The next few weeks dragged by painfully slowly. On the first day, Harry and I had waited in the Leaky Cauldron for Luke and Mia to arrive to drop off my things. Tom had had to usher us all into the private parlour when Luke started yelling something violently rude about Sirius Black and how the pair of us would get ourselves killed if we carried on the way we were going. Mia was in tears as they left, neither of them in a very good mood.
Harry decided the best way to cheer me up was with a large, caramel ice cream and the Quality Quidditch Supplies shop. I wasn't quite as into Quidditch as Harry and Ron were, though technically, I did have to pay some attention. At the start of our second year, one of the Gryffindor chasers, Alicia Spinnet, had injured herself quite badly and – after making the unfortunate decision to play with the Weasleys and Harry over summer – Fred, George and Harry had bullied me into taking her spot so that they wouldn't be disqualified. Afterward, Alicia decided in training she hadn't recovered as well as she'd hoped, and I'd once again been bullied into taking up the position full time. I was now the somewhat reluctant owner of a Nimbus Two Thousand.
We spent most of the week wandering the streets of Diagon Alley, occasionally running into friends of ours from school. I even bumped into Aunt Suzie, Will and Evie one day toward the end of the week.
"Wow, are you in trouble," Will winced at me while he, Evie, Harry and me sat outside the ice cream parlour, waiting for Aunt Suzie to finish at Gringotts.
"You really shouldn't have run out on Luke and Mia like that," Evie frowned at me, obviously disappointed. Harry avoided looking at either of them, annoyed he was the only reason I'd left.
"So you'd rather I left Harry alone?" I clarified sourly.
"Of course not!" Evie exclaimed irritably. "But how long would it have taken to drop by and talk to them? And you could have easily invited him to stay there with you." I didn't bother telling her I'd already offered.
The truth was I hadn't wanted to leave Luke and Mia. Quite frankly, I would have much preferred spending the rest of my holidays with them and the rest of the family. But if I couldn't last a day without my arm exploding in pain, how could I let Harry run off to London alone for three weeks?
Ever since Luke and Mia had yelled, screamed, shouted and cried at me for running away like that, I'd been determined that at some point, I'd pluck up the courage to talk to Harry about the situation we were in, the one that up until then, we'd been desperately trying to avoid. But it was easier said than done. Every time I thought about it, I got distracted. Like the morning after Luke and Mia visited, when we were sat at breakfast. Just as I was about to bring it up, Tom the landlord poked his nose in and started asking in depth questions about how we were finding the service there. Or the time at Gringotts, when we almost ran headfirst into the Malfoys.
Eventually though, I finally found an opening. It was at the end of the first two weeks of our stay at the Leaky Cauldron, and the entire bar was deserted because it was so early. Neither of us had been able to sleep, something that was becoming so common, Tom had started cooking us breakfast almost two hours before he usually started. I'd tried to pay extra out of guilt, but he refused to take it, smiling widely at the two of us as he served our food.
The moment he'd gone, I turned to Harry before I could lose the nerve. "We need to talk," I insisted in a low voice.
"About?" he asked distractedly, shovelling food into his mouth like he'd been starved for a week, which I knew was far from the truth. He'd ate so much ice cream, I felt sick thinking about it.
"Three guesses!" I hissed irritably. He hesitated, shuffling on the spot. "Look, I get it's weird-"
"You think?" he scoffed weakly.
I rolled my eyes. "We still need to figure out what's going on! It's not like it's a normal occurrence, Harry, and we can't ask anyone for help."
"Why not?" he frowned.
"Why'd you think?" I groaned exasperatedly, stabbing my bacon a little too forcefully. "It's not normal, Harry, and when people see things that aren't normal, they talk about it. Until we know what the hell it means, it's probably a bad idea to share the experience."
"So if we can't ask for help, then how do we figure it out?" he questioned, dropping his knife and fork to glower at me. "We have no idea where to even start looking, Arty."
"And if we ask someone and we find out it's dangerous?" I retaliated. Harry scowled. "Before you even argue, it wouldn't exactly be out of the ordinary for us, would it? People heard you speak Parseltongue last year and assumed you were the heir of Slytherin, for crying out loud, and I'm positive Parselmouths are more common than this!"
He sighed heavily, leaning his head back and drumming his fingertips on his thigh. "So what do we do?"
"That's an excellent question," I muttered, frowning in thought. "I don't suppose it's dangerous to tell Hermione and Ron. They'd never tell anyone if we asked them not to. And Hermione might have read something about it somewhere. There's always the library at school, and the book store here."
"Not that again," he moaned. "Arty, we spent half of our first year in that library looking for Nicholas Flamel before we found him."
"Ah, but we did find him," I pointed out. "I know it's a long shot Harry, but I don't know what else to do. You must have realised how irritating it got over that first week."
"Just slightly," he sighed. "Which I'm guessing is the entire reason you ran away from Luke and Mia and followed me here."
I shrugged. "It's not like we had a choice."
"That's just it, I did," he scowled, pushing himself up and fixing me with an intense, furious gaze. "You saw how upset Luke and Mia were, and I could have easily stopped that by putting up with the Dursleys or agreeing to stay with you."
"You weren't to know I was stupid enough to follow you, Harry," I groaned, rolling my eyes. "Why are you always blaming yourself for everything?"
"This isn't always, Artemis!" he snapped, and I knew he was on edge the moment he said my name. He never used my whole name. Ever. "Whatever the hell this is, it affects us both, and every time I make some rash, messed up decision, you're the one to pay for it."
"Dear God, Harry, it was one time!" I breathed, a little wide-eyed. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm almost guaranteed to screw up in the next few weeks!"
"Strangely enough, no, that doesn't make me feel better," he mumbled sourly.
"Then I guess we'd better figure it out," I said slowly, watching him pushing his breakfast around his plate, his appetite suddenly gone. "When you've calmed down, obviously. I'm going to go look around that book shop. If I can't find anything in the next few days, I'll grab Hermione when she gets here."
Figuring his silence was agreement, I stood up and walked toward the back of the bar, thanking Tom as I passed him. Taking out my wand, I tapped the right brick on the wall to Diagon Alley, and almost immediately felt myself relax.
I ran into other people I knew from Hogwarts on my way to the book shop. My cousins Sarah and Liam were there with Adam, buying their new books and things for the new Hogwarts year, and again, I was scolded for running out on Luke and Mia. Adam in particular seemed to take it as a personal insult, despite having running away himself as a child on several occasions, and warned me that if I ever pulled a trick like that again, he'd find me himself. The prospect wasn't very comforting.
Inside the book shop would have been like heaven to Hermione. The walls were hidden by huge bookcases, packed with books of all different sizes, shapes and colours. Small, round tables were dotted around the room, each with a dimly lit lamp and piles of dusty, old books. Fortunately, the shop assistant seemed busy serving the few other customers in front of me, so I managed to slip past and browse through the books uninterrupted.
Or so I thought.
"Excuse me . . . err, girl?" a man stuttered uncertainly, tapping my shoulder to get my attention. I turned, scanning the confused look on his face. He was a tall, reasonably young man, maybe in his late twenties with shoulder-length blonde hair and stubble over his chin. In his hands, he held a parcel wrapped in brown paper and what looked like a birthday card.
"Do I know you?" I started cautiously, my hand pausing in my search over the spine of a random book.
"No," he answered, but from the look on his face, I couldn't tell whether he was being serious. He seemed incredibly confused, shuffling on the spot and frowning down at the package in his hands. "I . . . I was told to give this to you."
He held it out in shaky hands.
"By who?" I retorted without taking it off him. I doubted touching the wrapping could be dangerous, not if he was holding it so tightly. But I'd heard of people receiving mail from unknown senders, just to find the item inside was cursed.
"I . . . I can't remember," he said, frowning so deeply his eyes closed as if trying to recall who gave him the package was physical painful. "I was just supposed to give this to Artemis Williams."
"Look, I don't know who-" I cut off when the guy groaned through his teeth, shoving the parcel into my chest and dropping it. On instinct, I caught it before it hit the floor, and before I could say a word, he wheeled around and disappeared into the crowds.
Hesitating only a second, I tucked the package under my arm and hurried after him, squeezing past the other customers in the shop and scanning the street outside for any sign of him, but he'd just disappeared entirely. Biting my lip hard, I turned back toward the Leaky Cauldron and walked as fast as possible back up the street.
It looked like Harry had vanished back into Diagon Alley, but I didn't particular care at that moment in time. I wasn't sure he wanted to speak to me after the conversation this morning, and honestly, I didn't blame him. I wasn't looking forward to seeing him again, either.
Letting myself back into my room, I locked the door behind me and placed the parcel on the end of the bed. For a long time, I paced the length of the room, trying to decide what to do with it. My curiosity was attempting to get the better of me; every now and then a small voice in the back of my head asked how bad it could really be. I mean, who would want to hurt me this badly? Of course, there were a few Slytherins who would love to give me a cursed gift, but none of them were intelligent enough or that dedicated.
Maybe I was over reacting, but I stuffed it into my trunk and decided I'd deal with it later. If I saw the Weasleys in the next few days, I'd ask Mr Weasley about it.
As it turned out, I didn't see Hermione or the Weasleys until the last day of August, and by then, I'd completely forgotten about the package in the face of my original problem; the tattoos Harry and I had suddenly developed.
I staggered down the stairs that morning, still yawning and hating the way I had to keep my jumper on to hide the tattoo from sight, when I saw the Grangers stepping into the Leaky Cauldron from the entrance to Diagon Alley. All three of them looked remarkably tanned from their trip to France over the holidays, and Hermione was smiling from ear to ear as she rattled off a list of books she needed to her parents, though it didn't look like they were paying much attention. Both of them were staring around the pub anxiously, as though they thought they were about to be attacked or cursed.
"Hermione!" I called loudly, waving her and her parents over to the table Harry and I always sat at toward the back of the room.
"Hey, Arty," she beamed, throwing her arms around my shoulders and suffocating me with a mass of brown hair. "How are you? I heard you ran away! Please tell me that isn't true?"
"How on Earth did you hear about that?" I breathed, wide eyed.
"So you did?" she gasped.
"I'll explain later," I promised her in a small voice. She frowned and pursed her lips, but nodded once. "Hello, Mr Granger, Mrs Granger."
"Hello, Artemis dear," Mrs Granger smiled kindly as I shook both of their hands. "Hermione, we'll just ask the landlord for a room for you, and then we'll leave you with your friends, okay?"
"Oh, I have room in my room, if you want," I suggested, fixing Hermione with an intense gaze. "I have some homework I need you to look at anyway. Tom will give us a spare key if I ask him."
She hesitated, nodding slowly. "Erm, sure. Why not?" The look she was giving me obviously meant she was thinking of a thousand reasons why not.
"Okay then, dear, we'll let you get on with it," Mrs Granger smiled. "Have a good year." She and her husband said their goodbyes to Hermione, before leaving the two of us sat alone at the table.
"Right, what are you up to?" Hermione scowled. "Because honestly Artemis, we aren't even at Hogwarts yet!"
"I'm not up to anything," I groaned. "I just have a little . . . problem, that's all."
"Why am I not surprised?" she scolded.
I snorted at her, hauling her to her feet and starting toward the stairs. "Wait until you see the problem." She mumbled something I couldn't catch under her breath, but let me lead her back up the stairs and down the corridor toward my room. I made a quick stop outside Harry's room, hammering on the door and shouting through to him to meet Hermione and me in my room ASAP.
"Artemis, honestly," Hermione groaned, rolling her eyes as she placed her trunk at the end of the spare bed, petting an attention-seeking Nyx and making herself comfortable.
"Don't honestly me, Hermione," I frowned. "I'm trying to ask you for help here." She gave me a worried look, but was interrupted before she could say anything by a half-sleeping Harry letting himself in with a wide yawn.
"If this isn't life or death, Arty," he warned quietly.
"Hermione's here," I smiled cheerfully, just as the girl herself gave a loud gasp, jumping to her feet and bolting toward Harry.
"Oh my!" she blinked, snatching his left wrist up and yanking his arm out in front of him. "What on Earth happened to you?" She was staring down at the blue tattoo etched into his skin in a mixture of amazement, curiosity and worry. In the same second, Harry slammed the door shut with a furious scowl and pulled his arm back, rolling his sleeve back down his arm.
"That's what I wanted to ask you about," I started, ignoring the glowering looks Harry was giving me and focusing my attention on Hermione. "I have one too." She almost fainted when I pulled my sleeve back to show her.
"Oh my," she gulped, scanning it curiously, her eyebrows creasing together. "I've never heard of anything like this before . . . what happened?"
With a quick glance in Harry's direction, I explained how we'd been talking the night before our birthday, and how when Harry touched me, the tattoos just appeared, along with blinding pain and intense panic.
"But you've been friends for years," she frowned. "I don't understand why this is only just happening if all that triggered it was Harry stopping you from falling over."
"Neither can we," Harry reminded her sourly. "And Artemis here doesn't think we should tell anyone." I found my teeth grinding together at the sound of my whole name again. It felt so wrong coming from him.
"She's right," Hermione nodded immediately, shooting him a stern look. "Harry, this isn't normal, even in the wizarding world. It's not something to shout about, not until we know what it means, anyway. Just look at what happened when everyone found out you spoke Parseltongue."
I tried not to look too smug at that, but from the expression on Harry's face, I failed miserably.
"I've never read anything about this kind of thing," she conceded as I rolled my sleeve back down. "Honestly, I wouldn't even know where to start looking. There's a book I've been meaning to get for ages, The Unsolved Mysteries of Magic, but I don't know whether we'd find anything in there. Just because we haven't solved it doesn't mean someone else hasn't, and if they have, they're keeping it incredibly quiet."
"Not surprising," Harry and I muttered in unison.
"We'll have to look in the library when we get to Hogwarts," she grimaced. "And if we still can't find anything, you could always ask Dumbledore. He might know something."
"Sounds like a plan," Harry nodded, jumping back to his feet and letting himself out of the room as quickly as possible. Hermione blinked after him in surprise, while I tried to contain the urge to follow him and hit him over the head.
"He, err, seems to be taking it well," she muttered weakly.
"The sooner we figure it out, the better," I replied simply.