xlvi. in the morning
When Harriet finally stumbled upon Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, she was surprised.
She didn't know much about pure-bloods. What she did know she'd gathered from snatches of Draco Malfoy's incessant blathering, the typical behavior displayed by her dorm-mates, or Hermione descending into full-blown lecture mode. Harriet expected Elara—stiff-backed, well-mannered, and proper—to live in a house like the ones in Aunt Petunia's programs, somewhere flanked with columns and hedges and reflective pools. Draco Malfoy lived in a manor, and so did Pansy. Daphne resided in a castle, and Katherine Runcorn's family had a six-bedroom estate.
The townhouse in front of Harriet looked large but undeniably derelict, the kind of place one expected ghosts to come pouring out of like bats from a belfry. Light from Number Eleven and Number Thirteen on either side of the house illuminated defects in the walls, cracks marring the bricks, rust eating at the front rail, the stoop littered with years' worth of decaying leaves. Gargoyles leered from the upper balcony, and Harriet half-thought they might spring to life and attack her if she dared go knock on the door.
Well, the bespectacled witch thought to herself. Elara did mention the place was a bit rundown, and it's been in the family for generations. Looks like the kind of place a bunch of Slytherins would live—and it's not like I've anywhere else to go.
Swallowing, Harriet walked up the steps and knocked on the door.
It took several minutes before an answer came, during which Harriet continued to look over her shoulder and her heart raced, Livi wrapped tight about her torso beneath the Cloak's fluttering folds. The door creaked, the handle on the other side twisting, and Harriet let out a breath when Elara Black appeared at the threshold in her dressing gown, long hair falling past her shoulders, tired eyes squinting in the artificial light coming off Number Eleven's stoop.
Harriet yanked the Cloak off her head. "Elara!"
Elara gave one startled shriek of alarm when Harriet's head appeared out of nowhere and leapt backwards, tripping over her hem and landing in a heap on the rug.
"Oh, shite—!" Harriet divested herself of the Cloak and hurried to help the other witch to her feet. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to frighten you—."
She touched Elara's wrist, fingers moving over stiff skin—and her friend wrenched her arm back, stumbling on her own two feet. "It's fine," Elara said as she fixed her sleeve and cleared her throat. "I'm all right, but what are you doing here, Harriet? You scared me! It's barely past two in the morning!"
"Err, right…."
Harriet threw a harried glance out the open door before Elara shut it, plunging them both into the black, musty dark. She felt horribly claustrophobic suddenly, like the walls were inching nearer, or the high ceiling was coming down, ready to smash her into jelly. Sighing, Elara said, "Mind yourself. Come this way." Her hand found Harriet's, and she led the way through the dark, stopping at the corridor's end, where a set of stairs plunged downward. Dim sconces flickered.
They descended, entering a large, dated kitchen with several attached doors and an archway leading into what looked like a dining room, though sheets had been thrown over the furniture, hiding most of it from view. Instead, there was a table in the kitchen, a clunky, ancient looking thing with knife marks on the surface and feet like an eagle's. Elara turned a switch and gas lamps in thick, crystal fixtures woke, shining more light on the weathered space. A hearth dominated one wall, mantel blackened by a hundred years or more of fire and soot.
"It's not much," Elara said, a faint blush in her cheeks. "The house has been basically sitting empty for over a decade, really, what with my older relations getting on and their health failing—."
"I like it," Harriet said. It was the truth; Harriet never felt comfortable in places that were perfectly proper and orderly and clean like Aunt Petunia's house. The cabinets at Privet Drive had been made of composites, painted a light, sickly yellow, the window festooned in lacy curtains, the air always tasting of lemon cleaner and bleach. The cabinets and cupboards here were made of real, solid wood, darkened by an aged patina earned from years of use. Being below ground, there was no window, only those black doors, one of them wreathed by scorch marks. It was spooky, dusty, and odd; Harriet would always be fond of odd things.
Elara gave a crooked smile, pleased, and gestured at the table. "Well, have a seat. I'll make tea."
Harriet sat. After pulling out a chair, she looked at her hands and saw them shaking, the motion strong enough for Elara to see from her place across the room by the ancient hob. Harriet tossed the Invisibility Cloak aside and, slouching, divested herself of Livi's coils. "You can get off now."
The Horned Serpent hissed, tightening himself, then lowered his body to the floor, slowly circling the legs of Harriet's chair. Kevin poked a curious nose from his pocket, and Harriet took him in her hand, letting the golem twine through her quivering fingers.
"…are you okay?" Elara asked, voice breaking the quiet whoosh of fire beneath the kettle. "I know I asked you to come, but I didn't expect you to arrive in the middle of the night, hiding under your Cloak."
Harriet swallowed. "I—." What could she say? Livi had killed a man; Livi—her pet, her familiar, her responsibility. That wizard was dead, and he hadn't hurt her, hadn't cursed her or struck her. How could Harriet plead self-defense? Would the Aurors come for her? Men like her father? Maybe they'd take her to prison. Maybe she'd wind up in a cell next to Elara's father.
She didn't know if she should tell her best friend or not. What if—what if Elara threw her out? Harriet didn't have anywhere else to go. Instinct had driven her to run to Grimmauld Place simply because she'd been thinking about it for much of the night, and because Elara was here, but maybe Elara didn't want a murderer in her house. Was Harriet a murderer? She hadn't wanted to hurt the wizard, honestly, but what had he been doing there? Would she be kicked out of Hogwarts? Would they snap her wand? Maybe they wouldn't send her to prison. Maybe they'd just hand her back to the Dursleys and let them lock her up in the cupboard, all alone, in the dark, with no escape. What was she going to do? "I—!"
Harriet burst into tears.
Elara jumped and, unsure of what to do, she hurried to finish up the tea and fish out cups from the creaking cupboard overhead. By the time she settled the cups and pot on the table, Harriet's sobs had subsided into hiccups and wet sniffles. The other witch poured the tea and sat, dragging her chair closer. Harriet stared at Elara's flowing hair, her patrician features, and snorted—perhaps hysterically so—at how very pretty her friend was. Harriet was scrawny and more round-shouldered than she'd like, with unmanageable hair and crooked teeth and thick, ugly glasses. It almost seemed unfair.
"What's happened?" Elara asked, voice soft, yet urgent.
Again, Harriet swallowed, and when she found how parched her throat was, she forced herself to take a sip of tea—scalding her tongue in the process. The sting of it centered Harriet's mind as she forced herself to speak. "Livi…Livi killed someone."
Elara's eyes widened, and she glanced down at the snake in question, who was nosing her toes with interest. Harriet thought she might jump to her feet, might scream or demand Harriet leave, and though she braced herself for those possibilities, Elara did nothing. The Black heir drank tea and studied the saucer with a grim expression. "Was it…was it one of your relatives?" she whispered. "Did they hurt you? I can owl my solicitor, or I can find you a proper barrister, if you need."
It floored Harriet that the other witch could be so composed and rational. Sometimes she thought both Elara and Hermione were adults trapped in the bodies of preteens—until they did something to remind her of their own immaturity, like Hermione bickering with Malfoy, or Elara muttering insults behind Professor Selwyn's back. "I—no. No, it wasn't one of my relatives."
"Then who?"
"I don't know," Harriet confessed with a shrug. "I was—I didn't go back. To the Muggles. I…I ran away, I guess, last summer. I just—." She cleared her throat and fussed with her hands, irritating Kevin into sinking his small teeth into her thumb. "Ouch, pest, stop that."
"If you didn't go home, where have you been?"
"Well, I did a bit of traveling, stayed in some inns, maybe a night or two in a tent—."
Elara's hand came up, interrupting her rambling, and Harriet could see the mounting lecture behind her friend's colorless eyes. "What do you mean a tent? Have you been staying in a tent?"
"Yes, okay? I've been staying in a tent!" Harriet snapped, cheeks flushed. "And this bloke I don't know came waltzing in tonight, wand drawn, saying he's been looking for me and he's supposed to take me somewhere, and—and he tried to hex me with something, I don't know, and then Livi—."
He's dead. He's dead. He tried to kidnap me, and now he's—.
"He was looking for you?"
"Yes."
"What did he want?"
"I don't know." Harriet rubbed at her eyes and almost knocked her glasses off. "I was in the middle of the woods, miles from town, and he came in with his wand drawn. He—he was threatening, not that he threatened me precisely, but his whole manner and bearing, and—and he was swearing at me—." She lowered her voice. "He said something about his lord."
Elara paled. It could be nothing. It could be nothing more than the throwaway address of a pure-blooded wizard speaking of a Noble House's head, and yet it could have been everything. Harriet only knew of one wizard who creepy men trying to kidnap children might call "my lord."
Somewhere in the house, Harriet could hear a clock ticking—the low, deep ticking of a big grandfather clock—and portraits deeper in Grimmauld's confines murmured among one another. It was quieter than Harriet had expected. She'd been inside magical inns and shops and taverns, but she'd never been inside a magical home before, unless one were to count the tent—.
The tent.
Harriet leapt to her feet and banged her knee beneath the table, toppling her tea. Elara flinched.
"My things," the bespectacled witch gasped, horrified. "My things. I left all of there, with—. I didn't even consider—! They'll find the body, and they'll find my stuff and think I murdered him—." Maybe she did murder him. Maybe it was all her fault. "—and I'll go to prison—!"
She took two steps toward the door before Elara caught her by the arm, and when Harriet tried to shrug her off, Elara grasped the shorter girl's shoulders, holding her steady. "Harriet," she said, fingers biting down until Harriet stopped trying to run. "Harriet, listen to me. You said this wizard was looking for you, yes?"
"Yes!"
"He tried to take you somewhere against your will? To someone he called 'my lord?'"
"Yes, Elara, I need to—!"
Elara kept speaking, drowning out Harriet's out panicked blabbering. "Then who's to say there aren't more wizards out looking for you? You can't go for your things. It's not safe."
"But what do I do, then?! I'm such a bloody idiot—!"
"You stay here." Elara tapped her bare foot on the floor in emphasis.
"What if there are more wizards? What if they follow me here?" What if they want more than a quick word? What if they hurt you?
The taller witch shook her head. "They can't. The house is warded—I've mentioned this before. Just look how difficult it is for me to get owls, typically. No one can find you; you're safe, okay? You can't go for your things. We can—I can write my solicitor in the morning. Or the Headmaster. We'll write someone, and we'll figure this out. It was self-defense, and you're not going to be punished for that, Harriet."
"How can you be so sure?" she asked. Harriet felt tired—tired and miserable and scared. She would do anything for a measure of Elara's composure and confidence, when all she could do was lean into her friend's hands, swallowing the urge to sob again. I'm not a baby, she told herself, sucking in air, holding it in her chest until it burned. I'm not going to cry.
Hesitating, Elara pulled her into an awkward hug, and Harriet took advantage of the moment to squeeze the other girl tight. Elara wasn't one for casual touching, usually, and Harriet had found that she very much liked hugs. "We'll figure it out," Elara said once she stepped back. "We'll get some sleep, and in the morning we'll know what to do. It'll be better in the morning." She nodded, and Harriet nodded in turn, though she didn't think she agreed with Elara's assessment. She did not think morning would make anything better. "Come on, you'll have to sleep in my room. I haven't tackled any of the others yet."
Harriet followed her from the kitchen, back into the inky dark of Grimmauld Place, and as they tromped up the stairs beneath the leering gaze of strange, stuffed heads, she couldn't help but think this year might be even more complicated than the last.
A/N: I take some creative license in Grimmauld's design and layout.