clii. with avarice
April slipped into May, and May dwindled into June, and before anyone knew any better, exams had been proctored, and it was time again to say goodbye to Hogwarts.
For Harriet, it was the quietest spring term yet, and she liked it just fine. The Dementors departed at last, and the constant fugue that had hung over the school like a funerary shroud dissolved into the morning mist, laughter returning to the halls, flowers blooming on the grounds, small birds taking refuge in the eaves and cozy crevices of the castle. Without the threat of murderous godfathers or worrying about rat-men sneaking into her dormitory, Harriet and her friends could concentrate on their studies, and they did surprisingly well in their classes, considering the distractions.
An Unspeakable from the Department of Mysteries had appeared and took Hermione's Time-Turner not two days after the incident with Fenrir Greyback. She didn't get in trouble; the experiment had taken possible misuse into account, but she was forced to give up several of her overlapping electives.
"Not that it matters," Hermione had said when she told them over breakfast. "I still have the classes that matter the most to me, and keeping up with all those curriculums was getting tiring."
Harriet did well overall, but she only scraped by with an 'Acceptable' in Astronomy and Divinations. She dithered on whether or not she wanted to continue the latter, having accepted she had no natural inclination for the study. Professor McGonagall had taken her aside to say her 'Exceeds Expectations' in Transfiguration had been earned by the thinnest of margins. She'd need further tutoring in the subject over the summer to stay afloat in future lessons.
Speaking of McGonagall, someone had let slip to the professor that Elara had become an Animagus, and she'd dragged the girl into her office by the ear, giving Elara the tongue lashing of a lifetime. A few favors were called from old pupils and friends in the Ministry, and Elara was registered—discreetly—to avoid possible legal repercussions in the future. McGonagall swore Harriet and Hermione off from attempting anything "half as stupid," and Harriet kept her fingers crossed through the entire lecture.
She hadn't spoken a word to Snape for the whole term.
Harriet didn't know what to say to him, if she should say anything at all, and the Potions Master avoided her like she had a meter stick jammed into his ribs. After finishing the practical, she'd been shocked to see the 'Outstanding' on her exam, and she wondered if Snape had even looked hers over. He spent as much time as possible with his head turned away from Harriet, like she was something unsightly and unspeakable.
Severus Snape was a Death Eater. That was a fact as indelible as the red mark either burned or inked into his pale skin, the mark that Harriet sometimes saw behind her eyelids when she closed them. He'd forced her to look at it, and now the image persisted like the bubblegum Dudley once stuck in her hair; no matter how she tore or picked or yanked at it, it lingered in tacky little pieces.
Severus Snape was a Death Eater.
Harriet pushed the thought away, trying to block it out along with the memory of his gaunt, furious face and glassy eyes. She wasn't stupid; Harriet knew what guilt sounded like, and she knew the person responsible for killing her parents was Voldemort—but to what extent was Snape culpable in that? What was she supposed to feel?
When asked—without mentioning Snape's name—Mr. Flamel told her, "Sometimes you must judge a person by their current actions, not by what they did before. Every man has a past he must live with the best way he can."
But what did that mean for Harriet? Or Snape? The feeling of hurt and betrayal wouldn't leave all these weeks later, nor would the memory of black wool abrading her cheek, the weight of a solid arm, a presence between herself the open maw of a ravening werewolf.
"Because I killed her!"
"Run, Harriet!"
She sighed.
The sun shone bright over the castle's grounds, students milling about the lake's shore, playing with the Giant Squid or enjoying a nice kip in the grass, spending the final afternoon before they headed off on the Express free of studying or worries. Harriet enjoyed the sunshine too, but Elara had a final choir practice, and Hermione was visiting with her friends from Ravenclaw, so she'd wandered off on her own—in the company of a few reptilian companions.
"Snape's a berk," she informed Livi, stroking her fingers over the warm coil draped across her lap, the Horned Serpent protesting when her hand curled into a fist. Kevin, Rick, and Howard chanted "Berk!" and Livi ordered them to be silent. Even the singular mention of the Potions Master smarted, and Harriet shoved the puzzling reaction to the back of her mind, growing flushed and annoyed. I'm not going to think about that Death Eater arsehole. Instead, she spoke to her snakes. "We're leaving Hogwarts tomorrow. Back to Grimmauld Place."
"Sss…the ssstone placcce isss bessst," Livi objected in long, lazy syllables, basking in the warmth radiating onto the open balcony. It was a narrow rampart on the second floor Charmed to stay hidden from observation, accessible only through a false wall behind a statue of a nameless knight, an area Harriet had learned about from Salazar Slytherin's journal. She'd added it to the Argonauts' Atlas, naming it the Redoubt, because she imagined in Slytherin's time, it was used to keep the entrance below secure. Or to spy. Salazar struck her as the kind of bloke who enjoyed an excellent place to spy from.
"Bessst placcce to nap," Kevin agreed.
"Bessst sssnacks," Rick added—and Howard, who had never known of life outside the castle, blinked at them with curiosity from his spot on Harriet's bent knee. Harriet broke apart a Licorice Wand and fed him a piece.
"The ssstone placcce isss not home?" he inquired, taking the sweet.
"It is," Harriet assured, "But not our only home. We stay somewhere else in the summer."
"What isss sssummer?"
"The hot time," Livi told the yellow snake, turning himself to come nose to nose with Howard. "We have gone to many placccess. We have ssseen the bitter watersss and the sssun and the placccess where the air isss not sssweet. The Missstress takesss usss with her."
"Where is the air not sweet?" Harriet asked.
"In the bad placccess."
"If you say so." Harriet bit into the end of the Licorice Wand and cursed under her breath when Kevin sank his tiny teeth into her knuckle, looping himself around her fingers. "Will you stop doing that?" She studied her hand, the scars left by small fangs and spells and minor burns from Potions class. A longer, pink line above her wrist had come from something in the forest.
"Kevin bitesss."
"Little blighter. Kevin is a bad snake. Rick is much better behaved."
Rick gloated.
An hour later, Harriet leaned against the parapet, watching the students below filter into the entrance hall and head toward the Leaving Feast, as Harriet herself would do in just a few minutes. She could see Hermione and Elara on the Atlas, waiting for her just outside the Great Hall's doors. Livi had himself looped about her shoulders, invisible but solid and heavy, grounding, while three snoozing snakes had been sequestered away in her pockets. Breathing in, Harriet crossed her arms and leaned on the embrasure, closing her eyes against the breeze coming off the mountains.
She'd been reticent to return this year and now reticent to leave, uncertain of what waited for her this summer. Harriet knew she'd have to be brave and face it. She wouldn't be alone, after all.
Harriet opened her eyes—and saw a lone figure approaching the castle.
She didn't often see Professor Slytherin in the daylight, as he preferred to keep his classroom shuttered and darkened, lit only by guttering candles or torches. He left Hogwarts as any other staff member did, disappearing on a weekend here or there, but Harriet had never witnessed his return as she did now, the wizard walking the path from the far gates to the main doors. His cloak flared out and snapped in the wind, the satin lining glinting blood-red in the light. The lowering sun shone with its full brunt upon him as he stopped walking and raised his head toward the castle's remarkable face.
He was handsome, she guessed. Handsome—and cruel, and vindictive, prone to throwing children into desks, leaving them bruised, and laughing as Dark creatures lunged at them in his blackened classroom. What thoughts went through his mind when he looked like that? Slytherin stared at Hogwarts with greed—like it was his, like he meant to break it apart and devour it piece by piece as Harriet's snakes had done to the simple Licorice Wand. He looked up at the school, and Harriet looked down at him from its rampart. Professor Slytherin could not see her, and he did not disguise the blatant avarice in his expression.
His gaze took Hogwarts in one last time before he continued inside.
Harriet remained long after the sweeping tail of his shadow disappeared, then followed the professor into the castle. Slytherin was due to win the House Cup this year. The common room was sure to be loud tonight.
x X x
The train was only minutes away from rolling into the London station, and Elara had yet to lower the paper.
She'd been glaring at the main article since she bought it off the trolley, and Harriet's efforts to distract her had gone nowhere at all. The words "Trial for Sirius Black set for July" and "The public calls for exoneration" danced in patterns over a picture snapped of Sirius at the Ministry. Harriet and Hermione sat on the bench across from Elara in their carriage, watching the witch's face grow grimmer as they neared their destination.
"He's set to return to Grimmauld Place at the end of the week," she reported through clenched teeth, Cygnus mirroring her aggravation in his cage next to her. She finally folded the Prophet and tossed it aside, the paper slumping on the seat, then falling to the floor. "Mr. Piers said he was meant to be moved earlier, but they had issues arguing the unrelated charge of his illegal Animagus status."
"Yeah. Professor Lupin said they finally settled on a bloody outrageous fine."
"It's a good thing Professor McGonagall forced you to register now, isn't it?" Hermione replied with an arched brow and a smug smile. Elara grimaced. "If it gets brought up in the trial somehow, you wouldn't have escaped prosecution, Elara."
"I know that. I don't have to like it, however. I thought for sure McGonagall was going to Transfigure me into something unnatural."
Harriet would have laughed if she hadn't thought of the Mandrake leaves waiting in her trunk. She gulped.
"It's ridiculous they force us to register anyway."
"It's ridiculous they make Muggle-borns register, let alone Animagi," Hermione quipped, her eyes cutting to the window, London's crowded streets flickering past. She plucked at the hem of her street clothes with nervous, harried gestures, and Harriet took her hand in her own, giving it a squeeze.
"You'll write as often as you can, right? Tell us if Malfoy's being a bastard?"
"I will."
"I'll harass Mrs. Malfoy to no end if we don't hear from you." Hermione scoffed. "I will! I'll borrow Cygnus and send him—she'll rue the day. Rue it!"
Hermione scoffed again, rolling her eyes, but she caught Harriet in a hug and pressed the smaller witch close. Her breath puffed against Harriet's cheek. "I'll miss you both terribly," she muttered, sniffling. "Do remember to look after yourselves. Remember to bring your Atlases if you leave the house! It should add wherever you go to the map."
"We will, Hermione, promise."
All too soon, the Hogwarts Express entered Kings Cross, and it was time for the three witches to depart the train and officially end their third year of school. Others ran the length of the corridor, eager to start their summers, but the trio of Slytherin girls dawdled for as long as they could, until they were the last to disembark. Then, with her familiar in hand, Hermione followed after Draco Malfoy to find his parents on the platform, leaving Harriet and Elara to drag their trunks toward the Floo.
A familiar black shape waited for them there, Professor Snape unobtrusively leaning against the wall by the hearth with his arms folded and his head bowed, his robes pooling like an ink-puddle about his feet. He didn't acknowledge Harriet or Elara as they drew level with him, not even when they reached into the communal dish of Floo powder and took a handful. Families and friends chattered and laughed, calling out names of loved ones, paying no mind to the three figures by the open fire.
Elara vanished in a whirl of green flames, calling out, "Grimmauld Place!"
Harriet stepped forward next, breathing in the scent of soot and cinders, and when Snape shifted to place one pale hand on the mantel, she glanced at the impatient Potions Master. For one moment, she met his flat gaze, and then Harriet faced forward, turning away. She threw the glittering powder into the belly of the hearth.
"Grimmauld Place!"
END PART THREE
A/N: That's the end of PoA! I hope you enjoyed it, and GoF should start soon!
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