lvi. summer's end
Bang. Bang. Bang.
The noise resounded in the house's confines each time Elara's trunk came down hard on a step. Harriet, twiddling her thumbs in the kitchen, listened to the sound and was torn between amusement and being horribly anxious as she watched Snape—seated on the other side of the table—grow progressively more irritated.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
"Will you pick that up?!" the Potions Master suddenly bellowed, startling Harriet and, from the sound of squawking out in the hall, several of the Black portraits. Elara must have heard the man, but she did not, in fact, pick the trunk up, and continued her downward trek through the main corridor, the basement steps, and then into the kitchen itself. She dropped the trunk in question by Harriet's next to the Floo, and though she didn't quite meet Snape's eyes, Elara smirked as she took her seat.
She's going to land us both in detention as soon as school starts, Harriet thought, though she couldn't quite hide her own smile. 'Ten points for blinking, Miss Black. Is that air you're breathing, Miss Potter? Ten points.'
"If you two are quite done," Snape sneered, his arms crossed and expression stern. Harriet bit her tongue before she could protest that she had come down as soon as he told her to and hadn't been the one slamming her trunk on every step. "Term starts tomorrow. I expect you to have all of your things together and be ready to depart at precisely ten tomorrow morning."
"I don't understand why we can't Floo directly to Hogsmeade later in the evening," Elara said. "It doesn't make sense to me."
"Do you assume you're the first person to ever consider the thought?" Snape snapped. "You and every other pure-blood's get wishes to Floo directly into the village—which any Dark wizard seeking to extort money from an old family would know, wouldn't they? Do try to use your brain. Special dispensation is granted only to those living within a set distance of the village, otherwise all students are expected to ride the train for security purposes, whether they want to or not."
Elara crossed her arms and said nothing else.
"Your petulant attitude is tiring, Black."
The witch might have risen to the bait had Harriet not chosen that moment to cough, loudly, into her hand. Snape glowered at both of them.
"As I was saying…you will leave precisely at ten. Floo access opening onto the station is restricted as it is in Hogsmeade—again, for security purposes, not that I should have to explain myself to you. Access between Grimmauld and Kings Cross will be open for precisely five minutes. Should you miss that window, you are not to leave the house—and should your excuse for doing so be anything other than the spontaneous loss of a limb or an act of God, I will have you scrubbing cauldrons for the year. You will send your wretched bird to Hogwarts if you miss the train."
Said wretched bird scowled at the Potions Master, if birds could scowl. Cygnus and ancient Percival both perched on the metal bar above the Charmed ice chest, seeming to listen in on the conversation. "Yes, professor."
Elara muttered under her breath again, which Snape took exception to, and while they snarled at one another for their perceived insults, Harriet slipped out of her chair and meandered back upstairs. She had her pajamas and a change of clothes for the morning laid out on the foot of her bed, but otherwise her room at Grimmauld Place was empty once more, and it made Harriet a tad nervous. Would she be able to come back next summer? What about Yule?
Sitting on the mattress' edge, Harriet toed off her tennis shoes and Livi slithered out from his nest beneath the bed to investigate.
"We're going to Hogwarts tomorrow," she informed the serpent, watching as he inspected her shoes, then turned his attention to her, violet tongue flickering.
"The ssstone placcce?"
"Yes." Harriet scratched her chin and sighed. "Remember we talked about you having to stay in the dorm from now on?"
The frustrated noise coming out of Livi proved that yes, he did in fact remember that particular conversation and had not warmed to the topic since they'd first discussed it. Harriet and Elara had dug out a few old books on owl training that had Charms to prevent biting, and they planned on showing Hermione to see if the brilliant witch could figure out how to adapt the Charms to a snake—not that Harriet was thrilled about virtually muzzling her familiar. It would let her take him out of the dorm, however.
Professor Dumbledore worried about the students and Harriet knew Livi wasn't a pet, not really. He was a wild animal, magical enough to have 'equivalent human sapience' as Hermione would say, and the thought of cursing him—even with something meant to protect them both—sat heavy and uncomfortable in her middle. Livi lifted his head and Harriet reached out to rub the scales on his nose, small fingers skirting around the glittering gem set in his skull.
She wanted Livi with her. Harriet couldn't forget what had almost happened mere months ago, when Professor Quirrell—out hunting for any likely candidate who could get him the Stone—had nabbed her from the dungeons and dragged her to Dumbledore's office. She almost died. Livi could have protected her had she not left him behind. What she'd witnessed in the woods had been nightmare worthy, but she vastly preferred how things had turned out to being kidnapped or killed or—worse.
Staring at her shadow, wondering where Set had gone off to, Harriet mulled over the events of her summer and considered the approaching school year. Back to Hogwarts. She didn't know if she was excited or nervous.
The thumping returned, much lighter than before, and Elara came stomping into the room, throwing herself onto the bed next to Harriet with her arms crossed and her face set in a scowl. "I hate him," she declared.
Thinking of Uncle Vernon and the Dursleys, Harriet shrugged. "He's not so bad."
Elara turned her head to glare at Harriet, who smirked, and the older girl relented, returning her gaze to the ceiling. "No, I guess not. He is insufferable, though."
"I bet you even people who like Snape probably hate him a bit. It's a requirement."
They giggled, then settled, Harriet helping Livi onto the bed so he could curl into a heap against her side. Touching his scales again, she hummed in thought. "What d'you think this year's going to be like?"
"Normal, hopefully."
"D'you…." Harriet hesitated. "Do you think that—that I'll be in danger there? With all this stuff happening this summer? Is the Dark Lord behind it?"
"I don't know, Harriet, truly. I do know we'll need to be cautious and keep our eyes open. Nobody suspected Professor Quirrell, remember?"
"Yeah." Unnerved, the bespectacled witch pulled Livi closer and cuddled his coils as one might cuddle a puppy. "I don't like it. Wasn't the whole point of them making a spectacle of Longbottom to make sure I wouldn't get this kind of attention?"
"In theory. But like Snape said, you're a trouble magnet."
"Am not!" Harriet nudged Elara's side. "Wait, when did he say that?"
"After you left the kitchen. He gave me a lecture on keeping our noses clean and our heads down."
"That's odd."
"What? Him not wanting you to get into any mischief? He does that a lot if you've noticed."
"Well, now that you mention it—but, no. Trouble magnet. That's a Muggle euphemism, isn't it? It's odd that Snape would use it."
Elara's lips pressed into a line, her hand pushing Livi's tail away without thought so she could sit up. "Not really. He's at least a half-blood, so he might have a Muggle for a parent, or be Muggle-born for all we know."
"No," Harriet gasped, shocked by the idea. She suddenly had an image of Snape lounging in Aunt Petunia's house watching telly and found it absurd. "How do you know that?"
"There's no 'House of Snape,' either active or defunct. He could be foreign, of course, but I know he attended Hogwarts, since he was Head of Slytherin for two years, and only Hogwarts alumni are allowed to be Heads of Houses. The Blacks keep reams of logs tracking the different Houses through the years, going back past the Norman Invasion, and in 1544, when then the old Circles formed the Wizengamot, there were three hundred and thirty-three recognized Houses. Uncle Cygnus had me review or at least skim most of it, and I never saw a House of Snape. Logic dictates he's most likely a half-blood."
"You and Hermione read way too much," Harriet grumped, falling back into the bed, her legs hanging off the edge. It did make sense; she'd heard Snape say Muggle things before, little snippets she guessed he could have picked up over the years from his students. It was an interesting tidbit of information she tucked away to consider later.
"You read just as much as we do—just not the same content."
"I like Muggle fantasy novels. Wizard fantasy novels are weird—they follow these jumps in logic I just don't get and how they describe Muggle stuff is absurd."
They chatted for a while on inconsequential things, until Elara yawned and Harriet's eyes grew heavy, though she felt anxious and uneasy about their upcoming trip back to Hogwarts. The older witch returned to her room, leaving Harriet to settle Livi in the mess of blankets under the bed and change into pajamas. Once finished, she tapped the rune on the base of her dusty lamp, plunging the bedroom into darkness. Moonlight puddled around the curtain bottoms, and in the colorless glow she saw Set flick and curl.
Harriet glowered at the shadows as she flopped into her blankets, dropping her glasses onto the night table. "Fat lot of help you were yesterday," she snapped. "I almost got kidnapped and—I don't know—harvested for fingernails!"
Set continued to flicker and curl, remorseless, amorphous, and Harriet sighed. "Fine."
Pulling the sheet up to her chin, Harriet let her blurry gaze rest on the ceiling, splashes of light from the Muggle street and threadbare moonlight coloring the dusty boards. Set made shadow puppets in the blotches, and though Harriet wanted to stay irked, she smiled at memories of funny cartoons dancing on the cupboard's roof, her childish giggles earning Aunt Petunia's suspicion—and her fear.
Harriet fell asleep and dreamed she was at Hogwarts. She dreamed of making a potion in Snape's eerie classroom, her desk the only one there, the stirring rod clasped tight in her small hand as Harriet counted the turns. Someone banged on the door and snarled, "Let me in," but Harriet concentrated on her work, leaving the door alone.
She wouldn't remember the dream when she woke.
A/N: Finallllllly going back Hogwarts! The beginning of this year was not supposed to be that long, but it had a lot of very important exposition that sets up quite a few events for this year and the next few. Especially that little Wizengamot tidbit *cough, cough*