Seeing the Past, Present, and Future
The Pendant
It had now been more than a month since school had started. The air was slowly becoming colder and students were now never seen without at least one cloak. In the mornings one could always see their breath and Harry would not have been surprised if the condensation froze in mid-air one day. People seemed to be coming down to breakfast later than usual and Harry suspected it was because they, like him, didn't want to leave their warm covers and beds. At night, the fire was fiercely competed for and a sort of unspoken system had started working into play where no one could sit in front of the fire two days in a row. The common room had also become more crowded on the weekends, when they had free time, because it seemed people were reluctant to travel into the large, stony, and more importantly, cold, hallways of Hogwarts. Luckily, the house elves seemed to have caught on as they were now preparing warmer food in addition to now offering warm drinks, such as tea or hot chocolate, instead of cold pumpkin juice. Up in the Gryffindors' tower, morning frost had started lining the windows and the lake looked like a huge pool of black ink, undoubtedly freezing. Harry, being one of the older boys, had his room higher up in the tower and found at night the sheets were freezing. Often times he and Ron would stay up late in the common room, unwilling to leave the warmth of the dying fire.
It was on one of these many cold days, the type of days where everybody rushed up to their warm rooms as soon as they had performed whatever duty they had had to finish, when Harry, walking with Ron, caught notice of a familiar voice.
"Give it back!"
Harry stopped and looked at Ron.
"Oh, look, the Mudblood girl wants her necklace back," came a drawling voice, followed by a grunting laugh.
"It's Malfoy," Harry said quietly, anger causing his voice to tremble.
Ron nodded and added, "You'd think that putting his father in Azkaban would humble him a bit."
"Not this git," Harry stated grimly. "Come on."
They walked into the Great Hall where lunch had already been finished and found Malfoy standing in a corner with Crabbe and Goyle behind him. In front of Malfoy, with a look on her face that suggested she was close to tears, was a very short, very familiar brown-haired girl.
"Want your precious necklace back?" Malfoy said, taunting her by lowering the necklace before yanking it back up again.
"Stop calling it a necklace!" she said, her frustration obvious in her voice.
"Stop calling it a necklace," Malfoy repeated to Crabbe and Goyle as though it was some hilarious joke. "Well what would you call it?" he mockingly asked, facing her once again.
"It's a pendant," she said defiantly.
Malfoy laughed, "As if there's a difference."
"There is too a difference!" she said, her tone of voice once again showing her frustration.
"Oh, and why don't you tell me what that difference is?" said Malfoy, giving her an incredulous smile as though she was saying the moon was made of green cheese.
"Necklaces are pieces of metal. Pendants are magical."
"You couldn't recognize magic ifyou were enveloped in a curse, you filthy Mudblood, " he said, half-hissing.
Harry started striding over toward where Malfoy was standing, his wand out. He couldn't stand Malfoy's smug voice a second longer. "Malfoy, you better give that back!" he yelled halfway across the Great Hall.
"Oh really, Potter? And what makes you think you have any say in it?"
"Because I'll curse you into next week if you don't!" Harry exclaimed pointing his wand at Malfoy. Malfoy continued nonchantly twirling the pendant around his finger. The chain was gold and at the end there was a small bottle that held a pulsing green substance, visible only between the gold vines entwining the container.
"And what if I—accidentally--" (here Malfoy let the pendant slip from his fingers a bit) "drop it on the ground? What'll you do then? Reparo wouldn't fix it entirely and something this fragile would undoubtedly shatter against such hard stone floors."
Harry debated. If he attacked Malfoy quickly enough chances were he wouldn't be able to drop it fast enough. But what if he accidentally let go of it? He couldn't risk it, it seemed to be precious to the girl. Harry was about to open his mouth to make some threatening comment when, to his gratefulness, a teacher (who, also thankfully, wasn't Snape) appeared.
"Does there seem to be a problem, Mr. Malfoy?" inquired Professor Sprout as she walked over to them. Harry noticed she was wearing very thick gloves, no doubt to combat the coldness in the greenhouses.
Malfoy scowled and hesitated, seemingly deciding what he could say while maintaining the "Malfoy" dignity. He ended up silently dropping the pendant into the girl's outstretched hands before walking away, saying "No, no problem here Professor Sprout."
Professor sprout walked away once Malfoy left, presumably to return to the Greenhouses, and their young friend, whom they had just helped, offered her thanks to both of the older boys standing in front of her.
"Why don't we go back up to the common room?" Harry said, suddenly aware of how cold it was where they were.
She nodded in response and put her hands, along with her pendant, in her pocket. It suddenly struck Harry that he had never seen her wearing that pendant, but he decided it was probably because he wasn't very good at observing that type of thing.
After what seemed like an infinite stretch of time, all three of them arrived at the common room and Harry felt a smile form on his face at how warm it was compared to the Great Hall.
"Where's Hermione?" the short girl to his right asked him.
"I'm over here," the teenager in question replied, sitting up.
She walked over to Hermione, who currently had a rather large book on her lap, and asked if she could help her with her pendant.
"How?" Hermione asked.
"Oh, I just can't do the clasp by myself."
Hermione nodded and helped the young girl in front of her with the pendant's clasp. Afterwards, Harry noticed, she tucked the pendant in her robes, making it impossible to notice.
"Where'd you get that?" Hermione casually asked.
"Oh, my uncle gave it to me."
Harry walked over to listen to more of the conversation. "Lupin gave that to you?"
She looked slightly confused for a moment before she realized what Harry was talking about and replied. "Oh, no, different uncle. Uncle Adoni," she said, fingering the pendant even though it was tucked in her robes.
"Is it magical?" Hermione asked, presumably having noticed that the liquid inside it was pulsing.
The young girl proudly nodded. "My uncle was magical, too. The one that gave it to me, that is. I have two uncles."
"Including Lupin?" Ron asked, slightly suspiciously.
"I mean on my dad's side." She looked slightly nervous. Or maybe it was just annoyance, Harry couldn't tell.
"Well, it's a very pretty shade of green," Hermione said commenting on the lime green color of the liquid in the pendant in the hopes to get away from the topic of her questionable family.
"Thanks," she said, turning away from Ron and to Hermione. "It used to be a different color," she offered.
"Really?" Hermione asked.
"Yeah, blue and red swirled together, kind of like diagonal stripes. It'd glow sometimes, too. Still does. "
"Why'd it change?" Hermione inquired again. Harry could see she was interested in the magical artifact.
She thought for a moment. "I don't know. I remember when it changed, or rather, when it was different."
"When?"
"When I was, I mean, when I came to stay with Lupin and you guys at that house, Grimmauld Place."
"Maybe it changed because of the change in environment or living quarters?" Hermione suggested.
The young girl shrugged. "I really don't know why. But it looks pretty both ways."
"Do you know what it does?" Hermione asked eagerly.
"When my uncle gave it to me, he said it was to protect me and remind me that I'll always be loved by someone, but I haven't seen it do anything specific if that's what you mean."
Hermione nodded. "Hey, do you think you could write your uncle and ask where he got it? It seems really interesting," she added.
The young girls face suddenly became very blank. "That might be a bit hard," she replied harshly.
"What do you mean?" Hermione asked, sensing she had stumbled into dangerous waters.
"He's been dead for four years," she replied equally coldly.
"O-Oh. I'm sorry," Hermione said, not looking at the young girl's deep brown eyes.
"It's dangerous to be a muggle-born wizard," she coldly stated before climbing the stairs to her dormitory.
A/N: Well, at least this chapter is slightly longer. Reviews are always appreciated.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling does, and if you think I'm her, you're nuts.
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insane-penguin101: Yay! Review:gives you a cookie: I try to update every week so the next chapter should be up by next Saturday or Sunday.