xvii. what awaits the sin of greed
Before the students knew what was happening, their first week at Hogwarts had come to an end.
The walls of Number Four, Privet Drive, were once the whole of Harriet's world; the horizon stopped where the drive met the street, the trimmed hedges were her jungle, the cupboard her prison and sanctuary, the kitchen a pseudo-minefield she navigated every single day. With the Dursleys, Harriet didn't dream about a different life, as it was quite difficult to imagine that which you knew nothing about—but she would spend long hours trapped in the cupboard's belly thinking about impossible things; about elves like the ones in her story books, about trees that craved conversation, about motorcycles that roared across the stars.
But, even in her most outlandish thinking, Harriet could have never created something as magical, ridiculous, and wonderful as Hogwarts. The stairs moved and the portraits snoozed, the ghosts seemed to flee Harriet's presence, throwing themselves right through the walls whenever she entered a corridor, and the horizon stretched far, far away, far past the mountains and the lake and the forest filled with terrifying creatures of legend.
She loved her classes, some more than others. Astronomy happened on Wednesday nights, and though seeing all the constellations shine in a sky untouched by electric lights was breathtaking, there was a lot more maths involved than Harriet had been expecting. Transfiguration, too, proved difficult for her, with all its theoretical topics and abstract thinking. The Dursleys had raised Harriet with a rigid way of thinking, and while she liked to believe she'd bucked their influence, that wasn't wholly true. Professor McGonagall would say "Imagine the beetle becoming a button," and a hateful voice in the back of Harriet's head would sneer "Beetles don't become buttons."
Harriet had far more fun in Herbology and Professor Sprout was amused by her willingness to tackle the tasks set out for the day, but her best class was—somehow—Defense Against the Dark Arts. Harriet couldn't explain why, no matter how Hermione badgered her about it. She could only guess that, at their heart, defense spells responded to intuition, instinct—and despite the weight of the Dursleys' grounding heel, Harriet had always been a wild thing who thrived on instinct.
It helped that whenever Professor Slytherin turned his wand on her, Harriet's heart would lurch and she'd suddenly find her own in her hand. Sometimes she swore she spotted Set out of the corner of her eye stretching for the professor, but never quite reaching.
Professor Slytherin was scary—yet not as terrifying as the Potions Master. Professor Snape had the same look as those blokes Harriet sometimes saw heading toward Knockturn Alley; like he was capable of stealing your organs and preserving them in his jars if you weren't paying attention. He towered over them, a black pillar of barely restrained fury, soft voice scantly audible over their bubbling potions. He mostly ignored Harriet—a relief, really—but he seemed to hate Elara and Neville Longbottom. The former he approached with subtle disdain, often snapping at her to leave Harriet's table and sit by herself in the back so she'd stop dousing her fellows in fouled potions. To be fair, Elara did melt an awful lot of cauldrons.
Neville, on the other hand, bore the brunt of the professor's scorn and melted almost as many cauldrons as Elara. Harriet found it hard to sympathize, especially when she'd hear Longbottom whisper how Snape was just a greasy Slytherin no one had or would ever love.
No one ever loved Harriet either, and some days she still blamed the Boy Who Lived for that.
"Harriet!"
She was jerked out of her maudlin thoughts by Hermione's voice and the flat rock in her hand hit the water with a dissatisfying 'plunk!' "Err—what was that?"
"The First Principle, Harriet," said her friend from her perch on the dry boulder at the shoreline. "What is the First Principle of Gamp's Law?"
"Err," Harriet said again as she nudged the stones underfoot, looking for another worth skipping. She stood ankle deep in the cool water of the lake, as did several other students dotted about the shore, all happy to have a short reprieve from classes. Had Harriet less studious friends, they might have joined her in skipping rocks instead of insisting on quizzing, but Harriet didn't mind. She thought this must be the best way to study and was just glad Hermione wanted to be around her. Elara proved more complicated in comprehending, Harriet torn between calling her a friend or not because sometimes Elara was perfectly friendly and other days she said almost nothing to her. Harriet didn't understand but, really, Harriet understood very little about people.
"It's about food," Hermione hinted, tapping the open text spread on her lap.
"Oh. Um, it says that…you can't conjure food out of nothing, right?" Harriet pushed her glasses up her nose again and frowned. "But where does the food in the Great Hall come from then?"
"It must be transposed from the kitchens."
"'Transposed'?"
"Swapped, basically. Transfered."
"Wicked," Harriet said with heart. She loved magic—though she questioned who made the food if it wasn't magic. The professors? A sudden image of Professor Snape in Aunt Petunia's pink apron flashed into her mind and Harriet choked.
"Are you alright?"
"I-I'm fine."
Hermione sighed as she let her book close with a soft thump. "You could always tutor me in Defense if you don't want to do Transfiguration."
"I'm a wretched tutor, Hermione."
"You're the best in our class!"
"Yeah, but I don't know how," Harriet insisted as she returned to the shore. "It's not like I have some fancy technique or something. I just…do it, y'know?"
Hermione looked more dejected than ever. "It would figure you're a Defense prodigy."
Harriet started to laugh.
"You are!"
She laughed harder.
After Harriet's giggles subsided, she tugged on her socks and shoes again and they started along the path back toward the school, skirting the edge of the Forbidden Forest's shadow. They strolled on—until Harriet paused, watching a pair of horses graze near the grassy boundary. She had seen them before, from a distance, pulling the carriages that the older students had taken from Hogsmeade's station.
"What are you looking at?" Hermione asked.
"Those horses," Harriet said. "They're awful spooky, aren't they?" With great black wings and skeletal bodies, Harriet couldn't imagine an eerier creature—especially when she realized they weren't grazing, but instead picking over a dead rabbit.
Hermione wore an odd expression as she studied Harriet. "What horses?"
"Those, right there." she pointed.
"I…I don't see any horses, Harriet."
Was Hermione having a laugh? Harriet didn't think so, not because Hermione had no sense of humor, but because Hermione was more inclined to laugh than to make others laugh. Why lie about this? Harriet rubbed at her eyes and hoped, not for the first time, that she wasn't going barmy.
"Alright, you two?"
The girls turned, then lifted their eyes to the familiar face of the giant who had helped them on their boat ride to Hogwarts with Professor Selwyn. The groundskeeper, Harriet had heard one of the older Slytherin's call him. He wore a friendly smile beneath the tangle of his black beard, a drooling boarhound standing by his knee. Harriet barely rose to his thigh in height—which was understandable, considering she was only a half a foot taller than Professor Flitwick, who was part-goblin, for goodness' sake. Harriet hated being short.
The man peered down at her—then blinked. "Say, you wouldn't be James and Lily's girl, would ya?"
"Yes—?"
Harriet squeaked at his sudden movement, and then she was being smothered in a tight embrace, getting a face full of bristly beard and furry overcoat. Then she was on her feet again, staggering and more than a bit embarrassed. Had she ever been hugged before? Harriet couldn't remember.
"Shoulda known! Of course, I took you off Professor Snape myself, right after he got you from the ruins. Didn't mean him no harm, read the situation wrong, my mistake—."
"P-Professor Snape?" Harriet stuttered, befuddled by this latest turn of events. What was all this about ruins and the Potions Master?
The giant stopped rambling and his cheeks reddened. "Shouldn'ta mentioned that. Sorry—but you're Harriet! Got Lily's eyes exactly, and James' hair! Haven't introduced myself though, have I? Name's Rubeus Hagrid, and I'm the Keeper of Keys here at Hogwarts. Just callin' me Hagrid's fine, though, none of that 'sir' business."
"It's nice to meet you," Harriet responded in earnest. "You knew my parents?"
"'Course I did! Great people, Lily and James. Such a terrible thing to happen to them." Hagrid turned his glittering eyes toward Hermione and Harriet jumped to introduce her.
"This is my friend Hermione Granger." Friend. How odd it felt to say that.
"Pleasure to meet you, Mr Hagrid."
"Just Hagrid, that's fine. Great to meet you." Hagrid and Hermione shook hands, though the giant was very careful in doing so. "Would you two care for a spot a' tea? My hut's just there…."
He pointed out the cottage near the forest's edge with a patch of immature pumpkin vines by the door and a smudge of smoke trickling from the crooked chimney. Harriet and Hermione agreed, if only because Harriet really wanted to hear more about her parents and Hagrid seemed a decent sort. They sat at his homemade, over-sized table, and Hagrid served them great mugs of a tasty tea and rock cakes—which, they discovered, we far more like rocks and much less like cakes.
Hermione asked what duties as a groundskeeper entailed and Hagrid chattered on about the interesting creatures he tended to in the forest and his efforts to grow giant pumpkins for the feast in October. At one point he mentioned, "Quite a shock it was, you being Sorted into Slytherin, Harriet. Probably woulda upset James, but Lily woulda been fine with it."
"My parents wouldn't have liked me being in Slytherin?" Harriet asked, heart sinking.
"Both of them were Gryffindors, weren't they?" It wasn't a question. "And James was a Chaser for the Quidditch team on top of that. Terrific flyer, your dad. Had a lot of rivals in Slytherin—jealous, the lot of them. But Lily was different, didn't mind Slytherins after all, being friend with—." Hagrid cleared his throat. "They'd be awful proud of you. Houses don't matter, after all. Not really."
"That's right," Hermione said, sensing Harriet's distress. "All that matters is learning magic and doing your best, Harriet."
"Yeah," Harriet responded, though she wasn't so sure. Would her mum and dad be disappointed in her? She couldn't live by the expectations of dead people, of course, but she wanted to be the kind of witch they could've taken pride in, had they been there with her. Hermione's right, she decided. Houses are just Houses. I'll just do my best for them—and for me.
Conversation continued and Harriet wanted to ask more about James and Lily, but she was nervous the conversation would turn to why she didn't know more about them and who she was living with—or, supposed to be living with. Harriet had learned a bit more about the MPA and Ministry laws from Hermione and knew she'd most likely be removed from the Dursleys because they were Muggles and she was a witch—but the possibility of being sent back remained, or relocated to a family like the Malfoys. Draco was a prat and Harriet didn't want to think what his parents were like. Hermione never talked about them.
What if she got sent to a family even worse than the Dursleys?
Lost in thought, Harriet scratched the boarhound's—introduced as Fang—head, and he drooled on her lap. There was a copy of the Prophet laid on the table, and she glanced it over. An article near the back caught her attention.
"Someone broke into Gringotts," she mentioned. Hagrid dropped a rock cake.
"Really?" Hermione asked. "The Malfoys told me the bank was impregnable, and I couldn't imagine them putting their gold anywhere unsafe."
"The person didn't steal anything, apparently," Harriet continued, reading more of the article. "Err—the goblins said the vault was emptied earlier that day. Hey, it happened on my birthday! That's seren—seren—?"
"Serendipitous," Hermione supplied as she sipped her tea.
Harriet returned the paper to its proper place on the table and changed the topic—much to Hagrid's apparent relief. Certainly Harriet wondered what was so precious someone would risk breaking into Gringotts and aggravating the goblins for it, but a bank break-in was hardly the strangest thing she'd seen in the Wizarding world. She mostly thought about her parents, and about Hagrid telling her she had Lily's eyes and James' hair. What else did she have?
Harriet and Hermione drank their tea, hid rock cakes in their pockets, and headed back to school after a very pleasant afternoon.
