Chapter 26: Metaphorical Badgers

'Morning, oh lethargic one!'

Rowena kept her eyes determinedly closed. This wasn't the way she had imagined waking up.

'Get up, sleepy knickers.'

'What about my knickers?'

'They're sleepy. I don't know. Get up.'

A foot kicked lightly against her shin. With much reluctance, considerable backache and a great deal of foreboding, Rowena slowly opened her eyes. She blinked a couple of times, briefly examined her surroundings and closed them again.

Then she said, 'Hello, Salazar.'

'Hullo, Queen of the Comatose.'

'Where am I?'

'You're on the floor.'

'Mm.' She adjusted her position slightly and felt the hard, cold surface pressed against her bones. Then she opened her eyes again, and took another look at Salazar as he sprawled above her, lounging casually on the edge of a bed with a mocking smile on his face. He tilted his head to one side and raised his eyebrows suggestively, so she closed her eyes again.

'Comfy?' he asked.

'Upon whose floor do I currently rest?'

'Your own.'

'Really? Get off my bed, you bastard.'

'It's very comfortable.'

Blurred recollections and hazy memories stirred in her mind like silt in a dirty puddle. Memories of parties and prophecies and marriage and feelings of really contented, delighted pleasure because – because she –

'Was I drunk?'

'No,' said Salazar, folding his legs beneath him like a wayward child, 'you were sick.' He paused to watch her wince before finishing, 'On my trousers.'

'Oh, God,' Rowena groaned, placing her hands over her face, 'was I really?'

'Yes. And then you collapsed. I could have woken you up, I suppose,' he continued, leaning back, 'but you looked so peaceful, lying there in a pool of your own vomit. Really, it'd be like kicking a puppy.'

She groaned again. 'Is it still on me?'

'Mercifully, no.'

She sat up and struggled to her feet, stumbling a couple of times in the process. Her stomach felt empty and her mouth tasted unpleasant, and every single bone ached. And she'd been laying in her own vomit. Ye Gods…

She approached her dressing table and fell into the seat, rubbing her hands over her face and through her severely tangled hair with a look of great distaste. Salazar's reflection watched her with that same, unchanging look of snide amusement, and from this she gathered there was still a significant part of the story she had yet to uncover.

'Alright,' she said, rising to meet his challenge, 'what did I do?'

He just shrugged and laid back across her pillows. A superior grin played across his lips as he rested his head on his hands and stretched out comfortably, and Rowena was only slightly ashamed to admit that he looked...quite nice, there.

'Alright then,' she said, turning her back on him, 'I'll guess.'

'You may try.'

Now…in cases of drunkenness, illness and delirium, what was she prone to do? Other than produce vomit in copious amounts, of course. Waking up on the floor was obviously the general outcome, as was playing Tickle Mr. Turnip with Hat. Cows were occasionally summoned, though she couldn't explain that one in the least. But Hat wasn't—

'Oh God,' she said, wheeling suddenly around, 'I didn't expose myself, did I?'

Salazar laughed wildly, but shook his head. 'No. No, you didn't do that. Not while I was looking, anyway – you might have shown something to a student, but – ow! No need to throw your cosmetics.' He smirked and, much to her relief, said, 'You didn't expose yourself, alas. You were unconscious.'

Rowena was vaguely aware that her cheeks were burning. 'Unconscious?' she repeated, determined that he shouldn't notice.

'Mainly unconscious.'

'Oh dear. I didn't – hang on.' She paused in thought and stared at the door to her bedroom. 'Hang on,' she said again, 'we were downstairs…'

'Give the lady a cigar!'

'Oh Salazar – you didn't—!'

'I did,' he said, swinging himself upright, 'and I expect a bit of gratitude, after all I've put up with.'

Rowena stared at him for a while in horrified silence. 'Oh, Lordy,' she said, with another groan, 'you did, didn't you? You actually carried me up from the dungeons.'

'Damn straight,' he said, smugly.

'But you're so brittle!'

Salazar spluttered. 'How dare you insinuate such nonsense.'

'I just mean – I mean I'm not – er – waif-like. I have hips and…things.'

'Yes, I daresay I noticed the Things quite often – ow! How many hairbrushes do you own?'

'Quite enough to render you unconscious, thank you. I can't believe you carried me. That's very…chivalrous.' It was a difficult sentence to articulate; one didn't usually associate Salazar Slytherin with chivalry in any form. It was even more difficult to articulate when in an acute state of embarrassment and fighting the urge to, quite frankly, osculate him.

Salazar nodded proudly. 'I ooze chivalry, drip gallantry and marinade myself in courtesy. Which is a lot more than I can say for you,' he added, despairingly. 'Did you know, for example, that I carried you up seven different staircases while you writhed about in a state of semi-consciousness, waking only to verbally abuse me and smack me about the face?'

Rowena stared at him again. She could recall certain vague memories of calling somebody a keratinous pleb, and the fact that she didn't even know what that meant was the least of her worries.

'Oh,' she said weakly, 'you might be right on that one.'

'D'you think?'

'You should have wingardium'd me up!'

'Well I would have done, but you kept thrashing around and floating into walls! You're probably going to have a bump tomorrow.'

'Eugh.' She winced and glanced out of the window. The sky was still inky black and eternal. 'It's still Friday, isn't it?'

'Saturday morning, I think you'll find.'

'I hope the party ended well…'

'It was a crap party, Ravenclaw, and everyone went to bed before curfew. I've never seen a more dispiriting sight in my entire life.'

'May I ask you something, Sally?'

'Yes, Rowan?'

'Why, having gone to all that trouble to transport me safely upstairs, did you then lay me down on the floor?'

'Because, having gone to all that trouble to transport you safely upstairs, I decided I was the one most in need of a bed.' He smirked. 'There's a clearly defined limit to my gallantry, and getting punched in the mouth by an unconscious woman just about crosses it.'

'Oh. Fair enough.'

'Ta-ra, Ravenclaw.'

'Yes…bye-bye.'

Rowena closed the door after him and, once confident that his footsteps had died away and he wouldn't return, sauntered innocuously over to her bed hopped onto the mattress, sprawling out across the groove left by his body with a smile.

Then under her breath she whimpered, 'Oh, bloody hell...'

For the benefit of her own health she hopped out again, and elected to sleep on the floor.

'Er – hello, Rowena—'

'Oh God.'

'Pardon?'

'Nothing.' Rowena turned to Anatole Amery as he struggled against the stream of students intent on entering the Great Hall. With an abashed expression on his face that she had to pity, he hopped past a group of taller seventh years, fell over a first year and eventually clawed his way to the wall by which she stood.

'Ah, hello,' he said, with a lopsided grin, 'knew I'd get through them eventually.'

'You've got to basically think of them like horny salmon, struggling upstream.'

'You know you've got teaching down to a tee when you see your students as randy fish.'

'Certainly,' said Rowena with a smile, ignoring the annoyed glance of an eavesdropping fifth year. 'Do you want me for something?'

'Hm? Oh – yes. I'm afraid it's private. About the, er…' he raised his eyebrows a couple of times. Rowena stared at him blankly.

'About the eyebrows?'

'No, no – the spell. The spell…?'

'Oh, yeah! The spell. Ok, I'm sure I've got a spare minute or two…'

Anatole led the way through the thinning crowds while Rowena followed closely behind. It was hard to dislike Anatole. But in the same way that she'd developed Helga's fear of spiders after years of watching her recoil at the sight, Salazar's constant displays of dislike had rubbed off on Rowena in some small way. Which was probably his intention, now she thought about it.

But partly in defiance, partly because he was a very nice chap and partly because it was always nice having somebody present to dote on you, Rowena had to admit that he wasn't half bad. He wasn't half handsome either, which certainly helped.

'Ok,' said Anatole, as they approached his usual second floor classroom, 'just in here, if that's alright.'

Anatole's classroom was slightly dusty, vaguely musty and a trifle fusty, which was nice if you were a fan of internal rhyme schemes. There were a couple of jars here and there, and a few textbooks piled on the edge of a desk. Other than these details, it was like every other room in the castle: grey, empty and with far too many drapes. Rowena was really beginning to regret the drapes.

'Ok,' said Anatole, marching over to a locked cupboard in the corner and tapping it with his wand, 'I've got a few things in here that we'll need, and a couple of things still on order. Here we go.' He carried a miscellany of objects to the nearest table and laid them out there.

Rowena wrinkled her nose in distaste and observed, 'Hairy.'

'Hm? Oh, yes…wild boar, you know how they get. So, what's here?' He now appeared to be speaking to himself, ticking through a mental tally of ingredients. He tapped each as he spoke: 'Bark of a tree, unicorn hair, piece of silver, raven feather – think it's a raven – er…twigs, yes, and an egg. Hm…blood, water, soil, eyeballs – eugh – and a bit of hairy pig. Yes…what else?'

'No frog parts, are there?' asked Rowena, with a grimace.

'Hope not, I hate frogs. No…what was it? Oh – a bit of the castle.'

'A drape?' she suggested, hopefully.

'Er…no. I was thinking more in the line of a brick.'

'Oh. OK. I'm sure we can manage that.' She wrinkled her nose again, with subtlety. It seemed he hadn't yet noticed how terribly his assortment reeked. 'Do you want any help putting them away?'

'Hm?' he looked up from the vial of blood that had captured his interest and shook his head. 'No, I'm sure I can manage, thank you.'

'So what does the spell involve?'

'It's quite simple, really. I have a couple of friends who perform it for a living, so I expect they'll be lending me a hand. Just a bit of light chanting and burning stuff, really. But it has to be done at a full moon, of course. It's all a bit ritualistic and primal, but well worth the hassle.'

'What does it do?'

'It sort of changes the, er…' he waved his hand flippantly, with a look of somebody very intelligent attempting to explain something extremely complicated to somebody with the known mental capacity of a teabag. 'Just changes the atmosphere, basically. Strips some of the magical charge in the air and adjusts the general perception of reality.'

Rowena did her best impression of somebody much more highly trained in such matters. 'Righty-ho.'

'Consequently,' he continued, transporting the stuff back to the cupboard, 'muggles won't be able to see it, witches and wizards won't be able to apparate to or from it and we should all be much safer all around, basically.'

'Oh. Right.'

He retuned to Rowena and wavered uncertainly for a moment, before saying, 'I hope you don't think me impertinent for asking, but how did you come to found this school with such a…eclectic mix?'

Oh, if only she knew. 'In a nutshell,' she said, thoughtfully, 'dreams, ambitions, high aspirations and a desperate state of poverty.'

'I don't think Professor Slytherin thinks very highly of me.'

'No,' said Rowena, carefully, 'no, I don't think he does. He's alright, though.'

'Yeah?'

'Yes.' Oh Lord help me, she thought forlornly, my leg just went into spasms.'He's not bad at all, really. In fact he's quite…nice.'

'Is he?'

'Yes. Yes, I suppose...he is.' She sighed and shook her head and, without a second look or thought for Anatole, rapidly exited the scene. She really needed Helga.

The House of Hufflepuff had, since the Mysterious Incident of the Dog-Man in the Night Time, fallen into general disarray. It takes a certain kind of chaos to turn so few students so frenzied in so little time, but (thought Rowena, as a wooden arrow embedded itself in the wall by her head), if anyone was capable of producing the necessary conditions, it was Helga.

Passing a couple of mud-smeared first years as they swung from yellow drapes, she hurried up the staircase to Helga's office and desperately knocked at the door. A short while later, a quiet voice from inside said, 'Yes?'

'Helly, it's Civilisation. Please let me in!'

'Oh God.' The door swung open, revealing Helga – skirts hitched around knees – stood atop a chair, poised with a threatening plank of wood. Rowena regarded her suspiciously before entering and taking a seat behind her desk.

Once sure that she hadn't been followed in, and that an invading army of Hufflepuffs weren't about to break down the door, Helga lowered the plank and followed Rowena to the desk, shaking her head.

'I don't know what happened,' she said, taking a seat opposite her friend, 'I only left them for twenty-four hours – less, even! And it's not as though they didn't have places to go and food to eat. What happened?'

'Hell broke lose?' Rowena suggested.

'Yes…dear Lord. Why did I get the scrag-end of the lot?' She patted down her hair, which had frizzed beyond all recognition, and fumbled through her pockets in search of her wand. She looked rough, but Rowena wasn't about to tell her as much.

A few seconds later, Rowena said, 'You look rough.'

'Eugh.'

'I mean…very rough. Not "three o'clock in the morning and I need the toilet" rough, I mean "my house has just been pillaged by Vikings and they've eaten my favourite badger" rough.'

'Eugh,' said Helga, again.

'Is something tragically wrong?'

'I've just eaten my favourite badger,' she said, forlornly.

There was a considerable pause, broken only by the sound of chanting from the common room. Then Rowena said, 'Jesus Helga, you didn't really eat a badger, did you? Think of the rabies!'

'No, no, I was being…metaphorical.'

'Did you at least cook it first?'

'Metaphorical! Metaphorical.'

Rowena sat back in her chair. She had a spleen to vent; problems to tend. And Helga had eaten a metaphorical badger. Dammit all! Why couldn't she be the only one with dilemmas?

'Ok,' she said, eventually, 'in this case, what does a badger represent?'

Helga sighed. 'Godric.'

Rowena stared. 'You've eaten Godric.'

'Yes. Well – no. The badger represents my chances of happiness with Godric.'

'And the eating represents…?'

'A sweeping brush,' she said, sadly.

'You've just sweeping brush'd a happy badger?'

Helga groaned. 'Something like that.'

'Right.' She had to pity her, really. She probably would, if she wasn't so busy pitying herself. It was a tough life, really. 'Helga,' she said, gesturing towards the open window, 'is there anything out there?'

A vase smashed against the office door, followed by the inexplicable howl of a wolf. My, the Hufflepuffs were savage tonight.

Helga sighed. 'Why do all your best plans include jumping out of a window to avoid tribal savagery?'

'I'm just lucky like that.'

And so it came to be that Helga Hufflepuff, Loyal and True, and Rowena Ravenclaw, Wise and Headachy, found themselves on the roof of Hogwarts, Big and Stony.

It wasn't an extremely difficult task; directly beneath the window of Helga's office (and a bit to the side) two sharp slants of roof tile met, forming a wide V of rock. A short and shaky journey through this valley ended in turrets – which they crossed easily – and a tricky ascent up another slant of roof. Then down the other side again.

It was another world up there. Colder, for one thing. The rock was uncared for and littered with leaves, with spots of green moss colouring the dampest surfaces. The roof tiles were loose and slippery, and Rowena had to thank all her Gods that she wasn't afraid of heights. In fact, she rather liked them.

So she and Helga reclined across a flat piece of roof, avoiding the grey puddle that bled nearby. Godlike, they looked across the central quad of Hogwarts and silently watched the figures go by, clutching their schoolbags and doing Lord only knew what to each other.

'It's quite nice up here,' said Rowena, conversationally, 'but my nip-nips are frozen.'

'Your nip-nips?'

'Yes.' She pulled her cloak around her shoulders tightly and stood up, admiring her breath as it froze and danced before her. 'Nip-nips. What do you call them?'

'I don't.'

'What, nothing?'

'No,' she said, seemingly surprised by Rowena's questions, 'I don't generally refer to them.'

'Well, that's no life.'

'Sorry. It is cold, though.'

'Do you have nip-nips?'

'Of course I have nip-nips!'

'Eugh.' Rowena giggled, and said, 'Imagine not having any nip-nips. You wouldn't know where they ended! Or having many nip-nips…'

'Multi-nip?'

'Multi-nip! Dear God!'

The conversation continued in a similar academic tone for a good five minutes, with Helga occasionally suggesting Rowena was light-headed and Rowena agreeing this was probably the case. Eventually, the discussion turned to slightly more vital matters:

'I saw you with Anatole earlier,' said Helga, hintingly.

'Oh,' said Rowena, 'yes. Nothing of a romantic nature occurred.'

'Did anything of a sexual nature occur?'

'No! I'm no scarlet lady, Miss Hufflepuff.' She raised her chin proudly and declared, 'My honour and good name remain in tact.'

'Much to your annoyance,' Helga added, with a grin.

'But enough of that.'

'What did he want?'

Rowena briefly explained Anatole's plans for a ceremony by moonlight, with cloaks, blood, mud, et al. Helga winced slightly.

'Full moon?'

'Yeah. I said we'd have to be there to oversee it. With big sticks, preferably.'

'Oh,' said Helga, mournfully, 'I suppose we'd better, hadn't we? Poor Idiot Boy.' She sighed and added, 'From now on, I propose that no Founders cross-pollinate, for reasons of health and safety.'

A momentary guilty pause filled the cold air.

Very quietly, Rowena said, 'Erm…Helly?'

'Oh God.'

'I think…'

'Dear Lord.'

She could think of no way of ending the sentence, so she slowly protruded her tongue instead.

'Beg your pardon?'

Still she couldn't find the right vocabulary. After a while she mumbled, 'Well…oh God. Erm…Salazar,' and hoped her friend could piece the mutterings together.

Judging by Helga's wide-eyed stare, she'd been successful. After a very long and considerably shocked minute she said, 'Holy Jesus, Rowena, did he get you pregnant?'

'No!'

'Do you love him?'

'No!' She paused long enough to realise she'd thrown her hands defensively into the air, and quickly lowered them. 'No. I don't think so.'

'You don't—?'

'Why do I – why do I bloody hate him so much?' she asked, despairingly.

Helga shrugged.

'And why does he bloody hate me? Everything would be so much simpler, if we'd approached things from a neutral position.'

Helga shrugged again. 'Salazar Slytherin,' she said, despairingly, 'scourge of the universe.'

Rowena nodded.

'Bully. Snob. Git. A bastard of the highest order. Vain, petty, caustic, cold-hearted, uncaring—'

'Yes, yes, thank you, Helga.' She hit her forehead against her knee. 'Yes, I'm quite aware of his shortcomings. I just - I can't help it, this - this weird whatever-it-is. It's driving me insane! What do I do?'

Helga gestured towards the roof edge and said, 'Jump?'

'In the night, I hear voices telling me to – and I quote – "just shag already". I mean that's just not normal, is it? Is that normal?'

'That's not normal. You're ill! You have the demons of the mind! The Black Badger!'

'What? Oh – dammit, Helga, I wish you'd shut up about badgers! They're really not relevant.'

Helga sniffed in umbrage. 'I meant the Black Badger of the mind. It's a metaphorical thing.'

'Oh aye?'

'It's the thing that burrows into your heart when you're in Bad Love.'

Rowena winced and clutched her heart, as if it had been mauled by a metaphorical badger paw. 'What does it do that for?'

'Because,' said Helga, with the casual horror of an adult reciting the bogeyman threat to an unruly child, 'the Bad Love makes your heart warm inside, but completely impenetrable. So the Black Badger moves in to hibernate, and you can't love at all.' She caught sight of Rowena's expression and hastily added, 'It's not real, obviously – it's just a metaphor. A superstition. A load of nonsense really.'

'What's Bad Love?'

'Um,' said Helga, uneasily, 'you know. Um. Unrequited or obsessive or unhealthy or…you know. Adultery, that kind of thing. It's not real.'

Rowena, realising she still clutched her chest, quickly lowered her hand. She remembered, very clearly, the feeling that had occurred to her, that night at the auction: the feeling of something heavy and dark creeping between her lungs and burrowing there. She shook her head. 'That's a horrible superstition.'

'It's just a silly fable. Nothing to worry about.'

'I know, I just…' She sighed. 'Well, it doesn't matter. I'll recover.'

'You'll have to. He's still seeing that Heather girl, isn't he?'

Rowena groaned. 'Damn. I'd forgotten about her. You know' – again she leapt to her feet and peered over the edge of the rooftop – 'it's not like I don't have a fair share of propositions. I have Anatole, for one thing – I could always take Anatole!'

'You took Anatole?' asked, Helga, bemusedly.

'No, I didn't. But I could've! I don't feel a thing for Anatole. Well…just a little thing – but I'm eighteen! I feel a little thing for anyone with facial hair! No – I can turn an attractive man down, no problem. But Salazar? Oh, no. As soon as a pretty girl bats an eyelash at him he's down her throat like a…a ham sandwich.'

'Oh,' said Helga, thoughtfully, 'I really fancy one of those.'

'It's proof, isn't it?' Rowena continued, ignoring her. 'Undeniable proof that he doesn't care for me. God, not that I need any proof! "I'm sorry for any confusion", he says. "Ooh, it's just simpler with Heather, blah bloody blah"!' She kicked a pebble furiously. It skidded off the roof and clipped a gargoyle on the ear. 'No, I'll get over him in no time. No Badger of Death is taking a paw to my arteries, oh no.'

'With cheese on,' Helga mumbled, 'ham and cheese. Yes…I dead fancy one of those. Ro, can we go back outside? My nip-nips are icing over.'

'No. We're staying here until the rage drains from my soul and I lose the urge to stab something.'

'Oh. Alright.' She obediently remained seated, sniffing away the cold and rubbing her forearms desperately. 'Alright,' she said again, to Rowena's back, 'where did you go last night?'

She automatically replied, 'Eugh,' before frowning in thought and pensively resuming her seated position. She stared at the ground for a while. The memories were frozen.

'Well?' said Helga.

Rowena waved a dismissive hand and said, with all honesty, 'I don't remember.'

'You don't have to tell me if you don't want to,' said Helga, a trifle offended.

'No, seriously, I don't.'

'Were you drunk again?'

'No. I just…' She shrugged, as her mind attempted to plough through the groggy pit marked "Memories" and found nothing. 'Dunno. It was fine, though, whatever it was.' And he shall…? 'Anatole spoke to me, I remember that much.'

'Yes?'

'Yes.' She wrinkled her nose. 'Poor boy. I'm sure he's a good sort, really. But I just...I can't remember. Hang on.' She frowned. She strained to catch that last fleeting recollection. 'I was...sick,' she managed, 'I must've...gone somewhere and...been very sick...'

'Sounds lovely,' said Helga, eyebrow raised.

She snapped out of it. 'Yeah, great. Gods, what a let-down. No more parties – that's the new rule.' Obliviate. 'They always end badly.'