Whispers in Her Hair
by Indygodusk
Chapter 13 : Second Year - Opening Hermione's Locker
When the knock finally came at the portrait door, everyone jumped. Heart thumping, Harry rushed forward and pulled the door open. The first thing he saw was Terence, who was blocking Harry's view of most of the hall. He was looking away at the Gryffindor team's portrait on the door with his hand pressed over his mouth to muffle his laughter. The rest of the portraits lining the hall were unusually quiet and still, though Harry couldn't see why around Terence's body.
Terence dropped his hand from his grinning face and took a step to the side, revealing Valeria. (Of course it was Valeria. Who else knew so many useful spells not taught in classes and would actually help them with something so risky?) She looked very unamused as she glared at the portrait door—spine straight, mouth flat, wand in hand, and eyes dark and hard, with buzzed hair shadowing the curves of her skull.
Harry took a step out and to the side to see what they were both looking at on the door. The Quidditch pitch in the portrait had become an alien-looking landscape speckled with mounds of spiky grey-green fuzz and strange gelatinous patches that glistened an unsettling shade of pale pink, like sweaty globs of flesh. All of the Quidditch players had disappeared, making it seem even more desolate.
After a moment a burly Gryffindor Beater cautiously leaned out from behind the tower with a smile that trembled for a moment before widening into something almost charming. "None of that was really necessary, now was it, lassie? It was just a joke! A bonnie gel like you should smile more." His cheeky grin faltered as a muscle in Valeria's jaw ticked and her wand tip pointed in his direction. He yelped, diving back out of sight just in time. A split second later, yellow light splattered against the paint where he'd been standing, leaving behind a sooty blotch to join the strange gooey and fuzzy patches.
From a painting of a broom making workshop across the hall a different voice cried out, "Please, he's sorry for being disrespectful! We all are! Please miss, stop attacking our team portra—ouch! Get off!"
The sound of a scuffle was followed by a grunt and a higher-pitched voice crying shrilly, "This is my canvas! You get off and get out, you lunk!" Broom parts and limbs started flying through the portrait as two figures started wrestling, the one in red and gold bigger and broader than the other.
"Oi! Make me, short-stack!
"—you scum-sucker!"
"—don't—"
"—get out, you—"
"—take that!"
Paint blurred as broom handles shot through multiple portraits like spears, almost hiding the cry of the Gryffindor chaser as his robe was hooked on a broom and sent flying two portraits over, knocking over furniture, people, and even a small shack along the way. Angry voices rose and suddenly at least three paintings became filled with brawlers. Other paintings up and down the hallway filled with flyers calling out snide remarks, insults, and helpful suggestions to the brawlers, making the fighting spread. It was mayhem.
"Fiends take it, this is too much noise!" Heart pounding, Harry reached out and yanked Terence through the doorway. Not brave enough to manhandle Valeria, he gestured urgently for her to hurry. As soon as she stepped inside he shut the door.
"Were you trying to start a riot and get us caught?" Harry snapped at them before stomping over to Hermione's locker on the far side of the room, not waiting for an answer. When he turned, expecting Valeria to be at his heels, he found only empty space. Harry turned in a circle before seeing her wandering down the central aisle. She looked up at the lionfish on the wall and the now ugly paint scheme before turning to explore the rest of the room. "Valeria!" Harry cried, exasperated. "Please focus! I need your help opening Hermione's locker."
"Shush, Harry, in a moment. I've never been in here before," she said absently, which was totally unfair and made Harry's blood pressure jump. Could kids have heart attacks? Because if so, the people in Slytherin were going to give him one sooner rather than later. First Flint, then Draco, and now the way no one seemed to feel the importance of getting Hermione's locker open or care that they could be caught at any moment. His friends could be so infuriating!
"Who's that?" Flint prowled into the main room from the direction of the tunnel leading out to the pitch. His shoulders were tight and his hands half-fisted, his lips pressed thin with impatience and distemper. He froze in his tracks for a moment on seeing Valeria. Releasing a slow breath, he resumed walking the rest of the way into the room, but his body language changed with every step, his prowl turning into a lazy stroll.
Stopping at the entrance to the central aisle where Valeria was, he hummed thoughtfully, eyes heavy lidded, and leaned back against the lockers in a graceful slouch that made him seem suddenly smaller, tipping the side of his head against the metal to expose his throat in a move both flirtatious and almost vulnerable. "Valeria."
Eyes glittering, she paced forward, looking him up and down in obvious appraisal—for threats or, perhaps, for something Harry was too young or naive to understand—before coming to a stop next to the opposite bank of lockers. Only a low bench separated them. Her expression became inscrutable. "Flint."
Flint turned his head and flicked his eyes towards the desecrated lion on the wall. "What do you think?"
Valeria looked up at the grumpy lionfish. "Your work?"
"Yes."
"Nice," she said, making Flint's lips curve in a crooked smile until she added, "but the minute they come in they'll see it and know someone was here and get too suspicious to trigger any of the other pranks. It totally ruins the element of surprise and makes most of your work pointless." Flint frowned and the tips of his ears went red. Harry felt dumb, but at least he wasn't alone. Everyone was shifting in embarrassment.
Tilting her head to the side, Valeria sent Flint a sideways look and flicked her fingers at the painting. "May I?"
Frown deepening, Flint crossed his arms. "What are—?" He cut himself off and gave a little grunt and shake of his head. "Nevermind." His mouth relaxed. Stepping forward until his legs pressed hard against the bench separating them, he dropped his arms loosely by his sides. "Go ahead, Valeria. Whatever you want." His brows shadowed his eyes as he looked down, focusing on her to the exclusion of all else. The air between them turned heavy. Harry wondered if he should look away. "I trust you," Flint said, slow but firm.
Valeria almost flinched and tried to hide her reaction by abruptly turning to the side and tilting her head back to examine the lionfish. Her arms crossed over her chest. A few seconds later she glanced at Flint from the corner of her eyes. He hadn't moved, still watching her. She jerked her eyes back to the wall and cleared her throat, then darted another glance at him that caught and held. After a moment something in her body language went soft and she looked down.
One corner of Flint's mouth curved up in pleasure. He leaned back and stuck his hands into his pockets.
"Well then," Valeria said, licking her lips. Casting her eyes around the locker room, she flicked her wand and summoned an empty box from one of the bags and a can of paint. Ripping the cardboard box open and flattening it, she tapped her wand on the paint can, creating a glowing paint brush that sucked out a glob of paint and transferred it to the cardboard. The paint spread out and changed color, turning into the image of the original Gryffindor logo. She sent it flying up onto the wall to cover the lionfish. "Does that look similar enough?" she asked. "If so, I'll set it up to fall off after a few days or so—enough time for everyone to have used their locker and get pranked at least once."
Terence put his hand out and rocked it back and forth. "The lion looks close enough, but we need to do something about the pink and orange walls too. We should tie it into the same time limit so they reveal at the same time."
"Oh, better idea," Artemis interjected. "Link the two illusions to the door opening ten times instead of to a time limit."
Terence scratched his chest. "I know how to link the spells, but how would something like tracking the door opening even work?"
For once Harry knew the answer. "Just like the prank of setting a magical string to a pail of water hanging over a door, right?" He looked over at Valeria to see her sending him a nod and a small but proud smile.
She had been the one to teach him that spell last month. At the end of a season the Vipers got to talking about small and silly jokes growing wizards liked to pull and it had come up. He'd been feeling left out and bitterly jealous as the conversation went on, but trying to hide it. Valeria had seen right through him, but instead of calling him out in front of everyone, she'd waited for the rest of them to leave before offering to show him a couple of tricks.
He turned back to Terence. "Each time the door opens the magical string winds up and gets shorter and shorter, until it is short enough to knock over the bucket or—in this case—pull down the cardboard and break the illusion of the lion. Normally kids buy the string in a shop, but we can probably make one from the leftover stuff in our bags."
"Oh, clever." Terence nodded approvingly.
Out in the hall came the sudden sound of loud laughter and running feet. Everyone froze. Something thumped against the wall. They all stared at the door but it didn't open. The sound died down and Harry only realized that he'd been holding his breath when black spots started floating across his eyes. He sucked in a deep breath. Nothing else happened.
Flint went and peeked out into the hall and then came striding back. "Hufflepuffs," he said curtly. "We were lucky. We need to hurry up and get out of here soon if we don't want to get caught. Do it quickly and then let's go," he snapped, obviously including Valeria in his orders.
"Wait," Valeria said evenly, floating the new lion down onto the floor as she examined the painted lionfish more closely, obviously displeased with something. She had an strange edge to her voice that made Harry's shoulders want to curl forward to make himself smaller. He had a feeling it had more to do with Flint's tone than the state of the wall, but you couldn't always tell with Valeria.
"Why?" Flint stepped up next to her side to examine the wall with her, moving closer until she started to tense and then instantly shifting into rest, expression almost sleepy, as if he'd never intended to move any closer in the first place.
"Because I said so."
Flint must have missed the edge in her voice. That or he just didn't care if she mauled him. There was a bare handspan left between the swing of their arms, and the cant of Flint's shoulders made it obvious that despite the expression on his face he desperately wanted to close the distance and stand like they used to, with bodies touching and his hand nestled around the curve of her waist.
Valeria kept her eyes on the wall but the tension in her back ratcheted higher and the set of her hips shifted as if she was preparing to spring at any moment—though whether it would be away from him or in an attack wasn't clear. "Before we do the string, you should turn the spines on the lionfish you drew into little snakes." Valeria turned her head just slightly and looked up at Flint challengingly through the edge of her lashes. "It would make it even more cute and... Slytherin-y."
Brow furrowing and mouth dropping open, Harry had to rewind what she'd just said to make sure he wasn't imagining things. From the way everyone else in the room had paused to gape, he wasn't the only one. Valeria had to know how she sounded, didn't she? Because, they didn't have time. Someone could come in at any moment. What was she playing at? And why? By the flash of her eyes, it almost looked like she was purposely testing Flint, trying to provoke him into losing his temper and either calling her stupid or grabbing her and shaking her.
Harry clenched his fists. Now really wasn't the time for this. They had bigger priorities, like opening up Hermione's locker and getting Harry her notes! He waited for Flint to dismiss the idea so they could move on, hoping he managed to be diplomatic enough to not spark Valeria's temper.
Flint swung around so that Valeria was forced to look at him directly and leaned into her space, his eyes going dark even as his voice went thick and slow like syrup. "And would that make you happy?"
Visibly flustered, Valeria dropped her eyes and leaned her shoulders back, though her feet stayed firmly planted. She obviously hadn't been expecting that reaction. Her tongue darted out to lick her lip nervously.
Flint tracked it with his eyes and the corner of his mouth lifted in satisfaction. He swayed even closer than he'd been before, their shadows overlapping into one as the fall of their robes mingled. His eyes were still locked on her lips.
Valeria looked up at him, mouth falling open as if to say something, but nothing came out. Flint made a soft sound and reached out, placing a thumb on her bottom lip.
Harry instantly looked away, feeling his face burning hot. He had the horribly uncomfortable feeling that they'd forgotten that they weren't alone together. He wondered if he should say something to remind them, but was almost afraid of what would happen if he did.
Across the room, Terence's eyes and cheeks were bulging and he'd gone bright red. He must've been holding his breath because suddenly he lost the fight and started sucking in air, pressing his hands to his chest and bending over as he started coughing.
Valeria cleared her throat, making Harry's eyes snap back over in her direction despite his intention to not look over until he knew for sure it was safe. She had her hand around Flint's wrist and he was no longer touching her face. Her expression was back to cool confidence, all signs of being flustered completely hidden.
"Well?" Flint asked. "Would it make you happy?"
Neither of them stepped back, their eyes clashing now in blatant challenge, skirting the edge of violence as each tried to dominate the other. Valeria's head was tilted almost all of the way back because of the large height difference, not that being shorter or thinner made her seem in any way weaker. Size didn't matter—not with a witch like Valeria. For some reason he smiled. She frowned. Her eyes bored into his face, as if trying to make him step back. He seemed to be pushing for the opposite, smirk growing as he tried to make her take that final step closer that would have them touching.
Neither moved one way or the other. Stalemate. Valeria finally answered his question with a curt, "Yes." One of her brows arched, as if she was waiting for him to call her bluff.
Flint nodded. "Then I will." He stepped past her and, just when she was starting to relax, ran the back of his fingers down her arm. Her eyes went wide and her breathing hitched. Crouching down by his bag, expression hidden, he pulled out his supplies and went to work, Valeria's eyes tracking him the entire way.
Harry's discomfort turned into frustration and incredulity. "What are you doing? We don't have time for this. We still need to get into Hermione's locker!" They both ignored him. As the youngest and most subordinate person in the room, he didn't have the power to make them listen to him either. It was maddening.
Despite everything Flint had said about trying to not be too obviously a Slytherin prank and needing to hurry and leave, a few words and long looks from Valeria had somehow turned his head to goo. Harry wanted to shake them both and would've if he could've gotten away with it without some sort of grievous injury. Why were they flirting and making extra work at a time like this?
Exchanging frustrated looks with Artemis as she stomped by, Harry did what he could to hurry things along. Terence cast a new illusion to make the walls look scarlet and gold again and tied it to the cardboard transfigured to look like the Gryffindor lion. As soon as Flint finished with his snakes and some extra coats of transparent paint, Harry sent the lion up to cover it, enlarging it and tilting it until it covered the lionfish underneath. The illusion wasn't perfect, with the color looking duller and smudged on the edges, but hopefully people would just dismiss it as shadows or grime. Harry never looked super carefully at the Slytherin snake on their locker room wall anymore, so it should pass at least for a little while.
Harry then helped Valeria create the long magical string, attach it to the lion on one end and the hinges of the door on the other, then drape it over invisible hooks up near the ceiling Artemis had created so no one would trip over the string and reveal the trick too early.
The clock on the wall began tolling the hour. Artemis jumped, the slant of her mouth going tighter as she tugged on the end of her hair. "Guys, we really have been here too long. It's a miracle we haven't been interrupted already. We need to get out of here."
"Valeria hasn't even helped me with Hermione's locker yet!" Harry protested loudly. Teeth grinding, he looked her way beseechingly.
Sighing through her nose, Valeria gave him a curt nod. "Alright, where is it?"
"But—" Artemis tried to protest, but no one looked her way.
Thank goodness.
"Over here." Flint put a hand on Valeria's back and directed her over to Hermione's locker. For the first time in weeks, she didn't shrug him off or hex him. That probably meant something, but Harry didn't have time to figure it out right now. He had other priorities.
Looking over his shoulder at Terence and Artemis, Flint looked smug as he told them, "You can leave now if you want. We'll follow when we're done."
"No way," Terence said staunchly. "I want to know if anything's in there too, but just in case, I'll go stand guard at the door. Harry, give me your invisibility cloak." He wiggled his fingers.
Pulling it out of his pocket, Harry tossed it over to Terence without looking away from Valeria.
"I'm not going to leave by myself," Artemis grumbled and rolled her eyes before moving closer to them. "Fine, this is what I've figured out so far about the spells on Granger's locker." She quickly explained.
Valeria nodded and cast something to confirm the remaining spell instead of trusting Artemis's words. "Huh," Valeria went down on one knee as she hovered her hand above the glowing lines of the diagnostic spell flickering on the surface of the metal locker.
"Can you open it?" Harry asked, trying not to bounce his knee too much despite his impatience.
"She's devious, your witch." From Valeria's tone of voice, it wasn't clear if that was a good thing or not.
"She—she's not my witch," Harry stuttered, trying to ignore the heat rising in his cheeks and a hot surge of want up his spine. She isn't mine, at least not yet, though maybe one day…. His breath hitched as the idea settled in his chest. Harry really liked the idea of Hermione being known by everyone as his—he liked it a lot.
Artemis leaned forward and pointed to a faint scratch on the locker door and a glowing purple symbol that had appeared after Valeria's spell that didn't mean anything to Harry. "See? This spell has something to do with sympathetic magics, but I'm not sure what to do about it."
"Yeah, I see it." Valeria's eyes narrowed. "Back up."
Going down on her heels, Valeria placed her wand on the floor in front of her knees and pulled a piece of chalk out of her pocket, writing a series of arithmancy runes down the side of the locker from latch to floor. Harry recognized less than two-thirds of them and, of those, only understood half of them well enough to explain what they were supposed to do. Valeria stabbed her wand at the locker and a brownish red marble of light hit the door with a sharp PLINK.
She paused for a moment, frowned unhappily, and then huffed, beckoning Harry over to kneel next to her. "Hold out your wand arm." Harry obeyed. Lips pressing tight, she took hold of his wrist and rolled up his sleeve almost to his armpit to expose his winter-pale skin. Muttering under her breath, she tapped the hollow of his elbow with the tip of her wand and then stabbed it towards the locker, sending a marble-sized sphere of pale pink light shooting over. The metal let off a melodic chime when it hit, a pleasant chord deeper than the first that vibrated through the air for several seconds. Harry didn't know what it meant, but it made the corner of Valeria's mouth quirk and her brow furrow with what looked like both vindication and disapproval.
She gave a soft huff before turning back to Harry. He had no warning at all when she twisted his arm, pulled, and braced it flat, locking it in an uncomfortably stiff line so she could begin writing a series of runes in chalk down the skin of his bicep and forearm. The chalk felt gritty and painful as Valeria dug it into his skin harder and harder to get it to leave marks, chalk not being made to write easily on skin. Soon red scratches delineated the lines of the runes just as much as the white powder. Harry tried to focus on something else and keep his winces to a minimum. It wasn't pleasant. At all.
"Hey, be more careful. You're hurting him!" Artemis protested, fisting the fabric of her robes as she leaned forward.
"It's fine," Harry blurted, though she wasn't wrong. It did hurt but... this was for Hermione. He could withstand more than a little pain if it was for Hermione. He would prove himself to be someone worthy of her trust and friendship again.
"He's fine." Valeria repeated dismissively. Her next rune drew blood on the downstroke and Harry had to hold his breath and clench all his muscles tight to keep the whimper from escaping that would brand them both liars.
"Go faster," Flint said, pacing between Terence standing lookout at the cracked portrait door, the tunnel to the pitch, and their little knot of people at the edge of the locker room.
"Go away," Valiera said back at Flint evenly, not looking up from Harry's arm.
When the runes were finished, Valeria took Harry's shoulders and moved him to face the locker head on. "Now watch me first. This is what I want you to cast while thinking about the door opening," she said, moving her wand slowly in a zig-zag and circle pattern as she chanted the words.
"Wait, what? Me? Why me?" he blurted out. She was supposed to be the one doing this, not him.
"Because we don't have time for me to finesse it and brute force could destroy the very notes you're hoping to find. You're very emotionally invested in this girl. Your magic reflects that and her magic will sense it and respond."
"What? How?"
"Don't worry about how, just focus on doing." Valeria poked him in the shoulder with a sharp fingernail.
Artemis moved forward to better see the runes on his arm, only for her eyes to go wide and her mouth drop open in sudden understanding. "Oh, that's clever," she breathed to Valeria. "Sympathetic magic indeed... though it's beyond my abilities to cast." She shook her head and leaned back.
Harry was still lost and even more intimidated. "What?" He wished someone would explain.
Artemis looked at Harry dubiously from the corner of her eye, wrinkled her nose, and twisted her mouth. Speaking to Valeria sotto voce, she said, "If I can't and even you can't, isn't this too hard for—"
"Harry can do it," Valeria said curtly, cutting her off with a hard look as she squeezed Harry's shoulder.
Harry wasn't quite so confident. He started to turn to face Valeria, bending his arm in the process. "What—"
"Harry," she snapped, catching his arm with tight hands and jerking it straight and taut again. "Don't smudge the runes!"
"Sorry, I just…." Harry swallowed his words and sucked in his breath, feeling small.
The corners of Valeria's mouth softened. "Stop overthinking it." Her hands squeezed his arm gently. "You can do it, Harry. You will do it. I'm not getting caught today and I'm not leaving until this locker opens and we walk out together, so it has to happen. We're doing this. Understand?"
In the face of her certainty there was nothing he could do but nod slowly.
She arched one brow. "So get to it."
Exhaling hard, he bowed his head in the face of her confidence, feeling unexpectedly grateful. Valeria's belief in him made his chest hurt, but in a good way. "Okay. Yes. Tell me what to do. I'm ready."
"Good. Watch closely as you'll only get one chance at this." Valeria repeated the wand movement and the incantation, having him mimic one without the other, careful not to bend his arm, until she was satisfied with his performance.
If he could forget where he was right now and why, it was almost like a normal session of Viper school. That practice made it easier to ignore the outside distractions of Artemis's doubtful fidgeting, Flint's anxious pacing, and Terence's occasional call of, "Still clear!"
"Ready?" Valeria finally asked, hand on his shoulder.
Harry chewed on his lip. "Almost I think, but show me just one more time?" He couldn't afford to screw this up and that final word was tricky.
Suddenly Terrence came pelting back into the room, a head floating without a body because of the invisibility cloak. "Gryffindors incoming!"
The words felt like taking a bludger to the chest. "No," Harry gasped. He was too close to leave now!
Flint's eyes swept over all of them. "Everybody out the tunnel to the pitch!" He pulled Artemis to her feet and shoved her towards the far exit as he scooped up the bags and tossed the straps over his shoulder.
"No," Harry repeated louder. "I can't. Please, we're almost in!" He sent Valeria a pleading look.
Nostrils flaring, she glanced towards the door, pressed her lips tight, and turned back to glare at him, sparks in her eyes. "Harry—"
"No," Harry ground his teeth and stubbornly glared right on back. He wasn't leaving without Hermione's notes and Valeria had promised him that they would do this together!
Eyes still locked with Valeria's, Harry saw Flint approaching from the corner of his eye.
"Too bad. We're leaving. Now." Flint reached out to grab the back of Harry's and Valeria's robes as if to yank them to their feet.
Before he could, Valeria broke away from Harry's gaze and growled viciously, slapping Flint's hands away and baring her teeth at him in warning. "No," her voice sounded angry and frustrated and Harry just knew that the emotions were his fault and he'd probably have to pay for this later. He didn't care, too relieved that she was actually going to keep her promise. She was staying.
Valeria pushed at Flint's knees, making him stumble backwards. "Get safe. I'm with Harry."
"But—"
Turning to Terence, she held out her hand, "Cloak."
"But—"
"Now!" she barked.
Expression twisted in worry and unhappiness, Terence yanked the cloak off his shoulders and swirled it onto Valeria's, making her disappear except for her head and outstretched hand. "Good luck!" he said with quiet desperation. Turning, he wrapped his arms around Flint and dragged his angry friend towards the tunnel. Flint's mouth opened wide in what looked like the prelude to a bellow when the sound of the portrait door banging open reverberated through the room, accompanied by loud laughter and whistling. Face going bloodless and eyes tight, Flint grimaced and then turned and raced with Terence up the tunnel and out of sight.
With a soft growl, Valeria curled herself up over Harry's back and drew the cloak over their heads and around his body so they were both covered. Harry curled up to make himself smaller, taking care not to bend his wand arm or smudge the runes. Despite Valeria's obvious annoyance, he felt enveloped in a protective cocoon.
As the Gryffindors stampeded into the room like a herd of rhinos and fear of discovery and retribution slid like ice through his veins, Harry was pricked with a flashback of trying to hide from Dudley and his friends last summer. Mostly he'd succeeded, but not always. He'd been found once and dragged out of hiding by a meaty hand on his heel, punched and kicked by the crowd merely because they were bored. Afraid of getting kicked out of school and having his wand snapped, he'd forced himself to fight back without using magic (though Dobby showing up a few weeks later had made that massive effort in self-control pointless), but hadn't had much luck with four-to-one odds and them all being three times his size. He'd managed to knock down two of them but had been flattened under a third when Aunt Petunia had called out a greeting on arriving home. Grinding his face into the floor a final time, they'd jumped up and left him there, taking the box of doughnuts and the new video game bought by Aunt Petunia up to Dudley's room.
When Aunt Petunia walked past, she'd paused at seeing Harry huddled on his knees on the carpet, gasping for breath, split lip dripping blood. For a second nothing had shown on her face. Then she'd sighed, her eyes creasing and lips pulling tight, before ordering him to get up and make sure to scrub his blood out of the carpet before Vernon got home from work or else earn himself a punishment.
He'd still been sent to bed without dinner because Uncle Vernon had accidentally knelt down on the wet spot to pick up a dropped piece of mail and gotten the knee of his suit pants wet, making him lose his temper.
In defiance, Harry had snuck a cup of water from the bathroom sink (being careful not to be seen by the loudly shouting boys still playing in Dudley's room) and used it to soften the rock-hard roll he'd hidden beneath his dresser the week before. Even with the water, his lips were so cut up and swollen that it had hurt to chew the bread, but at least that was pain for a reason—one he chose to endure so as not to go to bed with hunger gnawing at his belly along with the throbbing bruises—instead of the usual senseless violence he was forced to endure from his relatives.
He really didn't want to get beat up by the Gryffindors today.
As if sensing the direction of his thoughts, Valeria shifted, pressing herself against his back and resting her chin on his shoulder as she watched the commotion at the center of the room through the fabric of the cloak, engulfing him in warmth and connection, making him feel protected and almost safe. It was an extremely foreign sensation and all the more precious for that. Harry hoped she couldn't notice the way his eyes went hot and wet. He couldn't help the way he practically melted back into her. He was so unbearably grateful to not be alone.
Being with Valeria was almost enough to make him feel safe even if they were discovered. After all, beating up a twelve-year-old Harry was a much different prospect than beating up a sixteen-year-old spitting viper like Valeria. In fact, if he had to bet, Harry would put his money on Valeria escaping that encounter with the least amount of damage out of everyone.
"Oi! Don't start getting undressed yet!" Katie Bell shouted to general male laughter. From his position Harry couldn't see how many people were in the room, but it sounded like at least four or five. None of them seemed to have noticed anything wrong yet. "For pity's sake, I don't want to see your pasty chest and go blind or throw up all over myself!" Bell sent a bolt of yellow light zipping across the room to activate the privacy ward, causing a black curtain to drop down in the center of the room with a bang and attach to the floor and walls with a slurping sound that probably made sure no one could peek under or around it while still allowing sound to travel between the boy and the girl sides of the room.
It was a rather crude system and looked easy to abuse. Slytherin's privacy system was much better. Then again, Slytherins were better at most things compared to Gryffindors. In Slytherin, boys and girls changed in separate locker rooms and an alarm would've gone off as soon as it sensed Harry hiding on the girl's side of the room with the ward up, even under the invisibility cloak. It probably would've alarmed at sensing Valeria too even with her being a girl—since she wasn't on the pre-approved list of people allowed in the team locker room. Just as well Gryffindors were less cunning and paranoid.
Since Bell wasn't a reserve player like Hermione, her locker was in the central aisle, keeping her away from where he and Valeria were hiding under the cloak and making it less likely she'd trip over them or notice the runes chalked on Hermione's locker. Harry couldn't see Bell anymore as she opened her locker door, but just in case she decided to walk around while changing he closed his eyes, not wanting to see anything he wasn't supposed to.
Thankfully it didn't take long for Bell to change. "Aren't you slackers done yet? I'm ready to fly!" she called.
"Wait just a—" someone grunted loudly, echoed by laughter. The other boys started making hog noises until it sounded like the room was full of a herd of congested pigs. "Okay already! You can come over to the pigpen, Katie."
With a slurp and rustle the privacy curtain was dispelled and the Gryffindors grabbed brooms, slammed lockers, and tromped up the tunnel and out towards the pitch, leaving behind blessed silence. Harry started to shift, only to be stopped by Valeria. "Wait. Make sure they don't come back for something they forgot."
One of the Weasley twins—maybe George?—paused halfway up the tunnel and turned back. He cocked his head and paused, squinting at the lion rampant on the wall. Had he noticed something? Harry's pulse rabbited in his chest, as if his heart might burst out at any moment and bounce across the floor.
"Hurry it up!" Bell shouted.
Rolling his eyes and shaking his head, Weasley finally turned and continued on his way, breaking into a jog until he disappeared. "I'm coming, I'm coming!" his voice got quieter as he moved farther away.
After another tense minute Valeria finally leaned back, slid to the side, and let the cloak fall. "I think they're gone. I'm going to show you the spell one more time and then you are going to do it flawlessly, Harry. Understand? Whatever is in there we take and then hightail it out of here. No stopping to read. Okay?"
Pressing his lips tight, Harry straightened his shoulders and nodded, trying to project confidence. "Okay." It didn't matter if Artemis or even Harry himself doubted. Valeria believed he could cast it. She was trusting in him… and so he would do it. He had to do it.
He watched Valeria mouth the words and swish her wand one more time and then he pictured Hermione in his head as if she they were first years tutoring each other again, Hermione flying on her broomstick next to him lecturing about spell creation and the importance of using correct accent and pronunciation. Chest warm, he lifted his wand to cast the spell and pictured instead Hermione as if she was sitting on the bench right behind him, her legs and arms crossed and her foot swinging impatiently as she watched him with a sweet, encouraging smile, just waiting for him to open her locker.
Breathing in slowly, he cast the spell. As soon as he finished, the runes on his arm sank into his skin with a sensation similar to that of slamming your elbow on something hard—a painful jolt followed by a throbbing, burning buzz and tingle that made you want to rub it hard and curl into a ball with a whine. He forced himself to resist the impulse. Following instinct, Harry reached out and touched the locker door with his fingertips. He received a zap of static that made all the hair on his arms stand up as if trying to escape. When nothing else happened he shook his arm out and went up onto his knees. The latch lifted with a metallic scrape and the door swung open with a soft whine from the hinges. He had to lean back and shift his knee out of the way to let the door open fully.
"Well done," Valeria said softly.
Beaming with pride, he took a deep breath and began searching. Inside the locker hung Hermione's broom, flying leathers, and scarlet and gold uniform. Harry pushed them aside to search the bottom, but there were no papers or notes to be found, only a neatly folded extra uniform and spare robe in lighter-weight fabrics—probably something from the fall when it was warmer outside. Harry's mood plummeted. There was nothing else to be found—no books or scrolls or scraps of paper, no sign blinking, "Read me for answers!" or "Look here!"
"It has to be in here. It has to be." Eyes and nose burning, he desperately searched the pockets of the clothes but nothing was there but a few fluffy broken bits of eagle feathers from a quill. He slid his hands along the metal floor and walls of the locker, searching for something hidden, anything that felt out of place or disillusioned. He didn't find anything.
"Well Harry?" Valeria prompted, eyes flicking between the tunnel and door where someone could reappear at any moment.
Swallowing hard, stuffing down the shout of denial pressing against the back of his teeth hard enough to choke, Harry shook his head roughly and stood up. "There's nothing." The syllables scraped him raw as they left his throat. He hung his head, breath hissing past his clenched teeth as he wrestled with his emotions. He wanted to kick something.
Valeria's lips twisted. She didn't look surprised. She never had believed in Hermione the way Harry did. Touching his shoulder, she squeezed once—sympathy or pity, it was hard to tell right now—and tilted her head towards the door. "Time to go, then."
Harry appreciated that at least she waited for his jerky nod before moving again to quickly clean up all signs of their presence, reaching past him with her school robe wrapped around her hand to scrub away the runes she'd written on the outside edges of the locker. Harry moved out of her way and sat down heavily on the bench, fingers curling over the edge.
Sliding the fabric from bottom to top, she suddenly paused and tilted her head back, going up on tiptoes to stare at the empty upper shelf. A soft hum escaped her lips. Shaking out her hand to free it from the clinging fabric of her robe, she grabbed onto the side of the locker, stepped up onto the bottom to give herself a few more inches of height, and went up onto tiptoe, swiping her other hand across the top shelf and straining to reach the very back. Harry put a hand on her tensed shoulder and back to brace her, almost afraid to hope.
"Got it!" She dragged her hand out and stumbled backwards. Harry tried to catch her and tripped over the trailing edge of the invisibility cloak, falling onto the bench at his back. He would've rolled over it and cracked his head on the floor if Valeria hadn't tripped with him and stepped on his foot, anchoring his legs. Wincing at his smashed toes, he untangled himself.
Harry's attention turned to his now-throbbing rune-covered arm. It had scraped across the edge of the bench and the already abused skin had broken open and started bleeding. Yanking down his sleeve to absorb the blood, he blocked it from his attention, having a lot of attention ignoring pain after so many years.
Besides, he had more important things to worry about. "What did you find?"
Valeria tucked it into her robe pocket before he could get a look and turned to pick up the invisibility cloak. "Later."
"Valeria!" Harry protested. If she'd found something he needed to know now!
"Later!" Her voice cracked with authority as she swirled the invisibility cloak back around their shoulders and, grabbing Harry around the shoulders, shoved him towards the door.
AN: So I'm sorry updates are so slow. I'm trying! If it isn't obvious, I am starting to miss writing about older characters because I want to write some sexual tension and it doesn't feel reasonable or appropriate to make heavy UST for 12 and 13 year olds. No thank you. Ugh.
BUT! I have this head canon about sixteen or seventeen year old Harry and Hermione having a picnic and a snake goes down Hermione's shirt and Harry of course is so worried about her panicking and has to rescue her and coax it out from inside her shirt, AHEM, and somehow he doesn't yet know that Hermione has medusa curls and understands Parseltongue, so he and the snake are talking about how amazing she smells and how warm and soft her skin is as Harry is quickly and confidently unbuttoning her blouse, utterly clueless of the effect this is all having on her, and trying to coax the snake to get out through the hole he made by removing her shirt, trying to focus on keeping her safe and not on her golden skin and the moles on her belly and the hint of lace he is very much not thinking about no no, focusing on the snake and making sure Hermione is kept safe, and Harry thinks that Hermione is tense because she's afraid and is trembling because the snake might bite her, so he's petting her side, fingers stroking over smooth pale skin, trying to calm her down, asking her to trust him, promising to protect her, not realizing that she's not afraid at all and is so worked up because he is straddling her and bent over unbuttoning her shirt halfway and crooning and hissing against her belly trying to get the snake to slither out so he can get it away from her safely and his warm breath is travelling up her shirt and she could totally take care of the snake herself in like 2 seconds flat because she's a Medusa but she doesn't have the breath to say anything because Harry is being so MUCH! And the snakes on her head hidden by a glamour spell are going wild and whispering all sorts of UNHELPFUL suggestions in her ears about what she should do about this and are encouraging the snake to stay inside her shirt and be difficult for Harry to find. Harry has convinced himself that the whispers are hallucinations years ago and a side effect from the basilisk poison and ignores them for the most part, silly boy. And then the snake finally pokes its head out, so confused, and Harry grabs it behind the head and then reaches in with his other hand, sliding it around her side and up to grab the tail, trying and failing to ignore the way his wand callus accidentally catches on a bit of lace, telling himself that this is all still fine and innocent and surely Hermione isn't noticing anything weird and he's the one being weird about all of this because they are just friends and he's only trying to help her. Ha! Ha ha…. And he pulls out the snake's body and jumps up and moves the snake to a bush and turns around, only to find Hermione still sprawled out on her back with her shirt half-undone and her eyes dilated and cheeks bright pink as she stares up at him, chest heaving as she gasps for breath. Gulp. And then… and THEN… either it fades to black or much more likely for me the bell rings or something and she scrambles to put her shirt together and they both blush and avoid eye contact and return to the castle not looking at each other and whoever was betting on them getting together today screams at the sky and shakes their fists because it took them weeks to catch and train that snake and now they're out a ton of money and how can those two be so absolutely clueless because it is OBVIOUS that they are totally gone on each other and Harry is insanely possessive of Hermione and she's just as bad but more sneaky and much more vicious despite looking so virtuous (which won over the Slytherins and put her onto the top of the Can Kill with a Kiss prefect list every year) and they spend every free moment together and everyone knows that to cross one of them means that the other will hunt you down and make you wish you were dead and Harry hangs over Hermione's shoulder and presses up against her back to read her book with her all of the time instead of sitting next to her like a normal person would and Harry lets her eat off his plate without batting an eyelash when everyone else who has tried to sneak a bite gets a fork through their hand (Draco still has the scars). And all of Harry's Slytherin friends have totally figured out that Hermione is a medusa and think that Harry must've sensed it somehow and that's why he loves the medusa tapestry in the common room, but somehow Harry just… hasn't figured it out? Somehow? And Hermione hasn't told him because she thinks he won't like her as much or be such a close friend if he found out. Oh the angst! She's scared he'll think she's ugly and that the snakes are too freaky. And Pansy and Blaise are so frustrated because she's supposed to be so smart! And Harry is the boy who's been mooning over a tapestry since first year and not only isn't scared of snakes but actually likes to hold conversations with them. Harry is a freak. He loves freaks! And EVERYONE in Slytherin knows Harry's favorite thing is Hot Medusa from the tapestry. Well, his favorite thing after Hermione Granger… and because of Hermione Granger. But they're somehow both stupid idiots. Until one day years later all of the almost kisses and heavy looks and casual touches and standing too close all of the time but never admitting it finally come together into a crescendo and the clue train arrives at the station! And they kiss in public! And it is exultant and hot and amazing! But it took so long that no one made any money on all of the hundreds of bets over the years. Boo! Then Harry's Slytherin friends find out that actually Harry and Hermione aren't actually that dumb and actually got together years ago and just didn't tell anyone so no one could make money off of them and the big public kiss was actually because they'd just agreed to get engaged and get married after school ends. So suck on that, Slytherin betting pool. Ha! HEA. (and end.)
Ahem, returning to our normal author notes.
In good news I have the next 7000 words written and we are hopefully only a few chapters away from the climactic battle with the basilisk and Hermione waking up and proving that she has a spine of steel and is anxious to start kicking butt and taking names, especially when it comes to anyone daring to touch her Harry, including huge snakes, teenage megalomaniacs, and wanna-be future girlfriends (No touching him, Ginny! No!). Part one of my problem is that I've had no motivation to do much of anything for months, including writing, and part two is that I felt like I ran out of Potter fics to read and fell in head-first into Star Wars fics, so I've had ideas for all sorts of different Obi-wan fics running through my brain, but I am not somebody who can simultaneously write several fics at once, so my monogamous soul must push through this slump and finish the first arc of this fic before I allow myself to do any dabbling anywhere else. Which I will! I don't give up! Part three of my problem is that I keep changing my mind about who is going with Harry down into the Chamber. Will he be alone? Will a twist of fate bring Ron with him once again? What about Valeria and Flint? Draco and Blaise? Snape yes? Or Snape no? I still don't know! I've got ideas for ways to use any of the above, but am having trouble settling. Any hopes, dreams, requests? No promises, but drop me a note about your thoughts.
Next chapter we find out what was hiding in Valeria's locker. Hint: it isn't a page ripped out of a library book. (That always horrifies me and seems so OOC for Hermione.) Harry also runs into Snape and ends up alone in a classroom with Lavender Brown. Dun dun! Stay tuned!
