xxviii. bequeathed

Harriet Potter woke to a strange and puzzling sight.

She sat up from her mangled sheets bleary-eyed and mussy-headed—Livi complaining at the sudden draft created by the shifting covers—and stared at the odd blurs cluttering the foot of her bed. Harriet didn't remember dropping anything on the bed before going to bed, so someone must have put it there after she went to sleep.

"Wazzit?"

Several moments and mumbled curses left the sleepy girl before she could find her glasses and stir the lanterns into something brighter than a dim blush. Crowded on top of her trunk and the end of her bed were several boxes wrapped in silver and green paper. One had a bow.

Bloody hell, she had Christmas presents!

Harriet had gotten gifts before from the Dursleys—if you could call them that. Sometimes she got old socks or secondhand clothes from the charity shop, and one year she got the wrapping paper that came off of Dudley's gifts, which she actually tacked up in the cupboard to make it pretty until Aunt Petunia snapped at her to take it down. The year she got absolutely nothing was the year the oven somehow turned itself up to "broil" and reduced Petunia's Christmas roast to cinders.

Harriet picked up the first present and recognized Elara's stilted handwriting on the tag. Inside the wrapping she found an old book that was considerably heavier than she expected, the cover most likely made of something more substantial than cardboard. Harriet couldn't see a title on the dusty binding, only some kind of crest with a tiny skull, three birds, and what looked like a blurb of French, though she wasn't certain. On the first page scrolled the words "A Compendivm of Defense Against Magic Moste Dark: First Edition." Below that Elara had written, "For Harriet — to learn something that might surprise even Prof. Slytherin himself. Sincerely, Elara."

Harriet snorted.

There was another book in the next package from Hermione, this one brand new and glossy, the pages crisp and smelling of new ink: 101 Legendary Artefacts of the Wizarding World. A cursory flip through the contents revealed a wealth of bright, moving pictures and the letter from Hermione was considerably longer and more verbose than Elara's had been. Harriet huffed with amusement when she thought of how her best friends seemed determined to make her just as brainy as they were, though Harriet knew she'd never have Hermione's knack for Charms or Elara's precision in Transfiguration. At least she didn't kill everything in Herbology.

The next package contained blank stationary that, to Harriet's surprise and unease, had the Potter family crest stamped across the top in green ink. This, too, came from Elara—but the letter was different, written in the smooth script of a Dicta-Quill rather than personal handwriting, signed with "From the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black." A note stuck to the bottom told Harriet that it was, according to Elara's uncle, a pure-blood tradition for Wizarding families to pass on gifts for the Yule to invite good fortune in the new year.

Indeed, the remainder of the gifts were from the families of her housemates—Malfoy and Greengrass, Nott and Runcorn, Goyle and Crabbe. Nothing extravagant was inside the Transfigured boxes, just simple things like new quills or Chocolate Frogs or fresh parchment, but Harriet thought it was an oddly generous tradition for the pure-bloods. Then again, wizards and witches were some of the most superstitious people she'd ever met and not all of the pure-bloods were snobs; some of the upper year Slytherins were quite nice, as were a few pure-blood kids in the other Houses Harriet shared classes with.

A final gift lingered, half caught in the crevice between the mattress and the footboard, soft and squishy as if whatever inside were made of cloth. Set hovered around the package more than he had the others and Harriet thought he might be excited, if spooky shadow dwellers with a penchant for throwing things could be excited. She shoved the rest of a Chocolate Frog in her mouth, then tore away the paper.

Cool, light fabric spilled from the open wrappings into Harriet's hands and she marveled at the feel of it, like water through her fingers—yet so alive, sparking with the sharp, crisp prickle of active magic. For half a second Harriet wondered if the cloth was cursed, then decided it didn't matter now since she'd already grabbed hold of it, and who would want to curse an eleven year-old?

She very pointedly ignored the memory of Neville Longbottom falling from his broom in November.

Further investigation proved the cloth to be a cloak of some time, adult in proportions with a deep hood and a slightly crooked hem, as if whoever had cut the fabric before stitching it had done so with something rough and uneven. Harriet nudged Livi's tail off of her lap and hopped to her feet, letting the cloak pool about her like a ridiculous cape. She found it rather old fashioned, the pattern on it distorted and difficult to decipher, the threads glinting like silver in the green glow of the lanterns.

Then Harriet folded the cloak around herself and disappeared.

"Bloody hell!" Harriet swore, tripping on the hem she couldn't see, catching herself on the bedpost with a hand that was there but wholly invisible to her eyes.

"Misstresss?" Livi hissed from the tangled nest of sheets when Harriet rushed by to the full-length mirror hanging between the empty carrells. Her head appeared in the speckled glass—and that was it.

"I'm invisible!" Harriet yelled at the snake as she threw the hood over her head so it vanished as well. Once fully immersed in the cloak she could see herself again under the cloth, Set pooling in a narrow puddle at her feet, lapping the cloak's hem, the lantern light strangely ethereal where it managed to peek through the cloak's impermeable weave.

Livi lifted his head from the blankets and lazily turned in Harriet's direction—only to pause. His tongue flickered in question. "…Misstresss?"

"I'm here!" she told him, not quite able to hold back the laugh burbling in her chest. "This cloak is amazing!"

Livi didn't seem to agree if his annoyed hissing was anything to go by. The Horned Serpent levered himself off the bed, silver belly touching the floor with an audible thump of dry scales upon stones, and made his way nearer Harriet, following the quick darting of his violet tongue. Once he found Harriet, he slithered under the cloak's rumpled edge and wound about her legs, using the witch's offered arm as a way to lever himself higher. "Sss…thisss is ssstrange magic," the snake said.

"It's not cursed, is it?" Harriet asked, suddenly apprehensive.

"I do not know. It sssmellss like you."

"Well that's helpful," Harriet grumbled as she pulled off the cloak and carefully refolded it. She returned to the wrapping and poked about, looking for a card, and the search took several minutes before she managed to find it stuck in the crevice between the mattress and the bedrail. Huffing, Harriet pulled it out and read what was written there.

Your father left this cloak in my possession before he died. It is time I returned it to its proper owner. Use it well.

There was no name listed. Harriet traced the looping cursive letters and marveled at the cloak now settled on her lap. It belonged to my dad? She had an entire vault in Gringotts of things that had belonged to her parents, and yet Harriet felt oddly attached to this strange bit of fabric. "Use it well," the note said. How did one go about being invisible well? To Harriet's knowledge, people typically wanted to be invisible to do nefarious things, like steal or sneak about. Harriet didn't want to steal anything and didn't much fancy sneaking about. What should I use it for?

Harriet tucked her new possessions away and nicked another Chocolate Frog from her stash of candy before heading out to the common room with Hermione's gift. Once in the hallway, however, she heard hushed, raspy whispering and—terrified of running into Snape again—Harriet tiptoed to the corridor's end and carefully peeked into the room proper.

"—Vaisssey hass promissse," said the portrait of a snake that hung above the empty hearth.

"Does he?" replied Professor Slytherin, one elbow propped on the mantel, hand carelessly running through his hair. "He's never shown much initiative in class."

"He readsss booksss on the magic forbidden by the old man by the fire late in the eveningsss."

"Hmm," Slytherin responded. "He shows interest, then."

"Yesss…." The snake bobbed in affirmation, its painted coils writhing beneath the roots of a great rowan tree.

"And the first years?" the professor inquired. "What have you noted of them?"

Harriet held herself very still as she listened to the wizard speak in Parseltongue to the inanimate serpent. He has the snake spy on us! She quickly tried to think of any snake she'd ever see in the castle portraits, then had to relent, because it wasn't like Professor Slytherin could only speak to snakes. He could talk to painted people just fine as well.

"The blond hatchling ssspeakss often of his sssire."

"That would be Malfoy's get," Slytherin scoffed. "Lucius acknowledges Gaunt's authority over my own. A fool, but a fool who has always sought influence over true power. He will most likely be a loss. Pity. Tell me of Nott."

"He ssstudiess his booksss with great fervor."

"Excellent." Professor Slytherin paused then, one long finger tapping his bottom lip. "And what of Potter?"

Harriet pressed herself into the wall with all her strength and thought it a marvel she didn't just sink into it.

"I do not know thisss name."

"Black hair. Bespectacled. The smallest of the first years—the runt of the litter, if you will."

Harriet bristled.

The snake lisped in irritation. "Ssshe is a ssstrange hatchling."

"How so?"

"Alwaysss…whissspering…."

"Odd."

At this point Harriet thought it prudent to retreat before she could be discovered and quickly eased back to her dorm. She could've kicked herself for being so careless; sometimes she spoke to Set when she passed through the common room on her own. Being Muggle-raised, Harriet often forgot the bloody portraits not only moved but also saw and heard and spoke—and apparently Professor Slytherin used them to spy on his students, finding out if they had promise or not.

Promise for what was the real question, and Harriet wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer.

She went back to her dorm, locking the door for good measure.

xXxXx

Harriet didn't leave the dungeons until supper time, when she scuttled out through the empty common room and all but ran to the lighter, warmer parts of the castle. She could hear voices coming from the Great Hall, mostly adult, but with a few younger laughs interspersed between the deeper droning, and the smell of cooked meat, potatoes, and baked bread had drool pooling in Harriet's mouth. She sighed with relief—until she looked into the hall and found only one table waiting for her. Comfy purple armchairs surrounded it, with one seat open by Professor Selwyn, and another by bloody Longbottom.

Scrunching her nose, Harriet took the place by Longbottom and the Weasleys. "Happy Christmas—err, Yule!"

The Gryffindors blinked in surprise at her presence.

"Oi," Neville muttered as he glowered, his voice low enough to escape the ears of the arrayed professors. "Why don't you go sit with the other slimy Slytherins?"

As one, the Gryffindors and Harriet glanced toward the opposing end of the table where Professor Slytherin sat with Snape and Selwyn on either side of him, their faces all set in a unique kind of grimace achieved by the truly cantankerous during times of excessive joy. In fact, it appeared they'd largely Vanished any of the decorations that had dared spilled in their direction, though none of the other professors had the same problem.

"Is that—is that a serious question?" Harriet asked as she piled potatoes onto her plate. "Because I could give you about half a dozen reason why I'd rather drink Bubotuber pus." Harriet would bet a sack full of Galleons she'd get half a dozen detentions from Snape for breathing the same air as him.

The Weasley twins snorted into their pumpkin juice. Neville might have protested, but Ron nudged him in the ribs and said, "Leave off, Nev, the food's gonna get cold!" so Longbottom harrumphed, sticking a bite of chicken into his mouth. Harriet looked over the Gryffindors and noted that Ron and his brothers—including Percy, who sat by the Arithmancy teacher chatting with fervor—all had on thick, woolly sweaters. Given how frigid the dungeons were, Harriet gazed rather wistfully at their attire.

"I like your sweater," she told Ron, who flushed. "Was it a gift for Ch—Yule?"

"Yeah," Fred—his sweater had a large 'F' stitched into the threads, so Harriet guessed he was Fred—said as he chewed. She knew the twins by the rather terrible reputation they had in Slytherin. "Mum sends one every year."

"We'll have to tell her an itty-bitty snakey admired her handiwork," George put in. "What's your name, anyway?"

"Harriet Potter."

"Potter, Potter…say, aren't you the girl who punched Ickle Ronnikins?"

Harriet blushed and mumbled into her food. "I said I was sorry."

Fred and George burst into laughter, earning several curious glances from the professors. "Brilliant, that," George said with a wide grin. "Poor Ronni gettin' nipped by baby Slytherins."

Harriet huffed and cast a sympathetic look in Ron's direction, who continued to stuff his face and ignored his brothers' pestering, asking Neville to pass the butter dish. The meal progressed easily enough, the bubbly professor on Harriet's other side striking up a lively conversation about her subject—Ghoul Studies, of all things, which she taught part-time to the sixth and seventh years who wished to take the class. Crackers made an appearance and Harriet pulled one with a reluctant Longbottom, getting showered in red confetti, tiny lion figurines that moved about on their own, and a small green snake—which Harriet quickly secreted into a robe pocket, lest it terrify the Gryffindors.

"Say," she asked once dessert was well underway and a few professors had departed. Selwyn made a quick escape, but Snape lingered and had his head tilted toward Dumbledore's ear, speaking in a low whisper that had the Headmaster nodding his head every so often. Slytherin surveyed the table, lost in thought. "If you were invisible, what would you do?"

"Is this one of those morality tests?" George asked, licking a bit of icing from his thumb. "Like if you have two kids on either side of a Nundu who do you save?"

"The answer's always the handsomest twin," Fred stage whispered.

"Wh—no," Harriet said. What in the world is a Nundu? "No, I mean like if you could go about Hogwarts invisible, what would you do?"

They considered that for a time, bouncing ideas off each other, which included and were not limited to sneaking into the Slytherin common room, Snape's store room, and the girl's locker room—the latter earning a harsh look from Harriet and placating hand waves from the redheaded twins. Ron perked up and, after swallowing, said, "I know! The Restricted Section! We could find out more about N—."

Neville kicked Ron under the table hard enough to jostle the flatware and Ron choked on his treacle tart.

Harriet frowned at their not so subtle behavior but otherwise pushed it aside, thinking about the suggestion. She was rather curious about the Restricted Section, about what kind of books and magic were considered too dangerous for casual viewing—and she wondered what Neville Longbottom could possibly want or need from the Restricted Section of all places. The boy loved to boast about all the tutors and fantastic places he'd been to over the years, and all Harriet could think about was how she'd been stuffed in a cupboard or scrubbing toilets while Longbottom had been scaling mountaintops or saving a village or something equally exciting and distinctly un-Dursley.

She sighed and popped a spoon of blueberry ice cream into her mouth.

Slytherin rose from his seat, dismissing his napkin with a negligible wave of his hand, the volume of conversation dipping around him as he strolled out of the Great Hall without a backward glance. Harriet shivered. He gives me the creeps. Was that how other Houses saw Slytherins? Ill at the thought, she set down her spoon and considered the Gryffindors she sat with. They chatted as they ate, the twins still bent on figuring out the very best mischief one could get into while invisible, Ron rolling his eyes while Neville ate his pudding. No, they didn't see her as they did her Head of House. Whatever Professor Slytherin was, Harriet wasn't anything like him.

She was glad for that.

xXxXx

Harriet was having second thoughts.

Originally, the idea of venturing through Hogwarts' corridors in the dead of night had been exciting, tinged with a bit of forbidden thrill and open curiosity. Now Harriet was faced with the very real prospect of venturing through the frigid, echoing dark of a castle literally haunted by ghosts and patrolling professors like Snape and Slytherin.

Hogwarts became sinister at night once the students were tucked into bed and the torches doused. Harriet shivered beneath the cloak as she inched out of the common room and found herself in a hall too black to see anything at all. She fumbled for the cloak's edge until she could poke out a single hand and press it against the stone wall as a guide. The cold burned against Harriet's skin and she hissed in a breath, bundling her fingers in her sleeve before touching the stones again. She hurried forward.

I'm glad I don't have Prefect duty; this place is too spooky, the young Slytherin thought as her soft footsteps echoed in the entrance hall, moonlight splayed on the floor, wavering through the thundering clouds. She could barely tell where she was in the dark.

Harriet had almost reached the floor where the library could be found when she heard sobbing. Muffled sniffling drifted from the open door of an empty classroom, and when Harriet inched nearer to see who it was, she saw a professor standing hunched in-between the sparse whorls of moonlight coming through the frosted windows. He wore a purple turban, a dark olive cloak—and sobbed into his cupped hands.

"I'm trying, Master—. I can't—. I can't—."

He sobbed again, harder, then abruptly stopped, sucking in a breath and no small amount of snot. He whipped around and Harriet scuttled backward as if she were visible, which she was wasn't, of course. Seeing him clearer, Harriet realized the wizard was the Muggle Studies professor. Terrence Higgs pointed him out when she asked about the subject at lunch one time—pointed him out with the kind of sneering snark most Slytherin reserved for anything even remotely Muggle in distinction. She couldn't remember the wizard's name.

He passed her by and heat struck Harriet's neck like a thousand stinging needles abruptly diving into the flesh of her shoulder and throat. A gasp left Harriet but the wizard kept sniffling as he shuffled off, covering the sound. The pain lasted only a moment, then vanished as it'd never been; Harriet, however, kept her hand clasped her neck as if to ward off a second bout. She watched the teacher until he wandered out of sight.

Slytherin's not the only one who gives me the creeps.

Harriet waited several minutes and took several steadying breaths before she turned—and saw Professor Snape standing at the corridor's end.

Standing there, staring at Harriet.

But that's impossible, she told herself as she stood perfectly still. Snape did the same. He couldn't possibly—.

Snape took three furious steps forward and lunged before Harriet could do more than jump, the Potions Master snatching the cloak right off her head. "Potter!"

"How do you do that?!" Harriet blurted out before she could think better of it. "Can you see through all invisible stuff or—?"

Professor Snape loomed overhead and Harriet's blathering dwindled. The girl gulped.

"Thirty points from Slytherin!" he snarled. "What kind of absolute idiocy would lead you to believe wandering the school in the middle of the night was permissible? I had hoped you were beyond such puerile arrogance. What do you have to say for yourself, hmm?"

"Err—." Harriet blinked at the man as he continued to silently fume. "What's—what's puerile, sir?"

"Childish, Miss Potter! Childish!" Snape hissed. "Return to your dorm! Immediately!"

"But what about—?" She reached for the cloak still hanging from his pale fist and Snape pulled it out of reach, the hem fluttering against Harriet's fingertips.

"Oh no," he said, voice returning to the cold, soft intonation she was used to. Harriet thought of it as like getting jabbed by a metal knife instead of being bludgeoned with a club. "I believe I'll be confiscating this."

Harriet opened her mouth to argue and Snape gave her a glare so ferocious she thought she might just be immolated on the spot if she so much as breathed funny. "Go, Miss Potter. Or do we need to wake Professor Slytherin and have this discussion with your Head of House?"

Harriet went. Snape followed her all the way down to the dungeons again, though not into the common room itself. He stood beyond the open passage door with her cloak stuffed into a robe pocket, and as the stones grated against stone, preparing to close, the professor said, "One last thing, Potter."

"…yes, sir?"

Snape grinned and it was not a nice look at all. "That'll be another week of detentions."

The passage closed, leaving nothing but a blank stretch of wall behind.

"Well, shit."