Chapter Three
The first weekend since the beginning of school, she doesn't go to the Great Hall for breakfast. Instead, she finds a still life with a bowl of fruit and tickles the pear painted upon it.
It giggles in response to her wiggling fingers and turns into a large green handle.
The painting swings open to reveal a gigantic, high-ceiling room with five wooden tables in the exact same position as the ones in the Great Hall, which coincidently happened to be right above them. They were all laden with food that was being sent to their counterparts for the enjoyment of the students and teachers. On the other end of the hall from the door stood an enormous brick fireplace permanently burning wood. The smell in the air was amazing, emitting from the many, many bubbling pots and pans standing on the counter-tops and stoves surrounding the stone walls.
"Miss Dally!" The house-elves – small beings standing between two to three feet tall with large, bat-like ears and protruding eyes – cry in their high and squeaky voices when she comes into the kitchen. She thinks they are distant relations of brownies rather than true elves. For her, real elves will always be Tolkien-like; beautiful and fair, immoral and proud creatures. Yes, she was an Orlando Bloom fangirl. And a Lee Pace one. And a Cate Blanchet and Liv Tyler one. And that's only the ones that had appeared in movies. Don't get her started on Glorfindel. Or Echtelion. Or Lúthien, and Gil-Galad, and Fingon, and the Sons of Fëanor, and all the rest who she will not name because it will take much too long. But not Tauriel. She does not know who that this. Such an elf does not exist. Nope.
She laughs, feeling delighted with the warm welcome. "Hello to you too."
Herded past the tables to the fireplace by overeager elves, she's sat at a smaller table in the corner of the room. It was specially reserved for the abysmally few students who thought of visiting the kitchens.
"Your breakfast, missy!" Another elf trots up magically carrying in the air a large silver tray burdened with a teapot, a cup, a bowl with sugar cubes and tongs, and most importantly, in a medium cast-iron cocotte, a beautiful, wonderful, drenched in tomato sauce shakshuka with freshly baked pita bread on the side.
"Thank you, Kispy." She says with an appreciative smile.
"We having a light strawberry risotto for lunch and shoyu ramen for dinner."
Her smile widens. "My favorites."
"Yes." Kispy nods her head eagerly. "We having the broth for the ramen boiling on the stove since yesterday."
"I can't wait." She tells them and pretends to suddenly remember something. "Oh, I can't believe I forgot!" She reaches into her satchel and pulls out a rectangular object wrapped in brown paper.
The elves quiet down, and Pitts reaches out reverently with his spindly arms. She passes the package to him and watches cheerfully as he slowly tears the paper away.
"The Thous-and Re-cipe Chi-nese Cook-book by Glo-ria Bley Mil-ler." He carefully sounds out. "The Thousand Recipe Chinese Cookbook by Gloria Bley Miller." He repeats for everyone's benefit.
"That's right." She tells him. "Good job."
"Eat your breakfast, Miss Dally." He answers sternly and scampers towards a little platform stair. He puts their present on a bookstand, opened to the first page, and starts reading to the other elves as they returned to their work.
Despite eating little, she loved good food. Her former family was composed entirely of amateur home cooks who adored experimenting. Japanese, Chinese, American, Arabic, French, Mexican, Spanish, Italian… They loved it all. And after spending eleven years eating exclusively British food she had been getting desperate. The Brits weren't known for their culinary prowess for a reason, after all. For someone who grew up regularly eating Indian curry, it was a touch too bland to truly enjoy. Though, to be fair, she'd never say no to a cup of strong tea. Without milk. And a teaspoon of sugar depending on her mood.
Aunt Petunia would never agree to food other than the good, proper kind – meaning English – in her kitchen. So, her very first year at Hogwarts, she brought two very important books with her in her luggage. More important to her than any of her textbooks. More important than the Dark Arts books she knew her Housemates were hiding in their trunks. She had big plans for them. Written by 'the woman who taught Americans how to cook' Julia Child, the two volumes of Mastering the Art of French Cooking were supposed to be the lifesavers of her taste buds. Seven-hundred-twenty-six pages long and containing five-hundred-twenty-four recipes, they were her last hope.
The prefects had been very surprised when a tiny first year – a very unpopular first-year – fearlessly approached them and demanded them to show her the way to the kitchens.
Whilst many students would have been unappreciative of a sudden menu change, the elves were delighted to try something new for themselves. She spent the first few lonely weeks of magic school before James came crashing into her life with the force of a Bludger teaching them how to read. They had been very attentive students if a little slow.
Since then, she came down to the kitchens to eat during the weekends. The elves were happy to share their food with her, and in return, she provided them with more cookbooks. No matter how often she reassured them she'd get them a new exemplar if one got damaged, they treated the books like the most precious of jewels, carefully locking them away in a cabinet when not in use. It made her both sad and pleased to see how they treated presents. Hermione had her heart in the right place, she just went about it wrong.
She's wondered occasionally where they got some of their more exotic ingredients needed for some recipes, but she wasn't going to ask. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth as the proverb goes.
On her way back to the Common Room, feeling full and content, she comes across Malfoy. Not Draco Malfoy, but his older cousin Ambrosius. It was an ambitious name for a wizard and one he did his best to lived up to. Prefect, candidate for Head Boy, top scorer of his year, brilliant at spells, and not a complete prat.
"There you are, Potter." He says when he sees her. For once, he doesn't have a knowing smile spread across his admittedly handsome face and she slows down, a frown sliding across her own.
"Is something wrong?" She asks.
He stops in front of her. "There are rumors your brother will be the Gryffindor's Seeker."
"I'm sorry?" She inquires faintly. It was as if she was suddenly drenched in cold water, her previously good mood washed away.
"During their flying lesson, Madam Hooch had to bring an injured student to the Hospital Wing," Malfoy explains. "Draco taunted your brother and he followed him up in the air against Madam Hooch's express orders. According to their classmates, he caught a Remembrall after a fifty-foot dive."
"A what?" She whispers, already pale skin paling further.
"Professor McGonagall saw him and instead of punishing him as she should have, she decided to make him her team's new Seeker." The long-haired blond finished with a furious scowl.
She'd forgotten. It hadn't seemed important in the grand scheme of things so she had forgotten. How was she supposed to remember every single small detail of the plot of a story she'd read about two decades ago?
But this was also Harry's first brush with death in Hogwarts. The Voldemort possessed Quirrell tries to curse him off his broom during the first game, she remembers that now. Professor Snape tried to help him, but Hermione interrupted him. Thankfully, she had also interrupted Quirrell and Harry had been able to land. He had won the game by almost swallowing the Snitch while his broom jerked around uncontrollably. At least, that how she remembered it. She could be wrong, but she had the gist of it.
And didn't Dobby send an enchanted Bludger after him the next year? Plus, that time with the Dementors…
"Potter?" Malfoy asks irritably.
"I'll talk to him." She mumbles distractedly, busy racking her memories for other instances of near-death by Quidditch. Didn't something happen during some tryouts too?
"Please do so." He tells her and sighs looking regretful. "I heard about your argument. I hope this doesn't make things worse between you two."
She pauses, startled out of her thoughts, and then shrugs, acting unconcerned. "He'll forgive me eventually."
"If you say so." He looks unconvinced.
Fortunately, a pair of his friends appear from behind the corner of the hallway and he hurries over to them.
"Talk to your cousin too, Malfoy." She calls over her shoulder as she also leaves. "That kind of behavior is unacceptable for a Slytherin."
"You're the one who's friends with a Hufflepuff," Saunders calls back.
"She's a Nott!" She yells turning the corner, and she hears her Housemates laugh in response.
Finding the Gryffindor Tower was not hard. All she had to do was ask a random portrait the way to the Fat Lady and she was led down some corridors and up some stairs exactly where she needed to be. As long as there was a portrait or a ghost around, it was impossible to get lost in Hogwarts. And if there wasn't, one could always call for a house-elf for help. If they thought of it, of course. Most people forgot about their existence.
The Fat Lady was hung at the end of a hallway, clad in a pink silk dress, and dark hair curled into ringlets. She was overweight, but not to the point of Vernon Dursley and his sister Marge. Besides, in the Medieval Age being plump was a good thing and considered a sign of beauty. It showed that you had the wealth to often indulge in good food.
She approaches the portrait and the painted woman peers down at her, taking in her green tie. "No password, no entry." She declares.
"I don't need to go in." She replies reassuringly. "Could you please tell Harry his sister wants to speak to him?"
"Oh!" The woman brightens. "That's alright then. Please wait." She ducks out from the canvas and disappears. A moment later, she reappears. "He'll be along shortly."
"Thank you, eh..." She stops, furrowing her eyebrows. "I'm sorry, but what's your name?"
The woman cocks her head, surprised. "Everyone calls me the Fat Lady, dear."
"I know. But Fat Lady," Her mouth curls into a grimace of distaste. "can't be your real name. It's awfully offensive too, to call someone fat nowadays."
"Rosamund." The painted lady says quietly and sounding a bit teary. "No one's asked my name in a long time."
"And that's a shame." She tells her sincerely. "It's beautiful."
"Thank you," Rosamund whispers gratefully, and swings open.
Harry steps out, followed by Ron, both looking angry to see her. They were both dressed casually, and her brother had drying ink splattered on his fingers.
"I've been hoping to talk to Harry. Alone." She says pointedly.
"Whatever you want to tell me, you can tell Ron too," Harry answers stubbornly. The red-head beside him crosses his arms showing he was going nowhere.
Her eyes close as she prays for patience. "Very well." She concedes unwilling to get into a fight over this. Her eyes open again and she frowns at her brother. "Please explain to me Harry, what in the world were you thinking? What possessed you to disobey a teacher in such a dangerous manner?"
"What are you talking about?" Ron demands.
"Your first flying lesson?" She reminds them. "Draco Malfoy throwing a Remembrall? You catching it after a fifty-foot dive?"
"I don't see what that's got to do with you," Harry says mulishly.
"It's got to do with me, Harry," She says patronizingly as if speaking to a little child. Her brother was certainly acting like it. "because I'm your older sister, whether you like it or not. You are my responsibility. Especially when you almost kill yourself."
"I was fine!" He protests.
"You were." She allows. "This time. You might not be so lucky next time. Professor McGonagall made you the Gryffindor Seeker?"
"Yes…" He answers guardedly.
"Here's what you're going to do." She prepares herself for the explosion. "You'll go to Professor McGonagall and thank her for not punishing you. Then, you will tell her you've thought it over, but you're unfortunately not going to accept her generous offer."
"What? No!" The two boys cry incredulously.
"You heard me." She says uncompromisingly, planting her hands on her hips. "You're too young. You don't know how to fly. If you still want to play next year, you'll do things properly by trying out with everyone else."
"Harry is a brilliant flier!" Ron protests. "He caught Neville's Remembrall and he's never flown before, didn't he?!"
"It could have been a fluke, it could have been natural talent." She says. "Either way, it doesn't mean he's guaranteed to be able to do it again in a Quidditch game."
"But I have!" Harry argues hotly. "During training with Wood. He threw golf balls and I caught all of them."
"You don't even have a broom. You can't play with a school-issued one, they're rubbish." She tries.
"Professor McGonagall sent me one!" He exclaims smugly, looking as if he's won the argument with that statement.
She doesn't agree, lips thinning with sudden fury. "Did she?" She hisses angrily. Another thing she had forgotten.
"Yeah, a Nimbus Two Thousand!" Ron brags.
"First years aren't allowed to own broomsticks." She grinds out through clenched teeth.
"Professor Dumbledore made an exception for me," Harry tells her.
"Oh, did he now?" She repeats, eyes flashing. "Of course, he did. You're the precious Boy-Who-Lived after all."
The boys shut up, realizing she was in a really bad mood.
"You're not going to listen to me, Harry?" She asks mentally daring him to answer her unsatisfactory.
He set his jaw. "No. I'm going to play Quidditch."
"Very well." She smiles a smile that was more a baring of her teeth than anything else. "You want to do it this way. Alright, I can do that."
She pulls out her wand from her satchel, and the two lions take a step back, pulling out their own. She gives them a condescending look.
"Invenio Minerva McGonagall." A small, silvery light detaches from the tip of her wand. It bobbles in the air in front of her for an instant, then shoots down the corridor. "Come." She says and sharply turns on her heels to march off after the light.
It leads them to a courtyard that Professor McGonagall was crossing, her arms full of parchment. She stops when she notices the light hovering around her.
"Professor McGonagall!" She calls loudly.
"What is it, Miss Potter?"
She walks up towards the older woman. "With all due respect, I wanted to ask you about allowing Harry on the Quidditch team."
"You don't agree?" She asks.
"No. In fact, I strongly disagree." She answers. "First years are not allowed on the teams or own brooms for a reason."
"Your brother has natural talent." Professor McGonagall remarks carefully.
"And I do too." She waves a hand dismissively. "We both inherited it from our father. Yet no one was asking me to join the Slytherin team in my first year. And had I wanted to play later, I would have had to try out with everyone else. Charlie Weasley had natural talent. He still had to try out in his second year."
"Miss Potter –"
"He's flown once, maybe twice in good weather." She interrupts. "Experienced players get hurt! What are you going to do when Harry gets a Bludger to the head? What if he slips and falls because he's unable to keep up with the older, stronger players in a game that lasts for hours in a thunderstorm?"
"Your brother understands the risks –" Professor McGonagall begins.
"He doesn't!" She exclaims, throwing her hands in exasperation. "He's an eleven-year-old boy! He didn't know Quidditch was a thing before sitting down on the Hogwarts Express. Of course, he agreed to play when he was asked! Finally, it was something he was good at! The adults were even going to ask the Headmaster to bend the rules for him!" She mocks and turns towards her brother. "Harry, tell me, are you aware people died playing Quidditch?" He pales, showing that he was truly not aware. "Are you still willing to play knowing that?"
He gulps but nods obstinately. "I am." He says.
"Then I don't see the problem with letting him. No one had died on our pitch in decades." Professor McGonagall announces.
"It doesn't mean it can't happen! Professor McGonagall," Her voice raises in anger. "the problem here is not Harry! It's your favoritism! Your blatant favoritism! Had you punished him as you should have, we wouldn't be here discussing this!"
"Excuse me?" She asks icily.
The students that had stopped around them to watch them argue gasp audibly at her audacity.
"Had anyone else pulled the stun Harry did, they'd be spending the next month at least in detention with Mr. Filch!" She claims, gesturing her hand at the other students. "Harry, on the other hand, wasn't punished, but instead rewarded! Had the rules bent explicitly for him! You bought him an insanely expensive broom as a present! The newest on the market! All because he almost killed himself for a pretty bauble!"
"You're just jealous you're not on a team!" Ron bellows, red splotches on his cheeks.
"Jealous? Me?" She laughs as if that was the funniest thing she'd ever heard. "Weasley, I couldn't care less about Quidditch. I much prefer racing, thank you."
"Dahlia is right." Kyle emerges from the quickly growing crowd. "This is obvious favoritism. Professor McGonagall, is it because he's one of your favored lions? Or is it because he's the Boy-Who-Lived?"
The woman looks very uncomfortable under the stares of many angry students who felt the same. Many of them Quidditch players who had to wait until their second year to try out for their respective teams.
"You're teaching him that he's allowed to break rules!" She says more calmly now that someone was supporting her. She was faintly embarrassed for her loss of composure. "That there aren't any bad consequences when he does. That they aren't there for a good reason. That it's alright for him to be reckless with his own life! That he'd be rewarded for it, even!"
"You want him punished?" The older woman asks astonished.
"Yes! No! I don't know." She flounders. "I don't want him rewarded for bad behavior. There's a difference."
"He helped his friend," Kyle says. "That's good. But he disobeyed Madam Hooch to do it. Had he not been as talented as he was, he would have broken several of his bones if not outright killed himself. I don't see how that is praise-worthy. I would have been livid if Ava was the one to do it."
"As their older siblings, it is our responsibility to keep them safe." She affirms. "You should have also asked his guardians for permission before allowing him on the team. It's only the right thing to do. And somehow, I don't think Aunt Petunia would have agreed."
"They are muggles." Professor McGonagall tells her gently.
Ah yes, and here comes the prejudice. Not that McGonagall was among the bigots – consciously, anyway, she had her moments too – the woman was simply reminding her that technically the Dursleys didn't have any say in their lives according to the Ministry. As orphans, they had magical guardians; adult wizards their parents had chosen to raise them in case of their untimely deaths.
"Alright, then you should have asked Sirius Black. He is Harry's godfather and thus magical guardian with our parents died." She said uncompromisingly and with that she knew she'd won. No one was going to contact Sirius Black in Azkaban and asks him if the godson they thought he wanted dead could play Quidditch a year early. Funnily enough, despite being incarcerated for life, no one had the foresight to officially remove his guardianship. She'd checked with the goblins. Must have been because he hadn't had a real trial, so the problem had slipped through the cracks unnoticed.
Dumbledore could play the in loco parentis card, but this wasn't an emergency, and it wouldn't hold up if she decided to really do something about it. She wasn't above going to court if needed. Gotta love the Slytherin connections.
Professor McGonagall pales while the crowd murmurs. Most of them knew who Sirius was, but they hadn't known that he was Harry's godfather too. It was more Order of the Phoenix only kind of information. "How did you…?"
She shrugs in response. "I was three, I remember some things."
"Who's Sirius Black?" Her brother asks curiously.
"Not now, Harry." She dismisses him and misses his furious look.
"Very well." Professor McGonagall finally acquiesces. "I see where I went wrong. You have my apologies, Miss Potter, Mr. Potter. I had gotten carried away hoping Slytherin won't flatten us again this year. Twenty points to Slytherin for bringing this to my attention." There is a bit of laughter from the crowd as they remember the last disastrous Slytherin vs. Gryffindor game. "Mr. Potter will not be participating in Quidditch-related activities until next year."
"He will also give his broom to me for safekeeping, and use the school brooms which have appropriate safety charms for beginners if he wishes to fly." She interjects. She knew her brother. She'd been in his head, almost literally too. He was stubborn and if she didn't take away his Nimbus, he would have continued flying on it, putting himself in unnecessary danger.
A grimace crosses her face. "Should have mentioned parental consent from the beginning." She mutters to herself. "Would have saved us from this whole spectacle."
Kyle chuckles, having overheard her.
"You can't take his broom!" Ron complains. "It's not yours to use."
"I don't need another broom, Weasley." She scoffs in response. "Much less one meant for Quidditch players. I have a perfectly suitable Siberian Arrow already."
Harry scowls at her, really unhappy and she suspects he was going to argue. She steels herself for yet another argument.
"If the broom is not in Miss Potter's possession in an hour it will be fifty points from Gryffindor and a month of detention with me, Mr. Potter." Professor Snape drawls from behind the crowd of students, and they part in front of him like the sea parted in front of Moses.
The fight visibly drains out of Harry, though he still glares at them angrily.
Professor McGonagall gives her one last unreadable look and walks away. The crowd starts dispersing once they realize the show was over.
Harry storms off, followed by Ron. She doesn't bother calling after them, slumping with a long heavy sigh instead, and passing a hand over her face tiredly. So much for giving her brother time to calm down. He wasn't going to forgive her for this for months. Serves her right for acting like a rash Gryffindor and not thinking her actions through. She could have done this in Professor McGonagall's office at the minimum, and not in public.
She wasn't wrong in forbidding Harry to play Quidditch. It wasn't incredibly relevant to the plot except getting him almost killed a few times. He could always play the following year if it was that important to him. She was just keeping him safe as a good sister should. No one was going to let a natural driver participate in a NASCAR race the first time he sat behind a wheel, so why should she let her brother play in an equally dangerous sport without giving him time to truly learn how to fly beyond just trusting his instincts? She was highly aware anything that could go wrong will go wrong and that first Quidditch game Harry could have truly fallen a hundred feet in the air had she not gotten involved. And he did fall during the third year she thinks, but there was nothing she could do about that yet.
Kyle squeezes her shoulder supportively and rejoins his Ravenclaw year-mates.
Before she can also leave the courtyard, a velvety voice sounds above her. "Miss Potter, if you will please come with me."
She catches herself before she can look up at the inscrutable dark eyes of Professor Snape, focusing at a point above his right ear, and sighs again. "Yes, sir."
Hopefully, he wasn't too angry, and she wouldn't spend the rest of the year scrubbing cauldrons by hand.
In his office, a gloomy and dimly-lit room with the shadowy walls lined with large glass jars filled with various potion ingredients, the man brews her a cup of tea and adds several drops of Calming Drought into it when he puts it down in front of her from a labeled glass phial.
They sit at his desk in silence for a long moment as she sips slowly her drink.
"You have your mother's temper." Professor Snape finally says.
She looks up from her cup interestedly, concentrating on the man's hooked nose. "Really?"
"Yes." He nods. "Particularly when she was a child. She got better at controlling herself as we age."
"You knew her, sir?" She asks though she full well knew that he did.
"We grew up in adjacent neighborhoods."
She tilts her head to the side as old memories flash across her mind. There were yelling and angry sparks thrown from a threateningly brandished wand. "Mum often got mad at Uncle Paddy. And Uncles Gid and Fab too." She smirks sadly. "It was the pranks, I think."
Silence returns, the only sounds the ticking of a clock and the bubbling of a potion in a corner of the office.
"I'm sorry." She eventually says.
"Minerva was wrong." The man states. "But you weren't right too."
She nods in complete agreement. "I didn't think it through, I know that. I realize I should have done it in private. I just got angry and lost my head."
Professor Snape laces his long, thin fingers together on the table. "What precisely angered you?" He inquires calmly.
"Would you believe me if I said I don't know?" She shrugs. "The favoritism, maybe? That she was going to let an eleven-year-old boy play a dangerous game hundreds of feet in the air after seeing him fly the once? Letting him off without punishment after he disobeyed a person of authority? Hell, even buying that Nimbus for him."
She stops speaking, the man sitting in front of her patiently waiting for her to gather her thoughts. In the book Harry really did let his narrow-mindedness paint his descriptions of the people around him, she noticed not for the first time. Severus Snape cared for his students, you just needed to look hard for it. Look extremely hard for it.
"Her lack of concern for his safety." She eventually says and mulls that idea over. She didn't know where it had come from, but it sounded right. "No one died in decades on Hogwarts' pitch, that's true, but it doesn't mean there hadn't been plenty of accidents both on and off it. Students aren't above hexing each other in hallways when things got tense. As a first-year, Harry wouldn't have been able to defend himself or retaliate against older students. Oliver Wood had been knocked unconscious for a week two minutes into his very first match. A similar hit would have injured Harry even worse, maybe permanently. One of the French Chasers splattered himself all over the field during the last Quidditch World Cup game. She knew that. Anyone who follows Quidditch should know that if I, who doesn't care for Quidditch, knew that."
"You're worried about him." Professor Snape notes.
She silently nods. None of the books or movies have ever mentioned anything of the sort happening that she recalled, but it didn't mean it didn't. Those incidents might simply not be relevant to the overall plot, that's all. She couldn't protect her brother from some things, most notably the Dark Lord, but this wasn't one of them. She also cared, dammit, and was asking for a little less near-death experiences – ones that could be easily avoided, no less – really too much to ask for? You couldn't live in close proximity with someone for more than a decade and not get attached.
The man hesitates before asking. "Do you believe the Dark Lord is still alive? You were there. You saw what happened."
She blinks and then smiles. No one had asked her that before. Everyone seems to forget she had been there that day and had seen what happened through a barely-there open crack in the door of the wardrobe she had hidden herself in. Sure, she'd been scared out of her wits, but it was such an iconic scene! How in the world could she miss it, when she had a chance to see it in real life?
"You were there that night too." She counters mildly. "What do you think, sir?"
Snape's hands visibly tighten and something inscrutable flashes across his face. "You saw?"
She inclines her head. "There was a black wraith that fled the house after he cast the Killing Curse and it backfired. I do not believe he is dead. He will be back one day and he will want revenge. That's why I worry. Harry will be his first target." She says instead of acknowledging that she had indeed seen the man crying over her mother's body.
"A black wraith?" The Professor grabs the lifeline she had provided him like a drowning man.
"Yes, a being made of smoke that rose from the robes left behind after explosion. There was no body." She informs him.
Professor Snape frowns severely. "Why didn't you tell anyone?"
"Who would believe me?" She asks. "I was three. They'd say I imagined the whole thing. Besides, the ones who needed to know already knew."
Snape presses his thin lips together and stands. "There will be no punishment this time, Miss. Potter. Do not ever speak to a professor in that tone of voice again. You will go and apologize to Professor McGonagall, and I will check."
She can recognize a dismissal when she sees one. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." She murmurs and retreats from the office.
I don't own Harry Potter.