Chapter 19: Fire and Eyebrows

Between seven and nine pm the following night, several passing students found themselves unnerved by the smells emitting form the third floor store room. The usual stench of hard ale and fried apples was joined by seven new types of liquor, burning wood and, inexplicably, a cow.

As for the noise…

The young pupils of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry were rapidly becoming familiarised with the sound of two inebriated headmistresses, a rabid Scottish hat and a cow drowning their individual sorrows, while attempting to create a new drinking game called, apparently, "Tickle Mr. Turnip".

'Ale!' cried Rowena.

'Wimmin'!' exclaimed Hat.

Something mooed. After an expectant pause, Helga said, 'Does that mean I have to say whores?'

'Tickle Mr. Turnip!'

…said the cow.

September passed quickly into October, marked by the falling of orange leaves and an extra layer of skirt. Rowena and Helga, reunited by their past troubles and an event referred to only as "The Turnip Times", made themselves comfortable under the trees by the lake.

Their current position served a multitude of purposes: they were avoiding the students lunching in the great hall, avoiding their co-founders in the staff room, avoiding a certain group of seventh years and ensuring the woods remained a strictly nookie-free zone, as Helga so euphemistically phrased it.

'Got some money,' Rowena managed to say, between mouthfuls of bread.

Helga, leaning over a large book marked "Accounts (and some other things)", nodded. 'Oh yes. When was that?'

'Dunno.'

'How much was it?'

'Lots.'

'How many lots?'

'Lots and lots.'

Helga wrote that down. 'Money In:...lots and lots...and Money Out:...Lots.' She snapped the book shut. 'Great.'

Rowena briskly wiped the crumbs from her lap, swallowed the rest of her sandwich and threw a slice of pickle at the lake, where it was claimed by a thin, vegetarian tendril. 'I love money,' she announced. 'I think I want to marry money, set up house with it somewhere and have lots of wealthy babies, who I will then sell.'

Helga shook her head. 'What about romance?'

'That is romance, where I come from.'

Rowena sat back in her chair and pulled a shawl from around her elbows up to her shoulders. 'D'you remember when we were in fourth year?'

'Vaguely.'

'Remember when you, me, Elvina, Catherine and Elspeth tried predicting each others futures?'

Helga laughed fondly at the memory. 'Oh yeah, that was hilarious. What did we say about Elspeth?'

'That she'd die in a convent.'

'Oh yeah.' She laughed again. 'What about you?'

'I'd become an old spinster, eventually found dead amongst a nest of cats.'

Helga beamed. 'I was feeling particularly imaginative that day.'

'Do you remember yours?'

Helga's smile remained, although her eyes dropped. 'Yep. It involved Godric.'

'Hm. Depressing, isn't it?'

'Yes, but I'm sure I'll recover. I have no time for that lying dog—'

'Literally,' Rowena interrupted.

'—and I'm probably better off without him. Aren't I?'

'Definitely.'

'And – and I'm sure you're better off without Slytherin, Ro,' she continued, tentatively. 'Right?'

'Correct,' Rowena agreed, with a curt nod. She sighed despondently, and added, 'At least I had a cat in your version.'

'Oh, they have very short life spans. You're better off not bothering. Oh – that reminds me,' she inclined her head and, checking for eavesdroppers, whispered, 'we've lost a student.'

Rowena looked up sharply. 'Really? Why? What have I done?'

'It wasn't to do with you – her father died.'

'Gods. The poor girl! Was he rich?'

'Very.'

'Bugger!'

Helga shook her head. 'Thank God I was the one who broke the news.'

'When did it happen?'

'Last week, or just before. They found him just on the outskirts of Hogsmeade, apparently. They're probably discussing it in the staff room.'

'I'll ask Anatole later.'

'Who?'

'Anatole Amery,' Rowena explained. 'The Defence against Dark Arts man.'

'Who?'

Rowena reminded herself that it had been several weeks since Helga set foot in the staff room. 'The young one, with brown hair. A bit short. Falls over a lot.'

'Oh! Him. Oh, he's quite nice.'

'Yeah, he's alright.'

Helga raised her eyebrows suggestively.

'Piss off. In the meantime, I'm going to concentrate all my efforts on slowly destroying the nerves and mind of Heather Bettany.'

'Who? Oh, the…' Helga's face crumpled as she struggled to remember and recite one of Rowena's drunken rants: 'The slimy blonde harlot, agent of Satan, He Who Walks Backwards, Pan, El Diablo, and she's got a face like a goat's…scrotum?'

Rowena sniffed away the indignity of the memory. 'That's the one.'

'Don't do anything to her, Ro.'

'Why not?'

'Because you're bigger than that; you don't need to lower yourself. And you'll probably get arrested for child abuse.'

'She's not a child. She's an agent of Lucifer.'

'So you've said. But she's a student…'

'She's only a few months younger than us!'

'You can kill her when she leaves, alright?'

Rowena nodded, grudgingly. 'Fine. I'll draw the beast from her.'

'Good girl. Now do your homework.'

Despite the power that came with age and occupation, founding Hogwarts still felt horribly like hard work. She'd never imagined Professor Harper having an actual social life during his lectures on powdered batrachians. Had all those glazed stares signalled a love affair? Had the irritated sighs revealed a torrid lust triangle? Or did that crumpled smile genuinely come from a love of pewter-bottomed cauldrons? She was fairly confident she'd caught him caressing one on several occasions.

Trudging through a stream of on-coming first years, Rowena made her way reluctantly towards Ravenclaw tower. She'd started setting homework at the end of every lesson – simply because she didn't know how else to end the class – and the fiends actually did it! And they handed it in! And they expected her to mark it! Surely, she was never this studious? Didn't they have hobbies?

'—Honestly, Magdalena, I've no idea how—'

Rowena flung herself against the nearest wall. A squeak of shoes and a voice expelled from the very bowels of Satan signalled the presence of Heather Bettany and entourage.

Checking the corridor was deserted, Rowena subsided to the floor and crept towards the top of the staircase. On the floor below, Heather and a gang of four girls strolled along the corridor, lost in conversation.

Of course, said the voice of Rowena's subconscious, you harbour no ill feelings towards her whatsoever because you have absolutely no reason to. No reason to hate that swishy blonde hair or horrifically smug grin. And you'd be placing your entire career, not to mention your moral compass, in complete and utter peril if you even thought about pointing your wand at her, but she'll be out of sight in a moment so if you're going to do it, do it now now…NOW!

From the corridor below came a blood-curdling scream. Rowena stared at her wand, scrambled to her feet and ran in the direction of Ravenclaw tower.

When her cookery lesson began at four o'clock, Helga was confused - briefly - by her friend's glazed eyes and bizarre grin. The confusion was dispelled when Heather entered the room, looking decidedly...singed.

As Rowena completed her lecture on the use and abuse of eggs in Yorkshire puddings, Helga cleared her throat and beckoned her over. Rowena obeyed, joining her by the desk at the very front of the room.

'Ro,' said Helga, cautiously, 'I'm not accusing you of anything, because you're my friend and a responsible adult and I trust you immensely, but—'

'Yep!'

'Oh, you didn't!'

'Shush! She doesn't know.'

Helga narrowed her eyes in a way that was meant to inflict guilt. When it failed, she demanded, 'Are you sure? Because she's glaring at you like a damaged owl.'

'Oh, she always does that.'

'I can't believe you set her on fire.'

'I didn't. I just…sparked her.'

'Sparked her? You sparked her?'

'Shut up!'

'She's going to want to know who did that, Ro!'

'She won't. She'll put it down to spontaneous human combustion.'

Helga narrowed her eyes again.

'It can happen,' Rowena insisted. 'I read a report.'

'That's not the point!' she hissed. 'You're not allowed to set students on fire, even if it is only slightly. What on Earth led you—?'

'Nothing.'

'Ro—'

'Nothing! I just fancied a bit of...random sparking!' She waved her wand threateningly and poked it at Helga's chest. 'I'll spark you, if I have to.'

Helga sighed and looked away. 'Whatever. Just don't…drive yourself mad, alright?'

Rowena merely shrugged and pocketed her wand.

'I mean it. And don't do it again!'

'I won't! I wouldn't! You've got to stop treating me like a child whenever I-'

The argument was interrupted by a small explosion and eruption of smoke, which was still enough to send Heather flying through the air backwards. A few people giggled as she emerged from behind her desk with a soot-blackened face; Rowena was one of them.

Helga rolled her eyes and left to offer aid.

'What?' Rowena demanded after her. 'It's hardly my fault if she picked up the faulty cauldron, is it?'

The look Helga gave her in return said: It's your fault if you were the one who handed them out, Ro.

One side of Salazar's mouth twitched – minutely, but noticeably. 'You've been what?'

'Burnt,' Heather repeated, angrily brushing the charcoaled remains of a ribbon from her hair. 'Several times, from above.'

'Wrath of God?' he suggested.

'Are you laughing at me?'

'No,' he said, sucking in his lips to repress a smirk.

She turned from the mirror to face him and, checking his expression carefully, said, 'Good. Because I will have your eye out.'

'Yes, dear.'

She turned back to the mirror and brushed furiously at the waves of her golden hair, giving Salazar enough time to work on repressing his grin.

'This is a nice office,' said Heather, still brushing away intently at a tangled end.

Salazar shrugged and took a seat at his desk. 'I've often thought so.'

'But how many mirrors do you need? I mean, I'm quite vane but this is ridiculous.'

'Only four,' he mumbled defensively.

'Six.'

'Are there?'

'Yes.'

'They make the place look bigger.'

'Mm-hm.'

It was quite a nice office, he supposed, if Evil HQ was your idea of interior design. All greens, silvers and dark brown oak. It was amazing to think how many trees must have died to achieve the look. He liked to think that, when the rest of the school was so barren, cheap, broken and second-hand, it was a pleasant change to find one's office in such an agreeable condition. If Ravenclaw saw it, she'd probably come after his jugular.

'Salazar?'

He quickly relaxed his eyebrows. Heather had a way of knowing when his thoughts turned to Ravenclaw, and he was fairly certain his eyebrows were responsible.

'Yes?'

'Does my hair look alright?'

'Lovely,' he said, sparing her a quick glance. 'Beautiful. What time is it?'

'I don't know. Why?'

He gestured towards a pile of unmarked assignments apologetically.

She smiled at him. 'Are they really important, Sal?'

'Depends how vital you think an education is.'

'Not as important as time with my Salazar.'

My Salazar? He'd become her Salazar? He never thought he'd become anyone's Salazar in his life. Jesus Christ.

'Well,' he said, 'this is quite an important one.'

'Alright, alright. I'll go.' She walked over to him and, leaning over his desk to kiss him, paused. 'I think I'll carry out some more investigations, actually. Find out who's been setting me on fire all day.'

'I wouldn't bother,' he said.

'Why not?'

'I'm sure they won't do it anymore.'

'Who's "they"?'

'I don't know, Heather. Just promise me you'll go to bed.'

She sighed and relented. 'Alright. I will.' She kissed him.

'Straight away,' he added.

'I will.'

'Without asking anyone anything. I'll make sure you're kept safe from now on. Alright?'

'Alright.' Before she closed the door after herself, she said, 'Salazar…your eyebrows.'

He quickly relaxed them. 'Night, Heather.'

'Night, Sally.'

The world was a big grey balloon. A big grey balloon, floating across the desert of the universe, and – no, not a desert, a forest. A big grey balloon floating across – but why would there be a balloon in the forest? Floating across the, the…ocean's floor? Fields of green? County of Derbyshire?

The world was a big grey balloon, floating across the county of Derbyshire of the Universe, and Hogwarts was a pin, and Rowena was the living embodiment of a migraine.

Actually the balloon was red, and oh, to hells with it.

'Why…' she groaned, massaging her temples roughly, 'Why did I…?'

'Ach. How many times?'

'Six.'

'Jaysis.'

'Don't judge me!'

'Why not?'

'You can't. You're a hat.'

'I still have rights!'

'Oh, God.' Rowena released a heavy sigh and subsided further down the desk until her forehead was millimetres away from J Hazelwood's essay. It was about jam. Full of pain, rage, rejection and exhaustion, she stuck out her tongue and licked it.

From atop a filing cupboard, Hat demanded, 'Did you just lick that?'

'No.'

'Christy. Fetch me some ale!'

'Grow some arms and get it yourself.'

'ALE!'

'Oh, for fu…'

Three and a half ales later, Rowena resumed her position, fairly confident it was giving her a blotchy forehead but not exactly caring.

'I can't believe,' she mumbled to Jam: King of Preservatives, 'that my life has come to this.'

'I know,' Hat growled. 'It's pathetic.'

'Thanks.'

'I thought I was low, but this is really something else.'

'Yeah.'

'You're starting to smell!'

'I am not —' She froze to sniff her pinafore experimentally. 'Well I do a bit, but that's only because I've been in a room full of onion gravy and sweaty boys for two hours.'

'Strange party.'

'It was a cookery lesson.'

'Whores!'

'Anyway.' Another despondent sigh. Hours had passed. Heather Bettany had been hit by six different hexes, and as euphoric and triumphant as they made Rowena feel initially, they were beginning to stir up extreme feelings of self-pity. 'I don't even like him!' she wailed, tugging at her hair. 'He's a…a…daft bastard!'

'Christy, are we still going on about the snake? Whores!'

'Oh, you be quiet about your whores! You don't even have reproductive organs, what would you do with them?'

Hat's scruffy face – for want of a better word – screwed up in rage, which quickly subsided into drunken remorse. 'I still have feelings.'

'You don't! You're a hat!'

'Ach, bugger off!'

'Everything's turned from gold into crap! And it's all my – no, no it isn't! It's his fault!'

'Not my fault!'

'No, not yours – The Pale and Pointy One.'

Hat was evidently lost. 'Who?'

'The snake. The bearded snake who hides in cupboards with towels and frogs and the illegitimate child of the Underworld!'

'Slythie?'

'YES!'

Rowena's hysteria was enough to disquiet even Hat. At a loss for anything else to say, he offered: 'Wimmin?'

'He's taken everything about me that was good and successful and turned it into this,' she said, hoarsely. 'Piece by piece, he's eating my soul.'

'Eating it?'

'Aye!'

'Whores!'

Settling down slightly into the same puddle of drunken remorse usually occupied by Hat, she continued, 'He's made me hate my job and dreams, Hat. He's made my life feel dull and monotonous and he's made me hex perfectly innocent students. Well, partially innocent. Well, she is a bitch, but that's not the point. The point is…that…that…' She struggled for a few minutes to remember what the point was.

'Whores?' Hat suggested. 'Ale, wimmin?'

'No…'

'Ponies?'

'No.'

'Toboggan?'

'Tob – what? No, not that. No, the point is: when did karma decide that my possibly liking Salazar slightly more than what's healthy is a crime punishable by…this? My best friend's annoyed with me, my social circle's ruined, my conscious is being slowly eaten up from the inside while loathing and self-pity pour out of my - my ears, for god's sake! It's a Saturday! And I'm sat in a cupboard marking essays I don't know the answer to, drinking hard liquor, and…' Realisation occurred: 'And I'm talking to a hat!'

'Ach,' said Hat, defensively, 'you've never had it so good.'

Mumbling sadly into her hands, she confessed, 'I just…don't like him, exactly – not that it matters – but I sort of…miss him? No I don't, I don't even like him. He's a stupid moron and I'm just an idiotic girl who can't separate her hormones from her work, that's how pathetic I am. Eugh…'

The room descended into silence, as Hat realised that a suggestion of either ale, wimmin or whores at that particular moment could result in a lethal attack.

Finally, Rowena surfaced from her thoughts and sat back in her chair. Very guardedly, she asked, 'When was the last time he talked to you, anyway?'

'Hm. Yesterday.'

'Did he mention…' The word "me" refused to come, so instead she finished: 'Anyone?'

'Not really.'

'Not even a student?'

'Not in so many words.'

'What did he say?'

'GET OUT OF MY WAY YOU SCURVY TIT!'

'Er,' said Rowena, sobering up slightly. 'Oh.'

'He kicked me down some stairs.'

'Oh. That's…that's not very nice.'

The brim of Hat curved upwards to form a kind of shrug. 'I was sucking a teacher's leg.'

'Oh. That's…alright then.'

'Aye. Well…'

Groggy, drunken silence once more. Rowena sighed. 'But,' she said, lost in her own train of thought, 'the thing that's so hard-hitting, spit-in-your-eye, bite-you-on-the-arse ironic is that they're actually…perfect for each other. Not that it matters. It's not…I mean, I don't love—'

Very loudly, and with very little tact, Hat cleared his throat.

Rowena froze and, without looking up, said, 'Oh.' A quick wave of sobering nausea flooded over her. 'Oh. Ah. Um...how much of that did you hear, exactly?'

A voice by the door – a soft, female voice, with only the slightest undertones of venom detectable beneath the overtones of smug victory – said, 'Enough.' Heather perched herself on an overturned cupboard and added, 'Are you comfy, Miss?'