Neville hadn't been into the Riddleway library yet, but Amber seemed to know where she was going, so he followed her through the stacks until they came to a study table, near the Herbology section, or so Amber told him.
She set her books down on one side of the table and Neville took the chair across from her, pulling his own books out of his pocket, setting them on the tabletop and enlarging them. He also pulled out his quill, a small pot of ink, and the rolls of parchment on which he'd taken notes the day before.
"What all did you want to go over?" he asked Amber as he unrolled his first scroll, as he scanned the somewhat messy scrawl of his writing.
"Everything," Amber said. When she didn't elaborate, Neville looked up at her, to encourage her to keep talking. Then he shivered slightly, because there was something about the way that she was looking at him… Predatory, almost.
"Well, we can discuss it all, sure," he said. "That way, if there's anything that we don't understand—from the readings, or from what she talked about in class—we can ask about it, right?"
"Right," she said.
Her expression hadn't changed, Neville saw, and he felt the sudden need to do something to diffuse it. The urge to do whatever it took to make her stop looking at him like that. He tried to think of why she might be looking at him like that.
"My girlfriend," he said after a moment. "She's a Muggle and she's going to a Muggle university to study Botany. She wants to open her own shop after she graduates from school; wants to grow the plants herself. She'd be jealous, reading all of these texts. Learning everything that we're learning about."
"We're very lucky," Amber said, and after a moment her look softened. "We're even more lucky than most wizards. How many have access to all this?" She waved her hand at the surrounding stacks. "All of this information? We'll be among the best educated Herbologists the world has had!"
Neville nodded, mostly in agreement, but he also said, "I don't know. Professor Sprout, my teacher at Hogwarts, did just fine without all of this higher education. And the Muggles do, too."
Amber had to know that, given that she'd grown up in the Americas, but he kept talking.
"Here, anyway, it's quite a popular pastime for Muggles to raise all varieties of plants without this education. Sometimes, I think it would be nice to open up a shop in the Muggle world, where all I'd have to worry about is educating people on which plants belong indoors, which belong outside, sun, shade, greenhouses. Fertilizer. You don't have to worry about Muggle plants eating you, you know. Or strangling you in your sleep."
"But you won't," Amber said. "Will you? Waste all of this, to go out there and do that?"
"Doubtful," Neville said. "I would like to own my own shop, though, wherever it might be, in Hogsmeade or on Diagon Alley, or yes, even in Muggle London. Just somewhere. That's what I want to do."
Amber nodded, then for the first time since they'd sat down, she looked around at the stacks that surrounded the little alcove they were sitting in.
"You know what's really wonderful about this library? There's magical soundproofing around each table, and in each row of the stacks as well, so that nothing will disturb those who are studying."
Neville couldn't help but blink at the sudden change of topic.
"Didn't Professor Arbor suggest some books that we might want to look at?" she continued. "That would give us some more information on the things that she covered in class yesterday? Maybe we should head into the stacks and find those."
"We could do that," Neville said. He stood up from his chair and followed her into the stacks. And since he wasn't in front of her, since he wasn't looking at her face at all, he didn't see her eyes flash green as they passed into the first row.
They were in their fourth such passageway—who knew that Riddleway needed so many corridors to get from one part of the campus to another—when Harry heard the sounds of footsteps behind him. He turned around first, his wand at the ready, but Ron was only half of a beat behind him. They were both standing still, in position, when he saw who it was that was following them.
"Put those wands down," Hermione said. "Honestly. George and I aren't going to attack you."
"Speak for yourself, dear," George said. "When have I ever needed a reason to attack my little brother?"
"We aren't here to attack you," Hermione said again. More forcefully this time. She cast a furtive look at George, Harry saw, then continued.
"We decided that you were right. That maybe it would be more beneficial to be out here with you. Besides, if it is a thing that's doing this, then it would be better to have four fully trained wizards out here fighting it. Four sets of eyes on the lookout."
Harry nodded. He looked back and forth between Hermione and George, saw the quick looks that the twin kept giving his girlfriend, and guessed that there was more going on underneath the surface than she had said. This wasn't the place to question, though. Plus, he didn't really want to. He was happy enough to have her out there with him again.
"Really, we were just wandering around," he said. "Looking for suspicious goings on."
"We're improvising," Ron said. "We're being impulsive."
There was an edge to his voice that would have clued Harry into the fact that his friend was humoring him, had he not already been clued into the fact that all of his friends were humoring him. Did it really matter if they were humoring him, though, if he was right? If he needed to be right?
"Well sometimes that's the best way to go," George said. "How d'you think Fred and I have come up with some of our best gags? It's more of a 'gee, I wonder what would happen if we mixed pigs teeth with bats wings' sort of thing. And no, honey, it hasn't killed us yet."
Harry smirked. He'd been able to see Hermione open her mouth, intent on saying words to protest such actions, but George had been facing Harry and Ron, with Hermione behind his back. He apparently knew Hermione too well.
Or maybe they really were suited for one another.
Harry felt more than heard Ron chuckling beside him, but he could see Hermione opening and closing her mouth, apparently trying to decide how best to respond.
"Well, we won't get anything done standing around here, talking all night," she said finally, or started finally. She probably would have said more if Harry hadn't suddenly waved his hand sharply, motioning for her to be quiet. At first, she looked at him with sudden indignation, but then she apparently heard what he'd thought he'd heard: the quiet sound of careful, measured footsteps approaching.
Harry and Ron were already facing in the right direction to meet the interloper, but he watched George and Hermione slowly turn around, wands at the fore.
The identity of the person who entered the passageway next surprised Harry, but then again, he thought that maybe he shouldn't have been. Wherever trouble went, Draco Malfoy seemed to follow.
Or maybe it was the other way around.
"My, my," Malfoy said before any of them could utter a word. "Is this any way to greet your old school chum?"
"Piss off, Malfoy," Ron spat.
Harry watched as Malfoy arched one of his pale eyebrows. No longer was this the Malfoy that had been avoiding Harry and Hermione since the welcome feast. Nor was it the reluctant ally whom Harry had found his side saddled with during the Final Battle. No, smirk firmly in place, this was the Malfoy whom Harry had been sure he'd left behind at Hogwarts.
"Last time I checked, Weasley, I was the one who was the student here, not you. I have more right to be walking these hallways than you do. Either of you." The blond looked back and forth between Ron and George.
"What are you doing here, Malfoy?" Harry asked, hoping to forestall a Hogwarts-era fight. He walked forward until he stood a step in front of all of his friends.
"What does it look like I'm doing, Potter?"
"I'm serious, Malfoy. What are you doing out here? Are you following us?"
Malfoy choked out a laugh. "Following you?" Then he sighed. "Fine, I was in the library when I saw Granger and Weasley Twin Number One leaving so quickly, one would have thought Voldemort himself was on their heels. I decided to give chase."
"What for?" Ron asked. "This doesn't concern you."
"Figure it out," Malfoy spat. "It only made sense that Granger would be running off to find Potter, and where Potter is, trouble is only steps away. I thought I'd let you lot provide my evening's entertainment rather than the library's copy of Most Potente Potions."
"You'd think, Mr. Malfoy, that your father would have bought you your own copy of that text before you even entered Hogwarts."
Harry jumped at the sound of the new voice in the confines of the covered walkway. He spun around on the ball of his foot, his lips already parted to utter a curse or an oath, whichever managed to leave his mouth first, when the voice finally registered in his brain.
Snape looked at him, but his gaze didn't rest on Harry long enough for the look to even be called a glare, before he turned his attention back to Malfoy.
"Or, if not then," he continued, "I would have thought, at the very least, that he would have done so at some point before he died."
Whatever words Harry had wanted to say died on his tongue and he whipped his head around so that he could look at Malfoy over his shoulder. It was the first time Harry had heard anyone address the subject of the elder Malfoy's death to the face of the younger. At least without immediately suffering the effects of whatever curse he'd chosen to use that day.
Malfoy appeared to be paler than he had been just moments before, before Snape had appeared, and Harry thought that he could see him trembling with unreleased tension. His voice was steady when he spoke, though.
"You mean before Voldemort had my father put to death? No, I'm afraid that buying me my own copy of Most Potente Potions was not high on his list of things to do. For some reason, it just didn't rank up there with taking over the world."
Harry looked back at Snape, and despite the fact the nighttime shadows had settled heavily on his Professor's face, he thought that he looked somewhat amused.
He sounded almost amused, too.
"Well, now that we've got that very important matter settled, we come to the true crux of this encounter. Mr. Potter, Ms. Granger, both Mr. Weasleys. May I ask what you all are doing out here, lurking in dark hallways? If you weren't the twice savior of the Wizarding World, Potter, some might think that you were up to no good."
Harry opened his mouth to make a retort—what, exactly, he wasn't sure, because appropriate words hadn't come into his head yet—and he heard Hermione drawing in a breath to do the same, but Snape held up a hand to stop them.
"No, no. Let me see if I've learned anything in the seven years we spent at the same institution. The reason you're out here, skulking around in the dark corners of this campus, wouldn't have anything to do with two witches who are currently inhabiting the infirmary, now would it?"
"What if it does?" Harry asked. "Who are you to say that we can't be out here, trying to stop other witches suffering the same fate?"
"And what fate would that be, Potter? That some members of the Wizarding World might not owe you their lives and well-being?"
Harry clenched his fists more tightly, but he forced his tone to remain calm. "No one should have their magic taken from them, Professor. Besides, it's not as if anyone else is doing anything to stop it."
Snape coughed, or maybe it was a chuckle disguised as a cough. Whatever it was, it wasn't a kind sound.
"And what are you going to do, Mr. Potter? How are you going to stop this great evil? Do you even know what you're up against?"
"We've narrowed it down to one of several possibilities," Hermione broke in, her voice cold.
"We're fully trained wizards," Harry said. He clenched his jaw and tightened his fist around his wand. "We can handle this ourselves." He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth, but Snape was already speaking.
"When these other witches, who were also fully trained, mind, couldn't. My, Potter, how humble of you. I'm glad to see that heroism hasn't gone to your head at all."
"There are four of us," Ron said. "Four wizards instead of one."
"And what makes you think that that will make a difference, Mr. Weasley? What if I was to tell you that this demon you were dealing with—yes, Ms. Granger, it is a demon—can only be banished back to whence it came with fire, and a certain incantation? At a certain point in the possession cycle?"
Harry watched as Snape's eyes narrowed, glinting in the darkness. "What if I was to tell you, Mr. Potter, that the only reasonable explanation for this demon being here is that it was summoned, because this is nowhere near its native climate."
He took a step towards them all, his stance bordering on menacing.
"What if I was to tell you, Harry Potter, that the only thing that the two victims remember from their time possessed is a single name. Yours."
Harry drew in a deep breath. Froze. Felt as if he'd turned to ice. He saw Hermione, George, and Ron move in front of him and heard Malfoy start laughing behind him.
"You're lying," he said, but his voice faltered, the words broken.
"Get back to your dormitories, all of you," Snape said, suddenly dismissing them. He turned on his heel and started walking back in the direction that he'd come from. "Leave this mess to those of us who know what we're dealing with."
"Professor," Hermione said. "What is it that we're dealing with?"
Snape turned back to them. "You don't need to know everything, Ms. Granger." Then he turned around again and swept away.
Malfoy was still chuckling quietly behind Harry, and Harry saw that he almost smiled when Ron glared in his direction and said, "Shove off, Malfoy."
"Gladly," Malfoy said. Then, as he was walking away: "Ah, that was a glorious sight. The Great Harry Potter rendered speechless by Professor Snape. Much more entertaining than any text I could find in the library."
Before any of Harry's friends managed to form a coherent reply, though, he had indeed shoved off and was gone.
"Harry, Harry," Hermione said, stepping close to him. "Snape probably doesn't know what he's talking about. He probably only suspects. If he knew, don't you think that the Aurors would be swarming all over the campus, stopping whatever it is?"
But what if he was right, Harry wanted to ask. What if Harry was the reason it was there? What if the two girls in the infirmary were innocent victims, harmed only in an attempt to get to him?
"Hermione's right," Ron said. "He was probably just trying to make himself sound important. Come on, mate. Don't be like this."
Harry shook his head and then shook off the hands that were meant to be comforting.
"I'll see you all later," he said, and then he walked away, leaving his friends standing where they were, staring after him.
Severus Snape waited until he heard the two Weasley boys and that Granger girl leave the corridor, the sounds of their footsteps fading as they moved in the direction opposite from the one that he had gone, before he leaned his head back against the nearest stone wall. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
"Merlin help me," he murmured.
Neville was not in their room when Harry returned and for that he was grateful, because it gave him an opportunity to lie down on his bed and stare at the ceiling, contemplating what, exactly, Snape had said.
He wasn't left alone with his contemplations for long, though, because not even a quarter of an hour later, there was a knock on his door. He sat up on the bed, swung his legs down over the side, and pulled his wand out from underneath his pillow as he called, "Come in."
The door opened slowly and then Ron peered in.
"Oi," he said, smiling hesitantly, but Harry didn't smile back. He tucked his wand back underneath his pillow, though.
Ron stepped into the room and closed the door, then leaned back against it. He kept his hand wrapped around the doorknob, Harry saw.
"George told me to bugger off," he said. "Told me he needed some alone time with Hermione."
"Ah. So it's not that they sent you to try to break me out of my inevitable funk?"
Ron shook his head, so quickly and empathetically that Harry knew he was lying. He had the grace to look sheepish, though, when Harry quirked an eyebrow.
"I wasn't supposed to tell you that. Hermione did look as if she needed some alone time with her boyf— with my brother. You know, nearly a year later and I still can't call him her boyfriend. It's just too weird." He shuddered. "Seriously, though. Snape's a git. You know that."
Harry nodded. "I do, but if what he says is true… If it is a demon and it is after me and those girls all— And there will be another one tonight, too, because we bloody well didn't find anything while we were out there."
Ron nodded, even as he said, "But maybe Snape was just being a bastard. It's quite possible, you know, that if you'd gone into this thinking that this demon thing is—was—after you, he would have laughed at you in that scornful way of his and paid you even more compliments on your humility."
Harry chuckled at that. He shifted on the bed, pulling his pillow onto his lap.
"We'll find this thing," Ron said. "We'll find it, or the Aurors will be called in and they'll find it, or—" He shuddered again. "—Snape will find it. Then this will all be over and life can return to normal."
"Normal?" Harry asked. "What is this 'normal' of which you speak?"
Ron might have walked across the room to punch him if the door hadn't started to rattle as someone attempted to open it from the outside. Ron, who was still leaning against it, stepped away quickly. Harry's hand crept back across the bed, fingers searching for his wand.
Neville stepped into the room. He looked back and forth between Harry and Ron and then he nodded at both of them.
"Hallo, Ron," he said. "Back again?"
Ron looked at Harry, as if asking permission to speak, asking what he was allowed to say. Harry shrugged one shoulder and then shook his head. It wasn't that he didn't trust Neville, of course. It was just that the fewer people who knew what was going on, the safer he felt. Logically, it should have been the other way around.
"You know me and school," Ron said. "I just can't stay away."
Neville laughed appropriately, then turned back to Harry. If Harry hadn't known Neville for seven years, he might have thought the gaze appraising. Hungry, almost.
"How was your study session?" Harry asked. "With what's her name? Amber?"
"Short," Neville said. "There wasn't very much to go over." He shifted nervously, although it might have been from embarrassment, given what he said next. "I actually ended up going into Muggle Oxford, to meet up with Lisa for coffee and a walk around her campus." He blushed. "I'm rather tired, though, so if you don't mind, I think that I'm going to turn in."
Harry looked at Ron, who nodded and said, "I'm supposed to be meeting up with George anyway. I'll catch up with you blokes tomorrow."
Neville nodded and Harry smiled—a genuine smile, because Ron had apparently done his duty and had very nearly snapped him out of his funk—and then he walked Ron down to the building's common room, where George was waiting.
When he made it back up to his room, the lights were out and Neville was apparently already asleep.
The first thing that Harry did when he walked into the dining hall for breakfast the next morning was to look towards the front table, to see if Snape had decided to grace the room with his presence. He wasn't sure if he was happy or not when he saw that the potion master's chair was empty, a noticeable hole in the line of professors that decorated the front of the room.
The next thing he did was look for Malfoy.
He, unfortunately, was there. Sitting by himself, as he was prone to do now, at the end of the table that the Durmstrang students had claimed the very first afternoon. He was looking at the plate in front of him when Harry first glanced in his direction, but as if sensing the gaze, he looked up. His eyes locked with Harry's, cold and gray. In conjunction with his pale hair and paler skin, Harry suddenly thought that Malfoy looked rather like a ghost.
He looked like the shell of the boy that Harry had spent years hating. That spark of life that Harry had seen the night before was gone.
Unable to take it, for some reason, Harry was the first to look away.
"Come on," Hermione said and she gently laid her fingers against his shoulder blade, giving him just the most miniscule push towards their table. "Let's go sit down. You need to eat. I need to eat."
Harry nodded and kept his gaze focused on the empty spot beside Seamus.
Seamus looked up at them as they approached and waved a hand in their direction, beckoning them closer. Harry was surprised, almost, that the other teen didn't call out their names again, that he didn't alert the whole room to their presence.
Then he noticed that Seamus was looking remarkably serious. Too serious. He was relatively sure that he knew what the other boy was going to say before the Irishman opened his mouth, and he was right.
Hermione had guessed it too, apparently, because before Seamus managed to get a word out, she said, "They've found another one, haven't they. There's been a third victim."
Seamus looked startled for all of a moment, but then he almost-grinned, shrugged his shoulders, and said, "You know, it's people like you who take all of the fun out of a good gossip session. Here I was just getting ready to spread this dire piece of news that I have and you already know it. Of course, I suppose that it's appropriate for the saviors of the world to know everything." He sighed dramatically. "So tragic. She seemed so nice, too."
"Wait," Harry said. "You know who it was? You know who the third victim was?"
Seamus nodded, looking nearly gleeful—in an overly melancholy way, of course.
"It was that redhead who was over here talking to Neville yesterday. The one who wanted to study Herbology with him. That American bird, what was her name? Speaking of which, where is Longbottom? Do you think he knows already?"
Harry opened his mouth to say that Neville had been gone when he'd woken up, but Susan was already speaking. He felt a knot form in his stomach and he looked around the dining hall, to see if Neville was anywhere to be seen. He wasn't.
"Amber," Susan said. "Amber Smith. Oh, poor Neville. They seemed to be getting on so well, too."
"But don't forget that he has a girlfriend now," Dean said.
"How could we forget?" Seamus asked. "It's all he's bloody well talked about since we arrived, you know. Lisa this and Lisa that and Lisa, Lisa, Lisa!"
"Shush," Hermione reprimanded. Her voice was sharp, so Harry turned to look at her, tried to see what she might be thinking. She was frowning, biting at her bottom lip, and there was a deep crease between her eyebrows.
"We need to see if we can talk to her," Harry said quietly. He had to get Hermione to try again, despite his behavior the night before. To get her to help him again. He just had to. "Or see if we can talk to either of the other two girls. Maybe we can get some more details, too. See if we can figure out what Snape was alluding to last night."
She was still chewing on her lip, still staring towards the floor with a look of consternation on her face, when she finally nodded. Harry felt a tension that he hadn't previously been aware of leave his body. Suddenly, it felt as if he was drawing his first clear, free breath in months. To have her on his side—finally. To have her truly want to help him, instead of humoring him, because he was suddenly sure that this was her firm commitment to help him stop whatever it was, to stop protesting that they should leave it up to the proper authorities. He wasn't sure if it was that this latest victim was someone that they'd met, albeit only briefly, or that Hermione had finally rediscovered her sense of adventure, but whatever it was, Harry was glad for it.
"Let's go," she said. She turned on her heel and started walking away from the table. Harry followed close behind.
"Aren't you going to eat some breakfast?" Susan called after them.
Hermione shook her head, then she stopped and turned to look over her shoulder. "The sooner we find out what this thing is, the sooner we can develop a plan for stopping it."
Harry nodded his agreement. She started walking again, and just as Harry started to follow her a second time, he stopped again, noticing two things: first, sometime during the time that they'd spent talking to Seamus, Snape had entered the dining hall. He was glaring at Harry. And secondly, Draco Malfoy was staring at him, his expression not nearly as dead looking anymore.
"Harry," Hermione called, and Harry ran after her.
Hermione was nearly running, she realized, as she pushed her way out of the dining hall and she made herself slow down to a more demure pace. There was no point in running, no point in rushing. Rushing meant that she would be more likely to make mistakes, and mistakes might mean that another person would fall victim to whatever this demon was. Mistakes meant that the demon would be able to get another step closer to Harry, if it didn't get its claws into Harry that very night.
She was drawing in a deep, hopefully calming breath, when Harry caught up to her and matched his pace to hers.
"We're going to find this thing," she said. "We're going to find it and we're going to stop it."
Harry nodded.
"We're going to make the nurses let us talk to Mary. We're going to figure out what it is, we're going to have a flame ready, and we're going to find whatever the spell that Snape was talking about. We're going to do everything in our power to stop this thing tonight."
Again, Harry nodded.
"It feels good, doesn't it," he said softly. "It feels good to have something to do again, someone to help. Evil to fight."
Hermione stopped walking.
"No," she said. "Not really."
Harry looked surprised. Shocked, like he couldn't believe what she was saying.
"This isn't what I want my life to be. I'm not like you, Harry. I'm not meant to be a hero. I'm not meant to save the world every year. I want to be able to focus on my studies, without having to worry about which direction the next evil is coming from. That's not living, not the way I want to live."
She looked away from him then, just for a moment, and when she looked back at him again she knew that her face was set in determined lines.
"But that's not to say that I'm going to let evil go on underneath my nose and do nothing about it. We'll stop this. I'll help you stop this, but then… I don't want this to be what the rest of my life is like, okay?"
He nodded. There was a hesitancy to the motion, she saw. An abrupt jerk of his head, a tremble of his lips. He nodded, though, and she thought that he understood.
"Let's go to the infirmary," he said. "As you said, the sooner we get this information, the sooner we can put it to good use."
They started walking again. At first it was a slow walk, but as they moved across the campus, they sped up, until they were trotting up the steps to the school's hospital, panting slightly as they opened the doors.
Hermione walked into the waiting room first. She made sure that her face was set as she looked at the nurse on duty, the same nurse who had been on duty the day before. This time, she didn't smile at them.
"We are here to talk to Mary," Hermione said.
"I'm afraid—"
"We aren't asking. We are here to talk to Mary."
"I can't let anyone just waltz in here and—"
Harry broke into the conversation then. "Madame, it's a question of, well, maybe not life or death, but of whether or not you have more people ending up in your hospital ward drained of their magic. Is that something that you want?"
"Of course not—"
"Then please let us in." Harry almost batted his eyes, Hermione saw, and she almost rolled her own in response. He could be so charming when he wanted to be. He could just turn on that earnest 'I am the savior of the world and here I am, trying to help a common person, do you really want to stop me?' expression and the people in charge just melted at his feet. Because the nurse was melting. Hermione could see it happening right before her eyes.
"Just for a few minutes," Harry prodded. "Just so we can get some answers to some questions, so that we can try to figure out how to stop this thing."
And the nurse crumbled. She nodded sharply, then sat back down at her desk and didn't look at them again.
Hermione smiled at Harry, then walked through the door to the hospital ward. She saw two rows of crisply made beds—five of them filled, two near the door and three down at the very end of the room. Those were the beds she wanted to get to, of that she was sure.
The echoes of her shoes on the stone floors were loud as she walked down the center aisle and she cringed with each step that she took.
Amber was in the bed closest to the door. Her skin was pale, almost the same color as the starched sheets she was lying on. Her red hair was spread out across the pillow beneath her.
The girl in the next bed was blonde. She was awake, sitting up in her bed, and she glared at Harry and Hermione as they walked by. Mary was the in the bed at the very end of the room. She was lying down, facing the window, her back turned to them.
Hermione walked slowly around the foot of that bed, so that she could see Mary's face. Her eyes were open and Hermione could see tear tracks on her cheeks.
"Mary," she said.
The receptionist looked at her, her eyes wary.
"My name is Hermione Granger," she said. "This is Harry Potter." She didn't bother gesturing at him; she'd felt Harry come right up behind her.
Mary's eyes widened slightly at the mention of Harry's name, but then she looked away from them, back out the windows.
"We're here to ask you some questions, about whatever this thing is that attacked you. Do you think that you could answer some questions for us?"
She watched as Mary closed her eyes and thought, for a moment, that the other girl was just going to ignore their presence. She looked at Harry, unsure of what to do. He shrugged, too.
"Green," Mary whispered finally.
"Green," Hermione said. "What was green? It's skin? It's teeth?"
Mary shook her head. She still hadn't opened her eyes and Hermione wondered if she was reliving whatever trauma the demon had put her through. Assuming that Snape was correct and that it was a demon, of course.
"Green eyes. In the floo. The flames went out and I went over there to light them again and when I did, there were these eyes. Green eyes. It hissed at me. It said… Harry Potter."
Hermione cast a quick look at Harry, saw him swallow heavily, as if he was just barely keeping down what food he'd eaten the night before. His face was white, all color drained away.
"It did," the blonde girl said. "I remember her—" she glared at Mary "—advancing on me and then this voice, this horrible scaly voice, said, 'Harry Potter.' I thought she was out of her blinking mind. But then there was pain and then I remember waking up here."
"That's it," Mary said. "I remember waking up here and they told me that—"
Harry had started to back away from them all, even as Hermione watched. One of his hands was held out in front of him, as if to staunch the flood of words coming from the two patients. As if he could stop what they were saying, as if he could erase his name from their narrative.
It was one thing, she realized, to have Snape suspect that the demon had been sent after Harry. It was quite another to realize that more than likely Snape's assumptions had been correct.
"Harry," she said softly.
"This is all your fault," the blonde girl said. "All your fault, Harry Potter. Whatever it was that took my magic, it was after you. I've become a squib because of YOU, you bastard."
Hermione hadn't thought it was possible, but Harry went even whiter. He looked at the bed that was holding Amber and swallowed again, looking pensive.
"Harry," she said again, more loudly this time. Harry jerked at the sound of his name, as if he'd been burned, and she took a step towards him.
He bolted. She saw him nearly running out of the room. She looked back at the patients, at Mary who was staring out the window again, at the blonde who was staring in the direction that Harry had gone, a look of undisguised hatred on her face, and then she mumbled her thanks and followed after her friend.
He was standing outside, just outside the building, and he was wringing his hands, twisting the skin and bone and flesh farther than she thought skin and bone and flesh were ever meant to twist.
"I knew he was right," Harry said. "I knew that Snape was right. This thing is after me. It's after me and it's harming innocent people, Hermione. We have to find this thing. We have to stop it." The lines on his face were thin and drawn. "Do you have enough information to figure out what it is?"
"Green eyes," she said. "Heat—but we knew that already. Yes, yes. I think I remember seeing this in my research yesterday. I discounted it because it wasn't native to this area, but. Snape said it wasn't, and he's been right about everything so far."
"So far, yes."
"I think I know where I saw mention of this demon, too," she said. "If I'm right, it was right under our noses. Standard Book of Demons, if I'm remembering correctly."
She was already walking towards the library before she realized that she'd started moving.
"I'm not sure that this is working," Ron said. They'd stopped in the middle of the quad outside of the library, nearly invisible in the black of the night. Still, despite the darkness, Harry could see Ron darting his eyes back and forth and turning his head this way and that to glance over his shoulders, trying to look everywhere at once.
"Well, what do you suggest?" Harry asked. "Do you have a better idea?" He'd spent an hour thus far that night, walking ahead of his friends, hoping to lure the demon to him. So far, it hadn't worked.
Ron glared at him. "No, but that doesn't mean that this idea is working either, because it's not."
"And if the two of you can't keep your voices down, you're either going to clue it into the plan or scare it away," Hermione said softly, but fiercely. "Or at least warn it off, since I don't know how well it scares. We want it to think that it's the one hunting Harry, not the other way around, remember?"
Under her reproachful glare, Harry found himself starting to shuffle his feet, but as soon as he realized what he was doing, he stopped. He pushed his chin out and glared right back.
"This demon, it will find us. It wants me. It will find me. For all I know, it could be going after my friends, too, in an effort to get to me. I want you all safe, where I can see you. Where you can protect each other."
They all had candles, they'd all learned the incantation. Before he'd left for the evening, he'd told Neville that he should stay in their room. That he shouldn't let anyone in. Neville had looked at him oddly, but apparently Harry had sounded serious enough that he'd agreed without protest. Or maybe it was because of Amber.
He would be happy when this night was over, though. When the demon was found, or it wasn't, and Neville was still there, whole. He needed Neville to be whole. Needed his alibi of having been visiting his girlfriend to be true.
Hermione, Ron, and George were all opening their mouths to say something, when from somewhere in the darkness there came a shout. It wasn't a happy, playful shout, nor was it a shout of recognition, but one of anger, surprise. Warning, maybe.
Harry looked at Ron, then at Hermione and George, and then as one they started running in the direction the shout had come from. It was over towards one of the magically lit corridors he'd just passed by, on his way to the center of the quad, but there was nothing to be seen, nothing, nothing, so they slowed to a walk again, then stopped to listen.
Then, just ahead of them, coming from an alleyway off to the right, Harry heard a rough voice croak, "Harry Potter…" He paused, just for an instant, and then he looked over his shoulder to where his three companions were standing. Their eyes were wide and Harry knew that they'd heard the voice, too.
"That's it," Hermione mouthed, but it might have been a question, so Harry nodded. He nodded and then he stepped into the open space at the head of the alleyway. "Lumos," he said, and then the knot in his stomach tightened.
"'Wait,' you said." Mel paced back and forth in front of the fire, her hands clasped behind her back. It wasn't the somewhat serene handclasp that Johan had perfected. No, she was tense and he could see the whites of her knuckles.
She turned to him, to the hard wooden chair that he'd been relegated to, no matter that it was his flat. Martin and Toddy had taken the couch. They were glaring at him, too.
"'This is a brilliant plan!' you said," she continued. "'It bloody fucking can't fail!'"
"It hasn't," Johan said, but his voice sounded too weak, too tired, he knew. Especially since Dark Lords—or Dark Lords In Training, as the case might be—weren't supposed to get berated by their minions.
"I'll know if it fails," he continued. The demon's medallion was heavy in his pocket. He'd know if the demon failed—if it had been banished—because it would turn black and dead, would become useless to him. It was still gold, though. Still alive and binding.
"Well, it hasn't exactly succeeded, now has it?" Martin asked. "We'd all know if it had succeeded."
"Dark Plans aren't known for being instantly gratifying," Johan said. He kept his eyes on Mel, watching as she paced back and forth in front of his fireplace. She had no right! "They take time, planning, and waiting for results. You all know that saying, don't you? That the best things come to those who wait."
"You see why we're skeptical, don't you, Joe?" Mel asked, turning towards him, her voice suddenly as sweet as the blue drink mix she'd used to highlight her hair the day before. "There hasn't been any word. Not one single itsy-bitsy word. For all we know, the Veruznacallit could have fucked off for fucking Timbuktu."
"It hasn't," Johan said. It couldn't. "It's doing its job. I bet that it's hunting Potter right this moment, as we sit here talking."
"Then let's go check on it," Toddy said. "Let's go see what sparkling progress it's made."
"And how do you propose to do that?" Johan asked.
"You're the genius," Martin said. "You're the evil mastermind. You figure it out. Surely there's a 'how to' in one of your books that you've got. Maybe it's in the Standard Book of Demons on page 78."
"Yeah," Toddy said. "When you figure it out, you can come find us at the Duck's Foot."
Johan watched as Toddy and Martin stood up from the couch and headed for the door. Mel followed just a moment later, after giving him an appraising look, which he didn't like one bit.
"Neville!" Hermione gasped as Ron growled, "Malfoy. We should have known."
It took Harry less than a moment to take in the sight in front of him. Malfoy and Neville were both on the ground in front of him, and from the dust that he could see on Malfoy's robes and the streak of blood on Neville's cheek, it was obvious that they'd been fighting.
Malfoy was sitting on top of Neville, one of his hands wrapped around Neville's throat while his other held one of Neville's wrists out, away from their bodies. Neville was struggling, that much Harry could see, and there was a blue tinge to his normally ruddy face.
It was when Neville looked in his direction, uttering a pitiful, "Help!" and Malfoy uttered a growl, a rough sound, that Harry made his decision. Unable to let himself believe that he was making the wrong one, he pointed his wand at Malfoy and said, "Petrifictus Totalus."
Malfoy froze, Hermione squeaked, and Neville didn't stop struggling until Ron and George rushed forward to lift Malfoy off of him. Then, as Harry watched, Neville pushed himself up and scooted backwards until he was leaning against one of the corridor's stone walls. He was panting and the whites of his eyes were showing as he looked at Malfoy warily.
"He—" Neville started. "I know you said that I should stay in our room, Harry, but I just couldn't. I figured there couldn't be any harm in walking to the library, so that I could do some revisions for Snape's class and— I don't know where he came from. One moment I was alone and the next I wasn't and he was pulling me into this alleyway."
Harry looked over to where Malfoy was still lying on the ground. His hands were frozen into claws and a sneer—or was it a baring of teeth?—was stretched across his face.
Oh Merlin, he thought, please let him have made the right decision.
"—should have known it was Malfoy," Ron was saying from behind him. "The way he was skulking around last night, hiding in dark corners, following us. He was in the library, too, where that Amber bird was found. He told us so himself. He—"
Harry looked back and forth between Malfoy's prone figure, who was looking more and more possessed by the moment, and Neville's trembling one.
He felt his heart sink, felt his stomach lurch. He hadn't been joking when he said that the demon would try to get to him through his friends. He hadn't been overestimating its intelligence. He didn't want to believe, but there was only one way to know for sure.
"Do the spell, Hermione," he said.
"What spell?" Neville asked. "What are you talking about, Harry? He attacked me, like he'd gone a bit off in the head. I— I think maybe I should head to the infirmary, to see if the nurse can—" His head started moving back and forth, as if he was convulsing almost.
"George and I could help him to the infirmary," Ron said. "You and Hermione should be able to handle Malfoy, especially when he's spelled like that."
Neville was trembling even more than before.
There was only one way to know for sure.
"Do the spell, Hermione," Harry said again. "Now."
He wrenched his gaze away from Neville and turned to look at her. With the way her hands were shaking as she pulled the candle out of her pocket, as she used her wand to light it, he figured that she'd come to the same conclusion that he had. He wondered if she'd started thinking about the possibilities at the same time he had. There were tears in her eyes, he thought. Or maybe there were tears in his eyes, because the world had suddenly gone blurry.
"I'm sorry, Neville," Hermione said. Then she started chanting.
Harry had just turned to look at Neville when he found himself on the ground, a growling Neville on top of him. He was stunned for a moment, the result of his head hitting the stone floor with more force than he could prevent. His roommate's normally round face suddenly seemed angular, ragged, and the normally kind eyes flashed green.
"Harry Potter," Neville said, but not with Neville's voice. It was the same raspy voice that Harry had heard before. Neville's hands were around Harry's throat, and his mouth opened, a green mist forming around his tongue. "Harry Potter."
In the background, almost sounding as if she was a long ways away, Harry could hear Hermione chanting still. She was rushing words, but still pronouncing them precisely. She sounded almost frantic.
Then there was a sudden void of silence, just for a moment, the calm before the storm, and then there was a whoosh of noise, a roar, which might have come from Neville, but seemed to come more from the green mist, and it stopped hovering in front of Harry's face and streamed to the candle flame Hermione was holding.
Neville collapsed, boneless, and Harry pushed him away. He scrambled to his feet, his eyes on the figure of his friend, who was now passed out, pale, almost dead-looking. He glanced at Hermione after a moment, his eyes on the candle flame in front of her, where two pin-point green eyes stared out at him.
Ron was just staring on in shock. Looking from Malfoy, to Harry, to Neville, his mouth working although there were no words coming out. It was George who finally thought to end the spell on Malfoy, muttering "Finite Incantatum."
"Here," Hermione said, holding the candle out to Harry, for him to blow on it, but he shook his head.
"You do the honors," he said. "You do it."
So Hermione did.
It was a defeated looking group that passed by the hallway that Severus Snape had secreted himself in. Defeated looking, but victorious. He knew that they had been, because he'd watched the drama unfold, close enough so that he could intervene if necessary, far enough away so that if he didn't need to, no one would have known he was there.
Potter was the one he kept his eyes on, though. The slump of the shoulders, the dragging feet, the stubborn, set mouth.
After they'd passed by, Severus looked down at the unlit candle that he was carrying in his hand, unused, unneeded. Then he melted back into the darkness, in case any of the group chanced to look his way.
The medallion was on the bed in front of Johan, gleaming dully in the firelight, and he kept one eye on it as he paged through yet another book. The stack of books that he'd already looked through was high on the floor beside him, but none of them had yielded any answers as to how they could track the demon once they managed to get inside the school, which was a whole other problem, of course, but a slightly more manageable one.
Another page, another.
Then a gust of wind seemed to travel through his flat, deadening the light from the fire for just a moment. He only had time to look to the fireplace before the flames came back to life again.
When he looked back at the book in front of him, his eye immediately sought out the medallion on the bed. He caught his breath, and then his head fell into his hands, because it was black, dead, and now useless to him.
It was late afternoon the next day, when Harry walked into his dorm room and found that Neville had returned and was packing. By hand.
Harry stopped in the threshold and stared, unsure of what to say. Time seemed to slow as Neville turned to look at him, and Harry almost expected to see a look of hatred on his face. He almost expected Neville to jump him, and he suddenly realized that his hand was in his pocket, fingering his wand. He made himself let go, made himself pull his hands out into the open so that he could see them.
He deserved whatever Neville chose to do to him, he reminded himself. He deserved more punishment than Neville could ever enact on him. Neville wasn't glaring at him, though. He wasn't smiling, either, but his look was not unfriendly.
"Neville," he started.
"It wasn't your fault," the other teen said. "I was the one who couldn't protect myself."
"It was after me, though. You? Those three girls? All because of me. My fault."
Neville stood up and stepped closer to Harry. "And you know what I have to say to that? You didn't summon the demon, thus it wasn't your fault. And if it had to get anyone? Better me than you. Better all of us than you. You're important, Harry. The world needs you."
"But not so much that you—anyone—should have—" He paused, swallowing deeply. "I'm not that important."
He wanted to say that he wasn't important at all. Not anymore. He'd fulfilled his destiny and now he was just another wizard. He was nobody special.
That wasn't true, though. He was a liar. A cheater.
He wanted to tell Neville that, to tell him exactly why he was a hero.
"You don't have to worry about me," Neville said, looking far too kind. "I have a life out there among the Muggles. I made one for myself this past summer." He cracked a smiled, which was more than Harry would have been able to do in his situation. It was almost more than Harry could take. "You know, I wasn't so sure I wanted to come here anyway. Maybe this is the sign I needed. The one that I'd been waiting for, that I wasn't meant to be a wizard."
He nodded once, as if convincing himself of the truth in his words, and then he turned back to his trunk, knelt down, and stuffed some more of his clothes in.
"Besides," he said as he packed. "Lisa's getting her degree in Botany and Minister Fudge offered to provide me with entrance papers to the same program, so it's not like I'll have to change my chosen field, now is it?"
"Why are you being so good about this?" Harry asked.
Neville stilled. "What other way should I be, Harry? Would you rather I screamed and yelled? That I blamed you for this? Say, 'Why do these things always happen to me?'"
Harry nodded, even though Neville wasn't looking at him.
"I'm sorry, Harry. I just can't do that, because I know that I'll be okay, that everything happens for a reason, and I don't want to hate you. Besides, why don't you hate me for trying to trap you?"
"That was the demon, not you. I know that."
"And I know that you can't save everybody. Not even me."
Before Harry could say anything else, Neville stood up again and shut the lid of his trunk. "My Gran's houselves will be along to pick that up tonight. Lisa should be out front about now, waiting to pick me up." Then he stepped forward and hugged Harry, patting him on the back.
"This won't be the last you see of me," he said as he let go. "I'd be willing to bet Trevor on it."
Then he walked past Harry, out into the hallway, and Harry followed behind. He stood in the doorway, watching Neville's retreating figure, until the other teen was gone from sight. Until he felt a prickling of someone's gaze on him.
He turned and saw Malfoy standing just down the hall, his hand on the knob of his door. He was glaring at Harry, of course, his gaze ice cold. Then he opened the door, stepped inside, and let the door slam shut, disappearing without saying a word.
Harry stared after him for a moment, before he turned to look in the direction that Neville had gone once more. Then he stepped back into his room and shut the door behind him.
End Episode One