xcii. a crown of thorns

"Miss Black, I am telling you for the last time, change into the gown—."

"No."

"Don't be difficult, young lady. You're injured and need—."

"I won't."

Somewhere in the haze of dreamless sleep, Harriet heard the voices arguing and blinked open her heavy eyelids, scrunching her nose against the light coming off a nearby lamp. The blankets had been tucked tight around her, her body strangely distant and heavy. She wondered what in the world Madam Pomfrey was doing in their dorm and why she wanted to dress Elara in a gown—and then recent events returned to her like bricks dropping into place. Thump, thump—thump! Harriet knew this bed, knew that ceiling and that blush of moonlight in the windows. She wasn't in the dorm; she was in the hospital wing.

Harriet sat up and groaned when every muscle in her body protested the motion, her fingers bunching the blanket under her hands. The hushed argument cut itself short and Elara ducked around the partially drawn curtains hanging around the bed. She saw Harriet awake—if confused and more than a bit sore—and relief flooded her features. Elara jumped forward, and Harriet winced when the other witch yanked her into a crushing embrace and almost pulled her from the bed entirely.

"I think you're breaking my bones, Elara."

"Good. You scared me half to death."

Snorting, Harriet didn't dare mention that if anyone had scared someone half to death, it was Elara when she'd cast that bloody fire spell. She pulled back and studied her friend, the soot painting her skin, the singe marks on her robes, the gauze swaddling her right hand. "Are you okay? Where's—where's Livi? And Luna? And—Longbottom, I guess—?"

Madam Pomfrey stepped up behind Elara and physically dragged them apart, her face promising dire consequences for anyone who resisted. "Miss Potter, you are meant to be resting—."

"But what happened?"

"There's time for that to be discussed later—."

"But I want to know!"

"Miss Potter—."

The curtain's metal rings shrieked on the rod as they were jerked aside, the three witches jumping when Professor Snape appeared. Part of his lank hair seemed to have been burned off, given the shiny rest spot on the corresponding side of his jaw. "Black," he snapped. "Get to your own bed."

"I'm emancipated and don't need to accept medical—."

It was precisely the wrong thing to say to the wizard, given how Snape's dark eyes glittered with suppressed rage and he bore his crooked teeth. "What is wrong with you, you stupid girl?"

"Professor Snape!" Madam Pomfrey sputtered.

"You are injured if you haven't cared to notice, and being emancipated has no bearing on Madam Pomfrey's duty to ensure proper treatment for you idiotic fools. While you stand in this infirmary, you are a ward of the school, Black, and will do as she tells you to. Do you understand me, or must I repeat myself using simpler words?"

Elara flushed a dark, furious red but chose not to say anything. Instead, she jerked herself back from Harriet's bed and disappeared around the curtains, Madam Pomfrey following with a sharp, frustrated tsk—which left poor Harriet alone with an angry, soot-marked Potions Master.

"What in the hell were you and Black thinking?" he hissed.

"I didn't—."

"Exactly! You needn't say anything farther, but you don't think, Potter! You never do!"

Exasperated, Harriet readied herself to yell at Snape, to throw Longbottom under the proverbial bus for getting her into this mess in the first place—but she stopped herself and chewed the words, not entirely sure why she did so. She hated the jerk, didn't she? She should do what Draco would do and sell the bastard out. "It wasn't my fault," Harriet told him. "What happened? Where is everyone?"

Snape ignored her questions. "So you didn't decide to leave your class and escort and go off on your own while there was an unknown monster roaming the school?"

"It wasn't unknown! I knew what it was!"

"That makes your behavior worse, Potter!"

The curtains rustled for the third time, and a wizened hand nudged them aside as Headmaster Dumbledore appeared next to Professor Snape. The Potions Master didn't seem to notice or care, but Harriet almost jumped out of her bed in her rush to ask questions.

"Professor, you're back! Can you tell me what happened? Is everyone okay? Is Luna all right? Where's Livi—?"

"Potter, settle down—!"

"Come now, Severus. I think Harriet deserves to have her questions answered after the afternoon she's had. She can bear your lectures another day."

Snape glared at Professor Dumbledore and let out a soft, disgusted snort. Harriet, meanwhile, used the wizard's distraction to roll free of Madam Pomfrey's tightly tucked blankets and stand. The cold floor burned the bottom of her bare feet and she'd never been as aware of her short height as she was next to the two towering wizards. "Potter—."

Professor Dumbledore gestured out into the wing proper before Professor Snape could protest in earnest, and Harriet dodged around the Potions Master to follow Dumbledore, wincing when his hand gave her shoulder a reassuring pat. Every joint and bone in her body throbbed. "Your familiar is in the estimable care of our gamekeeper. Hagrid tells me Livius is a bit bruised but will be right as rain after some rest."

"Oh," Harriet said, relieved. "And the others?"

He smiled, and led her across the infirmary to another partly open set of curtains. Curious, Harriet poked her head through and then stepped past the divider.

Luna lay on the bed fast asleep, her hair fluttering as she snored and the wizard sitting in the chair at her side spoke quietly with Neville Longbottom—whose face had, regrettably, been healed. Harriet had hoped he'd be forced to heal that the Muggle way. Neither of the two noticed her until the Headmaster cleared his throat, at which point the unfamiliar wizard turned his head, and the resemblance to Luna became apparent. He spotted Harriet—and jumped forward.

"Hey!" she yelped as the wizard snatched her into his skinny arms and squeezed the breath out of her. Every muscle in her body burned and complained, her hands tingling against her sides. Harriet didn't hear what he said at first, so startled by his sudden movement and the loud thump of her heartbeat.

"—my only girl, you saved her. Oh, I'm so grateful! So grateful! There's nothing I could ever do to thank you enough—!" he blubbered against her shoulder.

"Save—what? Who—?!"

"Xeno, let's sit, shall we…?"

It took Professor Dumbledore's insistent cajoling and Snape's less than gentle yanking to pry Luna's dad free, and all the while Harriet tried to make sense of his rambling. She caught a glimpse of Neville looking at her before his eyes darted away, focusing instead on Mr. Lovegood, and Harriet's brow furrowed.

What did he tell them?

Mr. Lovegood finally returned to his chair, sniffling and red-eyed, and took Luna's hand into his own. "Neville was just telling me about all your heroics," the wizard said, his thumb fondly stroking Luna's palm. "How the three of you dueled the Heir of Slytherin into submission and rescued my Luna!"

Harriet bit her tongue to stop her first reaction, though she thought Snape might have noticed the motion. Longbottom kept his eyes averted. "Did he really?"

"You must have been terribly frightened facing that monster and his creature! Thank Merlin you were there to help Mr. Longbottom!"

An incredulous huff escaped Harriet, and for a moment she considered whether or not she'd heard Mr. Lovegood correctly. HELP Longbottom? Help?! That lying arse! The urge to yell at the Prat Who Lived intensified and still Harriet swallowed the words, letting the furious air out of her sails because no matter how he lied or his own culpability in what happened, she had never been so bloody grateful in all her life as she was when he stopped Riddle from torturing and possibly blinding her. She never wanted to experience pain like that again, and so Harriet said nothing.

Elara, however, didn't suffer the same compunction.

"What?" came the furious snarl from behind them, and the other witch shoved by Professor Snape to stand with Harriet. Madam Pomfrey had managed to shove her into one of the hospital gowns, but Elara had pulled her ruined school robes on over the top of it, buttoning the collar around her neck. The sticky bandages on her right hand made it impossible to move her fingers, so she used her left to point at Neville. "There seems to be a lot of pertinent details missing from that story, Longbottom."

Neville stiffened, his shoulders rising toward his ears.

"What about the part where you followed Harriet around for the better part of the year and didn't stop when we told you to? Or when you pushed Harriet into the Moon Mirror after you and Weasley held us at wand-point? You purposefully shoved her into what you thought was the Chamber, where the deadly snake was!"

"I didn't know any of that! She was—acting suspicious, is all. I got overzealous."

"How entirely Gryffindor of you," Snape seethed, brushing Elara back before she could do something foolish, like punch Longbottom again. Harriet grabbed Elara by the arm and held tight. "Rushing in without thought, without any regard to the safety of others—without consideration for what you've been told by wizards and witches far beyond your experience!"

"I only meant—!"

"You think we should be sympathetic to you, Longbottom, when all you've done is perpetuate unfounded rumors and harass your peers?" Snape smiled—and Harriet shivered at the unremitting hatred and cold, rigid ire glinting in the Potions Master's eyes. He was angry, maybe angrier than she'd ever seen him, and the emotion thrashed just beneath the surface. "I believe I told you at the beginning of the year; if you were in my House, I'd see you on the train home this very night, and you'd never set foot in this school again."

"And I believe I told you it wasn't your prerogative to punish my students, Severus."

Professor McGonagall had entered the hospital wing, her face set in a hard, unimpressed expression as she strolled into the wing trailed by a collection of wizards Harriet didn't recognize at first glance. Professor Snape retreated a step and shifted, his arm fidgeting, and Harriet leaned closer to Elara to peer around the edge of his robes as the cloth came out to block the pair from view. There were four wizards with McGonagall, and after studying them, Harriet remembered the shorter, plump man with the green bowler hat as one of the blokes who took Headmaster Dumbledore from Hogwarts—and the tall, stately wizard behind him was Draco Malfoy's dad.

"Well, well, Dumbledore," Lucius Malfoy said as he approached the Headmaster, his cane held in one long-fingered hand. "Even when dismissed from your post, it seems impossible to pry you away from the school."

For his part, Professor Dumbledore met Malfoy's snide remark with a gentle smile. "Good evening, Lucius. I think you will find I haven't been dismissed from my post after all. In fact, I had a very curious conversation with several Board members who'd felt their families and livelihood had been threatened. A terrible misunderstanding, I'm sure, but when they heard a child had been taken, they were quick to retract their stance on the inquiry and to ask me to return."

A muscle jumped in Malfoy's jaw before it settled. "How very serendipitous."

"I would think so. Of course, seeing as my own inquiry was dismissed, I imagine we'll also be seeing Professor Slytherin return as well. The precedence would ruin any case against him. Isn't that right, Minister?"

The latter portion of his statement Dumbledore directed at one of the wizard's Harriet didn't know, and she had to shuffle closer to Snape to get a better look at the man. In the dim, low-light of the moon filtering through the ward's windows, Harriet glimpsed a pair of red eyes in a pale face and stopped breathing.

It can't be.

The wizard—the Minister—inclined his head, and Harriet didn't realize she was trembling until Elara tugged her away from Snape and she let go of his robes. At first glance, the Minister for Magic mirrored Tom Riddle—and Professor Slytherin—but the more Harriet studied him, the more differences she spied. His hair was longer, his face narrower and more affected by age, and he was larger than either the professor or the man from the Diadem. He wore emerald green robes with gold buttons on the cuffs and a high collar that extenuated his square jaw.

"Yes, it seems the inquiries for you and…Slytherin had to be recalled before the Wizengamot could be called to session." He smiled without sincerity and his eyes roved from Dumbledore to McGonagall, Snape, and then Luna's dad. "Mr. Lovegood, I'm so pleased your daughter has been recovered. Truly a relief."

Mr. Lovegood nodded, but he didn't quite meet Minister Gaunt's gaze, instead focusing on Luna and holding her hand tight.

"I must admit, I'm not here for congratulations, Dumbledore," the Minister continued, flicking a stray strand of hair back from his brow. "While we at the Ministry were pleased to hear the problem has been…eliminated, I find the particulars of the solution used rather troubling. Especially as you weren't the one who informed me of them."

"Why does he look like Professor Slytherin?" Harriet whispered to Elara, and the other witch shrugged.

"I don't know."

Dumbledore cleared his throat. "I'd be interested in knowing who decided to pass information on to you, Minister, but alas! I know you will not say. What particulars might you want to know, Marvolo? I will do my best to clarify."

Minister Gaunt stepped nearer and Harriet twitched, chills racking her spine as pain needled her neck and shoulder. The plump wizard gripped his bowler hat and nervously twisted it in his hands. "I want to know who cast the Fiendfyre," Gaunt said, his eyes again flicking from face to face, settling longest on Professor Snape, knowing there were others behind him but not able to see who they were. "I want to know who used Dark magic to destroy a priceless relic of history. I assume you don't need me to clarify the legality of Dark magic, Headmaster."

Elara stiffened.

Professor Dumbledore frowned, the moonlight bright on his half-moon spectacles. "That priceless relic you mentioned attempted to kill several students and is responsible for harming many others."

"Yes, very tragic." It didn't sound tragic. The Minister sounded as if he could barely muster the sympathy to spit the words. "Regardless, Fiendfyre is a regulated spell and I intend for whoever cast it to incur…repercussions." He looked at soot-stained Professor Snape again with a victorious glint in his eyes. He thinks Snape cast it, Harriet thought. Oh, Merlin—what if he gets fired? Or—arrested?

What would happen if the truth came out? What would happen to Elara? And what would Professor Slytherin do when he learned she'd torched his ancestor's serpent?

"It was me."

Gaunt paused, then swiveled to Neville, who stood and met the Minister's scrutiny without hesitation. "…You?"

"Yeah." Neville swallowed, his throat bobbing up and down. "I've had training to do it, you know, as the Boy Who Lived."

Harriet's first inclination was to think Neville meant to take credit for what happened in the Aerie—but there was no glory to be gained in this. Both Harriet and Elara knew that spell in Elara's journal was Dark, but neither could have expected the Ministry to find out about it. Longbottom was taking the blame. It would be easy to persecute a nameless girl from a presumably Dark family like Elara's—but Neville was a different story. Being a golden Gryffindor had its benefits.

The Minister smiled again, and yet the way he grit his teeth was apparent. "Yes…the Boy Who Lived. Your celebrity notwithstanding—."

"I was just doing what I've been trained to do—saving the day. I think the Wizengamot—and the Prophet—would agree I did the right thing, don't you think, sir? My step-mum gets on with Miss Skeeter quite well."

Elara scoffed under her breath. "What a manipulative prat."

"If he keeps your arse out of Azkaban, I'll sing his bloody praises. Shh."

By now, the Minister had grown visibly frustrated, the forced serenity of his expression dwindling into a cruel, unpleasant glower. The plump wizard—Fudge, Harriet recollected—kept a steady, anxious motion with his hands, and the fourth, unnamed wizard in his maroon robes kept leaning back like he wanted to make a break for the door and run. Even Mr. Malfoy shifted with unease. "Fine. I expect suitable academic repercussions to be handed out by you, Albus, since you've decided to return."

"Of course, Minister Gaunt. I think Neville would agree that being suspended for the remainder of term is an agreeable consequence for his transgression."

By the look of him, Neville did not agree, and he opened his mouth to protest—but Professor Dumbledore leveled him a serious look, brow raised, blue eyes steady, and Longbottom deflated. Harriet knew he wasn't being punished for the Fiendfyre; he was being punished for judging her, for following her around, for pushing her into the bloody Aerie in the first place. Gratitude swelled in Harriet's chest.

"Yes, well. What of the Heir? Your daughter unleashed the beast upon the school, did she not, Mr. Lovegood?"

Luna's dad balked and his already pale face lost what little color it had gained. "No! My Luna—she would never!"

"She'll have to be taken in for questioning by the Ministry—."

"It wasn't Luna," Harriet blurted out. Shite. Snape sighed and reluctantly stepped aside so she came into view. She wished he hadn't when she found herself the subject of Minister Gaunt's baleful attention. "It was—Tom Riddle."

Minister Gaunt stared at Harriet for far longer than was appropriate. Recognition deepened the thin lines about his eyes and Harriet understood without a doubt that the Minister knew who she was. "…Tom Riddle, you say?"

"Y-yes, sir. That's what he called himself."

"And where is this Tom Riddle, hmm? I don't see him here." His red eyes met Harriet's—and she felt frozen, as if her face had been exposed to a sudden, inexplicable blizzard, and the cold crept deeper into her flesh and bones, burning in its intensity—.

Professor Dumbledore extended his arm as if to fondly ruffle Harriet's hair, but he used unexpected force in the motion, and his hand pushed Harriet's head down, breaking her gaze from Gaunt's. The cold feeling vanished.

"It was a cursed object left behind by Tom Riddle, who used to be a student here many years ago," the Headmaster interjected. He kept his hand on Harriet's head. "He once went by another name and innumerable witches and wizards have been led astray by his guile. Our dear Luna is simply another victim of his machinations."

"And where is this cursed object?" Gaunt demanded. "You will turn it over to me—and the Ministry—immediately."

"Gone, I'm afraid," Dumbledore said with apparent cheer, smiling in the face of the Minister's blatant resentment. "Destroyed in the fire."

Gaunt's hand flashed out and gripped the footboard of Luna's bed, his knuckles white, a gold ring glinting on his finger. "How fortunate," he breathed, his grip belying his quiet tone.

"Fortunate for our students, yes," Dumbledore said with a sage nod. "One does have to wonder wear Luna came upon such an object."

"I'm sure we'll never—."

"It was Professor Selwyn."

Harriet and everyone else in the vicinity started when a quiet, groggy voice rose from the bed. Mr. Lovegood jumped to his feet when Luna opened her eyes—and she peered at Minister Gaunt with frank distrust.

"Pardon, Miss Lovegood?"

"It was Professor Selwyn," she repeated with perfect clarity, pausing to beam at her father—and Harriet and Elara. "Hello."

"Hi, Luna."

"Miss Lovegood," Minister Gaunt interrupted, both hands coming to grip the footboard now. "Accusing a Hogwarts professor of bestowing a Dark object upon a student is a slanderous offense—."

"It's not slander if it's true. Daddy taught me that." Luna sat up with some difficulty and Mr. Lovegood's assistance. "Professor Selwyn gave me the Diadem in Diagon Alley. He knocked into me and pretended he didn't know what I was talking about when I tried to give the box back." Fretting with the stitching on the blanket, Luna glanced first at her father, then Professor Dumbledore. "I didn't mean what I did, and I know I should have told you, Headmaster. It was nice having someone listen to me instead of telling me I'm wrong all the time, and whenever I tried to approach you, I found myself unable to do so. It was quite strange."

Luna sounded oddly unaffected by her experience, and Harriet marveled at her strength. She herself didn't feel nearly so composed, the tears and anger and fright still bubbling in her heart, outweighed only by her fatigue and general relief.

"Oh, dear. It seems it would be best if we brought Otho in for questioning. Severus, if you would go and fetch him with Auror Dawlish?"

Grim, Snape only nodded once at Dumbledore before sweeping away—which would have left Harriet and Elara fully exposed to Minister Gaunt's scrutiny if the Headmaster hadn't slid forward in his place, his hand dropping from Harriet's head to her shoulder. Dawlish—the bloke in red—looked to the Minister for reassurance, and the wizard gave a short, displeased jerk of his head, indicating the Auror should follow Snape. He let go of the footboard, leaving behind a smoldering scorch mark in the shape of a hand. Harriet gawked.

"You two should be returned to your beds now," the Headmaster said with false cheer, applying the slightest of pressure on Harriet's shoulder to urge her into motion. "Poppy always tells me too much excitement is bad for a healing body."

As they walked away, the low, forbidding sound of Minister Gaunt's voice followed after them, chasing their heels like a snake after its tail had been stepped on. "This isn't over, Dumbledore."

Professor Dumbledore paused, his fingers tightening, then relaxing. "No, you're quite right, Minister. This isn't over. Minerva, could you please escort our guests to my office and out of the infirmary so our charges may rest?"

"Of course, Headmaster."

Minister Gaunt, Fudge, and Mr. Malfoy marched off with Professor McGonagall, and Harriet went with the Headmaster, too tired and shocked by what she'd heard and seen to do much else. She'd never liked Professor Selwyn; he hated Muggle-borns, half-bloods, and she always suspected he didn't much care for witches, either, the berk—and yet Harriet wouldn't have expected him capable of harming a student on purpose. Did he really give Luna the Diadem? Did he know what it was? Who it was?

"Professor Dumbledore?" Harriet asked once settled in her own bed once more. Elara hugged her again, then disappeared beyond the curtains. They could all hear Madam Pomfrey's impatient muttering and shuffling, the clink of potion bottles being moved and liquid being mixed.

"Yes, Harriet?"

"What's going to happen to Professor Selwyn?"

Exhaling, Professor Dumbledore retrieved his wand and flicked it toward the lamp sitting on the nightstand, dimming its glow. "I'm not sure," he confessed. Worry tangled in Harriet's middle and she tried to ask another question, but he shook his head. "I have no more answers for you tonight, dear Harriet. You need your rest. It is no small thing, what you or the others endured this day."

He left her soon afterward, and Harriet lay for some time staring at the ceiling, comforted by the lamp and its steady, golden shine. She fully intended to get answers from the Headmaster before the school year ended—but not tonight. Right now, all Harriet wanted was to fall asleep and to not dream of the terrible things she saw, to not hear Tom Riddle's malicious taunting or the Basilisk's heavy, poisoned breathing at her ear. She clutched the sheet close and willed herself to stop thinking about it.

Harriet woke only once from nightmares about endless, book-filled corridors. The dark figure seated at her bedside with a book in his hand said, "Go back to sleep, Potter," and—miraculously enough—she did.


A/N: Adult - *opens mouth*

Elara - "I'm EMANCIPATED."

Snape - *internal screaming*

Honestly though, imagine how that's going to go over next year when certain *cough* people return.