Eager to leave the paranoid atmosphere of the staffroom, Harry had volunteered to accompany David down, since Snape had still been locked in a quiet but strained conversation with McGonagall. Despite the Headmistress's attempts to keep order, the shadow of a stranger in the castle loomed over the table. Trelawney had worked herself into quite a frenzy about it, Emily had begged Alicia to check if her gerbil is secretly an animagus, and even usually cheerful Flitwick had seemed dispirited. A walk with his hand on his wand in anticipation of an attack was a welcome diversion.
Despite tacit agreement with Snape to bring David straight to the Slytherin Common Room, Harry made a diversion to the library, where David showed him exactly where the mystery stranger was standing. The boy gave the stink eye to the Dragon Directory, which he apparently had used for his Care of the Magical Creatures N.E.W.T. class. The book did look very much like something Hagrid would choose. There was an empty slot at its side, but David did not remember the book that belonged there.
Harry waited patiently as David searched for a book to keep him busy while under lockdown, picking out a Newt Scamander's memoir. He talked excitedly about working in the Magical Menagerie over the summer holidays and helping Hagrid on his newest salamander cross-breeding project. While happy that Hagrid had enthusiastic students to help him, Harry hoped the resulting creature would be less disastrous than his blast-ended skrewts. Over the past decade, those had spread all around the British Isles and become a source of constant frustration in Hermione's department as not many who encountered them had Hagrid's thick skin and affinity to animals.
Soon, however, the conversation reverted back to the murder.
"I think Spinnet did it," the boy said as they walked down to the dungeons.
"Do you have anything to base it on, or is it just the Gryffindor-Slytherin thing?" asked Harry.
"They thought they were being discreet, but everybody knew they were an item. The girls thought they were cute, called them 'Spinnarias'."
"Spinnarias?" Harry repeated in disbelief. That sounded like a hex incantation or a name of some annoying disease.
"Yeah, from both of their names together. But then they broke up, and the Gryffs have been in a state of war with the badgers ever since. It was fun at first, but now it's pretty boring to be left out."
"Is Slytherin taking sides?"
"Officially, no."
Harry hid a smile at the gravity of the statement.
"Gryffindors are Slytherin's natural foes—no offence, Healer Potter," David elaborated. "But Smith is—was such a jerk that the sympathies are mostly on the red and gold side."
"Yours, too?"
His jaw tensed. "He still was my Uncle, you know."
Harry frowned. "I got an impression you didn't have a familial relationship?"
"No, he stopped talking to Mum when she married Dad. And he didn't like me or Judith much. But that doesn't mean I wanted him dead!" David raised his chin high, his resemblance with Smith more pronounced than ever before. He was flattening the hem of his hoodie nervously, a stark difference from the way he acted when telling about his Care of Magical Creatures projects..
"I'm not suggesting you did, David," Harry said, watching him carefully.
They came up to the wall hiding the Slytherin Common room. It turned to a door after David muttered the password hastily.
"Thank you for accompanying me, Healer Potter."
Before Harry could answer, the door behind David closed and became unmarked stone again. Harry stared at it in concern for a few moments, considered going after the boy despite the clear message that he was unwelcome. Did David think Harry would blame him for the murder? He supposed it would have been an avenue worth exploring if he still thought Smith was the target.
The mirror in his pocket chimed, indicating there were visitors in the Hospital Wing. That decided it; David would have to wait. Harry turned away and hurried out of the dungeons.
The door to the Hospital Wing was ajar, lights already on at three in the afternoon. Reasonably sure no ill-wishers would be so obvious, Harry still clutched his wand in his pocket as he entered.
At first glance, the ward seemed empty, but a faint sniff came from screen partitioning the bed where Smith's body was lying. Already suspecting the identity of the visitor, Harry quietly peeked inside.
Alicia Spinnet was huddled on the visitor chair, her robe thrown over its wooden back. In a fuzzy purple sweater, twisting at a strand of her dark hair as she had done countless times on the Quidditch pitch, she looked like the girl from Harry's school memories. Then she looked up at him, and the wary expression on her face shattered the impression. Harry was ready to leave her to her wake when she stood up and trained her wand at him.
"Fi—"
"Expelliarmus!"
Alicia's wand flew from her hand, and Harry caught it, glad his Seeker reflexes were still there.
"Spinnet, what the fuck?"
"Language, Harry." She primly shook her head, as if she had not just tried to hex him.
"I think my cursing is the least of our problems here."
"A habit around students."
"So. Mind telling me what that was about?"
"I'm sorry, Harry, but you're under the influence of a spell or a potion, probably the latter. You need to purge it as soon as possible."
"What potion?" Harry asked. Alicia had not seemed at all irrational earlier in the staffroom, but maybe that was how cracks started to show.
"Snape bewitched you!"
Harry gaped at her, speechless.
"He did! You've always hated him, and now, out of nowhere, you trust him blindly!"
"I disliked him because he was a mean teacher." He was not going to explain the nuances of that particular generations-spanning relationship to her. "I wouldn't trust Snape to referee a Gryffindor-Slytherin Quidditch match, but would trust him with my life."
"Harry, wake up! You are following him like a puppy! You should have seen yourself at the dinner table earlier!"
"What happened at the dinner table?" They had barely exchanged two words there.
"He asked you to pass the salt! And you did, with a smile!"
"And what should I've done instead? Throw it in his face? Pour it in a circle around myself, to fend him off?"
"It's not funny, Harry. You blushed! Blushed! And you disregard any possibility that it was Snape who poisoned Zacharias, which is the most obvious conclusion. He has you potioned to the gills!"
"I'm a Healer, Alicia. I think I know the symptoms."
"If you are so sure, you won't be opposed to taking a Purging Potion," she said, victorious.
"I don't fancy puking my guts out for hours just because you decided that the reason I'm civil with Snape is some nefarious potion." He had to take it twice in his life: once when a crazy fan pretending to work in the hospital canteen doctored his coffee with Amortentia, and then after Ron refused to accept his breakup with Ginny. Drinking this potion when it had nothing to counteract was not an experience Harry wished to ever repeat. "I can use Finite on myself if it makes you feel better," he added generously.
"Please do."
Harry raised his eyes to the ceiling but obliged. "Happy now?"
"Depends. What's your opinion on Snape?"
"I still don't think he is the murderer." Harry wondered whether knowing all the information would make Alicia more or less convinced of Snape's guilt. Probably more, but he was not going to test this theory and risk tipping off the culprit.
"He is a murderer, whether or not he had anything to do with Zach. And now this convenient stranger appears, just in time to divert attention from Snape. Witnessed only by some portrait and David Shaw, who hated Zach's guts." Alicia's expression turned thoughtful. "What if it's the boy?"
"So it's David and not Snape now?"
"I suppose I didn't think of Shaw because I still remember him as a wide-eyed eleven-year-old, but he isn't anymore is he? He did blame Zacharias for his sister's condition." Alicia gestured in the direction where Judith was lying, unseen by the screen. "Threatened to lock him in his father's basement for the next full moon—I didn't understand what it meant then."
"Now, I don't claim to know David,"—Especially in the light of his recent reaction—"but his sister could have easily died or might yet remain paralysed forever. People say things they don't mean when their loved ones' lives are in danger."
"I sympathise with his feelings, but it's not an excuse for how incredibly rude he was. When Zacharias explained that he could not possibly prevent Lydia from firing the spell, Shaw said that he should try being better at his job by using the stick that was currently up his arse instead of his wand. Imagine saying that to a Professor!"
Harry sensed that Alicia would not appreciate smiling with Smith's body three feet from him, so he did his best to keep a straight face. "Do you really have reasons to suspect David?" he asked. "Besides things said in the heat of the moment?"
She sagged back onto the stool. "I just want to make some sense of all this mess. Zach is dead, the murderer is here in the castle, and nothing is clear." She stared at Smith's lax face forlornly.
"I understand." Harry put his hand on her shoulder briefly. "You want to know the truth, just like we all do. More so, even. But the simple answer is often the wrong one, you know?"
"I don't know what to think."
"Tea?" He was eager to leave Smith to his peace.
"Can I have my wand back?"
"Are you going to attack me again?"
Alicia sighed. "No."
Harry returned her wand, handle first, and watched it disappear in her pocket before venturing to the office to get some tea. Madam Pomfrey had a tea set in a glass-door cabinet; white porcelain with a floral pattern, surrounded by tea cozies, not unlike the one Aunt Petunia kept for important guests. It was a far cry from the translucent china of Grimmauld Place that he had got out exactly once, to chuck it into the attic, but Harry hesitated taking it out, used to the five-knut mugs which most Healers had in the hospital.
"You can just order some from the kitchen," Alicia said, coming in as well. "Dippy!"
The same house-elf that had come to call them for dinner earlier appeared. "What does Professor Spinnet wish?"
"Tea, please."
The elf bowed out and in a few moments, returned with a tray laden with biscuits and miniature cakes. Harry was grateful for a big pot with Hogwarts crest since he didn't get to have any tea with his hasty retreat from the staffroom. He put the neat stack of parchments on Poppy's desk away to make more room, thinking guiltily of his own desk in the Pediatric Ward, littered with parchments with mug rings on them.
"Thank you, Dippy."
"Zach always told me that it's wrong to speak to them this way—house-elves, I mean," she said after Dippy disappeared again with another bow and a pop. "Apparently, you are not supposed to say things like 'please' and 'thank you' to them all the time."
"That's Doxy shite."
Old pureblood families had regarded their help as little more sentient than a vacuum cleaner. While people tend to treat their elves better than Malfoy Senior—or Sirius, if Harry was completely honest—they did it for purely practical reasons rather than any regard for the house-elves' feelings. The whole idea of house-elves having feelings other than the desire to serve was worthy of nothing but ridicule in many circles. Harry came a long way from laughing off Hermione's fourth-year crusade, even if she had gone about it in the stupidest way possible. Now Head of Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, she made a lot of headway in improving house-elves' rights, but within the confines of their homes, wizards still could get away with all sorts of inhumane practices.
"Yeah, that's what I would tell him. I'm just not raised that way. And this was the reason, wasn't it?"
"The reason?"
"The reason we broke up. He wasn't a bigot, but he always was uncomfortable with some of my views. I'm a Half-Blood, you see, and while my father is a wizard, he's not a Brit. He's from America and was a Quadpot champion in the seventies," she explained. "Zacharias thought I would never be able to grasp some things English pureblood wizards suck in with their mother's milk."
Privately, Harry thought that made Smith a bigot alright.
"I suspect his family played a role as well. They were never outright disapproving, to my face at least, but I know they thought he could do better." She moved to pour tea in their cups, likely to have her hands occupied with something. "We were together for three years. He wasn't the kind of man to fly his broom to my window with a rose in his teeth to sweep me off for a moonlit voyage, but I thought we were happy. I was waiting for him to propose on my birthday."
Harry took his own cup and inhaled the steam of the perfectly brewed tea. He had always been pants at relationship talk, but thankfully Alicia didn't expect him to say anything.
"I brought up kids in September, and he shut the conversation. Again. He would always do that when I tried to talk about the future. So we got in an argument, and that's when my place in his life came out. Convenient enough to date while we are both teaching at Hogwarts, but not wife material."
"What a wanker," Harry could not help but say.
"He told me he loved me and didn't want to lose me, but he had certain 'expectations' placed on him." Alicia gestured quotation marks with her fingers. "Wanted us to continue as if nothing had happened since he had plenty of time before he needed to think about marriage."
"And you didn't accept this rubbish offer."
"No. I had some self-respect left. But—" She bit her lip slightly. "Maybe I did hope he'd change his mind, see what he lost because he took me for granted. Foolish, I know."
"What about Oliver?"
"It's nothing serious. We've been on and off for years since Hogwarts, before I got together with Zach."
"Does Oliver agree it's nothing serious?" Harry asked cautiously.
"Ollie has one true love, and that's his broom. No one could ever compare to Quidditch for him." Regret flickered across her face. "But I wish I hadn't invited him here yesterday."
"So he wouldn't try to clear the passageful of rocks singlehandedly to get to his training?"
"This here is why I couldn't date him in the first place," she said with an exasperated eye roll. "But no. The sky won't rain brimstone and Fiendfyre on his head if he misses one single training. What I regret is that Zach saw us yesterday evening together—we still live in adjacent quarters, even share a balcony. I was thinking about transfiguring the wall back, but it's cold and I don't use it anyway. And now there's no point, right?" She looked as if she was going to cry again, but collected herself with a steadying breath. "Late at night, he banged at our internal door—I have it sealed from my side—clearly drunk. Maybe if he hadn't seen us, he wouldn't have drunk that godforsaken wine."
So Alicia wanted to make her ex jealous, bringing Oliver in hope that Smith would regret his treatment of her. Perhaps try to win her back. Harry imagined her bringing Oliver to that shared balcony—not yesterday, it had been too cold for that, but maybe earlier—so that Smith could see what he had lost.
"He was the reason you broke up, and you had every right to move on," he said. "No one could have expected what happened."
Her reply was cut off by stomping footsteps outside the office. Frowning lightly, she half-turned in her chair just as Oliver entered, nursing his hand.
"Hey, Harry, can you—Oh, here you are, Alicia. Should I be concerned about you cozying up with our favourite former teammate while I'm busy digging us out?" Despite his amicable tone, his smile was tight on the edges, and he watched the tea tray as if it was a rival team's Quaffle.
Whatever Alicia had said, he seemed to disagree with her assessment of their relationship.
"Nobody is asking you to do that." She gave him an unimpressed shrug.
"Yeah, well—"
"Did you want me to look at your hand, Oliver?" Harry interrupted, standing up from the desk.
Oliver held out his middle finger. It was bent into an unnatural angle, but Harry also suspected Oliver enjoyed showing it to him a little too much.
"You don't want to play with Alicia's affections, Harry. She's a dangerous woman. See what happened to the last boyfriend who treated her badly,' he said flippantly.
"Oliver!"
"What, Allie? I'm just stating the facts."
Harry sighed, casting a double cleaning charm on the hand and examining the finger. "I'm not playing with Alicia's affections, Oliver. You know I'm not interested in women."
"And yet, the papers are always reporting your affairs with them."
"You know better than to believe the Prophet. Weren't you supposedly having a threesome with Ginny Weasley and her teammate from the Harpies this summer?"
Oliver's hand relaxed in his. "Maybe I was."
"Not according to Ginny, who was on a romantic trip to Paris with her fiancé at the time." Harry squeezed the finger lightly.
"Ow!"
"Sorry." He was not. "Unpleasant, but you don't want me to leave you with a partially unhealed fracture. Episkey."
Oliver clenched and unclenched his fingers. "Thanks, mate!"
"Want a cuppa?" Harry offered.
"No, I'm good. I feel like the storm is coming to an end, so I'll go try the door again."
As he turned to leave, Harry didn't need to look at the window to know that the white rage outside had not abated in the least.
Alicia watched his retreating form with a frown on her face. She fiddled with her wand before casting an Incendio at the fireplace. The fire rose from the logs, creaking and crackling. Alicia stood up and took a snow globe with a miniature replica of Hogwarts inside from the mantelpiece. She seemed to be the type of person who found comfort in the tactile and needed something to occupy her hands, especially when nervous. Shaken into a likeness of the actual storm outside, the snow inside the globe gently fell onto the tiny turrets.
"So you really don't believe Snape poisoned Zach?" she finally asked.
"No, I don't." Harry looked at her curiously. "I also don't think he bewitched me."
She looked slightly embarrassed. "I might have overreacted there. We've all had our crushes on the wrong people."
"I don't have a crush on Snape!" Harry sputtered.
"If you say so," Alicia said, but she did not sound very sure. There was obviously something else on her mind.
Harry waited quietly for her to collect her thoughts, still outraged at her previous insinuation.
She took a deep breath. "Oliver wasn't in my room all the time in the early morning today."
"But didn't you say—"
"Yes, yes, I did say he stayed there throughout the night. I didn't have time to think, and I didn't want Oliver in trouble. I don't know when exactly he left; I was asleep. But he woke me up around six when he returned. Said he tried to leave. He'd mentioned he had to be up early yesterday, so I didn't think anything about it."
"And now?"
"I'm not saying Oliver killed Zach!" Her voice rose high. "I know him since we were kids. He wouldn't do something like that. He is not that kind of person." She seemed to be trying to convince herself. "I just wanted to set things straight."
Alicia did not want to believe, but clearly the weight of suspicion was gnawing on her, Harry observed. She must also have seen Oliver's behaviour as suspicious and now, confronted with his jealousy, thought she had found a possible motive. Harry wondered how much her quickness to blame Snape and even David stemmed from denial. Or maybe by bringing up up all suspects, Alicia wanted to divert the attention from herself, a nagging voice in his head suggested.
"Please don't tell McGonagall," Alicia said, suddenly worried. "She always finds fault with every little thing: from policing my hair to the number of my weekends off. She'd prefer it to be zero. Christ, I wish I didn't take that promotion."
"You don't like to be the Head of the House?"
"Frankly, no. I was so much happier just being a Transfiguration Professor. I could spend a night out without worrying if the new generation of wannabe Weasley twins were blowing up the Tower in my absence. I could leave for the whole weekend without explaining myself to McGonagall and finding a substitute to keep an eye on my students. I don't remember her stepping her foot in the Tower more than twice a year!"
"Maybe she should have," Harry said. While he had enjoyed his freedom as a student, so many problems could have been solved if their then Head of the House had paid more attention.
"Absolutely. I swear, those kids live to look for trouble, all day, every day. It's the hypocrisy that gets to me. Hypocrisy and unfair expectations. Flitwick and Sprout are pushing hundreds, their kids and grandkids are all grown up now, and Snape doesn't seem to have any life outside Hogwarts at all. But she cannot expect a young teacher to be here bell-to-bell."
Harry made a sympathetic noise. "My boss thinks that forty-eight-hour shifts are no reason to complain about." He thought about his own failed relationships that had not withstood the test of his workload. It was never the only problem, of course.
Alicia looked at the grandfather clock in the corner and sighed. "In fact, I'd better go check on my firsties right now. Babbling has taken care of them so far, but is already suggesting I'm a murderer; I don't want to add 'slacker' to that. In McGonagall's eyes, that is a capital offence."
With that, she left, refusing Harry's offer to accompany her to the Gryffindor Tower in case the murderer was lurking behind the nearest suit of armour. Having snatched the last biscuit before Dippy took the tea tray away, Harry administered the last dose of Skele-Gro to Judith and settled on the transfigured armchair at her bedside. Watching the darkness behind the lancet windows deepen, he tried to figure out how the Alicia and Oliver's relationship drama and the odd behaviour of David Shaw where his Uncle was concerned fit in with the murder of Zacharias Smith. The murder that had actually been an attempt on his own life.
Not for the first time, he rejoiced that he had not joined the Aurors, since the pieces of the puzzle were few and mostly seemed to belong to a different puzzle altogether.
