"Table for two, please," Harriet said, striding to the bar of the Hog's Head and glaring at Aberforth Dumbledore. Aberforth raised an incredulous bushy eyebrow, the dim light hitting his spectacles in such a way that his eyes were entirely obscured.
"Do you see anyone here?" he asked. "Pick your table."
Harriet smiled viciously. "I'd like a clean table, Ab. You know, so I'll keep coming back."
"Don't know if I want you coming back, Potter, not since you became famous," Aberforth said, coming out from behind the bar and grudgingly wiping down the only table next to a... well, next to a window that was impossible to see through, for the thick layer of grime covering the glass. "Reporters might follow you here, especially that Skeeter bitch." He gave an exaggerated shudder at the thought.
Harriet rolled her eyes as she sat down. "Even though this place is filthy, wouldn't pass a health inspection, and smells like goats, I'll always be back," she said. "You're the only Hogsmeade bartender that serves werewolves."
"And the only Hogsmeade business owner that hires them," Aberforth agreed.
"Remus here?" Harriet asked.
"Yeah. I'll go get him," Aberforth grunted, sticking his head through the door to the back stairs. "Lupin! Potter's here!" They heard what sounded like several books hitting the floor—Harriet imagined Hermione's horror—as Remus Lupin tramped down the stairs and came running through the door. Today, he wore robes that, while in better condition than what he'd worn while teaching, were still patched at the elbows. His brown hair was intermingled liberally with gray, his face pinched in exhaustion. If the full moon were sooner than a couple weeks from now, Harriet realized gloomily, he would look even worse.
"Harriet!" Remus said, embracing her tightly.
"Remus!" she cried, hugging him enthusiastically in return.
"I'm sorry I couldn't be at your ceremony," he said, eyes downcast.
She sighed. "Don't apologize for shit a prejudiced, fucked-up society is responsible for." Since his resignation after Hogwarts at large learned he was a werewolf, Remus had been barred from the premises—at the insistence of spineless students, terrified parents, and a Ministry eager to throw their weight around.
"I still feel bad I couldn't be there for you," he said.
"It wasn't all that great," Harriet assured him. "Lots of boring speeches and way more Fudgey than is healthy."
"A regular hot Fudge desert," Remus quipped, spluttering as he took a large sip from the glass of fire whiskey Aberforth had set before him.
"Damn straight," Aberforth agreed, diligently wiping down the bar with a filthy rag. "Any more Fudge puns and you're both out of here."
"If either of us come up with another, we deserve nothing less than to be thrown out," Harriet said fervently. "Could I have a fire whiskey, too?"
"Fine," Aberforth huffed, pouring a glass and grudgingly bringing it over to her before hurrying back to his refuge behind the bar, where he proceeded to glare at the door through which no new patrons came.
"So, how's revising for your NEWTs coming along?" Remus asked, settling into the chair Harriet pulled out for him.
She groaned. "Don't remind me. I've got a month more than everyone else to study, and I really hope it's enough."
"Not to belittle your concerns," Remus said, "but you have won a Tournament that, practically speaking, is more difficult than an NEWT."
"That's funny," Harriet replied. "It isn't the practical exams I'm worried about."
"You know what I did for my NEWTs?" Aberforth called.
"Do I want to?"
"Sure you do. I studied the interesting bits and didn't give a shit what my results were. Plans like that made me into the successful individual I am today."
Harriet and Remus shuddered, then burst into gales of laughter.
"Aw come on," Aberforth complained. "It's true. I'm happy where I am, and that's my definition of success."
"Profound," Harriet choked. "I have goals, though. I need good scores for what I want to do."
Aberforth snorted. "Whatever you do, please don't be my brother. I hate him, but he isn't happy."
"Heaven forbid," Harriet agreed. "Your brother doesn't do any good for anyone. He maintains the status quo—"
"Preaching to the choir, kiddo," Remus said, forestalling her rant. "Anyway, if you need any help preparing, you know I'm available."
"Thanks, Remus," Harriet said. She began gathering her things.
"Leaving so soon?" Remus queried, clearly disappointed.
"Said I'd meet Hermione in the grounds," she replied. "I'll Owl you about our apartment, once we've signed the lease and whatnot."
He smiled. "You'd better, or I'll track you down." The two embraced once more before Harriet walked purposefully out the door and onto the deserted street.
"If I see anyone that looks like they need a drink," she said to Aberforth over her shoulder, "I'll send them this way."
"You do that," Aberforth snapped, a smile almost visible beneath his wild brows.
#
Throughout the idyllic Hogwarts grounds, students celebrated the end of exams—putting off packing until the last possible moment, one could safely presume. Some dipped their feet in the lake and dared each other to tease the Giant Squid. Others could be distantly seen flying lazily about the now de-hedged Quidditch Pitch. Hermione, meanwhile, sat quietly by the lake under the large beech, enjoying the faint breeze that stirred the grass. Her NEWTs were finished, Harriet had won the stupid Tournament, and Rita Skeeter was walking nonchalantly toward her: Crocodile skin purse swinging, acid-green quill in hand.
"Hello, Rita," Hermione said, scrambling to her feet and gesturing for Rita to sit in the grass across from her.
Rita briefly shook Hermione's hand, nails gently piercing her skin, and then plopped down in the spot Hermione indicated, fastidiously arranging her scarlet robes. Hermione sat back down gracefully, placing a book to the side and pulling her bag close.
"You promised me an exclusive interview," Rita said, "so, let's get to it, hmm?"
Hermione bared her teeth in a smirk. "Oh, Rita," she sighed, shaking her head in disappointment. "Did you really think I would give you an interview that easily, after refusing for months?"
Rita leaned forward, glaring. "I could publish anything about you," she hissed. "Tell my readers how you led me on. Tell them about your illicit note-selling."
"I have never sold notes!" Hermione snapped.
"Of course not, dear," Rita purred, "but if you don't give me this interview..."
"I know what you are," Hermione said quickly. "I know about the beetle with the jeweled antennae with whom you have such an intimate relationship. But let's be blunt, Rita. I have photographic proof that you're an unregistered Animagus. I'll release it as soon as you start publishing anything about me or Harriet Potter that hasn't been pre-approved by me." Hermione pretended to rummage in her bag, then extracted the photograph she'd taken on a whim of Rita transforming into the beetle just inside the Forbidden Forest.
Rita's head drooped, hands twisting, her expression morphing into utter disgust. "Is that all you want?" she spat.
"Oh, I'd say so," Hermione replied. "The truth, as Harriet and I see it, is a small price to pay."
"Truth," Rita spat. "Actual truth would include an exposé on your blackmail."
Hermione smiled. "It would. But the truth I have in mind is only what I want people to know. Certainly, I shouldn't call it truth, but I think we've moved beyond objective definitions. Therefore, any deviation from what benefits us and I'll turn you in."
"Fine," Rita said. "What do you want me to publish first, you bitch?"
"Oh, I'll let you know." Hermione ran her fingers through her hair in a vain attempt to straighten it. "But I expect the first article will be about how Harriet brought home the prize—without any unnecessary embellishments or criticisms. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"
"I would," Rita grudgingly admitted.
"See, this won't be so bad for you."
"I do not appreciate being blackmailed, no matter what I get out of it."
"Oh please," Hermione laughed. "You enjoy blackmailing. All's fair in politics, love."
Rita made to leave, but Hermione stopped her with a sharp tug of her hand. "What?" Rita asked plaintively. "What more can you possibly coerce from me?"
"I want your Quick-Quotes Quill."
"No!" Rita whined. "This is my other half! It's been with me since I could first afford it!"
"Too bad. Hand it over, or you know what I'll do with this photograph of mine." Hermione waved it under Rita's nose for maximum effect.
Rita threw her the quill, hard. "I hope you burn in hell, Granger."
"That won't happen," Hermione assured her, "mostly because I doubt there is a hell. But if there is, you'll be burning right along with me. Oh look, we've got company! Harriet!" Hermione shouted, waving her arms.
Harriet immediately changed her course from the lake toward the tree. "What's up?" she panted.
"I'll be on my way, then," Rita said.
Hermione nodded in farewell. "Send me the report on the Tournament before you publish it."
"You got it, bitch." Rita made to scurry away.
"Wha— What's she doing here?" Harriet spluttered. Rita halted to listen.
"Nothing much," Hermione promised. "Good day, Rita. I'll be in contact about that interview very soon."
"I look forward to it," Rita said, fingering something—likely her wand—in her pocket. With a final toss of her neatly coiffed blond hair, she walked away, the hand holding her crocodile skin purse dragging dejectedly at her side.
"Er, what the devil did you do?" Harriet asked, stretching out luxuriatingly in the grass beside her.
"Better question is what didn't I do," Hermione hummed.
"Okay. What didn't you do?" Harriet said obligingly.
"I did not commit murder, convert to the cause of Pureblood supremacy, or sell out to the fossil fuel industry."
"That doesn't tell me much," Harriet complained. "What did you do?"
"Blackmailed our worst enemy?" Hermione hedged.
"Very Slytherin of you," Harriet laughed approvingly. "What did you blackmail her with?"
In reply, Hermione showed her the photo she'd threatened Rita with to great effect.
"Holy fuck," Harriet said. "What do you get from her?"
"The truth, as we want it to be told."
Harriet's smile was radiant. "You are amazing. Have I ever told you that?"
"Oh, about a hundred times."
"Good," Harriet said. "Good. Um, can I have that quill? Never know when it might come in handy."
"Hell if I want it," Hermione returned, passing Harriet the Quick-Quotes monstrosity that she'd left laying abandoned in the grass near the beech's roots. "What are you going to do with it?"
Harriet rolled her eyes. "Writing experiments, I think."
"Yeah?"
"Don't know what sorts I'll do yet, but I bet it'll be loads better than what Rita used it for."
"You never disappoint," Hermione assured her. "Ah, but we need to briefly discuss when we're going in to sign our lease." Harriet trembled as Hermione withdrew a sheaf of papers from her bag.
"We go in on Monday the 29th, sign our shit, and move in on the 1st," she rattled off, sounding as nauseated as she looked.
"My god, Harriet," Hermione said, patting her hand. "All we'll be doing is signing some papers. The hard parts have already been taken care of. No one will be judging you. No one is out to sabotage you."
"I... I know," Harriet replied weakly. "I just—"
"I know," Hermione murmured. "I'll be there, signing everything you sign. We'll be fine. I promise."
"I'm sorry about all this," Harriet said, taking several deep breaths. "I shouldn't be so worked up over a goddamn apartment. I mean, you're not acting this way."
Hermione sighed. "My parents taught me everything I needed to know. Clearly, your aunt did not."
"Yeah. Lessons on survival in the real world didn't fit into her tough love routine. Anyway, I gotta go take care of some things. I'll se you later."
"All right." Hermione buried her nose in her book as Harriet walked back to the castle.
#
"For the love of—" Tommie growled, glaring down at the roll of parchment resting between her paws. The foundation of her brilliant plan to re-establish herself began with writing letters to potential and past allies. Without the benefit of opposable thumbs, she wrote by holding a quill between her teeth, but hadn't even got that far. Every time one side of the parchment was successfully pinned down, the other side would spring back. The pot of ink spilled at least twice, leaving the carpet and her paws covered in a sticky, resin-scented residue.
Time to try something else.
Could the "Room of Requirement," as Potter called it, provide her with a (disgusting, Muggle, efficient) pen and paper, as it had so adeptly provided the quill and parchment? At her mere thought, those very implements materialized: Several sheets of lined paper and a rather attractive silver fountain pen. With the appearance of the pen and paper, the evidence of her prior writing debacle blessedly vanished. She shook her paws, just to make certain the ink was gone. Not a drop spattered from her fur. How convenient.
The pen was more fragile than it looked. As she grasped it with her teeth, the end snapped off in her mouth. Spitting it out, she glowered around the room, but as she watched, the pen repaired itself, ready for her next attempt. Sighing, she lifted the pen with what felt like too gentle a grip and finally put the tip to the taunting page before her.
The door opened with a bang, startling her into dropping the pen once more. Cloying self-satisfaction flooded her senses. (Though it was Potter's self-satisfaction, and she'd tasted worse things.) "You could have knocked," Tommie hissed, turning to face her visitor. "But you've brought food, so I suppose I shouldn't complain too much." The scent of the meat made her mouth fill with saliva.
Potter unceremoniously dropped the meat in front of her. "What have you been doing?" she asked. Tommie took a large bite to put off answering. It tasted as uninspiring as ever.
#
Harriet wasn't sure what she expected to see on opening the door to the Room of Requirement, but Riddle crouching over a piece of paper, with a fountain pen poking from between her teeth, wasn't it. Riddle dropped the pen, swiveled about, and glared. Her rebuke did nothing to dampen Harriet's strange contentment. "What are you doing?" she asked, putting down her parcel of food and watching in morbid fascination as Riddle tore into it.
Riddle chewed for a while, ignoring Harriet. With a huff, Harriet thought about a comfortable armchair and settled into the one that appeared behind her.
"I was writing," Riddle replied at length as she finished the meat, cleaning the blood from her face and paws the way any cat would.
"Oh, what about?" Harriet asked, eagerly leaning forward to see the results of the pen-in-the-mouth method. Riddle instantly moved to cover the paper, but not before Harriet noted the dearth of text.
"None of your concern," Riddle growled.
"It is kind of my concern, though," Harriet said, realizing with a twinge that what Hermione had done with Skeeter could dictate how she proceeded here, too—in spirit, at least. "I'm going out of my way to help you. If we succeed, I want something out of this. Therefore, I wish to know what you plan to do."
"I'm writing letters to potential allies," Riddle admitted, after a moment of awkward silence.
"Allies for what goals? Furthering the Pureblood cause?"
"No," Riddle said shortly. "Something far greater, as I believe I explained two days ago."
Harriet's heart sank. So Riddle planned to pick up where she'd left off fifty years ago, wherever that was. "You want to found a just utopia for everyone who deserves it," she guessed. "That sounds less like 'politician' and more like 'revolutionary'."
"Indeed." Riddle rose to her paws and approached Harriet's chair. "Does that frighten you, Potter? Does that strike terror into your heart of hearts?" She stopped, nearly nose to nose with her. "Do you regret so stupidly offering to help me?"
"I could leave you here, you know," Harriet mused, sitting stiffly. "Let you rot here in the castle. Tell them where to find you so they can send you back where you came from."
"You could," Riddle agreed. "But your sense of decency won't allow it. It wouldn't matter if I told you that I killed people before I was cursed. You'd still help me because you'd view it as a quest to save me in every way you can."
Somehow, Harriet wasn't surprised by Riddle's quasi-admission, since it fit with the image of Riddle the Revolutionary. She decided to play ignorant for now. "Don't presume to know me. We only just met, after all."
"So brave," Riddle mocked. "You are an open book, Harriet Potter."
"Am I?" Harriet asked. "If you can read me so easily, why did I compete in the Tournament?"
"Pride," Riddle said without hesitation. "The thrill of danger."
"No," Harriet replied shortly. "Not even close." Riddle tried to hide her reaction, affecting an impassive expression, but Harriet saw her flash of surprise.
"I have something that might be useful to you," Harriet said, coming to a decision that had the potential to be quite amusing and served to adeptly change the subject.
"What would that be?" Riddle asked warily, padding away from Harriet's chair and sitting by her stack of paper.
With a flourish, Harriet produced the Quick-Quotes Quill. "I don't know if this will act as a straight Dicta-Quill, but you could give it a try. If it doesn't work, I'll pick one up for you on Saturday." Better to know what sentiments Riddle wanted her to believe she held than to wait for her to master the use of a pen, with which she could write what she wished, and likely find a way to distribute it.
"How kind of you," Riddle replied, not sounding remotely fooled by her show of generosity. "Let's give it a try, shall we?" Harriet dropped the quill on Riddle's paper, at which it immediately stood upon its nib, quivering. "Promising," Riddle noted.
"'To whom it may concern, I hope you burn in hell,'" Harriet tried. The quill dashed across the page, writing verbatim what she said. It added a parenthetical aside at the end: "A letter to an enemy that doesn't pull punches."
"What the hell?" Riddle snapped, swiping the quill onto the rug. "How do these work, anyway?"
"No idea," Harriet admitted. "I was hoping to figure that out."
"Dicta-Quill it is, then," Riddle crowed. "Oh, but do keep this."
"I had no intention of abandoning it."
"You intrigue me, Potter," Riddle purred as Harriet rose to leave. "There is much I wish to learn about you."
"The feeling is not mutual."
"Oh, it will be," Riddle purred, a dark promise in her eyes. Harriet closed the door firmly behind her, wondering what on earth Riddle's final statement could mean for her. She couldn't deny the sphinx's beauty, or the faint air of bereavement she could sense. So yes, she wanted to help Riddle, despite her misgivings. Riddle hadn't been wrong about that. But as for Riddle being interesting... What was interesting about towering ambition?
And yet Riddle sounded almost... hungry—for her, and Harriet knew she should be afraid.
Bring it on, Harriet thought.