cxlix. a very long summer
By noon the next day, Harriet was ready to leave the infirmary.
Unfortunately, her definition of ready varied from Madam Pomfrey's, who didn't deign Harriet's rather persuasive argument in favor of freedom with so much as a blink of acknowledgment. Instead, she slapped a thick, chunky balm on Harriet's stinging hands and said, "One foot out of bed, Miss Potter, and you'll regret it."
After seeing the witch drug the Potions Master, Harriet didn't doubt she would.
Snape himself woke sometime before the dawn, before Harriet's own Dreamless Sleep wore off, as she'd blinked open her eyes to see his curtains across the aisle blasted and torn apart. She stared at the curtains for much of the morning as she sat and spoke with Professor Dumbledore, and she shivered thinking of how bloody furious the wizard must be. She had questions to ask him but didn't much like her chances of making it out of the encounter intact.
The Headmaster wanted Harriet to outline the previous night's events to the best of her ability, as she apparently had the best vantage on what had occurred. Elara and Hermione listened as well, until Pomfrey pronounced Hermione fit enough to leave and ordered Elara to rest. Dumbledore remained, and Harriet asked him why any of it had transpired, why they had been the ones needed to go into the forest at all, and he didn't have a better answer for her than Hermione had.
"Given what I know of your character, and of Miss Black and Miss Granger's, I can only assume something grave occurred in a timeline very much removed from our own," he said, leaning back into his chair, his attention centered on the window above Harriet's head. "Possibly in several timelines. There is much discussion among certain circles of academic society regarding time travel and its validity. There are also questions of morality that come into play, as dynamic shifts in history may possibly improve life in the present, but deny life to others in the future. That is to say, if not for Voldemort and his war, many of your classmates' parents might not have found each other—even Lily and James may have gone their separate ways, and I would not have the pleasure of sitting here in your lovely company, my dear."
Harriet frowned, picking at the blanket stretched over her knees, her mood souring as it always did at the mention of the Dark Lord. Would she forfeit being born to give life to all those who suffered because of Voldemort? Most likely, yes, but Harriet knew the theoretical question was a lot more complicated than it seemed. If someone could go back in time and stop everything terrible that had ever happened, it would erase all the good that followed, and it wouldn't stop bad things from ever happening again, either. It would simply change, and change, in and of itself, had no morality.
"But I digress. It is my belief Mr. Pettigrew must have grown impatient and, dare I say, reckless in his desire to retrieve you for his own amnesty. Perhaps Mr. Black got close to catching him on his next attempt. It doesn't take an advanced imagination to think students and staff might have been injured in such a confrontation. You and your friends would have sought to rectify the damage. Unfortunately, in attempting to do so, finding a professor—or myself—may have proven more disastrous than intended."
"So Hermione—or, or whoever started the time loop—sent me away from the castle. I guess werewolves are better than possible student causalities?"
"I cannot say what is better or worse, simply what is, Harriet. I can only be happy an innocent man's name will be cleared, and no one has suffered any lasting injuries."
"Except for Fenrir Greyback."
Dumbledore paused. "Yes, true. That is correct. The loss of life is always a regrettable outcome, but do not mourn the creature felled by the centaurs, Harriet; mourn the innocence he despoiled, mourn for Remus, whose life was ineludibly changed by the curse inflicted upon him, or mourn for the boy who Fenrir Greyback had to have been before he wandered a muddled path. The wizard who attempted to take your life in the Forbidden Forest is not worth your consideration."
He asked her at one point to cast her Patronus for him, and Harriet did so, finding it both easier and more difficult without a Dementor present. Without the raw adrenaline, she felt a mite foolish waving her wand about in the infirmary, but the emotion was easier to find when the cloaked monster wasn't trying to suck it out of her. The spectral crow flapped about the ward, much to Dumbledore's delight, then alighted atop Harriet's head, the curious warmth of it like a hot breath sinking through her hair before it disappeared.
"That is excellent, Harriet," the Headmaster said, the Patronus' final glow twinkling on his half-moon spectacles like starlight disappearing into the dawn. "Exceptional magic! Even grown witches or wizards rarely manage a fully corporeal Patronus."
Harriet fidgeted with her wand. It didn't feel impressive to her, not after what she'd witnessed in the Forbidden Forest with hundreds of Dementors bearing down from the sky, Snape's massive Patronus the only thing between them and certain doom. She shrugged, saying, "I dunno, Professor. It's not very exciting, is it? It's just a crow, not—." Her gaze flicked across the aisle, taking in the torn curtains, the bent rod. "Hermione and Elara said your Patronus is a phoenix too, sir. They saw it at the Quidditch game."
"It is indeed."
"Why is that?"
Dumbledore's hand gave his beard a few idle tugs as he ruminated on the question, the rings on his fingers bright and gold, his robes a soft, summery blue. "There are many reasons one person's Patronus may match another's. Some say it means indelible love—yes, yes," he added when Harriet tried to stifle a giggle, his own lips turning up. "Severus is a fine young man, but I do believe we can safely rule his sudden affection for me out as a possibility."
"What else could it be, sir?"
"Grief; deep, soul-wrecking grief—and that, too, we can rule out. It is my theory, Harriet, that Professor Snape's Patronus matching mine has very little to do with me and has everything to do with Severus, with who he is."
Harriet furrowed her brow. "I don't understand."
"No, I don't expect you or anyone else would. It necessitates a better understanding of our Potions Master's personality and integrity than most people ever comprehend. You see, Severus and myself are actually quite alike in many regards."
Blinking, Harriet pictured the dour, black-cloaked figure of Professor Snape and stared blankly at Dumbledore's robin's egg blue robes. "You don't say."
Professor Dumbledore hid a laugh in a slight cough. "Oh, I don't think Severus is going to be overcome with a sudden desire to enliven his wardrobe, though I did once see him in a lovely lilac hue after a dubious Colovaria mishap—ah, but that is a story for another time. At the heart of things, Severus and I are…similar, and that fundamental similarity is reflected in the Patronus Charm. The phoenix is a marvelous animal, one that is born again upon its death—a continuous cycle of rebirth, renewal, and redemption, and redemption can be a frightful thing for those who cannot accept it is upon them. The labor of redeeming one's self is often more comfortable for its necessity than its absence, and condemnation can define a man's soul. Guilt is a never-ending currency until a man finds his pockets empty and must find another facet of himself to spend."
"I—I can't say I know what you mean, Professor."
He hummed, nodding. "And I believe I have already said too much. We shall simply have to believe in coincidences and their impressive ability to make fools of us all."
Again Harriet didn't know what Dumbledore meant by that, not really, but she assumed the conversation was over and he'd prefer for her to not speculate on the issue further. He left soon after, and Harriet wiled the hours away, doing her level best to test Madam Pomfrey's nerves and escape the ward early. At one point, the graying healer stopped attempting to press another potion on the girl and instead fixed her with an exasperated glare. "You are by far one of my worst patients, Miss Potter," she said, which Harriet took as a compliment.
Past two in the afternoon, a wizard entered the infirmary—an Auror, given his maroon robes and Ministry crest on his pocket—and Harriet sat up in bed, startling a drowsy Elara from her nap. Every possible thing she'd done wrong in the past twenty-four hours spiraled through her head as the balding wizard walked right past Pomfrey's office, which didn't escape the healer's notice. She clattered out of the room in a fearsome huff.
"Excuse you!" she snapped, drawing the Auror short. "What do you think you're doing, stomping through my ward unannounced?"
He held up his hands and took a step back, surprised by the sudden ire directed at him. Harriet might have been irritating Pomfrey more than she suspected. "I've been told to fetch the prisoner's daughters," he told Pomfrey. "He wants to see 'em before he's taken into Ministry custody."
"Well, I don't care what Mr. Black wishes for," Pomfrey retorted. "These are my patients, and they require rest!"
"His solicitor was clear on what I was supposed to do, ma'am, and I have my orders."
At the mention of a solicitor, Elara's eye twitched, her face otherwise hard as stone, and she threw back her blankets, getting to her feet. Harriet scrambled to follow.
"Miss Black—."
"This won't take long, Madam Pomfrey," Elara interrupted, tugging on her robes over her hospital gown, Harriet doing the same. The Auror had the good sense to turn his back.
The healer put up a decent fight but finally relented, if only because a first-year Hufflepuff came into the ward with a bloodied nose, and she couldn't tend to him and wrangle two tenacious Slytherins at the same time. Harriet and Elara followed the Auror from the infirmary, keeping a proper distance from the stranger as he led them down the stairs, utilizing the lesser passages to avoid students. Given it was a Thursday, there weren't many out to begin with, most everyone sitting in their classrooms, but those few they did pass cast startled glances toward the pair of bandaged witches trailing an Auror through the castle.
Harriet didn't want to consider what kind of rumors future speculations might dredge up.
They delved into the dungeons, not as deeply as Harriet had explored before, but deeper than the Slytherin common room, and deep enough for the torches to sputter on and off as they passed each one by. They finally came to a level where the braziers remained lit, and a second Auror sat outside of a room barred by double doors, and as they drew closer, Harriet couldn't help but gawk. He was the most grisly man she'd ever seen, his face like a half-chiseled statue still waiting for those harsh, uncanny lines to be ground and smoothed, the torchlight unforgiving in how it highlighted the missing chunk of his nose. The scars continued into his dark gray hair, his scalp pockmarked in places, his clipped beard likewise spotty where past wounds had taken the hair. His Auror robes contained more gilt than the first's, the fabric shimmering with the thickness of inlaid protection spells.
The most startling thing of his countenance was the wide, electric blue eye that spun about his head on its own accord and fixed Harriet with an inert stare.
"This them, boy?" the Auror barked in a voice like churning gravel. The first Auror didn't strike Harriet as a boy, having to be somewhere near his fifties, but he didn't protest the address.
"Yes, sir."
The Auror grunted. "Go in, then," he told Harriet and Elara. "And be quick about it."
Harriet and Elara chivvied themselves forward—giving the seated wizard a wide berth—and the doors shut on their own behind them. Inside they found what Harriet thought might be a classroom meant for wandlore, the diagrams and posters on the stone walls lending to that notion, the long tables bearing racks and clamps and chisels where one might place a wand they were studying or crafting. Sirius Black sat on a bench against the far wall nearest the lit hearth, dressed in a pair of clean, serviceable work robes, his long hair marginally groomed and tied behind his head. He was deep in discussion with another wizard, a thin fellow in pinstriped robes, a golden fob hanging from his waistcoat and a plum-colored ribbon pinned to his lapel.
Their conversation ended when the doors shut.
"Ah, Miss Black. It is a pleasure to see you again," the unknown man said with a short bow of his head. He wore square spectacles and had a neat mustache over a mouth that didn't seem inclined to smile much.
"Mr. Piers," Elara acknowledged, a cool thread in her otherwise friendly tone. "I hadn't realized you'd been called for."
"Headmaster Dumbledore sent a letter this morning. I am always at the House of Black's service."
Sirius Black had smiled at them when they entered and now looked between Elara and the solicitor with a baffled expression. "Hang on. How d'you know one another?" he asked.
Mr. Piers turned to him. "My office and I have been assisting Miss Black with the management of the estate at Mr. Cygnus' request since his death, sir."
"Cygnus? OId Uncle Cygnus? He was the one who found you?"
"I found myself," Elara quipped, as harsh and as quick as a whip. Harriet worried she might start shouting, just as she'd done in the forest, but she held her temper and spoke civilly. For now. "I returned to the family before my first year, after my Hogwarts letter sent me to Diagon Alley and, eventually, Gringotts. There isn't much more to tell." Her jaw clenched, eyes fixed on the wall by her father's head. "I had thought you'd already been remanded into Ministry custody, or I would have sent for Mr. Piers myself, I guess."
Sirius snorted. "Remanded, but not carted off just yet."
"Mr. Black is to be taken to the Ministry in London after our meeting," Mr. Piers added, clearing his throat. "Then he will be placed under house arrest at Grimmauld Place until he can face a proper trial and be exonerated."
Again, Elara's eye twitched. The wizards probably didn't notice, but Harriet read her best friend's otherwise placid face well; no matter what she said, the idea of Black being exonerated was not a welcome one for Elara. "And when will that be?"
"The estimates I have been given fate the trial for somewhere in the fall, but I think placing certain…pressures in the media about the Ministry's ineptitude will expedite the process and move the trial to the summer."
"What kind of pressures?"
"A donation or two. A letter to the editor at the Prophet. Mr. Black's escape from Azkaban has lessened the Ministry's popularity in the last year, and the media will be keen to follow the trend by criticizing his unfair treatment to the masses."
Harriet couldn't keep quiet any longer. "What—he's going to be living with us, then?"
Sirius looked to her, his brow raising. "You two are staying at Grimmauld? In that rubbish tip? Who in the hell had that stupid idea?"
Bristling, Elara said, "It's perfectly adequate," and Sirius laughed, tossing his head back when he did so.
"Adequate, yeah. Not hardly. Who's looking after you, then? We'll be having words."
"I'm emancipated," Elara replied. "On Uncle Cygnus' doing, so I could not be forced back into my prior living situation, nor placed with the Malfoys. I can stay where I please."
Sirius' lip curled at the mention of his cousins. "The old sod did something right, then," he muttered, looking his daughter over as Elara maintained a stiff, unremitting glower with the wall. "That doesn't explain Harriet. Is she emancipated too?"
"Er." Harriet fiddled with her glasses and wished Professor Dumbledore would pop up out of a barrel of wooden dowels, brimming with explanations. What could she say? No, don't worry about it, I've got a carousel of guardians caring for me in their free time? Or worse: You see, that bloke you seem to hate, Snape? Yeah, he sleeps in the house with us, just in case it explodes into flames or something.
Mr. Piers cleared his throat again, lacing his hands together. "From what I have been informed, Miss Potter's guardians are incapable of raising a magical child, and specific situations have prevented her from being passed on—officially—from their care. So, at present, she is still a ward of the Dursleys, if I remember their name correctly."
"You're not supposed to know about that," Harriet blurted, alarmed. "No one's supposed to know."
"Not to worry, Miss Potter," Mr. Piers said, addressing her for the first time. "The Blacks are not the only clients I am obliged to give counsel to. The Advocacy Vow taken by solicitors prevents me from discussing privileged information I am not allowed to impart to outside parties. As such, I cannot report your circumstances to the Ministry."
Harriet recalled he mentioned Dumbledore's name, and she turned it over in her head, wondering if the Headmaster had consulted with him before or after she'd been attacked in that tent two years ago. It made sense for Dumbledore to need legal advice, no matter how infallible and wise he seemed on his own, and though she wanted to ask just how much the Headmaster had told Mr. Piers, she stayed quiet.
"Bloody Petunia," Sirius said, bearing his yellowed teeth, haggard face twisted with hate. "She always treated Lily horrid, jealous cow that she is. Dumbledore should have known better than to leave you with that wretched bitch."
Harriet colored, and Elara tutted under her breath, her voice almost as snide and menacing as Snape's when she commented, "Too bad her god-father was otherwise occupied at the time. He would have been able to prevent that."
For the first time, Sirius' gaze landed on Elara with something like contempt instead of joy, a slow, simmering anger kindling in their matching silver eyes that Harriet didn't like.
"So, um, you're staying with us? At Grimmauld?" she asked, and Sirius forced his attention from his daughter, his smile grim and contrived. "Is—so the Ministry has Pettigrew? I don't understand why they haven't let you go, then."
"Because the Ministry loves its bureaucracy, always has," he snorted. "They didn't give a damn when I was just another Death Eater they could lock up to make their quota look better. But, yeah, Harry. I'll be at Grimmauld. It'll be great."
"Harriet," she corrected, rubbing at the back of her neck. Something had cut her there, and Madam Pomfrey had covered it in an itchy, silver-infused paste to ensure it wouldn't affect her even if it'd been inflicted by Greyback. "I don't like going by Harry—and I'm sure it'll be fun." She wasn't sure of that at all, finding the prospect of living with a convict she'd thought was out to get her for much of the year an awkward possibility. Even so, Harriet had gotten used to stranger things before. Living with Snape, for instance. Sometimes it'd been like trying to coexist with an Erumpent ready to go on a rampage at any moment. At least Harriet was willing to give Sirius Black a chance.
Sirius smiled again, and looked younger now, happy, and made a move as if he wanted to embrace her before he thought better of it. Instead, Sirius held out one scrubbed hand, and Harriet came forward to shake it, his callused fingers warm and steady around her own. "I'm looking forward to the summer then, Harriet. There has to be some kind of mischief we can find even while I'm under house arrest."
Elara rolled her eyes to the ceiling.
"And I don't know what plans Dumbledore's made and whatever, but I—I promise I'll look after you, okay?" Sirius avowed, ignoring his daughter's less than pleased expression. "I promise I'll do better. I'll be better, for both of you."
"Okay."
He let go and held his hand out to Elara, who stood further back, unmoving. "Elara," he called, eyes wide, beseeching, the ghost of desperation pulling at the raspy curl of consonants. Elara stared. "Please."
In the end, she did shake his hand—with the same kind of begrudging acceptance one might use when scooping up dragon-dung to fertilize their garden. Nothing crossed Elara's face, the emotions too deep for that, and yet her body shifted and jerked in spurts like a wild animal held back by a crumbling chain. Sirius said something to her, something Harriet didn't hear and Elara didn't acknowledge. Without another word, she turned on her heels and strode toward the doors. Her abrupt departure startled Harriet into following, and with a final wave tossed over her shoulder, they returned to the corridor outside. Elara didn't stop to acknowledge the Aurors, and nor did Harriet.
Their slippered footsteps echoed in the empty halls.
"Well, that was…unexpected," Harriet commented once they'd put an entire floor between themselves and Sirius Black. Elara's eyes remained fixed straight ahead. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine."
"You don't look fine."
"I did get bludgeoned over the head by a rat-man, if you remember." She glanced down at Harriet, who wrinkled her nose at the mention of Pettigrew. Bastard. "I think it's going to be a very long summer."
It'll be bloody awful, won't it? Harriet's shoulders sunk, her stride slowing. With those two at each other's throats, 'long' won't even begin to describe it.
Sighing, they walked together in mutual silence until they passed a familiar office door, and Harriet paused. Beyond it, she heard the shuffle of parchment, the impatient scratch of a quill moving across a page. The sounds stopped when they did, and though the door obscured him, Harriet could feel the weight of his calculating black eyes upon her, alerted by the sudden cessation of their echoing footsteps. He waited.
"Harriet?"
"Go back without me," she said to Elara. "I have something I need to do."
The other witch eyed the door with dubious interest. "Are you certain about this?"
She took a breath. "Yes. Go on, I'll be there soon. Pomfrey would have my head otherwise."
Hesitant, Elara kept on her way, leaving Harriet in the chilly, torchlit passage outside their Potions Master's office. Without bothering to knock, Harriet reached out to take the handle—warmed by spells and wards and magic unknown to her—and walked inside.
A/N: What I assume Dumbledore is telling Harriet, is that Snape has always done things out of guilt, until he started to do the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing, and it must be terrifying for a man convinced of his own irredeemability to realize his integral character has shifted without his recognition. That's my thoughts on the matter, anyway.
Dumbledore: "I saw Snape in light purple once."
Harriet: "….."
Dumbledore: "I have pictures."
Harriet: "!"
