2. THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS
but be the serpent under't - w. shakespeare
xli. bruises on the soul
The broom scraped along the floor and the sound echoed in Grimmauld Place's oppressive silence.
In Elara's limited memory, the house had never been as quiet and doom-laden as it was now; when Cygnus had been in residence, a breath of life wheedled through the place, and no matter how thin and sickly it'd been, Elara recalled a comforting weight to the occasional wet coughs or the raspy mutterings he shared with the portraits of his forefathers. Now, there was nothing. Aside from Kreacher, Elara Black was alone.
The bristles scratched the wood and she sighed as she lifted the dust pail and dumped its contents in the rubbish bin. The bin coughed, sputtering out half the dirt and earned a tight-lipped glare from Elara. A month had passed since her arrival at the London townhouse and most of her efforts had gone into fixing the damage accrued during her extended absence at Hogwarts. Kreacher, still moping over Cygnus' death, was of no help at all, and Elara didn't have the patience or the wherewithal to chastise him for it.
Giving up for the moment, Elara leaned the broom against the peeling wallpaper and dropped onto the divan below an open window. Outside, a transparent veil of magic created generations before Elara's own birth hung between the house and the sidewalk, blocking the Muggles' view of the property, glittering slightly in the afternoon sunshine. A paltry breeze crossed the sill and stirred the mottled curtains, and though she wished for it to stay, the breeze retreated and the air stilled again. Elara resigned herself to melting in the muggy heat.
Sprawled on the divan, she stared at the ceiling and its weathered paint, then raised one hand before her face. Elara peeled off the sweaty glove, then, with deliberate attention plucked at the buttons on her sleeve until she could yank it down to her elbow. The light played over her pale skin and the scars that started about halfway up her forearm gradually thickened to their worst around her wrists, looking like ugly, scarlet bangles embedded in the flesh.
Elara poked the scar sitting over the tendon that ran into her thumb and the digit trembled.
She sighed louder and dropped the arm onto her middle, then went about shedding her remaining glove and rolling back that sleeve as well. Unsightly as the scars were, the weather was inexcusably hot and she was alone. Matron Fitzgerald would've called it an "Indian Summer," but Elara was fairly certain that was the incorrect term, which didn't surprise her in the slightest. Bigoted and cruel, Matron Fitzgerald had also been a bit of an idiot.
A Doxy made a conspicuous show of tip-toeing back into the draperies Elara had de-infested the day before. She glowered at the tricky devil and, not for the first time, wished she knew and could perform the proper cleaning spells. Doing everything the Muggle way had quickly lost its charm.
Muffled flapping brought Elara's head up and she watched her owl Cygnus come winging through the open window, making a brief circuit around the dilapidated office before landing on the divan's arm. He pecked at her groomed head affectionately and Elara sent her fingers questing over his dark wing, feeling the sun's heat still trapped in the feathers.
"Thank you," she said once Cygnus proffered his leg for her to take the attached letter and package. He hooted, apparently finding her response acceptable, and took off through the open door to find his water dish. Elara pried the red seal open on the letter and proceeded to read. It was from Hermione.
Dear Elara,
I hope your holidays are going well. I know only a month has passed, but it seems inexorably longer, doesn't it? I miss you and Harriet and Hogwarts terribly.
I'm sorry if I've been remiss in sending a letter earlier. Mr. Malfoy keeps us to a very strict studying schedule and I have not had the opportunity to use the owlery much.
Elara snorted. Between the lines, she read, "Lucius Malfoy is a prig and he's not allowing me to use the owls." Hate was not a feeling she often relished, but Elara thought she might hate Lucius a little more each time she received another notice of investigation involving her emancipation from the Ministry. He could do nothing, and yet he persisted because he had the money, the time, and the desire to simply pester Elara constantly.
Have you had the chance to review Prof. McGonagall's summer assignment? It deals with the principles of Gamp's Laws in the Vera Verto spell, and though I've looked up the spell and its usage on aves, rodents, et al., I question the efficacy of the third string in the Conjuration wheel, wherein the inverted symbol for truth seems out of place—.
Grinning, Elara quickly skimmed through what amassed to several rambling paragraphs concerning Vera Verto, a spell they'd be learning next year, and its applications. It seemed Hermione was determined to place better than Elara in the upcoming year, and Elara looked forward to a bit of friendly competition.
Farther down the parchment, Hermione changed topics.
I've attached Harriet's birthday gift and would really appreciate it if you'd send it on for me. I'm—here a word had been delicately scratched out—concerned about her. I know we haven't much discussed our home lives, but I also know you understand a bit more of her situation than I do, and I've come to think possibly her—again, another word was blackened by ink—situation might well be a product of that unfortunate Hallowe'en.
Elara hummed low, finger tapping the parchment. Harriet never spoke of her relatives, but she had the distinct misfortune of being friends with a pure-blood and a pure-blood's overly curious ward. The Noble House of Potter was notorious for producing single sons for generations; James to Fleamont to Charlus—though Elara hadn't traced the House farther than that, as the Blacks had married into the Potters at that point, which coincidently made Elara and Harriet third cousins.
Regardless of their relation, Harriet's father was known to have married "outside" the other families, which basically meant he'd married a Muggle-born. Harriet had mentioned her "aunt and uncle," and from then on Elara realized the bespectacled witch lived with Muggles on her mother's side, and she hadn't seemed particularly pleased when summer rolled about. None of them had.
Elara contemplated the little package in which Harriet's present was contained and pursed her lips. She'd written to Harriet twice earlier in the month and both times Cygnus had returned rumpled and irritable, unable to deliver her messages, and if Elara hadn't known better, she would've said Cygnus hadn't been able to find Harriet because she was moving.
Whether or not that's true, I still hope she's well. Mr. Malfoy made a comment in passing about her the other day—Elara's eyes narrowed—and I confess that I don't actually know where he might have heard about Harriet, unless Draco mentioned her. That seems unlikely, as he's far more prone to badmouthing you and me than Harriet.
Scoffing, Elara read Hermione's salutation and folded the letter again. She tucked Harriet's present into her skirt's pocket and took her time getting up, content to remain languid and close to the window's relief for a minute longer before returning to the main house's sticky heat. When she rose, Elara abandoned the office as a bad job for today and returned instead to her own bedroom across the hall.
The scantily clad swimsuit models scowled over the top of the parchment sheets covering their permanently stuck posters with, though she ignored them and went to the desk, sitting on the crooked stool. Balled up parchment and bits of old quills lay on the surface between heavy, dry tomes concerning Ministry and Goblin laws that Elara found incredibly dry but endeavored to slog through nonetheless. She had a solicitor, Mr. Piers, but her late great-uncle had said it was stupid to place all of one's faith concerning financial matters in another's hands, and Elara agreed.
Even so, Elara was still twelve and had to look up every third word or so written in the legal texts, making her studies very slow going.
Shuffling through the desk's top drawer, she retrieved a fresh sheet of parchment, then uncapped the inkwell and picked up a quill. The edge proved worn down and bent at the tip, but when she looked about for her Charmed trimming knife, she came up empty.
"Kreacher?" Elara called, waiting. When no response came, she huffed and tried again. "Kreacher!"
The old house-elf appeared with a crack of noise and a glower. "The blood-traitor's daughter is calling Kreacher?"
Elara pinched the bridge of her nose and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. "Yes. Do you know where my trimming knife is, by chance?"
The elf snapped his knobby fingers and the little blade appeared in his hand.
"Oh. Thank you."
She reached for it—and suddenly remembered her arms were bare, and Kreacher's bloodshot eyes froze on the ugly blemishes before moving to her face. Elara felt as if he could see more than just the tarnishing marks on her flesh; Kreacher looked at her like he could see the very bruises on her soul and didn't like what he saw.
Elara snatched the knife from him and quickly turned away, shoving her sleeves back into their proper place. "That's all, Kreacher. Thank you."
She heard the house-elf's shuffling, uneven gait as he left the room, mumbling all the way to the hall and the stairs beyond. Elara gripped her wrist and shut her eyes, willing the creeping shame from her thoughts as the fixtures on the wall rattled and dust shook from the ceiling. She took one breath, then another, then opened her eyes and finished buttoning her cuffs.
Silly of me, she told herself. Kreacher was bound to see them eventually, and he already thinks I'm about as useful as pond scum. It's not as if his opinion can get any lower.
Elara returned to her seat and trimmed the quill, tidying the desk before she wrote out another brief letter to Harriet and tucked it into an envelope. She had her own gift meant for Harriet's birthday, of course, and she found it before putting the velvet pouch into her pocket with Hermione's, then rather than setting out for the kitchen where Cygnus would be resting, she made for the stairs to go to the library on the second floor.
The Black library was no misnomer; dubious Charms expanded the space far beyond what the walls should have constrained, making it a maze of dark shelves towering in the dimly lit space, crowded with more books than one could ever possibly read in their lifetime, or so it felt like to Elara. Hermione would've squealed with delight upon seeing a room like it. Elara, though she liked books and reading, found it was a bit too…eerie.
She turned the lever for the gas lamps and waited for the wan light to brighten, sniffling on the untold decades worth of dust and dirt as the shelves came into view. There were no windows, as the sunlight could damage most of the older volumes, and several of the upper rows Cygnus had told Elara specifically not to touch. The books whispered to one another, exchanging secrets, quieting only when Elara walked down their rows.
Squinting at the bindings, she wished she could use her wand and took a volume off the shelf to hold it closer to the light.
"What are you doing, girl?"
Elara flinched and almost dropped the book. Above the empty hearth, the portrait of a clever wizard with thin brows and a pointed beard watched as she clutched one hand to her chest and tried to slow her racing heart.
"I'd appreciate it if you didn't purposefully startle me."
The portrait scoffed. "Perhaps you should pay better attention to your surroundings."
Ignoring him, she popped open the book to a random page and squinted.
"Interested in animal husbandry, are you?"
Elara's gaze jerked itself back to the portrait. "What?"
The wizard smirked. "Well, considering you're perusing an eighteenth-century collection on Charms concerning the best ways to breed livestock, I thought you might have a passing interest in the subject."
Elara turned a page and, upon seeing a rather detailed sketch, realized she did indeed have a book on animal husbandry in her hands and snapped it shut with an embarrassed grunt.
"Now, because I so dearly love listening to my own voice, I'll ask again; what are you looking for, girl? I've had precious little to do in here but look at the bindings since my great-grandson thought to move me from the bedroom. I know where everything is."
Elara desperately wanted to snap that hanging in a bedroom shouldn't prove more exciting than hanging in a library but shut her mouth and swallowed the words. "I'm looking for a locater Charm, of sorts, for a letter. Something either I could cast or could ask to be cast at the postal office in Diagon Alley."
"Why?"
"To locate someone, of course."
The portrait gifted her an unamused look before jerking his chin in the direction of the southern wall. "Look there. Between the curio cabinet and the shelf bearing the Black crest. The collection of communication magic and indexes should still be there."
"Thank you."
Elara went to the bookcase in question and began scanning the heavy tomes. She had to pull most off the shelf and check one by one as few actually had titles printed on the binding, and most proved to be outdated editions on owl care. She did learn a great deal about how magical owls first came to be bred and used—apparently, the early wizards thought to breed eagles, and that ended with a few too many missing fingers—but Elara pushed on and searched more.
After dragging a particularly fat volume down, another, smaller book stuffed between its pages slipped out and hit the dusty floor. Elara frowned at it and picked the book up after setting the other one down, running her fingers over the leather cover stained a deep emerald, the silver snake gilt starting to flake about the edges.
"Golly, wonder if this belonged to a Slytherin," Elara said with a soft snort as she thumbed through the yellowing pages. The diagrams inside were not about owls or their migration patterns; Elara caught glimpses of moving models demonstrating harsh, slashing hexes and something called "Fire of the Fiend," strange, distorting animals bursting from the characters' wands in rolling swirls.
Elara stuffed the book into her roomy pocket and returned to the shelf. She eventually found what she was looking for, a simple Charm placed upon a letter that made it easier for the owl to find recipients traveling or moving abroad, and Elara copied the spell down on a piece of parchment before returning the volume to its proper place. She headed down to the kitchen.
Once there, Elara shrugged on the outer robes she'd hung by the hearth and straightened her skirt, then beckoned Cygnus over to her. "Kreacher?" she called as the owl settled on the crook of her arm. "Kreacher, I'm stepping out for a few minutes, and I—."
A small jar sat on the otherwise empty table and caught Elara's attention. It was an innocuous thing, really, and yet it hadn't been there when she'd come down for lunch earlier, so Elara paused in her preparation to depart and picked the jar up. Like much of the house, dust coated the glass and the label was so faded the letters were almost illegible, but Elara managed to read, "Derma-Bond. For scars."
Elara stood, frozen, and stared at the jar without a word. The house-elf came sneaking into the kitchen through the slim door that led to the boiler room and sneered when Elara caught his eye.
"Thank you, Kreacher," she said with a small, stiff smile.
"Kreacher doesn't know what the blood-traitor's daughter is talking about."
"No, of course not." She stowed the jar away in her robes, given that her skirt pockets were already stuffed with letters and presents, an extra pair of gloves and the book out of the library. "I'll be back soon."
Kreacher sniffed and dragged himself back into the hot boiler room. Elara turned with Cygnus to the hearth and scooped a pinch of Floo Powder out of the silver jar on the mantel. Tossing it into the dying fire, she said, "Diagon Alley!" and disappeared in a whirl of soot and green fire.