13

Over a couple of days of heroism, Spiderman and Lady Phoenix — yes, Reddit had finally decided on a hero name for her, were becoming a big deal in New York and possibly across the country.

But today, it wasn't about justice being served. It was about Halloween and everyone at Midtown High was getting into the holiday spirit. Hermione was in her Minnie Mouse costume, Ron was in his cardboard-made Iron man suit, Ned was a Darth Vader, and Peter was Spider-man without the mask, which was just a red hoodie with a spider marked in the front and regular blue jeans. Lastly, Harriet was, of course, dressed up as a witch.

"So, uh, I've been thinking," Peter began, leaning closer to Harriet's locker, "If it's okay with you, do you wanna go out on a date with me after school on Monday? I mean, since it's Halloween and there's no school."

"Can't. My family celebrates Halloween like it's Christmas. Sorry, Peter." Harriet sent an apologetic smile.

"Then, uh, are you going to the party after the school's over?"

"The one that's being held in the gym?" Peter nodded. Harriet smiled. "If you'll take me."

Peter smiled back in response, "I mean if that's alright with you."

"Of course that's alright, Pete. We've been dating for over a week now, aren't we?"

The party, Harriet had to admit, was pretty awesome despite it being held by the school. There was a DJ booth, a disco ball, a snack bar, and the music was chill.

"You wanna dance with me?" Peter asked shyly at Harriet who'd arrived with her childhood friends just a few minutes ago.

"Sure," answered Harriet, "but I gotta warn you. I'm not good at dancing."

"Me too," Peter chuckled softly, "I may not be as good as Kpop idols but I'm willing to give it a try if it's with you, Harry." Harriet raised a brow at the last part of his sentence. She almost broke out into a fit of laughter when she saw Peter nervously fidget, "is that alright, if I call you Harry?"

The end of Harriet's pink rosy lips tugged up at the sheer amusement of teasing Peter. "Yeah, I'm fine with that."

Confidence bubbled back inside of Peter's gut and he found himself leading Harriet out to the middle of the gym floor. The music stopped all of a sudden when Harriet and Peter stepped up to where students were dancing.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the student DJ volunteer announced over the microphone, "I want all of you to get with your partners because it's time for," he paused for the dramatic effect, "slow dance!"

Most of the students 'booed' while Peter glanced at Harriet to see what kind of face she was making. When his eyes met hers for a brief moment, he cleared his throat out of a nervous habit and looked away, noticing that they were both rooted to the floor, not changing their mind about the promised dance.

He observed as couples dragged their partners to the dance floor as his hands began to form cold sweat. Peter could hear the sound of his heart beating loudly at his ears as he waited for the song to be turned on.

However, to anyone's expectation, the music wasn't a genre that the two expected.

"We're no strangers to love

You know the rules and so do I~

A full commitment's what I'm thinking of

You wouldn't get this from any other guy~"

Peter inwardly groaned. He couldn't believe it, and neither did the other students.

"I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling

Gotta make you understand~"

When Peter saw and heard Harriet began to laugh, he too began to laugh as well. Harriet grabbed Peter's hand and led him further into the dance floor and started leading their dance.

"Never gonna give you up

Never gonna let you down

Never gonna run around and desert you

Never gonna make you cry

Never gonna say goodbye

Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you~"

At the end of the song, Peter and Harriet went to sit down on a bench and talk.

Riddle got into action while everyone was busy. Students were busy dancing with other students, sitting around on gym benches and talking to friends or their favorite teachers, or those who labeled themselves as rebels or hipsters drinking alcohol beverages inside washrooms. In the meanwhile, teachers were supervising the minors, or were too tired and went home for the day.

Riddle dropped in the few drops of chemical mixture Bellatrix had made for him into the fruit punch. The chemical was a substance in which anyone who consumed it would render their senses dull or almost useless in more or less an hour or so.

The chemical would result in Harriet's powers to fade briefly in order for Riddle to bring her to Bellatrix to extract her gene from inside her blood. During her intoxication, Harriet would act as if she was drunk and make others think that she had a few drinks in the school washroom, making people unaware of what would happen.

Clint watched the scene play out smoothly even though it didn't look like he was looking at one specific direction and even though it would seem like his attention was on someone else entirely.

The literature teacher had slipped in some kind of a liquid sneakily into the bowl of the pink fruit punch. Clint then saw Mr. Riddle making brief eye contact with Peter who was talking to Harriet. Suddenly, Peter stood up from the bench, asking Harriet: "are you thirsty? I'm really thirsty, I'm gonna get us some juice" and went over to the fruit punch, scooped a large spoonful into a plastic cup, and went over to where Harriet was and giving her the drink.

Clint was confused at what played out in front of him. He then peered over to where Riddle was standing and noted the creepy smirk forming on his lips as the man observed as Harriet took a drink of the punch after looking at Hermione strangely. When Harriet took the drink, Peter appeared as though he was released from some mind control and looked confused.

Clint sighed, predicting this day to be a long day, as he gathered his things which were only a wallet and phone.

"I'm not feeling so good," Clint heard Harriet say to Peter after a couple minutes later.

"Do you need water?" Peter asked, worried.

"No… I'm just gonna go home for now," Harriet answered, clutching her stomach, "thanks for the dance, Pete," she gave him a small smile and then gave him a kiss on his cheek.

As Clint was about to exit, Mr. Harrington stopped him. "Are you planning to leave already, Clark?"

Clint looked sideways to look at the science teacher and told him, "yeah. Got a long day tomorrow. I'm planning to finish up preparing the lessons for next week and spend the rest of my weekend with my wife and kids."

"Oh, awesome," Mr. Harrington offered, making small talk, "I didn't take you for a guy who had a family."

Clint smirked, "there's a lot you don't know about me."

Harriet's head banged, her vision was getting blurry, and it felt as though she couldn't feel anything at her fingertips. Harriet halted after flinging her witch costume hat into the garbage can, her hand gripping at a brick building on her way home. She barfed out the contents she consumed today from a crouched position as she didn't want to dirty her mother's black one piece.

What was in that fruit punch? And why didn't Peter get sick like me?

"Are you alright, Harriet?"

Harriet didn't have the strength to look at whoever it was, she only gripped the wall tighter from the ache and her senses beginning to dull. She didn't even feel the broad hand touching her shoulder.

"Do you want a ride home?"

"… Yes," she managed to say, and before she knew it she was sitting down and gazing outside, her mind going numb and her vision dimming, fading.

"You're waking."

Harriet's consciousness gradually formed in her senses. She gasped in sudden surprise when she realized that her wrists were bound by chains, and her body bound by a hospital bed.

The woman laughed eerily, and with a malicious tone in each word, the woman told Harriet, "how exciting. Now you get to see what I can do."

Harriet only managed to get one word out, "who…?"

The woman ignored Harriet's question and proceeded to gloat, "you must feel so helpless, so weak and fragile, with your powers gone — even if it is for a moment," she then tutted, "shouldn't have drunk too much."

"What…?" The word slurred in Harriet's mouth.

"Years of testing on mutants. It cost a hefty price. Lots of mind-controlling, torturing and burning away the bodies. Did you know that dead people smell like rotten milk and moldy cheese?"

Harriet's mind was gaining consciousness as the stranger spoke, the horror was also beginning to grow in her mind as well. "You killed people…?"

"Quite." Harriet could almost see a smirk from the lighting of the moon shining through the window that was a few good feet high. "I love high pitched screams, so if you would."

"… What are you talking about?"

Dark cloaks began to appear in thin air around them as the temperature dropped many degrees. Harriet saw smog that her warm breath created when it came into contact with the cold temperature.

"Dementors…" She whispered half in awe and half in terror. She'd only read about their existence in books.

"A what? … Dementors? These are my puppets!" Her scream was loud enough that Harriet was sure that it was the cause of the rugged building shaking. The woman laughed as the dark creatures flew toward Harriet, inhaling and sucking her happiness dry.

"Why… are you… doing this?" Harriet choked.

"The dementors are needed to drain away the rest of your energy… also," she sniggered, "the look on your face is rather fun to watch." After a few more minutes of agony, the pain stopped all of a sudden and Harriet found herself breathing heavily, wearily eyed. Harriet didn't even feel the needlepoint inject into her vein and the blood being drawn. "I'll come back once you recover. Wouldn't want to torture you to the point where you won't come back, now do we?"

With a hazy vision, Harriet gazed wearily at the direction the woman exited after the dementors faded. She needed to get out of the binds and out of this abandoned factory, but her mind was giving up on her again.

Harriet groaned as she woke once again, realizing that she wasn't alone. However, instead of the strange woman, she saw her substitute math teacher plunging an arrow onto the metal chain binds that immobilized her.

"Get up, we're getting out of here."

"Mr. East— uh, Barton?"

Clint halted in his movements and studied Harriet. It was useless pretending to be dumb when she found out his real name, instead he asked, "how did you know my name?"

When Clint went on to undo the chain from her left hand, she responded, "sorry, I didn't mean to look past your memories until I found the answer to your question — which was a really unfair question, by the way, how could you go and ask a college-level calculus to high schoolers? — Anyways, I'm still learning how to master legilimency and occlumency."

"And it took you, what, five years?"

"A month." Harriet made to stand, but her legs almost gave out on her.

"Can you get out of here with your teleportation or some weird voodoo magic?" Clint questioned as he readied his bow, in case things went south. Of course, Clint had called for back up after witnessing what Riddle could possibly do, but who knew when they would come.

Harriet tried as Clint asked, but nothing. "No… but we should get out of here before she comes back."

"Right. C'mon, we're going through the window."

Harriet reached the wall of the window and stared at it before saying, "I'm not tall enough to reach it." She felt completely useless without her magic.

Clint hurried to the window and climbed out, he then reached down for Harriet to grab his hand so that he could pull her up. As Harriet was climbing up with his help, he heard her gasp when she looked back. "The dementors," she shouted at him, "we have to get out of here — now!"

"What are they?!" Clint shouted as they ran through the path, chased by the dark flying creatures.

"They're creatures that feed on people's happiness. They create feelings of depression. The worst part about them is that they can also consume people's souls, turning them into empty shells, so don't get caught by them. And don't waste your arrows or bullets, physical attacks won't work."

"Goddamn it, I thought I was having a rough week as a math teacher… This just might be worse than Budapest. At least Nat was with me on that mission, not a 16 year old."

It wasn't long before the dementors got to them as their ability to fly without the need for energy made it impossible in the first place for humans to escape them. When snippets of happy memories were snatched away by the dementors for the first time for Clint, he felt pure agony. It was a combination of both physical, mental, and psychological torture. Every bone in his body was screaming.

When Harriet began to slow down, he too slowed down beside her, trying so hard to pick up the pace.

"Clint, get up!"

Clint didn't even realize that he fell to the ground. His mind was slowly losing consciousness. He'd never felt this kind of torture before even from years of serving as a spy under SHIELD.

Harriet took his arm around her shoulder and tried to carry him, but didn't get too far as she too slumped to the ground, breathing heavily and cold sweat drenching her hair. She turned to look at the scene of a small army of dementors. Harriet reached out her hand, her eyes blurry, trying to recall a certain memory. However, the dementors kept on coming and sucking the two of their positivity.

Her mind was slowing down, all of her senses numb. A light flickered at the palm of her hand as she mumbled, "expecto… Expecto…"

"Expecto Patronum!"

Before she knew it, she was falling to the ground. Her sight dimming as she saw the blinding glow of what looked like the back of a stag corporeal patronus dart about, scaring away the dementors.

a/n:

Didn't think you'd get Rickrolled in a fanfic, did you?

Also, it's quite obvious who summoned the corporeal patronus, right?

Anyways, thanks for the love and support so far! And you know me, I love reading long reviews, so keep them rolling in (ha! get it?)!

Forgive me if this chapter have a few mistakes since beta-san is busy and might not come back for a while, or possibly never(?) - I'm seriously hoping that isn't the case, but I don't want to force someone to do something they don't want to do.