Chapter Two:
Burgundy and Bullion
I
The dorm room Harriet Lenoir was to stay in was the very last door on the left at the end of the east wing, which was, according to the bronze plaque on the wall, named after someone called Elena. It took a single trip to move Harriet's things into her new room, a blank, slight space, no dorm mate to be found.
A contingency measure, of course.
Still, the rooms she had passed before, catching glimpses between ajar doors and teens running in and out with their own belongings as Remus and she made their way to the very end of the long, winding hall showed rooms with two beds, not one.
Another thing that was going to make her stick out like a sore thumb.
Another thing to lie about.
Would having terrible snoring be a good enough cover?
Still, Eff-
Harriet, she has to get used to that name eventually, claimed the room as her own, setting out her suitcases in the single accordion door closet, placing broken spine books on the shelf with photos of her mother and-
Distant cousins if someone were to ask, her friends images joining the mirrors edges.
Friends she would likely never see again.
Remus does the rest, the important stuff, like placing her pack of rune inscribed gloves on the dresser so she would always see it in the morning and remember to cover her hands before she left out for the day. It wouldn't stop her leaving behind desiccated carcasses if someone where to grab and hold, unfortunately fabric, no matter the potent magic weaved between the threads and stitches, could not obstruct her… Gifts, but it would stop any accidental brushes from causing any fatalities.
Just a bit of fatigue and maybe some later year heart problems.
Remus filled her bottom dresser draw with her purple potions, her dreamless sleep, to stop the nightmares and any magical lashings out she might have under the throws of one, and the little black vials she takes twice a day, the ones that stopped her from hearing the voices, seeing the dead every-
They get locked in a secure box at the very back of her dresser.
He hides her invisibility cloak underneath a loose floorboard, on the off chance she needed to escape quickly.
They had learned that trick from the disaster at Ilvermorny.
He places the two-way mirror underneath her bedframe, should she need to contact him or Sirius, and by the time he finishes placing powerful Warding charms on the room, just to make sure her gift can't reach out if the potion fails and she has a nightmare, one more trick learned from Ilvermorny, the room was done and the door was swung open for business.
It didn't feel like home, not even with Harriet's personal touches, the Quidditch Jersey pinned to the wall, not her own, clearly, she was in hiding and didn't need to be painting her real name over the room, the red and gold scarf wrapped around a bed post, missing friends staring out from silver backed mirrors.
It felt like a gilt prison cell.
Burgundy and bullion and barren.
People passed by the open door now, haggard parents, both smiling and teary eyed, students, excited and nervous, and someone's younger brother who sprinted up and down the hallway until he tripped and started to wail. Remus left at one point, heading for the nearest bathroom, and Harriet heard him outside, polite and polished, saying hello to someone who murmured back.
Harriet recognized the timber from over the phone when Sirius had rang this school a month ago. When Remus came back in, he pulled the door too.
"Was that the Headmaster?"
Remus sat on the edge of her bed, and Harriet trailed his way with heavy limbs, sitting at the farthest point from him she could. Remus glanced between the stretching distance between them but made no move to get closer.
Lies and distance were safe.
Lies and distance was lonely.
"Mr. Saltzman? Yes. He wants you to head to his office after you've settled in, but before the convocation in the hall tonight. He wants to go over your electives."
Harriet fiddled with he hem of her jumper.
"Do you think he suspects something?"
Remus straightened out an imaginary crease in her bedsheet.
"Doubtful, but… Be careful. The best lies are-"
"Things closest to the truth. Don't go overboard. I know. Sirius already gave me the rundown before we left."
He smiled at her again, that notched wan smile, and something inside her is chiselled at too.
Harriet wondered what shape she'll be when all the lying and scheming would be said and done. What would she be inside when they finally tracked down this allusive Eli-
Would she recognize herself? Would she recognize Remus? Crueller yet, would she want to?
"It's just for a little while longer, cub. We're on the right track now. You stay here, keep your head down, try to grapple with your gifts, and me and Sirius will be finding answers out there. We'll get over this together. Just stay strong for a little while longer."
Harriet nodded.
What other choice was there?
Before Remus left, he gave her a pouch of Wizarding money and a wallet full of muggle notes, both of which she stashed in the highest shelf of her closest under a notice-me-not charm.
"And you're coming home for Teddy's birthday, so it won't be too long before we see each other again. Remember to ring every Sunday evening, or Sirius will storm this place looking for you."
Harriet nodded, but then they fell into that uncomfortable floating of ambiguity.
She does not want to say goodbye, Remus wants to give her a hug, his tactile Werewolf nature strong, but he can't in fear of death, and instead the two are left hovering at opposite ends of the small room, not quite ready to part ways but running out of time.
Remus broke first, heading for the dorm room door, last second hesitating at the crux.
"Be good to yourself… And be social."
Harriet waved him off.
"Yeah, yeah. I'll try."
It's the best she could give.
From her doorway, she watches Remus walk down the hall, head and shoulders above the muggles, disappearing into a stairwell, and then he was gone.
She hears four approaching voices, the bright echoing laughter of a group of teens.
Harriet ducked into the safety of her room and slammed the door shut.
She could try later, right now she wanted to break something.
II
Alaric Saltzman, Headmaster to the Salvatore Boarding School for the Young and Gifted, was a fatherly looking fellow Harriet thought. Soft and gentle in a muted suit and unbuttoned shirt, relaxed and casual, he seemed out of place behind the ornate desk littered with trinkets and papers and magnolia folders.
He didn't seem the type to be able to wrangle in troubled teens, let alone adolescents with magic, fangs, and furry temper issues. Nevertheless, Harriet saw more than normal people, deeper than the all-American front he put on, even if she wished she didn't.
She saw the years before this office in snapshots, some faster than the others, some just blurry shapes of blood and guts and the vague sensation of grief, the years drenched in death, Vampire hunting, and Doppelganger curses, and spells gone wrong and-
It's nauseating, as it flashes before her eyes the first peek she gets of the Headmaster. She winces before she can stop herself but feigns it off as a headache as she rubs at her temple with a leather clad hand.
He smiles at her from over the desk, speckled in sympathy, as she takes the seat opposite him.
This is a man who knows all too well the pain of headaches. This man who used to wield stakes and crossbows, now pens and paper and tardy slips.
He's dangerous… Or he used to be.
Harriet needed to be careful. Tweed doesn't get rid of the blood stains underneath; it just hides it better.
"You must be Harriet Lenoir. It's lovely to finally meet you."
Harriet nodded and sank down deep to the velvet plush of her chair. Everything here was expensive, real marble and real mahogany, and suddenly she aches with the loss of Gryffindor's dorm room, the broken bed legs propped up with books, the smear of coal across the hardwood from the fireplaces grate that would no longer close properly after one of the seventh-year students had tripped and kicked it off a hinge, the singed curtains that had been set ablaze by an errant spell and an overzealous student.
Harriet does not belong here.
In more ways than one.
The Headmaster, Alaric, glanced down at the open folder before him, skimming over the words Harriet could not see from her vantage point. It was a thick thing, dense and well-read, thumbed into curls at the corner, and, Harriet had a sinking sensation, all about her.
Or the her they thought she was.
"It says here you're a Siphon."
There's a jump in her jaw, an impulse to refute, one she adamantly stamped down on. Alaric smiled at her from over the folder containing lies.
Lies, lies, lies, lies.
The scar on her hand burns with old hurts.
"My daughters are Siphons you see, and one of our Professors too. You've come to the right place."
The plummeting sense abates, and Harriet feels her shoulders lower, calming.
By the brightening of the grin on the Headmasters face, he must take her easing as a thrill of finally not being alone, of finding someone like her.
However, Harriet's still on edge, perhaps even more now at this admission.
Siphons are meant to be rare.
What were the chances that four would be under the same bloody roof?
Three of which that could figure out the fourth was not like the others… Shit. Shit!
"But it does make me wonder… The whole no touching rule is a bit extreme, is it not? My daughters are fine with touch. Is there something more here that I should know about?"
Think, think, think-
The best lies are those closest to the truth.
That was what Sirius and Remus had told her, wasn't it? The best lie was the ones that were dangerously close to something that hurt.
Harriet straightened in her seat, sitting tall, easy, smiling cheerily.
"I'm a Witch… A Wand Wielder, Wiccans call us."
Alaric glanced down to the folder spread before him, nodding.
"Wiccans rely on cantation and balance, their magic is forces outside of themselves that they tap into. A Wand Wielder's magic is inside, more based on instinct and emotion."
Realisation washed the frown right off the Headmasters face.
"Ah, yes. I'm guessing your powers, due to the emotional state are more-"
"Unpredictable, yes. And stronger. A Wiccan Siphon only takes when they mean too, and only ever so much as what they wish to take, but-"
"A Wielder Siphon takes on contact, and I am assuming by the stringent rules your guardians have in place, continues to take until the other is drained."
Harriet shuffled in her seat, nodding as she did, hating herself all the more for the lies that came so bloody easy to her.
At least Tom Riddle had taught her something useful.
Alaric closed the folder with a slap of paper, placing it on the pile to the left, out of the way, forgotten.
Good.
The less their lies were examined in detail, the less likely they would be found hollow.
"Now that the paperwork is out of the way, and you're settled in, I thought we could go over your electives. Here at Salvatore Boarding School we like to push our students into mingling with each species not of their own. It helps in forming a wider world view and strengthens otherwise tense relations. I see you've only chosen lessons to do with magic, and only theory based at that, no practical element at all."
Harriet wavered.
"I can't have physical contact, or lessons that would make me… Emotional. Magical concept-based education seemed best for me."
Alaric smiled at her anew, smooth and curious, etched in compassion.
Harriet hated it.
"Best or easier?"
He's… Good. Too good. Better than Harriet thought she deserved. Kind in a way not many people were, and definitely not most of the people who had been in Harriet's relatively short immortal life.
He seemed like a teacher who actually cared, and that was, perhaps, rarer than finding four Siphons in one building.
And Harriet had no answer. It was easier to fall into the background, naturally, and yet it was for the best for everyone involved if she were to be… Well, overlooked.
Alaric stapled his fingers together, leaning heavy on his desk, head cocking to the side as he regarded her no-answer which was, at the end, an answer enough.
"I know this can be disorientating for students in the beginning. Being in a strange place with strangers, it can be hard, but I want you to know the faculty at this school only ever have your best interests at heart. That said, I think it would be good to have you step outside your comfort zone, in line with your restrictions naturally, but maybe something new?"
He reached over to the side and opened a drawer in his desk. The sound of the click of wood-
The dark room. She's strapped down, metal and leather biting into the tender flesh of her wrists and ankles, runes gnawing away at her boiling magic, the creak of the wooden cot below her. Something warm and sticky is slowly trickling down her hands, sinking into the stained sheets of the bed, cooling and crusting as she tried, tried so hard, to break herself free. The Healer turned around from his desk, wand at the ready. "Stop! Please! Stop!"
Harriet blinked away the half-formed misty memory, but she can't shake the frantic beating of her heart, or the tremble to her fingers clenching into the fabric of her jeans.
She'd overheard Remus whispering to Sirius in the kitchen one night a few months ago, when they thought she was sleeping, saying, maybe, it was a blessing she could not remember those months in the Ministries care by the state they had found her in. Harriet agreed, and she wished she didn't get these small peeks into that time either.
The flashes of pain, and cruelty and-
Vomit.
She's going to vomit.
Harriet valiantly swallowed down the bile and smiled. She was getting good at lying now, better yet when that lying was aimed at herself.
Alaric pulled free a piece of paper, offering it to Harriet over the desk. She took it carefully, pinching the corner and tugging, as far away from the Headmasters bare skin as she could possibly get. What greets her on the crisp white leaf surprises her.
It's a poster for an after-school club.
For a Moral Philosophy debate team of all bloody things.
Harriet wanted to laugh. She very nearly did. Morals? Yeah, they had gone out the window the day she killed Tom Riddle and came back broken.
"How about it? Should I sign you up?"
No, Harriet wants to say. Leave me be, she wants to add. Leave it alone… For your own good, she would finish.
Obviously, she said none of this. The best way of keeping her head down was knowing when and how to pick her battles. This was not one she could take without coming off… Strange. Something strange in need of further observation.
She didn't need to be under a microscope right now.
"It sounds… Interesting."
That was all Alaric needed as he wrote her name down on another piece of paper, likely the turnout list.
It was an easy enough fix. She would go for a meeting, maybe two, and then quietly drop out saying it just wasn't to her tastes.
Done.
"Brilliant. Your personal tutor is running the group, so it will give you time to become acquainted outside the weekly meetings between you two."
Harriet pauses.
"Personal tutor?"
Was that a muggle thing?
Noting her confusion, Alaric grinned, clearly trying to ease her abrupt caution.
"All our more… complex students have one. A teacher who helps them settle in and deal with any problems they face. They'll be your first point of contact with issues such as late homework or fallings out, or any other difficulty that you might stumble across. They're there to make transition into our school as easy as possible. Nothing to be worried about."
Another person to fool then, one set out on keeping a close eye on her.
Marvellous.
Fucking marvellous.
The one school where Harriet needed teachers to be sloppy, letting kids wander off into cursed forests and hold deathly tournaments for barely legal teenagers-
Perhaps not that bad, not as reckless as Hogwarts, but at least Slughorn level of lax, and she gets this.
People who actually want to help.
Where was this school six years ago?
"And the weekly meetings?"
Harriet needed to know what she was getting into.
At least try, Effie.
Remus better buy her some treacle tarts for this bullshit.
Hello… Ca-… er-…M
Harriet stiffened, wide eyes fleeing to the grandfather cloak in the corner. 8:15… Forty-five minutes early. It shouldn't have worn off ye-
"Just to see how you're doing. They are usually held on a Sunday morning, but I'm sure Professor Parker will get in touch with you to set a date and time before the tomorrow night and school starting on Monday. He's a-…"
Suddenly, Alaric appeared like there was a hundred words he wants to use, and none of them nice. He shakes it off soon enough, but not soon enough for Harriet.
Hello!... You-… He-…E?
"He's a Siphon too. We thought it might help you by being placed under his guidance in the beginning."
Harriet smiled widely.
She needed to get out of here or something very bad was going to happen.
"Fantastic."
Fucking bullocks is what she bit back from spewing.
Alaric finally put down his pen.
Liste-… Euphemia... Listen... My... See... Find...
"Well, I think that is everything. Moral Philosophy is run on every Thursday evening at seven PM, and we'll add it to your timetable that you'll pick up after the welcoming assembly tonight at 9."
Alaric stood and smiled down at her, and from over his shoulder, Harriet saw a pale whisp of light fighting for form.
Please… Euphemia... Take... Hope... Find... Hope... Tell...
"Welcome to the Salvatore School, Harriet Lenoir. I hope you find a home here."
Harriet lurched from her seat.
Hey!... Hope... Understand... Tell... Truth... Hope!...
"I do too."
Harriet does not mean that, but, then again, she hasn't mean a single word she has said thus far in this room or to this man, or to anyone in the last seven months.
Lies.
Danger... You're... Danger... Find Hope and... Listen and tell... Truth will make her see...
Another whisp, bigger, brighter, a shadow shaped like an eye, voices mixing sickeningly, churning inside like a storm threatening to break on the shore.
That voice, always the first, always shouting, reaching for her, is drowned out by so many others.
Help... Cold...
My Daughter is... Can you...
It's so dark here... Take me home... I want to go home...
Euphemia!... Focus... Find Hope and...
"My daughter Josie will be finding you after the assembly to give you a tour before curfew. Until then why don't you go and relax for a bit? You're looking a little tired."
Harriet nodded, barely listening, said goodbye, and left.
By the time she reached the dorm hall, she was sprinting, sweating, head pounding-
Listen!
Cold!
Tell my Father-
Please, can you get me out-
I just need you to-
Hey, she can see us! Get her-
Harriet threw her door open, slammed it shut, stumbled to her dresser, yanked open the bottom draw, fumbling for the black vial stash she had locked away at the very back.
She popped the cork off on the third try, threw her head back and downed the entire lot, eyes clamping shut.
My husband, you… Need…
So col-… So…
He…
Euphemia... Hope... Tell... Tru-...
Silence.
Sweet, sweet silence.
Opening her eyes, she saw no half-formed faces and semi visible bodies.
Just an empty room.
Her room now.
Harriet collapsed to the floor, head falling into her quivering hands, and she wept until she could weep no more.