Their walk together passed pleasantly enough, even if Harriet seemed uniquely determined to share the least amount of information possible. At the very least, she was taking Pansy's searching questions in good humor, so that the social probing quickly became a game between them.

Then Pansy reached a very important question. "How did you know that they kidnapped me?" she asked, with a calm she didn't quite feel. As friendly as their conversation thus far had been, this felt like a dangerous overreach; Harriet obviously had secrets, and considering the sort of fate she had to look forward to if the wrong one came out…

Well, given a choice between going to Azkaban, or obliviating a friend, Pansy could hardly blame the girl for making the hard decision.

Still, Harriet's small smile barely flickered as she politely considered the question. "Well, I'm sure Aldon told you that I was hiding in the Alley's for a while," she eventually said, hands held behind her head. "Only maybe hiding is the wrong word, because it didn't take me long to start going out and talking to folk. And, well, I got to know the neighborhood, and made some friends."

"So," she continued with a side look at Pansy, "when a few of my friends told me that a bunch of toughs had snatched one Pansy Parkinson from Diagon Alley, I knew I had to do something."

'Which doesn't answer why these people came to you, though,' Pansy mused to herself, before resolving to keep that particular thought private. She was already rocking the boat, after all, no need to risk a complete capsize. "So you came to my rescue," she said aloud, to keep the conversation going.

"Of course," Harriet replied with a careless shrug. Her boots were loud against the cobbles despite her easy strides, a cacophonous counterpoint to Pansy's own dainty steps. "Like I said, any friend of Rigel is a friend of mine. And, with Rigel himself...indisposed, it fell to me to step up, so I did."

"That's very brave of you," said Pansy. 'And risky,' she silently added.

Harriet, however, was already shaking her head. "I already knew that there couldn't be too many thugs, or else it would have been all across the alley," she countered. "Besides, I sent… someone else for back-up, so it wasn't like I was going in alone."

It wasn't hard to see through the lie. Even four on one was terrible odds, let alone six on one, and Harriet had no way of knowing that any rescuers would arrive before the worst had happened. Still, far be it from Pansy to stop someone from playing humble.

Besides, she had other fish to fry. "Yes, about that," she said, carefully pretending that she wasn't hanging onto Harriet's every word. "I'll admit to being a little surprised when your 'back-up' turned out to be Leonel Hurst, of all people. You wouldn't exactly expect to see someone like the Aldermaster's son hanging around in Knockturn Alley, after all."

If anything, she was understating things. It probably wouldn't seem like a big deal to the average lay-person, but knowing that Hurst was hanging around in unsavory places was tantamount to knowing he was doing unsavory things with unsavory people. Hardly a social death sentence, even in the rarefied strata of high society, but that sort of stain could be hard to remove, and easy to spread.

It was therefore a little disconcerting to see Harriet dismiss the unspoken accusation with a small shrug. "His mother runs a clinic down in the Lower Alleys," she said as they turned onto more familiar streets. "Way I hear it, he started running errands for her, and got to know folks, just like I did. Everyone down there loves Leo."

"Right," Pansy said, politely hiding her private skepticism. Pansy didn't know what Hurst was doing there, but running errands had nothing to do with it. The man prowled those streets like a big cat in the forest, perfectly at home, and well aware of his ability to kill anything he met down there.

"He's not doing anything wrong," Harriet hastened to add with an earnest look. "Just helping out, you know? Still, I think we'd both be happier if Leo's part in all this was kept...quiet. Don't want to risk embarrassing his father, after all."

Oddly enough, Pansy believed her. Not about Hurst's father, that much was obvious, but that it was the only reason they'd ask her not to tell anyone. Did that mean that Hurst honestly didn't care who knew what he was doing down there, so long as it didn't get back to his father? Or was this some sort of double bluff, a way to keep her from digging any further, content in what she'd already found?

In any case, it probably didn't matter either way. Slytherin or not, digging for blackmail on her rescuers would be the height of poor taste.

"Ah," she said when they finally passed a shop that she recognized. "I think I can make my own way back from here."

"Are you sure?" Harriet said, turning to face her fully. "I can take you the rest of the way. We don't know if those thugs were working with anyone else."

It was an earnest offer, but Pansy could see the way that the girl fidgeted, her attention always going back to the place from where they came. Obviously, she was eager to get back to Hurst, and whatever he was doing back there.

"It's fine," Pansy replied. "We're only a few blocks from the Leaky Cauldron, right? I imagine they'll have a way to get in contact with my parents. And if anything happens, well…"

The thugs had been careful to divest her of her wand, but Harriet had been kind enough to retrieve it for her after the battle. It felt good to slip the smooth wood into her hand, as she fell into a loose dueller's stance. "I'm not entirely helpless," she added with a small smile. "And next time, they won't be able to take me by surprise."

Harriet wavered with indecision for a moment, before dropping into a quick bow. "Thanks, Pans," she said, before turning and darting away. She stopped after only a few steps, though, to give the other girl an unreadable look.

"If there's anything else," she said slowly, after a moment's thought. "Anything else you need, or need done...well, you know how to reach me."

"I'll keep that in mind," Pansy said with a wry look of her own.

Something unspoken passed between them, before Harriet spun on her heels and darted away, quickly vanishing into the alleys. Pansy watched until she was gone, and then a little longer, wondering what would have happened if she had asked the girl to stay.

Then she shook herself until the thought was gone, before turning to make her own way back. "Now," she said to herself as she watched the Leaky Cauldron come into view. "What am I going to tell my parents?"