above the game.

The temperature plummeted and steam curled inside her goggles, ignoring the Charms laced into the glass. She could hear little aside from the wind's howling and the small, distant clamor of the watching spectators. Growing frustrated, Harriet leveled her broom and stopped flying, reaching up to yank the goggles off and let them fall—flung into the wind and probably out into the lake. Shaking, she pulled out her wand and cast another Impervius over her glasses and Warming Charms over her hands and chest. The trickling heat pooled in her ribs and Harriet shuddered, stowing her wand away.

Now, where is that Snitch?

Harriet scrutinized the crowd, letting her gaze sweep from the staff section through the corrugating mix of House colors, find no fleeting glint of gold among them. The mist had taken over one side of the field, and so Harriet searched the opposing end, knowing it futile to look for the Snitch without any kind of light to reflect upon its surface. The fog continued to roll in, blurring the edges of her vision, and frost gathered in Harriet's fringe, burning the tops of her exposed ears.

It was while scanning the audience that Harriet happened to glance at the top of the stands and spot…a dog. A large, black dog, big as a bear, staring right at her.

Abrupt cheering jerked Harriet's head around in time to see Ginny Weasley rocketing into the clouds, chasing a spec of gold.

Cursing, Harriet threw herself against her broom and darted after her, her eyes watering from the whip of the wind, knuckles raw and bloodied by the chips of ice ricocheting on her hands. Faster and faster she flew, eyes trained the flapping red cloak in front of her until it disappeared, swallowed by the mist, and Harriet had to stop because she couldn't see anything at all.

It was…quiet. Quiet in a way it hadn't been since the storm's beginning, the pall of static clinging to her frosted clothes. She could taste copper on her tongue, blood leaking from her cold, wind- chapped lips.

Somebody screamed.

"Ginny?!" Harriet shouted, soaring higher. She could hear her heartbeat, a loud and laborious thumping competing with her stilted breaths. Dread sunk its teeth into her and gnawed, intensifying, spilling over into anger and confusion and grief like a river bursting a dam. Harriet shook so hard she could barely hold the broom. Still, the screaming continued. "G-

Ginny?!"

"Run, Lily!"

Harriet whipped around, foot slipping from the broom's rear brace. A man's voice echoed, indefinable motion stirring the colorless fog.

"Go, I'll hold him off!"

Harriet forgot about Ginny, about the Snitch, about the game and the people gathered below. Numbness ate at her heart.

"No, please, not Harriet—take me instead!"

A flapping sound neared—a sound like the beating of leathery bat wings or stiff cloaks billowing —. Something—things—approached, a writhing murmuration of heinous, black-garbed beings, circling tighter and tighter around her—.

Harriet had her hands over her ears.

"Stand aside, foolish girl, stand aside—."

She knew that voice, had heard it spoken from the back of a man's head, tempting her to throw away everything that was good and just in her life on an impossible dream—.

He isn't here, he isn't here, he isn't—.

Harriet couldn't breathe, could barely see, but she felt the scaled, desiccated hand touch her face and shrieked. A Dementor gripped her broom and leaned forward, sick, hungry rattling replacing the pulse in her ears—.

"Kill me instead! Not Harriet, not my Harriet!"

Green light. Green light burning and bursting between those black spots where the Dementors swarmed like virulent mold. It wasn't pretty. It wasn't the green of new things growing in the early spring, but the green of something left to rot and die. Harriet turned and pushed away from it, not wanting to see—.

"No, no, no…" somebody sobbed. A man, a different one.

Blind, Harriet could feel the air against her face, pulling through her hair like a mother's hand on her daughter's head. A touch Harriet had never known.

"I'm so sorry, Lily, please, please—."

The darkness came faster and faster, her body limp, cold, and unfeeling as it plummeted from the sky. Before the darkness swallowed her whole, Harriet thought that last voice had been…oddly familiar.

A/N: Chapter title is from an Oscar Wilde quote: "Never regret thy fall, / O Icarus of the fearless flight / For the greatest tragedy of them all / Is never to feel the burning light."

grief and other terrors

cxxi. grief and other terrors

Minerva McGonagall loved Quidditch.

She'd always loved it, from the very first time she'd sat in the stands on Hogwarts' pitch at eleven- years-old and watched the players soar across the sky. She loved it when she played for Gryffindor, and she loved it even after those cheating blighters in Slytherin shattered half her bones and sidelined her for good. Minerva could admit her love dipped into zealotry when the end of the year approached and the House Cup was on the line, but most of the magical world regarded Quidditch with a degree of frenzied mania. There was an addictive thrill to it few could deny.

Still, even Minerva could admit love and zealotry had their limits when faced with a massive blizzard.

"Och," she breathed when she and other members of staff stepped out beyond the castle's eaves and braved the first bracing gale. Her hat stayed on by virtue of the Charmed pin, but Pomona wasn't quite so lucky, cursing up a storm of her own as she summoned her hat back to her hands before the winds carried it too far. Ahead of them, Remus hunched his skinny shoulders and pulled up the hood of his cloak.

"Nimue's blessings," Filius squeaked from behind, using his taller colleagues to block the worst of the draft. "That's brisk! I'm so glad my Ravenclaws aren't playing in this today!"

Descending the castle steps, Severus scoffed, apparently unperturbed by the weather. "Yes, they might have to display a modicum of effort if they were. Merlin forbid they pry themselves from their books long enough to try." He swept off without waiting for Filius' reply or pausing to magic the rain from himself. At times like this, Minerva thought the boy really did deserve that unfortunate sobriquet of dungeon bat.

"It seems Severus is already in a competitive spirit," Albus commented, bringing up the rear of their group. He waved his hand above their heads and conjured an umbrella-shaped ward, the rain pooling and dripping from its edges.

"Is that what we're calling it now? A competitive spirit? I thought it was called being a miserable bawbag."

Pomona chortled, and Albus had the gall to pretend he didn't hear Minerva.

They continued toward the distant, looming outline of the stadium visible through the thickening downpour. Minerva broke away from the group to catch those loitering students playing in the rain, pulling apart a pair of Slytherin and Gryffindor sixth-years before their bickering could come to blows. She urged a final group of Hufflepuff second-years toward the stairs leading into the stands and stopped to reapply the Charms to herself, grimacing at the ache building in the exposed joints of her fingers. Above, she could barely hear the clamor of her students talking over the fierce wind —but it lulled then, just enough for Minerva to catch her breath and for unexpected voices to meet her ears.

"—expect you to merely follow my directions, Mr. Flint. Is that too much for you to comprehend?"

"No, Professor."

"Then do as you're told."

A door leading into one of the more extensive storage cupboards opened, and Slytherin came out of it, his head immediately swinging in Minerva's direction. His red eyes glinted low and dull in the dismal lighting.

"Minerva."

"Professor Slytherin," she clipped. Marcus Flint stepped out behind the other wizard. "Is anything the matter?"

"Everything is just as it should be, Professor." Slytherin smiled—a bland, saccharine thing that set Minerva's teeth on edge. He brushed Flint past him, his tone more cutting when he addressed the boy. "Return to your team, Mr. Flint."

"Yes, sir."

Both departed, Slytherin not stopping to give Minerva another moment of consideration—and nor did he head towards the staffing section, instead returning to the mud-slicked path leading to the castle.

What dubious mischief does he intend to reap now? she wondered, watching the wizard until he vanished into the fog, and the increased clamor of noise brought her attention back to the imminent game. I wonder if Severus knows what Slytherin intends.

She climbed the steps skyward and reached the section set aside for the staff and visitors after the game had already commenced, Lee Jordan doing his best to talk above the booming thunder and visceral wind. Usually, Minerva would take her place by the boy and at least attempt to curb his partisan commentating—but after her run-in with Slytherin, she opted instead to sit between Albus and Snape, the wizards sliding apart to grant her room. Minerva could feel the cold emanating off of the Potions Master's wet cloak through her Warming Charms.

"Severus?"

His black eyes slid in her direction, peering through the wet strands of his hair. "What."

"I witnessed a rather odd conversation between Slytherin and Mr. Flint just now."

"And?"

"He seems to be expecting him to complete some task. Do you have any idea what that is about?"

Severus shrugged one shoulder, his attention again fixed on the field and players below. "Contrary to popular opinion, I am not an expert on all things Slytherin. The only person who knows what goes on in his mind is Slytherin himself."

Lips pursed, Minerva glanced to Albus, who frowned but had no comment to give on their discussion. He extended a bag of licorice sweets and Minerva huffed. "You're of no help, either of you."

She tried to displace the scene from her mind, to instead concentrate on the game, but something of Slytherin's behavior bothered her. She wasn't a fool; she may not know as much about the situation as Albus or Severus, but she understood Slytherin's influence settled like a cancer on his

House, corrupting and ruining many a young Slytherin who passed through their hallowed halls. Seeing that influence in action, however, disturbed her.

The game continued, the Chasers on either team barely making any effort at all, waiting for their respective Seekers to fulfill their roles. Ginny Weasley hovered near the pitch itself, and Minerva kept a keen eye on her. Poor girl; it was bad luck for her first game to take place in this horrid weather.

A blur of green swept close enough to their seats for the ward overhead to ripple, Harriet Potter stopping long enough to squint at the scoreboard positioned under Mr. Jordan. Minerva saw a silent curse form on the girl's mouth before she flew off again, staggering in the gale. Next to her, Severus' gaze followed Potter across the field, and Minerva saw how tightly his hands gripped his knees.

"I would caution you against interfering with Professor Slytherin," Albus said, soft enough for his raspy words to reach Minerva's ears alone. She turned to glare at the man, and he held up his hand. "Yes, I know you worry about the students' safety, just as we all do. I simply worry about your safety as well, Minerva. It is not your place to get in his way, but mine. I'm a cantankerous sore spot he cannot be rid of quite so easily."

"And you think he could be rid of me without an issue?"

"Of course not. That's is not what I mean to imply." Albus sighed. "Ah, we should have this conversation later, I fear. Our students are battling on without our attention."

Minerva let the discussion pass, if only because she didn't wish to shout at the man in the middle of a blood rainstorm.

A brief timeout was called, the intermission over before Minerva could fathom why it had been necessary in the first place. Again, she was reminded that love and zealotry had their limits, as she found herself hard-pressed to keep watching this half-hearted game when she fully intended to pry what answers she could from Headmaster's head by the end of the day. Even the cheering fell flat as a limp bit of cloth, most of the students and staff content to either inspect their pocket-watches or follow the Seekers from one end of the stadium to the other.

The fog crept nearer. The cold nipped at the wards and Charms holding back the elements and made Minerva, and most of her colleagues, shift in their seats or magic themselves again. Severus was a notable exception. The wizard barely stirred at all; Minerva could see frost forming in the daft fool's hair and he didn't take notice! He's going to take ill if he keeps on like this! Minerva huffed, throwing a Warming Charm at him, startling Severus into a glare. Albus chuckled.

Suddenly, Miss Weasley jerked her broom to the side and rocketed upward into the obscuring cloud bank. Farther out, Miss Potter gave chase.

"Thank Merlin," Minerva uttered under her breath, more than ready for one of the girls to catch the Snitch and win the game. She didn't even care if it was Potter, no matter the ribbing she'd have to withstand from Severus later on in the staffroom, so long as someone caught the bloody thing and allowed them to return indoors.

Seconds ticked by and nothing occurred.

Severus gasped, barely audible against the storm, and he gripped his right wrist. "Headmaster," he said. "Headmaster, something is wrong—."

The cold didn't dissipate. It intensified, and the wards gave way with a sudden snap, dousing them all in frigid rainwater. If Minerva hadn't been holding her breath, she would have noticed how it coalesced in thick, white plumes under her nose—but she couldn't find the strength to breathe. The fog peeled back far enough to uncover a festering horde of black-cloaked Dementors descending upon the stadium.

Minerva was ashamed to admit that she froze. The surrealness of the sight fairly baffled her mind, like a drawing she might have seen in her father's family bible, or those images of the Wild Hunt one could still find in the old witch grimoires. A hundred Dementors circled above, and she could not tell how many more lurked in mist. The worst of her memories came rushing back—the feel of her brother Robert's dead weight sagging into her arms, the sound of the eulogy at Elphinstone's funeral. Her hands buzzed with impotent magic and grief.

She might have continued to sit there as limp as a gormless Mooncalf if Severus hadn't screamed, "Albus!"

Harriet Potter was falling from the sky.

"Arresto Momemtum!"

Albus stood, wand extended, and his spell barely had time to catch the child plummeting toward the earth. Her momentum slowed, but she still hit the mud with considerable force, the impact hard enough to be audible over the screaming and raging storm. White flickered in the corner of Minerva's vision, and Albus' Patronus burst to life, the great, silver wings of the spectral phoenix spread wide as it threw itself toward the Dementors circling the downed girl like vultures after carrion. The Dementors reeled and scattered, driven off by every pulsing beat of pure, trembling light.

Minerva's own Patronus chased after Albus', and a chain reaction followed from those members of staff capable of the spell. She turned to Severus—but the Potions Master had vanished. Minerva rose and ran for the stairs.

She found him again once she reached the pitch, Severus already kneeling by Potter's side as Poppy ran to them as quickly as her short legs could manage. Minerva pushed her wet hair from her brow, taking count of the Gryffindor players dotting the field, Albus still forcing the Dementors farther into the Forest and the mire. Crying students exited the stands en masse, shaken and scared by their sudden proximity to the Dark beasts. Morgana help them, the entire school would need to be tended by the Matron after this. Minerva felt entirely overwhelmed.

"Remus? Remus—!" Catching the younger professor by the arm, he turned to face her, his expression just as haggard as her own. "Gather the Gryffindors and take them to the Great Hall. To the Great Hall, do you understand? Tell Aurora she needs to manage the Slytherins; Professor Slytherin isn't present, and Severus is—."

"Yes, I understand."

"Good, quickly, then. Go."

As he ran off, Minerva marched out into the brunt of the elements, feet sinking into the muck, her heart hammering much too hard in her chest. She pointed her wand at her throat and incanted, "Sonorus. All students report to the Great Hall immediately. Detentions will be given out to those who disobey. Get to the Great Hall and stay with your House, please. Quietus."

She got her first look at Potter when she approached Severus and Poppy, the small girl ghastly pale

and unresponsive, blood on her mouth and over the raw skin of her hands. For one awful moment, Minerva feared the worst—that she had been Kissed, or that the fall, despite Albus' spell, had snapped the child's neck—but then she stirred, weakly, as Severus followed Poppy's instructions and lifted her from the mud into his arms. Her leg dangled in a way it was not supposed to.

"Will she be all right?" Minerva asked, following the pair as they headed toward Hooch's office and Floo beyond. Potter groaned.

"Yes," Severus replied, short, curt, and to the point. "Make yourself useful and stop those idiots before they interfere."

Minerva would have taken exception to his tone if she hadn't needed to turn at that instant and catch Misses Granger and Black by the arms before they could barrel into the office after the Potions Master. Severus, for his part, ignored them entirely, stepping into the green fire pouring from the dirty hearth and disappearing inside. Madam Pomfrey followed right after.

"Professor!" Miss Granger cried. "Where's Harriet? Is she hurt?!"

"She's going to be fine," she said, tightening her grip when Miss Black attempted to shake her free. "She's going to be with Madam Pomfrey and receiving the best of care. Meanwhile, I believe I instructed all students to report to the Great Hall. That includes the both of you as well."

"But—!"

"No, no arguments. This is not the time for it."

Only the threat of detention and being barred from the hospital wing convinced the pair to follow her directions. Minerva saw them off through the Floo to the Great Hall—and then dropped into Rolanda's weathered, grass-stained chair, her head in her hands. She removed her square spectacles and released a shaky sigh, wiping her eyes. Her hands shook.

"Minerva?"

Raising her head, she met the penetrative gaze of the Headmaster framed in the office doorway, the shoulders of his crimson robes stained dark by the rain in a cruel, lurid mimicry of fresh blood. "Are the Dementors gone?"

"Returned to the borders of the grounds for the time being. It seems they couldn't resist the high emotion of the game." Albus grimaced, fury bringing a bright flush to his otherwise pale cheeks. "I will need to contact the Ministry immediately. Are the students—?"

"All in the Great Hall or on their way there, as far as I know. I will do a head-count as soon as I arrive there."

"Good. And…Harriet?"

"She's alive." Albus seemed to deflate with relief, and Minvera's posture mirrored his, spine bending under the stress of the situation. "But it was terribly close. By God, Albus, how can we stand for this? How can we allow the Ministry to place those—those monstrosities around these children? Is there nothing we can do to force them to take them back? They're worthless! They don't have any bloody impact on Black getting into the castle, apparently!"

The Headmaster shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I have argued with Minister Gaunt at length regarding the subject, but he is as unmoved as ever. You know the Minister doesn't think much on my opinions."

Minerva snorted, but she was not amused, merely angry, upset. "Perhaps we should drop the body of the next lifeless child on the Ministry's doorstep! Perhaps they would be forced to take you seriously when their voters and constituents turn away in horror!" She began to pace, her stride cut short by the middling length of the room.

"I know it is frustrating, Minerva. I do not believe I could have continued all these years without your strength to lean on—yours and Severus', and those who continue to resist such injustice. We must merely do what we can to protect the students and give them all of our ability. I will not cease petitioning the Ministry and the Aurory, and hopefully they will remove the Dementors by the end of next term."

Minerva sank into the chair again, her ire spent. Next term was not soon enough. "I don't understand it," she said. "Merlin knows they're horrid, horrid creatures, but I've never seen a person have such a negative reaction to a Dementor as Miss Potter does. Not even when I worked at the Ministry all those years ago."

Albus looked down, the lines of his face deepening with sadness, with remorse. "The Dementors feed on all the best parts of a soul, all the happiest memories and small glimpses of joy we experience in life, but for a person who has seen…more hardship than most, and less happiness…."

Minerva squeezed her eyes shut. She didn't wish to hear more, didn't wish to think about her own complicity in leaving a defenseless child in the arms of a cretin like Petunia Dursley. She knew they were the worst sort of Muggles, but had she truly known how deviant the worst sort could be? There would never be a day when she didn't berate herself for not trusting her instincts and arguing with Albus against leaving Harriet Potter at Privet Drive.

"Come, Minerva. The students need us."

The students. Yes, the students. She allowed herself that moment of weakness, that chance to shake her fist at the sheer frustration and futility of fighting against the Ministry's rubbish restrictions and dictations. Some days, she couldn't fathom what they continued to fight for, why it mattered at all when the whole of their world felt cloaked in darkness and no one had the forethought or wherewithal to look up and miss the sun. When there wasn't a single spell or law that could touch the likes of Slytherin or Gaunt, when so many were perfectly complacent in following their corrupt dogma, why did they still try?

Then, Minerva thought of her students. She thought of those children who needed her, and stood. She forced her hands to stop shaking, found her wand again, and nodded. "Yes, of course. Let's go."

consequences

cxxii. consequences

"—arriet?"

"I don't think she's awake yet."

"She should be. Madam Pomfrey said she'd be up by now—."

"Wait, her eyes are moving—."

The voices surrounding Harriet quieted, and she groaned, words flopping about in her brain like slippery, beached fish. She felt bitterly cold and wanted nothing more than to sink back into the comforting warmth of darkness—but a hand tightened around her sore fingers, and she pried her unwilling eyes open.

She wasn't in her dorm. Why wasn't she in the dorm?

"Harriet?"

"Wha' happened?" Groggy, she searched for her eyeglasses—and recognized the end table by the bed with another heartfelt groan. Elara placed her glasses on her face. "The hospital wing? Why am I here?"

"Are you all right? Do you remember the game?"

It came back to Harriet in pieces, the memory of her hands burning from the frigid wind, the lashing rain—and the Dementors. She shivered anew and clutched the blankets closer as she sat up.

"Did I—fall? What—? Who won?"

Four people stood around her bed—Elara, Hermione, Luna, and Ginny, the latter of whom still wore her muddy Quidditch gear. Harriet needed only to take one look at her uncomfortable expression to understand.

"Oh," she breathed.

"I didn't see that you'd fallen," Ginny rushed to explain, blushing. "I caught the Snitch, but you were already on the ground. I tried to argue—but Hooch said it was a valid play, and…."

Disappointment bristled in Harriet's chest. She'd never lost a game, had never failed to catch the Snitch before—let alone taken a fall from her bloody broom! How had she survived?! "Well," she said, clearing her throat. "Good game, yeah? You saw the Snitch before I did!"

Ginny smiled, but she still looked dissatisfied, and Harriet hated that her first game had been such rubbish. "I don't really remember what happened after the Dementor—erm—pushed me off the broom." She hedged the truth, not wanting to tell them what she'd heard or that she'd passed out long before hitting the ground. "What was it doing there? Is anyone else hurt?"

"No, just you." Hermione fidgeted, her hand still around Harriet's. "They weren't supposed to be on the grounds. The Aurors who are meant to be handling them by the gates said they must have

sensed Sirius Black was nearby, but that's ridiculous! Professor Dumbledore was furious! He used a Patronus Charm and drove all the Dementors from the field."

Harriet furrowed her brow. A Patronus Charm? She made to throw off the sheets and get to her feet when a sudden sharp pain in her leg made her gasp. Madam Pomfrey materialized at the sound, a ferocious scowl on her face.

"Not a foot off that bed, Miss Potter!" she ordered. "And Miss Granger! I thought I told you to notify me at once when Miss Potter woke?"

"Erm, I'm sorry, ma'am."

Madam Pomfrey shoved a thick, porcelain mug into Harriet's hands, and she almost dropped it, the weight unexpected. A gritty, tar-like substance filled it to the brim and smoked under her nose. "What's this?"

"Drink it all, Potter. And don't move about! You've broken your leg and haven't the energy for me to heal it yet."

Harriet gave the mug a few tentative sniffs before taking a sip. It was chocolate—but not the kind of chocolate one could get from a sweetshop or the Express' trolley; this chocolate was heavy, bitter, and not the slightest bit sweet. Harriet coughed at the chalky texture, and her eyes streamed against the heat. "Bleurgh!"

"All of it. You'll feel better, and then you'll need a Pepper-Up before you rest. You four—." The Matron turned her steely eyes to Elara, Hermione, Luna, and Ginny. "You've got five more minutes before I insist you return to your dormitories—and you, Miss Weasley. You'll be taking a Pepper-Up with you, after having been out in that abysmal weather. Utterly foolish for them to allow students to play about in that nonsense…."

Madam Pomfrey returned to her office, voicing her irritation the whole way, and Harriet set aside the mug as soon as she was out of sight. She pulled up the blankets to peek at her legs, the painful right one in a splint. Bruises littered her skin. "D'you reckon she broke it to make sure I don't escape this time?"

Luna laughed loud enough to summon Madam Pomfrey again. After haranguing Harriet into finishing her chocolate sludge, she shooed her friends from the ward. Harriet thought that'd be it, that the Matron would force her to sleep and leave her to think on those horrid, nightmarish voices brought on by the Dementors—but Harriet had one last visitor.

She stiffened when Marcus Flint came shambling past the open curtains. Like Ginny, he hadn't changed out of his gear yet, trailing mud on the floor. How long had Harriet been unconscious?

"What're you doing here, Flint?" she asked. He couldn't be there to check on her. Not a chance.

Flint squared his stout shoulders and announced, "You're off the team," without preamble.

Harriet hadn't known what to expect, and his words shocked the air right out of her lungs. A horrid sinking sensation gripped her as Harriet jolted in the bed, pain prickling through her injured leg. "I —what?!" she gasped. "What do you mean?!"

"I mean, you're off the team, Potter," the towering boy told her. "Like I told Malfoy last year, if you can't sit a broom, you can't play!"

"But that's ridiculous!"

"It's my decision."

"I'm the only Seeker in Slytherin! Who're you going to have play in my place? Higgs?!"

Flint grunted. "It's not your concern, is it? The Whomping Willow trashed the broom—the broom that wasn't yours—and we don't need idiots on the team who can't fly and go about ruining the equipment."

"I—." She hadn't known about the broom, but Harriet should've considered what would have happened to it after she dropped. "I can replace it!" She could, theoretically, replace several brooms —though spending that much money was as alien to Harriet as television was to pure-bloods. "It's no problem!"

"That's not the issue."

"But—."

"I said no, Potter. You're off the team."

Flint left without hearing another word from Harriet, and she stared after him, trapped in place, something dangerously close to tears burning the back of her eyes. She could feel her nails bite into her palms even through the blanket clutched in her fists.

"Miss Potter?" Madam Pomfrey had reappeared, carrying a single, smoking vial of Pepper-Up. She studied the muddy footprints on the floor with clear disapproval. "Is everything well?"

"Everything's fine," Harriet lied—because nothing was fine, nothing at all, but Harriet refused to cry. She wouldn't cry, not because of Flint, and not because of her aching leg, bruised heart, or the terrible things the Dementors forced her to hear. It made her miserable, but Harriet wouldn't say a word. "It's all…fine."

x X x

As was usual in Hogwarts, rumors traveled faster than most magic spells, and by the time Harriet was released from the hospital wing a few days later, there wasn't a soul who hadn't heard about her being kicked from the Quidditch team.

The dismissal added another bitter layer to the mocking she endured from those who couldn't believe she'd fallen from her broom in the middle of a Quidditch game. The faux-fainting she'd suffered at the beginning of term returned with a vengeance, and Harriet couldn't go anywhere in the castle without someone having a laugh at her expense.

"It's just as well you weren't sorted into Gryffindor, Potter," Longbottom said one day as she passed him in the Great Hall. "We don't have much room for cowards here."

His friends, of course, found this incredibly funny, snickering into their plates, but Harriet had heard cleverer insults from her own House and didn't stop to acknowledge the prat. She snidely wondered how well Longbottom would hold up if he had to hear his mum die every time a Dementor came near.

She hadn't told anyone about that yet. She didn't know if she would.

More than anything, Harriet was upset at the prospect of missing Quidditch, but no matter how many times she braved the laughter and mockery of the upper-years to approach Flint, he refused to let her back on the team. She must've asked him a dozen times before he threatened to hex her mouth shut, and Harriet shuffled off in a dejected slump.

A first, she thought Malfoy had something to do with all this. After all, he wanted to be Seeker and had threatened her last year after he failed to show up for tryouts—but Malfoy seemed just as perplexed over Flint's actions as she did.

"I don't know what Flint's on about," he admitted. "Yeah, you fell from the broom and almost broke your stupid neck—but it's not like it hasn't happened in the past. Father told me a Chaser in his year lost their arm when he clipped into one of the hoops too quickly. Flint's an idiot if he thinks putting Higgs back on the team would be anything more than disastrous."

The more Harriet thought on the matter, the more perplexed she became. Flint had only allowed her—a shrimpy second-year who weighed less than six stone soaking wet—on the team last year because her ability outstripped Terrence Higgs' by a wide margin. She hadn't been boasting when she said she was the best Seeker Slytherin had in their midsts. Flint was obsessed with Quidditch and fanatical about winning, to the point where he spent considerable time forcing his players to train and bend the games' rules. The Seeker was one of the most critical roles.

Harriet expected to get chewed out for losing, but to get kicked off the team?

It didn't make logical sense.

"Well, you'll probably make the team again in no time," Hermione said, Harriet sitting with her and Terry Boot at their favorite library table, the one farthest from Pince's desk. Elara was at choir practice, and though Harriet didn't begrudge her the time spent with her club, it did remind Harriet of her own new lack of extracurriculars. "I imagine Flint will see Higgs play and immediately change his mind."

"Or he'll bring Pucey back and put Malfoy on as Seeker." Hermione whacked Terry's arm after he spoke. "What? It's what I would do if I were Flint. Not admitting the truth would be silly."

Harriet sighed, sagging in her chair. The storm had finally passed, but the world outside the muilloned windows seemed grayer in its absence, as if the clouds had sucked out some of the color before they thinned. Harriet stared out at the grounds, resting her chin on her hands.

"It doesn't matter what he does, I guess," she muttered, still sounding more sullen than she wanted to.

"Isn't Flint a seventh-year? I thought he was a seventh-year last year—but, well." Terry cleared his throat, sparing them any disparaging remarks. Harriet wished he hadn't bothered, wanting to hear a bit of abuse get thrown at her former captain. "He'll be gone next year. Someone with some actual brains will be in charge. You'll make Seeker, easy as can be with your skills."

Harriet forced a smile onto her face. "Thanks, Terry." She found it difficult to be happy about much of anything lately. "That's enough of my moping, though. Nothing to be done about it now. Have you made progress on the Protean Charm, Hermione?"

Hermione's expression changed from concerned to thunderous, which Harriet guessed meant 'no.' "It's proving—difficult," she sniffed, shutting the book in her hands. A small puff of dust escaped. "Terry's helped me a bit in the research—." A slight blush colored her cheeks. "But there's something in the application I haven't quite figured out yet."

She set out two blank sheets of parchment, shoving aside her texts and bag. Over the first, she held her wand and incanted, "Proteus Imito Alterius," moving in her wand in what Harriet recognized as the rune nauthiz. Above the second, she reversed the motion and said, "Alterius Imito Proteus."

Hermione dropped her wand and picked up a quill. "Watch."

She made a single, firm stoke on the first parchment—and a second later, it appeared on the second.

"But wait, that's brilliant!" Harriet exclaimed. "Isn't that what it's supposed to do?"

"On the most simplistic level, yes, but for what we want? No. There's just so much missing. It doesn't properly copy, store, interpret, and relay information, and—here. Look, pick that up."

Harriet picked up the second sheet of parchment and, at Hermione's insistence, stood and walked a few meters away. Hermione created another line on her first parchment, and instead of appearing on Harriet's sheet, the second parchment burst into flames, and Harriet dropped it with a yelp. She stomped the flame out before Pince could come to investigate.

"Why did it do that?!" Harriet asked as she rejoined the table. Hermione groaned and covered her face.

"I don't know! Magic is notorious for losing stability over a distance, but not like this. I've obviously missed something along the way."

Terry chuckled. "I don't know what you ladies are up to, but the Protean Charm is really advanced magic. My older brother says it's on the N.E.W.T.s."

"It's for a project," Harriet bluffed, using her wand to scatter the ashes of the burnt parchment. "Just a little something that struck our interest, y'know?"

"I don't know," Terry said, smirking. "You Slytherins are walking trouble. If there's no extra credit to be had, then I don't want to know."

Snorting, Harriet returned her attention to her Transfiguration homework and tried to concentrate.

Hermione made another passing attempt at the Protean Charm, experimenting with her use of nauthiz, trying to adapt another rune to augment distance, and Harriet ended up scattering more ashes, nursing a burnt thumb. She had just plopped into her chair again when Anthony Goldstein came running up, an edition of the evening Prophet clutched in his hands.

"Hey, Terry, have you seen—?" He paused, sniffing. "What's burning?"

Harriet quipped, "My reputation in Slytherin," and plastered a fake smile on her face. "All right, Goldstein?"

"All right, Potter. Have you lot seen this? Take a gander before Pince comes back here and bans us all for you burning her books…."

He laid the Prophet on the table's edge, and Harriet craned her neck to read—.

"WEREWOLF FENRIR GREYBACK ESCAPES AZKABAN."

Below the blinking title rested a black and white image of Greyback taken during his incarceration. He was nothing short of devilish in appearance, large and imposing with a mouth of blade-like

teeth. He bore those teeth at the camera, and it caused his wild eyes to gleam like new coins.

"So that's what a werewolf looks like?"

"No," Hermione refuted, scowling at the picture. "That's what a monster—who just so happens to be a werewolf!—looks like. Don't be closed-minded, Harriet."

Goldstein glanced at her and shook his head. "Look, Granger, I know you're Muggle-born and might not know everything about the Wizarding world, but werewolves are bad news. Very bad news. Greyback is the worst of the bunch! He eats bloody children!"

"The Muggle world is far more expansive and doesn't need the excuse of curses or magic to create its own monsters. Greyback is a beastly man with or without his lycanthropy. Don't patronize me, Anthony; I may be Muggle-born, but I am as capable of reading as the next witch. I know what he's done." She picked up the paper and thrust it toward Goldstein's chest, though Terry intercepted it, setting it atop his Charms text.

"Do you believe Black helped him?" he speculated, reading the article proper. "He is the only wizard to have escaped before….Merlin, listen to this. 'Greyback's escape is not without causalities; three Aurors are reported dead, a fourth is missing, and a fifth has been bitten.'" Terry lifted his head toward the window, squinting. "It was the full moon last night, wasn't it? Poor bastard."

"Whether or not Black helped the werewolf isn't relevant," Anthony argued. "That's two Death Eaters who've gotten out and are walking free among civilized people! How long will it be before more escape? My parents are going to be terrified! What if they decide to take me out of school?"

Hermione crossed her arms. "I highly doubt Fenrir Greyback's going to come to Hogwarts."

"He bloody well might. The maniac's hungry for children, and if Dumbledore can't keep out the Dementors or Black, what chance does he have at keeping us safe from a werewolf?"

Hermione and Goldstein kept arguing and Terry tried mediate. Harriet read the article herself—and every word filled her with a new kind of anxious dread, a horrid premonition of terrible, terrible things to come. She didn't know how Greyback escaped or what it really meant, but Harriet knew nothing good would come of it.

A/N: Instead of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, this part should just be "Harriet Potter and the Worst. Year. Ever."

Stray note: Anthony refers to Greyback as a Death Eater. He was not a Death Eater. I think it would be a common misconception in Wizarding society to simply label Dark wizards or suspected Dark wizards as Death Eaters, when that's not in fact true. It's my theory (or maybe head-canon) that the marked DEs were more of a "select" group and the term came to encompass all of Voldemort's supporters, like Greyback.

Hermione: "Greyback wouldn't come here, pfft."

Harriet: "I have a really bad feeling about this."

the head of slytherin house

cxxiii. the head of slytherin house

When she exhausted all other options, Harriet decided it was time to talk to Professor Slytherin.

She didn't want to talk to Professor Slytherin. In fact, she put it off for an entire week after her stay in the hospital wing, thinking of any excuse she could, any idea at all to get back on the Quidditch team, before entertaining the notion of involving her Head of House.

Slytherin usually allowed his House to govern itself, letting the upper-year run roughshod over the younger students, so long as they kept to whatever arbitrary rules he assigned and listened to Snape. In the same breath, he demanded a kind of constant, befuddling obeisance—wanting his students to both defer to him and leave him alone. Harriet had heard stories of Slytherins getting detentions for months or being suspended because they came to him with the wrong issue. Slytherin defined the word capricious.

Harriet really didn't want to talk to him, but Slytherin was the one who had the final say over things like Quidditch team appointments. She could try going to Snape, but the Potions Master would most likely tell her to bugger off, and if he did listen to her, he'd still have to go to Slytherin for authority. Slytherin would be pissed at Harriet for not deferring to him in the first place—and, well, Harriet had tasted enough of his temper to last a lifetime. She'd most likely find herself banned rather than reappointed.

That brought her here, standing outside the closed door to her Head of House's classroom just before dinner was set to begin, clutching her bag like a makeshift shield. Hermione and Elara didn't know she'd come; they both thought it was a spectacularly stupid idea.

I could let the issue go, Harriet considered, eying the corridor leading back downstairs. Terry had a point when he said Flint won't be captain forever.

But Harriet was convinced the issue went deeper than Flint, and she adored flying. She was actually good at it, in the way that Elara was just good at Transfiguration and Hermione was good at Charms. It had been a bright spot in an otherwise stressful term, and Harriet didn't want to give it up. She just wanted to fly.

Bracing herself, she held her breath and knocked.

Nothing happened for a moment. Then, a brush of silent magic opened the door, and Harriet took the metaphoric plunge, hoping she wouldn't regret this. She'd expected the professor to be in his office, but no; instead, Slytherin sat at his desk in the classroom, seemingly engrossed in some kind of letter. His red eyes rose and tracked Harriet's slow, grudging progress into the room. None of the torches were lit, the shutters closed, the only light glowing from a single candle on the desk.

"Miss Potter," he said, setting aside his letter. "Did you need something from me?"

He'd only said a few words, and already Harriet wanted to turn around and run from the room. She'd had a persuasive speech thought out, and now it all melted into a jumble in her brain. "I, um —."

Slytherin raised a brow, the corner of his mouth lifting in what could have been a smile, but instead

came across as a snide smirk. "Yes?"

Harriet swallowed and steeled her nerves, knowing she needed to say something, anything, before Professor Slytherin got angry. "Erm—Marcus Flint kicked me off the Quidditch team," she blurted.

"And this concerns me how?"

"He—he doesn't have a proper reason to do so, Professor. I know I—the broom was ruined, but I can replace it, and I wasn't negligible! I—I'm the best player on the team." Well, Harriet wasn't entirely convinced of that, but a spot of self-confidence and bravado would serve her better than weak-mouthed mumbling. It firmed her voice. "I shouldn't have been let go. There's no grounds for my dismissal, and the—our House is going to lose the Cup if I don't play."

It occurred to Harriet that, in the grander scheme of things, the Quidditch Cup really didn't matter, but she wagered losing at anything, no matter how trivial, would be unpalatable to Slytherin. Indeed, she could see the skin tighten around his eyes, his fingers drumming along the edge of his desk before he said, "Sit down, Potter," in his lightest, most affable voice. Harriet did not want to sit down and wondered if Professor Slytherin was about to make her regret being born, but she nonetheless sank into the closest student desk. Slytherin rose, smoothing one hand over his chest to straighten his robes, and distantly Harriet heard the door follow an unvoiced command and swing shut.

Her heart jumped into her throat. She clutched her bag closer.

Slytherin studied her for a moment, his hands folded before himself, the picture of open and approachable. "You bring up a valid point, Miss Potter," he said, coming around the desk, each step measured and meaningful. Harriet remained wary as he stopped before her. "And I appreciate the…thought you put into your little impassioned speech. It shows initiative."

The smile he gave her could have frozen a Basilisk. Harriet shuddered at the imagery, not wanting to think about that—about Tom Riddle—when she was in front of the Defense instructor. She kept her gaze on his mouth, unable to look higher. With the candle at his back, it became impossible to see his face very well, yet his red eyes remained eerily stark.

"However, I don't believe it's in your best interest to continue with Quidditch, whether or not the dismissal was genuine."

Harriet's brow furrowed. "My best interest, sir?"

"Yes. I always have the best interest of my students in mind. Your…peculiar reaction to the Dementors aside, I don't believe it's the best use of your time."

Confused, Harriet waited for Professor Slytherin to continue, and he did so, resting one hand on the desk, leaning ever so slightly forward. Discomfort wriggled in her middle, the conversation not going at all the way Harriet had expected.

"Enjoying Quidditch is all well and good, I suppose, and yet I find certain members of my House are better suited to play it than others. It has nothing to do with skill, you understand. Simply… some wizards and witches benefit more from learning how to follow orders, from being…physical people rather than cerebral ones." Professor Slytherin canted his head to one side and Harriet could feel his eyes boring into the top of her skull. "To be plain—it's a game for idiots, and you're not an idiot, are you, Miss Potter? No, you've proved yourself quite…competent in my classes."

Harriet had a cold, creeping feeling and she started to realize that Flint might not have been the only one who wanted her off the Quidditch team. But that was ridiculous. Professor Slytherin had every reason to keep her on the team, didn't he? She wasn't particularly bright and yes, she did have some talent at Defense, but what did he mean by all this?

Did…did Slytherin have Flint kick me off the team? Is he the reason they've been such berks all term?

"Put thoughts of Quidditch from your mind, Harriet. You would do better to devote your free time to studying more advanced magic."

"Like the Patronus Charm?" She didn't know why she said that, though it'd been on her mind since Hermione mentioned its existence. Slytherin's gaze sharpened as he straightened. Harriet stared at his hand still on her desk, his nails perfectly shaped and clean. He had strangely soft, effeminate hands for someone so vicious and cruel with their magic. "I—Headmaster Dumbledore used it at the Quidditch game after I fell. Hermione told me it's very advanced magic."

"To some it may seem so," Slytherin replied, voice dipping in octave. "It's a soft magic. Weak. If you've half the intelligence I've credited you with, you'll turn your mind and free time to more worthy pursuits." In the distance, the tower bells tolled the hour and Slytherin glanced toward the covered windows. "Come, Potter, lest you try my patience over this trivial matter."

He walked her out—and, as the door opened, Harriet froze, Slytherin dropping his hand onto the back of her neck. The skin under her collar burned.

"Do feel free to arrange a meeting if you're interested in expanding your magical repertoire, Miss Potter." His fingers tightened, then released. "Don't spoil that potential of yours."

He shoved her forward, through the open door—and closed it behind her.

Harriet stood in the hall for several seconds without moving, attempting to get her bearings. She had the unbearable urge to scrub at the nape of her neck, rid herself of the phantom sensation of fingers digging in too close to her spine. Professor Slytherin had gotten her kicked off the Quidditch team. He—.

"Potter!"

Harriet nearly expired on the spot, Snape scaring the life from her when he came sweeping from a darkened alcove. "Bloody hell!"

"Ten points from Slytherin! What do you think you're doing?" he hissed, eyes darting from her to the door at her back. He looked furious.

"I—I just wanted to ask him about Quidditch—."

Snape grabbed her by the arm and dragged Harriet away from Slytherin's classroom, ignoring the confused, curious glances of those students who still milled about in corridors despite dinner being in session. Harriet almost dropped her bag in her effort to keep up with Snape's punishing gait. He pulled her along until they reached his cold office, at which point Snape dropped Harriet and her bag into one of the stiff-backed chairs and pulled out his wand.

"What're you—?!"

"Hold still."

The blue light of a silent spell fell over her in a misty sheet, followed by a second and a third, Harriet blinking in bewilderment as the Potions Master muttered under his breath, a deep crease forming between his brows. When the light faded, Snape's rigid shoulders inched back down to their normal level, and he threw his wand onto the desk with a loud clatter. "What, in God's name, possessed you to approach him alone, girl?!"

"I didn't have a choice! And what was that funny magic? You don't actually think he cursed me or something, d'you?" When Snape didn't answer, his expression darkening, Harriet grew less certain of herself and a lot more worried. What had she been thinking? She knew there was something not entirely right about the bloke, some indefinable cord that connected him to Tom Riddle and Gaunt and Voldemort, but she'd been torn on what to do. Slytherin was supposed to be her Head of House. When Harriet spoke, she could barely hear her own words. "…I just want to play Quidditch."

"And if he'd granted your request?" Snape demanded. "Surely you're not naive enough to think Slytherin does anything without an ulterior motive! Use your head, Potter, for once. If Granger hadn't come to me with suspicions on where you'd gone off to—."

"I didn't know he was behind it," Harriet interrupted, wincing when Snape's mouth snapped shut. "I mean, it sounds petty and stupid and not like anything Slytherin would care about, seeing as how he doesn't seem to care about anyone outside of those students he tutors, but then he said…he said Quidditch is a waste of time, and I should concentrate on other things. He got me kicked off the team. If I'd known that, I wouldn't have dared ask him."

Snape didn't speak, didn't move aside from a slight tremor tightening his hands. Perhaps still shocked over what had occurred, Harriet couldn't help but focus on the nearest visible limb, Snape's hand pale, long-fingered, stained by potions and spells and ink. It wasn't anything like Slytherin's hand.

Seeing the girl shiver, Snape flicked his fingers at the hearth, lighting a fire in its belly, and went to sit in his own chair instead of looming over her. He released some of his anger, though it yet simmered just below the surface.

Shifting, Harriet asked, "Why would he kick me off the team? I don't really understand. Sir."

Snape scoffed. "Do you understand much of anything?" he retorted, drawing in a sharp breath, letting it out in a tired sigh. "You're not blind. You've mentioned Slytherin's tutoring group yourself. How else do you think he procures those students if not by cultivating them himself? By granting them favors, or offering guidance?"

"But that's silly. I'm just a third-year."

"And yet you won't always be just a third-year, Potter. Slytherin is a master in manipulating talent, and despite being an utter dunderhead, you undeniably possess a spark of ability. Fool. You absolute little fool." Inclined to get angry at his insulting tone, Harriet noted Snape's attention had drifted toward the fireplace, and she had the inkling he wasn't entirely addressing her. "What else did he tell you?"

"Some shite about arranging a 'meeting' if I wanted to know more magic and not to go 'spoiling my potential.'"

Snape pinched his dark eyes shut.

"Well, I'm not going to ask him for anything, obviously!"

"I should hope not," he said, scowling when he opened his eyes again. "What else?"

"Nothing, really. I wasn't in the classroom for more than a few minutes." Harriet turned her head, thinking, and considered again how Slytherin had recoiled when she asked about the spell Professor Dumbledore had used. "He did act strange when I asked him about the Patronus Charm. I don't know what it is, exactly, but he discouraged me from looking into it. Said it was weak magic."

"Of course he would, seeing as he can't cast it himself."

"What, really?" Harriet asked, surprised. Snape crossed his arms and settled farther into his chair, tone taking on that terse edge Harriet knew conveyed his clear incredulity in her intelligence.

"The Patronus Charm is what some refer to as Light magic. Slytherin is a Dark wizard. He is incapable of it."

"What d'you mean by that? I've not heard of Light magic."

"That is because it is not a real thing, Potter. It is a misnomer brought on by conceptions of duality —for if there is Dark magic, then there should be Light magic as well. If this magic were to actually exist, it would suggest the potential for perfect actualization, the 'ideal soul,' and that, too, is the nonsense blathering of charlatans, knobheads, and the bloody Headmaster. All witches and wizards are exposed to various levels of corruption throughout their lives—not unlike Muggles and their radiation—which means no one is perfectly pure. The Patronus Charm is a projection of one's inner soul, taking on the form a spirit guardian. That guardian assumes a shape in the Animalia kingdom best representing the caster's various traits. A person cannot cast the Patronus if their soul is, for lack of a better definition, filthy and degraded."

Harriet absorbed this information, her nose scrunched and eyes bright behind her glasses. She was fairly certain Professor Snape had just called Slytherin filthy and degraded in a roundabout way, which she thought was brilliant. "Could you teach it to me?"

Snape blinked as if he hadn't expected her to ask. "What?"

"The Patronus Charm. Could you teach it to me, so I can protect myself from Dementors? I tried looking it up, but I couldn't find anything in the library."

"That is because it is a N.E.W.T spell and not one often mastered until after a student leaves this school." Clearing his throat, Snape added. "No, I won't teach you."

Harriet slumped. "But why not?"

"Because there isn't a point in doing so, and I won't waste my time. I do have more to do than chase you and your ill-mannered friends about the castle, Potter. You're off the Quidditch team, can't venture past the gates, and won't be coming into contact with the Dementors again—."

"But you can't know that," Harriet pressed, suddenly desperate. "I—please, Professor. Please teach me. I…don't want to hear it anymore, the things the Dementors make me remember. I want to learn to drive them away."

Snape frowned, his black eyes intent on Harriet's. The fire in the grate cast part of his face into shadow until he turned to look at her properly. "What is it you hear, girl?"

Harriet hesitated. She hadn't told anyone the truth and didn't much fancy telling Snape now, the idea of putting the horrors in her head into words sickening. Harriet wanted to pretend they didn't

exist, and yet…if she had to tell someone, it might as well be Snape. Then she could admit it, aloud, and it wasn't as if Snape would be keen to bring it up again.

"My mum," she mumbled.

"Don't mumble."

"My mum," Harriet repeated, louder, Snape flinching on the other side of his desk.

"What are you on about? How could—?"

"I can hear her screaming, and my dad. He tried to hold him back. And Vol—the Dark Lord. He— my mum begged him to spare me, but she wouldn't stand aside, and she screamed when he killed her."

Snape grew progressively paler as Harriet spoke until he better resembled a corpse than a living person, his hands gripping the arms of his chair in a white-knuckled grip. Sweat beaded on his brow.

"…Professor?"

He didn't stir, but Harriet heard a single word escape his slack mouth. "Out," he whispered.

"What?"

Firmer, Snape said, "Get out," and refused to look at Harriet. He hardly seemed to be breathing. "You need to leave. Go to dinner, go to the dorm, go—anywhere. Just go."

"But what about the Patronus Charm—?"

"Not now!" Snape snarled, bolting to his feet, the chair falling and banging against the floor. The noise startled Harriet out of her own seat, suddenly nervous. What did I do? she wondered. What did I say? "Go, Potter. Go and stay away from Slytherin!"

"I—."

"GET OUT."

Harriet scrambled from the room, snatching her bag from the floor as she went. The door slammed shut at her heels, and the sound echoed far into the dungeons' confines, chased by the lingering vestige of Snape's bellowed shout. Harriet, shaken, glowered at the door and the man hidden behind it.

"Is every adult in this school utterly barmy? Merlin's beard…."

A/N: I wanted to point out that Harriet's not always a reliable narrator, especially in regards to herself. Probably because she grew up hearing "You're rubbish" constantly.

Harriet: "Ha, yeah, I can hear my mum dying."

Snape: Snape.exe has stop working.

god-sister

cxxiv. god-sister

November bled into December, and one dawn, the whole of Hogwarts woke to find the green hills beyond the castle grounds covered in a blanket of white.

The snow settled in, falling every passing morning and evening, and all too soon, a hard crust formed over the top of the lake. The forest creaked under the weight of ice, and more than one student ended up in the infirmary after falling down a slippery path. Harriet still ran outside on the track despite the cold and despite not being on the Quidditch team—avoiding the Slytherin players whenever she could.

She avoided most people outside of her friends these days. Since the last Quidditch game, no drama had occurred at Hogwarts, so chatter about Harriet's fall and subsequent dismissal from her team still popped up in the corridors or Great Hall. Harriet also kept her head down around Professor Slytherin, keen on escaping the wizard's expectant gaze whenever possible. Snape had been acting odd since he'd thrown Harriet from his office. He refused to look at her—not that Snape ever spent a lot of time doing that, but now his eyes pointedly skated over her table in the Potions classroom, and when Harriet raised her hand to ask or answer a question, he ignored it. She could only conclude that something she'd said in his office had deeply affected the wizard—but Harriet couldn't figure out what that something had been.

Maybe he lost someone to Voldemort, she thought. Maybe listening to me talk about how my mum died brought back bad memories for him.

Considerations of Snape and Slytherin aside, Harriet forced her mood to stay upbeat as the term's final Hogsmeade trip approached and her friends began to fret.

"We don't have to go," Hermione assured her. "We've already gone and seen it. Once was enough."

But Harriet urged them to go, just as she did for the previous trip, determined she wouldn't hold them back from having fun and getting their break from the castle. She promised she'd find Luna or Ginny while they were gone so she wouldn't be alone, but Harriet didn't mind having the time to herself and so didn't seek out her younger friends. While the rest of the school took the carriages down to the village, Harriet gathered Livi and headed out into the grounds, finding a spot on the lake's frozen shore. She practiced her Warming Charms as she sat there, feeling sorry for herself, watching the snow fall and melt.

"Snape's been acting weird," Harriet told Livi as the serpent dragged his belly through the sand, hissing in satisfaction. "Or, well, weirder, since he's always been an odd bloke. Most witches and wizards are odd, though. That's just a common thing." Sighing, she threw another Warming Charm toward the ground, and rills of steam issued from the drying sand. "I guess I shouldn't have told him about the Dementors."

Livi uncoiled and brought his nose to Harriet's, his eyes level with her own. "Bitter are the wordsss we asssk but do not want to know."

Harriet hummed and touched the gem on his head, tracing the smaller scales surrounding it.

"Maybe. I think he lost somebody. I wonder what Snape hears when the Dementors come close?" It was an idle curiosity, the answer being too intensely private for Harriet to ever really consider asking the question. Concentrating, she waved her wand at the lake—or, more specifically, the ice —and applied Warming Charms until a small hole appeared. Livi flicked his tail in appreciation— spraying her with wet sand—and dipped into the cold, dark waters, vanishing out of sight.

Harriet's thoughts wandered to Snape again as she sat hunkered under her cloak, pressing her fingertips against a bruise on her red knee, watching the skin shift in color. She didn't know what to think of the Potions Master most of the time. He could be a right bastard, rude and snarky and just plain mean—but other times, he did things that contradicted his snide, cutting personality. Harriet got so caught up in things that she failed to think, but as more time went by, the more she remembered smaller details she didn't first consider. Like how Snape managed to get past the Moon Mirror into the Aerie and ran headlong into danger without missing a step. Or when Quirrell tried to kill her, and Snape was the first one through the door. Or when she was poisoned, and Snape was the one who shoved a bezoar down her throat.

Those details didn't mean much at the time, eclipsed by more pressing issues and dangers and woes, but Harriet didn't forget. Perhaps it was coincidental, the wrong person at the right time, and maybe Snape simply did as the Headmaster told him to do regardless of his own preferences—but Harriet didn't believe that, really. Snape was a quintessential Slytherin; he'd never do anything if he didn't want to do it.

Harriet laid back, not minding the cold or the wet grass or the stray snowflakes landing on her glasses. She plucked little pebbles from the dirt and tossed them into the air one by one, practicing her Shield Charms to bounce them into the lake. The clatter of stones striking the ice echoed.

"Hey, Potter!"

Harriet startled—and cursed as a pebble smacked her nose. Sitting up, she spotted the Weasley twins tromping down the snow-covered path toward her. "What?" she asked, mildly peeved, rubbing her sore face.

"Well, that's quite a tone to use on someone who's about to help you out," George—and she was fairly certain it was George—said as he sat on a flat boulder. "What's our favorite snake doing scrappin' around here instead of the village?"

"I'm not allowed," she grumbled, squinting up at the two twins now perched on the rock. "What about you two?"

"Oh, we're on our way—but spotted you out here."

Fred winked, and from his robe pocket he pulled out the Marauder's Map and gave it a wave. Harriet eyed it with wistful curiosity.

"Have you given our deal anymore thought, then?"

Harriet shrugged, pretending she didn't care, and pushed herself to her feet, smearing muddy hands against her shirt. "Yeah. I haven't had a chance to finish it yet. The map."

"But you've started it?" George asked, brightening. "We've been trying to find which mirrors are Moon Mirrors too, but haven't had much luck."

"Right? McGonagall caught us in one of the girls' loos the other day standing in the stinks—." Fred cut himself off when Harriet gave him a disapproving look worthy of Hermione. He held up

his hands. "There was no one in there, promise!"

"She's as scary as Gin is when she's in a right snit, Freddie."

"Scarier, even." Fred shook his head, still smiling. "Listen, Harriet. Is your map almost finished?"

"…Almost. I have a couple I haven't copied down yet."

"We'll trade you anyway." He flapped the Marauder's Map about again.

"Why?" Harriet asked, confused. "If it's not complete yet, why trade?"

"Well, you have to give Georgie and me some kind of challenge, right? And Gin's been a bit worried about you."

"We think she's still feeling guilty over your glorious swan-dive."

Harriet huffed. "That's ridiculous—."

"Which is what we said, but what kind of honorary big brothers would we be if we didn't look out for our snakey extended family?"

Giving them both a dirty look, Harriet said, "You're not my brothers," and turned her shoulder.

"Aw, c'mon, Potter—."

Livi chose that moment to pop up from the broken ice, scaring both Weasleys into toppling off the flat boulder into the crunchy snow. Smug, Harriet smirked at the pair, and Livius slithered over, a dead grindylow hanging from his jaws. Livi hesitated upon spotting the boys and then went invisible—dead grindylow now suspended in midair.

"Wicked!" George said as he sat up and adjusted his lopsided cap. "Is this the familiar Neville told us about?"

"Longbottom has a fat mouth. He shouldn't be telling you anything."

"Don't be cross. To be fair, it seems an awful big thing to be quiet about." The grindylow started to disappear down Livi's gullet. "Blimey, look at that, Fred!"

Fred, for his part, appeared a tad more squeamish than his bother but kept a straight face. "Here, Potter. Take it."

He held the Marauder's Map out to her, blank now aside from a few spots of water dotting the surface from the snow. When Harriet made no move to grasp it, Fred poked her with it. "Go on, take it."

"I don't have the Moon Mirror Map on me."

"You can give it to us later. Take it, Potter, blimey. Do you remember how it works?" Harriet finally accepted the parchment, and Fred tweaked her nose, earning a grumble and a not-so-subtle hiss from an invisible Horned Serpent. George was trying to pet Livi and, judging by his jerking motions, Livius kept dodging his attempts.

"I remember how it works."

"All right. Put it to good use, yeah?"

"If I might make a suggestion," George put in. "You might want to find yourself on the third-floor this fine afternoon—."

"Visiting our good friend Gunhilda of Gorsemoor."

The name sounded familiar, something Harriet had heard or read in a textbook during History of Magic—but that class was easily one of her worst, no matter that Professor Lupin was a much better teacher than Professor Selwyn. "What are you two on about?"

In response, Fred and George shared an eerie, mischievous grin, and Fred simply tapped the Map in Harriet's hand. "You'll never know if you don't see for yourself."

x X x

On any other day, if Fred and George Weasley had told Harriet to find one of their friends on the third-floor, she would have known she was about to be pranked and would have had the good sense to ignore them both. Today, however, her inclination for caution had been replaced by bored inquisitiveness, and with the irresistible knowledge of the Marauder's Map in hand, Harriet decided to have a look.

She returned to her empty dormitory, ignoring the rambunctious first and second-years out in the common room, returning Livius to his comfortable nest of warm blankets and pillows under her bed. Satisfied, she sat on the mattress and considered the parchment, turning it round and round.

"If this curses me," Harriet muttered, retrieving her wand. "I'll tell their mother about everything prank they've pulled this year. I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

Ink spilled across the old, weathered pages, and Harriet watched with captivated interest as the walls and thoroughfares of the castle she'd so carefully recreated on her own map appeared on the page. She could see the young Slytherins' tiny marks just down the corridor from her, and Filch was lurking in his office. Harriet folded back the map's edges. Snape crossed through the entrance hall, and Luna, Ginny, and a few other Gryffindors of Ginny's year loitered about the pitch. Slytherin conducted one of his "tutoring sessions," Accipto Lestrange, Patricia Parkinson, Desdemona Bragge, and Hector Gibbon all gathered in his classroom. Harriet could see all the names of the ghosts she'd never met. Professor Dumbledore stood at one of the windows in his office, unmoving.

Harriet glanced over the third-floor, not expecting to see anything on the Map itself—but, as she traced the curling lines with her fingertips—she realized a small, crooked section broke off and twisted away from wall, spiraling toward the empty edge of the parchment simply labeled, "Hogsmeade."

Eyes wide in excitement, Harriet hopped to her feet and dashed for the door—only to stop and double-back for her Invisibility Cloak, slinging it on over her head as she went. She stared at her own dot on the Map as she left the common room—diving into a spare broom cupboard when Snape's dot approached dungeon stairs. She couldn't hear the bastard pass by, but she could just barely see him on the parchment, illuminated by a weak shaft of torchlight managing to weasel past the door. Harriet watched until he disappeared and then released a low, gusty breath.

Well. The Map had already proved itself incredibly useful.

Harriet found her way to the third floor quickly after that, much of the castle vacant while the students visited the village. She walked until she stopped by the statue she knew only as the One- Eyed Witch—who was, apparently, named Gunhilda of Gorsemoor. The narrow little passage depicted in ink wended down and away from Gunhilda, but Harriet couldn't see a way to get by her stony, impassable visage. Grumbling, she consulted the Map again—and squinted at a minuscule speech bubble blooming over her stationary dot. It contained the word, 'Dissendium.'

A mini wand appeared next to it, mimicking a sharp, decisive tap. Harriet shrugged and checked the corridor despite knowing no one was about, then tapped the statue's side. "Dissendium."

Harriet jumped when the witch's stone hump lurched, then pulled in upon itself, revealing a dark, open recess, a tiny crawlspace just big enough for an average-sized man to squeeze through. That left plenty of room for Harriet, who quickly blanked the Marauder's Map and folded it into her pocket, levering herself up and into the revealed entrance. No sooner had she dropped down than the hump sealed itself off once more, and Harriet flinched in the dark, hurrying to light her wand.

The passage consisted of a narrow set of staggered steps plunging through a cavity built between the walls like a gritty mineshaft. Harriet covered her face against cobwebs as she went, and when the steps eventually ended, her wand illuminated the mouth of a rounded tunnel carved into the earth. She studied it for several uneasy minutes before deciding it had to be safe enough, especially if Fred and George had been using it. Harriet continued, listening to the harsh, quick beat of her heart in her ears, her school shoes catching on the uneven ground. The tunnel rambled on and on, so much so Harriet paused twice to check her position on the Map, noting how slowly her dot drifted toward the parchment's edges. After the second stop, she stowed the Map away again and picked up the pace, one hand balanced against the rough wall, another holding her wand before her.

At last, she came upon a set of rickety ladder steps, and Harriet climbed until she brushed her head against the underside of a trapdoor. It was locked, but not by anything a simple "Alohomora!" couldn't handle. Harriet inched the door open and peeked through the opening—startled by the loud guffaw of a dozen voices and clomping feet, the sticky smell of syrup and burnt sugar invading her nose. The room beyond the trapdoor was dark, but not overly so, an inviting warmth pervading the space that urged Harriet to lift the door higher, not realizing how cold she'd gotten in the tunnel below. Something slid and bumped against a hollow object.

Harriet crawled out and knelt among a dozen or so crates, obviously in some kind of cellar, the voices coming through the rafters and floorboards overhead. She let the trapdoor close, and it disappeared against the dusty, aged flooring, the outline invisible under the ancient carpet she replaced over the top of it. A door opened at the top of the steps, and Harriet clutched her Invisibility Cloak tighter around herself.

"Little blighters go through the stuff like Nifflers in a gold mine," a portly man chuckled to himself as he shuffled over to a long, wide rack bearing various glass containers. "Surprised their teeth don't rot out of their heads…."

Harriet spared him a puzzled glance, but when the wizard ducked behind a tall barrel in search of something, she made good on her chance to escape, weaving up the stairs and out the ajar door.

All the noise made sense once Harriet had a look about and realized she was in a shop— Honeydukes, given the overflowing bins of chocolate and licorice and jumping beans. Harriet had seen sweetshops before while touring various Wizarding quarters, but the sheer color and liveliness of the shop took her breath away, packed to the brim with her classmates choosing and bartering over their favorite treats. Harriet sidled out from behind the counter, and the throng of Hogwarts

students was so thick, no one noticed the sudden invisible presence elbowing her way through their midsts.

Harriet couldn't suppress the elated giggle that escaped her when she managed to exit the shop and tugged off the Invisibility Cloak. It gave her a thrill to be out from under constant adult supervision present in the castle.

The main street of Hogsmeade sprawled in either direction, the tidy stone buildings looking like a Muggle Christmas card under their crisp layer of frost, all the lanterns along the road still lit and burnished. Students tucked into their winter cloaks darted from one place to another, laughter abounding, the crowd dotted here and there by the occasional villager passing through. The snow began to fall in earnest, but no one stopped to notice.

Harriet set off in search of Hermione and Elara, not bothering with the Invisibility Cloak after she spotted the two chaperons—McGonagall and Sprout—having perhaps one too many glasses of rum at the Three Broomsticks. No one else gave the scrawny Slytherin third-year a thought. She popped round the shops she thought her friends would most likely visit—Tomes and Scrolls, Scrivenshaft's Quill Shop, Gladrags—and when she failed to find them, Harriet turned her attention to Ceridwen's Caldrons, the post office, The Magic Neep, and even Zonko's. She walked into the joke shop and walked out holding her nose against the rotten smell of loose Dungbomb. She glanced into a seedy-looking pub off High Street called The Hog's Head Inn—and yelped when she spotted the barkeeper, who looked so much like the Headmaster, it sent Harriet sprinting back into the snow.

She'd almost given up the search when she finally spotted the cloud of Hermione's curly hair through a window. Harriet doubled back and checked the sign, wondering why in the world Hermione and Elara would be inside Spintwitches Sporting Needs.

A generous cluster of Quidditch players and enthusiasts had squeezed into the shop, Oliver Wood and Roger Davies both drooling over the single Firebolt on display behind a glass case. It smelled of leather and polish inside, and though Harriet usually enjoyed the scent, today it sent a prickle of tension along her spine. She purposefully ignored Marcus Flint and Derrick Bole's presence chatting in one of the corners and instead eased behind Elara and Hermione.

"…don't know if it's the right time to get her something like this," the former said as she studied a handsome leather book on Quidditch strategies. "I don't know if she'll enjoy it."

"Maybe. She should be back on the team soon enough, don't you think?" Hermione replied, frowning at the cheeky Chaser on one of the books who kept winking at her. "At least by next year."

"She's more put out by what happened than she lets on."

Harriet stuck her head between the pair. "I'm not put out!"

Elara dropped the book and gasped. The glass case surrounding the Firebolt shattered into dust.

In the resulting confusion of shouting students and furious shopkeepers, Harriet winced when a hand seized her by the wrist and dragged her bodily from the shop. "E-Elara!" she choked, taken aback by the strength of her grip, a sharp pain in her shoulder from being tugged too hard. "Quit it!"

Elara dragged her from the chaos unfolding behind them right into the narrow, dodgy alley separating Spintwitches from Scrivenshaft's. Ice layered the bricks of either building, and the wind

cut bitter and cold as it howled through the byway. "What are you doing here?" Elara demanded when she finally let go and whirled on her. Harriet recoiled at her vehemence and bumped into Hermione. She'd never seen Elara so—urgent, so insistent. Her friend usually accepted things with grim deportment, a measured, sometimes apathetic calm. This was the opposite of calm. "You can't be out here!"

"I—? What, because of the bloody permission slip? That's bollocks, and you know it—."

"It's not about the stupid permission slip!" Elara swiped both hands over her face, looking to Hermione for assistance, then toward the alley. "Harriet, you have to go back to the school! You have to go back right now!"

"I'm not going anywhere until you explain."

"Please, go!"

"No! Elara, you're scaring me—."

"It's not safe for you!"

The more she spoke, the more confused Harriet grew. The confusion twisted into irritation because she'd been excited to see her friends, excited to visit the village with them, show them the Marauder's Map, and now—. "Not safe? Why? Because of the Dementors? They don't come to the village. Sirius Black? What does that have to do with me?"

"It has everything to do with you! Please, it's not safe!" Elara twisted her hands together, pulling so hard at the leather of her gloves, the seams threatened to tear. Her frustration grew as Harriet continued to stand there, disinclined to move.

"I…don't understand." Harriet said that too often these days, an echo of ignorance, a slow, disoriented spiral of forced ignorance. "If anyone should be worried about Black, it's Longbottom —or you. If it's not safe, what are you doing here? The bloke doesn't even know I exist!"

"Damn it all, Harriet, listen to me!" Elara shouted, fighting for volume over the keening wind and the noise from the Quidditch shop. "He doesn't know I'm alive! He—Harriet, please! There was no danger to me. It was about you, all the precautions this summer, Dumbledore and McGonagall not allowing you into the village—it's not protected like the school is! Black might be after you, like he might be after Neville!"

"What—? That's ridiculous, why would he—?"

"Because he killed your parents!"

Behind Harriet, she heard Hermione gasp, but it sounded a long way off. She stared at Elara as red crept into the girl's otherwise pale face, her gray eyes vivid and gleaming and frighteningly sincere, the words pouring from her in great, stuttering bursts—as if she practiced them. As if they'd been held in too long.

"Because he was their best friend! Because he sold them out to the Dark Lord! Because—he was your godfather! And he was the one who sent Voldemort to your house that Hallowe'en night! He sent him there, then went out and slaughtered twelve Muggles and his other best friend! That's why he was in Azkaban! He's mad and dangerous and—please. Please go back!"

Harriet didn't move. She didn't breathe—while Elara, on the other hand, couldn't get enough air, panting and trembling, clearly steps away from being sick. Concern burbled in Harriet's chest but

couldn't seep by the sudden, pressing weight crushing it. She stared at Elara—the girl she'd known for years, had shared a bed with, had cried with, had laughed with—and felt as if she gazed at a stranger.

She had to have known. She'd memorized every fucking fifth and sixth cousin in her family tree, so there was no way—. Elara had to have known for all these years, had to have realized the moment she learned Harriet's name that they were god-siblings, and yet—.

And Harriet never asked about Sirius Black. Because she was an idiot. A stupid, naive little orphan girl—.

She kept this from me.

Harriet wanted Elara to take the words back, but she couldn't. They hung heavy and ugly between them, and they couldn't be taken back, couldn't be unheard. All Harriet could think about was the sudden, sparking realization of Elara's withheld knowledge hitting her with tangible weight.

She…lied?

The cold burned in Harriet's middle, against her wet cheeks, and the narrow strip of light painted between the two buildings seemed to grow thinner and thinner. She couldn't recognize the witch standing across from her.

Because he's your godfather!

Harriet grabbed the Invisibility Cloak out from under her arm, pulled it on, and disappeared.

A/N: Top Ten Anime Betrayals.

The One-Eyed Witch is canonically on the third floor, but like… how does it open to an underground tunnel?

Remember, there's a Discord server now where you can join the community and stay up to date on chapter releases! Here's the link: CDT Discord

https/discord.gg/4Mxw628

grieve it on its way

cxxv. grieve it on its way

Growing up, Harriet remembered there came a time when anything the Dursleys said or did ceased to have any effect on her.

It'd been different when she was little, when she would peer into the kitchen or the den and see Aunt Petunia with Dudley and would wonder why she wasn't allowed in there, or why her Aunt never kissed her forehead or smoothed her hair. She eventually learned to accept that invisible line between herself and others; normal people deserved kindness, sincerity, and affection, and Harriet —whatever she was—did not.

After that, nothing mattered. She took Aunt Petunia's cold scorn and Uncle Vernon's rude remarks with numb acceptance, forging a specific understanding of the world, one that allowed her to find spots of contentment in an otherwise drab, cruel existence. She lived for those moments when Aunt Petunia would say something half-way kind, when Uncle Vernon would tell off Dudley for being a bit too rough on a girl, no matter how scrawny and freakish she was. Harriet hardened her heart from a young age, and though she wasn't happy, she wasn't sad, either. When she decided to stop being surprised, to stop expecting more, Harriet felt nothing at all.

Then, she came to Hogwarts.

Somewhere along the line, Harriet's heart lost its flinty exterior. It softened, and Harriet started accepting kindness into her life with gratefulness rather than desperation, eager to meet new people, looking for and seeing the best in them whenever she could. Somehow, she'd forgotten the simple, quintessential fact that people, for all intents and purposes, were the same. They were all people, and they shared between them similar strengths, follies, and faults. They were liars—just like the Dursleys. Just like Sirius Black. Just like her god-sister.

Harriet returned from Hogsmeade and tried, for hours, to make sense of what she'd learned, to twist reason out of the agonized bramble taking residence in her heart—until she decided it best not to try, best to push the tangle of emotion down into her belly and ignore it. People were liars. Thinking otherwise had, apparently, gotten her parents killed.

"Because he was their best friend! Because he sold them out to the Dark Lord!"

It was easier when she didn't try to unwind the threads from one another. It was easier not to listen to Hermione, to toss Elara's notes into the fire unopened, to ignore the ravens Mr. Flamel sent and the Headmaster's passing concern in the corridor. She spent time with Livius, or with the portraits, or forced herself to run on the track until her shins hurt and she vomited in the bushes. It was easier to surround herself with reptiles and dead people and to punish herself than it was to accept Elara Black's betrayal.

Harriet stood outside the Great Hall and listened to the sounds of dinner commencing within. Her stomach had turned to lead in her middle, and so the smells drifting through the open doors did nothing to entice her appetite. The warmth pressed into her, too heavy and close, and Harriet felt smothered by the idea of going inside and pretending everything was all right. She turned and walked away.

It was easier this way.

x X x

Something was wrong with the Potter girl.

It didn't take a genius to see it. The whole of the staff realized an inexplicable riff had driven Potter and Black apart, and neither had taken the division well. For the week, Potter's presence in the Great Hall had been a rarity, the two sat apart from one another in lessons, and Potter refused to contribute to any classroom discourse. The homework she turned in lack depth or care, parts of it blatantly plagiarized from the book—and Black was no better, when she actually deigned to appear in class. The girl was dejected and ill, Pomona reporting that she'd shattered a wall of glass in one of the greenhouses on Tuesday.

Had he been in his right mind, Severus would have nipped the issue in the bud. He had neither the time nor the patience for whatever juvenile strop Potter and Black wanted to throw, not with Sirius Black on the loose and Slytherin breathing down his neck—but Severus wasn't in his right mind, not since he heard Potter say, "My mum begged him to spare me, but she wouldn't stand aside, and she screamed when he killed her."

Even thinking the words now, sitting behind his desk in front of his class, had Severus squeezing his eyes shut.

He'd lived with the guilt for years, the grounding knowledge of his own culpability in the deaths of Lily and James Potter. It'd perched like a gargoyle on his shoulders, heavy and crushing—but like a gargoyle, the guilt had been a static thing, unmoving, and he could shift it about to better accommodate his day-to-day life. Potter's words had struck the burden with an Animation Charm, and it thrashed with the same verve and fury it had in the beginning. It was one thing to conceptually acknowledge Lily's death—but to have this understanding? To know she'd screamed in the end? That her daughter had witnessed it all? He—.

Bile crawled in his throat. It was his fault. A mistake born of a desire to learn, to grow, a willing ignorance, just wanting to survive—fear, cowardice. It hadn't been his hand on the wand, but it'd been his words in the wizard's ear. Severus woke in the dead of night wishing, wishing he hadn't been so fucking stupid—.

But, as the Muggle expression went, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

Potter sat in the back of the room, alone, and a mere glance in her direction had Severus grimacing. He couldn't Occlude; doing so exacerbated the sentiment and would, without proper amelioration, drive him to the edge. He'd been there before, time and time again, but not in recent years, and never without Albus' hand there to drag him back and remind him of his duties. The Headmaster was not above gas-lighting and guilt-tripping if it kept a broken man from throwing himself off the Astronomy Tower. Severus couldn't bring himself to be grateful at the moment.

He needed time. He needed—.

He needed Potter to not blow up his bloody classroom, which she was well on the way to doing at the moment. Severus watched her crush snake fangs in her mortar, lacking the stabilizing, standard ingredient measures, the flame under her cauldron far too high, the odious liquid frothing in

warning. Severus didn't bother to say anything; he flicked his wand and vanished the concoction before Potter could dump the chunks of fangs into her Wideye Potion and douse the room in noxious, poisonous gas. The fangs clattered into the empty cauldron, and Potter scowled.

Longbottom, seated at the table next to her, snickered.

"Five points from Gryffindor, Longbottom."

"What? Seriously?"

"Would you like a zero for the day as well? You're well on your way to that all on your own, though."

The boy had the sense to shut his trap, and Severus pretended he didn't see Longbottom's insolent muttering to Weasley. On another day, he'd delight in smacking the dunderhead in the face with a heaping scoop of humility. He always had cauldrons in need of manual cleaning and barrels of fresh—and fetid—ingredients requiring preparation. Today, however, Severus didn't have the energy for suffering Longbottom's presence. He turned a deaf ear to the noise.

In the front row, Granger worked at her cauldron, whispering soft nonsense to Black, who'd done nothing aside from stare at the desk for the duration of the double period.

Severus rolled his eyes to the ceiling, beseeching the universe to either send him patience or put him out of his misery.

One by one, potions got decanted and set in the labeled rack on his desk, the chatter increasing as more students finished their tasks. Potter packed her potions kit and satchel and would have been the first out the door when the bell rang had Severus not fixed her with a steely glare. "Stay behind, Potter." When she made a move as if to disobey, he sent a silent Sticking Charm in her direction and stuck the insolent girl to her stool. The others departed with the usual fervor—aside from Black and Granger, the former watching Potter, who refused to lift her head and acknowledge her presence.

Severus stood and swept to the front of his desk, stopping Black before she could go to the back of the room. "Get out," he told her and Granger.

"No," Black retorted, hardly pausing to consider him. The Potions Master, for his part, simply seized a witch in each hand and marched the pair from the dungeon. "Detention. Tomorrow, with Filch."

He slammed the door closed in their faces—but not before hearing Granger wail, "But I didn't do anything!"

Potter didn't move while her friends were thrown from the room. Her shoulders loosened once Black vanished from sight, but she kept her head down, fists grasped tight on the stool's edges. Severus steeled himself, mind dipping into the stilling calm of Occlumency's disassociation, and looked.

The girl had missed too many meals, evidenced by her thinning face and the dark smudges below her eyes. Frankly, she had a mean look about her, like a kid off the streets of Cokeworth pretending they weren't out nicking papers off stoops or throwing rocks at car windows.

After another unsuccessful attempt of freeing her backside from her seat, Potter ceased her efforts and glared at him. "Why am I here?" she demanded, and when Severus didn't reply, his arms crossed and expression impassive, she added on a halfhearted, "Sir?"

"It's called a detention, Potter."

She stiffened. "That's bollocks. It's lunchtime."

"As if you planned to actually attend," he snapped, arms uncoiling. "Don't play me for a fool, Potter. I have far better things to do than tend to you and your idiot tagalongs."

Potter's jaw flexed, and her mouth moved, something suspiciously like, "Bugger off, then," escaping in a low murmur.

"What was that?"

"Nothing, sir."

Severus canceled the spell holding her in place, and Potter toppled to the floor, regaining her feet with remarkable dexterity. "Rikkety!"

The house-elf appeared, popping into existence on one of the other desks. She wrung her hands together as she considered the professor and student staring each other down. "What can Rikkety be doing for Professor Snapey?"

"Sandwiches, Rikkety. If you would."

The requested sandwiches appeared after the house-elf returned to the kitchens, and Severus dropped the plate before Potter. "Eat."

"I'm not hungry."

"Eat anyway. Before I summon the Headmaster to have one of his obnoxious, heartfelt chats." Huffing, the girl sat but did nothing aside from pick at the bread and roasted turkey. Severus pulled on years of handling recalcitrant teenagers to keep his voice level, lest he began shouting. "You wished to learn the Patronus Charm, did you not? Finish your meal, and I might be persuaded into teaching you the incantation."

Potter ate then, her appetite increasing as she went, though she only managed half a sandwich and part of a glass of water. Severus leaned against a desk and waited, saying nothing, only stirring from his inner thoughts to order Rikkety to grab Potter's cloak from her dorm and to remove the dishes when the girl finished. Potter wrinkled her nose in confusion as she accepted the garment from the house-elf.

"What's this for?"

"For wearing."

"I know that! Why are you giving it to me?"

"Because we are going outside." Severus Summoned a burlap sack from his storage, as well as his own cloak. He threw the empty sack at Potter, who caught it before it could land on her head. "Take that and follow me."

"What's the bag for, then?"

"You'll be needing it."

"But what about Defense? I have that after lunch."

"I'm certain Professor Slytherin can live without your presence for one class period." He cut her off with an irritated swipe of his hand. "It's a detention, Potter, not time for a bloody question and answer session."

She followed him without another word, if only because she was curious and keen to avoid her friends and Slytherin. They ascended through the dungeons and the entrance hall, the cold bracing when they crossed through the main doors and felt the first gust of wind. The snow had turned to ice where exposed to the worst of the elements, so Severus' boots barely sunk into the surface. He did slip, twice, Charms and magic on his treads only doing so much, and Potter had to grab him by the arm on the second occurrence to save him from hitting the ground.

Not that he'd ever acknowledge that.

"What're we doing out here? It's bloody cold," she complained once they reached the forest's edge, the branches' cover sparing them further exposure to the snow. Severus flicked his hair back from his eyes and squinted into the gloom.

"If I have to repeat myself again, girl, I'll hand your detention off to Filch and rid myself of the nuisance."

They walked in silence, the world muffled by the snow, ice cracking where the tree branches swayed, the sound like the soft groaning of some giant beast's shifting limbs. Winter had yet to begin, but it had already set in hard and fast in the highlands. The academic part of Severus' mind wondered if the drastic ambient temperature shift had anything to do with the ring of horrid, soul- sucking fiends surrounding the castle day and night—but, mostly, he didn't care about the weather. He just wanted the Dementors—and the Ministry—to sod off.

The worn path took them to a clear glade well-away from any of the forest's dangerous territories, but Severus still cast a Detection Charm toward the surrounding trees before telling the girl to stop. He gestured at the ice-covered field, the lone post of an ancient, rotted paddock the only structure left in sight. "Here. We will be harvesting potion ingredients. In the spring and summer, Hagrid utilizes this glade for foaling the Thestrals—but it'll suit our purposes now."

Ignoring Potter's confused glance, Severus flicked his wand into his hand and directed a single, powerful Warming Charm toward the snow nearest his feet. The water melted, revealing beneath it the brown, dormant grass—and the white, flowering tops of what appeared to be several chanterelles. Potter leaned in for closer inspection—until the exposed fungi began screaming in unison, attempting to uproot themselves and flee.

"Ah!" Potter gasped, jerking back. "What in the hell are those?!"

"Morchella miser," Severus drawled, Summoning the caps into his outstretched hand. "Or the Miserable Morel. They grow beneath the ice in composted soil rich with carnivorous animal scat."

"That's gross."

"If it was pleasant, it wouldn't be a detention, now would it? Open the bloody bag, Potter. Don't just stand there like an idiot, for Merlin's sake…."

The girl held out the bag, and Severus dropped what he'd collected inside, the mushrooms wailing all the while.

"Why do so many kinds of magical flora scream? I don't get it."

"Life is suffering, Miss Potter. Perhaps the plants understand something we don't." He hit the

ground with another Warming Charm, and the uncovered Morels screeched. They wriggled out of the soil and wobbled about on legs formed of fibrous roots. "Hurry, girl, before they escape."

For two hours, Severus paced from plot to plot, unfreezing the earth, and for those hours, he watched the girl scramble about catching mushrooms—cursing and stumbling the whole time, stubbing her dirty, half-frozen fingers, landing face-first in the snow more than once. He never said anything; he simply waited and marked the time by the weak, watery light filtering through the low-hanging clouds.

Severus had shite for patience, but actively spying for over a decade had taught him the value of waiting. In particular, waiting for the right situation to extract information—and, if such a situation needed help presenting itself, he had no difficulty providing it. For Death Eaters, this typically meant getting them sloshed; a rat-arsed follower of the Dark Lord couldn't keep his tongue his head worth a damn. It was almost embarrassing the amount of clandestine work he undertook in seedy pubs across Britain.

However, for Potter, Severus didn't need Blishen's or Old Ogden's—or, well, it would probably work, but Minerva would quite literally murder him for getting the girl pissed. Instead, Severus opted for the far more reasonable path of waiting for her to spend her anger and frustration on the mushrooms, and only then did he pose a single question;

"Why aren't you speaking with Black?"

Potter jumped as if she'd forgotten he was there. She wiped the sweat from her brow and extracted one of the mushrooms that had somehow managed to find a home in her hair. "It's none of your business," she grumbled, squeezing a Morel too tightly. Its cries cut off with a gurgle, and she unclenched her fist, looking at the pulp with an aggrieved expression. "She lied to me."

"About what?"

"About—." She paused, eyes bright and suspicious as she looked up and met his flat gaze. "About Sirius Black. About him—about him being my godfather."

Severus' lip curled, a flash of dazed memories curdling in his head like lurid spots of color: the gray of smoke rising from the Potter house, the pale white of James' dead face, the red of Lily's hair fanned across the carpet, the green of Harriet's wide, wide eyes. Black had been there. The bastard had been there that night to see his handiwork, and if Severus hadn't been holding the bloodied child, he would have killed him where he stood.

He knew Potter would discover the truth one day, whether it was now from some ignorant pure- blood child or later in life, perhaps perusing a book about her family. It had not been a question of if she would find out—only when, and Severus had warned the Headmaster as such. It appeared Black was paying the price for her inadvertent deception.

"And? Is this all your pointless strop and histrionics is over?"

She dropped the half-filled sack. A few Morels escaped to freedom under a convenient drift. "You knew!"

"Of course I knew. It's a small society, Potter; everyone tends to know everything about everyone, especially in regards to parentage or guardianship." He crossed his arms and sniffed. "I don't care for your accusatory tone, girl. Do remember to whom you speak."

Flushed, the girl opened her mouth several times before gritting her teeth and grabbing the sack

again.

"So Black failed to inform you of something that is common knowledge," he said, snide, observing how the color rose higher in her face. It wasn't common knowledge, precisely, especially so many years after the Potters' deaths. It was, however, something any idiot with a current genealogy text could look up. "And this overrides years of loyalty and friendship? My, my. How very fickle of you."

"No, it doesn't," she retorted. Her fists tightened again.

"Did she not apologize? Or was that touching display I interrupted in the classroom her first attempt at reconciliation?"

"No, it wasn't."

"Then what is it, Potter? Did she hurt your feelings?"

"I'm tired of everyone telling me how I should feel!" The girl rounded on him, her voice echoing on the thickly packed trees enclosing the glade. She kept her glassy eyes lowered, her shoulders trembling with her uneven breathing. "It's not all about what Elara did! I'm tired of everyone telling me how I should feel or think—telling me where I can live, where I can go, who I can see. I can't bloody do anything without someone having to give their stupid opinion! I feel like everyone's got their thumb on my head and I, I just—." She hiccuped. "I didn't want to come back to Hogwarts this term. I wanted to stay in Trefhud—because it felt like home, which is shite, because it's not and I don't have a home! Elara's the closest that I've got to that, and if she can go and keep something like this from me, then—."

Potter stopped talking and subsided into quiet, broken sniffles, her face streaked with silver tears.

Oh, fuck.

"It's like living with the Dursleys again," she sobbed. "Always having to do what they said, them always telling me what I should and shouldn't feel. They'd lie to me and I'd get upset and it was always my fault for being like that, for overreacting. I had to sit there and take everything they said and did. I don't want to be told that I need to be the better person and pretend I'm not hurt. I just want to be angry!"

Severus stared. He took a breath to speak, then let it out, a paltry white ghost lingering in his mouth.

He'd come out here with the intention of resolving whatever spat had split Potter and Black. He meant to tell Potter she was an idiot and force things back to the status-quo—but his life rarely allowed itself to be so convenient.

The girl started to rub her face, smearing the skin with snot and tears and filth. Sighing, Severus strode over to her and crouched, taking hold of her wrists, pulling her hands down. "Stop that," he muttered. He retrieved a handkerchief from his pocket and gave it to her. "Clean your hands, girl, and then your face. Take a breath."

Potter sniffled again and dragged the cloth over her grubby palms. It did little good against the mess on her face.

"Listen to me," he told her, still crouched to her eye-level. "If you want to be angry, then be angry." Potter blinked in surprise and almost dropped the handkerchief. "Be angry for all your life, if you want, but ask yourself if it's worth the misery. Because people who don't let go of their

anger—." Like the Dark Lord. Like me. "Make stupid mistakes and get to be stupid, miserable creatures. That's the consequence of it. So be angry if you want, but don't be angry forever, girl."

Potter nodded and wiped her nose. Tears still gathered and clumped her lashes, but they'd stopped streaming down her cheeks. "Okay, Professor."

Satisfied, he stood and put distance between them. He took the sack of Morels for good measure, tying it off before more could escape. The serious, emotional nature of their conversation discomfited him, and Severus sought better equilibrium over his own thoughts. "Good. Take out your wand, Potter."

She did so after wiping her nose on her hand again.

"Don't point it at me—doesn't Slytherin teach you lot anything about wand safety? Face those trees."

Again, she did as told.

"The Patronus spell requires one semi-fluid half-twist parallel to your heart, widdershins. The difficulty in the Charm lies not in the movement or the incantation itself, which are both rather simplistic. The Patronus relies entirely on the caster's emotion, on the encapsulation of sheer, unfettered joy."

Potter glanced over her shoulder, her eyes still red with tears, the question clear on her face.

"Basically, you need to think a happy thought, Miss Potter."

Snorting, she replied, "I don't think I have many of those lately, sir."

"No, I would guess not. It doesn't matter. It is a feeling more than anything, one captured through the conceptualization of a happy memory. Theorists and Charm Masters postulate the chemicals released by the brain during this moment charge a witch or wizard's magic with a so-called positive energy, and is the closest example of Light magic Wizarding society has ever seen. It will take time, effort, and dedication to discover the proper memory for your personal usage." Severus cleared his throat. "Though, it remains to be seen if you're actually capable of the spell. The magic is advanced and far beyond the skills of most. I won't hold my breath for a miracle here. The incantation is 'Expecto Patronum.'"

Potter repeated the spell under her breath and gathered her thoughts. "Expecto Patronum," she whispered—and then again, louder, performing the proper wand twist. "Expecto Patronum!"

Naturally, nothing occurred—and, naturally, the girl despaired, letting out a loud, aggravated sigh.

"What'd I do wrong?"

"Nothing, you idiot. What part of 'advanced magic' did you not hear?"

Scowling, Potter tried the spell a second time—and a third, putting a half-step into the motion that kicked up the snow with the sheer force of her magic, though the Patronus still failed to manifest.

"Stop. You're needlessly exhausting yourself. As I said, you will need time to actually use your head and consider the proper memory before perpetuating all this pointless wand-waving." Severus pulled his cloak closer around himself and lifted the sack of Morels under his arm. It wasn't night yet, but evening set in quickly during this time of year, and already the falling snow had begun to thicken, replacing the melted patches in the glade. "Come, Miss Potter. We're returning to the

castle."

The pair followed the same path back the way they'd come. Severus felt the steady weight of Potter's curious gaze at his back like a physical presence but didn't pause to tell her off.

"Thank you, Professor."

"For what?"

"For teaching me. For giving me something else to think about, if only for a little while. I appreciate it."

Severus breathed out through his nose. The castle waited ahead, dark walls framed in the mouth of winter branches, turrets white as spear tips raised to the sky. "I haven't a clue what you're talking about," he said. "I merely gave you a detention."

x X x

Later, the fire's final embers smoldered and coughed sparks in the hearth. Severus remained in the shadows, pale hands posed around his empty goblet, the chill settling in his bones like an old friend. The carriage clock on his mantel chimed the hour, midnight having come and gone long before.

He set his goblet aside and withdrew his wand, studying the length of black wood poised between his fingers before taking proper hold of it. He gave it one exaggerated twist and whispered, "Expecto Patronum."

The weak, spidery light gave him no comfort. He'd tried a dozen memories, all to a similar result, malformed, non-existent shapes hovering between him and the dying fire. Why? he asked himself. Was he losing conviction? Was he losing himself? What did it mean?

"My mum begged him to spare me, but she wouldn't stand aside, and she screamed when he killed her."

He could still remember the texture of the carpet under his knees when he knelt by Lily's corpse. He had a scar on his thigh from a piece of the wreckage gouging the flesh.

"Your Patronus has changed," Dumbledore said, Severus too drunk to stand, collapsed against the dungeon wall, more a boy than a man and too anguished to care. "The doe was Lily's, wasn't it?"

"What does it matter?"

"Oh, Severus."

Even now, he didn't understand the pity he'd heard in the Headmaster's voice that night.

The doe had faded, and Severus didn't know when exactly, or why. He simply grieved its death.

A/N: I don't think Harriet would have any kind of healthy coping mechanism for dealing

with conflict—which is why her first instinct is usually violence (punching Ron, hexing others in the hallways, no matter how mild), or simply ignoring the issue and its potential triggers altogether. She's not, at this time, emotionally capable of trying to look at the problem from Elara's perspective.

-

Snape, his soul slowly escaping his mortal shell: "….."

Dumbledore, sneaking up behind him with a butterfly net: "Oh no you don't."

bridges

cxxvi. bridges

Under other circumstances, Elara would have found smashing delicate glass baubles on the floor therapeutic—but, seeing as those damnable baubles were not supposed to be breaking, she was instead rather frustrated.

"Oh dear," Professor Flitwick fretted as the Self-Repairing Sphere came back together and rose to Elara's hand again. It had grown hot from her skin and the magic bringing the shards together over and over. "Try placing more emphasis on the final syllable, Miss Black. Like so! Simul habere. Go on, give it a try."

Elara did as requested, holding the orb steady as she tapped the top with her wand and said, "Simul habere."

She dropped it—and the sphere shattered again.

Hers wasn't the only one to break, but most of the Ravenclaw side of the classroom and at least half of the Slytherins had successfully cast the Unbreakable Charm. Goyle's continued to splinter into a thousand pieces, and the goon kept scratching his head, but Malfoy had managed to coach Crabbe through it, muttering directions from the side of his mouth. Stephen Cornfoot's only broke into a handful of shards. Hermione had succeeded first—but Harriet had followed soon after and now bounced her sphere against the wall like a tennis ball.

Her attitude had lessened in aggression toward Elara ever since that odd detention with Snape at the end of the prior week. Slytherin hadn't been happy about her disappearing for his lesson and had come down to the common room later to demand accountability, but Harriet could be incredibly evasive when she wished to be, both physically and in her answers. She laid the blame at Snape's feet—something about cleaning equipment, a spilled potion, and being too ill to attend Defense. Elara didn't get the full story as Harriet still refused to speak with her and barely shared a word with Hermione either.

At least she doesn't run from the sight of me anymore, Elara thought, glum. And comes to the Great Hall to eat. She shouldn't be surprised by the other girl's cold, unfeeling regard. She'd known it would happen, hadn't she? From the moment she heard McGonagall call out the name, "Potter, Harriet!" and she realized her new friend was Sirius Black's godchild. She knew Harriet would find out one day, and she'd hate Elara for it.

Hermione said she thought Harriet's new behavior meant she was moving closer to reconciliation —but Elara didn't believe her. Elara didn't deserve reconciliation, didn't deserve forgiveness. She didn't deserve—.

A sharp pain stabbed her hand, and Elara gasped.

"Miss Black!" Flitwick grabbed her wrist and spelled her hand open, the broken sphere reforming, then shattering again when it hit the ground. Blood welled and dripped from the open slashes in her palm. "My goodness! Are you all right, Miss Black? We'll have to get you to the infirmary. Miss Granger, if you could—?"

"No," Elara interrupted, closing her dripping hand. Flitwick had her open it again, conjuring bandages around it. "I'll go on my own. I'll be fine."

Professor Flitwick hesitated, but Elara grabbed her satchel and gave him a reassuring nod before all but running from the room. She didn't dare look back at her friends—friend, singular, and who knew how much longer Hermione would stick with her? Everything Elara touched died or turned to dust. She didn't deserve anything—.

Her eyes stung. Elara stopped her mindless walking and wiped her face. The air in her chest hurt, and she tried to expel it, but it came out in a harsh, stuttered gasp. The water leaking from her eyes wouldn't stop. Turning to the wall, she covered her face and tried to steady her breath to no avail; her throat tightened, her heart raced, and at that moment, Elara hated everything—Harriet, Hermione, the school, Sirius Black, and herself most of all. She wanted—she just wanted it to burn, the words sitting in the back of her mind like hot coals on a hearth's edge, teetering, the desire to have all this hate and confusion and pain turn to nothing but ash and heat and—.

She remembered the drawings in the book, the book now burned to cinders. She remembered sitting up in the dead of night, finding the volume in her hands, fingers tracing over the sketches of fiery creatures bursting forth to devour—.

"Miss Black? Miss—Elara?"

A hand touched her shoulder, and Elara jerked, choking on a sob. She forced herself to look around and focus on Professor Lupin's concerned face, and he—in turn—focused on the hand she held tight to her chest. Blood had managed to seep through the temporary bandage, dribbling into the snug cuff of her shirt. The corners of Elara's vision grayed, spotted with black.

Professor Lupin cupped his hand under her elbow and held on even when Elara flinched. "Come along, let's go see Madam Pomfrey."

Elara didn't want to go see Madam Pomfrey. She didn't much like the Matron and didn't know how Harriet survived spending so much time in the infirmary, being poked and prodded and confined to a bed. Professor Lupin kept a steady pace despite Elara's dragging feet, and all too soon, he had the doors to the hospital wing open, Madam Pomfrey looking up from where she'd been stocking a cupboard with tiny potion bottles.

"Well, get her over here," the Matron sighed, gesturing them closer to the nearest bed, Elara eying it like something dead and mildly rotten. "Yes, yes, Miss Black, your objections are noted. Now have a seat and let me have a look at that hand of yours; I can see the blood from here…."

Elara relinquished her hand to Madam Pomfrey's care, pursing her lips when the bandages tugged at the wounds. Professor Lupin remained with her, and Elara flushed when she realized her eyes must be red from sniveling, her cheeks splotchy and wet.

"Gracious Rowena, what mischief have you gotten yourself into, Miss Black?" Madam Pomfrey asked once the bandages came free.

"I broke some glass in Charms. By accident."

"I should hope it was by accident! Some of these are quite deep." She waved her wand over Elara's prone hand and green, numbing mist fell over it, followed by a fresh wad of gauze. "These will need a potion. I need to pop down to the dungeons—Professor Lupin?"

"Yes?"

"Stay with Miss Black, please."

"Of course."

With that, Madam Pomfrey gave Elara a warning look and bustled away.

She's an unholy menace. "You don't have to stay, sir," Elara said to Professor Lupin, fidgeting with the gauze. "I'm not going to wander off."

To her surprise, Professor Lupin chuckled. "You wouldn't be the first to try." He smiled, and the action lessened the apparent stress in his pleasant face. "I had to come here quite a bit in my own student days. Still do, unfortunately. My immunity isn't the best, you see, and there's only so much magic can do."

That sounded true enough to Elara. She'd noted Professor Lupin typically had an absence every other week or so, canceling a class here and there, and some days he arrived weathered and exhausted. She and Hermione had speculated over his illness but, in the end, decided to respect his privacy. "I knew a girl who was immunocompromised in the—where I lived, before."

"Did you?"

"Yes. She had lupus, and the others, they were…cruel."

Professor Lupin kept his eyes on her face, his scrutiny almost too much to bear. Elara hadn't said the word orphanage, but it hung there, all but written out letter by letter. Acknowledgment, professor McGonagall had told her. Is often the first step toward healing.

"They avoided her whenever they could and called her names. I tried to be friendly, but—." But the girl, Gabbie, had believed all the same rumors as the others, that Elara Black had the devil in her and it would lead them all to ruin. Sometimes, Elara wondered if they were right. "She wasn't open to my company."

"What happened to her?"

"She died about a year before I came to Hogwarts." Elara didn't feel one way or another about Gabbie's passing; children entered and left St. Giles' all the time, not usually through death, but the transitory nature of their presences left little impact on Elara. Her head filled with the distant chanting and name-calling the others used to heap upon her, but years removed from St. Giles and Wiltshire had dulled their sound.

"You and Harriet are fighting."

Startled, Elara squeezed her injured hand, and more blood stained the gauze, pooling warm and sticky in her palm.

"You're fighting about Sirius Black, aren't you? About his relation to Harriet."

"How did you—? No, never mind. Is it obvious to everyone, sir?"

Professor Lupin shook his head, attempting another comforting smile, but it came out more of a grimace than anything. He was a strange wizard. No stranger than Professor Selwyn had been, of course, but peculiar in his own way. Harriet had mentioned spending time talking to Professor Lupin during the first Hogsmeade trip of the year, and in their discourse, he commented on his prior relationship with the Potters.

Which meant—.

"You knew him, didn't you?" Elara asked. If he'd been friends with James Potter, he must have known or associated with Sirius Black. He couldn't have avoided the man. Elara tried to not hold that against him, but the anger came again, a wary flicker glinting in her eyes like light on a knife's blade. Professor Lupin saw it and lowered his head.

"Miss Black, I—."

Madam Pomfrey returned, trailing soot and Floo Powder, muttering darkly about surly Potions Masters and their acerbic tongues. She doused Elara's hand in a sticky, oozing cream that burned like hellfire but healed even the deepest of the cuts in seconds, then administered a Blood Replenishing Potion. During that time, the bell rang to signal the end of the period—and, as Elara's luck would have it, her next class was History of Magic, leaving her no other option but to follow Professor Lupin from the ward and up the stairs.

He didn't attempt to make small talk.

Elara entered the classroom before him and made for her desk—shocked to find Harriet seated in her accustomed spot next to her empty seat, pulling out a textbook. Hope dared to burgeon in Elara's heart, tenuous as the morning frost, and it melted just as quickly when Harriet made no move to acknowledge Elara's presence other than to shift her satchel to her own side of the table.

Elara sank into her seat and faced the blackboard. She didn't know what to do, or say—didn't know how to fix any of the things she'd ever broken in her life. "She's cursed," the orphans used to whisper to one another. "Elara's got the devil in her. Black as her name."

By what right did she expect friendship from a girl whose parents her own father betrayed? He hadn't been there in the flesh as far as she knew, but part of Sirius' conviction had been the "conscious and malicious impartation of sensitive information to the enemy." A facilitation to murder and attempted murder. Attempted murder on the girl who sat not a whole foot from Elara now.

Professor Lupin commenced the lesson when everyone quieted down, not that Elara heard a single word of it. Her mind drifted somewhere in between, the muffled sound of the professor's voice bouncing against her ears, her hands limp and pale like dead things in her lap. All she could think about was the injustice of it, the sheer unfairness of having to answer for her father's crimes and losing the only things she cherished in her life.

She shut her eyes, and recalled Diagon Alley in 91', Harriet grinning as she said, "It was really nice to meet you," and shook Elara's hand. Her hand had been so warm. Elara must have glanced at her palm half a dozen times after she returned home with Kreacher.

Maybe she should transfer school. It wasn't a common practice, almost unheard of really, but would they make an exception for her? Or would Beauxbatons and Durmstrang reject a madman's daughter just like the students of Hogwarts did?

"Miss Black?" Elara blinked, turning her stiff neck. The others gathered their things together, slipping quills and parchment back into their bags, but the class couldn't possibly be over already —? "Miss Potter? May I see you both for a moment?"

Confused, Harriet and Elara rose from their seats and approached Professor Lupin seated behind his desk, careful to keep several feet of distance between each other. Harriet didn't appear much inclined to listen to whatever the man had to say, and Elara mirrored the sentiment, especially after

the conversation in the infirmary. Nevertheless, there they stood as the Slytherins and Hufflepuffs packed their belongings and chattered, oblivious to the two silent, grim-faced witches at the front of the room. Hermione didn't leave, opting instead to linger far enough away to give the illusion of privacy, and Professor Lupin allowed it.

The door came shut with a final, muted thump, and the happy noises disappeared in the corridor, abandoning them in a bleak, stifling quiet.

Professor Lupin moved first, exhaling a heavy, tired breath. He ruffled his messy, gray-streaked hair once before lowering his hands, lacing the fingers together. "Harriet," he said, addressing the bespectacled girl. "I owe you an apology."

Harriet's nose wrinkled in befuddlement, and it seemed she couldn't help but glance in Elara's direction. "Er—for what, Professor?"

"For not being truthful. For—in my negligence—contributing to the rift that has come between you two."

Elara reddened, embarrassed and angry. "Professor," she began. "It's—."

He shook his head, eyes still leveled at Harriet. "Sirius Black is your godfather. Several people are aware of the fact and, for the most part, decided against informing you, wishing to spare you the pain of having to know. I believe Sev—Professor Snape was the one most vocal in giving you the truth, but I think even he hesitated when given the chance. Elara should have been the last person forced to tell you of Sirius Black's unfortunate friendship with your parents and his connection to you. After all, she didn't know the man." Professor Lupin dropped his eyes to the desk's top, shoulders slumped. "Not like I did."

The silence stretching after Lupin's words could have smothered a person with its weight, and Harriet had her narrowed green eyes set on him. "You…told me you were friends with my parents," she said, speaking slowly. "So you were…friends with Sirius Black, too."

"Yes," Lupin replied, voice strained but steady. "I was friends with him. I—." He cleared his throat. "I was almost named your godfather, Harriet. Sirius—Black was perceived as irresponsible, even in our friend group, but things were difficult then. He was in a better financial situation to support you should the worst come to pass. And your godfather, Elara—." He smiled at her, the dark green of his eyes glassy. "Was James Potter."

"You never said anything. You wouldn't have said anything."

"No. Probably not."

Harriet shifted her weight from one foot to the other as she sorted through her thoughts. She looked terribly peaky still despite returning to regular meals in the Great Hall. "I don't need stuff like this being kept from me," she muttered. "I don't need to be protected from the truth like some stupid little kid. I'm mad, but not—." She turned and addressed Elara for the first time since that horrid, horrid day in Hogsmeade. "It's not all about you not telling me. I just need—time, okay? Just a little. I'm not going to be angry forever."

The damnable prickling returned to Elara's eyes. She had to swallow twice before saying, "Okay."

Harriet nodded and made as if to follow their classmates from the room to the Great Hall, but she hesitated, her gaze on Professor Lupin. Elara had become fluent in translating Harriet's looks and expressions over the years, but even she couldn't quite decipher the emotion behind the younger

girl's glance. "You're off my Yule list, Professor Lupin."

The wizard laughed, though little amusement lurked in the sound. "Well, that sounds fair."

Unimpressed, Harriet departed, huffing out, "Bloody adults," on her way to the door—which she held for Elara and Hermione, only letting go when they'd crossed into the corridor with her. She didn't walk with them, but she remained only a few steps ahead, and that shortening distance meant everything in the world to Elara.

She had never been forgiven for anything in her life before, and she liked to believe that, just this once, she might earn it. Might deserve it.

Hermione bumped Elara's shoulder with her own, giving her hand a friendly squeeze. "She'll be all right," she remarked, a fond smile on her face. "You both will. It's perfectly common for sisters to fight, after all!"

A/N: Harriet pulled the primary school equivalent of uninviting Remus to her birthday party.

Harriet: "I'm not getting you a Christmas present."

Lupin, inwardly sobbing. "Okay, that's totally fine."

the plague of hamelin

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.

the face of man

cxxviii. the face of man

The door slammed shut behind Hermione, and she sank to the floor, her head in her hands.

She'd known before stepping foot on the train that her homecoming would not be a pleasant one. Her parents were much like her—logical, hardworking, and cunning—and so Hermione understood they would spend the year between Yule holidays thinking and considering all the things they wanted to say to their only daughter. All the things and the reasons why they didn't want her to return to Hogwarts.

It was strange being in a place so very—Muggle after twelve months away. A staleness hung in the air that competed with her fonder recollections of her childhood home, and when she reached out to swipe her fingers over her bookshelf, they came back sticky with dust. She'd known she was a witch for less than three years, and yet the twelve preceding those years had lost their sheen, had shifted from reaffirming to surreal. Magic had entered Hermione's life, and nothing could ever be the same again.

She just wished her parents could accept that.

Three days. She'd been home for three days, and it seemed a lifetime had passed in those seventy- odd hours. Her mum had taken a firm hold of her arm the moment she'd crossed the station's barrier and had marched her straight into her father's embrace, who hadn't let go for several minutes before passing her back to Jean Granger. The Grangers went to dinner in London, the affair's genial nature surprising Hermione—until she asked to pop by Diagon Alley before they went home.

Her parents had vehemently refused.

Their denigration of magic started on the drive home with pithy quips asking if Hermione thought the car and traffic and basic street laws were too boring and average for her taste—to which Hermione replied that she rather enjoyed taking travel slowly. She tried to explain the inherent repercussions of fast magical travel, the reciprocal whiplash accrued by bending time and space to such mind-boggling degrees—but her parents weren't interested in the conversation.

The silence had felt so strained, Hermione experienced a visceral sensation of disconnect, watching the Muggle world pass the window like images on a telly screen.

Most would overlook the small comments, the little jabs and jibes Hermione laughed at with her parents—and yet, in her heart, she remembered being an awkward little girl in primary school where all the other children would call her weird and ugly and strange, and how her parents had been the ones to comfort her at home. Now, she couldn't help but associate the two in her mind; the Grangers had become those irritating children, and each time they put down magic, Hermione felt herself wilting more and more.

She loved her parents, and they loved her; their mutual affection and regard were not in question. However, they would never truly understand—and thus accept—magic and the Wizarding world as Hermione could.

Today, Robert Granger had cooked them breakfast, and as they sat down to dishes of eggs, tomatoes, and sausages, he'd said, "Hermione, dear. Your mother and I were thinking about taking a trip."

"A trip? Where to?"

"Switzerland."

"Switz—Switzerland?" Hermione reiterated, taken aback. Her parents had never mentioned a desire to go to Switzerland before, and their holidays in the past had been mainly to the seaside, France, or Spain. Their usual weekend jaunt never took them farther than London. "Oh. That— sounds nice. When are you going to go?"

"Well, we were hoping you would come with us."

"Really? It's awfully cold there during this time of year, isn't it? But I'm sure it'd be fun to go!" Their desire to have her come along surprised Hermione, but it pleased her nonetheless. She hadn't thought this morning would go this way—and yet the idea of seeing Switzerland and learning more about what kind of Wizarding community existed there sounded exciting. She wondered how they handled Muggle-borns. The Nordic countries feeding into Durmstrang had long taken a critical view on the population, while Koldovstoretz and eastern Europe had mixed reactions, and Beauxbatons had shown far more acceptance. Until the eighties, Hogwarts and British Wizarding society had been one of the most progressive in recognizing and supporting Muggle-borns.

And then Voldemort happened.

Her dad had wiped his mouth and glanced at Hermione's mum, who cleared her throat and smiled. "It'll be wonderful. We've found a lovely little town to stay in—and you'll have to take a bit of time off your studies, but that shouldn't be a problem."

Hermione blinked, her thoughts grinding to a halt. "I—pardon?"

Jean spooned more eggs onto her plate. "Your father and I discussed it and thought it'd be best if you took a break from Hogwarts for a term and returned home. You can come with us to Switzerland—and they have excellent schools there, Hermione, just excellent."

"Mum, I—well, I can't just take time off school," Hermione had said, surprised yet again by the twist in conversation. Dread had blossomed in her chest, an ephemeral fluttering against her heart. Her palms had begun to sweat. "I'm only allowed to come home during the Yule holiday and you can't take sabbaticals from Hogwarts as a student; it just isn't done."

"It's the Christmas holiday," her dad had corrected in a sharp, brusque tone. "And learning these —spells and whatnot is all well and good, but Hermione, dear, don't you think it's time for things to get back to normal? What about your a-levels? What about university and a career? You can't become a barrister or a doctor with a degree in—magic."

"This is normal, dad. I can't stop being a witch and tuck it all away. The MPA law prohibits—."

"Hermione, we don't want to hear about the law again. It's not a real law, now is it? They can't very well bring it into court and enforce it."

But they could. The Ministry could very much find Hermione or her family in violation of the Muggle-born Protection Act, and she didn't think they'd get the benefit of a trial before the Wizengamot. Not for a nobody such as herself. Her wand would be snapped, and her parents could possibly be Obliviated.

They simply couldn't understand. Magic to them would never be real, and Hermione could do nothing to prove its reality without jeopardizing her enrollment at Hogwarts or breaking the law. The pictures she could procure, the odd objects gifted to her by her friends, weren't enough. Hermione worried she would always be too much and yet not enough for her parents.

"We miss you. We need you home, Hermione. We're your family, for God's sake, and we've barely seen you!"

"Dad—."

"No. We don't want you returning to that place, and that's the final word on the matter."

The discussion devolved until Hermione had stood, excused herself without their permission, and returned to her room. Now, slumped against the door, she could hear the echo of her father's voice calling down the hall, calling her back, and the narrow gulf between her and her parents widened until it seemed more a canyon than anything else.

Tears made sticky tracks on her cheeks, and Hermione wiped them away, refusing their existence.

You can't become a barrister or a doctor with a degree in magic.

And that was the thing, wasn't it? Hermione's childhood had been filled with idle chatter on prospective universities and careers—and then Minerva McGonagall walked into their home, changing her life forever. Those idle dreams and hopes hadn't stopped for her parents, but Hermione couldn't imagine going to Muggle university and trying to divide magic from her mind, pretending it didn't influence every little iota of everything. She didn't want to be a barrister or a doctor. Not anymore.

"Switzerland indeed," Hermione grumbled, drying her eyes. She stood and straightened her jumper, walking over to her desk and upending her rucksack. Her books landed on the desk and floor with heavy thuds, and Hermione sighed as she picked up a Transfiguration text and fixed a bent corner. Her stomach ached as if she were sick.

Growing up, Hermione would retreat to her books and interests whenever contentions arose between herself and her parents, and now was no different. She muttered as she stacked books and refused to sniffle or cry—because it wasn't worth her tears or all this—nonsense. She didn't wish to argue, and her parents couldn't argue about this. Her hand landed upon a folder, and Hermione opened it, pausing when the old, weathered parchment inside was revealed.

The Marauder's Map.

Honestly, what had the original creators been thinking putting the Map on parchment? Certainly, there was an element of commonality, having an item plain and average enough to not attract attention—but there was no permanence to it! It already bore so many rips and tears and odd stains. With magic, they could have made the Map anything at all, couldn't they? It was so limited.

Hermione perched on the edge of her chair—ignoring the raised voices in the kitchen, her fingers crimped on the parchment's surface. She retrieved her wand and muttered the passphrase, concentrating on the spindles of ink spreading out from the tip, filling out the familiar walls and pathways and corridors, tiny black shoes and little banners trailing above them.

Her tension lessened as she found her friends' names in the Slytherin common room, sitting by the central hearth. A smile turned her mouth as she pictured the scene, and she hoped the pair weren't arguing with one another and that they were staying safe indoors. Hermione loved them both

dearly; her dad had said, "We're your family, for God's sake," and that would always be true, but Harriet and Elara were her family, too, and Hermione had never been too much or not enough for them.

Most of Hogwarts had been abandoned for the holiday, though Hermione spotted a few people out and about. Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, and Sprout sat in the Great Hall, joined by several students Hermione didn't recognize. Younger Hufflepuffs, maybe. Professor Snape was in the infirmary with Madam Pomfrey. The Headmaster was in his office, and Professor Slytherin—Tom Riddle—paced the second-floor corridor.

Hermione squinted and brought the Map closer to the window and the sunlight. A small pair of feet wandered by the hidden entrance to the Slytherin's dungeons and paused.

"Peter Pettigrew," Hermione said to herself. Where had she heard that name before?

The volume of her parents' arguing voices rose to a pitch that began to drown out Hermione's own inner dialog, and she concentrated on the Map, on the feel of it, listing every spell she knew and thought went into its creation, repeating the movements, the etymology, the origins. She kept at it until the rest of the world fell away.

She stared at her friends' names on the parchment and wanted to be there. Hermione had grown up in this house, but it'd ceased to feel like home.

An abrupt, impatient tapping on the window grabbed Hermione's attention and broke her train of thought. She glanced up and recognized the dark owl perched on the sill as one belonging to the Malfoys. Usually, such a sight would fill Hermione with trepid dread and anxiety, but all she felt now was guilty happiness at the sight.

You've gone round the bend now, Granger. Happy about getting post from the Malfoys.

She opened the window and accepted the letter attached to the owl's leg. Hermione had an inkling of what the missive said, so she wasn't surprised when the haughty creature took up residence on the cluttered bookshelf to wait for a reply. Crookshanks peeked out from his basket to stare.

Hermione peeled aside the wax seal, unfolded the parchment, and found the expected invitation to the Malfoy's annual Yule ball, the words written in a glittering silver ink with the family's crest embossed on the front. She'd received the same invitation last year and the year before, and both years she'd written back a polite—if curt—rejection. She should do the same now, she knew.

Her parents continued to argue. The words merged into a jumble, bouncing against the walls and her ears, but the tone weighed heavy on Hermione, just as heavy as the atmosphere had been since she left the Hogwarts Express and returned to the Muggle world. She thought of how tightly her parents had hugged her on the station—so tightly, she had barely had the strength to draw breath. She thought of two dots on a map, two girls in front of a fire, alone, unable to return home.

Hermione eyed the biros on the desk—then went to her trunk, found her quill and ink, and set about writing a response.

x X x

It was almost midnight when Hermione eased open the front door and stepped out into the garden,

shivering against the cold air rising from the frosted grass. Her trunk's wheels bounced on the steps and echoed in the quiet street as the door shut behind her.

Narcissa Malfoy made for a particularly incongruous addition to the tidy Muggle neighborhood, but if she felt uncomfortable standing there in her silver robes below the electric streetlight, she didn't allow it to show. She patiently watched Hermione come down the walk and step beyond the garden wall.

"Ready to depart, Hermione?" she asked.

"Yes, ma'am."

The imperious witch nodded—and then looked past Hermione to the dark windows of her silent Muggle home, a flicker of conflicting emotion passing through her face. She wasn't a demonstrative woman, so the brief look stood out. "Have you spoken with your parents?"

Hermione shifted, staring at her shoes. "…I wrote them a letter."

"…a letter." Narcissa exhaled through her nose and brought her gloved hands together—a motion so like the one Elara often made, Hermione wondered if it was encoded into the DNA of all women hailing from the House of Black. Elara would be disappointed in Hermione's choice to leave early—but Harriet, who'd grown up with toxic family members, would've understood.

"They were going to keep me from going back," Hermione murmured, her heart again fluttering with dread because she shouldn't be admitting to something so—illegal. Her parents could get into so much trouble! "I don't want to hurt them, but—it's better this way."

Mrs. Malfoy stared at her. After hesitating, she extended a hand for Hermione to take so she could Apparate them away from that little corner of Muggle-modernity. "Yes," she answered absentmindedly. "Yes, perhaps you're right."

x X x

Hermione had never seen the Manor in the wintertime. The idea of being here when she was meant to be with her mother and father had been anathema before, but now she felt…not happy, but content, no longer worried her parents might do something mad in an attempt to keep her away from Hogwarts. There was no more yelling, no shouting, no fear—just the familiar tension of being a ward to the biggest toffs in British Wizarding society.

Oh, it was lovely enough; Hermione never doubted the Malfoys' estate looked anything but exquisite no matter the time of year, and Yule proved no different. Transfigured wreaths and bundles of holly festooned the halls, and every open area had been adorned with a Yule tree decked in golden ornaments. Mrs. Malfoy flitted from room to room with her house-elves in tow, making arrangements, while Mr. Malfoy spent time entertaining various Ministry officials in the lounge. Draco attempted to drag Hermione everywhere, eager to show off his mother's decorations.

"Come along, Granger! You haven't even seen mother's winter gardens yet. They're the best in the country—."

While that might be true, Hermione couldn't muster much enthusiasm, academic or otherwise. She wanted to be left alone.

She missed her mother and father. She missed them as they used to be, not the man and woman who'd taken residence in their bodies and looked upon their own daughter with such tentative uncertainty and disappointment. It was her fault for being a witch, Hermione knew, but she had no control over that, and she hated the guilt her family's budding enmity formed in her.

She could set down her wand and never speak another spell for the rest of her life, and yet Hermione would always be a witch. She could not change that. She'd promised herself the day she went with Professor McGonagall that she'd never settle for being anything less than extraordinary, and so Hermione could not—would not—whittle herself down to the pieces her parents found acceptable.

It still didn't make for a happy Yule holiday. She cried into her pillow at night.

The ball itself didn't arrive until after the solstice, which occurred on the twenty-first, and Hermione got so caught up in her own head, she wouldn't have had a thing to wear if Mrs. Malfoy hadn't thought to ask. By the twenty-fourth, Hermione had a proper pair of navy dress robes, and Draco's mother spent two hours and three bottles of Sleekeazy's Hair Potion taming her impossible curls. While Narcissa worked, Hermione got the impression the older witch would have rather enjoyed having a daughter of her own.

Too many people to count crowded into Malfoy Manor once the evening arrived. It seemed all of Slytherin House made an appearance, and with them came their families, old Slytherin alumni, their children, and their relatives from other Houses or countries. She'd never seen so many magical people in one place, not even in Diagon Alley during its busiest hours.

Hermione spotted all of her classmates there, dressed in their best robes—and, naturally, they expressed curiosity over Elara and Harriet's conspicuous absences.

"Oh, well," Hermione bluffed, because it was imperative to redirect interest in their home lives, especially for Harriet. "Harriet's relatives are busy, and Elara elected to stay with her. It's lovely what Mrs. Malfoy's done with the house, isn't it?"

"Of course it is," Draco sniffed, adopting a pose similar to the one his father held across the crowded ballroom. Hermione managed to not roll her eyes, if only just. "Mother's tastes are impeccable."

Next to him, Pansy in her frilly, magenta robes kept shooting fiery looks in Hermione's direction. "Draco," she whined, tugging on the boy's arm. "I'm bored. Come dance with me!"

"Dance? Why would I do that?"

"Draco!"

"What's wrong with you? Merlin…."

Many people danced in time to the soft, meandering string music played by a bearded quartet of centenarians. She knew how to dance, but Hermione didn't intend to participate until Theo Nott broke from the group and asked her. Blaise Zabini's older, Italian cousin followed afterward, and though he didn't speak a word of English, Hermione enjoyed herself.

The problems of her home life felt less prominent as the evening wore on, and Hermione danced with several witches and wizards and matched faces with names she'd only ever read in dusty old annals before. She could also forget how distraught her mother and father must be at the moment, or the immediate peril her best friends faced even while cloistered inside an enchanted castle.

However, the latter worry came rushing to the forefront when an older wizard stepped forward from the crowd and grasped Hermione's hand in her own.

"Miss Granger."

A harsh, burning cold strangled Hermione's heart as she followed the arm up to a face she'd only ever seen in the Daily Prophet, caught in rare photographs given at his even rarer public forums—a face Harriet had described with chilling accuracy after battling Tom Riddle in the Aerie's burnt depths. The man's red eyes glinted like wine in ruby chalices, sluggishly churning with the movement of an indolent hand.

"Minister Gaunt," Hermione managed to say. The wizard appeared much as her Defense professor did, if taller and a bit bulkier, his attire and stance lending a more intimidating air. His dark hair had been combed back from his narrow face, the ends coming to curl under his ears like splayed snake tongues. Hermione had been an idiot to not realize he'd be present at this function. "It's a pleasure to meet you. How do you do?"

"Very well indeed. A dance, Miss Granger?"

He gave her no room for disagreement; he tightened his grip and pulled her onto the floor proper, and though he kept enough space between them to be appropriate, unease prickled along Hermione's spine like ghoulish fingers. His other hand came to rest below her shoulder, and she flinched.

"How…how do you know my name, sir?" Hermione asked as they started to dance, and she wished her voice didn't sound so weak.

"Oh, Lucius likes to keep me apprised of his clever wards when he has the opportunity," the Minister replied in a drawl worthy of Malfoy senior himself. "It suits his inflated sense of self to take credit for their achievements."

Hermione didn't reply. The Minister turned her, and his fingers pressed down hard enough on her own to hurt, his ring as cold as frozen steel.

"You're friends with the Potter girl."

It was not a question, and Hermione stiffened in alarm, every instinct in her body urging her to lie. She didn't need to be a genius to know the Minister said nothing without an alternative agenda; that was a common denominator with most politicians, Muggle or otherwise. However, when Hermione looked into the man's face, she saw something much worse than a schemer or a manipulator.

She raised her eyes to his, and what looked back from behind that handsome face was cruel and alien, a skittering reptile assuming the shape of a person. It didn't make sense to her. From everything she'd ever read or learned about magic, clones were not a thing; they could not be created, even if a body could be replicated through Dark magic. However, the soul, that indefinable spark of a human being, could not be mimicked or copied.

How was it then that Harriet had met this man in Ravenclaw's Aerie? Why did Hermione look at the Minister and know she was staring at the same wizard who usually lurked in her Defense classroom? How could he possibly be and not be the same person? It didn't make sense.

"Friends, sir?" Hermione said, swallowing. He wanted to know about Harriet. He wanted her to feed him information about her best friend—and Hermione refused. "That's a strong word for it.

We're more acquaintances than anything."

"I was informed you were close."

"We share a dormitory, and that engenders a bond, of sorts."

"Hmm. Perhaps I was mistaken."

The song concluded and the dance ended. The Minister dropped her hand and wiped his own against his robes as if he'd touched something foul. He stepped back, sneering, and vanished again into the crowd.

The remainder of the ball passed without Hermione seeing Minister Gaunt again—but as the hours passed, the guests departing by Floo or Apparition, Hermione felt eyes lingering on her back long into the night, and it wasn't until she returned to her room and shut the door, that the feeling stopped and she could breathe again.

A/N: As a woman who loves her son and would do anything for him, I think Narcissa would have mixed emotions concerning the MPA and removing children from their homes. The Malfoys are really interesting to write, because they're not good, but they're still people, and people are capable of flexibility and, in some respects, change. On the flip side, I imagine it's almost impossible for the Grangers to form any kind of acceptance when they're kept so separate from magic and its huge impact on their daughter's life.

winter friends

cxxix. winter friends

Hogwarts was beautiful during the winter holidays. Though very few students remained behind once break began, the professors went to great lengths to ensure the castle was festive and welcoming for those who still lingered. Suits of armor belted out choruses of Auld Lang Syne whenever someone passed by and bunches of mistletoe threatened to follow the unawares from hall to hall. Harriet saw Snape setting more than one sprig alight—and she also saw McGonagall discreetly Charming more to sprout over his head, snickering all the while.

Despite the levity, a sense of melancholy remained around the castle, and Harriet sensed it whenever she found herself alone or when she gazed off into the distance, and the silence echoed in her ears. It was in the moments like that when Harriet remembered how old Hogwarts was, how it would have crumbled to ruins centuries ago if not for the people who continued to inhabit its wandering halls—and it made Harriet think of the Dementors surrounding them like a wreath of dark portents. It made her feel trapped—and scared.

On Christmas morning—which the wizards just called Yule morning, despite the solstice having passed days before—Harriet and Elara woke to sizable gift piles cluttering the ends of their beds. Most proved to be the expected gifts from the pure-blood families, things like parchment and quills and candy assortments, but there were also more personal presents from each other and the people they knew.

"Did Mr. Flamel send you something?" Elara asked.

"Mhm!" Harriet answered, holding up a wooden box filled with practice runes. The little tiles clattered together and emitted a soft glow. "D'you get something too?"

"Yes." The other witch unearthed a strange ball of clay from under a new cloak sent by Narcissa Malfoy.

"What's that?"

"A Transfiguration medium. It's made for practicing elemental transmutation."

"Oh, neat." Harriet popped another Chocolate Cauldron into her mouth, savoring the tangy, warming flavor as she peeled the brown parchment paper off a plain gift. She jumped when the golden Snitch inside unfurled its metal wings and took flight, but instead of winging off, it chose to fly slow circles around Harriet's head. She reached up to catch it, and it settled in her palm before flying again.

"Who sent you that?"

"I…dunno." Harriet flipped the paper over, looking for a card or a signature of some sort, but she couldn't find anything. "If it's real, specialty Snitches cost a fair bit. Maybe the card fell off."

"Harriet, there's a mass-murderer out there who—."

"And he's going to be sending me presents, is he?" Elara raised a brow, frowning, and Harriet exhaled. "All right, all right. What would you have me do?"

"At least put it up until I can check my Gringotts account. If he bought something, he'd have to get the Galleons from the Black estate."

"How would he manage that?"

"Goblins have their own sovereignty from wizards. Gringotts serves as a foreign embassy of sorts, meaning Black could very well walk right in if he wanted, and as Head of the House, he has final control over the vault's assets."

"That's dumb." Harriet popped another Chocolate Cauldron into her mouth and hiccuped. "I already touched it and stuff, though, and isn't the post supposed to be screened?"

Elara exhaled, muttering on the worthlessness of post-screening spells—and then paused, eying Harriet before setting aside another gift. "…Harriet."

"Mmm?"

"Are you feeling well?"

Harriet blinked, confused. "Um. Yeah, why?"

"You're flushed."

"I'm what?"

Elara stood, tossing her blankets, and touched the back of her hand to Harriet's forehead and cheeks. "You're warm and red."

"Wait, really—hic!"

Elara glared at the flying Snitch with suspicion, then shuffled through the papers and torn wrappings on Harriet's bed, finding the nearly depleted sweets box. "What are these?"

"Chocolate Cauldrons? I got 'em from—? What's his name, that numpty—Lockhart."

Elara broke off a piece, exposing the filling, and popped it inside her mouth. She grunted, wrinkling her nose. "Harriet!"

"What?!" Harriet yelped, surprised by the outburst. She picked up the broken Chocolate Cauldron and gave it a sniff. "Is there something wrong with it? Oh, Merlin—did that idiot poison me?!"

"In a manner of speaking," Elara retorted, finding a handkerchief in her nightstand to wipe her lips. "Chocolate Cauldrons have Firewhiskey in them!"

Harriet sputtered as her friend quickly grabbed the package and tossed it in the bin. "What!"

"You're absolutely sloshed, you tiny drunkard."

"I'm not! I only had—." Harriet did a quick count—and then did it again, swaying. She did feel awful warm. "Eight."

"Eight. Only."

"Yesh."

Elara sighed, shaking her head. "Come on, up you get."

"Why? Where're we goin'?"

"To Madam Pomfrey, of course."

"What! I'm be in trouble then!"

"It's better to be in trouble than sick as a dog. Come along."

Elara hooked her arm under Harriet's and hoisted her out of bed, grabbing their robes and shoes on their way. It took two tries to get Harriet into her shoes and dressing gown, and then she started to giggle.

"Elara, if you're sick, does that mean you're sick as a dog? Because of, y'know—."

"Merlin spare me. What was that fool thinking, sending you Chocolate Cauldrons? He's a menace to polite society."

"I thought they were like Cauldron Cakes!"

"Read the label before stuffing your face next time."

Elara dragged her into the entrance hall—and they came stumbling to a halt, confronted with Professors McGonagall and Dumbledore having a conversation by the Great Hall's doors. In their rush from the dorms, they'd forgotten the Snitch, and it now flew circles around their heads. Harriet had her shoes on the wrong feet.

"Good morning, Miss Black, Miss Potter," Professor McGonagall greeted, crossing her hands before herself as she studied the two younger witches. Sprigs of holly had been threaded into the band of her black hat. "You're both up early."

Harriet did her best to straighten and almost burst into laughter again, because in light of how miserable and dangerous her entire year had been, getting caught out for being a bit too squiffy seemed a ridiculous consequence, and Harriet was going to write Lockhart a scathing note when the walls stopped moving about.

Bloody idiot can't think about anyone but himself for more than a minute, Harriet grumbled in her head, clutching Elara's arm to stop her from swaying.

Professor Dumbledore smiled, his blue eyes flicking toward the Snitch coming to settle in the mussed riot of Harriet's unbrushed hair. She really hoped it wasn't cursed, seeing as she'd touched it half a dozen times now. "You've been into your presents this morning. Excellent! I still find it my favorite part of every Yule. Did you get everything you wished for?"

"We, erm, haven't had a chance to open everything yet, Headmaster," Elara replied, clearing her throat. "Harriet overate Yule chocolate and is feeling sick."

"Oh, dear."

"You shouldn't be eating sweets before breakfast, Miss Potter," McGonagall chastised. Harriet hiccuped, and McGonagall's brow rose.

"Yes, ma'am." She didn't even have to pretend she felt queasy.

"Go on and bring her to Madam Pomfrey before Poppy leaves to come down to the Great Hall, Miss Black."

They gave their agreement and scuttled off before McGonagall's keen eyes could suss out any misbehavior. They only made it into the next corridor before Harriet asked to sit, and Elara lowered her onto a convenient window seat. The frozen stone and wind rattling at her back helped cleared Harriet's head, and she shivered as she yawned and wiped at her eyes. Huffing, Elara crossed her arms against the chill and sat next to her.

"Lockhart's an idiot," she grumbled. Harriet snorted.

"I'm going to send him an entire box of Dungbombs for this."

"Why would he even send you Chocolate Cauldrons?"

"Because he's a numpty, Elara, and doesn't think before he does anything—hic. I'm surprised the post made it through." Harriet took a deep breath to settle her wriggling stomach and released, giggling. "It's silly though, innit?"

"What is?"

"I mean, it's something a normal student would do—get sick from eating Firewhiskey sweets, almost get caught by the Deputy Headmistress. It's—I wish stuff like this happened more often, y'know? Not that I wanna be in detention or anything. I just wish that maybe I had guardians who'd actually give a shite if the school wrote to them, and that I didn't have to always worry about someone trying to murder me."

Elara's eyes cut in her direction and then flicked away, something like guilt swirling in their depths. Betrayal still stung Harriet's heart, but the idea of Elara being hurt stung worse, so Harriet pushed those lingering dregs of resentment away, refusing them, nudging her friend's foot and smiling up at her. Elara and Hermione were her family. She wouldn't allow hurt feelings to pull them apart.

Elara's mouth twitched in return, but she didn't smile. In the somber light of dawn leaking through the snow-bound window, she looked tired and older than she should, carrying a weight that pressed upon her shoulders—and Harriet's. "I'd kill him if he tried to hurt you," Elara said. "If he tried to hurt you or Hermione. I would not hesitate."

Harriet scoffed and shivered again, though not from the cold. "But then you'd be a murderer."

"Sometimes, I wonder if that's inevitable." Elara tightened her hands into fists, her skin as pale as bone, pink scars emerging from the end of her dressing gown's sleeve. "I wonder if any of us will emerge from this path as innocent or as clean as we entered it."

Harriet knew she was right and acknowledged in her heart the probability of her own young, imminent death—not by Black's hand, but by Voldemort's, because the Headmaster had told her years ago he would return and she'd lived in silent terror for that day ever since. Harriet was an untrained, middling witch, and the Dark Lord was the Dark Lord. She worried what would happen to Elara and Hermione and worried for herself, but Harriet was only thirteen and simply wanted to be a child a little while longer, if she'd ever been a child in the first place.

"I didn't give you your Yule gift yet."

Elara reached into the pocket of her robes and pulled out a bit of parchment folded into an impromptu envelope, holding it out for Harriet to take. Shaken from her grim thoughts, Harriet

accepted the envelope and folded back the flap.

"Leaves?" she asked, plucking one from the bunch, letting her fingertip run over the spiked edges. She hiccuped again. "Or—wait. Are these Mandrake leaves?"

Nodding, Elara explained, "I went into the greenhouse and sneaked a few. No more than would be missed, but you'll need multiples. It took me three tries before I managed to keep one under my tongue for an entire month."

Harriet gave the leaf a sniff and grimaced.

"Exactly my sentiment."

"Thank you for these." Harriet gently tucked the leaves away in her own pocket. "I still don't know if I'll be able to manage it. I don't have the talent you do."

"You'll do brilliant. I've every confidence."

Her heart warmed, a warmth that defied the cold and had nothing to do with the lingering taste of Firewhiskey. Smiling, Harriet bumped her arm into Elara's and said with a mischievous lilt, "Happy Christmas."

"Happy Christmas, Harriet."

x X x

That night, a flash of red light woke Harriet from dreadful dreams.

She didn't realize it at first; she thought it'd been part of the nightmare, and after peeling open her eyelids, Harriet lingered in that space between sleep and reality, registering the world in small pieces—the feel of her blankets with a Warming Charm applied to the sheets, the dim glow of the silver lantern above her, the water lapping at the dormitory's outer walls. She blinked—and a shadow moved against the bed curtains, a figure Harriet contributed to her night terrors, a short, stooped body with a hand reaching out. The curtain's rings dragged on the rod.

Sharp, skeletal fingers stabbed into Harriet's side, and she gasped, sitting up. A second later, Elara screamed.

The curtains rippled, and—hearing the noise—the shadow moved, then suddenly vanished, the lantern flaring to full light, Elara scrambling out of her bed.

"There's someone in here!"

"What!" Harriet cried, falling from her mattress, her leg caught and tangled in the sheet. She had her wand in hand already, pointed at nothing in particular—because the dormitory was utterly empty aside from them. A dream, Harriet told herself. It had to have been a dream, but how did Elara—?!

The other witch shook so hard, she couldn't hold her wand straight, but she still walked to the washroom and checked it from the doorway, breathing hard. Wincing, Harriet touched her side, and her fingers came away from the dark fabric of her nightgown tinged pink with blood. Set hurt

me.

Something was amiss—and not because she'd woken from a nightmare into a nightmarish reality, or because of the pain in her ribs and banged up knees. "Livius," she whispered, yanking up the bed's skirt, reaching into the dark below. "Livi? Liv—." The thick coils under her hand didn't move. "Livius! Elara, oh God, he's not moving—!"

Elara rushed to her side and dropped to her knees, helping Harriet drag the limp snake out from under the bed. Her hair spilled in long, limp curls around her pale face, tangling in the buttons of her nightgown, and she stroked Livi's side. "He's going to be okay."

"He isn't moving, Elara!"

"I think he's been Stunned—see look, he's still breathing, here." Elara pulled Harriet's trembling hand over Livi's nose and a small puff and air touched her clammy skin. "I don't know the spell to reverse it, but—Harriet, we need to get out of here." Her voice rose and cracked. "He was here, he was in here! We need to go!"

"Where is he?"

"I don't know! He could still be here!"

Harriet's breath came in ragged, scared gasps, and every shadow seemed sinister, hiding a killer who had someone broken into their dormitory—a killer who'd known about Livi and had thought to hurt him. Elara's hand on her arm felt slick with sweat. Gathering Livi, Harriet doubled her grip on her wand, and they ran for their lives.

A/N:

Elara: "What smells like a pub?"

Harriet, elbow-deep in a box of Chocolate Cauldrons: "I dunno."

Chapter title from the GRR Martin quote: "Summer friends will melt away like summer snows, but winter friends are friends forever."

for the wicked

cxxx. for the wicked

The sudden, thundering bang of fists raining on his door jerked Severus from his potion-induced slumber.

His migraine blazed anew across his left temple and Severus grit his teeth, breath stolen by the pain, sweat building and dripping along the nape of his neck. He cupped his palm to his left eye, cursing—and the rapid banging continued.

What now?

Kicking back the sheets, Severus stood and summoned his robes from the armoire, throwing them on over his gray nightshirt, striding through his living quarters. He expected to find Minerva or Filch or Albus in the corridor—though, if he'd given it half a thought, he'd have known Minerva or Albus would have sent a Patronus in the event of an emergency, rather than descend into the dungeons to beat his door down. Without students about, Filch didn't have much reason to come whinging, let alone at this godforsaken hour.

He froze upon finding Potter and Black standing at his threshold.

"What in Merlin's name do you think you're—?!"

His thunderous remark cut itself short when he noted their wide, terrified eyes and the limp Horned Serpent in Potter's shaking arms. They'd come in a hurry, neither wearing their dressing gowns over their pajamas or their slippers.

"He was in the dormitory," Black blurted out, looking back the way they'd come. "He—Sirius Black was in the dormitory!"

Severus stiffened and forced his eyes to focus. "What are you talking about, girl?"

"He hurt Livi!" Potter said, her eyes glassy and wet in the corridor's dim light. "He did something, there was this funny red light, and I thought I was dreaming—."

"She gasped, and it woke me, and—."

"There was a bloke just standing there, and then he disappeared—!"

"Shut up," Severus hissed, trying to make sense of their rapid, panicked babbling. He slammed closed the portrait leading into his quarters and grabbed Potter by the arm, dragging her and Black across the corridor to his office. He shoved the pair into the dark, cold space, then stopped to flick a fire into the empty grate. The idiots would freeze to death if he didn't do something for them. "Stay here."

"But—."

The door shut in Potter's face, and Severus sealed it. Only then did he fully register their words,

their fears of someone—maybe Sirius Black, maybe not, but an unknown male nonetheless—being in their dormitory. A curious tangle of dread and rage pulled through his chest as he snarled, "Expecto Patronum!"

A paltry silver thread wove from the end of his wand, but nothing else. Severus didn't bother to curse or try again, instead summoning a house-elf, ordering the short creature to bring the Headmaster down to the dungeons. He hurried after that, all but running toward the hidden portal barring passage to the Slytherin common room. He was almost there when Slytherin appeared at the head of the corridor, and for the briefest of seconds, they held each other at wand point.

The pain in his head hadn't made Severus insensate enough to not know it best to lower his own wand first.

"My Lord," he acknowledged.

"Snape," Slytherin returned, red eyes roving from him to the supposedly blank stretch of dark stone. He still wore his day clothes, not a stitch out of place; Severus wasn't entirely sure the bastard was capable of sleep. "One of our young charges has crossed the entrance ward and I came to investigate."

Came to catch whoever it was out, more like. "Both, in fact. Potter and Black believe there was an intruder in their room."

"And they came to you first? Not their Head of House?"

A worrying note wove through the shorter wizard's tone, and Severus chose his following words carefully. They hadn't the time for Slytherin to throw a fit over some perceived slight. "I am closer to the dungeons, my Lord."

"Hmm. We'll have a discussion on this later."

Oh, I can hardly fucking wait.

Motion in the corridor's mouth drew their attention as Albus arrived, appearing tired and wary, Minerva trailing after him, wrapped in her tartan dressing gown. Slytherin's eyes cut to Severus, a not-so-subtle fury glinting in their ruby depths, and the Headmaster was quick to lie for Severus' benefit. "The wards alerted me to a disturbance," he said. "Is everything well, Professors?"

"Black and Potter claim there was an intruder in their dormitory."

"An intruder?" Minerva and Albus shared an uneasy glance. "Are you certain? Is it possible they imagined it? They are young girls, and it can be rather, erm, eerie in the dungeons this late at night."

"Potter and Black aren't the type to be frightened easily. You know this, Minerva." Of course, Severus couldn't be certain of anything, but somebody had Stunned Potter's snake—and that in and of itself was cause for alarm, because the only way a person would know of the Horned Serpent was if they'd watched the girl, if they'd observed her enough to discover its existence.

"And where are they now?"

"In my office." The Transfiguration mistress made as if to head in that direction, but Severus cut her off. "I have sealed the room. You will not be able to enter."

"Excellent, Severus," Albus said. "Minerva, if you would alert the remainder of the staff and the

Heads of House while we—."

The Headmaster stepped toward the entrance of the common room, and Slytherin interceded. Severus' pulse raised when Slytherin's hand brushed Albus' chest, and the Headmaster visibly recoiled, his wand out, a palpable burst of magic swelling in the air.

"I won't have brainless Gryffindors stomping through my ancestral House," Slytherin spat, unmoved by the cold steel in Albus' gaze or the threatening stance adopted by him and the Deputy Headmistress. They'd stumbled upon a potentially dangerous situation—and not because of an intruder in the castle. Relations with Slytherin existed as a game of Muggle tug of war; if one wished to win, they had to know when to pull, and when to give, how best to displace their opponent and take their feet out from under them. The game would be more straightforward if Slytherin had been a sane man—but he wasn't, and one day some slight infraction, such as challenging his authority in his own House, could throw him into an unpredictable rage.

If Slytherin pushed, Severus didn't know what they'd do, what he'd do, what Albus would want for him to do, because the three of them together might be able to force Slytherin to retreat—but it would not be permanent, and Severus could not sacrifice his position in a futile gambit. He had spent years of his life, had killed, to remain in Slytherin's good graces. In the same breath, if Albus allowed Slytherin to chip away at his own influence and authority—.

"Need I remind you that I am the Headmaster of this school, Professor?" Albus said, and if Severus hadn't known the wizard well, he wouldn't have heard the words and the anger that went unvoiced.

"For now." Slytherin smiled. "Go on, then. Manage your school, Headmaster, and I will see to my House. Severus!"

The Potions Master hated being called to attention like a stung dog, but he nonetheless dipped his head in acquiescence and followed Slytherin into the common room, hearing the monster's harsh, guttural hissing as he commanded the painted serpent above the hearth. A series of spells left his wand, a thin veil of yellow sweeping through the darkened room, illuminating purulent halos of ugly color in its wake. Naturally, a spell meant to detect traces of human presence would be ineffective in a communal space.

Slytherin went off to check the boys' corridor while Severus checked the girls', finding nothing but dark, empty beds until the two professors met again inside Potter and Black's dormitory. The lantern had been left lit, their rumpled sheets thrown back, a bit of gift wrapping forgotten on the floor, but the room was otherwise surprisingly tidy and undisturbed. Slytherin again muttered a mantra of spells, and again, the room lit with color to indicate human presence—but the Defense professor's voice cut short as something changed. Severus, too, noted the shift in resonance and swished his wand. "Appare Vestigium."

Several hues bloomed in the dark, most faded to drabber tones—but three traces remained stronger. Three.

"It appears Potter and Black didn't imagine things," Slytherin crooned, pacing by Potter's bed, his hand ghosting over the curtain. "A third party was in here—though, should that party be Mr. Black, it does beg the question of how he managed to breach my dungeons and why he fled from two pubescent witches simply because they woke to find him in here."

Severus didn't have an answer to those questions. The password for the common room changed every fortnight and had yet to be reset since the remainder of the juvenile horde had departed; he could only surmise that Black had lifted the password from someone who'd gone home for the

break, since Potter and Miss Black weren't nearly as careless as the others in their age group. But why flee? He'd already Stunned the snake, easily the most dangerous threat in the room, which meant he had a bloody wand trained on both Black and Potter. In his recollection, Sirius Black had always been one to press his advantage and had taken risks to get one last curse out whenever he and his band of merry-men attacked Severus. Why run? And how? How did he get out of the dorm?

A sharp breath drew Severus' attention just as Slytherin yanked his hand away from Potter's trunk, the pads of his fingers bright red with fresh blisters. For half a moment, Severus thought Potter might return to her dormitory to find her possessions reduced to ashes—but Slytherin pulled back his ire, instead settling for curiosity.

"Potter wards her trunk."

"As any good Slytherin should, my Lord."

"Hmm." He allowed the matter to drop, and Severus bit back the desire to sneer, ill at ease with the wizard's desire to go rooting through a witch's things while a fucking serial killer might well be wandering the castle. The incessant pulsing in his temple forced Severus to close his eyes, if only for a second, willing the pain to recede to manageable levels. When he opened his eyes again, Slytherin was watching him, a sick, pleased grin on his handsome face.

"We should not discount this being a distraction," Severus drawled, aiming to get Slytherin out of there. "It is odd, my Lord, that a wizard capable of breaching your protections would leave two unprotected children undisturbed. I can only imagine what his real aims must be…."

His vague suppositions were enough to redirect Slytherin's mind onto his own agenda, and though the wizard scoffed, he retreated swiftly enough, doubtlessly off to check that his own office and chambers hadn't been tampered with. Severus went to follow but paused to have a final look about, checking for any anomalies. He found none—but when his own pale hand passed over the latch on Potter's trunk, his fingers drew back perfectly fine. Severus stared at them and the trunk for several seconds, and then gathered himself, dousing the lantern on his way out.

x X x

"And you saw nothing which could conclusively say whether it was Black or not?"

"No, Albus. Nothing in the room had been visibly disturbed." Severus crossed his arms against his chest as they continued down the passage toward his office. An exhaustive search had been undertaken, but two hours of scouring the halls had—once again—turned up nothing. He wanted to blame Lupin for this farce—and he would discover how the mangy wolf was connected to this, he swore—but Lupin didn't know of the Horned Serpent, and didn't know the pass-phrase into the Slytherin common room. Deceitful knobhead he might be, but Lupin didn't have that kind of finesse.

Albus sighed, eyes downcast in thought. "All of the other students are accounted for and, according to Pomona and Filius, deep asleep in their beds. I've done what I can to keep this from the Ministry; the perceived threat against Mr. Longbottom provides Gaunt with enough leverage to keep the Dementors here, but if Black is thought to be attacking seemingly blameless third-years in Slytherin House, he will push for more Ministry presence."

Severus grunted. "Miss Black is his daughter. Already Lucius has told me there are mutterings in the Ministry speculating on their possible collusion. This incident would place undue suspicion on the brat."

"Yes, it would." They passed a torch, and the glow revealed the Headmaster's severe expression. "I must admit, my theories for Black's possible reasoning in breaching the wards and not violently attacking Miss Potter are very grim indeed, Severus."

Gritting his teeth, the Potions Master spat, "He knows, Dumbledore. He knows the Dark Lord went to Godric's Hollow and knows damn well he didn't overlook the girl. I was in the house, he came there, he—."

"Yes, Severus, you have told me this and I have taken it into consideration."

"Black has that knowledge we have sought to hide from the Wizarding world for over a decade. If he does not seek to slaughter the girl in his Master's name, then he will bring her to him!"

"But to do so, he would have to find Voldemort, and if he were able of finding Tom, we must ask ourselves why he is here in the first place. It is a pointless risk to remain in country."

"There are always whispers of the Dark Lord's whereabouts, Albus."

"Not conclusive whispers, my boy."

"No, but some are louder than others. Quirrell followed such a note into Albania, and look what happened to that fool." They stopped outside his office door, and Severus lowered his voice. "You are underestimating the Dark Lord's violence. Even the most ardent of his followers—those who haven't drifted to another camp in his absence—would not approach him without an offering of appeasement. Mark my words, Headmaster, if Black doesn't kill Harriet, he will drag her to the Dark Lord himself!"

Dumbledore grasped his arm, and only then did Severus register the fine tremble in his own hand, the thump of his heart against his ribs. Anger, he decided. I'm fucking angry.

Jerking free, Severus released the wards sealing the door and pushed it aside, allowing the Headmaster to walk in first. Black had apparently nodded off while they searched and now jolted upright in Severus' chair. Potter stopped stomping about and fixed the pair of adult wizards with a glare.

"What's happening?" she demanded. "Both Elara and I saw somebody in the room—and he hurt Livi! Was it Sirius Black? D'you catch him? Did—?"

Albus rested his hand on the girl's shoulder to slow the endless onslaught of her questions, and they conversed in soft, soothing tones while Severus strode over to his desk and eyed the unmoving reptile laid on its top. Potter's was the only Horned Serpent he'd ever seen, the creatures no longer being native to England and rare to boot, but he understood they reached a rather massive size and outlived wizards by a century at least. Potter's beast was already approaching two and a half meters in length, its angular head nearly as large as Severus' splayed hand.

At least she hasn't taken to wearing it as a bloody scarf quite so often, he thought, inspecting the serpent to ensure it really had only been Stunned. Possibly because it's getting bloody monstrous in size. He gave his wand a negligible flick, incanting, "Rennervate."

He hadn't accounted for the Horned Serpent being a wretched wild animal, and so when it writhed under Severus' hand and opened its confused blue eyes, it lunged at his face.

"Protego Serpens!"

The snake bounced off a whorl of vapor as Severus reeled, gasping, and collided with the shelves at his back. The ghost of fangs brushed against his throat. Jesus Christ!

"Sorry, Professor!" Potter dismissed her Shield and rushed to calm the furious, seething mass of wriggling coils on his desk. "He's—he didn't mean it, he's just scared—." She dwindled into ghoulish hissing, and he shivered. Dumbledore came to his side.

"Are you well, Severus?"

No, he was not well; he hadn't been well in fucking years! He'd just spent the better part of a winter night combing a Scottish castle for a serial killer, his migraine hadn't abated in the slightest, and he yet had several hours of toadying to Slytherin ahead of him. He wanted to sleep, for Merlin's sake. Severus shook Dumbledore's touch from his arm and slouched, well-aware of Black's inquisitive stare resting on the top of his bowed head.

Stupid brat, he thought viciously. Stupid brat and stupid, no-good cunt of a father.

"Harriet," Dumbledore said to the bespectacled girl. Potter looked around and stopped trying to dislodge the serpent from wrapping itself around her. "Does your familiar have any additional information for us? Did he perhaps see something you and Miss Black missed?"

"I—dunno, Headmaster," she replied, more hissing interspersed between the words. "He's—bloody hell, Livius, stop squeezing—I think he's a bit confused, and quite angry. He keeps mentioning the 'rat one,' but he gives people names like that all the time, and he changes it around. He changed Elara's name to the 'rude one' just the other day."

"I see." Dumbledore straightened, the bones in his back popping ever so slightly. "Well, as I said before, a search has been conducted and largely completed. We found nothing suspicious, and the rest of the students are tucked tight into their beds." The Headmaster forced a smile. "Now, for your safety, I have reached out to our mutual friend, and he readily agreed to take you both in for the remainder of the holiday."

Both witches brightened. "Mr. Flamel?" Potter asked.

"Yes. Nicolas should be waiting for us in my office as we speak. Let's move along and meet him, shall we?"

"But, Professor, what about our things?"

"Never fear, they'll be sent after you in the morning. Now, come along."

Severus followed their odd grouping, though he couldn't say why, really. He found himself walking again for some reason, trailing Dumbledore, and didn't stir until he felt the warmth of a hearth near him, a curly-haired wizard rising from one of the Headmaster's comfortable guest chairs to greet the young witches in cheery French. Usually, seeing the world's foremost scholar in alchemical science and potion creation would have garnered more of Severus' attention, but he could barely bring himself to look at the man. A sense of relief had filled him the instant Dumbledore said Potter would be leaving, and that relief had robbed Severus of the adrenaline that had been keeping him upright so far.

He was bone-weary.

A hand tugged on his sleeve, and Severus blinked, glancing around to find Potter at his side, still

holding her ridiculous snake, green eyes wide and focused on his own. "You're bleeding, Professor. Livi didn't bite you, did he? I thought I caught him fast enough."

Severus swiped at his cheek and, sure enough, blood had begun to gather and well in the corner of his left eye like teardrops. The red smear stood out stark on his shaking hand. He bowed his head, allowing his limp black hair to swing forward and hide his face from view. "Mind your own business, Potter."

Flamel recalled Potter to him, his arm coming to settle on the girl's short, narrow shoulders. A sweet wrapper and a burst of blue light saw the trio off via one of Albus' illegal Portkeys—and silence descended in their passage, the Headmaster sinking into his chair while Severus propped his elbow on the mantel and rubbed at his bloodied, painful eye. The portraits on the wall remained silent observers, as did the phoenix waiting on his golden perch.

What a night.

"Sometimes I wonder," Dumbledore said, in a voice so soft the fire nearly masked it even from Severus' keen ears. "I wonder if it would have been better had she gone to Beauxbatons."

"Albus?"

The older wizard sighed and looked at him. "I wonder if young Harriet would be safer there, happier. If, by sending her farther away, would I remove her from danger—or simply abandon her to dangers unknown? Would I be sparing the child to only kill the young woman she is becoming? Because Harriet's destiny is as bound to her and she is to it, and I do not know if it is crueler to allow her ignorance or to take it away from her."

"You could send the girl to Siberia, and she'd end up getting pummeled by a Yeti. It's from the Potter infesting her blood."

Dumbledore chuckled. "Perhaps. Though truth be told, I don't often see much of James in dear Harriet. Poor boy was rather…."

"Arrogant?" Severus supplied, though it lacked bite. He was too tired to have a go at James Potter, the tosser. "Foolish? Thick-headed?"

"Ignorant, I would guess," Dumbledore continued. "Not with willingness or malice, but we were all quite ignorant then. Blissfully so."

Severus shoved off the mantel and turned his wounded side from the Headmaster, lip curling. The first tentative breaths of light had begun to herald the dawn beyond the tower's windows, fatigue like a hairshirt growing tighter and tighter over Severus' chest. "As much as I'd love to reminiscent about James bloody Potter all day, I've other places to be, Albus. Other egos to assuage."

The older wizard turned to survey the windows and the light that came so begrudgingly over the frozen horizon. "So you do. Be careful, Severus. Be watchful."

"I always am."

A/N: Next chapter goes completely off canon. Should be fun!

Albus: "Severus, why does your nightshirt say 'Do Not Resuscitate'?"

Snape: "It was on a discount."

Narrator: "This was a lie."

Poor Severus didn't get to fangirl over meeting Nicolas Flamel.

the garden

cxxxi. the garden

The gentle rocking motion of the train's movement lulled Harriet back into wakefulness.

The compartment was bigger than those of the Hogwarts Express and rather more delicate in appearance, the brass fixtures adorned with extra filigree or lavish Fleur-de-lis, the bench extra- wide and padded with creme colored leather. Elara had curled up on the other end, invisible under a conjured blanket, and Livius had laid himself down next to an iron receptacle holding a very fat yellow salamander. Mr. Flamel had used metal tongs to feed it burning coals until the magical creature refused any more treats and went to sleep, filling the compartment with a pleasant heat.

The alchemist sat across from Harriet, his chin balanced on the heel of his palm as he leaned an elbow against the window sill and watched the drab landscape pass them by. He'd seemed preoccupied for the entire trip.

Professor Dumbledore's Portkey had taken them to London, to the Leaky Cauldron, a distance far enough to nearly level Harriet and Elara, and even Mr. Flamel had appeared peaky after enduring so much magical travel that evening. After Transfiguring both witches a pair of temporary robes and shoes, they went to Kings Cross Station, where they crossed the barrier onto Platform Seven and One-Quarter and boarded an emerald train bound for the continent. Mr. Flamel hadn't been in country when he'd received the Headmaster's urgent missive, which meant he—and by extension, Elara and Harriet—had a considerable distance to cover before they returned to his second home.

Harriet shifted, untucking her legs from underneath herself, and Mr. Flamel stirred from wherever his thoughts had taken him. He smiled. "Good morning, Harriet."

"Morning," she replied, though a glance out the window showed it'd been daylight for some hours now, the flat, Muggle lands outside of Paris having given way to rolling hills made dark and dim by the season. "Are we almost there?"

"Oh, nearly. We'll be in the Wizarding quarter of Toulouse soon. Perenelle will be waiting at the station."

"Thank you for coming to get us all the way from Hogwarts."

"Pas de quoi, il n'y a pas de quoi."

Harriet turned to peer out the window, watching with curiosity as the landscape changed kilometer by kilometer, more structures becoming apparent the closer they got to the city. This was the farthest she'd ever been from home—though her first trip from London all the way to Hogsmeade had been much more nerve-wracking than this venture. Harriet had roused when they'd pull into different stations along the way, the conductor's French voice filtering through the train, and she'd watched witches and wizards disembarking, greeting family members or disappearing into Floos. Most of the stations had been decorated for Yule, cheerful tidings written in tinsel and golden baubles.

"Harriet?"

"Mmm?"

Mr. Flamel studied her for a moment. "Did you see ze man who was in your dormitory?"

Harriet frowned as she considered the question, pulling on the hazy images from the night before. Already it seemed as if it'd happened so long ago when it'd been less than ten hours. "I—kind of. I didn't imagine him; I know he was there, but I…well, I have a lot of bad dreams, so at first, I thought I was just dreaming again when I saw the shadow against the curtains. Then, Elara saw him, and saw him more solidly than I did, though neither of us could make out much in the dark." Harriet shrugged one shoulder. "So we can't say for sure it was Sirius Black, but it's not as if there're many blokes sneaking about the castle in the dead of night, are there?"

"No, I would not think there are."

The salamander made a plaintive noise and belched ash. Livi opened his eyes to glare at the lizard before quitting the floor in favor of Harriet's lap. They sat in amiable quiet until they neared their destination, at which point it proved pertinent to wake Elara, who was as irritable and surly as she ever was in the early morning. Mr. Flamel reapplied the Transfigurations to their clothes when the train stopped, and they exited onto the platform.

The station was on the River Garonne, hidden from the Muggles, nestled among the rose terracotta buildings, smelling faintly of something fishy wafting up from the water lapping at the brick foundation. It was cold and a bit humid, but the sun was out and the station blissfully free of snow. Perenelle was waiting just as Mr. Flamel said she would be, and the older witch was quick to leave the bench she'd been sitting on when she spotted the trio of travelers leaving the emerald train.

"'Arriet! Elara!" she called, embracing them both in turn—Harriet choking when she nearly got the life squeezed from her. "Oh, my sweet girls, 'ow are you?"

"We're okay, promise."

Perenelle looked them over, from their untidy hair to tired faces, blue eyes lingering on the smudge of blood staining Harriet's Transfigured nightgown. The wound underneath had scabbed over, though it stung when she twisted the wrong way. "Quelle horreur! Nicolas, have you Transfigured their clothes? Was there no time to change?"

"Non, ma moitié. Albus is to send their things on to ze house for Bigsby to handle."

Perenelle muttered something French and distinctly upset as she drew Harriet and Elara each under an arm. Elara was nearly taller than her by now, but Perenelle still managed. "Come along, then. We need to visit ze Jardin."

"Ah, Perenelle, do you think it is best—?"

"Oui!" she replied with unexpected heat. "It is past morning, and zey must be famished. We must visit the Jardin."

Sighing, Mr. Flamel relented—not that he'd tried very hard—and came closer. "Very well. You had best come with me, Monsieur Livius. I believe it best if you had your hands free, Harriet…."

At Perenelle's insistence, they left the station, stepping off as if to head toward the Muggle streets —but Mr. Flamel led them straight toward a gray stone arch waiting at the end of the sidewalk. It looked very old—much older than the more trendy shops lining the avenue, wider than an average doorway but not much taller. None of the Muggles seemed to take any of note of it, walking around it as if bouncing off an invisible ward, and as she got closer, Harriet could read the words,

"L'allée Du Jardin" chiseled into the stone.

Passing under the arch, Harriet felt magic tingle on her skin—and before her eyes, the street swelled and parted like a pattern in a kaleidoscope, the Muggle outlets and lanes getting shoved apart from one another as tall, stately buildings crowded into place, cobbled stones rolling out like a carpet, a wide canal fringed in grass going right down the middle. Chestnut trees sprung from the earth, rising higher and higher until the whole of the new, revealed district fell under the shade of those bare, winter branches.

Harriet gawked like a shameless tourist at the narrow little borough that had just appeared, turning around to look at the arch behind her. It was as if they'd entered some kind of parallel realm only magical beings could see, and Harriet watched with amusement as the Muggles bounced off the invisible walls and walked around the buildings. Those witches and wizards exiting the settlement got frustrated by the oblivious people bumping into them.

"What is this place?" Harriet asked, glancing up at Perenelle. She smiled.

"Ze call it The Garden. It's the second-largest Wizarding commune in France, the bigger one being Paris—but I have always been fond of zis one. It is very charming."

Harriet could see that; it reminded her of Diagon Alley in some ways, except the buildings stood up a tad straighter, cleaner, their deportment and displays more subtle in their design. It was also more extensive and, from what she could tell, contained a greater mix of residential and commercial buildings, some witches or wizards sitting out on their balconies to enjoy a late morning meal, others out peddling their wares. Two-wheeled carts propelled themselves along the road, carrying passengers reading the paper or chatting with one another, and at the end of the row waited a tall, black building that looked something like a stable, the horses inside the stalls ranging from small to absolutely mammoth in size—all of them winged. Signs above the stalls listed different prices and cities; the largest, palomino-looking horses had places farther east posted; Harriet noticed the word Bantiaumyrddin written above one of the middling gray steeds. As she stared, a man got into a carriage connected to one of the horses—and it took off like a Muggle aeroplane.

"'Arriet, zis way."

Startled, Harriet returned to her group, Perenelle taking her hand so she didn't wander off again as they crossed the canal on a stone bridge. Their first stop was a magical tailor, a skinny bloke with a thin mustache and too much product in his hair who all but bent over backward to serve the Flamels, though Harriet swore he looked at her and Elara like they were strange, grubby little English urchins someone had plucked off the streets. When they left the shop, Harriet had on a sage blouse and a charcoal pleated skirt, golden threads of ivy growing and shifting from the stitches of her collar. Elara had clothes similar to what she usually wore—a white shirt, black skirt, black robes with silver fastenings. Harriet had to admit she felt better, being out of her night things, now properly washed and dressed.

Mrs. Flamel led them to a patisserie after that, and Harriet ate far too many delicate, sweet pastries, her appetite returning with a vengeance after they were seated at a table outside in the sunshine and the last vestiges of the night's tension began to bleed away. Even Mr. Flamel appeared more himself after a few cups of coffee, relaxing into his chair, not seeming to mind the overlarge snake looped about his shoulders who kept stealing petit fours from his plate. Perenelle looked a bit more dubious about Livi, and Harriet quietly reminded her familiar to be on his best behavior.

After eating, Mr. Flamel pressed a purse of golden Bezants into Elara's hand and allowed them to explore on their own.

"Stay together, oui? Meet back here in a few hours."

"Yes, sir."

"'Arriet, take your cloak. It gets cold quickly zis close to the mountains."

"Okay."

Harriet grabbed said cloak from the back of her chair and ran off with Elara, slowing into a walk when they reached the grass by the canal, and both witches paused to glance into the clear water below.

"A strange turn of our holiday, isn't it?" Elara said as if commenting on the weather.

Harriet guffawed. "Definitely. Merlin, I can't believe we're all the way in bloody France now— speaking of which, we need to go to a stationery shop." At Elara's curious look, Harriet explained. "Hermione has the Marauder's Map and will see we're not there anymore. We need to write to her as soon as we can so she doesn't panic."

They didn't find a stationery shop, but they did find the post office, the old witch behind the counter looking on with interest as they paid for the parchment but then used Hugh instead of an owl to send the missive. That finished, they set out to explore The Garden proper. It seemed to go on forever—much farther than they'd be able to venture in few hours, side streets splintering away from the main boulevard, an actual forest and immaculate flower garden located smack in the middle of the district proper. At one point, the canal returned to the River Garonne, and both Harriet and Elara failed to make sense of how magic managed to redirect the Muggle boats. It was fascinating.

Despite the welcome distraction of being away from Hogwarts, their problems continued to lurk in the back of their minds; even here, the occasional poster of Sirius Black's mugshot glared from an alley wall, and the sight of him made Harriet's blood boil.

On one of the little side streets, Harriet stumbled upon a shop with curious glass spheres in the display, the name "Verre de Verid" neatly stenciled on the facia. Inside she found row upon row of cluttered shelves burdened with glass pieces—some decorative, some practical, some magical, and some not. Sunlight came through the front window and shone through a spinning mobile of clear lenses, the light revealing moving images of landscapes and scenery that reflected over the walls and floor. Harriet didn't think much of them at first, until she came back around to the stand, picking one of the loose lenses up from its box. It was smaller than her palm, slightly convex, and encircled in a slim brass ring.

"C'est interesting, non?" the proprietor asked, his English sparse and his accent thick as molasses. "It works wiz, ah, une copie? Zis vélin here."

He showed her a book of bound vellum—familiar vellum, the kind that came from a magical creature she didn't know, the kind she'd seen on Rowena Ravenclaw's desk—and copied onto the vellums were the various scenes she could see recreated in the glass. Harriet held the clear lens in her hand, thumb tracing the brass edge warmed by her skin, and she considered it for a moment longer before making a decision. She left with three of the lenses carefully folded into a soft cloth and bag, shrunken in her cloak pocket, joined by a roll of vellum.

"You have a look about you that says you're planning something neither me nor Hermione will very much like."

Harriet stuck out her tongue. "You'll just have to wait and see."

They returned to the Flamels, who didn't look as if they'd left the patisserie at all in the intervening hours, though Mr. Flamel had swapped coffee for wine and his pipe, Perenelle reading the local paper. He looked up as they approached. "Ready to leave?"

"Yes, sir."

The four of them departed, Mr. Flamel Side-Along Apparating Harriet and Elara somewhere else —somewhere much colder and more drafty. Gone white as a ghost, Elara dropped his arm and sicked up in the nearest bush, Perenelle rushing over to tuck back her hair and rub her back. Even Harriet, who was much less prone to queasiness, felt lightheaded and wobbly.

"It is because of the altitude," Mr. Flamel explained as he patted her arm. "We are not terribly far from ze Jardin, but we are much higher in the mountains now."

The Flamels' French chateau proved much grander and more sprawling than their more humble home in Trefhud, and yet Harriet needed only a brief tour of the property to understand neither Nicolas nor Perenelle had made much use of the house in recent years. A veneer of neglect and age hung about the place, and under the crisp, winter snow, it just seemed…tired, drowsy. She sometimes wondered what happened to magical properties that got abandoned, and Harriet thought they became something like that chateau; preserved, but eerie, empty in a way that couldn't be quantified by the number of people or things inside its rooms. Overall, despite receiving her own room and enjoying the space to roam, Harriet much preferred the house in Devonshire.

As the sun dipped into the rocky white peaks of the Pyrenees, they enjoyed supper in the kitchen, the environment there more congenial than it would be in the formal dining room. Bigsby puttered about, muttering lovingly to the dishes he set out before he beat a quick retreat to goodness knows where. Harriet would never get used to the eccentricities of house-elves. Both she and Elara had tried to get Kreacher to eat at the table with them—and then he'd threatened to disembowel them in their sleep if they ever tried again.

"Is there a reason you're in France at this time of year?" Elara asked. She wasn't a numpty; like Harriet, she probably realized the locale seemed an odd choice to winter in, no matter its inherent grandeur and beauty.

"Business, I fear," Mr. Flamel responded, ladling English stew into a wooden bowl, passing it to Harriet. "Some things are best to not put off, oui? Procrastinating is a terrible habit."

Whatever business the Flamels had, he didn't specify, but Harriet assumed they'd either find out during their stay or it wasn't for them to know. They ate their meal, chattering on about school and projects and their interests—always avoiding any touchy topics, never once mentioning Sirius Black or the person who'd tried to attack them in the dormitory. It confused Harriet because Mr. Flamel had never been one to shy away from difficult conversations, always ready to lend his advice and wisdom to whatever problem she presented him. It was later, after Elara had gone on to bed and Harriet had lingered in the kitchen to help Bigsby clean up the dishes, when she discovered the reason behind his reticence.

Bigsby shooed her from the room once she'd rinsed the last plate, and Harriet went gladly enough, more tired than she wanted to admit and ready to fall into her pillow. The Flamels had retired to the lounge, the door left slightly ajar, and as Harriet crossed the thin stripe of yellow light piercing the hall's shadows, she heard raised voices coming from inside.

"—iz untenable, Nicolas! Idiotie. I do not know what Albus is thinking."

She paused and, against her better judgment, leaned closer to listen. Harriet couldn't see either Nicolas or Perenelle, but she could hear them well enough, their conversation joined by the slow, somber crackling of a lit fire.

"Ah, Perenelle," Mr. Flamel sighed, voice muffled as if he'd dragged his hand over his face. "You know it iz not Albus' fault—."

"Non? I do not care. I do not seek to place blame—il n'est pas utile!" Perenelle huffed, throwing herself into a chair. "Ze are children! And ze crimes committed against them! Abuse, Nicolas! Abuse! Poisoned, and harassed, and—and torturé." She said the word like it was a vile, wretched thing. It angered Harriet because she certainly hadn't told the Flamels about— that. "Pas de famille! What madness grips Poudlard!"

"I know, ma moitié."

"Do you?"

"It is dark times for everyone; it is felt here, too, not just in England. Not just in Poudlard."

"And I am to satisfy myself with that, am I?" Perenelle shifted and rattled off a string of agitated French. "They should go to Beauxbatons. It would take but a word, and Olympe would take zem gladly. Brilliant, beautiful girls they are."

Mr. Flamel snorted, sounding defeated. "Zey do not speak French, my love."

"Et c'est important? They could learn! They could learn much more if they were not constantly afraid for their lives!"

"We discussed this in the summer. It would do no good."

Glass clattered on wood like a cup being set down too hard. "'Ow can you say that?"

"I know you are upset, but—."

"Oui, I am upset! You are dragged out of bed before the dawn because a—a monster has crept into their chambre, and you expect me to not be upset? Mon Dieu, Nicolas—in zer room! 'Ow can you say that?"

"Because ze danger does not exist in Poudlard alone; it exists in 'Arriet, and so long as some piece of Tom Riddle keeps breathing, she will be in danger. No matter where she goes."

"We will take zem in."

"We cannot."

"Why?"

"Because it would not be fair." The first brush of anger entered Mr. Flamel's tone, and Harriet shifted in discomfort, shocked. "We cannot uproot their lives like zis, Perenelle! It would not be fair to them. Not…not when there is so little left. Le moissonneur réclame son dû."

Harriet could discern no further conversation after that, only a soft, hopeless muttering of French that had her heart clenching in sadness. She quietly departed from the hall, heading up the steps to her own room past Elara's, letting the door come closed behind her. Bigsby had made up the big bed in fresh linens, and the smell of lilac filled the air, the hearth dark but for the smoldering of

low, burnt-out coals. The curtains remained wide, revealing the white, somnolent valley sprawled out beneath the cliffs the chateau perched upon, and as Harriet stood there taking in the view, she allowed herself to think on what had happened the night before.

Somebody—a man—had been in her bedroom, and she didn't know how she felt about that. Bad, of course, but beyond that, Harriet had a certain disquiet in her middle, an unease that stemmed from thinking about a person standing over her while she slept unawares and not knowing what they were doing. It was one of those subjects her mind shied away from—but even Aunt Petunia, as much as she despised Harriet—had drilled into her skull all the stories about nasty perverts and predators, and how Harriet needed to stay away from strangers who tried to lure her off. She hated that the thought of returning home to her dormitory now made her uncomfortable.

Listening to the Flamels argue had made her uncomfortable, too.

What had happened scared her, more so than the vague notion of a serial killer possibly wanting to murder her—whether that killer be Black or Voldemort. Because while that was a scary thing to consider, this person had been in her room, present and there, and she didn't know why.

Harriet didn't have Hermione's knack for visualizing and articulating problems, but she was far from an idiot. Something about the situation didn't make sense; Black was mad by all accounts, had taken a knife to the Fat Lady guarding Gryffindor Tower like a raving loony. It was all—bold, crazed, but the person who'd been in the dormitory? He'd snuck in—and Merlin be damned, Harriet had no bloody clue how he'd managed that—had somehow gotten into the room, had surprised Livius, had known about her Horned Serpent in the first place, and had moved as if to pull the curtains, ostensibly to attack Harriet while she slept. If she were to place herself in the shoes of a madman, Harriet wouldn't have bothered with any of that. She would have caught the linens on fire or something.

It was Sirius Black…wasn't it?

The moon rose higher and shed its light on the valley below. For a long while, Harriet remained at the window and stared out at the cold, barren wilderness. She could still hear Mr. Flamel's quiet, broken words in her ears, and Harriet thought she might hear them for years to come.

A/N: Y'know, my original intention was to have the Flamels be much more minor in their roles. Oops.

Flamel: "….what are you hiding under your cloak?"

Perenelle: "………"

Flamel: "……you can't kidnap the children."

Perenelle: "You are literally no fun."

a happy thought

cxxxii. a happy thought

Passing by Harriet's nightstand, Elara came to a sudden halt.

"Harriet."

"Hmm?" the shorter witch acknowledged.

"Why am I counting three snakes here?"

Harriet pulled her head out of her trunk to look at Elara and then at the three snakes curled around the magically heated stone now residing on the nightstand. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"About that." She pointed a finger at the banana-colored creature sitting between Kevin and Rick. It was bigger than the other two and appeared more like a small constrictor than a viper or a grass snake.

"I've always had three snakes."

"Yes, three snakes in total—and now you've four in total, including the monster you keep under your bed."

"Hmm, I don't know. I think you miscounted."

"You cheeky thing." Elara sighed, allowing the curious yellow snake to inspect her fingers, though she kept her hand well away from Kevin, the lousy little biter. "What's his name?"

"…Howard."

"Let me guess; you sneaked him off the table at Yule?"

"…maybe."

"How'd you manage that? I didn't see—and Snape didn't throw a fit, so I imagine he didn't see either."

Harriet found the shoe she sought and shoved her foot into it, rising to brush the dust from the seat of her trousers. "If I could sneak food off the table before Dudley's piggy little eyes spotted it, getting a snake past Snape is no problem." She fixed her hair back from her face in a lopsided knot, coming over to pet her growing menagerie of creepy critters. "D'you want to hold him? He's much friendlier than the others, I promise."

Elara didn't really wish to hold the snake, but she accepted it when Harriet gently tipped Howard into her cupped hands, surprised to find it pleasantly warm and pliant, his tiny pink tongue flicking in her direction.

"Hermione's going to have kittens," she said as they left the bedroom, the sound of the heavy door

shutting echoing in the long, barren corridor. Elara held Howard close to her middle, and he didn't struggle, remaining still. "She already couldn't believe Mr. Flamel got you that dead crow pet last summer."

"First of all, Hugh's not a pet. I don't even have to feed him!"

"I've seen you give him treats before."

"Well, yes. Of course I have to give him treats. Don't be silly."

"Yes, pardon me for being silly. How preposterous; of course the dead crow needs treats."

They climbed the stairs, footsteps snapping against the bare stone, sunlight pouring in through the chateau's wide windows. The snow on the grounds had thinned somewhat, but the wind had picked up in its stead, and Elara knew even the best Warming Charms would be hard-pressed to keep out the chill.

There was a dueling hall on the third floor, or what had been a dueling hall in the past, now reduced to a simple, narrow room with a large hearth on either end, marks on the floor where a platform used to be, the walls mottled with old battle scars. It was a bit drafty and cool, but it warmed quickly when they moved wood from a rack and lit a fire. Mr. Flamel had shown it to them on their first afternoon there, a knowing tip to his smile as he watched Harriet inspect the room.

They chatted about nothing consequential, Elara sitting on the window sill nearest the hearth, legs stretched and crossed at the ankles, while Harriet rolled up the sleeves of her buttoned shirt. Elara had slept poorly the last two nights with the Flamels, and given the dark smudges under Harriet's green eyes, she assumed the other witch hadn't slept well either. There was a nervous, bothered energy about her that she tried very hard to cover up.

Harriet pursed her lips, tapping her wand against her open palm as she focused on the far wall. She moved her arm in a practiced motion and gave the wand a small, sharp flick at the end. "Expecto Patronum!"

Nothing happened.

"Bollucks."

Elara allowed Howard to fall through her hands to settle on her lap, the dozy snake content to coil up upon himself in the slight dip formed by her legs. He was rather cute, not that Elara would say so to Harriet. God forbid she encouraged her animal hoarding. "Is that the incantation for the Patronus, then?"

"Yeah, according to Snape." Harriet grimaced and closed her eyes, then tried the incantation again. Nothing occurred. "He said I need to have a 'happy thought.'"

Elara blinked—as it occurred to her that she'd seen Snape cast the Patronus at least twice, once in their first year, and again last summer, which meant the bleak, miserable wizard had happy thoughts. It was…odd to consider, but Snape was nothing if not odd. She'd been under the impression that Dark wizards could not cast the Patronus; Harriet had said as much after her run-in with Slytherin, and Snape's words at the end of their second year had intimated his own connection to the Dark Arts.

Maybe that wasn't a proper Patronus? Elara considered, running one finger over Howard's long back, tracing his meandering coils. Or he is not as Dark as Slytherin. Interesting.

Harriet sighed, then stretched, Elara grimacing at the loud popping of her spine. She dropped into a dueling stance, fired two hexes at the far wall, twisted, and threw a third. Elara had always admired Harriet's grace with spell-casting, but her ability truly shone in Defense, lacking the hesitancy Elara saw in others and in herself. Hermione usually mastered a spell first in their trio—but that was through research, studying, and compiled knowledge, whereas Harriet simply relied on instinct and the 'feel' of an incantation, as she put it. Elara knew it infuriated Hermione to no end.

Closing her eyes, Harriet took a deep breath, then another. In a softer voice, she said, "Expecto Patronum."

A silver mist warbled from the end of her wand, there and gone, fast a summer rain shower, and Harriet gasped when it vanished, shaking herself from head to foot. Color flushed her cheeks, and sweat began to build at her temples.

"That was something," Elara commented, petting Howard. He licked her finger. "What was your happy thought, then?"

"I—the first time I flew," Harriet responded. She cleared her throat and appeared somewhat disoriented, casting puzzled looks at the wand in her hand. "Back in first year. Seemed a happy enough moment to think about."

"You need something more substantial, apparently."

Harriet dragged a hand through her mussed fringe. "But that's the thing; I don't know how Snape —or anyone else, I guess—does it. I don't…understand what he meant by happy. Well, his exact words were 'the encapsulation of sheer, unfettered joy ,'" Harriet made a passable attempt of mimicking Snape's deep, drawling baritone. "Every time I think I might know what he means, that I might have a good thought, I just—I remember shite attached to it, and nothing seems as happy as it did before."

"Maybe you need more than one thought, something like a compilation of those smaller instances running together to prolong the feeling."

"I'm not sure. I don't know if I can do it—and really, I'm more worried about what happens when we have to go back. Will I have to ride the carriage past that bloody Dementor again? That's a nightmare waiting to happen." Harriet exhaled through her nose, frustrated. "Bugger it. Wanna duel?"

"No."

"Aw, why not?"

"I don't want to get dirty."

"Why would you get dirty?"

"Because, you always end up cursing me off my feet when we practice."

"See, that just means you need more practice, not less."

"No."

Harriet got a mischievous look about her, and Elara pointed her wand at the other witch in warning. Huffing, Harriet finally turned to the wall again and commenced practicing on her own, which lasted until she grew bored and began experimenting. She kept on testing the elasticity of different

spells on the stone until one bounced back right into her face, resulting in a pair of broken glasses and a spectacular bloody nose. Setting Howard aside, Elara rushed to get one of the adults from downstairs and returned with Mr. Flamel.

"There, now," the wizard said as he set Harriet's nose and siphoned the blood from her shirt. "No more of zat. We have somewhere to be this evening, and the black eyes might be a little much, oui?"

"Where are we going?" Elara asked as Mr. Flamel repaired Harriet's glasses and returned them to their perch on the girl's face. Despite fixing her nose, Harriet would definitely have black eyes later.

"Beauxbatons," Mr. Flamel replied, casual as could be. Both Elara and Harriet gawked.

"Wait—what, the school? Beauxbatons?"

"Yes. Perenelle and I have—well, you know, business with their Board, and so we have been invited to dinner." He patted Harriet's head. "Zer won't be much time for exploring, but it should be fun, yes?"

xXx

At precisely seven o'clock that evening, Elara drank half of an antiemetic potion and took the Floo with Perenelle to the Headmistress' office at Beauxbatons. The Headmistress herself—a towering woman named Madame Maxime who clearly had giant parentage—was there to greet them, vigorously shaking Mr. Flamel's hand as they spoke in rapid French.

"And 'ere we have Harriet—." Mr. Flamel touched Harriet's shoulder, the short witch doing an amiable job of not gawking at the woman's incredible height. Perenelle had spent an hour wrangling her hair into a neat French plait, but one curl had already managed to escape, standing up atop her head like a cowlick. "And this is Elara."

"Bonjour, Headmistress."

"Bonsoir, Madame Maxime." Elara didn't miss how Mr. Flamel had failed to give their surnames.

"Enchanté de faire votre connaissance," the Headmistress replied with a polite bow of her head. "Poudlard students, Nicolas? Où les avez-vous trouvés?"

Mr. Flamel chuckled, fond, and smiled. "Ah, it is a long story."

Both Elara and Harriet remained quiet as they followed Madame Maxime and the Flamels from her office through a portrait into the school beyond.

In some ways, Beauxbatons appeared a lot like Hogwarts. They hadn't seen the outside of the school, of course, but the halls and corridors looked to be made of the same ancient, dark stone, undoubtedly hewn from the mountains surrounding them, and magic hung thick as mist in the air, chasing a chill down Elara's spine. Even the view of the grounds appeared something like the highlands of northern Scotland if taken in at certain angles.

The similarities ended there. For want of a better word, Elara simply thought Beauxbatons looked

rich. Hogwarts had a storied mien to it, an element of care and practicality carefully etched into the foundations—and that, too, existed here at the French academy, but it hid beneath a very, very thick veneer of gold and marble, crystal and delicate embellishments. Hogwarts had statues of notable alumni made of dark granite, while Beauxbatons had busts and immense, soaring scenes chiseled from limestone limned in silver or bronze or precious, glittering gemstones. Plants had a notable presence here, white-barked trees fashioned to grow in the middle of the wide corridors, baby's breath and angel's trumpets hanging from glass planters on the walls, the staircases made grand and sweeping into spirals like those of a nautilus shell. Where Hogwarts would use torches, Beauxbatons had quartz chandeliers and rune-lamps—and Elara would eat her hat if this place had anything comparable to the dark, damp dungeons back home.

She didn't like it.

Elara couldn't say why, exactly, and she wasn't usually at a loss for words. Beauxbatons did not lack for beauty or sheer, impressive drama, but something of its grandeur felt frivolous to her. The magic got lost somewhere in the pomp, and it didn't call to Elara, not the way Hogwarts did with its long, dusty corridors, brooding ghosts, and ancient mysteries, a rightness that resonated in her bones. Maybe she simply wasn't used to the magic here, out of tune like a violin with its strings drawn too tight. Elara felt quite out of place—which was ridiculous, and the idea almost had her laughing when she considered her own vast fortune interned in the vaults below London. Elara— and Harriet, for that matter—were probably two of the most well-off witches at Hogwarts or magical Britain, and still, they resembled paupers when confronted with the vastness of Beauxbatons' wealth.

The school's Dining Chamber continued the theme of garrulous glamour, the largest chandelier Elara had ever seen hanging from the gilded ceiling's middle. The students that remained for break sat dispersed among a few dozen circular tables draped in white cloth, their school uniforms colored a pale, sky-blue, all of them chatting over their suppers, snatches of French and Spanish and German reaching Elara's ears. Each table bore an ice sculpture, the frozen shapes gleaming like beings carved from pure diamond, and from somewhere in the room lilted an infernal melody that set Elara's teeth on edge, not liking the feeling of unseen eyes pressing against her back.

A soft snort dragged her attention back to earth, and Elara met Harriet's amused look. "What is it?"

"D'you remember when Hermione told us Flamel attended the Académie de Magie Beauxbâtons and said he was its biggest patron?"

"Yes, I believe so. Why?"

"It never occurred to me how big of a patron a man who could turn anything to gold actually was."

Ah, Elara thought, looking at the Dining Chamber in a new light, wondering what it had appeared like back when Mr. Flamel was a boy and the Philosopher's Stone was still a distant dream. Probably a lot less gaudy. One of their history books had made a passing remark on Nicolas Flamel once unbalancing the French economy some centuries ago, and Elara caught the wizard's almost sheepish look when he glanced in their direction.

Like at Hogwarts, the staff ate in the same room as their students, but instead of a dais, the staff table resided on an upper balcony, given an unrivaled view of the tables below and the mountains outside the tall, statuesque windows. The Flamels were well-liked, received with cheers, applause, and kissed cheeks once they cleared the top of the steps leading to the balcony, Elara and Harriet briefly introduced and then summarily dismissed as uninteresting English girls. That suited them just fine, as they couldn't make sense of anything being said among the adults. The Beauxbatons students had risen to their feet as soon as they entered the chamber, and only once Madame

Maxime took her place at the long table's head did they drop into their chairs again.

Seated at the other end of the table between Perenelle and Mr. Flamel, Elara placed her gloved hands together in her lap, and Harriet fidgeted with her black dress robes, discomfited by the presence of so many strangers. New dishes appeared before them, some kind of garnished soup steaming in front of Elara, though her stomach flip-flopped about when she thought about having to Floo back to the chateau later in the evening.

"Nicolas, adopted some strays, have you?" a short, plump wizard with a black goatee and a Spanish accent asked Mr. Flamel.

"Non, non, Maxwell. 'Arriet and Elara are simply staying with us for their holiday before returning to their studies."

The wizard grunted in acknowledgment, inspecting the two witches. "Hogwarts students, are you?"

Elara nodded. "Yes, sir."

"How is old Albus doing? Haven't heard from him recently."

"Headmaster Dumbledore is well, as far as we know."

"We should be seeing 'im zis summer," Madame Maxime commented, having heard their brief conversation. "Pour les arrangements du Tournoi."

"Ah, of course…."

Elara's jaw ticked, finding their sudden switch out of English rather rude, all things considered. She did wonder what "Tourney arrangements" Professor Dumbledore would be assisting with and whether or not she and Harriet were meant to be privy to that information. Her face remained passive as she spooned soup into her mouth. It tasted of onions and cheese.

As dinner commenced, Elara moved food around on her plate without eating it, more interested in reading the dynamic in the room, which circulated around Mr. and Mrs. Flamel. There was respect in abundance and a certain sense of sycophancy, mainly from a witch and a wizard who sat nearest Mr. Flamel, the pair overly perfumed and wearing too much jewelry. Elara hadn't caught their names and didn't wish to know; she rightly assumed they must head Beauxbatons' Board of Governors, and if there was one person the Board wanted to keep happy, it would be the man who must have financed half of the school's renovations.

The meal wound down, the professors and staff either taking their leave or remaining to smoke or drink and chat. The smell began to agitate Elara's allergies, so their sudden polite dismissal from the table to go explore the garden couldn't have come at a better time. Besides, Harriet appeared dreadfully bored and was prone to the worst kind of mischief when bored. That Maxwell wizard might end up wearing his bouillabaisse as a hat if he wasn't careful.

They rose from their chairs, and Perenelle took Harriet gently by the wrist before she could dash off and tugged her closer.

"Do not wander too far," she said, fastening the silver clasp on Harriet's cloak shut. "Stay to ze jardin, and stay together, oui?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Elara appreciated the motherly sentiment behind Perenelle's warning, and yet it also amused her,

because Harriet might have only been thirteen, but she'd toured the English countryside on her own and had stood against a furious Basilisk larger than a bus; getting lost in Beauxbatons was minor in comparison.

The two Slytherin witches climbed down the stairs and departed through the wide double doors opening directly into what Elara gathered was loosely called "the garden." It was a garden, perfectly flat and manicured, enclosed in tidy, clipped hedges, though it extended far into the distance and around the building, seeming more and more like a park the longer Elara studied it in the moonlight. She and Harriet finally managed to get a glimpse of Beauxbatons itself, and it glittered like an open orange, bright and glistening with light, more like a palace than a castle.

Elara saw Harriet staring at the single, rounded tower at the palace's edge, the square windows hooded by stone gables and carved leaves. An outer colonnade stood silhouetted against the night, braziers blazing from atop their stone tops. Beyond that, the tip of a fountain could be seen over the rolling foliage, lit by magic illumination glinting off the golden spigot.

"It's hard to believe this is a school," Harriet commented, and Elara scoffed.

"It's very ostentatious."

"Oh, Hermione would love it. She goes on about the art museums her parents used to take her to when she was younger, and that's exactly what this place reminds me of. 'Course, I've never been to a museum. I was supposed to go for a school trip in primary, but Dudley tore up my homework, and I wasn't allowed after that." Harriet turned her speculative gaze to the distance again, the skin about her eyes slightly puffy and darkened from that morning. She frowned.

"Is something the matter?"

"No. Not really."

"You've been preoccupied. Is it about what happened at Hogwarts?"

"I—no. Not directly, anyway." Harriet shuffled her feet, and they came to a stop at the row's end, the gravel path splintering in a multitude of other directions across the flattened grounds. Faeries lived in the hedges and giggled when they got caught staring, whisking themselves off deeper into the leaves. "I overheard the Flamels say something the other night that's given me a bit to think about."

"Was it something bad?"

Harriet shook her head, opened her mouth, then shut it again, conflicting emotions warring on her tired face. "No. It was just—no, never mind."

They continued walking, Harriet forcing new enthusiasm for the garden that Elara did her best to mirror, thinking on what the Flamels could have possibly said to disquiet Harriet. Lost to her ruminations, Elara barely noted when they descended a set of wide steps bracketing a terrace until the moonlight faded in favor of torches, and Harriet made a soft, appreciative sound.

"It's a cave," she noted as they followed the steps down to a vast, echoing antechamber, stalagmites taller than Elara reaching for the rising ceiling. The stone was a pale, buttery yellow, shot through with darker veins of brown and black, and somewhere in the dark echoed the methodical dripping of running water. "Oh, hey, look. There's paintings."

Elara followed Harriet toward the paintings in question, the inner wall of the cave covered in ancient and, in some cases, very strange pictographs, a thick shield of magic laid over the space to

prevent anyone from touching the surface. Their footsteps echoed as they moved deeper, studying the progression, Harriet commenting on the odd symbols that looked like runes.

"Well, it's not anything we've seen in Ancient Runes so far," she said, squinting. Elara shook her head.

"It could just be Muggle cave drawings. It's not necessarily magical."

"Yeah, but that'd make it even harder to know, wouldn't it? Everything Muggle and magical used to be a lot more entwined before the International Statute of Secrecy cut a line between the two. That's why we see the Elder Futhark in both Muggle and magical societies."

"True." They came to a narrower passage, and Elara took in the images on the opposing wall, a great herd of winged steeds flying over a forest. Or maybe they were bulls coming over short, spiked mountains, she wasn't sure. "You could probably ask Mr. Flamel what it used to be like, considering he was born long before the Statue came into place."

"I have actually asked him before. He said he used to teach Alchemy to the Muggles at Oxford." Harriet brought her nose closer to the stone. "Magic and the mundane used to work together, but Mr. Flamel says that even though they're separate now, they still come around to the same ideas eventually. He reckons we're just taking different roads to the same destinations."

"Hmm."

Their wandering brought them through the passage down another flight of steps hinging in upon themselves at sharp, right angles, and Elara started to question whether or not they were allowed to be here. No signs had barred their entrance, and given the wards and railing, some form of visitation was expected here. They came unto an underground chamber—and Elara stopped when she realized the rectangular niches lining the outer walls held bare bones and sarcophagi. There were long benches and a small theatre where classes were undoubtedly conducted, though what courses could be taught here, Elara did not want to guess.

Harriet needed only glance once in Elara's direction to read her mood and turn them back toward the stairs. They did not speak for several minutes, not until the theatre and the dead were far behind them.

"D'you ever think about where magic came from?" Harriet asked as they climbed. "Or about the kind of stuff even magic can't explain?"

"How do you mean?"

Shrugging one shoulder, Harriet looked down, and Elara couldn't quite read her expression in the dark. "I'm not sure myself, to be honest. Magic can account for things that science can't, right? And there's also stuff science can explain that the Wizarding world doesn't recognize or think of."

"Yes, that's true."

"And then there's things that defy both."

"Such as…?"

Harriet stopped at the top of the steps and lifted her head, glancing at Elara, then away, the torchlight reflecting off her glasses. "Like where witches and wizards came from. Or how in the bloody hell Slytherin and Tom Riddle and Gaunt are the same, but not the same, person." She fidgeted. "Or, maybe, how a shadow could move on its own."

Elara's brows pulled together as she stared at her god-sister, wondering how the conversation had turned to such a peculiar topic. A shadow moving on its own? Elara hadn't heard of that before, but then she'd never seen cave paintings or a catacomb until this night, either. "Well, while we might not have an answer to those questions," she began slowly, working through her thoughts. "It doesn't negate the existence of the answers. You can never find your socks, and yet they always turn up."

"Usually in Livi's nest."

"Usually in Livi's nest, yes." She grinned. "There's a reason for all things, even if it isn't readily apparent."

Harriet made a thoughtful noise, seeming to agree. She studied the wall—and then pointed at one of the painted figures. "I like this one best," she announced with an air of finality. "Because he looks like he's flipping the bird to that bloke over there."

"Harriet."

"What? Look, he's got way too many horses, and so this guy over here is proper brassed off about it."

Elara shook her head in exasperation, and Harriet laughed, the sound loud and unrestrained—which was undoubtedly the reason why they missed the approach of footsteps coming out of the darkness until the intruder lit their wand and startled a pair of yelps from the both of them.

Silver gleamed. The air in Elara's lungs caught and rushed up her throat and through her mouth, a dizziness so profound overcoming her, Elara could have sworn she'd been trapped spinning in a Floo. A witch dressed in the Beauxbatons uniform stood not a full meter from them, her unbound hair falling in artful silver curls past her shoulders—a light seeming to emit not only from her wand, but also from the girl herself, her dark blue eyes heavy with disdain. Elara couldn't move, couldn't—breathe really, heat crawling up from her robes' collar to paint her face bright red.

Unaffected, Harriet recovered from the surprise and said, "Erm, who're you?"

One blonde brow quirked. "I am Fleur, a Délégué 'ere at Beauxbatons," she sniffed, looking the pair of them up and down, gaze lingering overlong on the Black pin on Elara's robes. "Vous n'êtes pas autorisé à être ici."

"We, um, don't speak French," Harriet responded, wrong-footed by the witch's cool tone. "Er —nous ne p-parle? Parle pas français?"

Her muddled French earned her another haughty sniff, all while Elara tried and failed to dislodge her tongue from the roof of her mouth. "Hmph. I said you are not allowed to be 'ere," the witch— Fleur—repeated. "Ze catacombs are interdites. Madame et Monsieur Flamel are looking pour you."

"Oh, I hadn't realized we'd been gone that long—Elara, are you all right?"

"Yes," Elara coughed. "I—yes, perfectly fine."

Harriet didn't believe her and gave her a long, dubious look, but Fleur quickly grew impatient with them both and flipped her hair, striding back the way she'd come. "Se hâter, faire vite."

Dazed, Elara walked—and shook herself, sinking her teeth into the inside of her cheek with nearly enough force to draw blood. The smell of apricots muddled the wet, decrepit odor of the cave, and

it loosened Elara's breath, though it did little to relieve the knot in her middle. She didn't much like apricots, but in that instant, she found she rather enjoyed them.

By the time they reached the Dining Chamber again, Elara had forgotten all about the catacombs, the stench of bone dust, or Harriet's rather cryptic comments about magic, Tom Riddle, or shadows that moved on their own. The strange, beautiful witch disappeared as quickly as she'd come, and Elara's attention lingered on the doorway, a delicate pink color in her normally pale face. Neither she nor the Flamels, now deep in their cups, saw the shadow that lingered too long to be natural, that clung too close and stretched too far from Harriet's small footsteps.

The younger witch noticed, sighed, and said nothing at all.

A/N:

Fleur: "Hello."

Elara: *Barry White intensifies*

Harriet: "Where in the hell is that music coming from?"

mably the good elf

cxxxiii. mably the good elf

After much deliberation, it was decided on the last night of their holiday that Harriet and Elara would take the train back to Hogwarts—though Harriet would bypass the gate and the Dementor posted there by Flooing into the Headmaster's office from the hearth in the Three Broomsticks. It meant waking at an indecent hour to catch the emerald train back to the Platform Seven and One- Quarter, Mr. Flamel going with them to ensure they made it onto the Hogwarts Express. They had time for a quick breakfast at the Leaky Cauldron, Harriet blearily stirring far too much brown sugar into her porridge, then they returned to Kings Cross, and it was time to depart.

Mr. Flamel surprised Harriet when he bent at the waist to embrace her, the shoulder of his robes smelling of pipe smoke and salt, the clamor of the platform dimmed by the arm wrapped about her shoulders. "Be safe, petit oiseau," he whispered.

"I will."

"Be mindful of your surroundings. Keep your wand with you, and write your letters."

"I will."

His grip tightened. "Do not worry so about other things. They do not matter. Only you and yours. Comprenez vous?"

"Yes, I promise."

He released her. "Then off you go."

Harriet boarded the scarlet train just as the whistle began to blow and great white plumes came issuing from the engine. She settled in a crowded compartment with Elara, Hermione, Draco Malfoy, and his malcontents, the blond boy making his surprise at their presence plain.

"Didn't you both stay at Hogwarts?"

Elara answered him, but Harriet didn't hear; she leaned closer to the window, peering through the crowd to find the alchemist in his brown robes waiting on the platform still, and when he raised his hand in salutation, Harriet did the same. The trained pushed itself into motion, and the station disappeared.

Harriet didn't move for several minutes, not seeing the Muggle streets as they flashed by or the whirling, incandescent glimmer of the wards surrounding the tracks.

"Are you all right?" Hermione asked.

Harriet sat back on the bench and turned away from the window, smiling. "Yes," she answered, "I'm fine."

If anyone noticed how tightly she held her hands together, how they shook, no one chose to say a

thing.

xXx

Hermione was miffed with Harriet and Elara. She was miffed for the entire train ride, the feast, and throughout their first day back in classes. Harriet knew Hermione had been genuinely frightened and worried, that'd she spent enough of her own holiday consulting the Marauder's Map to check up on them—but that didn't stop jealousy from rearing its head when she learned where Harriet and Elara had spent the last week of break.

"Beauxbatons," she muttered under her breath for the thousandth time, flipping through a tome with a bit too much fervor, the sound echoing in the Aerie's strange, muffled halls. "Beauxbatons. You went to Beauxbatons!"

"Just the once. Hermione, it really wasn't that big of deal—."

The frazzled witch shut the book and slotted it back into its space on the shelf, checking the spine of the one next to it before taking it down. "It is, though!" She hopped off the rolling ladder and stomped back into the lounge where the Founders' portraits resided. Neither Salazar nor Rowena were present at the moment, a black dog sprawled on one of the winged armchairs, Elara either too tired or bored to continue perusing the volumes Hermione dropped on the table. "They don't just let students from others schools go wandering about their halls! Durmstrang won't even allow outsiders to know where their school is!"

"Er, well, we weren't exactly allowed to go inspect things—."

Hermione huffed as if this was the worst crime of all. "You ate dinner there—dinner! Sitting by Master Maxwell Henchizo, one of the world's most renown Arithmancy scholars—."

"Honestly, he was a bit of a berk—."

"And you don't understand how rare that chance is! You're friends with Nicolas Flamel, for Merlin's sake! He's a legend the world over, and you once hexed him off a dock!"

"He's just a person like any other, Hermione." Harriet felt a mite peeved with her best friend. This was part of what made Hermione a Slytherin, whether she recognized it or not: her drive to take advantage of opportunities, to recognize others by their achievements and skills and to make connections. "I did get you those glass lenses while we were in France."

Some of the frustration went out of Hermione's expression as she glanced at the lenses gently set on cloth in the table's middle. "Yes, yes you did," Hermione said. "That was very thoughtful and just what we needed for the Protean Charm. Oh, I'm sorry for being so intolerable, Harriet. I've been all out of sorts, thinking about how I left things with my parents—."

"I know," Harriet soothed, sitting down next to Hermione on the dusty sofa. "I know, it's okay."

"And I can't stop fretting over what happened to the two of you in the dormitory over the break. I could hardly stand to sleep there last night—."

"Dumbledore pulled us aside and said Snape added a new ward to the door. It only lets in the witches of our year and a handful of adults."

"That's something, I suppose." Hermione released a harried breath and pushed the cloud of her hair back from her face. "It's all so mad, isn't it? The Ministry has barely said a word on Black, and they've made no headway at all into catching Greyback—but I read in the Muggle paper about a man who appeared to have been mauled by a wolf, left in the street for all to see! It coincided with the last full moon and was in Banffshire. That's not terribly far away."

Harriet patted her arm despite her own stomach twisting. "But there's no reason for him to come here."

"But that's the thing; he's not of his right mind, Harriet, neither him nor Black. The Ministry inspections of Azkaban are confidential, naturally, but rumors get around in the gossip columns, and apparently, Greyback hasn't been wholly lucid for years. He doesn't need a reason for anything he does." Her gaze lingered on the French lenses, the Marauder's Map, and the pages of Harriet's careful drawings. She kept fiddling with a thin, gold chain hidden under the collar of her shirt.

Harriet decided they needed a change of subject. Talking about escaped werewolves in the Aerie gave her the creeps. "You know, you could write a letter to Mr. Flamel, if you wanted," she said, trying to cheer her friend up. "You could ask him all the questions you want, then, and I know he'd be pleased to meet you."

"Oh, I couldn't possibly," Hermione rejected, stuttering. "No, I couldn't take up his time like that!"

"Then give me a list of your questions and I'll send it. Honestly, he loves answering questions about magic."

A small woof brought their attention to the armchair as Elara startled herself out of her own dreams and sat up, ears swiveling as she blinked at them and then the carriage clock on the mantel. She changed forms—only, her leg didn't quite have enough space, and her shin slammed into the table's edge, the items on top of it jumping in the air. "Hell and damnation!" Elara gasped, paling. "That hurt!"

"Are you okay?"

"Fine," she coughed, still rubbing at the injured spot. "What's more important—can't either of you tell time?" She pointed at the clock. "It's past curfew!"

Harriet gaped. "We missed supper?"

"Supper?!" Hermione squawked, snatching up her satchel and shoving her things into it once more. "Supper?! Harriet, if we don't get back into the dorms, Professor Slytherin is going to murder us!"

"He's going to murder us anyway. He knows when people cross the barrier into the common room."

"Oh, that's a myth the older students tell! He doesn't really know." Hermione didn't look convinced. If anything, she looked more frazzled than ever, and Elara had a definite limp when she stood and grabbed her own bag. They hurried to find a Moon Mirror out of the Aerie—but Harriet hadn't been kidding with her dejection over missing dinner. She'd spent much of the morning outside, running to burn off nervous anxiety, so she'd skipped breakfast and had only picked over her lunch. She was starving.

They exited into the outer corridor beyond the Aerie, stopping at the portrait of the shepherdess and her gaggle of honking geese, knowing that beyond that point, they'd be fair game for any of

the patrolling professors. Harriet could see night beyond the windows now, and it made her shoulders feel heavy, having not realized how much time had passed while they researched and chatted in the Aerie.

"Could we say we got locked inside the library?"

"We've used that excuse half a dozen times by now. Not even Sprout will buy it."

Harriet reached into her empty pocket. "Shit. Hermione, do you have the Marauder's Map?"

"No, I left it on the table. Don't look at me like that, I didn't realize we'd need it!"

"Should I go back for it?"

"I—no, don't be silly. Let's just be quick about it, shall we?"

Gathering her resolve, Hermione crossed the invisible boundary, and Harriet and Elara fell into step behind her. They'd gone perhaps a full meter before a door creaked open on ancient hinges and a squealing green blur slammed into Hermione's legs, taking them out from under her.

"Ah!" Harriet crumpled under Hermione's weight, and though Elara managed to dodge Harriet's failing arms, she tripped on her robes and still landed on her backside with a yelp. The green blur resolved itself into a house-elf, who jumped on Hermione's knees and positively trembled from head to foot.

"Miss Herme-ninny, Miss Herme-ninny!" he chirped, high voice bouncing in the stone hall. "It is Dobby, Miss Herme-ninny! Dobby is so happy to see you again!"

"D-Dobby?" Hermione asked, a bit dazed by her sudden collision with the floor. She sat up and stared at the creature, wincing at the volume of his squeals. "Dobby, what on earth are you doing here?"

"Dobby is working here, Miss Herme-ninny!" The elf stopped bouncing to puff out his skinny chest and gesture at the badge pinned to his toga. The clean white toga appeared to have been a pillowcase in a former life, and the Hogwarts crest had been sewn into place above a little pocket. He had on a pair of meticulously cleaned Quidditch gloves. "After Dobby is leaving the Malfoys, he came to Hogwarts! Mr. Headmaster Dumblydore is paying Dobby a Galleon a week and a day off every month!"

"A—a Galleon?!" Hermione was aghast. "Dobby, just because you left the Malfoys doesn't mean you have to settle for such a low stipend!"

The house-elf calmed somewhat, ears drooping, and he fixed Hermione with a serious look. "Dobby is very proud of his wages, Miss Herme-ninny! Mr. Headmaster Dumblydore offered Dobby ten Galleons a week and weekends off, but Dobby isn't wanting that at all!"

"But—."

"Dobby likes being free," the elf asserted. "But Dobby likes work! And he is liking having a big home to take care of."

Hermione had more to say, her mouth pursed in a dangerous line too much like McGonagall's, but she reigned herself in and exhaled. "So long as that's what you want," she muttered. "Don't settle for anything less, Dobby."

"No, Miss!" He cheered—too loudly in Harriet's opinion, and she peeked toward the thicker shadows, swearing she'd hex Snape if he popped out of nowhere and scared the life out of her again.

"Er, Hermione?"

"Yes?"

"Who is this, exactly?"

"Oh!" the witch exclaimed, blushing. "Oh, I'm sorry, Dobby, how rude of me. These are my friends Harriet Potter and Elara Black. Harriet, Elara, this is Dobby."

"Hello!"

"Hullo, Dobby."

Elara grunted, still miffed at having been thrown to the floor. "How did you two come to be acquainted?"

Hermione's embarrassed blush deepened. "I, erm, may have had a hand in freeing him? He used to belong to the Malfoys."

"But this is a secret Dobby isn't telling! Miss Herme-ninny could be in trouble!"

Elara looked between the two still sitting on the floor. "For goodness' sake," she finally said, "Hermione, don't ever try to free Kreacher."

"What? How could you say that?! He's a living, sentient being and deserves freedom—."

"The last time a Black house-elf was let go, my great-aunt Lucretia got stabbed apparently. Kreacher would literally burn down the house with us and himself inside. You can't be flippant with a house-elf's life, Hermione. I'm quite serious about this."

"I—." Grinding her teeth, Hermione shooed Dobby back a step so she could stand, accepting Harriet's hand in getting up. "I think you're wrong, but yes, I hear you. I wouldn't do anything rash —and I've never met Kreacher, I'll have you know."

"Be thankful for that. I have yet to break him of the habit of calling Harriet an 'it'."

Harriet's stomach chose that moment to announce its displeasure, the resulting growl nearly as loud as Dobby's blathering. It was a wonder no professors or prefects had come upon them yet with how much noise they were making. "Sorry."

"Is Miss Harry Potter hungry?"

"A bit, yeah. Wait, Miss what—?"

"Dobby can take you to the kitchens!" the house-elf hollered, hopping from one foot to the other. "He can lead you there, past mean Mr. Filch and his nasty cat. He'll be here soon and Dobby wanted to tell you!"

The mere mention of the crotchety caretaker had the three witches scrambling to gather their things and chase Dobby away from the library, the clatter of their footsteps ringing loud and incriminating in the enclosed space. The house-elf—either through magic or instinct—knew exactly when to change passages and showed the trio various odd shortcuts behind tapestries or

statues, leading them ever downward. They reached the dungeons finally, but instead of heading off toward the lower stairwell where the Slytherins resided, Dobby elected to take a higher corridor, this one well-lit and limned with bright torches. Most of the portraits seemed to be of food for some reason or another, and Harriet could only look on with confusion as Dobby stopped in front of a picture depicting a large fruit bowl.

"You have to be tickling the pear!" Dobby explained with an excited head bob.

Exchanging glances, Hermione reached up to tickle the green pear resting in the silver bowl—and it giggled, wiggling under her persistent fingers until a doorknob appeared. Hermione took the knob in hand, twisted, and the portrait fell inward.

Dozens of large, ogling eyes swiveled in their direction as the three witches stepped through the revealed entrance and froze, the heavenly smell of leftovers making Harriet drool. It seemed silly after spending nearly three years in the castle that she hadn't considered how many house-elves must live there with them; she knew of them in the abstract, having had Rikkety feed them at Grimmauld in the summers, but she'd never considered how the classrooms and common room stayed so tidy, how their laundry got washed, little tears hemmed and darned, her shoes always neatly placed by her nightstand in the morning. Guilt swelled and dimmed Harriet's hunger.

"Is the Misses needing anything?" one of the house-elves asked, hopping down from her wooden stool. It seemed most of the elves were enjoying an evening break, it being after supper but too early to go clean the common rooms, though a few congregated about counters and chilled drawers, preparing food to be made in the morning. There were walls of old-fashioned ovens carefully tended, large open hearths, great crates of picked vegetables, and dozens upon dozens of tiny little shoes on a wooden rack, some still dotted with mud or snow. Four replicas of the House tables stretched across the middle of the room, and Harriet wondered if they were directly under the Great Hall here.

Dobby bulled his way in front of them, puffing himself up with inexplicable pride. Harriet noted a couple of the elves grimaced at his presence. "Miss Harry Potter is hungry!" he announced.

A sudden flurry of movement overtook them, Harriet cursing under her breath as tiny hands pushed and shoved her over to one of the tables—the Hufflepuff replica. Hermione was forced onto the bench across from her, her face gone red and apocalyptic. A teetering stack of sandwiches slid into place between them.

"This is slave labor," Hermione hissed, her hair seeming to swell under the force of her indignation. "How can Hogwarts condone this?! How can anyone?!"

Elara took a seat next to her. "It's not slave labor. No, thank you—," she added to a house-elf trying to push a tureen of potatoes toward her. "Tea would be lovely, though."

The house-elf jumped in recognition—and Hermione glared. "Explain yourself."

"Hogwarts belongs to the house-elves just as much as it belongs to the wizards. Morse-so, even." She accepted a steaming cup of Chamomile tea with another word of thanks. "What would you do, Hermione? Would you have them leave their home?"

"I would have them fairly compensated for their work!" She crossed her arms and refused to so much as glance at the saucers and plates of edible treats being piled on the table. "I would have them demand wages and equal rights and to be treated fairly!"

"And if that's not what they want?"

Hermione narrowed her eyes. Harriet considered taking the platter of sandwiches and making a run for the dormitory, Professor Slytherin be damned. She hated when her friends bickered. "'Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness.'"

"Don't presume to lecture me." Elara sipped her tea, brow furrowed. "I am not advocating for cruelty; having been raised in it, I can assure you being struck and beaten with a cane is a miserable experience I would wish on only the most perverse of souls. You simply shouldn't assume you know what's best for house-elves or any other magical being because you think they're downtrodden or lesser. They don't view themselves as lesser, and they shouldn't. Half the wars we've had against the goblin nation can be traced back to the wizards attempting to exert their will over them."

"This is different."

"Is it?"

"Yes," Hermione snapped, turning her glower onto Harriet for a moment when the shorter witch dared reach for a goblet of pumpkin juice. "I'm disappointed in you, Elara Black!"

"I—."

"…Elara Black?"

The dry, reedy voice of one of the house-elves cut across their conversation—or, well, their argument—and the three witches turned to look at an elf peering up into Elara's face. She was old, given the abundant wrinkles on her squashed face and the cataracts forming on her bulbous eyes. Uncertain, Elara said, "Yes, I'm Elara…?"

The elf burst into tears.

"See, now look what you've done!" Hermione gasped. "You've made her cry!"

"I didn't mean to!" Elara rushed to find her handkerchief and turn on the bench, facing the elf. "I'm terribly sorry, I—."

The elf accepted the handkerchief and dabbed at her wet eyes. "You is kind," she warbled. "Like Miss Marlene."

Elara stiffened. "Pardon?"

"Miss Elara isn't recognizing Mably, but Mably knows Miss Elara." The house-elf—Mably— smiled, holding the damp handkerchief close to her chest. "Mably knew Miss Elara when she was just a baby! I is missing Miss Marlene very much. Mably was a McKinnon elf, before. Many years ago now."

"A McKinnon elf?" The question came out soft, breathless. Harriet and Hermione glanced at one another, tense, while most of the other house-elves begun to shuffle off toward their own tasks. Only Dobby remained, standing close to Hermione's side. Past discussions had revealed how very little Elara knew about the matriarchal side of her family; the McKinnons had all perished in the war, and even those friends of Marlene that Elara had learned of—namely Lily Potter and Alice Longbottom—had passed on. "And you…knew my mother? Marlene McKinnon?"

"I is knowing Miss Marlene her whole life. Mably was there when Miss Marlene was born." Mably blew her nose again, and when Elara gave the bench next to her an uncertain pat, the house-elf surprised Harriet by actually taking a seat. "You is looking a lot like Mr. Sirius, Miss, but I see

Miss Marlene in you, too!"

The mention of Sirius Black had Elara stiffening again, and in the bright glow of the cooking fire, hate flashed through her colorless eyes like a knife in the dark.

"I is being there when Miss Elara was born, too!" Mably patted Elara's clenched fist. "Mably watched Miss Elara after she came to live at the manor. Mr. Sirius left her with Miss Marlene to keep safe. There was many bad wizards in those days. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was everywhere, and Mr. Sirius was scared."

Harriet blinked, wiping her mouth of crumbs. That's…odd. Worse than odd, it doesn't make sense.

"Mably," Elara said, her voice still soft but now insistent, intense. "Mably, if I was left with Marlene—how did I end up at the—the orphanage? The Muggle orphanage?"

The old house-elf wrung her hands. "Mably took you there, Miss Elara."

Elara stared. Somewhere deeper in the kitchen, a glass shattered, and an elf sighed.

"Mably is a good house-elf, the best! She served the Noble House of McKinnon and did exactly what Miss Marlene told her to do. Miss Marlene was worried—she did not trust the rat-man. No, no, not at all!" Mably gave her head a vigorous shake, ears flapping. "Miss Marlene had a plan, a just-in-case plan. When the bad wizards came to the manor, Mably was to take Miss Elara to the Muggle place! It had to be secret, secret! So the rat-man wouldn't know, so no one would know! Miss Marlene was supposed to go after Miss Elara, but—." The hand wringing increased, silver tears beading in the corner of Mably's milky eyes. "Miss Marlene couldn't leave. The bad wizards changed the wards. Only Mably could leave, and when Mably came back for Miss Marlene—there was no more manor. There was being only fire, and no Miss Marlene."

Silence followed Mably's story, the kind of silence that came upon a person in a wave, roaring in their ears until the whole world seemed leagues and leagues away. Elara was upset; Harriet couldn't see much of her face, but she could see how hard her shoulders shook with restrained emotion.

"I is not knowing what to do. Mr. Sirius said not to go to the Black house no more, to not talk to Kreacher. Miss Marlene only said to take Miss Elara to the Muggle place. They took care of babies there, and it was secret. Safe from the rat-man. Mably had no home. No family. I came to Hogwarts, it being where a lot of homeless elves go." Mably finally sensed something was amiss with Elara and hesitated, tiny hand touching her arm. "Is Miss Elara okay?" A pause. "Is Mably a good elf? Did she do the right thing for Miss Elara?"

For a long moment, Elara didn't speak. Had she, Harriet was certain she would have shaken herself to pieces, a sob escaping on a choked breath before she covered her mouth and jerked her head away from her friends, hiding the tears. "You did brilliantly, Mably," she managed. "You saved my life. My mum would have been proud."

Mably smiled.

As Elara continued to cry silent, angry tears and the house-elf sat gently patting her hand, Harriet couldn't help but think of what Mably had said. She gazed toward the fire and felt the heat of it against her face, a yawn building in her chest, her eyes dry and tired behind her spectacles.

Rat-man, the elf had said—and Livius had called the intruder in their dormitory the rat one, hadn't he? The coincidence there seemed too big to ignore, but what was the correlation? Was that Sirius

Black? What did it mean?

Who is the rat-man?

A/N:

The quote, "Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness" is by Alejandro Jodorowsky.

Dobby: "Ah, yes, the witch I hold in highest regards and must greet most respectfully."

Also Dobby: *b o d y s l a m*

blood and ginger fur

cxxxiv. blood and ginger fur

January gave way to February in its usual, ailing way, the final, straggling bits of foliage and life succumbing to the harshest depths of winter's grasp. In Minerva's honest opinion, it was the worst time of year, and not one she thought anyone should have to suffer through in the bleeding wilds of the frozen highlands. In her thirty-seven years of teaching at Hogwarts, she must have submitted half a dozen petitions to the Board requesting the summer and winter terms be switched—but the stuffy toffs on the Board couldn't be bothered to give up their summer vacations to ease the burden of actually living in the blighted tundra from November to March.

This year proved particular in its brutality. The Dementors swarmed their borders in excess and drove sleet through the air, the blasted, malingering monsters coming up on the unawares in Hogsmeade or on the road whenever the fancy took them. Pomona had needed to spend an afternoon with Poppy after a run-in with the beasts on her way to get a pint at Rosmerta's, and Trelawney had come running back bawling her eyes out after trying to go to Puddifoot's for an order of tea leaves. Personally, Minerva thought it more likely the brainless fraud had seen a paper sack in the wind and panicked, but her incompetence didn't negate the inarguable horridness of the Dementors' presence.

Minerva sighed, watching the ice strike against the windows. She might not be terribly old for a witch, but she was by no means young, and the cold sank into her bones something fierce. Poppy had run out of the camphor potion she preferred, having to treat more than one spot of frostbite on the Quidditch players determined to practice in the abysmal weather. Frowning, Minerva side-eyed Severus, wondering if she could guilt him into making more.

The Potions Master sat more or less slumped in his chair, elbows propped on the armrests as he glared out across the hall of whispering students. Given it was a mixed group of Gryffindors and Slytherins of various years meant to be quietly studying, Minerva thought whispering was excellent behavior. She'd had to rise more than once from the High Table to chastise the Weasley twins and their classmates, but otherwise, the study hall had been simple enough to manage—boring even. Minerva almost wished someone would set off a Dungbomb to give her something to do besides grouse about the miserable weather.

Severus continued to sit still and solemn, deep shadows forming under his dark eyes. His glower remained on Remus for the most part, who made steady progress up and down the row, pausing every now and then to assist a student with a question. Several times Minerva witnessed him turning to look at the Slytherin table—at the trio of Slytherin witches who got into far too much trouble for their own good. Miss Weasley sat with them as well, and the four of them had their heads bent close in rapid conversation.

Something glittered.

"Severus," Minerva said, squinting. "What is it that Miss Potter and Miss Granger are doing?"

He stirred and inclined his head toward her to indicate he was listening.

"They have some kind of glass lens. Do you know what it is?" Potter had the lens in hand, etching runes along the brass edge with a knife from her Potions kit, stopping to consult her friends and the book open in front of her.

Severus shrugged.

"You're being intolerable, I hope you know."

"Minerva, if I bothered myself every time Potter and her little gang did, said, or picked up anything they shouldn't, I'd have died of an aneurysm before the end of her first year. If they're not in immediate danger of having their faces blown off, I do not care."

"Well, I see you're in a mood." Minerva crossed her arms, lips pursed, and Severus ignored her. Lyla Muldoon, one of the Slytherin prefects, came forward to ask him a question regarding a rather finicky potion, and though Minerva gave the conversation half of her attention, she couldn't follow the deeper complexities, having never been an exceptional potioneer herself. Her eye roved the hall and, once more, saw Remus lift his head and glance toward Harriet and her friends.

Why does he keep doing that?

One of the doors leading into the hall opened, and Slytherin came swanning in, his expression placid and rather bored as he came up the aisle. Severus stiffened next to her and sat up in his seat, dismissing Muldoon before the Defense instructor stepped onto the dais and approached the table. By all rights, it should have been Slytherin sitting with her minding his charges this afternoon, not that Minerva was complaining. His red eyes cut toward Severus with unmistakable menace, and rage prickled in Minerva's chest when Severus reacted by bowing his head. Oh, it was all very subtle; she doubted either wizard even noticed it, but Minerva did, the smallest of flinches tipping Snape's chin ever so slightly toward his chest.

Slytherin flicked a bit of folded parchment onto the table before Severus, and he snatched hold of it, declining to open it in the hall. "I require that potion by the morning."

A muscle flexed in Severus' jaw. "Of course."

Slytherin smiled at him and at Minerva—more a baring of sharp, white teeth than anything, like a fox with a rabbit caught in his jaws. He departed in that same quiet and off-putting manner of his, gliding down along the row where his Slytherins sat—hesitating when passed Potter's back. The girl had her head down, nose in a book—but Minerva saw how the items in front of the trio had been hastily shuffled the moment Slytherin entered the Great Hall. The wizard stopped for only a second, not speaking, then vanished the way he'd come.

Snape slumped into his seat again, scowling.

Minerva couldn't fathom why Severus gave his allegiance to the Dark Lord when he appeared so unfathomably exhausted at times like this. No, that wasn't the truth; she did understand, after a fashion, because when she'd learned Severus Snape had become a Death Eater, Minerva…hadn't recognized the name.

She remembered the day, sitting alone with Albus in his office with the purple eaves of twilight settling on the grounds, and the Headmaster told her Severus Snape was a Death Eater—a Death Eater now under his thumb, working for the Order. Albus hadn't liked him then and neither had Minerva, because she couldn't even conjure up a face to pair with the name; years later, Minerva realized Albus hadn't trusted the boy, not as he did now, and it was only when he came to work at Hogwarts that she remembered who he was. Snape had been an odd, mistrustful child, shabby and

as sour as a kicked Kneazle—and for all that he loomed dark and thunderous in the present, he'd left little impression during his school days. He'd been a background caricature in an overwhelming diorama of pure-blood sycophancy, a lackey who'd done little more than hex Minerva's Gryffindors bloody and try her patience with his condescending attitude.

Death Eaters were not as plentiful or as easy to spot as the Ministry propaganda in those days led the public to believe. Oh, it'd been utter bedlam, friends and neighbors and family members turning on one another, certain one or the other had knelt to You-Know-Who, and while Dark sympathizers and agents had been everywhere, Minerva understood that Death Eaters, specifically, were an inner-cadre chosen by Tom Riddle himself, and they weren't thick on the ground. The Order spent many nights formulating speculative lists on their identities—and not once had the name Severus Snape come up.

It was ironic, Minerva thought, how little they all knew of one another. Professors were human, fallible; they had favorites. Snape had been an intractable Slytherin boy quick to spit vitriol and retreat—a nobody. Minerva's favorites had been James and Lily—Remus, Peter, and…Sirius. They'd been so kind, so likable, and they'd used magic in such wondrous ways, whereas Severus and his ilk levered it like a bullwhip, every lesson with those future Dark followers like trudging uphill through the mud. Twenty years ago, Minerva had been so confident of her worldview, so sure those of her House were better, would know better than boys like Severus Snape. More the fool her.

After Black's betrayal, Minerva forced herself to look, to read the stories and the obituaries and the arrest logs—because Black hadn't been alone. He hadn't been a sole outlier in his deceit. She forced herself to learn and recognize the names of every Gryffindor who'd taken the same cowardly path and had been indicted as sympathizers or worse. She studied the names of those Slytherins who'd been murdered or forced from the country because they wouldn't bow to You- Know-Who. Her perception of the world shuddered and bent under the knowledge of her own partisan behavior as Minerva realized the children she'd loved best of all had betrayed them. Betrayed her.

She'd looked on in shock and horror as Severus Snape entered the Great Hall the morning after he lost his eye, sat down, and kept working. Minerva hadn't known him well then, hadn't trusted him, and still he'd shown more backbone and wherewithal than she herself could have mustered.

So, Minerva both did and didn't understand why Severus had fallen in with Tom Riddle. He'd been a rude, sharp-tongued youth, and only You-Know-Who had been smart enough to look beyond that and find something more in the young man. Minerva knew Severus would be furious if he discovered how she pitied him, because though she recognized he'd not been a child when he made his choice and so should reap the consequences, had he really had another option? Or had people like Minerva, with her inattention and disregard, taken that choice from him?

She didn't know. How many others had she failed over the years?

Minerva rose and left the table, descending among the students in a bid to quiet her unhelpful maundering. She cycled through her Gryffindors first, and most had the good sense to hide their Quidditch magazines and Witch Weekly rags before she passed them by. The majority of the Slytherins had actual classwork before them, making good use of the study period, and Potter pulled her book on runes over that glass lens when Minerva neared. The Transfiguration mistress snorted as she held out her hand, palm up.

"What have you there, Miss Potter?"

"Er, nothing, ma'am?"

"Let me see it."

Shifting, the girl eventually removed the lens from under the book and placed it in Minerva's hand. It weighed less than a Galleon, but the magic in it had a palpable weight to it, Minerva's brow rising as she brought the lens nearer her eye and witnessed how the magic within glittered in blue fractals against the candlelight. Lovely. She'd thought it was perhaps a prank contraption from the village—not that Potter, Granger, or Black were much for pranking—or maybe a toy of some sort. A cursory inspection showed a considerable amount of Charms inlaid into the glass, anchored with runes carefully marked around the outside. Not a toy, then. Bathsheda and Filius would certainly be fascinated, if only because its purpose wasn't evident despite the magic humming against her skin.

"What is this?"

"It's nothing, professor."

Minerva gave the girl a withering look, red darkening Potter's cheeks.

"Well, not anything yet, I guess. It's just a trinket."

It wasn't, obviously, but Minerva could find nothing Dark, dangerous, or disruptive about the object, so she handed it back to Potter. "Interesting work, Miss Potter. I do hope to see that same kind of effort reflected in your Transfiguration homework, yes?"

Miss Potter stuttered, and Miss Black ducked her head to hide her grin. Minerva turned and straightened as she felt Remus approach, their History of Magic instructor smiling as he came over to see what had grabbed Minerva's interest. Minerva returned his smile—if tight tight-lipped and stiff, the motion not reaching her eyes. She'd always been fond of him, he was such a good, studious lad, and yet, though she trusted Albus with her life, she couldn't say the same for Remus. She had never and would never hold his lycanthropy against him, but it stood to reason the poor boy could be susceptible to the Dark Lord's silver tongue. Blind faith in her Gryffindors had killed Lily, James, and Peter, and it had doomed an entire House to Voldemort's tender mercies.

"Everything all right?" he asked.

"Perfectly fine, Remus."

"Actually, Professors," Miss Granger interrupted, shuffling through her parchment and books. "May I ask a question? Have either of you ever come across this spell?"

She held up a sheet of her careful handwriting for their inspection, Minerva adjusting her spectacles as she read. "Proteus Memoro? No, I can't say I've heard of that particular iteration of the Protean Charm."

Remus squinted at the page, then at the girls, an uncertain suspicion lurking in his eyes. "It's a very old version of the Charm, used by the magical philosophers of Greece. They were said to be just as verbose as their Muggle counterparts and prone to forgetting what they'd said. Proteus Memoro recalled memories into print." He handed the sheet back to Miss Granger. "If you're interested in learning more, I'm sure Madam Pince has a book on Grecian Charms somewhere in the library."

Miss Granger grinned. "Thanks, Professor!"

Now Minerva really wanted to know what mischief they meant to get into, poking about ancient magic practiced by old bampots, and she wondered if Severus had a point about worrying himself right into an early grave if he cared to take note of everything the children did.

"They always come up with the oddest questions," Remus commented as they walked back toward the staff table. "Filius was telling me just the other day how Miss Potter seemed rather insistent on him teaching her the circumdo incantation."

"Circumdo?" Minerva frowned. "That's just a baseline ward. A bit beyond a third-year perhaps, but simple enough."

"She was most interested in how it would interact with a tying of inguz and laguz."

Puzzled, Minerva paused, glancing at the girls again. Inguz and laguz represented seed and water, respectively, and if paired together, they formed an anchor and a conduit. Home and nourishment, intuition and flexibility—or, in a basic sense, stability and movement. It was an odd choice for circumdo, given one most often wanted protections affixed to the ward, not an inherent mobility that would allow the ward to yield to other magic and pop like a soap bubble. What on earth? "They're going to turn my hair gray, mark my words."

Remus chuckled.

It was then that the door to the hall came open again, and Minerva half-expected to see Slytherin's smarmy mug rejoin them once more—but the boy coming inside was shorter and much redder, Ronald Weasley's face flushed enough to match his tousled hair. Longbottom had reported his absence at the beginning of the study period; Mr. Weasley had come down with a rather convenient stomachache he showed no sign of now as he marched into the room dragging…a bedsheet.

"Granger!" he shouted.

Minerva heard herself groan. "What now?"

Heads swiveled to stare at Weasley as he strode right over to Miss Granger, who blinked at him in apparent confusion, her work forgotten. "…yes?"

He brandished the sheet at her, seeming oblivious to Minerva and Remus' approach. She couldn't hear him, but Minerva knew Severus would have left the table as well. "Look! Look at this!"

"It—it's a sheet?"

"Blood! There's blood on it! And hair!" He brandished a handful of short, ginger fluff, practically spitting in his fury. "Scabbers is gone, and there's blood on my sheets and hair from your bloody familiar, Granger!"

"I—."

"He's DEAD! Dead because of you!"

Potter had quite enough of the youngest Weasley boy screaming at her friend and decided to speak up. "Fuck off, Weasley."

The profanity shook Minerva from her surprise. "Detention," she said on reflex, and when the girl gaped at her in shock, Minerva forced steel into her tone. "I have warned you again and again about your foul language, Miss Potter, and I am tired of hearing it. Now, Mr. Weasley, what is the meaning of this?"

He jabbed a shaking hand at Miss Granger. "She lets her mangy cat into the tower and he has it out for Scabbers! He killed Scabbers!"

"I don't let Crookshanks do anything, Ronald!"

"Your stupid animal killed my familiar!"

By now, Fred and George Weasley had made their way over, and the latter placed a hand on Mr. Weasley's shoulder. "Ron, mate, you should probably calm down a bit."

"You're causin' a scene."

"Scabbers was old as dust, and Granger isn't the only one with a ginger cat…."

"Indeed," Severus sneered, sweeping forward, arms crossed against his broad chest. "I believe Mr. Weasley has earned himself a detention as well, don't you agree, Professor McGonagall?"

Ronald balked. "That's—that's not fair! Sir!"

"Oh? Then perhaps you should think twice before throwing a fit and dragging your sheet about the castle like an insolent child who's wet the bed." Snickering echoed through the hall. "Quiet! Your study period has not ended." When no one moved, Severus' temper snapped, and he whirled on the ogling students. "Get back to work!"

Heads lowered toward the tables.

Pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration, Minerva turned from the fuming Potions Master and addressed the youngest male Weasley. "He is correct, Mr. Weasley. Throwing needless accusations at another student and causing such a ruckus deserves detention, not to mention skipping your lessons when you're perfectly well enough to come stomping down here in a strop. I will see what we can do about searching for your—Scabbers, was it?"

The boy sniffled. "Yes, Professor. He's my rat."

Privately, Minerva considered it a miracle the creature hadn't died earlier; smaller prey animals, toads and mice and such, usually didn't last long in a castle full of cats and owls. Or—and now her attention slid to Potter, the girl pouting as she scribbled with her quill—snakes. She said none of this to the poor lad, of course, and decided to send him off with his brothers to Poppy for a Calming Draught. Miss Granger looked close to tears, mortified by Weasley screaming in such a public venue, so Minerva dismissed her and her friends as well, if only to rid herself of the headache.

Merlin have mercy and spare me the migraine this evening.

She nearly ran into Remus as she returned to her seat, the wizard watching the doors with a contemplative expression she didn't much care to consider at the moment. Whatever it was, it would have to wait. She should not have wished something more eventful to happen.

After a time spent silent and stewing, the hall more subdued after the Potions Master's outburst, Minerva glanced again at Severus, at the sharp lines of his profile and the curtain of his untidy hair. He glared at the back of Remus' head. "Hypothetically speaking," she proposed. "Why would you tie inguz and laguz to a plain circumdo?"

Severus scoffed. "I wouldn't. The ward would collapse like wet tissue paper."

"Yes, that's my assumption as well. But if you were to do it anyway?"

Irritated, Snape's glare move to her—and then his black eyes shifted, sharp and flat in the

candlelight, something unfathomable stirring in that thick skull of his. Then, he smiled—a snide twist of his mouth Minerva knew always meant bad things for her—and he settled into his chair, a hand on his chin.

She was not pleased. "You know the answer, don't you?"

"Perhaps."

"You're not not going to tell me, are you? You bastard."

"Information, Minerva. It's all about information."

A/N:

Minerva: "Why did I dislike you so much as a student?"

Severus: "Hag."

Minerva: "Oh. That's why."

tracks in the snow

cxxxv. tracks in the snow

The sound of running water echoed beneath the cold planks of the covered bridge, and Harriet leaned against the railing to look below.

Ice clinging to the cliffs clogged much of the inlet, but a measure of dark water still fed into the lake, and Harriet lifted her head, gaze trailing the hard, glinting surface toward the horizon, where the frozen lake disappeared into the fog and trees and mountains. The world was quiet but for that distant gurgle below; even the wind died down, the sky thick with clouds yet otherwise still, thick swathes of gray and black limned in violet like a bruise.

Kevin and Rick shifted inside her collar, Rick slithering out and over the edge, hissing that Kevin was insufferable for his poor choice of favorite snacks. Seeing as she knew both of their favorite snacks changed daily, if not hourly, Harriet thought Rick was being rather rude and finicky. He poked about her hat's flap over her ear, and she nudged him back down.

"Quit it," she hissed.

She continued across the bridge, the cold air sharp in her lungs and against her face, her nose bright red. In one of her mitten-clad hands, the glass lens hummed and sparkled, warm to the touch but not, thankfully, bursting into flames. Blue lights played through the glass, there and gone, chasing circles about the brass lip.

The grass surrounding the Sundial Garden squished under her shoes as Harriet climbed the hill, gasping, feeling warm under two jumpers, her robes, and her cloak. Though lunch loomed just an hour or so away, the sky hadn't brightened much from its pre-dawn gloom, and Harriet glanced toward the castle at her back, the stone seeming much darker than usual with the white snow resting on the grounds, huddled against the foundations in fat, lumpy mounds. Hermione and Elara were both in Arithmancy, and much of the school remained quiet and undisturbed, everyone in class or tucked away in their common rooms—not bandying about in the snow.

Harriet snorted as she perched on one of the stones, wincing at the cold seeping into her trousers, and removed a lopsided roll from her pocket, tearing off a piece to stuff in her mouth. Chewing, she surveyed the land and the castle, the sharp cut of the cliffs and the choppier hills rolling down across the school's flank, the Whomping Willow swaying far off in the distance. She set the lens on her knee, and it continued to hum, waiting, while Harriet let her mind wander and consider different things.

Mably had taken to smothering Elara in that oddly endearing house-elf way of hers. She never showed herself—which Hermione called an abhorrently cruel learned behavior—but food and convenient cups of tea kept appearing around Elara. The tea was made exactly to her liking—way too bitter and strong for human consumption, and other Slytherins snickered whenever Elara looked down at an inexplicable pastry like it might grow legs and attack her face. Her shoes were always clean, her blankets warmed, her study carrel tidy, her favorite soaps and products kept fresh and full in their washroom. Elara grew increasingly flustered, unable to rebuff the house-elf, and Hermione kept huffing and muttering under her breath.

Harriet tried questioning Mably about the 'rat-man,' but she either didn't know the man's name or had such an abhorrence for it, she couldn't say it. Harriet had discovered the fastest way to get a hundred house-elves to scream was to utter the name "Voldemort" on accident, so she assumed the 'rat-man' had become an unkind sobriquet Mably used to lessen her own trauma and fear of the person she believed responsible for Marlene McKinnon's death. She wouldn't speak much on Sirius Black, mood darkening when Harriet asked about him, but despite her distaste, Mably still addressed him as "Mr. Sirius."

Does that mean the 'rat-man' is different from Livi's 'rat one'? Harriet pondered, sighing. The man in the dormitory had to be Sirius Black. No one else would have any reason to bother me or Elara—unless it was some kind of random bloody pervert. Hell. She wrinkled her nose and reached her free hand up into her collar, touching one of the snakes. But if the man in the dorm was Sirius Black, then he wasn't the man Mably spoke of—and yet everyone seems to believe Black had something to do with the McKinnon fire. This is confusing.

The magic humming in the lens began to calm, and Harriet redirected her attention, using her teeth to remove one mitten so she could hold the device in her bare hand. The brass had become so cold it stung her fingers, but the glass itself remained pleasantly warm to the touch. Holding the lens up closer to her eye, she gave it a light tap with her wand, saying, "Show me," as clearly as she could around a mouthful of cotton.

Blue light again swirled in the glass, expanding outward, seeming to catch and gleam on the distant silhouette of the castle. Harriet's careful print appeared in blue, a straight line connecting the words 'Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry' to the largest turret. Harriet gave the lens another tap, and the magic shivered, glittering, 'Hogwarts' disappearing in place of more lines connecting labels like 'West Tower,' 'Astronomy Tower,' and 'Herbology Courtyard.' She noted that some of the lines weren't coming through as they should; the one over the Whomping Willow kept flickering, and when Harriet concentrated on it, a series of nervous question marks percolated over its top. Harriet intoned a low, thoughtful sound.

It'll be dead useful when it's finished and working properly, she thought, lowering the lens again. It had taken considerable effort on all their parts to get it to this point; Harriet original initiative of making the Moon Mirror map had piqued Hermione's curiosity, and Professor Dumbledore's subsequent delivery of The Proteus Indices and The Jargogle Jargon of Charms had sparked a greater creation and interest in cartography and magical indexing. Hermione took one glimpse at the finicky magic inlaid in the Marauder's Map and fell in love—but it remained to be said that the Marauder's Map wasn't theirs, and it lacked depth after Harriet's research and exploration had uncovered so much more of the school.

The device began as a desire to understand or mimic the Marauder's Map, to find, field, and display information for their convenience, and Harriet's purchase of the lenses and special vellum in Verre de Verid proved a fortunate find. Information written on the vellum displayed itself on the glass, and a proper application of a circumdo ward upon the lens—joined with a Homonculous Charm—recorded information from the area the lens passed through to be printed on the vellum. Binding Proteus Memoro and Proteus Imito Alterius kept the information orderly and quiet until it was called for while also mimicking gathered knowledge from one lens to the other two. Specific runes—like laguz and inguz—changed the porosity of the cirmundo ward so it could, as Hermione explained it, absorb information as if through magical osmosis. Harriet had spent weeks redrawing her Moon Map, the Marauder's Map, and Hogwarts' original architectural blueprints onto the replicating vellum sheets securely hidden the Aerie's depths. Elara and Hermione checked and rechecked how the Charms relayed into one another, testing their ideas on paper before moving to glass. They copied their school notes onto pieces of the spelled vellum, and that information, too, hid somewhere in the deceptively simple glass.

Dozens of other smaller Charms went into the creation, things meant to recognize shapes, Elara's dubious research on blood magic helping link their own perception and recognition to the lens' knowledge. Harriet hadn't much like the idea of that first, but Elara had pointed out how the Diadem—before Tom Riddle somehow defiled it—had worked on a similar concept, and further conversation with Rowena Ravenclaw had allayed her fears. Hermione itched to get her hands on the Sorting Hat to figure out how it read minds and if that magic could further their efforts in their own creation.

"The Hat must be an absolute trove of lost magical knowledge. It was made by Godric Gryffindor himself!"

"Yeah, and nicking the Hat could get us expelled, y'know."

"Just think of the possibilities, though."

"Who are you, and what have you done with Hermione Granger?"

The lens wasn't perfect, as evidenced by the panicked question marks over the Whomping Willow, and other areas of the grounds remained murky and undefined. Harriet struggled with the runes still, Mr. Flamel and Professor Babbling both answering her list of questions with thick books she'd yet to slog through. Elara's addition of blood magic had incurred an odd reaction somewhere in their magic, resulting in mysterious languages and thoughts written in indecipherable characters blooming on the glass for no reason, then dwindling away. Hermione had warned them against accessing the map feature itself, saying her own attempt to do so had set her bed curtains on fire. Pansy complained about the smell for days.

"Is it because I haven't gotten closer than a few dozen meters to it?" Harriet wondered aloud, lowering the lens, mitten still caught between her teeth. "Or because we haven't studied Whomping Willows yet in Herbology?"

She looked out over the lake, and again, the magic picked up only the vaguest landmarks, absolutely nothing beyond the bounds of Hogwarts' wards displaying itself. The permeable nature of the circumdo ward meant it could mingle with the school's wards to an extent, and Hermione worried the lens' efficacy would diminish when they returned to London and could no longer augment their scope to such a degree. Only time—and a spot of experimentation—would tell.

Twisting on her seat, Harriet turned the lens toward the towering, aged stones at her back, and the title "Sundial Garden" came through just fine, joined by a brief addendum on Hermione's notes concerning the history of the spot. Harriet concentrated so hard on the magic before her, she didn't notice the eyes watching her from the trees until the creature stepped forward.

Startled, Harriet spat the mitten from her mouth and rose to her feet, her wand coming into her hand almost faster than she could consider it. A dog had come out of the underbrush—or, at least, Harriet thought it a dog. It stood nearly to her chest in height, black fur matted and tangled, two silver eyes like glinting Sickles focused on her face. She grimaced. Truth be told, Harriet didn't care overly much for dogs; Uncle Vernon's sister, Marge, had had a vicious bulldog named Ripper who would chase Harriet relentlessly, sinking his teeth into her ankles whenever he could. This dog made no move toward her, but she didn't lower her wand.

"Erm, hullo?" she said, hesitating before giving the creature a look through the glass lens. All she received were more confused blue question marks, so Harriet grunted and stowed the lens away in her pocket. "…good boy?"

The dog's tail wagged and it—he—woofed at her, edging closer. He didn't seem aggressive,

having none of that trembling, irritated energy Ripper used to exude, so Harriet lowered her wand but kept it out, letting the dog closer. He was bigger than she thought, his paws as large as her hands, his long fur a wild tangle of muck, leaves, and spots of snow.

"Where'd you come from?" she asked, extending one cautious, mitten-covered hand for his inspection. Elated, the dog butted his nose under her fingers, encouraging Harriet to pet his head. "Well, you're certainly friendly, and given how bloody wretched the weather has been, you must have an owner somewhere." She smoothed her fingers over his piqued ear and against the fur of his neck, searching for a collar. A musty odor filled her nose. "Oof, bloody hell, you're smelly."

The dog whined.

"Don't look at me! You're the numpty who's run off from home." Was he from the village? Harriet didn't know if any of the creatures dwelling in the forest kept dogs, but Hogsmeade was a long way off, on the other side of the lake and grounds. Had he gotten lost? His ribs shone through his patchy fur, and Harriet scratched behind his ears, frowning. Poor thing. She knew what it was like to be that skinny and hungry.

After some thought, Harriet decided to take him to Hagrid, who'd most likely know if one of the villagers had lost their pet or could care for him. Maybe Fang could use a friend. "Come along, then."

The dog peered at her and didn't move, content to be petted and have his head itched.

"Oh—here." Harriet stuck her hand into her pocket, finding the extra roll she'd nibbled on. "Have this."

He snatched up the bread, Harriet stepping back from his sudden voracity. "I don't think I have anything else," she muttered when the dog finished the roll in three seconds, looking at her with beseeching eyes. "I'm sorry. I just have sweets. Hermione says I have a fast metabolism, so I carry extra snacks for when I get hungry, else I get headaches. She reckons it has something to do with my magic. Why am I telling you this?" She rubbed her face. "Spending too much bloody time talking to my snakes…."

Harriet started off toward the bridge, waiting to see if the dog would follow or if he'd run off on his own again. He hesitated—and instead of coming right after her, he first lumbered over the stone she'd been perched on and picked up her forgotten mitten. "Thanks," Harriet said as she accepted it, covering up her cold hand again. "You're awfully well-trained. Someone has got to be missing you."

Again, the dog whined, head hung low as he bumped against her side. Harriet gave him another consoling pat, then headed toward the covered bridge.

Initially, the dog was reluctant to follow, hedging about a few meters behind her, tense and sniffing the air, though Harriet's persistence in pausing to wait seemed to win him over. He strolled at her side, butting his head against her arm until she rested her hand against his back. She shivered when the breeze began to rise.

"Must be nice to have a fur coat. It's freezing out here."

The dog barked, tail thumping against her back. She led them along the path bordering the outer cliff, crossing near the Whomping Willow as the trail wended down toward the route linking the Quidditch pitch and the castle's main courtyard. Harriet stopped to survey the Willow through her lens, trying to get a better read on it, and the dog watched her, head tipped as if curious. Harriet

returned the lens to her pocket, and they continued on.

"I guess a fur coat isn't everything, though. If I were a dog, I'd much rather be at home, eating my supper. Or maybe sleeping in front of a nice fire." A thought occurred to her. "Maybe that's why Elara always passes out by the hearth in the Aerie—."

Under her hand, the dog's body tensed, and he stopped walking. Harriet withdrew, worried he'd changed his mind and had decided to take a bite out of her after all, but the dog didn't growl or bark or make any move at all. He stared at Harriet with those wide, colorless eyes reflecting the gray sky above them, the Willow's looming shape overhead almost too close for comfort. Harriet stared at him in turn, fingering the wand tucked into her pocket. Familiarity prickled through her the more she studied the creature, and Harriet realized Elara's Animagus form resembled him somewhat, if better groomed and considerably smaller, with a patch of white on her chest. This dog must be the same breed—a black Kugsha, Hermione had said after researching it, or perhaps a variation of wolf. But the dog couldn't be a wolf; there were no wolves in Scotland.

"Miss Potter!"

Harriet blinked and turned her eyes toward the sound. The grass rustled, bending under shifting weight, and when Harriet glanced down, she saw nothing but paw prints trailing her steps through the snow.

"Miss Potter?" Professor Sprout finished descending the sloped hill, huffing a bit from the exertion, her face concerned. "What on earth are you doing out here?"

"There was—." She turned in place, scouring the landscape from the bare trail ahead to the roots of the swaying Willow, but there was nothing to be seen. "…a dog."

"A dog?" Sprout asked, puzzled.

"Yeah. He was right here, but I guess he ran off again. He looked terribly hungry."

"Poor fellow. I'll have a word with Hagrid to keep an eye out for him. But goodness me, you silly girl, what are you up to? It's a miracle you haven't fallen into a drift and frozen yourself solid."

Harriet scowled, her cold cheeks flushing, and Professor Spout covered her mouth to hide her laughter. "I'm not that short, Professor."

"Of course not, dear. All the same, it'd be best to get you back inside. It's not safe to go wandering about on your own."

"I was being safe. I didn't go far."

"Even so." Professor Sprout patted her arm. "Back to the castle with you. It'll be lunch soon."

The grip on her shoulder ushered Harriet toward the school once more, falling into step beside the Head of Hufflepuff, and yet she couldn't help but glance behind herself one last time, searching, finding no sign of the mysterious canine. The Whomping Willow continued to sway, branches waving back and forth, but whether in greeting or goodbye, Harriet didn't know.

A/N: A rather short, transitional chapter. I know some people were hoping Mably would have more information to give, but I find house-elves are terribly imprecise or unclear sometimes, especially if they're holding on to their master's wishes/commands. For instance, in canon, I don't think Dobby ever called Hermione by name, and he referred to Ron as Harry's "Wheezy." And it may even be that Marlene never told her Peter's name; maybe she only referenced him or her mistrust in him. Even if she had the name, I don't know if she'd be able to properly convey the idea of him being an Animagus to the girls, especially considering when we say "That person's a rat," we don't literally mean it. Anyway….

Headline: Sirius almost gets added to Harriet's menagerie, three tiny witches invent bootleg Google, Elara accidentally creates window into the thoughts of Old Gods, and Hermione conspires to kidnap the Sorting Hat.

jupiter's chosen

cxxxvi. jupiter's chosen

The black dog scratched through the leaves at the forest's edge and sighed when his pawing turned up nothing useful.

Of course, he thought, bitterness warring with the hunger in his middle as he sank onto his haunches and laid himself down. The old leaves caught and tangled in his long strands of black fur, but he was more comfortable here, shielded from the snow and hidden from view. Of course, there's nothing to bloody eat. I'll have to forage through the bins in Hogsmeade, if I can find any about. Trips to the village had to be spare, lest he tempt fate and get caught, and though scavaging animal carcasses was hardly better than eating rubbish, both beat the food in Azkaban.

The dog peeked up through the spindly branches at the looming castle in the distance and thought of the food served inside, the great feasts laid out by the house-elves every morning, afternoon, and night.

His thoughts inevitably turned back to the rat, and Sirius Black rose, growling.

Peter Pettigrew, that sodding piece of Thestral shit. He paced through the underbrush, paying no attention to the gorse grabbing at his body, the faint howl of memories rattling about his scattered head. Fallen boughs snapped and creaked under his weight. He thought about the rat more and more, until rage festered with the bitterness and the hunger, his lips pulled back over sharp teeth. He swiped his claws at the dead foliage.

How DARE he? How COULD he? What kind of coward lives life as a fucking rat? Oh, he knew Peter came off as harmless enough; he had the mien of a soft-hearted Hufflepuff, watery-eyed and feeble-mouthed, timid and tentative and round-shouldered like a lamb, but Peter had always been shrewd and quick when need be. He was patient and could endure, just like he'd endure the gentle teasing of his friends all through school. When had the descent begun, Sirius wondered? When they were lads? Did he or James or Remus say something that planted the seeds of hatred in Peter's heart? When did it happen?

Or did you simply grasp at the opportunity, rat? he sneered. I don't know what's worse; plotting their deaths or simply throwing them away without a thought.

Peter was soft and quiet and not very handsome. People had never thought or expected much of him—but Sirius knew better. Sirius knew. He was fucking dangerous. Gryffindor courage could translate into an unrestrained daring, the kind that crossed lines of morality even Slytherins couldn't fathom, because that's what Gryffindors did. They checked barriers, pushed boundaries, and in a gutless bottom-feeder like Peter Pettigrew, that meant unpredictability. Backed into a corner, Peter wouldn't hesitate to blow up half the children in the school if it meant he could escape, and all it would take was one mistake on Peter's behalf. Or Sirius'. One moment of sloppiness. He'd kill the entire Weasley family. He'd hurt Harriet—and Sirius couldn't bear it if anything happened to that girl. It would kill him.

How had life with the Muggles treated her? Did she enjoy living there? He knew Hagrid had taken Harriet to her relatives on Dumbledore's orders—right after the half-giant smacked Snape so hard the greasy git hit the ground bloody and unconscious, an image Sirius would cherish until his dying

day. Little Harriet should have gone to him, to Sirius, but he couldn't—he had no right. He couldn't fail Lily and James worse than he had already had. He'd already lost one daughter.

Sirius took a shaky breath and lowered his muzzle, shivering, letting the memories roll off him.

Whenever the Dementors made their rounds in Azkaban, Sirius used to sink into the mire of his own worse memories, and he'd remember the sight of the cottage in Godric's Hollow blown to bits, or he'd smell the odor of burnt flesh at the McKinnon house, hear the investigator say "No survivors" without inflection, see Remus' scrunched face and his cracked voice shouting, "How could you do this?!"

Don't think about it, he ordered himself, giving his head a hard shake, though the depression lingered with substantial weight. That was the problem with Dementors; they didn't just make you miserable, then drift away. No, they gouged out all sensations of happiness, thrashed your whole way of thinking until you became your own Dementor. Sirius no longer needed those hovering, ghoulish fucks flying around him to feel miserable because he did it to himself now.

He forgot he didn't have hands for a moment and clawed at his head, scratching his nose, wanting to tear himself to pieces just to be rid of the unending torment and the irritating bite of fleas. He'd almost take Dementors over the bloody fleas. Almost.

Not until I find him. Not until I find Peter, that fuck, that—that—.

A noise brought Sirius' head up, his paw hitting the ground again with a thump, ears swiveling forward to chase the sound. Given the weather and time of day, no one should be about, not that Sirius dared wander too close to the castle in the middle of the afternoon. He'd watched Hagrid putter around his garden in the morning, digging out weeds to apply mulch and prep it for the spring before he returned to his hut, so Sirius knew it wasn't the groundskeeper. Wary, he kept his body low to the ground and crept closer to the line where the trees thinned and faded into grass, peering through the brown, winter brush.

The Sundial Garden loomed more ghoulish than usual in the sickly weather, great, colorless stone risen from the earth, exuding an almost pungent taste of old magic like bitter sea salt and dirt. Sirius scanned the area, nose working against the odor, and spotted a girl just on the cusp of the hill, sitting on the broken rocks. Sirius' breath caught.

Harriet.

She'd appeared from nowhere like a fae thing pulled out of the ether, dropped among the stones and dolmens older than Hogwarts itself. Sirius had only ever seen his goddaughter at a distance— playing Quidditch, running on that old track cutting close to the lakeshore—but here, she lingered no more than a few feet from him, playing with a curious toy ring or bauble. She didn't look much like Lily or James if he were to tell the honest truth. James had been everything one might expect from an old pure-blood House's scion—good-looking, confident, and invariably well-dressed, while Lily had been unbearably prim and neat and pretty, comfortably middle-class. Harriet looked as if she'd had a row with a laundry basket and lost, wearing two thick, knitted jumpers, mud on her robes' hem, a pricey black cloak thrown over the top that accentuated all her rough edges. The gold of her spectacles' frames flashed in the weak light, her green eyes narrowed in thought, part of her fringe sticking straight up in direct defiance of gravity. Someone had tamed the rest of her untidy hair into a plait.

At once, Sirius was excited and—and angry, furious because what in the fuck were they thinking, allowing Harriet to wander so far on her own? With the Dementors out in force, with Peter—.

I'll kill him, he howled, lip curling over canine teeth. I'll kill him, I'll kill the rat bastard before he touches one fucking hair on her head—.

He didn't realize he'd come out of the woods, not until Harriet shot to her feet, wand in hand, trained on him.

Shite.

"Erm, hullo?" she said, voice uncertain and fidgety, though the aim of her wand remained unflinchingly rigid. Sirius spared the toy in her other hand a thought, but like a lot of things in his head, it pinged about and failed to find purchase, his attention honed on her presence, on the wand pointed toward his face. They surveyed one another for several wary, tense moments. "…good boy?"

Sirius wagged his tag and approached, and when she extended one hand toward him, he wanted that touch more than anything—no, not anything, not more than he wanted to shift forms and embrace his goddaughter for the first time in nearly twelve years. Where had the years gone? They seemed to disappear in a second—or an eon—in the Dementors' loving care, and James' girl was thirteen, looking at him with suspicion, dressed in Slytherin green. Slytherin green. Merlin help him.

Harriet fidgeted and patted about his neck, fussing as she nattered and mumbled. "Oh—here." She reached into her cloak, and Sirius' stomach growled when she pulled out a squished bread roll. "Have this."

He snatched the bread from her and could have groaned at the wonderful, starchy flavor and baked crust. The taste of pocket fuzz mingled in there, too, but Sirius didn't care. His goddaughter held up empty hands when he finished, and he sighed, wanting more. Just find the rat, he retorted to himself. Find the rat, and then—.

"I don't think I have anything else. I'm sorry. I just have sweets. Hermione says I have a fast metabolism, so I carry extra snacks for when I get hungry, else I get headaches. She reckons it has something to do with my magic. Why am I telling you this?" Harriet rubbed her face, her right- hand bare, fingers pink and chapped from the cold. Sirius spotted the glove on the ground. "Spending too much bloody time talking to my snakes…."

Snakes? What ruddy snakes?

Harriet coaxed him from the Garden and over the covered bridge despite his reservations. The forest didn't loop into this section of the grounds, the only possible vantage for escape provided by the cliffs, rocks, and the tunnel under the Whomping Willow, if he could manage it. Sirius bumped into Harriet as they walked, savoring the affectionate way she scratched his ears, knowing he'd have to run from her soon, that he might never have the chance to approach her again. Pain lurched in his gut.

She's a weird kid, he thought the longer Harriet spoke. She jumped from topic to topic and never finished an idea, unaffected by the lack of conversation partner or the growing chill burdening the wind. She looked at Hogwarts with wonder and curiosity, tracing the high walls and towers with her eyes. James would have loved her. Sirius already did.

They came under the arms of the Willow, too far for it to react, but close enough for the branches to tense, the bark creaking and groaning as it contracted like living flesh. Sirius hated that nasty, bludgeoning tree, but Remus had confessed a certain fondness for it. It was his tree, after all.

"I guess a fur coat isn't everything, though. If I were a dog, I'd much rather be at home, eating my supper." Harriet had that odd toy in hand again, peeking at the Willow through the glass, flickers of blue filtering by the bronze rim. She tucked it back into her pocket. "Or maybe sleeping in front of a nice fire. Maybe that's why Elara always passes out by the hearth in the Aerie—."

Sirius stopped, paws digging into the cold, solid earth. It seemed to heave underneath him.

What did she just say?

He stared at Harriet, and she at him, an intense roar building in his ears. Had he been a man, cold sweat would have formed and dripped from his skin.

He had to be hearing things. He had—it couldn't—!

"There were no survivors, Mr. Black." Ashes on his hands like the fingerprints of angry, grasping ghosts—.

"How could you have done this?" Remus cried. "How could you? She's dead, Marlene's dead! Elara's—."

"No survivors."

"—dead!"

Harriet Potter stared at him with Lily's green eyes. He couldn't breathe.

When he sensed someone coming down the hill and Harriet turned her head to answer their call, Sirius lurched into motion and ran for the tunnel under the Willow. He did not look back.

x X x

Sirius Black was not a man who believed in coincidences.

He had been, before. Before the war, before Azkaban. He'd relished in his devil-may-care, laissez- faire attitude, riding Muggle motorbikes and smoking their cheap cigarettes, indulging in flings with girls and boys before deciding he liked the taste of monogamy best of all. But then people started dying—dying faster—and suddenly, the enticing glimmer of bachelorhood didn't shine quite so bright, and Sirius embraced the warmth of domesticity.

He blamed coincidences for the faults he refused to acknowledge. It'd been a coincidence that Remus missed class after the full moon. It'd been a coincidence that Regulus started hanging around future Death Eaters—a coincidence for Peter to always been conveniently absent when they needed him most. It took war and imprisonment for Sirius to receive a nice dose of cynicism, and now he didn't believe in coincidences one fucking bit. It wasn't a coincidence the rat in the Daily Prophet resembled Peter Pettigrew. It wasn't a coincidence Greyback, located in the cell across from him, managed to recreate Sirius' escape—and it wasn't a coincidence when Harriet Potter chattered on and said the name "Elara."

A mistake, a mistake, a coinc—.

Just a name—but a name chosen and deliberated and argued over, the final choice on a scroll

covered in discounted options. Hours and hours of lying on his belly in bed, looking through star charts and family records by candlelight. Long, stressful nights consumed by warfare, staring into the night sky, constellations tripping off his tongue in hushed breaths. Just a name. Aquila, Danica, Lyra, Vega, crossed in slashes, ink dripping on eagle feather quills—.

The weight of a child in his cupped hands, nine months of deliberation.

Elara. Elara Andromeda Black. Jupiter's moon. He used to repeat it to himself, quietly, like a secret, and then in the grips of madness howled it into the salt-encrusted rocks of Azkaban like the foulest of curses—blaming himself, Marlene, Remus, Peter, God—.

After leaving Harriet, Sirius spent hours in the Shrieking Shack. He didn't know how long he allowed himself to weep and rage and tear at his own thoughts, replaying Harriet's words again and again and again, until the syllables stopped making sense and he considered it all a fever dream. Then, Sirius calmed. Flat on his back, staring at the warped, wretched ceiling above him, he whispered, "Elara," into the dust. His heart thumped against the floorboards.

Harriet knew someone who bore the name of his late daughter. A voice suspiciously like Remus' reminded Sirius it was within the realm of possibility for a separate Elara to exist. The exact context of the conversation escaped him—something about dogs and hearths and naps—but the name Elara had not been made in error, and if he was construing information right, Harriet was familiar with this person. Friends, even, meaning it had to be a student. It was a Black name, but not one ever used in the family before; Merlin knows he went through the annals three times over, determined his kid wouldn't share a moniker with one of his cross-eyed, inbred cousins. Yet, it was a Black name—just as the Lestranges used avians, and the Malfoys favored Romans. Elara, Elara, Jupiter's moon.

It could be a Muggle-born, or it might not. It could be a coincidence—but Sirius did not believe in those.

He had to see with his own eyes, just once, just once—.

Learning Harriet's schedule proved harder than Sirius expected it to be, and not only because he was a wanted felon who couldn't access the castle's interior without excessive risk. He simply couldn't figure out how she got around! Holy Helga, Sirius regretted his temper toward her minders, because Harriet seemed to vanish and reappear on a bloody whim, navigating the castle with ease, passing through all those niches and secret places the Marauder's spent years searching for as if she'd always known they were there! He kept following her, kept chasing, kept pressing his luck despite knowing every step he took closer to her meant dipping into the gaze of those who'd see him drawn and quartered and Kissed if they had a choice. Twice he had to hide from old McGonagall and Flitwick in a convenient broom cupboard.

He really missed the Marauder's Map.

Eventually, Sirius pinned down enough of his goddaughter's timetable to know she'd be in Herbology in the morning on Tuesday. He settled in the courtyard as a dog to watch the greenhouses, hidden from sight behind a thicket of yew hedges and dormant rose bushes, the thorns catching and tugging his fur. Grunting, Sirius crouched in the bracken, held himself still, and kept to his vigil until the bells rang, and he saw a group of Ravenclaws and Slytherins returning to the castle's warmth.

He changed forms, back hunched, the roses tearing at his skin, but he could see better as a man than as a dog—and Sirius needed to see. Reckless, reckless. He searched the group, gaze darting from face to face until he found his goddaughter, Harriet chatting with a bushy-haired chit carrying

an overstuffed satchel. They bypassed the courtyard, climbing the steps into an outer cloister framing the castle wall, and through the thin pillars, Sirius watched another young witch come up behind the pair. His breath caught even before the trio crossed through the watery sunlight, before the third witch turned her pretty, familiar face toward the light, and those silver eyes flashed—.

Sirius remembered the autumn of 1980. He remembered pumpkin juice and Yorkshire pudding, too many diapers and weddings rushed a bit too quickly thanks to the war tightening around their necks. But it had been a happy time, the happiest in his entire life. In hindsight, it seemed like some sick joke that 1980 would be the year he loved best, while 1981 would be the one to ruin everything.

He remembered visiting the cottage in Godric's Hollow, orange leaves sticking to his boots, his hands full as he passed through the front door.

"Hey, James!" he called.

"That you, Padfoot?"

"Yeah." He shut the door behind him just as the other wizard came into view. James' face broke out in a wide grin as he stashed his wand back into his belt.

"And you brought my favorite little goddaughter for a visit! " James crowed, and Sirius readjusted the toddler leaning against his chest, drawing her far enough away for her to turn speculative silver eyes from him to James. "Did you miss me, hmm?"

"No."

James gasped, and Sirius laughed, a rough, barking sound as he jostled the girl in his arms, her tiny hands squeezing his fingers for all their worth.

"What's this, then? When did you start talking and giving me back-chat? Who allowed this?"

"She started earlier in the week," Sirius told him, dropping the satchel filled with nappies and clothes on a convenient bench in the foyer. Lily chose that moment to appear from the kitchen, and she flicked her wand to send the bag floating up the stairs. "Suddenly it's 'no' this and 'no' that— no, no, no. It's her favorite word."

"I bet Remus is pleased. Is he coming later?"

"He should be, and definitely pleased. Isn't that right, love?"

A tiny nose turned up at him. "No."

Lily cackled.

Sirius remembered friendship and conversation, supper and maybe a bit too much elf-wine, dozing by the fire. He remembered the weight of two children in his arms, resting on his chest, his daughter and goddaughter—Harriet snuggled into his shoulder, fast asleep, the other awake and staring into the crackling hearth. "Elara," he'd said, and she'd turned to him. The fire reflected off her pretty eyes—his eyes, those eyes—when she'd smiled.

Elara.

A harsh, keening gasp escaped Sirius, the brambles tight and cutting as they dug into his flesh.

Sirius barely had a chance to notice the shadow moving at his back before the wand was already at his neck, the tip sharp against his pulse. His heart leapt in horror.

"Don't. Move."

A/N: Elara's first word was "No," and absolutely no one was surprised.

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Certain Dark Things

the shadow of the serpent charmer

under the stairs

touch of the unholy

but blood is thicker

bind thy hands

mind of the clever

find more than treasure here

wand of elder

where stars dwell

the boy who lived

snake thief

not slytherin

in your head

house of serpents

professor tom

fire burn and cauldron bubble

what awaits the sin of greed

gryffindor

snake tongue

samhain

the harder they fall

the third floor corridor

come back for me

curse thy enemies

eye of newt

reflections of desire

the house of black

bequeathed

pure-blood

a breath before the storm

like an untimely frost

hand to the heart

dark lord's mistake

clever witches

cross my heart

silvered want

look and see

shattered

never prosper

on your way to greatness

bruises on the soul

home is nowhere

the house of malfoy

an uninvited guest

penance for petunia

in the morning

bury your secrets

a most sullen house-elf

dumbledore's decision

dinner with a dungeon bat

slytherin games

the tree that flourishes

when opportunity knocks

on the devil's shoulder

alley brawlers

summer's end

welcome back

strike a king

leaves of green

mischief

flightless bird

nameless thing

apology

kill a king

serpent charmer

the door opens

voices

history, legend

blackbird

madman muttering

skulduggery

blithering idiot

dueling club

thief's honor

like the storm

cleansing

burning day

watchful eyes

changing skins

little lies

misery loves company

in the heart of the earth

rowena's silver

lost to the ages

in search of answers

the horror welcomes her again

where eagles roost

the heir of slytherin

wit beyond measure

promises made

inferno

a crown of thorns

deeper waters

worthy

a traitor's fate

a mundane afternoon

his own demanding ghost

for family

terrifying things

a rising howl

bitter boy

delinquent devilry

by the sea

as the crow flies

moment of the yew-tree

cursed twice-over

the burrow

mischief maker

in want of happiness

terrible reunions

magical creatures

liar

insidious little things

fortune teller

brother mine

though hate were why men breathe

in the ashes

between these yearning stars

in the spirit of things to come

the burning light

grief and other terrors

consequences

the head of slytherin house

god-sister

grieve it on its way

bridges

the plague of hamelin

the face of man

winter friends

for the wicked

the garden

a happy thought

mably the good elf

blood and ginger fur

tracks in the snow

jupiter's chosen