clxiii. hermione's oath
Harriet barely had her eyes open before she noticed something was amiss.
She shuffled out of bed much too early in the morning, dragged on her dressing gown, and tip-toed past Livius to make it to her door and then the landing. From there, she staggered like a stunned garden gnome down the stairs and into the dimly lit kitchen, fully intending to start on breakfast—when she noticed Professor McGonagall sitting grim-faced at the table with a cup of tea.
"Miss Potter," she said with a telling arch of her brow. "What are you doing up so early?"
"Oh, err—."
"I assume you're getting a glass of water before going back to bed."
It was one of those things. Professor Dumbledore needled Harriet about life with the Dursleys, and because he was one of the cleverest people she'd ever met, he had a way of determining the answers to questions he hadn't actually asked, where a grimace or an eye-twitch or a slight tightening of her hands was the only confirmation he needed. Bloody infuriating, that. So it came to be decided that Harriet wasn't meant to be out of bed before a certain hour, wasn't responsible for certain chores, and wasn't supposed to make breakfast. All because she did those things for the Dursleys.
Honestly, Harriet wished they would stop making such a fuss.
"Children are supposed to enjoy their summer holidays and sleep in. Or so I've been told by many an unappreciative student complaining about the starting time of term classes when they return to the castle."
Harriet gave her a miffed look, unappreciative of being called a child, but then—. "Wait a second," she said, squinting despite her glasses as she spied the time. "What're you doing here so early, Professor?" McGonagall often proved the most prompt of their minders, but her arrivals usually happened after their first meal. Not at this hour, not unless something had happened.
"An urgent matter has called Mr. Black to the Ministry," the witch said, getting to her feet.
"Before dawn? But what—?"
"It's nothing to concern yourself with this early. You'll know more this afternoon. Off to bed with you."
"But—!"
With both hands on Harriet's shoulders, McGonagall marched her out of the kitchen and back up the stairs, escorting her straight to her room. She didn't turn around until Harriet was through the door. Of course, Harriet had no intention of going to bed or staying in the room, so she changed out of her pajamas into a pair of wrinkled trousers and a jumper she'd left on the chair, then eased out onto the landing with only her socks on her feet, listening intently for McGonagall's presence. Hearing nothing, she slipped across the landing and opened Elara's door.
The other witch was fast asleep with her face buried in her pillow, hair unbound, a book dropped on the covers left open to the last page she'd read. Harriet prodded her shoulder until she woke with a snort.
"Elara," she hissed. "Sirius went to the Ministry last night and isn't back yet and McGonagall won't tell me anything!" Elara made a valiant effort to roll over and go back to sleep, but Harriet persisted in poking her arm. "C'mon, Elara, wake up!"
The older girl grumbled and made a grab for her wand, having to try twice more before she picked it up off the nightstand and muttered a spell for the time. The bright numerals flickered to life—and Elara chucked the forgotten book at Harriet's head. She managed to duck, but only just.
"It's five in the morning!" Elara raged, words slurred with fatigue. "I don't care if Sirius has gotten eaten by a Nundu! Come back at a decent hour and I'll worry about it then!"
"But—."
Next came a pillow, Harriet blocking it with her arm. "Out!"
Harriet escaped the room before Elara contemplated hexing her and stood on the landing, more than a mite annoyed.
It was another one of those things—the absolutely grating phenomenon of the older witches and wizards in their circle privileging information because they felt Harriet and her friends were too young. She didn't appreciate that in the slightest when her age had so far not excluded her from attempted poisoning, kidnapping, torture, and the occasional murder. The least McGonagall could do was tell her why her flighty godfather had swanned off to the Ministry of all places in the middle of the night. He hated the Ministry.
In the dark, Harriet's eyes dared to flick upward.
That's the worst bloody idea I've ever had, she told herself, and yet her feet had already picked themselves up and moved toward the steps, ascending higher into the house. It was a terrible idea, if only because Harriet didn't know if Snape had been briefed on the situation, and she knew Professor Lupin—Remus—wasn't home tonight. Snape did tend to simply know everything, like a demented or rather rude encyclopedia, and he had to be in his room, given how the door slamming and something hitting the floor had woken Harriet earlier in the night. The git.
Still, that didn't mean trying to coerce information from him would be wise. In fact, it seemed the very opposite of it.
Too soon, Harriet found herself looking at the door across from Sirius', her face scrunched in a kind of resigned grimace as she contemplated knocking. She didn't want to touch the door. She felt sure it'd probably burn her hand off.
Taking a breath, Harriet set her shoulders and said, "Snape."
Truly, she expected nothing to happen, for the professor to either ignore her or not hear her, as it was far too early for most ordinary people to be out of bed. However, her luck failed her as the lock clicked open and the door swung in on silent hinges.
Harriet had never been in that room before; Snape's arrival at Grimmauld Place had been almost synonymous with her own, and he'd claimed the room right off, meaning she nor Elara had no reason to go inside. It resembled most of the other spots in the house—a bit dingy, light from the Muggle street seeping in through the threadbare curtains, though much of the dark, pompous design choices had been muted. A single candle had been lit, giving off just enough to see by in the unwelcoming space.
The smell of alcohol—the medical kind—overwhelmed, joined by a sticky, pungent flower smell Harriet couldn't quite name but had smelled often enough around Hogwarts. The Potions Master sat in the armchair by the window, sprawled with his wand resting idly in his hand, having obviously used it to open the door. Snape looked half-dead, slumped in the unwilling candlelight, the stick on the nightstand burned down to the nub. He still wore his day clothes; Harriet could tell they were old, from the afternoon prior given the wrinkles, though he'd undone the cravat, and it looked as if he'd tried to get his boots off and had given it up as a poor job.
Hermione owes me ten Galleons, she thought grimly, fighting the urge to flinch under the man's indolent glower. I told her he never bloody sleeps.
"I warned you years ago, girl, if you knock on my door, you had best be dying or prepared to do so. So what do you want?"
Harriet ignored his less than affable greeting, not expecting anything different. At least he was speaking to her. Really, she'd be more frightened if he failed to say anything at all, as a silent Snape was a contemplating Snape, and a contemplating Snape usually meant someone was in for a nasty punishment.
Lingering just inside the threshold, her hands slightly sweaty, she said, "Sirius has gone to the Ministry. He left sometime last night."
"And?"
"And I want to know why. McGonagall wouldn't say, and I'm guessing she's informed you about it."
"So you thought I would tell you? Really." He dragged out the syllables of the last word in that droll, snide way of his, but he didn't seem to have the energy to make a go of being difficult. He hadn't even gotten up. Snape blinked at Harriet, still stood defiantly inside the door, and said, "As far as I am aware, there was an altercation involving Miss Granger at Malfoy Manor in the evening."
"What?!" Harriet squawked—slapping a hand over her mouth with a nervous glance toward the dark hallway. If McGonagall caught her up here harassing Snape, she'd find her nose in a corner for half the bloody day. "What d'you mean? What about Hermione? Did the Malfoys—?"
"The Malfoys were only peripherally involved. I have no knowledge of Miss Granger's state."
"What does that even mean, 'peripherally involved'?!"
"I haven't a dictionary on hand for your usage. Pity."
"I know what peripherally bloody means!" Harriet hissed. "What does any of this have to do with Sirius going to the Ministry?!"
"I'm sure I don't know or care." He leaned his head back against the chair's top, his black eyes half-closed as he watched Harriet like an indolent lizard. Harriet opened her mouth to snarl at him for being a bastard, not caring how furious he'd get—when she stopped, narrowing her eyes at the fresh stain smeared across the dusty floorboards.
"That's blood," she commented, to which Snape said nothing. "Are you—err, are you all right? Sir?"
Snape blinked again—long and slow and somewhat dazed in Harriet's opinion. She'd smelled that cloying floral smell before in the hospital wing and thought it might be a particularly strong pain potion, something Pomfrey had fed her after her encounter with Riddle in the Aerie.
His only response was to flick his wand. Then, a feeling like an invisible hand pressed against Harriet's face and gave a light push, causing her to stumble back a step, startled. The door swung shut, and the lock clicked home.
"Arsehole," Harriet grumbled.
"I heard that."
She scampered as fast as she could.
xXx
Harriet waited for hours on the bottom step with Elara—who could barely remember Harriet's late-night wake-up call but became much more lucid after having her morning tea. She joined Harriet on the step, both witches sick to their stomachs with worry as they considered Snape's cryptic words on their best friend's fate.
McGonagall wasn't answering questions; she was properly brassed off at Snape for worrying them with half-baked information, and she was also mad at Harriet for somehow prying the news from the man when he'd apparently locked himself in his room and refused to acknowledge the Deputy Headmistress' impatient knocking. Harriet wondered if she should tell her that Snape had gotten hurt somehow or if the resulting Doxy nest of problems would be worth some blood smudged on the floor.
In the end, she kept quiet, more worried for Hermione at the moment than the Potions Master.
Noon passed by the time the distant pop of Apparition sounded in the park across the street. Harriet went to her feet, wincing at the ache in her back from sitting for so long. McGonagall appeared from the parlor, where she'd been making or accepting Floo for much of the morning, followed by a tired Remus, who'd arrived maybe an hour beforehand.
"Away from the entrance, Miss Potter."
Irked, Harriet stepped back to stand with Elara, Remus reaching out to give her shoulder a reaffirming squeeze. They listened to the soft, muffled scuffs of approaching footsteps as McGonagall opened the door.
Hermione came through the door first—and how odd, Harriet thought, to see her there in Grimmauld Place, and yet how fitting. She always missed Hermione over the summers when they were kept apart, and it had always been sad for her to remember they couldn't see their friend unless they utilized some cloak and dagger nonsense to meet in Diagon Alley. It made Harriet resent everything just a little bit more when she couldn't be a normal girl who could go out for visits or leave the bloody house without someone reciting the dangers in her ear.
Hermione turned to them, exhaustion heavy in her weathered expression, and her brown eyes blurred with unshed tears. Robes and a cloak had been thrown on over her pajamas, her hair frazzled, no socks visible above the tops of her shoes. She flung herself at Harriet first, who braced herself for the impending impact, still getting the air knocked out of her when Hermione hugged her tighter than a boa constrictor. Elara got pulled into the impromptu huddle, and Harriet found herself being crushed between the pair until Hermione finally—reluctantly—let go.
A swollen ring of purpling bruises encircled her neck.
"Hermione!" Harriet gasped, frozen. "Wh—?!"
Elara reached a hand over Harriet's shoulder. "Who did this?" she demanded in a soft voice as she brushed Hermione's injured throat with her fingertips. "Was it…?" Her gaze flicked past her, to the blond witch now crossing the threshold, and the glass lamps trembled as if terrified.
"No," Hermione rushed to reassure her. "No, it was—. It wasn't the Malfoys. They—helped me."
Elara continued to eye Narcissa with clear distrust even as Hermione turned to the woman. Sirius came through the door last of all, dragging Hermione's trunk and the carrier for her familiar, exchanging a look with Professor McGonagall. Harriet, meanwhile, looked at the trunk, then at her godfather.
"Is Hermione staying with us?" she demanded.
"Yes," Sirius said, distracted as he set the trunk down and went about releasing Crookshanks. "She's going to be staying here from now on with the rest of us."
"But what about—?" Harriet stopped herself and shook her head, tired of the circular arguments she kept having with the adults in the house. She would ask Hermione and get the story proper.
"I'll call Poppy and see if she's available," McGonagall said, her attention centered on Hermione's neck. "I'm sure she'll be able to step away from her holiday for a moment to assist."
"Can't we just have Snivellus give her a potion? I know he's here."
McGonagall's mouth—already dangerously thin—thinned further as she huffed and crossed her hands. "He doesn't appear amenable to requests at the moment."
Sirius' eye twitched. "What? What good is the greasy sn—bloke if all he does is haunt my fucking house like a ghoul? He's never bloody useful."
Harriet didn't tell them she was fairly certain the man had gotten injured, and she didn't tell them he'd most likely self-medicated on a pain potion. That was Snape's business, not theirs, and not Harriet's.
As McGonagall started in on a short, waspish lecture for Sirius and Remus sighed, Harriet caught Hermione's hand in her own, worried about the other witch's tired, emotionless stare. "I have some bruise cream up in my trunk I got from Pomfrey at the end of last term. We can use that."
Hermione nodded, glancing again at Mrs. Malfoy, who stood apart from Sirius and McGonagall as they argued, drawn and silent in a way she never usually was. Hermione took a breath, paused, then took another before she and told her, "Thank you, Mrs. Malfoy."
Narcissa looked away as she nodded once. "Yes, well," she said, clearing her throat. "I need to leave now that you're settled, Hermione."
"Will you thank Draco for me? Please?"
"…Yes."
Mrs. Malfoy took her leave, rushing for the Floo in the kitchen, and the trio of young Slytherin witches made their way up the stairs. Hermione's curiosity was stifled by what she'd endured to a point where she didn't question anything she saw, not even the gruesome line of house-elf heads or the snarling portrait hidden behind a curtain. It wasn't until she was seated on Harriet's unmade bed, holding Crookshanks in her lap, that she started to relay what had occurred the night before.
It was worse than anything Harriet had imagined.
"Jamie Ingham?" she gasped as she emerged from her trunk's innards, a jar of topical ointment in hand. "That fucking tosser did this to you?"
"Honestly, Harriet, the swearing…."
"I think the occasion warrants a bit of swearing, don't you?" Harriet unscrewed the cream's lid and dipped her fingers inside. "Chin up."
Hermione acquiesced, tipping her head back as Elara gathered her bushy hair and pulled it out of the way, and Harriet smeared the ointment over the grotesque outline of Jamie Ingham's wretched fingers.
"I told you, it wasn't Jamie," Hermione said. "Or, well, it might have been his hands—but it was Gaunt. It was Gaunt's fault. He was the one who instigated everything."
"That doesn't negate what the blighter did!"
"Doesn't it?"
"What's going to happen to Ingham?" Elara asked.
"I asked the Malfoys not to report his…attack."
"What?!"
"His life is already ruined!" Hermione cried. "Gaunt ruined his life, and it's because of me. For Merlin's sake, they would send him to Azkaban, and they've already destroyed his wand! Do you know what that means? Even if he does find an illegal replacement, he'll never find employment, never be able to lead a normal life in the magical world! Even if he left the country, he wouldn't be able to complete his magical education without a signed release from Hogwarts, and the Board would refuse to give it—and he has no money, no benefactor, no home! He's spent six years dedicated to studying magic, and it means nothing. Nothing." She dragged in a harsh, hitching breath. "Just because I refused to answer the Minister's stupid questions!"
The three witches sat together in silence on Harriet's bed as Hermione sobbed into her cat's fur. The marks on her skin faded as the minutes passed, but her tears didn't, and Harriet wasn't sure they ever would. Oh, she'd stop crying in time—but the impression would remain in a way the bruises wouldn't. Hermione would never forget how a slight tip of the Minister's hand drove another Muggleborn to attempt murdering her in her own bed.
"I won't let him get away with it," she sniffled into Harriet's scarred shoulder, stroking Crookshanks' riled fur. "Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but one day. One day the Minister will get exactly what he deserves for all that he's done, and I'm going to be there to see it. I swear it."
Unsure of what to say, Harriet continued to pat Hermione's back, her eyes fixed to the floor, the front of her jumper wet with Hermione's sorrow. She wondered how many more lives Minister Gaunt would destroy before Hermione's prophesied retribution found him. She didn't think she wanted to know.
A/N:
Hermione: "It's nice to be here! I hope the rest of the holiday is relaxing."
Harriet: "…."
Elara: "Oh you poor, deluded soul."
