lxvi. the door opens
September gave way to October just as it did every year: slowly, reluctantly, and then all at once. The last vestiges of summer released their earthly hold and the Hogwarts populace bid farewell to warm, sunny days spent idle on the castle's lawns. Iron-clad clouds became commonplace outside their windows, and Harriet often bemoaned the shift in weather as the clouds thickened and October skipped by. It was going to be a long, cold winter.
Their classes were more difficult than they'd been the year before, the professors already keen to prepare them for their third year, when their magical study would become "serious," new electives added to their schedules, nascent plans for future careers and exploits formed. Professor Slytherin resumed their practical lessons, though he didn't stop fixing Harriet with a gimlet eye each time he saw her, as if the bespectacled witch were a particularly vexing issue he hadn't yet decided how to handle. Some days, he stopped her in the corridors and asked how her studies were progressing. Other days, he heckled and belittled her, finding excuses to dock points or assign grueling detentions with Filch.
Harriet wished he'd make up his mind.
She exchanged several letters with Mr. Flamel, who she learned harbored a fierce passion for magical theory in all its shapes and forms, and thoroughly enjoyed expounding on his thoughts and ideas, so long as he had an attentive, interested audience. Harriet wrote to others as well: Madam Vance, Tonks and her mum, and even Narcissa Malfoy, the latter of whom reprimanded Harriet to improve her penmanship and to get along with Draco. Tonks wrote about her day to day at the Aurory, and Harriet always looked forward to reading her funny anecdotes.
On Hallowe'en, a day Harriet—unlike the majority of students—dreaded, she woke to find a different kind of letter left on her nightstand.
Yawning, Harriet searched the blankets for her glasses—poking and prodding at Livi to shift him about—and picked the letter up, peeling back the familiar, sticky wax seal.
Dearest Harriet,
It has been brought to my attention that I—and, by extension, your relatives—have been negligent in considering your welfare on this inauspicious anniversary. Again, I must beg your forgiveness for an old man's wandering mind, and ask you to allow me to make up for your aunt and uncle's remiss behavior. I have requested your professors allow you to skip your morning classes, and should you desire it, I will be available at nine o'clock in my office to take you to visit your parents.
Yours in sincerity,
Albus Dumbledore.
- P.S., I enjoy Tangy Toffee.
Harriet stared at the short missive after she finished reading it, gaze distant, looking at something she couldn't rightly see. Her stomach twisted, and she felt—strange. Visit your parents. It was a nice euphemism, considering her parents had died eleven years ago today, interred in the earth sixth feet under and yet inexorably out of reach. Harriet didn't know if she wanted to see their graves, if she wanted to ignore the whole holiday, or if she wanted to just stay in bed and forget she was an orphan raised in a cupboard without a real guardian to talk to.
"What's that?"
Elara stood at the side of Harriet's bed inside the curtains, though for how long, Harriet couldn't say. Livi nosed the other girl's dressing gown, searching for treats, and without missing a beat, Elara reached into Harriet's nightstand and withdrew a Snake Snack, carefully handing it over to the excited serpent so he'd leave her be. Harriet watched this transaction without thought, giving Elara the letter. She read it, then sighed.
"Are you going to go?" she asked, and Harriet shrugged one shoulder, unsure of what to say. Elara tucked a hunk of Harriet's wild hair behind her ear, and the younger witch looked up at her friend. "You should go with Professor Dumbledore. I think it'll be good for you to have something…concrete, tangible. Something you can actually remember about them, even if it's not really the memory you want to have."
"Maybe you're right."
And so, when Harriet dressed for the day, she forewent her school uniform and dressed in the trousers, sweater, and casual robes she usually saved for the weekend, though she did throw her Slytherin scarf around her neck. She skipped breakfast, and when the hour approached nine, she left the near-silent dorms and walked to the Headmaster's office, listening to her own footsteps echo in the empty halls.
She gave the password, Tangy Toffee, to the gargoyle, and climbed the spiraling stairs, ignoring the tight, nervous sensation gripping her middle when she knocked and stepped inside the waiting office. The door to the closet where Quirrell almost murdered her was firmly closed.
"Harriet, my girl. You're right on time."
Professor Dumbledore sat behind his desk with an open book on its surface, a heavy, flat bauble kept on the page to mark his place. He smiled, though the gesture lacked its usual brightness, and even his attire appeared less luminous, Professor Dumbledore dressed in darker, Gryffindor crimson robes with a gray cape that looped over his right side, hiding his lack of an arm. "Ready to leave?"
"Yes, sir," Harriet said, uneasy. She didn't wish to be ungrateful—after all, how many other people got half the day off and a personal escort by the Headmaster?—but she couldn't quite blunt the frazzled edge of her unsettled mood. If Dumbledore noticed, he chose not to say anything. He gestured for her to come closer, then stuck his hand into his pocket to retrieve an empty lemon sherbet wrapper. Harriet glanced at it, then at the Headmaster, brow quirked.
"It's a Portkey. Have you traveled by Portkey before, Harriet?"
"No, sir."
"Oh, it's easy enough to do. Just hold on to that edge there—tightly, make sure not to let go. Usually, the wards won't allow the use of Portkeys within the grounds, but I've tweaked them just for this morning." He chuckled. "Now, Portkeys are often set to timers, but I've given this one a password. Are you certain you're ready? Do you have a firm grip?"
Harriet pinched her side of the wrapper harder. "Yes, Professor."
"Good! Here we go, then." Dumbledore cleared his throat. "Ariana."
In an instant, it felt as if Harriet had swallowed a large fish hook, and it tugged sharply behind her navel, throwing her forward, but not into the desk. There was a great, flashing whirl of color and pressure, her head gone light and woozy, and Harriet didn't think she could've let go of the wrapper even if she wanted to. Her hand simply froze upon the paper—until her feet hit something solid, knees buckling, and only Professor Dumbledore's hand tight upon her elbow kept Harriet from sprawling on the ground.
"Here we are," he said, and Harriet straightened with a gasp, pushing her hair back from her eyes.
They stood in a quiet lane bordered by tidy cottages and thick, old-growth trees, the sun overhead blocked by dense holly branches. It was a quaint village; Harriet spotted a post office and a corner shop across the square where a stone church and a graveyard lay in quiet repose. The church's bells chimed the hour—nine, deep-bellied gongs—and the sound echoed, chased by the wind and the occasional distant voice. Not far beyond the church, the country sprawled wild and stark in the morning's crisp, unremitting light.
"Where are we, professor?" Harriet asked.
"Godric's Hollow. Though technically a Muggle establishment, wizards and witches have been settling en masse in the area for a thousand years." He retrieved his wand, shortening Harriet's robes into a coat, changing his own attire into a suit with a checkered tie. "That said, it's best we blend in, my dear."
A strange frisson went through the young witch as she studied the village she knew her family had lived and died in eleven years ago. She'd avoided the place on her English tour that summer, though before her travels came to an abrupt end outside Bantiaumyrddin, she'd considered visiting, just once. "…I didn't know they were buried here."
"It was James' wish. Though the Potters have a sizable plot at the Stinchcombe Estate, James and Lily grew to like Godric's Hollow very much. James stipulated in his will that, should the worst come to pass, he and your mother wished to be laid to rest here."
Harriet didn't know what to say to that, so she looked down at her shoes. Professor Dumbledore held out his hand, and Harriet took it, her fingers dwarfed by his long, wizened ones. "It's just over here."
She followed him to the graveyard, passing through the iron kissing gate into the rows and rows of rising tombstones. Cracks and moss marred some of the ancient plots, devouring old markers, time and the elements wearing away names, dates, and faces until nothing, not even a memory, remained. The magical headstones held up better than the Muggle ones, but they too suffered in the passage of years, Charms wearing thin, letting rust and decay nibble at the graves' edges.
Her parents had been interred beneath a shared marker neatly placed between the others, the spot inconspicuous but clean, the stone a bright, gleaming marble. Someone left a bundle of red spider lilies resting against the stone. Harriet could scarcely bring herself to read what had been engraved.
IN LOVING MEMORY
of
James Fleamont Potter | Lily Anne Potter
27 March 1960 - 31 October 1981 | 30 January 1960 - 31 October 1981
"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."
"I—what does that mean?" Harriet asked, voice gone thin, strained. "I don't understand."
"It's a quote from Corinthians," Dumbledore softly answered. "Some interpret it to mean there is life after death, and others believe it means we should not fear our end, that death is but an enemy for us to conquer and accept, another part of life."
Harriet still didn't understand very well, but she understood very little at the moment, the world at once too big and too small, thoughts in disarray. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do."
"How so, my girl?"
"I don't—I don't know what I'm supposed to think. What I'm supposed to feel." Harriet swallowed. "I never knew them. I—it's silly, isn't it? To miss something that never was? I miss them so, so much sometimes, and I've so much to be thankful for—Elara giving me a place to stay, and everyone who helped watch over us this summer, but I…. They'll never be there. I'll never have that house I grew up in, with my mum and dad waiting for me to come back from school. They'll never send me a letter, never say they're proud of me or disappointed or—I'll never get to chat with my dad about Quidditch, and I'll never get to ask mum about girl stuff." Harriet let out a short, breathless laugh. "They're just a footnote in a wizarding history book now, and I just feel…so sad, Professor. Especially today. It's been years; I should be over it, shouldn't I? Am I weak for being so miserable?"
The Headmaster touched her shoulder, and Harriet kept her stinging eyes on the ground, tracing the lines of the spider lilies. Who left those here? She would most likely never know; her parents, after all, had lived entire lives before her, lives she could only learn about in half-remembered snippets and vague, side-comments given by strangers.
She didn't have flowers. She should have thought to bring some.
"You're allowed to grieve for what might have been, Harriet. Tears are not an evil thing; it is, perhaps, worse to deny them. Your mother's love saved you that night so very long ago, and it does not make you weak to mourn losing that love."
Harriet nodded and sniffled, swallowing again.
They stood side by side in silence for several minutes, each lost to their respective thoughts, Harriet's gaze on her family's graves, Dumbledore's eyes drawn somewhere else in the cemetery, to another plot and another marker Harriet couldn't see. He allowed the young girl another moment of introspection before emitting a low, thoughtful hum. "Your father was quite the prankster in school, you know."
Harriet looked up. "Was he?"
"Oh, yes, most definitely. He and his cohorts once managed to smuggle a whole quart of Nettle Itching Powder into my sock drawer."
"How on earth did he manage that?!"
"I believe he convinced one of the school's more impressionable house-elves to assist him." Dumbledore shook his head, beard twitching. "At the time, neither I—nor my poor feet—found their antics very funny. They received a whole week of detentions for that."
Harriet laughed.
"And your mother—." Dumbledore paused. "Your mother had a way of inspiring the best in people, not unlike yourself, my dear girl."
"I don't think I inspire anyone, Professor."
"I wouldn't be so sure about that." He retrieved his wand from his pocket again, then used a spell to conjure a bouquet of white carnations, levitating it over to Harriet so she could lay the magical flowers down next to the fresh lilies. Tucking his wand away, Dumbledore extended his hand, and Harriet took it once more in her own, allowing the elderly wizard to slowly urge her away.
"I once knew a boy who was, in many ways, similar to you, Harriet."
"How so?"
"He was an orphan who never got to know his parents. He was a brilliant wizard, just as you're a brilliant witch, a Slytherin—a lad of immense promise. Yet, for every similarity you share, there are innumerable differences. He was cruel, motivated by anger, bitterness. Where you feel grief and love, he felt only betrayal and hate."
They walked from the cemetery and passed the church, crossing under a tree's thick shadow. Harriet shivered.
"You're talking about…about him, aren't you, Headmaster?"
"Yes."
"…are we really so similar?"
Professor Dumbledore shook his head and looked down at Harriet, his blue eyes dim in the brighter sunlight. "No, Harriet. I once told you Lord Voldemort is many, many things, a man of infinite evil, but he was once just a boy, as you are just a girl. The Dark has led many souls astray; grief and sadness can so often turn to anger and corrupt impressionable hearts. Your parents wouldn't have wanted that for you."
They passed by an empty lot where the grass grew high and swayed in the cold breeze. It was a lovely village; Harriet could see why her parents had grown so fond of it. She liked to imagine them living here; maybe they shopped at that corner market, or went to that pub, mingling with the Muggles. Maybe they sat on that bench there, below that maple's creaking eaves, arm in arm.
She knew the professor's words to be true; so often anger crept up on her, hot surges of prickling frustration directed at Longbottom for living, her parents for dying, at Voldemort, the Ministry, Dumbledore, the world. Two hours. All it took was two hours for a war to end, two hours between their deaths and Longbottom's supposed ascension—though, in the end, it hadn't been Longbottom at all. It had always been Lily, as if she'd simply been fated to die that night, regardless of her daughter's fate.
"Why did he come, Professor? Why did he come for us?"
"That's a story for another day, I fear."
She squeezed his hand, and didn't question the wizard further. "I am angry sometimes," Harriet admitted, not meeting his eyes. "But I—I know I'm not alone. I'm angry they were taken from me, but I know I still have people like Elara and Hermione who love me, and that's what really matters, right?"
Professor Dumbledore smiled. "I couldn't have said it better myself."
"Thanks for bringing me today, sir."
"You're very welcome, dear girl."
x X x
After returning to the castle, Harriet did not resume her classes. Rather, she spent the remainder of the day in her dorm with Livius and Kevin, the former pleased to have her attention, the latter too scatterbrained to notice a difference. She thought hard on what the Headmaster had told her, staring at the canopy of her bed, stroking Livi's smooth, warm coils. She tried to imagine the Dark Lord as Dumbledore had described him—a clever orphan boy in Slytherin—but she couldn't picture him as anything but that half-formed monstrosity stuck to the back of Quirrell's head.
You're clever too, aren't you, Harriet? A Slytherin, like me.
Harriet rolled onto her side, frowning.
I can give them back to you, silly girl. What Voldemort takes away, he can return….
The oddest remembrances about that day always struck Harriet at off moments; she best recalled how the Mirror of Erised had shattered, green light lurid on the glass, Set's shadow swelling higher and higher as if he meant to consume Quirrell whole, the Ravenclaw alum crumpling into a dead, motionless heap. Harriet had been most terrified by the temptation she'd felt in that split second, thinking of her mother's hand in her hair, her father's crooked smile, the warmth of unequivocal, parental love.
I will let you share in that eternal life, Harriet….
"No one lives forever," the bespectacled witch softly whispered. Not her parents, not her, and not Lord Voldemort.
Livi hissed in affirmation.
"Harriet?" A gentle knock landed on the door before it creaked open, Hermione sticking her head inside. "Harriet, are you all right? The feast is due to start soon, and you've not had a thing to eat all day."
"Yeah, I'm okay," Harriet replied, sitting up. "Lemme grab my robes and I'll be there in a tick."
"Okay." Hermione went to leave, then hesitated. "Elara…told me you went to see your parents' graves today."
"Mhm."
"Are you—? Well, if you want to talk about it…."
"I'm fine, Hermione." Harriet smiled, the gesture not as forced as it might have been had she not visited Godric's Hollow. Elara had been right; having something concrete of her parents, even something as grim as a plot in a graveyard in a village miles and miles away, helped. "Let's go to the feast, I'm starved."
They left the dorm together, finding Elara waiting in the common room, chatting with Daphne Greengrass. They picked up Bulstrode and Parkinson on their way to the Great Hall, the benches and tables already crowded despite dinner not being due to start for another ten minutes. Harriet and her friends found spots closer to the Head Table than she'd like, but they nonetheless sat, ready for the festivities to begin.
"Where have you been all day, Potter?" Malfoy spat as he shoved a first year out of the way and took the place on the other side of Hermione. The bushy-haired witch frowned, decidedly unpleased with this arrangement. "Must be so difficult, being the teacher's pet. Did you get told off at all for playing sick?"
Elara scoffed. "You're just jealous no one likes you enough to keep you as a pet, Malfoy."
The blond boy flushed. "Why are you always butting in, Black?"
"Apologies, you speak so loudly, I'm sure there's someone across the hall who doesn't think you're talking to them."
Harriet laughed, and so did Blaise Zabini, seated next to Draco, and the older Carrow twins, whom Harriet didn't know very well. Defeated for the moment, Draco settled on the bench, scowling at Zabini, who just shook his head and changed the subject.
The professors arrived, trickling inside alone or in pairs, some more enthused to be there than others. Snape paused long enough to tell off a couple of Hufflepuffs who got too rowdy, and Slytherin sauntered by his House's table, expression placid, his presence dimming the conversation until he moved off. The Headmaster had changed into a pair of eye-searing orange robes with moving bats on the hem, and Professor McGonagall had on a traditional witch's hat. Dumbledore announced the feast with little fanfare—a miracle, really—and the empty platters stretched across the tables filled with all manner of delectable treats and desserts.
"You'd think they'd make a passing effort to provide something healthy, wouldn't you?" Hermione sniffed, glaring at an iced tart that glared right back at her. "Tarts before dinner, honestly!"
"You sound like my grandmother, Granger," Pansy complained. "Why don't you go sit with the other old hags?"
"That's incredibly rude."
"So's eating with your kind at the table—ouch!"
Harriet tossed a mild Stinging Jinx—a favorite of Mrs. Malfoy—under the table, feigning innocence, though Hermione wasn't fooled. Smirking, she pushed another tart onto Harriet's plate.
They dined on whatever took their fancy, and even Hermione—notorious for her dislike of sweets—found a suitable platter of savory pastries to suit her appetite. The Gryffindors devolved into a raucous mess not ten minutes into the meal, and Professor McGonagall had to leave her own meal to sort them out, the Ravenclaws debating hotly about the location of the school ghosts, the Slytherins keeping their own conversations under a respectable decibel. Accipto Lestrange, a fourth year, kept spiking people's drinks with some fancy, foreign Firewhisky, until Snape came swooping down from his seat and confiscated it all.
The first course ended and the second course began— "More dessert?"—and Harriet let out a content sigh, rubbing at her tired eyes. Around her, many of the other students yawned and leaned against one another's shoulders, burning through what little energy the sugar gave, so she guessed they didn't have long before the Headmaster dismissed them for the night. At the Head Table, Professor Dumbledore fixed himself a cup of tea while lending an ear to Professor Flitwick, the shorter wizard standing on his seat to make himself heard. Professor Slytherin's brow was furrowed as he looked about the Great Hall, and Snape had already disappeared for the evening, as had a few of the other professors Harriet didn't know. Madam Pomfrey watched her charges eat their confections with a kind of grim acceptance. The sight made Harriet grin.
Given the volume in the hall and her own distraction, Harriet almost didn't hear the murderous whispering—but when she did, it was all she could pay attention to.
Time to kill…kill…kill…Blood…BLOOD….
Her goblet fell with an unheard clatter, splashing pumpkin juice over a tray of pudding, a jack-o-lantern going out with a stifled hiss. "What the hell, Potter!" someone said, but Harriet didn't pay them any mind. She gulped, mouth terribly dry, her heart racing in her chest as she slowly turned her head, searching for the source of the voice, looking at the happy, sleepy faces surrounding her, finding nothing suspicious. No one else seemed to have heard what she did.
I didn't imagine it, Harriet thought. Once was a coincidence—but twice? Why did no one else hear it? Was someone having a laugh? Was she—was she going mad? Did the voice exist as some kind of manifestation of her nightmares clawing its way out of her subconscious? What did the wizards do to people who heard bloody voices in their head? It was bad enough her shadow moved on its own—they'd lock her up and throw away the key if she started hearing things.
"Harriet?"
"I—I don't feel well," she said, which was true enough. Her stomach twisted with nerves and her gorge rose, the taste of bile on the back of her tongue, so Harriet stood and hurried from the hall, one hand on her wrist, clasped tight over the wand sheathed there. Someone was taking the mickey out of her—they had to be. Perhaps an older Slytherin, paid off by Malfoy, still sour over losing out on his Quidditch spot. They wanted her to think she'd cracked—.
It's bloody working!
Trying to steady her racing pulse, Harriet forced herself to slow as she crossed the entrance hall, leaving the bright glow of the festivities behind her, squinting in the softer lighting of torches and dimmed braziers. The main doors had been shut tight for the night, the wind rising in the dark beyond the diamond-paned windows, buffeting the aged glass, howling where it managed to sneak through the cracks. Water dripped against stone—a measured, rhythmic splash—and Harriet looked about for the source—.
On the far wall, at the foot of the main stairs, words gleamed dull and red in the light, splattered across the surface in a liquid Harriet swore must be blood.
The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir, beware.
The blood dripped into a puddle at the base of the wall, and the rising wind screamed louder than the white noise echoing in Harriet's skull. There, by the words, something hung stiff and limp from a bent torch bracket, something brown, furred—.
That's Mrs. Norris. Filch's cat. Someone killed—.
Harriet's hands shook as she stared, speechless, confused—terrified. She didn't stand there a moment longer, didn't wait for someone to find her here. Harriet turned heel, and ran.
