xxxvii. look and see
Harriet stared at the gargoyle, and the gargoyle stared at Harriet.
She didn't know how long she'd been standing there, nor was she precisely sure of her reason for coming. To speak with the Headmaster, maybe? Whatever her motives, a sudden hankering for Muggle candy had Harriet drooling and so she told the gargoyle, "Fizzing Whizbees."
"No, no," said the gargoyle, its stone lips cracking and crumbling as it sneered. "No Fizzing Whizbees here. Only lemon sherbets!"
The gargoyle opened a taloned hand and, there, on its rigid palm, balanced a pile of sour yellow candies.
Harriet frowned. "But I don't want lemon sherbets."
The bright candies fell to the floor and disappeared in sooty puffs. "Then go through that door there."
Harriet whirled about, and behind her found the mentioned door, one she'd never seen before and knew couldn't possibly be across the corridor from the gargoyle. Still, she reached for the knob and stepped through.
A cool breeze whistled in the unyielding dark and Harriet's feet tamped down damp leaves, the Forbidden Forest stretching tall and foreboding all around her. She couldn't recall how she'd gotten here—hadn't she been in the castle speaking to the Headmaster's gargoyle a moment before? The night wood laid dark and unwelcoming in all directions, large shadows crawling in the bracken, sharp-toothed faces carved into the trees. Mirrors crowded the forest, mirrors of every shape and size, gilded or cracked, taller than houses, framed in the words 'Nie mte l'. A single light flickered in the distance.
Harriet ran. The roots rose from the earth and coiled around her legs, but Harriet pushed through, kicking and writhing, until she reached a small cabin no bigger than a boot cupboard at the foot of a great oak. She threw open the door and slammed it shut behind herself. A torch lay on its side, flickering, batteries on the verge of going out.
Something heavy collided with the door at Harriet's back. She pressed against it, quivering, as fists pummeled the flimsy wood—then they stopped.
"Harrrriet," rasped a voice on the other side. "Let me in, little Harriet. Just for a minute, let me in."
The torch flickered again, stronger than before, and Harriet silently begged for it not to go out. Nails scoured the door.
"Let me IN!"
The torch died and Harriet lunged for it. "Please, please, please—," she chanted as she beat the plastic tube against her hand and the batteries rattled. Finally, the light came on—and Harriet looked up into a pair of watching red eyes.
"—Harriet!"
She woke with a gasp, almost colliding with Hermione in her rush to sit up. The dream crowded her thoughts, then like a sugar cube in a cup of tea, broke apart and dissolved until only the taste remained—sour and acrid with bile and fear. The sensation of pins and needles crawled through her shoulder and neck. Swallowing, Harriet breathed hard and adjusted her glasses as she blinked and met Hermione's quizzical look.
"Are you okay?" the bushy-haired girl asked. "You napped right through lunch and I know you wanted a bit of a lie in, but I didn't want you to sleep through dinner as well."
Harriet yawned wide enough to crack her jaw and nodded, wiping gunk from her eyes. "I'm okay. Just had a bad dream." Which wasn't a rare occurrence, really. She studied the empty dormitory, brow furrowed, until she found Elara leaning against one of the carrells, a half-written letter abandoned on the desk alongside her quill. "Thanks for waking me."
Humming, Hermione sat on the edge of her own bed and fiddled with the curtains.
"Ssss."
Livi shifted in the rumpled sheets, a somnolent hiss rising from the vicinity of Harriet's feet as she lifted the counterpane and peered at the snoozing serpent. An indolent blue eye opened and gleamed before Livi settled again. Harriet set about unraveling his coils and the snake dragged himself farther into the bed's covers. She was thankful she'd left Kevin in his makeshift terrarium in her trunk's nifty extension, since he had the unfortunate habit of sticking his snout in her nose while she slept.
"I'll never get used to that," Hermione said.
"Used to what?"
"Finding you in bed with a snake twice your size."
"He's not twice my size!" Harriet protested as she stroked a hand along Livi's back. "Livi's only—well, maybe a foot or so longer than I am tall."
"Isn't he going to keep growing?"
Harriet shrugged. "I read some of those books you showed me in the library and Magizoologists don't know much about Horned Serpents, really. They live for a long time apparently, and can take years to shed their skin, depending on 'magical maturation.'"
"Hmm."
Just then the door banged open and Pansy strode in, gifting all three of them with her haughty, scrunch-nosed sneer as she paused beyond the threshold and Harriet scrambled to make sure Livi was covered. The other witch didn't notice. "What are you three nerds doing in here?"
"We sleep in here, Parkinson," Elara drawled before Hermione could say anything. Pansy glanced at Elara and, meeting the taller witch's glare, decided to move on without comment, though she did scoff as she strutted over to the washroom.
"Reapplying her makeup. Again," Harriet muttered. Hermione disguised her laugh as a slight cough, which didn't do much to hide the sound. Apparently Pansy heard because she came back into the dorm and scowled.
"Don't you have something to study for, Granger?" One eye had a glob of mascara smudged in the corner and it stuck her lashes together in messy clumps.
"No? We just finished the last of our exams yesterday, if you can't recall."
"As if you'd let that stop you." Pansy stomped into the bathroom again.
Hermione glowered at the open doorway for a good minute before looking away, her cheeks stained a delicate shade of pink. "I don't know how she manages to make being studious and smart sound like an insult."
"Better yet," Elara said. "I don't know why she thinks that's an insult."
Hermione didn't bother to cover her laugh this time, though if Pansy heard she chose to stay in the washroom. Harriet grinned—then pain lanced through her shoulder and neck, catching her unawares, and Harriet gasped, slapping a hand over the offending spot.
"Are you all right?"
"…Yeah." Harriet rubbed the shirt covering the old wound and popped open a button, pulling the collar down to inspect the irritation, though she couldn't quite manage. "My neck—my scar—hurts."
"Your scar?"
"Mhm. I always guessed the cut hurt the muscles or the nerves or something, since sometimes it acts up. It's been a bit worse lately, though."
Hermione stood. She reached for Harriet's collar and, after pausing to receive permission, plucked the fabric aside. "It looks—well, it looks bad," she decided, lips pressed into a worried line. "The skin's gone puffy and inflamed. Have you been scratching at it?"
"No. Nothing more than usual."
"I don't like the look of it." Hermione's frown intensified and Elara drifted over to inspect the scar as well, going so far as to run her fingertip over the thickest vein of gnarled tissue. Her hands were cold. "You should go to Madam Pomfrey. Or even Professor Dumbledore, since it's an old injury."
"What does that have to do with it?"
"It's part of the school's public information, the same place I learned of the professors' qualifications." Noticing Harriet and Elara's blank expressions, Hermione rolled her eyes. "Honestly. 'Hogwarts' attending healer cannot affect maladies, deformities, or injuries accrued outside of term without giving knowledge to and acquiring consent from the patient's parent or guardian.' There is a bylaw, though, that allows the Headmaster or the student's Head of House to grant permission in special cases or emergencies, in loco parentis."
Harriet blinked. "It terrifies me that you have all that memorized."
Pansy came strutting out of the washroom and went to her trunk. "Dumbledore's not here," she commented in passing, digging through her possessions until she found the blue top she sought. "Saw him leave like ten minutes ago."
Pain prickled in Harriet's neck and straightened her back. "What do you mean he's not here?"
"Do you need to clean out your ears, Potter? I'm not going to repeat myself."
"Where has he gone?"
Pansy propped her hands on her hips and scoffed. "How in the world would I know? Or even care? I only know this because Daphne and Millicent and Tracey and me were sitting out by the lake with Draco and Greg and Vince—." Pansy giggled and Elara grimaced, though Pansy didn't see. "And we—well, anyway, we saw the old man leave through the front gates in a hurry and Disapparate."
Harriet didn't know what Disapparate meant and didn't let that distract her. As far as she knew, the Headmaster never left the school while in classes were in session. Why leave now? Why had he been called away so suddenly? She hopped upright and, disregarding the robes thrown across the foot of her bed, snatched her wand from the nightstand and stashed it into the brace on her forearm. "I need to go talk to—someone."
Confused, Hermione asked, "Who?" even as Harriet hurriedly stuffed her feet into her shoes.
"I don't know," she confessed. "I just—I have a really bad feeling about you know what." She let her eyes drift toward the small shelf above her bed, where A Compendivm of Defense Against Magic Moste Dark and 101 Legendary Artefacts of the Wizarding World sat.
Hermione's eyes widened with comprehension and Elara crossed her arms, the tension in the room increasing as Pansy looked between them. "What are you talking about?"
"I think I'm going to go see Snape," Harriet said—even if the idea sounded barmy even in her own mind. She couldn't decide if Snape hated her or not, given he either seemed intent on burdening her with as many detentions as possible or completely ignoring Harriet. Sometimes, though, in the quiet of the dungeons when he set her to task and sat behind his desk doing his markings or checking his inventories, she could ask him a question and the professor would answer, sometimes with his familiar sarcastic snark and sometimes with resigned weariness. He'd probably tell Harriet she was an idiot, but she would feel better for hearing it from someone who knew what he was talking about.
"Snape?" Elara echoed. "I'd be worried he'd poison me again if I were you."
Pansy gave her a scandalized look and almost dropped the blouse in her hands. "Like Professor Snape would bother poisoning a weird half-blood nerd like her. She probably faked the whole thing."
"Funny, Parkinson. You sounded convinced when you screamed bloody murder in the Great Hall."
Elara and Pansy's bickering gave Harriet the opening she needed to escape the dorm, and she flashed a grateful—if strained—smile in the older girl's direction before hurrying into the corridor. Slytherins milled about the common room, basking in the freedom provided post-examinations, and they gave the bespectacled witch scurrying for the exit little thought. Harriet wished she'd taken Livi with her, but she wouldn't have had the chance to pull him from the covers with Pansy there, and really, Snape should still be in his classroom, only a short jaunt down the hall, either proctoring a test or finishing one up.
Harriet was almost there, too, when she collided with a body around a blind corner where the dungeon corridors bisected one another. She caught herself against the stone wall and winced at the renewed pain in her neck, blinking through tears as she looked at the figure shadowed by doused torchlight.
"…Professor Quirrell?"
He said nothing, standing stiffly, crookedly, as if lame in one leg or in pain, until he whispered. "…yes, why not?"
Before he could say more or Harriet could react, the wizard moved and magic winnowed through the enclosed space. A sudden burst of red light was the last thing Harriet saw before the world went dark.
xXxXxXx
"…can't do it, Master. I can see it, can see myself giving it to you, but oh where is it? I don't understand—."
"Quiet, you fool."
Groggy, Harriet became aware again in tenuous increments; her senses reignited one by one, hearing the high, cold voice and the downtrodden muttering, pain in her oddly bent leg and numb hands, candlelight fluttering against her eyelids. She sucked in a breath and blinked until she could make sense of the scene before her.
She was in the Headmaster's office—or, rather, she leaned against one of the battered trunks in the spare room off the Headmaster's office, and in front of her a hunched Professor Quirrell whimpered as he looked in the gilded Mirror of Erised.
He hadn't seen her yet, or at least Harriet thought he hadn't. She doubted anyone else was about, given her hands were bound behind her back and the wizard in his purple turban was wholly absorbed with the mirror, but there were people in the office; painted people, dozens of them. If she could get the attention of the portraits….
No sooner had Harriet sucked in a breath to scream then Quirrell spun on his heels, wand raised, and snapped, "Colloportus!"
The door slammed shut with a tremendous bang. Quirrell turned his wand on Harriet and she choked, terrified, an eerie, not entirely lucid grin splitting the wizard's wan face. The single candle that gave light to the room had gone out when the door slammed, and now the only illumination came through the boarded up window, sharp bars of late day sunlight slicing across Quirrell's front and the Mirror behind him.
"Good afternoon, Miss Potter. If you scream, I will kill you."
Harriet tried to gather her scrambled wits, terror drying her mouth and throat until she could hardly swallow. "Wh—wh—?"
Quirrell sniffed, annoyed, and turned to the Mirror again. He touched the glass with his left hand and let his fingers play over the frame's intricate design as he mumbled and hummed. "Where is it? How did the old fool manage…?"
Oh, Harriet knew what the wizard wanted; since that sunny afternoon with Hagrid a month ago, she'd been harboring a heavy suspicion about the looking glass sequestered away in the Headmaster's discreet keeping. As Elara'd noted, Professor Dumbledore's blatant mention of the third-floor corridor at the Welcoming Feast had surely drawn attention and suspicion to the place, including the attention and suspicion of anyone looking for the Philosopher's Stone, but the Mirror—in contrast—was safely tucked away. Harriet only knew of it by chance.
If Quirrell was after the Stone, that would make him—.
Harriet's heart started to beat very fast indeed as she struggled against the bonds on her wrists. Set pooled beneath her and she felt the featherlight touch of shadows creeping across her skin, plucking at the ropes.
"Master, I do not know what to do!"
Quirrell sudden cry jerked Harriet's attention back to the wizard.
"Use the girl…."
The chilling voice spoke from thin air and Quirrell spun about, Harriet scuffing her shoes as she tried to scramble away from his reaching hand, but Quirrell managed to haul her upright. Having sat on her left leg too long, it gave beneath the sudden weight and Harriet slumped to her knees before the Mirror, dangling from Quirrell's grasp.
"Tell me what you see, girl."
Harriet didn't see anything. The images within the Mirror flickered and morphed as different scenes battled for dominance. Her deepest desire changed every second or so as Harriet vacillated between fear and anger, horror and disbelief, stubbornness and desperation.
"I—I don't know."
The angle was awkward, but Quirrell managed to strike her across the face with his wand hand. Harriet tasted iron as her teeth cut her lower lip—and she remembered being struck by Uncle Vernon in a similar manner all those months ago and crying in the cupboard afterward, alone. Always alone.
In the Mirror, Lily Potter knelt to embrace the image of her daughter. Tears spilled from Harriet's eyes.
"You're not worth the time I wasted brewing that poison," Quirrell said before tossing her aside. Harriet landed on her back, wincing as her arms twinged, but Set returned to fraying the bonds once out of the wizard's sight.
"Let me speak with her…."
Quirrell paused, head tilting as if listening to something Harriet couldn't hear. "Are you certain, M-master?"
"Do not question me, Quirrell…."
Without further prompting, the wizard tucked his wand into his belt and began to unwrap his turban. Withered garlic cloves fell from the loosening cloth with distinct plops, and the smell of rot mixing with the sulfurous garlic odor overwhelmed Harriet as bile burned in her throat. She retched.
The last of the turban fell like the cloves and Quirrell turned his back. Harriet wished he hadn't.
She had no words for the abomination before her; it defied description, and the longer she looked, the more terrified Harriet became. A second face protruded from Quirrel's skull, two slits approximating nostrils, a slash where the lipless mouth opened and sharp teeth shone, red eyes peering right at her. The skin was peeling in great chunks and bruises mottled Quirrell's cranium like mold on cheese.
Harriet felt faint.
"Not a pretty sssight, is it, Miss Potter?" the second face mocked, the voice frigid and raspy, sibilating from the malformed jaw. "See what I have been reduccced to? Possessing snakes and lesser wizards, skulking in the dark, playing Dumbledore's ridiculous gamesss. See what I, the greatessst wizard who ever lived, have become?"
Oh, no. She realized Quirrell wasn't just an agent for the Dark Lord; he bloody was the Dark Lord, or least a carrier for the Dark wizard's twisted remnant.
If she didn't do something, she knew she wasn't going to leave that room alive.
"He thought to trap me, Dumbledore, that wretched old fool. Sought to trick me, thought to outsssmart me, but I am far too clever for such pitiful attempts. You're clever too, aren't you, Harriet?" the voice crooned. "A Ssslytherin, like me. You know what I am after. Look into the Mirror. Give me what I want. You and your friendsss are smart, aren't you, Harriet? You will be given everything if you assissst Lord Voldemort…."
"No!" Harriet yelled, trembling. "I would never help you! You killed my parents!"
Voldemort hissed his displeasure. "I can give them back to you, silly girl. What Voldemort takes away, he can return…."
For the briefest of moments, hope blossomed in Harriet's heart—and once it decayed, Harriet hated the wizard more than she ever had before, because she knew he lied and she hated that, even for an instant, she'd considered betraying her parents, her friends, the whole of the Wizarding world, for a selfish dream that could never be.
"I will let you share in that eternal life, Harriet…. You and your family could live forever…."
Mustering strength, Harriet spat, "No one lives forever," and Set tore the ropes free. Harriet did the only thing she could think to do, and lunged at Quirrell.
The wizard stumbled and Voldemort yelled, wordless and furious, Harriet's sore hands fumbling to grasp Quirrell's wand, pulling—.
An elbow collided with her collarbone. Fresh pain lit through her scar, blazing incandescent, and Harriet's vision blurred before she fell, and the wand slipped through her fingertips. It bounced once, then rolled below a cabinet, out of sight.
He doesn't have a wand now! I can do it! I can escape—!
Quirrell reached into his sleeve and Harriet stopped breathing when he retrieved her own wand. Of course. She'd forgotten in her terror, but Quirrell must have disarmed her after hexing her in the corridor, and now he towered over Harriet with her pale wand clasped in his hand, a wicked grin playing across his cruel features.
"Kill her!" Voldemort shrieked.
Harriet drew in a breath to scream.
Quirrell raised the wand and, still smiling, said, "Avada Kedavra!"
