xxxv. cross my heart

Elara Black knew more about helplessness than most twelve-year-old girls.

She'd spent the majority of her life helpless, entrusted into the hands of men and women who followed their dogma with fanatical, closed-minded fervor and practiced their absolutions on the children they tended. She knew what it meant to be pinned, held down, by words and by steel, belittled by scripture and drunken slurring and childish fear. She could remember the smell of burning flesh in her nose when Father Phillips pressed the glowing brand into her chest yelling "By Christ be purged!"—and still, Elara had never felt quite so helpless as she did when watching her best friend choke to death.

The feeling remained with her days after Madam Pomfrey discharged Harriet from the infirmary and they went about their classes, the short Slytherin more subdued than usual. From everything Elara had seen, Harriet wasn't a boisterous girl; she came across as rather brash sometimes, but Elara felt her attitude came from a lack of self-awareness rather than malice or rudeness. She'd seen similar behavior in the younger orphans at St. Giles' who used to live with neglectful families, families who left them on their own for long stretches of time. They jumped at raised voices and generally avoided eye contact, just like Harriet. Sometimes they had imaginary friends.

Elara wondered if that was why Harriet often whispered to herself. She was, without a doubt, an odd girl—but also one of the loveliest people Elara had ever met, and the idea that an agent of the half-dead Dark Lord—the Dark Lord her father supposedly served—had tried to kill Harriet sat heavy upon Elara's heart.

Harriet was quieter than usual, tired after her stint in the hospital wing. Elara had learned from Hermione that the poison used, Salazar's Tongue, melted the imbiber's insides, not quite like an acid would but with comparable results, and Harriet would need time to regain strength in her repaired muscles, bones, and organs. Her already sketchy control suffered, and Harriet managed to turn her mouse into a baby elephant during Transfiguration, breaking the desk and earning a flabbergasted tongue lashing from Professor McGonagall. Normally she took everything in stride and brushed off Parkinson's teasing, the sneering Slytherin always mocking Harriet's hair or her scar or her glasses, but for the last few days Harriet had only slumped beneath the relentless mocking. Parkinson kept pantomiming choking in the Great Hall and Harriet refused to touch any of the drinks.

So if Elara paid an upper year Slytherin to Charm Parkinson's pumpkin juice to shoot straight up her nose, she felt justified in that bit of petty bullying. Parkinson vomited all over a screaming Malfoy and although the sight almost made Elara sick herself, Hermione and Harriet—and most of Slytherin House—laughed so hard they nearly wet themselves.

Snape proved particularly unforgiving on Friday during double Potions. He skulked the dungeon's length, a terrifying specter right out of Father Phillip's biblical stories about pale, furious ghosts and devils, his footsteps silent but no less haunting in their intensity. "Black," he snapped as soon as they filed into the classroom. "Back row."

Elara sighed and moved her cauldron from Harriet and Hermione's table to the single one in the back. She fought the urge to mutter darkly under her breath, guessing it was going to be one of those days, the ones in which Snape didn't allow Elara to skate by on Hermione and Harriet's efforts and instead made an absolute hash of things on her own. She let the legs of her cauldron touch down with a loud bang and the Potions Master shot a glare in her direction before beginning the lecture.

She brooded through much of the lesson, ignoring Slytherins and the Gryffindors who still seemed to find it awfully amusing that a member of the House of Serpents got themselves poisoned and almost died. Elara had heard Longbottom mutter that Harriet "got what she deserved" on more than one occasion, though the sentiment lacked heat, laced with the same tepid energy the orphans used after witnessing one of the sisters' punishments, simply relieved it hadn't been them under the switch.

The first portion of class ended without event and they began their practicals. Snape prowled about, swooping over the Gryffindor side of the room to chastise Weasley on some contrived grievance. Malfoy took the opportunity to lean back in his seat and, within Harriet's hearing, said, "Oh, I do hope my dinner doesn't end up poisoned. Just imagine; I actually have parents who'd mourn me."

Harriet shot Malfoy a two-fingered salute and Hermione smacked her arm down before Snape whipped around and paced back in their direction.

To Elara's surprise, she almost managed to finish her potion before the situation went pear-shaped. Her concentration wavered during the final maturation as she looked about the class and watched Snape's back when he passed Harriet's table and, for the briefest of moments, hesitated. What if it was Snape? an insidious voice in Elara's head whispered. Hermione still suspects he might have cursed Longbottom in November. What if all of this is a twisted scheme between him and Slytherin meant to endear or test our loyalties? What better way to divert attention than to place himself in situations where he appears the hero or savior?

Her control slipped, and some organic ingredient within the brew began to decay or blossom, spoiling the whole potion. The liquid curdled and began to swiftly rise like dough, cresting the cauldron's top before Elara felt a sudden shove of magic hit her in the chest, throwing her into the counter at her back as the frothing meniscus collapsed and a wave of foul goo sloshed over the table and floor.

"How shocking," the Potions Master drawled from across the aisle, wand extended. He had been the one to push Elara back. For once Snape sounded bored and impatient rather than gleefully mocking. Apparently, there was more on his mind than lambasting Elara's substandard brewing skills. "Clean your mess, Black. No magic."

The 'mess,' as he'd stated, had begun to cool and congeal on the table and stones underfoot, sticking the abandoned stool fast to the floor. Elara retrieved the cleaning supplies typically reserved for detentions from the cupboard by the stone sink and dragged her feet back to her seat. He could clean it up in an instant if he wanted. Git.

Class came to an end soon enough and the other students hurried to tidy their stations and tuck away their kits. Longbottom escaped a similar meltdown by a slim margin and scampered with Weasley and Finnigan quick on his heels, the trio shedding Billywig wings and nettles in their wake that had Snape cursing softly. Harriet and Hermione lingered, but Elara shook her head, hands covered in inert green goo, so the pair hefted their bags onto their shoulders and departed.

Snape's eyes followed Harriet from the dungeon. Even after she'd passed through the door, the man's gaze bore into the weathered wood as if trying to see through it, not yet ready for the girl to pass beyond his sight.

Elara didn't like the way Snape looked at Harriet. It wasn't predatory; Elara would've gone straight to Dumbledore if she'd thought so, consequences be damned. Rather, it was the way a person might look at a teacup sitting too close to the edge of the coffee table—or at a priceless Faberge egg in the hands of a drunk. Raw panic glinted behind Snape's black irises and it made Elara nervous, nervous because she hadn't a single idea why the wizard looked at her best friend like that. What was there to be nervous about? What did he know that Elara didn't?

The last student left, the door swinging shut, and Elara dropped the dirty rag onto the table with a thwap. Snape glanced toward her—and found the girl regarding him with a narrow-eyed stared.

"Why do you look at her like that?" she asked, her tone questioning rather than impertinent. Elara hardly cared if she offended Snape of all people—the great bat—but she did want an answer.

"Excuse me?" he replied in a voice that conveyed an easy, chilling distaste.

"Why do you look at Harriet like that?" Elara repeated. Snape's eyes widened as if he hadn't actually expected her to say the words again. "I don't like it."

The Potions Master blinked, then gathered himself like a growing storm, anger blotching his pale face, hate glittering in his eyes like the hard shell backs of dead beetles. Time in the orphanage made Elara sensitive to an adult's shifting moods, and just as she knew Harriet made Snape nervous, Elara knew her presence sparked fury in the wizard. "I'd be very careful about what you're insinuating, Black," Snape said in that soft, whispering voice of his. "Very, very careful."

"I'm not insinuating anything," Elara replied. She refused to match his whispering and spoke clearly, loudly. "I'm asking a question I hope to have answered. Sir."

Snape stepped away from his desk and, when he approached, Elara tried very hard not to shudder. The man loomed like a silent, seething terror, and with his black robes relieved only by the slightest touch of white at the collar and his cuffs, the wizard looked close enough to a priest for her heart to race with panic.

Elara swallowed as the Potions Master stared her down.

"You're awfully bold, aren't you, Black? Perhaps you would have done better in Gryffindor…like your good-for-nothing father."

She flinched, face burning. So that's it, Elara realized. He knew Sirius. Or, at least he knows of him. I wonder…. "I'm not my father."

"For your sake, you'd better hope not."

Snape went to leave, dismissing her, and Elara spoke before she could stop herself. "If you hurt her, I'll see you sorry for it."

He froze. Elara fancied she could hear her heartbeat echoing against the dungeon's cold, grimy walls as the wizard slowly, slowly turned to face her. "Are you hoping to be expelled, Black? I can accommodate that wish, but do make sure you're very certain you want to be on the train back to London after supper before threatening me."

"It's not a threat," she said, feeling more than a touch queasy. "Only Gryffindors make threats, sir; Slytherins make promises."

"A promise, girl?" Snape took another step forward and Elara couldn't help herself; she retreated and her back met the edge of the counter behind her. The professor sneered. "Pathetic. I don't know what game you're playing, child, but—."

"I'm not strong," she blurted out. Elara didn't know why she kept talking despite every manner she'd had drilled into her head screaming at her to be quiet. In her mind's eye, Harriet lay prone on the Great Hall's floor, suffocating, poisoned by an innocuous cup of evening tea, and who best to poison a girl than a wizard who worked with poisons every day? Elara never wanted to be helpless again. "I'm only twelve and I don't know much magic—but I do know the name of Black has clout, and I would use whatever clout I could against anyone who hurt Harriet or Hermione."

Snape leaned forward and Elara reciprocated by leaning back. She wrung her hands together and wondered what it'd be like to be back at Grimmauld Place full-time, if she'd be able to teach herself magic after being expelled, if that was allowed, or if they snapped your wand and—.

"Only Miss Potter and Miss Granger, Black? Am I free to poison whoever else I wish outside your purview?"

The question threw Elara, who'd been preparing for another verbal onslaught maligning her character. "Ah," she said, biting her tongue. She remembered then something that Matron Fitzgerald once told her when Elara asked why she was being punished after Wendy Pamilo, a daughter from one of the church parishioners, broke the fence in Elara's sight. "We take care of our own," Elara repeated in monotone. "And God manages all the rest."

The Potions Master scoffed, but he did lean away once more and Elara breathed easier. "Insufferable fool," he sneered. His glare softened, or so Elara imagined. The low, murky light of the dungeons made such things difficult to decipher. "Make no mistake, Black, you are remarkably like your father; arrogant and presumptuous. He too made hollow promises to protect his friends, promises that meant nothing to him or to them in the end. Save your sanctimonious posturing for someone who actually means Potter harm."

Quick as a whip, he drew his wand and Elara flinched—only for him to brandish it at the mess on the table, vanishing the mucky cauldron and spilled glop with a single gesture. Snape smirked as he tucked his wand away again. "Get out of my sight."

Elara was all too pleased to oblige the man; she snatched hold of her bag and bolted from the classroom, earning a sharp rebuke for running and slamming the door. Even so, Snape didn't give her a detention, didn't take points, and though Elara wound up sick from nerves in the first-floor loo, she counted her confrontation as a win.

She wouldn't allow anyone to hurt her friends.