Kiara, while looking for Scorpius, sees Albus the moment he walks into the Great Hall. She wonders if it's unusual for him to come to breakfast late like this. The boy looks as though he's just woken up: His hair is tousled and sticks up in several places, his shirt is not tucked in, and the laces to his boots flop around with each step he takes—like four small garden snakes trying desperately to keep up with him. But even from here, she can see his bright eyes.
When he gets close enough, Kiara looks away as though she hasn't noticed him yet. He reaches the table and immediately grabs a glass of water, draining it.
"That was mine," Lily complains, but Albus rests his big hand on top of her small face. Kiara watches him grab for Rose's glass next, but she smacks his arm. He cradles it to his chest as if he's been terribly injured and twists his face into mock sobbing.
So dorky, Kiara thinks to herself with the trace of a smile.
When he finally sits down, she sees his dark green eyes flick up to her's—suddenly very serious—then quickly away.
"You can have my orange juice," Hugo says.
"Thanks, Hugo."
"I miss James," Lily says, lamenting her empty glass. "He's my favorite brother."
"Come off it, Lil'," Albus retorts. "Now you're just trying to hurt my feelings."
Rose pushes her oatmeal back and forth with her spoon. "I love James, but I'm glad he's out of Hogwarts. It was always a pissing contest with you both. You were constantly trying to outdo each other. Really, it was starting to become annoying."
"I resent that," Albus says. "James and I got along very well his last year. Would've been nice if he left me the map and cloak, though. I did try to butter him up towards the end there. . . . I think he saw through it."
"Map and cloak?" Kiara asks.
Hugo brushes toast crumbs from his shirtfront. "The Marauder's Map and Invisibility Cloak. James took them both with him. To keep Albus out of trouble."
"OK, we're not doing this again," Albus says. "Whenever Kiara sits with us, it's like suddenly all you kids want to talk about is me."
"I'm not a kid," Hugo scoffs.
"Albie, talk to me privately after breakfast," Rose says. "There's something I've got to speak with you about."
She turns to ask Hugo if he could help her find someone's cat. There are so many cats at Hogwarts, it's a wonder Kiara isn't always sneezing. She watches as Albus reaches across the table and snags the green apple from Rose's plate when she isn't looking. He takes a large bite, which alerts Rose to what he's done. Just as she's about to yell at him, Kiara feels a tap on her shoulder.
The five of them stop talking and Kiara turns around, looking up at a familiar Slytherin Chaser.
"Henry. Good morning."
"Morning, Kiara," he replies.
Kiara blinks at him. "Would you like to join my friends and I for breakfast?"
Henry seems to notice Albus just then and nods to him. Albus raises his eyebrows, looking between Henry and Kiara, then scoots over. The chair scrapes across the floor, attracting the attention of some nosy Ravenclaws that are a few years younger than Kiara. They lean forward over their plates, peeking down at them before turning away. Callie, who sits among them, waves at Kiara—Kiara waves back.
"Come sit down," Albus offers. "There's plenty of room over on this side."
"That's OK, I've got my breakfast over at the Slytherin table. Actually, Kiara, I was thinking I could take you on a date tonight. Just the two of us."
Lily's jaw drops and her gaze fixes on Albus, who no longer looks in their direction at all. Kiara looks between her friends, who have varying reactions, then finally turns back to Henry and smiles.
"That is very sweet. But please, I must decline."
"It'll be nice," Henry insists.
He leans against the table, his face turned to Kiara and his arms crossed. He has the stereotyped Slytherin posture—cocky, relaxed, and in total control. Kiara can't help but think, But Scorpius does it better. Her eyes scan the Great Hall again, looking for the top of Scorpius's head, but he is nowhere to be found.
"I haven't been able to stop thinking about you."
Kiara giggles. "Henry, stop. You are going to embarrass yourself."
"Kiara, I know you've been seeing Fin."
"You've been seeing Fin?" Lily asks, aghast. The young girl looks to her brother again, who looks off in the distance like he wants to walk away.
"I have not," Kiara retorts.
"Fin's got a real chance with Emma now that Cory dumped her, and he's going to take it. He's entirely out of the picture. It's just you and me, Kiara. And I won't ever hurt you, the way Cory hurt Emma."
Kiara is no longer smiling. "I only want to be friends with both you and Fin."
"Come on, Kiara," Henry presses. He reaches for her shoulder, but Kiara stares into his eyes so deeply that he pauses. Instead of touching her, he says a desperate, "I could make you very happy."
"Give it a rest, Henry," Albus says. "She wants you to leave her alone."
"The girl doesn't know what she wants."
"The girl just told you," Rose says with a scathing tone.
"We've been flirting for over a month, Kiara," Henry continues, ignoring everyone else. "You're telling me you haven't been feeling what I'm feeling?"
When Henry takes her hand, she twists it from his grip. The Ravenclaws at the end of the table point and gasp. Callie fans her face. They make eye contact and Callie mouths, 'Oh, my god. He's only sixteenth, say no!' She points to her journal, where Kiara knows she ranks her level of attraction to the sixth and seventh year boys. Kiara looks away, feeling her annoyance build.
To Henry, she says again, "I only want to be friends."
"All right, then," Henry says. He pulls up a chair from the other table and pushes it in close to Kiara. In turn, she leans the other direction. "Let's be friends."
The group stays dead quiet. Albus averts his gaze every time Kiara looks up. Meanwhile, Lily won't take her eyes off her.
"This is very uncomfortable," she states honestly. "I will be going, now."
Henry grasps her arm lightly and she pulls it away, but he says, "Please just hear me out."
Kiara stops. "OK," she says. "Go ahead. I am curious."
"Really?"
"You are a friend of mine, Henry. Of course you may speak your mind."
"Here?"
"I will not offer again."
"OK," Henry says quickly. "Ever since I met you, I haven't been able to get you out of my head. Now I understand why Emma always says bad things about you. It's so obvious. She's completely jealous of you. She's hotter than you, but she knows that you're better—even if none of us can figure out what exactly it is. And that drives her up the wall."
"If you're attempting to compliment Kiara, you're doing poorly," Lily says.
Kiara nods. "Yes. Please understand that I will never be interested in a date with you, Henry."
"Forget it then, you ugly rats," he sneers to Kiara and Lily.
Albus stands abruptly, putting a protective hand on his little sister's shoulder. She looks startled by the brash insult. It's unlikely the pretty young girl with strawberry blonde hair has ever been called 'ugly'. Kiara turns to watch Albus. His stance is relaxed and he has a warm smile plastered to his face so perfectly, it's like he practices in a mirror.
"I'll walk you back to your seat," he offers without kindness.
"Albus Potter," Henry sneers.
"Henry Haddock."
"I've kept my mouth shut for years, Albus," Henry continues. "You and your pathetic family are coming close to stepping over a line."
"This isn't about them. Why don't we go talk about this elsewhere?"
Henry, with something that almost looks like hurt in his eyes, shakes his head. He says, "I only ever wanted to be your friend."
"You are my friend."
"You don't understand. No one is really your friend. Everyone just loves to be around you, but no one really likes you. What's the old saying? Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. You treat everyone so kind, but I see through it. We all do—me, and Cory, and Fin, and Tucker. Cory has been telling us for years that you're up to something."
"Up to something? I'm not following," Albus says. "I think we should table this for now, and come back to it later after we've each had a proper breakfast."
"I'm not done," Henry shouts, leaping to his feet. He is half a foot shorter than Albus, but wider. Lily and Rose jump in their seats, leaning back from him. Kiara, her eyes straight forward, shows no reaction. "I want to take care of this now. We've all been wanting to put you in your place for awhile, and I'm not waiting anymore."
"How do you propose we 'take care' of this, Henry?"
Henry throws his robes onto the floor, rolls up his sleeves, and puffs out his chest. If Lily's mouth could open any wider, her jaw would be touching the table. Hugo responds by clenching his fists, but Albus shakes his head at him. Reluctantly, Hugo slouches back into his seat.
"Do you still like to fight, Albus?"
"Not at all."
"Then why did Cory tell me you tried to start a fist fight with him on the way back from Hogsmeade?"
Albus sucks in his cheek, then laughs. "Well, you've caught me red-handed, haven't you?"
Lily turns and glares at Albus. "You told mom and dad you're done."
"I am, Lil'. Didn't I promise you?" Albus replies.
"I am so telling on you."
"Henry, if you insist on talking about this now, sit and eat with us. You can say all the things you despise about me, right here in front of my family, and I won't even try to convince you otherwise. Wouldn't that make you feel a bit better?"
Henry clenches his jaw, but to Kiara's surprise he sits back down.
"Go on, then," Albus encourages Henry.
There is a long, tense quiet. Nobody eats. Everyone seems to be holding their breath. Even Kiara is held captive by the display before her. Somehow, Albus has talked Henry down from a full-blown physical fight in the Great Hall and has gotten him to sit amongst his enemies for breakfast. Albus is peculiar in his mannerisms. He is, by far, the most cunning Slytherin she has ever met.
At last, Henry pushes back his seat and stands. He has a fury in his eyes that Kiara has never been able to relate to.
"You've wasted all your potential," he says, snatching up his robes from the ground. "You're a fucking loser, Albus."
Then Henry finally leaves.
"I may never recover," Albus says to them, before tucking into some pancakes that Hugo has set aside for him.
-o-o-o-
Kiara brushes her hands along the inconspicuous stone wall in the dungeons. She knows there is something here to let her into the Slytherin common room, but they keep the password very secret. She has been looking for Scorpius everywhere since her night spent with Albus in the lonely tower. She wants so badly to ask Scorpius about his drawings. It had never occurred to her until then that any wizards or witches would take time to create art.
Although she is not frightened of Henry, her encounter with him this morning has upset her—especially the things he'd said of Albus. It surprises her to learn that anyone can speak so poorly of him, when he only ever says nice things about everyone else. She realizes that Albus probably does have negative thoughts about others, but chooses not to speak them aloud.
She's here in the dungeons on a Saturday afternoon in an attempt to find Scorpius, who has otherwise been unreachable. Generally speaking, she would never choose to come down here (except for her Defense Against the Dark Arts class, which she despises). She reckons perhaps he's sleeping in, what with no classes, or maybe just taking his time to come out.
Either way, she wants to see him.
"Slytherin," she says to the wall, attempting to guess. "Severus. Er . . . Serpent? Oh, my. This is silly. I am talking to a wall."
"If you're trying to break in," a voice says, "that's not the right wall."
She looks behind her toward the detached voice and stares at the portrait that stares back. All these years, and she still hasn't gotten used to speaking to paintings. Regardless, she steps toward him.
"Who are you?"
"Who am I?"
"Yes. I do not recognize your face."
"I'm Horace Slughorn. Who are you?"
Kiara raises her eyebrows. "My name is Kiara."
"I know you aren't Slytherin, Kiara," Horace Slughorn says. "Why're you trying to enter?"
"How do you work?" Kiara asks, stepping closer without answering him. "Is your soul inside this painting?"
Horace furrows his bushy grey brows. "My soul? Child, I'm not dead, I'm retired!"
"Forgive me. Why are you in this cold hallway, all by your lonesome?"
"I'll tell you why," Horace says, his face turning red with anger. "The seventh-year Slytherins, that's why! Those ungrateful dolts told me I talk too much, and they hung me up out here. Say . . . I'll strike a deal with you. I'll show you how to get in, and you hang me back up where I rightfully belong."
"Is that allowed?"
"Of course it's not allowed!" he bellows. "But all those other Slytherin students are too scared to help me behind the seventh years' backs! I belong over the fireplace, where it's warm. Don't you agree, Kiara?"
"I do," she says.
"Child, we can both benefit from this arrangement. I will not ask why you want to enter, and you will simply hang me above the fireplace. Then we shall never speak again."
Kiara takes Horace Slughorn down and faces his portrait outward so he may see. He directs her through the dungeons, leading her to a different stone wall that looks virtually identical to the last one. She looks nervously over her shoulder, wondering how anyone could be comfortable this far from the sky.
"It is rather terrible down here," Kiara says.
"Not inside," Horace replies. "Pureblood," he says to the wall.
The stones part down the middle and reveal a dark winding staircase lined by sputtering candles. Echoing sounds, like water dripping on rock, ring back in her ears. The tunneling steps smell damp, and doesn't give her any sort of welcoming feel. She frowns, then shivers.
"Why is it wet down here? Are you not worried about molding?"
"We're going under the lake, Kiara. Aren't you a Ravenclaw? How daft are you?"
"How do you know I am Ravenclaw?"
"Some speak of you. They don't think I bother to listen, but I enjoy my fair share of gossip. Now come along, let's get in there. I think I'm coming down with something. You know, they put me in a corridor with a lousy draft, can you believe it?"
"Can portraits get colds?"
"I wouldn't like to find out! Listen, child, if you keep asking questions, they're going to hang you on the wall out there next."
She begins to meander down the stairs, watching where she places her feet carefully. "I have to answer a different riddle each and every time I want to get into the Ravenclaw common room. The Slytherins just have an outdated password," she complains mildly.
"That doesn't sound like my problem."
She reaches a simple heavy wooden door. With a bit of effort, she pushes it forward and is immediately basked in warm light, with a faint scent of oud oil and peonies lingering in the air. The common room is comfortably toasty, and the way the fireplace flames flicker off the rough stone masonry makes her want to walk deeper into the Slytherin's home base. Green and grey dominates the spectrum, and there is an overall class to all the furniture and decorations that not even Ravenclaw can compare to. She feels her spirits lifting.
Kiara stops in front of a wide fireplace. Scorpius's three-legged white cat, Jamie Button, sits diligently in front of the hearth. She stares into the fire as though she is expecting someone to pop up from the logs.
Locating a large nail that protrudes from the wall, she reaches on her tip-toes to hang Horace Slughorn back in his proper place. He lets out a sigh of relief and settles comfortably into his painted armchair. Already he looks more pleasant and approachable than he did moments ago.
"You are a treasure, Kiara," Horace says. "Thank you."
"I would like to come back," she says. "I have so many questions for you."
He gives her a smile. "I look forward to it." The portrait then closes his eyes to rest, and Kiara almost asks why he would ever need to sleep.
Instead, she turns to the cat and comes down on her knees to meet the her amber eyes. Jamie Button meows softly in greeting, but does not appear interested in Kiara's affections.
"You seem to have business to attend to, Button," she speaks to the cat. "Have you seen your master?"
Jamie Button gives Kiara a knowing look.
Kiara nods and stands, although not understanding, and walks deeper into the the common room. There are many passageways leading every which way. Kiara settles on a thin hall that stretches out. She can tell by the light at the end that the corridor will eventually open up into a large room, and this feels like the safest bet to make. She isn't keen on staying here long.
Her breath catches when she reaches the room. There are floor-to-ceiling windows of thick-paned glass that showcase the depths of the Great Lake. It's dark out there, but Kiara swears she can make out movement beyond. A flash of silver here, a yellow glimmer there . . . She steps closer and closer to the glass, resting her fingertips on the pane and staring intensely into the deep lake.
A dozen greyish faces with broken teeth and long, flowing green hair like seaweed materialize and disappear in and out of the depths. Their green eyes, as though full of chlorophyll, stare dead into Kiara's eyes.
"Merpeople," she breathes.
They begin to knock on the glass, though it's so thick Kiara can't hear a thing. She turns when the merpeople begin to point behind her.
"Kiara? How'd you get in here?"
"Good morning, Fin. I had no idea that Slytherins had this room. It is strangely . . . beautiful. And haunting."
He grins. "You're not scared of them, are you?"
"I do not think so. Should I be?"
"Of course not." Fin comes up to his side and waves to the merpeople. She watches as he moves his hands. "I just told them your name is Kiara, and you're a good friend. They shouldn't ever give you trouble."
"You can sign?"
Fin nods. "Most Slytherins learn how, if they ever want to talk to the merpeople. What are you doing here?"
"I am looking for Scorpius."
"Oh, sorry, Kiara. Cory isn't here. He's gotten special permission to go back home for the weekend."
"Is everything OK?"
"No one knows. All seven years I've known Cory, I've never seen him leave school except over summer. I'll be honest with you, we don't think he's all right. It's highly unusual behavior for him."
"Do you know when he'll be back?"
He shrugs. "There's a Quidditch match on Tuesday. I doubt he'd miss it."
"Would the match be canceled if he is not back?"
"Certainly not. The Chasers will just have to work harder to get our points up. You'll be rooting for us, won't you?"
Kiara smiles. "Against my own team?"
"Your captain, Jason, is a twat. You wouldn't want a guy like that winning, House loyalty or not! Kiara, you really shouldn't be in here by yourself. Plus, as a prefect, I really can't let you linger here. I have to go to the library right now. Do you want to walk out with me?"
She begins to follow him out.
"Can someone not fill in as the Seeker on a Quidditch team?"
"Not with such short notice. At this time, we haven't any need to worry about Cory not coming back. Maybe Albus could get permission to be the Seeker—but his eyesight isn't nearly as good as Cory's. Plus he's big and strong, not quick and sneaky. He's built to be a Beater, like me. Either way . . . He really ought to wear his glasses out there."
"Albus does not wear glasses."
"Right, well, he's supposed to. Never leaves the common room with them on, though."
Kiara ponders this for a moment, picturing Albus with glasses. When they reach the common room, Kiara waves to Horace slyly, who in turn puts a finger to his lips and winks. Finley opens the wooden door open for them, and Kiara leads the way up the damp staircase.
"May I ask you something, Fin?"
"Sure."
"Do you dislike Albus?"
He looks startled in the candlelight. "What makes you think that? Albus is the nicest person I've ever called a friend."
"Henry was saying things this morning."
"Don't worry about Henry. He's going through some stuff. Instead of dealing with it, and talking to someone about how he feels, he takes it out on people he envies. Henry is deeply lonely. He wants to be in a relationship so terribly, he's willing to lose friends over it. He's willing to lose his dignity over it."
"Why did Scorpius break up with Emmalee?"
"Hm? They weren't really dating. Emma is good at making people feel important. That's why she has so many guys that talk to her. But she is really sweet once you get to know her. She told me I'm her favorite. Sometimes I think I could marry her."
Kiara raises her eyebrows, looking Finley right in his eyes until he turns away. "Is that truly the case, Fin?"
He doesn't seem able to answer her.
"I think you deserve more than she wants to give you," Kiara tells him honestly.
"That's really kind of you to say. The truth is . . . She said some weird things about Cory last night. I think he really hurt her feelings yesterday. This morning she . . . asked me to betray him. But she'll have to find someone else for that. Cory is a good friend of mine. I would never put that friendship at risk. Not even for her."
"I am relieved to hear that."
Finley opens the stone wall and leads Kiara out of the dungeons. He accompanies her silently upstairs, and she finds herself walking to the library with him. As they part ways at the first set of shelves, she wonders if Scorpius is ever coming back.