clxxxvi. the invitation

Crickets played in the weeds as the students gathered by the paddock to wait long after night had fallen.

They stood in disparate groups with their backs turned to the cold December wind coming off the mountains, their shoulders hunched, surrounding jars of Bluebell Flames that glinted like a line of will-o'-the-wisps. The air cut through the Forbidden Forest, and the resulting moan rustling in the leaves sent anxious tremors down Harriet's spine.

Each person present had an invitation in their pocket, black parchment with whorls of silver ink passed over the top.

Despite there being no apparent danger, Harriet's heart beat a fast, uncomfortable rhythm inside her chest, and she couldn't help fidgeting with her spectacles and gloves. She noticed her friends fidgeting as well—Elara wringing her hands in the long sleeves of her cloak, Hermione chewing her lower lip raw.

"You don't suppose he could have waited for spring to have this nonsense?" the latter huffed through chattering teeth, drawing herself closer to the Bluebell Flames floating between their group. Around them, the snow had begun to stick to the brown blades of grass, and Harriet knew by morning, the grounds would be white with powder that wouldn't melt until April.

A low sigh escaped Harriet as she reached again to pat her pocket, feeling the invitation inside crumple slightly beneath the weight. "It's gone past nine now," she said. "D'you think he's forgotten all about it?"

Elara shifted and pulled her invitation out, rereading it by the cold blue light. There really wasn't much to it; every letter had the same engraving, giving a place, a time, and no explanation beyond a command to attend if they did not wish for their chance at the apprenticeship to be forfeited. Truly, Harriet had considered feigning illness—or trying one of the prototype sweets the Weasley twins had told her about that made you sick when you ate them. Fred and George hadn't worked out the kinks, but she thought it might be worth bleeding out from the nose just to not be here.

Blowing white air between her chapped lips, Harriet turned her attention from her worries and studied the others gathered at the paddock.

Of the oldest Slytherins, Derrick, Craft, Bragge, and Crowle had shown, Derrick and Bragge deep in conversation while Crowle kept darting nervous glances toward the castle. Craft, the tallest and leanest member of their group, leaned on a post, dozing.

Numerous sixth years had also arrived; Vuharith, Pucey, Hawkworth, and Dread followed Lestrange like rats listening to a dark, smirking piper. Pucey didn't appear convinced of this endeavor and kept exchanging discomforted glances with Hawkworth. The latter Harriet knew to have ambitions in the Ministry and was surprised to see here.

Some had come from the fifth years—Prefect Sterling, the Carrow twins, Darker, and Grim—and two others from Harriet's own year had shuffled out into the grounds with them. Zabini and Nott sat on the fence not far from them and didn't speak to one another. Nott darted many covert looks in their direction but didn't move.

The only students from the younger pupils present were Volatile Vandran and Reinhold Burke, third years. As far as Harriet knew, they were best friends, and Vandran was always a bit of a mouthy bint when she asked—ordered—Harriet for help with Defense essays. Burke never requested any assistance, and Harriet felt his distaste for half-bloods kept him away rather than a lack of need.

"He's going to send us into the forest," Elara muttered, grimly pulling her cloak's collar higher against her cold ears.

Harriet murmured, "Oh, fuck," in answer, because it had only been a few months since she'd been chased by a ruddy werewolf through these very same trees, and she had little interest in repeating the experience. She peered upward at the sky leaden with gray clouds.

"It's the new moon," Hermione said, interpreting the shift in her attention. "It's why it's so wretchedly dark."

The mentioned dark crept up from the lower lake and those thick, rocky cliffs, so much so Harriet thought it looked like spilt ink seeping closer under the flecks of white snow. Coupled with the wind, it created a bleak, sinister backdrop for what would undoubtedly prove to be a bleak, sinister task.

The hour had only just gone for ten, the low, peeling chimes from the clock tower swallowed by distant thunder as Professor Slytherin made his appearance, approaching from the trees rather than the castle. A collective shudder went through the group as the professor's unnerving gaze raked across them.

"Good evening," he intoned with all geniality of a hungry vampire. "How nice to see so many of you eager to better yourselves. Ambition is, after all, a key facet of our hallowed House." Slytherin folded his hands before himself, his skin pale as ice against the night, his head seeming to float above the black void of his body. "Follow."

He turned and walked into the trees.

A surplus of uneasy shuffling happened as the students glanced about. Perhaps Slytherin sensed no one had followed because he came to a sudden halt—and everyone moved before he could turn around again, an abrupt grim foreboding telling them it would not be good if they didn't heed his instructions.

Harriet, Hermione, and Elara came last of all, staring into the thick undergrowth as the muddled shapes of their fellows moved farther into the darkness. Harriet swallowed her nerves and went first, though her hand lingered at her opposite wrist, gloved fingertips tracing the edge of her wand. She had considered bringing Livi, but none of them had any inkling of what Slytherin might require tonight. She didn't want her familiar to be hurt.

Slytherin's still a professor, Harriet reminded herself. He can't lead us into a nest of Acromantulas and leave us there.

That didn't stop the sweat from building on her neck. It laid like thick, frigid slime against her skin, and Harriet wished to be back in the dorms, in a nice, hot bath. It'd be a wonderful night to sit in the tiny spare room of her trunk and Charm the warming stones for her snakes. She could sit with a good novel and read by candlelight, warm and comfortable.

The wind bit at her bare ears like a wild dog, and Harriet flinched.

Slytherin did not take them far. They came to a stop in a small, barren clearing, a place Harriet thought she might have helped Hagrid feed Thestrals in the past. No Thestrals lingered now, no creatures at all to be found but for the distant, glassy eyes of watching owls—and their Defense Professor, of course.

"This will be your first trial. Your first attempt to earn my…regard." Slytherin's head tipped as he looked at different students, his attention lingering longer in some places, less in others. "I handed each of you an invitation. Present them now."

Chilled hands shuffled through layers of cloth, and each person in the clearing held up a black slip of parchment.

"Excellent. I warn you now not to lose it. The consequences could be…quite dire."

He chuckled, a sound that could rival the wind for its coldness, and some of the older students chuckled as well. Harriet wondered what in the blazes they thought was so funny; standing in a cursed forest with a murderer wasn't her idea of a chipper evening.

"Tonight, I will be asking you to show me your cunning, and your resourcefulness." Slytherin extended his arms as if to encompass them—and the trees—in his hold. "In a moment, I will depart. It will be your task to find me."

Low murmuring broke out, and Hawkworth sputtered louder than the rest. "You're joking."

Slytherin's eyes cut toward him. "A question, Hawkworth?"

"Sir—but, I—." Hawkworth cleared his throat and ran a hand through his blond hair. "The Forbidden Forest is dangerous, sir. You can't expect us to explore it—at night."

"Oh, I don't expect anything, boy," Slytherin said in the same level tone he'd used so far. "You are all here of your own volition. This is an extra-curricular activity, and if you find you haven't the stomach or the nerve for it, you may return to your bed." He tossed a limp, bored gesture back the way they'd come. "But you need not worry. Those of you who are…incapable will not find yourselves in overt danger. The invitations are Charms so you cannot be lost, and several house-elves have been deputized to return you to the castle should you run into mortal peril or test my patience overmuch."

Harriet wondered if she could plop herself down on the shriveled grass and wait for an elf to bring her back inside. She'd probably freeze to death waiting.

Slytherin retrieved his wand and gave it a wave, a series of sharp, complicated flicks accompanying the appearance of an opaque ward surrounding the clearing. The heavy magic prickled against Harriet's skin, and she swallowed—or attempted to, her mouth gone dry with nerves and unease.

"After I step away, the ward will persist for ten minutes more, keeping you here. Afterward, you are free to come and find me." Slytherin returned his wand to his robes. Harriet studied his face from the corner of her eye, and his mouth unfurled in a slight, smug grin, the one he usually wore when he was about to get his way.

"He's up to something," Harriet murmured to Hermione, who pursed her lips.

"He's probably thinking about the Matagots he'll unleash to chase us down once he's out of sight," Elara snorted. "I don't much care to consider what he thinks mortal peril includes."

Harriet didn't either.

"Once the trial is complete, I will examine how well you acquit yourself this evening and make my decisions from there," Slytherin continued. "Some of you will receive a second invitation to the next trial. Some of you will not."

His gaze jumped to Hawkworth for an instant. Lestrange snickered, and though Hawkworth grimaced, Harriet didn't think him upset.

Slytherin made his departure without any great fanfare, casting one lingering look over the clearing before leaving, headed deeper into the trees. Voices rose as soon as he vanished beyond the ward—the loudest among them being Lestrange.

"This will be simple," he said. "What a joke. A simple Point Me Charm is all anyone with a brain would need."

"It has to be more complicated than that," Bragge insisted. "Or…well, he might simply want to cut the needless chaff." The upper years looked at the younger students—pointedly Harriet's year, and two in the year below.

Bragge might have been right, considering Harriet was the only one of their number to learn the spell, and that had been by chance, picked it up after Snape had hissed it during their mad plight through the forest. It wasn't overly difficult, but the movement and grip had to be precise, and none of the youngest students knew it.

A sudden thought occurred to Harriet, and she froze. That won't matter. The Point Me Charm won't work.

Hermione repeated her unvoiced comment aloud. "Professor Slytherin's name isn't actually Tom Slytherin," she uttered. Only Elara and Harriet could hear her, the others too caught up in the excitement as time whittled away and ward grew thinner. "That Charm won't lead them anywhere. The professor knows that."

The ward gave out, its pale white light dissipating into the sullen gloom like moths fleeing a dying flame. The others scattered, Lestrange and Bragge at the forefront while others moved with less certainty, fear heavy in their expressions as they considered the trees. Only Harriet, Elara, and Hermione refused to move at all.

"There'll be a trick to this," Harriet said when the last student—Craft—dwindled into the shadows. "Y'know, Dumbledore once told me Riddle has a dramatic streak to him, and Slytherin loves his theatric rubbish. I don't want to play his stupid game of hide-and-go-seek."

"Oh, I think Bragge probably has the right of it," Hermione replied, her words muffled around a yawn. The jar of Bluebell Flames still hovered at her shoulder, dutiful as ever, and Elara reached over to take it and warm her stiff fingers. "He'll need to cut the unwilling or undedicated out of the running first. The fact that the Point Me Charm doesn't work adds a perfect twist for him, and it'll make the overly confident people, like Lestrange, stumble. It's humbling. Professor Slytherin always wants to humble people."

"Twit," Harriet scoffed aloud. She propped her hands on her hips and stretched for a moment, working heat into the cold muscles of her legs, and again she looked into the forest. Did Slytherin truly expect them to search for him in the dark of night here? If Harriet had learned anything from last year's Defense curriculum, it was that Dark creatures prowled best during the new moon.

"Should we make a go of it?" Elara said, still holding the jar. "Not that I think he'll cut Harriet even if she sat here for the rest of the night, but perhaps we should at least make an attempt."

"Well, I'm not bloody stumbling about, looking for that great sanctimonious arsehole." Harriet shuffled her clothes about until she could pull the Argonaut's Atlas out from under her snug collar. The bones clattered against the glass as she settled it in her hand.

"I'm not certain that will work," Hermione told her. "Given Professor Slytherin isn't—well, entirely himself. I haven't tested how the Atlas would react when trying to focus on more than one person at once."

"Good as time as any. Non Ducor Duco." The Atlas expanded, and Harriet retrieved her wand to give it a solid tap. "Search: Tom Riddle."

As Hermione had expected, the Atlas did not react well when attempting to find a man who apparently inhabited more than one body. The lines within the glass kept flickering and seizing, the whole of the lens heating quickly as the Charms tried to read and sift through too many places and areas unknown. However, the magic seemed to prefer displaying somewhere it had read and ventured before, so Harriet noticed familiar landmarks and labels popping up again and again.

Hermione rushed forward, wand out. She gave the glass a solid tap before it could overheat. "Refine Search: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

The images settled, though the heat persisted, and the Atlas shuddered as if uncertain of what commands they had given. Harriet studied the map, the blue light gleaming white and silver against her glasses. Finally, she realized what she was seeing and yelped in dismay.

"That bastard's back inside!" she told the others. "Look, right there. He's in his classroom!"

Hermione and Elara bent their necks to study the map as well. "But that doesn't make sense," Hermione said. "Why on earth would he drag us out here to search for him if he's inside?"

It was then that Elara covered her face with her palm and groaned, and Harriet quickly came to the same conclusion as well. What a nasty trick. "It was a ruse," Elara told Hermione. "He never actually said 'find me in the forest.' He said, 'find me.' He could have given the order at any place but used our preconceptions and nerves against us by using the Forbidden Forest."

"That's—brilliant, but also quite cruel."

"Would you call Slytherin a nice man, Hermione?"

"I don't care what you call him," Harriet grumbled as she returned the Atlas to its shrunken state and tucked it away under her shirt once more. She shivered when the brass rim, chilled by the air, touched her skin. "I'm getting out of this awful weather."

The trio of witches tromped back out of the trees, then across the thickening blanket of snow forming upon the quiet grounds. They ran into Filch in the entrance hall and were quick to flash their invitations as an excuse. Slytherin must have told him to expect students coming in from outside at this late hour because the caretaker only leered at the gaudy bits of black paper and allowed them to move on without a word.

"D'you suppose we just knock?" Harriet asked when they reached the Defense classroom. She didn't want to go in there. She hadn't wanted to pass this trial at all, though she knew the importance of doing so. "Or stand out here and wait…?"

Elara reached for the knob and opened it without further dithering, forcing Harriet to muster her nerve and enter the classroom.

Slytherin looked to be in the middle of pouring himself a nice warm cuppa when the sound of the hinges caught his attention, treating them to the rare sight of surprise on the man's otherwise blank face. He set the steaming pot aside. At once, he seemed both annoyed and entirely too pleased.

"Misses Potter, Black, and Granger. What a surprise." A simple snap of his fingers conjured three more white cups, and a second snap pulled three chairs closer to his desk. Slytherin poured more tea while Harriet and her friends approached despite their reluctance, and Harriet took the cup that floated toward her hands. "I didn't believe anyone would realize to return inside so soon."

Harriet mimed drinking her tea—blowing on the surface, giving it a slight swish—but she never let it pass her lips. She wasn't going to answer the professor until Elara nudged her shoe, and she remembered her friends had come to support her in getting Slytherin's apprenticeship, meaning Harriet had to be the one to bear his attention.

"Err—. Well, I hope I'm not being too familiar in saying this, sir, but you don't strike me as the kind of blo—wizard who much fancies sitting on some half-rotted log in the middle of a midnight snowstorm." Harriet set her cup aside and cleared her throat, avoiding Slytherin's gaze. The cold had barely dissipated, and she could not help the longing glance she threw toward the unlit grate on the wall.

A moment later, and a fire blazed there. Harriet shut her eyes and swore quietly to herself.

"And so these assumptions on person led you to abandon your quest and return indoors?" Slytherin asked. He had his wand out again, and it twirled between his pale fingers, graceful in its slow revolutions.

"No, sir. Your orders were to find you. There was no mention of the Forbidden Forest or any search of it." She fidgeted. "Sir."

Slytherin stared at Harriet for several minutes—several long, and very uncomfortable minutes in which Elara and Hermione failed to earn so much as a blink in their direction. "Very clever, Miss Potter," the wizard said at length, his tone soft, almost affectionate. Terror wormed in Harriet's veins, negligible for now, but she would probably vomit her supper later from the stress on her nerves. "Very clever indeed."

Slytherin leaned back in his chair and crossed one leg over the other, steepling his narrow fingers. "Finish your tea, girls," he told them. "We're in for a long wait."


A/N:

Slytherin: "I'm so tricky and smart. They'll never figure this out—."

Harriet, walking into the room: "Surprise, bitch."