xxxvi. silvered want
If there was one thing Harriet couldn't stand, it was all the staring.
She didn't know how Longbottom could tolerate it, how he didn't start yelling at people to look the other bloody way when he walked down corridors, because Harriet felt sick to her stomach with the strange level of infamy she seemed to be experiencing. The whole of the school or at least the vast majority of it had been present for her poisoning, and they wanted to know why one small, twitchy little first year Slytherin kid almost kicked the bucket in the Great Hall. Hence the staring.
As May moved on, some of the staring tapered off, but Harriet still heard the whispering and it made her increasingly uncomfortable, so much so that she accidentally magicked one of the tapestries to tear itself off the wall and chase a particularly loud sixth year Hufflepuff through most of the school. Nobody could prove she'd done it, of course, but Harriet took that as a sign to keep to herself for a while.
The afternoon was warm—one of the warmest they'd had in quite some time, and Harriet couldn't bear the idea of grinding her nose in revisions for another minute, even if Hermione and Elara seemed perfectly content with studying until their eyeballs fell out. Harriet wasn't having it.
So, after promising she wouldn't wander off alone, Livi fast asleep and coiled about her torso, Harriet headed outside where other students congregated in the sunshine and borrowed one of the training brooms from Madam Hooch. The brooms didn't go very fast and only rose three feet off the grass, but Harriet enjoyed the weightless sensation, the pull of wind through her hair, and the quietness found while toddling about the grounds on a broom that could be outstripped by passing butterflies.
Harriet caught sight of a familiar form heading toward the Forest's edge and zoomed nearer.
"Hagrid!" she called out, hopping off the broom at the half-giant's side, setting off a small cloud of dust and dirt from the path.
"Hullo, Harriet!" he boomed, grinning, reaching out with his free hand to pat her shoulder—almost driving Harriet into the ground. In his other hand he held a suspiciously stained sack, and upon seeing where Harriet's attention had wandered, he shrugged. "Goin' to feed the Thestrals. Got a new foal who needs lots o' protein."
"Can I come?"
"'Course," Hagrid responded—then paused. "Err, well if you don't mind a bit o' blood, I should say. Thestrals love raw meat—can't get enough of the stuff. They're scavengers by nature and harmless."
"I don't mind."
Harriet followed Hagrid on her broom since his stride was exponentially longer than her own. Thin saplings surrounded the path, and though they'd entered the treeline, Hagrid mentioned they wouldn't be going into the forest proper.
"Nothing would hurt you in there, though, not with me around," Hagrid boasted, swelling with pride. "Lots o' misunderstood creatures, you see, but they demand respect and space, which is what I keep havin' to tell those Weasley twins—but those two never listen, and I have to keep chasin' them off for their own good…."
Hagrid went on at some length about Ron's rascally brothers, though he sounded fond rather than scornful, and soon they came upon a partial paddock in a clearing where Hagrid set the sack down.
"You like flyin'?" Hagrid asked as Harriet hopped off her broom again and found a seat on the rickety paddock fence. An older student might've landed flat on their face, but Harriet was light enough for the barrier to hold. Livi hissed in his sleep and tightened fractionally, causing Harriet to wiggle to loosen his hold around her middle.
"Yes!" she replied with a wide grin. "I wanna try out for the team next year, if my marks are good enough."
"Marks?"
"Yeah. Professor Snape said you have to have all E's to play on the House team!"
Hagrid gave her a funny look and mumbled something into his beard that sounded like "sneaky sod," then picked up the sack and entered the paddock. "Your dad used to play Quidditch back in his day."
"You mentioned that when we first met."
"Did I? Guess I'm fergettin' things in my old age." Hagrid chuckled. "Damn fine Chaser he was. James flew like he'd been born on a broomstick. I think he won every game he played for Gryffindor. Gave me a shock seein' you flying about. You look just like James at a distance."
Hagrid opened the sack and drew out the bloodied haunch of what looked like a deer, or maybe a small cow. He strode a few paces from Harriet toward the trees, twigs and fallen branches snapping under his great boots, and seemed content to wait for whatever it was he was feeding to come to him.
Harriet tried—and failed—to picture her own father on a broom, playing Quidditch, wearing gold and red instead of silver and green. She wished she could've seen it for herself. Would James have taught her how to fly? Would he have gotten her a broom when she was little? Or would her mum have protested? What was Lily like? Did she play Quidditch too? Or did she watch Harriet's dad and cheer for him?
A sound shuffling nearer the clearing drew Harriet's attention to the paddock again. She blinked as she saw a black, skeletal horse coming over to the half-giant, fluttering its leathery wings and kicking its hooves in anticipation.
"Hey," Harriet said. "It's those spooky horses!"
Hagrid stumbled as if she'd assaulted him and the bloody leg in his large hand hit the dirt. The horse squawked in indignation but lowered its head to eat all the same, stripping bits of meat from the whole with its tapered beak.
"You c—? You can see 'em?" Hagrid choked as the face behind the beard paled drastically. Another horse came to investigate the commotion, seeming to slip right out of the sparse shadows accrued about the base of the wispier trees.
"Of course I can," Harriet said—then she recalled the time she'd tried to point them out to Hermione, and the other girl had given her a puzzled look, saying there was nothing there. "Is that, err, odd?"
Hagrid fumbled with the sack and drew out another leg—chicken, maybe—and proffered it to the new horse, who trotted over and happily accepted the food. "No, it's just—. They're terribly misunderstood creatures, Thestrals. People get scared of 'em, because you can—. Blimey, Harry. I'm probably not the best—. Well, you can only see 'em if you've…if you've seen someone pass on."
Harriet winced at the nickname before the meaning of Hagrid's words sank in. If you've seen someone pass on. "Oh," she replied, swallowing. She only knew two people who'd died, and while she knew she'd been in the house that night, she hadn't realized she'd been close enough to actually see what'd happened. Merlin, Harriet thought, morose. No wonder I'm so weird.
"Would'cha like to feed 'em?"
He extended one of the plucked drumsticks to Harriet and, nodding slightly, she clamored off the fence and came nearer. The horses—Thestrals—watched her with curious attention, cocking their heads like birds, turning ever so slightly to keep her in sight. Harriet wrinkled her nose at the feel of lukewarm meat in her hand and Hagrid grinned, though his watery sniffle ruined the effect.
"Go on. Mind your fingers—they're harmless as lambs but can get a bit too excited. And remember to wash your hands real good after we're done…."
Two more Thestrals wandered out of the forest, plus the foal Hagrid had mentioned; long-limbed and clumsy, it would've knocked Harriet over in its rush if Hagrid hadn't caught her by the scruff of her neck. They were undoubtedly strange creatures, imposing and cool to the touch, and Harriet could see how carnivorous horses only visible to those who'd seen death might be scary to others—but the Thestrals proved as friendly as Hagrid said, and running her hands over their bony snouts reminded Harriet of petting Livi or other snakes.
As the Thestrals crowded around her and nosed her hair and licked her fingers clean, Harriet thought about her mum and dad and wondered, grimly, which of them she saw die as a toddler. How had she survived? Headmaster Dumbledore said she was a mistake, that Voldemort—the Dark Lord—had meant to kill her as well, but how did she live while James and Lily died? They'd been a full-grown wizard and witch, and Harriet had just been a little baby. She didn't understand.
Harriet watched the scrawny foal lean against its mother as the mare pestered Hagrid for more scraps and she wished, more than anything, that she knew what having a family was like. All she had for comparison were the Dursleys, and they were no more her family than some rocks or the Thestrals themselves. She remembered Aunt Petunia would coo over Dudley and fix his hair and sometimes Harriet would do the same to herself, pretending she had a mum who cared about her scruffy haircut and ugly clothes, though the imitation never lived up to the real thing.
"Hagrid?" she asked, brushing one of the Thestral's scraggly manes. "If you could have anything at all, what would it be?"
"Eh?"
"What do you want more than anything else?"
"Hmm," he pondered, scratching at his wiry beard as he did so, leaving behind bloody scraps. Harriet would've pointed that out had the tallest Thestral not wandered over and plucked the pieces out himself. "Watch it there, silly beast. What was the question? What would I want more than anythin'? Not quite sure, really. Always wanted me a dragon, though." His tone turned wistful as he gathered the empty sack in one hand. "Fascinating creatures, dragons, but they don't live wild no more. They get into too many scrapes with the Muggles and the Ministry can't keep up."
Harriet's mouth quirked as Hagrid gushed about his favorite scaled creatures, and in the back of her mind, a familiar sly, cold voice spoke.
"The Mirror of Erised is enchanted to show your most ardent desire, not the petty wants of everyday life. Many a wizard and witch have been fool enough to let the images depicted therein drive them to madness."
"He will use any means he can to return himself to our plane."
She gathered the broom and Hagrid led the way back to his hut, where he let Harriet wash her hands and served a spot of afternoon tea before they found places on the porch to sit and enjoy the spring weather. The May sun felt like heaven upon Harriet's upturned face, but a growing unease suffused her when she thought about that mirror in the Headmaster's office, and no matter how warm the weather grew, Harriet felt cold.