xcvix. terrifying things

Muggle London mystified Harriet.

She spent much of the previous summer skirting the edges of it, bouncing between various magical niches all over the country, always seeming to come back to London despite never venturing into the heart of it. The Dursleys raised her in a Muggle environment for ten years, and yet everything Harriet knew about this world felt as second-hand as Dudley's cast-offs; Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon may have tried to scare the magic out of her, but they surely hadn't instilled any respect for mundane society in its place.

The buildings, the buzz of cars on the motorway, the people—it pressed close, heavy, and…strange. Harriet didn't fancy the tidiness of the streets, the straightness of the pillars and beams and steel protrusions holding every up off the ground. She much preferred the headiness of magic, that electric spark against her skin, the give of dry summer grass under her feet. Harriet spent her prior birthday lost in the woods searching for a hidden Wizarding village; she didn't wish to offend anyone, but she'd rather be back in the tent than out in the middle of bloody London.

She didn't know whose idea it was initially; the thought to get Harriet and Elara out of the house on her birthday got levied among the witches of her acquaintance—Mrs. Malfoy and Tonks and Andromeda and Professor McGonagall—during the week before the date, and then suddenly Professor Dumbledore suggested a day trip into Muggle London. Plans got twisted, minders swapped, and somehow Professor McGonagall was landed with supervising the pair of teenage witches at the end of July. Harriet and Elara both enjoyed spending time with McGonagall outside of the classroom, but that didn't mean the witch knew the first thing about navigating Muggle London.

"My father was a Muggle," she said, tone crisp as she surveyed a map of the Underground. "A Reverend. I know how to live like a Muggle. Though, I must admit, I never did see a point in venturing out of Caithness, and this was some decades ago…."

Harriet smothered a giggle with a cough and swore aloud when Elara stepped on her foot.

They made for an odd trio, all three muddling through the signs and maps and confusing station layouts. Harriet wondered what people saw when they looked at them. McGonagall wore a tartan blazer and skirt, Harriet in a pair of simple black trousers and a green blouse purchased for her by Narcissa, Elara wearing her skirt and shirt with the high, buttoned collar. McGonagall was considerably older, true, but witches didn't age like Muggles did and not a single thread of silver touched McGonagall's coal-black hair. They looked something alike; similar in coloration, McGonagall and Harriet both bespectacled, the professor and Elara both rather stern in their bearing. Did the Muggles think her their mother?

"Harriet," Elara called, dragging her attention back down to earth. She took her hand and pulled Harriet to the waiting train, the professor following in after them. McGonagall looked a bit peaky stuck in the cramped compartment, Muggles stuffed inside, crowding all the seats. She stumbled when they jerked into motion and caught herself on Harriet's shoulder.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Potter."

"S'alright, Professor."

The train kept on and they rode it all the way to Hertsmere, exiting at the proper station and climbing back up into the muggy light of day. Elara knew where to go and so walked in front of them, though Harriet didn't miss how she wrung her gloved hands together. It was a grim sort of way to cap off the morning, heading to a Wizarding cemetery, but Elara had asked if Harriet would mind, and seeing as they rarely had a chance to leave Grimmauld Place and Elara never asked for anything, Harriet had agreed. She could spend her whole birthday among a bunch of dead people and the day would still be loads better than her birthdays with the Dursleys.

The cemetery was pretty despite its age—or maybe because of it, the trees old and full-grown, their thick branches casting shade over the Charm-preserved markers and plinths, dew staining the stone walls of the mausoleums and tombs. The smell of flowers hung in the air, redolent and too sweet where the petals of forgotten bouquets had begun to wither and rot. McGonagall told her the old pure-blood families had been burying their dead there for generations—though not the Potters, who, with the exception of James and Lily, were laid to rest at Stinchcombe House. The older witch knew of the cemetery but had never been, hence their need to take the Tube instead of Apparating. Other visitors meandered about and they stopped to exchange words with a former student of the professor's, though Elara continued to the Black tomb on her own.

Harriet hung back with Professor McGonagall after her former pupil left, watching her friend come to a stop and stand before a grave and bow her head, though if she was praying, Harriet could not tell.

"Professor McGonagall?"

"Yes, Miss Potter?"

"D'you know Elara's Uncle Cygnus? Or, err, great-uncle?"

"Not directly, no. He was a few years below me at Hogwarts, and in Slytherin House, of course. I knew his older brother, Alphard, better."

"And you taught Elara's mum and…dad, right?"

"…Yes." Professor McGonagall stiffened, and Harriet didn't have to wonder why. She knew Elara's father was imprisoned, and while no one ever wanted to get into the why of it, Harriet understood he was meant to be incarcerated for the rest of his life. She couldn't imagine it pleasant for Professor McGonagall to think of the violent crimes committed by a boy she once mentored in her classroom. "Marlene was a vivacious girl. I—." The professor smiled, the expression sad. "I don't see much of her in Miss Black, I fear."

No, Harriet agreed, glancing toward her friend. She didn't appear out of place there, dressed in black relieved only by shades of dark gray or Slytherin green, her blank, colorless eyes fixed on the grave. She had all the cold, unmoving serenity of one of the statues—and the same hardness too, Harriet knew. The kind of rigidity that could summon Fiendfyre to cook a Basilisk with a single spell. 'Vivacious' did not apply to Elara Black, but Harriet had always been most fond of odd, outcast, and terrifying things.

"Miss McKinnon—Marlene—well, there was a fire during the height of the war. It caught the whole of the McKinnon family at their estate." Professor McGonagall lowered her gaze to her hands, lost in thought. "They never discovered the cause of the blaze, but violence was prevalent and senseless back then, You-Know-Who's cohorts causing mayhem wherever they went. Your mother was particularly devastated by Marlene's passing. They were good friends. Both Gryffindors of the same year."

Harriet smiled as she thought of their mums together at school. "Did they get into as much mischief as we do?"

"No, mischief was the forte of Mr. Potter and—his contemporaries." McGonagall huffed under her breath as Elara left the grave and returned to them. "Ready to depart, Miss Black?"

Elara nodded, withdrawn and contemplative, but she squeezed Harriet's hand all the same when she took it in her own.

"Excellent. I think we've had enough of the Muggle conveyances today, yes? If you'd hold onto me, thank you, I will Apparate us back to your home. One, two, three—."

With a crack, the trio vanished into thin air.

x X x

Harriet leaned her side against the counter's lip as she stirred the dough within the bowl.

Professor McGonagall sat at the table with a cup of tea. Elara had gone off somewhere upstairs, leaving Harriet to fill the remainder of the afternoon on her own, and she decided to bake a batch of chocolate biscuits. The professor perused the evening edition of the Prophet, the sound of turning pages accompanied by the click of the stirring spoon hitting the sides of the bowl and the occasional shuffle of muffled footsteps in the potions room. Perched above the icebox, the owls Cygnus and Percival watched Harriet stir, their heads swiveling each time her hand did. Livi had come down for a time, but the owls had been put out by his presence, so the Horned Serpent had slithered back to his lair under Harriet's bed.

"You could simply ask Rikkety to provide you with sweets from Hogwarts, Miss Potter. Merlin knows the house-elves grow bored during the summer without their usual activities."

"But then I'd be bored and it'd defeat the whole purpose, Professor."

"Ah, I see."

Harriet continued mixing and eyed the oven, not certain it was in the mood for any baking. She thought Kreacher might have turned it against her, as it sometimes belched black smoke if she touched it, or burnt anything she put on the hob. Harriet bent closer, eyes narrowed, and muttered, "You better behave, or I'll have Professor McGonagall turn you into a matchbox!"

The oven didn't reply, but the hearth chose that moment to sputter green flames, and after a moment, Professor Dumbledore stepped out over the grate and the fire died back down to sullen red embers. "Good afternoon, Minerva," he said to Professor McGonagall, dismissing the soot on his robes with a wave of his hand. He spotted Harriet and smiled. "And to you, Harriet. Happy birthday."

"Thanks, Headmaster."

"What brings you here, Albus?" Professor McGonagall asked. "I wasn't aware you'd be stopping by today."

"Apologies for not saying anything beforehand. Ah, thank you, Harriet. A spot of tea would be wonderful." Harriet set a new cup and saucer in front of the older wizard and nodded her head. "I hope to impose upon Miss Black's hospitality and peruse the Black library."

"Are you looking for anything specific, Professor?"

He sipped his tea and didn't reply immediately, though his blue eyes flashed over Harriet before settling on his colleague. "No, no specific title comes to mind. Rather, I need to peruse an area of study I've not spent much time considering, as I've come across a problem in some personal research of mine and must find a solution."

"D'you need help looking?"

"No, my dear girl, but thank you."

Harriet shrugged and kept on with the task at hand, though she noticed the confused, questioning look Professor McGonagall gave the Headmaster. From the potions room came a thump and a low, irritated grunt. Harriet frowned as she gazed at the shut, scorched door and put a spoonful of dough in her mouth—despite Professor McGonagall's immediate rebuff not to do that. Snape was hardly a happy, demonstrative bloke, but Harriet thought he'd been a tad…odd all summer. Odder. Like he'd woken up on the wrong side of the bed and the mood had stuck.

"Professor Dumbledore?" Harriet asked, setting the bowl and spoon aside. She approached the table and spoke quietly, lest Snape overhear and throw a fit. "Is Sn—Professor Snape okay?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Well, he's—y'know." She made a vague, encompassing gesture. "He's not the most sociable wizard, sir, but I think he seems a bit out of sorts lately."

The Headmaster tapped one wizened finger against his drink in thought, finally saying, "Professor Snape has had many tasks asked of him of late, Harriet. I'm sure he appreciates your concern." His mouth twitched. "Even if he would not admit as much to you."

Another thump came from the adjacent room—followed by a startling crash of glass hitting the floor and a loud, flagrant curse.

"Salazar's fucking sodomites!"

Professor McGonagall dropped her cup and slapped her hands over Harriet's ears. "Severus Snape!" she cried, aghast. "There are children in this house, young man!"

He replied something that sounded suspiciously like "Sod the children," and Harriet was promptly sent from the room.

Amused—and also annoyed at having to leave her biscuits behind—Harriet dragged herself up the stairs, continuing past her own room to Elara's. She knocked on the door and opened it, finding her friend lounging on her bed, reading, her silver eyes snapping to Harriet still slouched in the doorway.

"Snape's in a mood and Professor Dumbledore's here," Harriet reported. "He wants to look through the library for something he needs to research."

Elara groaned and shut the Transfiguration book, tossing it to the foot of the bed. "Snape is always in a mood. What's Dumbledore searching for?"

"Dunno, he didn't say. He made certain not to say, in fact."

The other witch sat up and frowned as she did so, shoving her feet back into her unlaced shoes. "Why does that not surprise me?"

"Because it's Dumbledore, of course—where are you going?"

Harriet stepped back as Elara passed her into the corridor and headed downstairs. "I left a book on Animagi in the library, sitting out," she explained. "I don't want the Headmaster to see it."

"Oh, shite."

"Exactly. I probably should have put it up earlier; I think McGonagall's already suspicious."

"Has she said anything to you?" If the Transfiguration teacher found out Elara was trying to become an Animagus, trouble would rain down on all their heads, Harriet and Hermione included. They came to the second-floor landing and Elara spared a glance downstairs before crossing to the library's door.

"It's more about the looks she—."

Harriet ran into Elara's back as the witch came to an abrupt stop on the room's threshold. A harsh gasp ripped through Elara and Harriet felt the sudden stiffness in her spine before she threw herself backward, the unexpected force hurling both witches to the floor with a bang. Shocked, Harriet caught a glimpse of a man—a man!—dressed like a priest, wielding some kind of brand, before a wild curl of raw magic lashed out and slammed the library door shut.

"OI!" Harriet shouted, one hand pushing Elara behind her, the other already holding her wand. "THERE'S A BLOKE UP HERE!"

A clatter could be heard downstairs, followed by the rapid pounding of feet, and only seconds later Professor Snape came barreling up the steps—which surprised Harriet. Had he really been able to hear her all the way in the potions room? She didn't have time to think about that more once she jabbed a finger at the door and Snape threw it open, his wand raised. She glimpsed the priest again—but then, the oddest thing happened. The man's gaze flicked to Snape and his face began to twist, his body doing the same, contorting into a new shape, a new person—.

The door slammed shut again and Harriet jumped.

What in the world?!

Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall arrived then, their wands drawn. "Are you well, Miss Potter? Miss Black?"

Harriet took a breath to answer and—from within the room—Snape incanted, "Riddikulus!"

Did—did Snape just bloody laugh?!

The professors lowered their wands, relieved, though Harriet didn't know why. Seeing her confusion, Professor Dumbledore gave her a small, supportive smile and offered his hand to help her up. "It appears to simply be a boggart, Harriet."

"A—what now?"

The door flung itself open for a final time, the hinges whinging at the abuse, and Professor Snape emerged with his wand already secreted away. There was no sign of the intruder behind him. "Honestly, Potter, doesn't Slytherin teach you anything? Or do you just not pay attention?" he quipped, making Harriet scowl. He had a rather nasty burn on his hand and sweat stuck fine, stray hairs to his brow. The potions room must have been miserably hot. "A boggart is a magical creature, an amortal parasite forming in dark, unused spaces of Wizarding homes. It feeds upon fear and manifests as its victim worst fear."

"That's awful," Harriet said, nose wrinkled. Why had nobody thought to tell her about those before? Merlin, she couldn't imagine rambling about the house and running into her worst fear without knowing what it was—which was exactly what had happened to Elara.

Her friend hadn't said a word, sitting frozen on the floor with her back to the wall, staring wide-eyed into the distance. She flinched when Harriet touched her arm—and the lamp on the wall overhead shattered, Harriet gasping when glass shards rained upon her head. Snape grabbed her wrist before she could do something stupid like stick her hand in the mess. Darkness fell over the landing and Elara bolted, running up the steps two at a time. A moment later, her bedroom door closed with an echoing crash.

Snape released Harriet's arm. "Reparo," he hissed, causing the glass to rise from Harriet's person, flowing back into shape. Her scalp prickled and stung.

Light flickered to life again as Professor McGonagall sighed, her mouth pursed in a firm, unhappy line. "We need to have a conversation about that poor girl, Albus."

"Yes, we do."

"What conversation?" Harriet asked, wanting to know what the professors had to say about her best friend. Stuff went a bit dodgy around Elara from time to time, true, but Harriet wouldn't standby and let them blame her for it. It was just a bloody lamp. Would Elara get into trouble? What if—what if they tried to take Harriet away from Grimmauld? Snape jabbed her in the shoulder. "Ow!"

"Downstairs, Potter. You're bleeding."

"Hang on—."

"Downstairs."

And so, Harriet was shuffled back to the kitchen against her will, complaining all the while. She looked back just once, thinking about the man with a white priest's collar and the glowing brand held in his hands. She remembered Elara's pale, terrified face—and felt as if her heart had landed somewhere by her feet.


A/N: Ten points to Slytherin if anyone can guess what Dumbledore wants to research.

Harriet - "Here, I found a picture of Snape."

Elara - "…This is a photograph of salt."

H - "That's what I said."