xx. samhain
Life at Hogwarts continued on.
On the Tuesday that followed Harriet's strange detention, she finally plucked up the courage to approach Weasley after they'd been dismissed from Defense Against the Dark Arts. He scowled when she asked him to hang back a moment and so did the other Gryffindors, but they moved along and Ron remained, knuckles white from his tight grip on his bag's strap.
"What do you want, Potter?"
"I, err, just wanted to apologize. About Thursday. About, you know…." Harriet scratched at the back of her neck. She'd given her actions considerable thought over the weekend and didn't like that violent impulse hidden in her heart. It reminded her too much of Uncle Vernon's bellowing and Aunt Petunia's quick, sharp slaps. Elara had pointed out how a childish disagreement could—as Hermione said—fulminate into a full-blown rivalry, and Harriet didn't want enemies at school. She could swallow her pride, especially when she was in the wrong. "It wasn't right of me. I still think what you said was foul, but that's not an excuse for me to go hitting you. If I hit Malfoy every time he said something nasty about me or my family, I'd be in detention until seventh year. So, I'm sorry."
Ron was stunned. He gaped, wide-eyed, until he snapped his mouth shut and flushed. "That's fine," he muttered. "I was…the stuff I said about your parents wasn't on. Malfoy just…."
"Got under your skin?" Harriet supplied, and Ron nodded. "Yeah, I think he does that to everyone, even in his own House."
"He's a prat." Weasley snorted as the tension in his lanky body lessened, shoulders slouching and his face returning to its normal color. "You're alright, Potter—for a sneaky Slytherin."
Harriet grinned.
"Oi, Ron!" came a voice from the corridor's head. Neville Longbottom stood there with Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan. "Stop playing with the snakes and come on, mate!"
"I'm coming!" Ron called back. To Harriet, he added, "See you around, Potter."
"Bye, Ron."
Ron and Harriet didn't become friends, but sometimes they struck up amicable conversations and he didn't pitch a fit if they somehow wound up as partners in one of their shared classes. Harriet thought him far more pleasant than Malfoy or Crabbe or Goyle—and Neville Longbottom, who had it out for her even after Ron told him he'd forgiven her for their stupid scuffle. Resentment still curled in her chest whenever she looked at Neville, so being churlish and short with the Boy Who Lived was far too easy for Harriet.
September dribbled into October and the fantastic wilds of the rural highlands began to chill in earnest around the castle. Hermione and Elara still didn't speak much and didn't seem to have any friends at all aside from Harriet—not that Harriet was any better. She bickered with her dorm mates, arguing with Pansy about her hogging the counters in the washroom with her stupid make-up, or with Millicent about her cat purposefully clawing up Harriet's bedding. Their disagreement peaked when Set threw one of Pansy's powder poof things at Millicent's head when the burly girl wasn't looking, covering the dorm in white powder while Pansy shrieked and Millicent fumed.
Both girls ended up in the infirmary, Harriet with a black eye and Millicent with a split lip and neither inclined to tell displeased Madam Pomfrey what happened.
Hallowe'en, or Samhain as the pure-bloods in Slytherin called it, fell on a Thursday and their final classes for the day were canceled in favor of a holiday feast awaiting them instead of dinner. The older students waxed poetic about the marvelous treats served at past feasts and the first years were so excited to attend teaching became difficult. Luckily, Slytherin didn't have Potions that day, but Defense Against the Dark Arts proved a trial with a prickly Professor Slytherin supervising.
Harriet was uncommonly quiet for much of the day. Around her students laughed and whispered and kicked their feet in eager anticipation, and she couldn't help but remember that, exactly one decade ago, a madman no one would say the name of broke into her home, murdered her parents, and left Harriet for dead. Not at all a cheery thought to have, but it remained with Harriet, dampening her mood and the buzzing thrill enticing the others.
Sitting next to Harriet in History of Magic, Elara nudged her elbow and lifted a brow in silent question. Harriet just shrugged and went back to her notes, trying to concentrate on what Professor Selwyn was saying.
"—and 1689 saw the first proposal for the original International Statue for Wizarding Secrecy being signed into law by an early iteration of the I.C.W. The law would not be enforced until 1692—and would, subsequently, lead to the creation of the Ministry of Magic around the Wizengamot in 1707. As the Wizarding world shut itself off from the Muggle populace, we found it necessary to create more complicated councils and bureaus responsible for regulating magic and hiding its traces from the ignorant masses. Which of you can tell me a reason for the introduction of the ISWS?"
As usual, Hermione's hand rose and, as usual, Professor Selwyn looked past her to the other Slytherins. Malfoy lifted his own hand and Selwyn called on him.
"Yes, Mr Malfoy?"
Malfoy thrust out his chin as he said, "Well, Professor Selwyn, Muggles started killing witches and wizards, didn't they? Because they were jealous of our magic." He spoke in the affirmative and slanted a scathing look in Hermione's direction. "My father says the Muggles started burning themselves and magical kind alike, unable to tell the difference."
"Correct," Selwyn said, simpering. He came to stand before Hermione's desk. "Yet another example of Muggle stupidity. The ISWS would, actually, be the basis upon which our current Minister built his campaign for the MPA. He sited the irrational behavior of Muggles and the pathetic emotional pathos of Muggle-borns as reasons they had to be protected from themselves." The set of his face was unmistakably mocking as he watched Hermione, who had hunched down in her chair, embarrassed and trembling. A few Hufflepuffs had the same look about them.
Harriet drew air to speak and Elara nudged her again, harder, her blank gaze still pointed straight ahead. Right, Harriet told herself, slumping. Right. I'll get detention if I backchat Professor Selwyn and Snape'll skin me alive, probably. He was suspicious of her, especially after the "I-did-not-head-butt-Bulstrode-in-the-face" incident, which Harriet stood by, because she didn't hit the other girl first. Besides, I would just embarrass Hermione.
Throughout the rest of the lesson, Harriet kept glancing at the back of her friend's head, trying to think of what to say, and when the bell rang, she was no closer to knowing. She rushed out into the hall after Hermione, who dashed ahead of the others, and grabbed her arm. "Hermione—."
"Just—just—I want to be alone, Harriet," Hermione said in a high voice, refusing to lift her head as she kept her books close to her chest in a constricting hold. "Please."
She jerked herself free and left Harriet standing there, hand still raised, feeling unhappy and inept. Hermione raced from the corridor and out of sight. Elara eased to Harriet's side with silent grace and remained with her even as the others pushed around them, voices raised, excitement once again thrumming in the halls like lifeblood pumping through veins.
"The feast is soon," Elara commented.
"What about Hermione?" Harriet replied, glum. "She's going to miss it!"
"I'm sure she'll show up—and if not, that's her choice." Elara shrugged. "It's not as if she'll forget."
That didn't sit well with Harriet, yet she saw little other recourse. She nodded her head and shoved her glassed back up her nose. "I'm going to go check the dorms anyway, then meet you in the library before dinner?"
"Yes," Elara said. If she disagreed with Harriet's plan, she gave no indication, as carefully blank as ever. Harriet waved goodbye and set out. She didn't find Hermione in the empty common room or the first year dorms, much to Harriet's disappointment, so she settled for taking Livi from his hiding place beneath her bed so she could sneak him food at the feast later on. She worried about Hermione but wanted to give her friend the privacy she wanted. It was the only thing Harriet could do.
She hated how Muggle-borns were treated, how they were ridiculed and thought of as lesser. What did it matter? Harriet had grown up with Muggles too, just like Hermione, so what did it matter that she was a half-blood? What did it matter that her mum and dad were a witch and wizard and Hermione's folks weren't? Hermione was a witch just like Harriet, just like stupid Pansy and stupid Millicent, who punched even harder than stupid Dudley did.
Thinking about her parents only soured Harriet's mood further. With concerted effort, she forced a neutral expression onto her face and journeyed to the library, where she met Elara and buried her head in some half-hearted studying of seventeenth century Wizarding laws. They went to the feast an hour later.
Live bats swooped from the twilit ceiling of the Great Hall, swathes of glittering spiderwebs spun between the rafters, Hagrid's pumpkins carved in spooky grimaces and Charmed to cackle or spit little candle flames between jagged teeth. Sweets of every possible flavor or combination burdened the tables: pies bulging with candied fruits, tarts smeared in glaze, dripping confectionery goodness, clouds of spun sugar and chocolates stuffed with a dozen different kinds of cream. Small paper ghosts flapped and moaned as they drifted between the subdued candles as the real ghosts eyed them with derision.
As usual, the resident specters drifted away as soon as they spotted Harriet. The Bloody Baron stared at her the longest before he too lost his nerve and floated to a different table.
Harriet forgot her troubles for a time, sucked into the festive spirit with the rest of the first years. Distantly she remembered past Hallowe'ens, where Dudley would sit outside her cupboard with his back to the door and gorge on sweets until he made himself sick, and Harriet would be blamed for his lack of self-control. To think that she would be in a place like this, a place thrumming with magic, serving such food, while Dudley remained miles and miles away at Smeltings probably getting whacked by other students with their Smeltings sticks made Harriet's night.
Then the Muggle Studies professor slammed open the doors and came sprinting along the main aisle. "Troll!" he shrieked, face pale and gleaming with perspiration. "Troll! Troll in the dungeons!"
He fell in a dead faint, the sound of his body hitting the floor resounding in the silence that followed his proclamation. Then, the hall erupted.
Harriet slapped her hands over her ears in the resulting chaos, taken aback by the level noise. Students screamed, terrified, and Headmaster Dumbledore had to use his wand to bellow for silence before he could be heard. "Remain calm. Prefects, lead your Houses to your dormitories while the professors search the castle. Professor Slytherin, if you would see to your students—?"
Professor Slytherin didn't look all that pleased at being told to babysit, but he nodded in acquiescence. Harriet wondered why Dumbledore told him to stay behind—he's the Defense teacher!—until she remembered the Slytherin dorms were in the dungeons and quickly paled. Benches toppled when people stood in a surge of movement. Dumbledore banished the feast with a swish of his wand, and Professor Slytherin strode right down the middle of the table to reach the front of his House—not that anyone would have dared stand in the man's way.
Looking about, Harriet realized something she should have realized right away; Hermione was not there.