lxii. nameless thing
Harriet took each step down into the dungeons with a heavy, indignant huff.
This detention wasn't fair. It wasn't her fault Malfoy was a prat, it's wasn't her fault he couldn't show up to tryouts on time, and it most certainly wasn't her fault he wound up bloodied on the grass; Snape couldn't blame her for the berk's own spell rebounding off her shield and smacking him in the face. No matter where the blame lay, however, Snape seemed determined to ruin Harriet's mood, and upset anger heated her face.
It's not fair.
Her knuckles hit the Potions' classroom door with unnecessary force.
"Enter."
Harriet did as bid, knowing better than to throw the door open and let it bounce on the wall like Snape did, because she'd been cuffed upside the head enough times by Uncle Vernon to understand slamming things about wouldn't win her any points. She thought it might make her feel a bit better, but the detention hadn't even started yet, and the great bat sounded like he was already in a mood.
She found Snape standing behind his own desk at the head of the room, the space lit by the eerie, sputtering green flames coiling beneath an active cauldron, the sharp angles of the wizard's face rendered gruesome and grim as he leaned over the rim. He didn't look up at Harriet, instead concentrating on his work, two bottles Charmed to hover overhead and tip their contents into the bubbling stew at even increments as Snape stirred with one hand and incanted spells with the other.
Awkward, Harriet stood at the side of the desk, and her anger deflated without anywhere to direct it. "Err, professor—?"
He flicked his wand toward the entrance. The door crashed shut, stealing what little light from the corridor managed to sneak inside, and Harriet's heart kicked the inside of her ribs. The professor moved again, and a few of the torches bracketed to the walls sputtered into life.
"Sit, Potter."
Harriet sat at the closest desk, which—given the ink, quill, and parchment laid out on its surface—had been prepped for her arrival. Guess I'm doing lines tonight. She unfurled the parchment's top, and let out a huff as she read the first sentence already written in Snape's spidery script.
I will think before I act like an imbecile.
Snape looked up from his cauldron. "Problem, Potter?"
Glowering, Harriet met the man's black stare and said, "Not at all, professor."
"Then you had best reassess your attitude, as I will not accept any disrespect from you in my classroom."
Her anger sparked again, and before she could stop herself, Harriet blurted out, "It's not fair!" Knowing Snape's stance on fair, she rushed on to explain, "I didn't do anything! Malfoy attacked us!"
Snape sneered, the green light of the flame catching on his crooked teeth. "Oh? You did nothing? Nothing at all?"
"Nothing!"
"Then how is it Mr. Malfoy wound up on the ground with a broken nose, hmm?"
Harriet hesitated. Technically, she had done something, hadn't she? If not exactly what Snape thought, she still took out her wand and cast a spell. "Well, I—."
"Exactly," Snape said without letting Harriet finish her thought. "You did something, and for that something, you are in detention. If you think Mr. Malfoy escaped without his own form of punishment, then you are mistaken, and it is not your place to second guess how I discipline my students—be it you, or him."
"I didn't do anything wrong!"
"Miss Potter—."
"It's not fair!"
"Silence!" the professor snapped, his hand stilling on the cauldron's ladle. Harriet realized she'd been shouting, and color flushed her cheeks. All the same, she refused to lower her gaze from Snape's. "I told you, I will not tolerate disrespect in my classroom. Write your lines."
"But—."
"Write."
Biting back an irritated sigh, Harriet snatched up the quill, dunked it in the inkwell, and began to messily scrawl out the bloody line she was meant to copy. The first copy, and the second, resembled chicken scratch more than actual words, but by the time Snape returned to his potion and she reached her tenth repetition, the prickling in her neck subsided, color fading, and all that remained was the day's exhaustion. Harriet dabbed at her parchment, grousing over Snape, over Malfoy, over his stupid fat head and his stupid father buying the whole team brooms. All this drama, simply because he wouldn't try for his spot like a normal person.
"I didn't attack him, sir," Harriet said into the quiet, speaking softer than before. "I just used a Shield Charm."
The ladle made a solid thunk as it came to a stop against the rim, and Snape straightened, flicking his hair back with a negligent jerk of his head. He placed both hands on the edge of his desk and leaned forward as if he, too, was tired. "You are not in detention for attacking a student, girl. You are in detention because you did not think."
"I don't understand."
Snape's eyes narrowed. "Don't be an idiot. You have been at Hogwarts long enough to know there is a certain bias against our House, Miss Potter. You are not a Gryffindor; you do not have the luxury of acting first and begging forgiveness like those in the saintly house of red and gold. This time, it was an inner-House feud, and I was the one to come upon the scene; next time, it might be Longbottom you throw in the dirt, and it won't be me, but rather someone who goes running with the story to the Daily Prophet, smearing your name and reputation over a pointless schoolyard tiff."
"But I—." Harriet paused, fiddling with the quill. The Potions Master had a point, she knew. Sometimes, in primary, Dudley would chase her somewhere out of bounds, using his ruddy friends to herd her in, and by the time a teacher found them, it'd be her that was in trouble yet again. No matter how she argued, it always stood that Dudley was in the right, and she'd been caught red-handed. Perception was an important tool in learning to get along. "I didn't even mean what I did, though. It was just—an instinct."
"Which is all well and good in dueling, but you are not an animal, and you are not controlled by those instincts. You must hone them to obey your whims, not the other way around. I have no plans to stand as a character witness at your Wizengamot trial when you're charged for accidental murder simply because you acted on instinct." He snapped his fingers and a cutting board popped into existence, clattering on Harriet's desk, followed by a knife and a bundle of knotgrass. "Dice. Three-fourths of an inch."
Harriet took to her new task with better spirits, since dicing a plant beat scrubbing cauldrons or writing lines or whatever other unpleasant tasks Snape could whip out of his sleeve. "What was I supposed to do, professor? Just let Malfoy attack Elara?"
"Yes." Harriet wrinkled her nose and, without glancing at her, Snape rolled his eyes. "Black is an emancipated, proxy-Head of her House, and—to be frank—a girl. Draco would have come out much worse in this idiotic confrontation had she been the one with the broken nose and not him. After you and your little friends pulled your Quidditch coup—." A pointed look stopped Harriet from arguing. "Mr. Malfoy will be searching for ways to undermine your privilege and see you removed from the team. Him bloodying Black would have brought censure upon Mr. Malfoy."
Harriet chopped at the green shoots in front of her with more vigor. Stupid blond prat.
"I said dice, not pulverize, Potter…."
They worked in silence for a while, interrupted only by the cauldron's lazy bubbling, the study tapping of the knife on wood, and the occasional, soft winnowing of Snape's magic as he spelled diced knotgrass into the forming concoction. Harriet mulled over everything he'd said about Malfoy, and found she had very little taste for such things; honestly, she'd much rather just hex him and get it over with than muck about with mind games, but Professor Snape wasn't wrong. Hadn't it been instinct that threw her fist into Ron's mouth last year? Snape told her off then, too, and she'd been stuck elbow-deep in mucky cauldrons for most of the night.
No, Harriet didn't believe she'd be able to stand aside and let Malfoy curse her friends, but she could be smarter about it, couldn't she? She always lamented not being as clever or quick-witted as Hermione or Elara, but she didn't want to be a twit like Goyle or Crabbe, who always acted with their fists instead of their brains.
Sighing through her nose, Harriet kept dicing, pausing only to scratch at her neck and rub her tired eyes. "Professor?" she asked.
"What?"
"Why are there so many different Shield Charms? And why do they act funny against different spells?"
"Define funny, Potter."
"Well, I mean, I read books that talk about different Shield Charms, yeah? And they all say different shields react in certain ways against different spells, how some are better used here instead of there, and I don't understand how people know when to use those shields, cos' your opponent's not going to announce their attack, are they?"
"Some fools do, or as good as," Snape muttered. Pausing in his brewing, the Potions Master straightened and considered her question, tracing a long finger against his chin in thought. "Dueling tests not only your knowledge of spells, but how you read your opponent and interpret their spellcraft. In competitive dueling—or in true battle—many spells are incanted silently, and it is up to you to understand your opponent's body language, and consult Birch's Law."
"Birch's Law?"
Professor Snape jerked his head in a nod, then picked his black wand up off the desk to wave over his cauldron, a still, blue mist settling atop the liquid, bringing it to stasis. "Slytherin doesn't teach proper dueling, so I doubt he touches upon the principle much in his classes, but I know Professor McGonagall will be instructing you about the theory in your fourth year or so, if you dunderheads prove receptive to the concept. Birch's Law, also known as a spell's V.E.R.D, encompasses the properties of viscosity, elasticity, refraction, and density." As he spoke, Snape flicked his wand at the blackboard behind him, and his familiar handwriting crept across the dusty expanse. Harriet wriggled her spoiled parchment out from under the cutting board and started taking notes.
"Viscosity examines the magnitude of a spell's internal friction. Elasticity, simply put, examines a spell's propensity for bouncing, and is not as vital in rough dueling as a full comprehension of refraction, the dispersion of VIBGYOR—violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red—light. The colors descend the refractive index; violet spells are incredibly difficult to deflect, whereas red spells are not. Density, or the compaction of a substance, measures the energy amassed within a spell, and in relation to its viscosity and elasticity, affect its deflection. Spells of incredibly low density with a high refraction index and little elasticity can rarely be reflected and thus need to be dodged or intercepted."
Harriet scribbled as fast as she could, not interrupting, because Snape seemed lost in his own lecture, and Harriet didn't want him to change his mind about giving her this information—even if it did sound impossibly complicated.
"Different variations of the Shield Charm exist to reach and counter the various VERDs of dangerous spells, but reaching the higher refection index requires a faster vibration of energy, and thus tires the witch or wizard out faster should they continually incant powerful shields against meaningless assault. On the inverse, a witch or wizard on the offensive would be best served by an arsenal of spells relatively low on the refraction index and thus less powerful, but less likely to wear on the user before they can break their opponent's defenses. The ENT, or Elemental Negation Transformation, can supersede a spell's VERD, which is how a water shield low upon the refraction index can neutralize or counter a more powerful fire spell—." Snape paused, coming back to himself, and turned on Harriet, the muscle in his jaw working. "Is any of this penetrating your thick skull, or am I wasting my breath?"
"Some," Harriet admitted, stifling a tired yawn, still copying the information he'd thrown onto the blackboard. "I don't understand how anyone could think about all this during a duel, though."
"The key is memorization, Potter—and, should that fail you, knowledge of stance and color theory. Magic travels in certain ways through the body depending on the desired spell and its effects. Wizarding societies to the east refer to the various chakra points in the body, from which they theorize different spells originate, depending upon their elemental base. Harnessing these spells is done with different gestures and manipulations of the wand or hand."
Harriet scratched her neck, smudging ink on her collar. "Hermione once told me most Charms are tossed and hexes are thrown."
"A simplistic explanation, but suitable for your purposes. Charms are 'underhand,' whereas many curses and heavier spells are 'overhand,' yes." Snape exhaled and rubbed his forehead. "In simple terms, dodge spells colored green, blue, indigo, or violet. They will be more difficult, or impossible, to counter."
Harriet scribbled this final note at the bottom of her sheet, wanting to ask "What if you can't dodge?", but she guessed that's what the rest of his theory spiel had been all about. Maybe she could write to Mr. Flamel and ask him about it. He could probably explain with more patience than a tired Snape.
Setting the quill aside, Harriet folded her notes up, the ink quick to dry. Snape wasn't paying attention to her; he balanced a hip against the desk's solid lip and leaned upon it as he studied the board, lost in fathomless thoughts far beyond Harriet's comprehension.
"Professor Slytherin always throws my spells back at me," she commented, continuing with the rest of the knotgrass. Shifting, Snape returned to the cauldron and set about clearing his station. He waved a hand over the flame and it went out.
"Obviously."
"He does it on purpose. No matter how—how hard I throw my spells, his shield proves stronger."
The wizard produced several crystal vials from his robe pockets, then used the ladle to dribble the sickly mixture into each one until the potion was gone. "We did have a discussion about you using your head, did we not? Think, Potter. What would you have to gain by getting past Professor Slytherin's shield? Nothing."
"I am thinking! I just want to do it once. Just to prove to myself that I can." Harriet squeezed the knife's handle, remembering the utter terror that seized her when Slytherin had leaned over her the first time, hissing "Be ready to catch what you throw." She knew nothing good could come of besting her proud Defense Professor at his own game, and yet….
Snape considered her as he dismissed the cauldron back to the counter by the dripping sink. He appeared to be having a silent argument with himself, a losing argument, one he finally settled with an irritated grunt. "Don't concentrate on breaking through his shield. You haven't the repertoire to breach his defenses, even on a negligible level, but he will underestimate you. Part of dueling—not that Slytherin would ever engage in an honest duel with a student, Potter—is controlling and manipulating your environment, as well as your opponent. What is the floor in the Defense class made of?"
"Um?" Baffled by the strange question, it took Harriet longer than it should have to say, "S-stone? I think."
Snape pinched the bridge of his nose, then manually wrote the numbers "2.5" to "3" with the abbreviation "g/cm" and a little floating three on the board. It looked suspiciously like maths to Harriet. "Use Granger to help you find a spell whose elasticity reacts with this density. Aim for the floor at Slytherin's feet. Most variations of the Shield Charm protect only the torso and head, but his barrier will be powerful and extend to his ankles. Should you succeed in finding the proper spell, it will ricochet off the floor, dip below his shield, and hit him." Snape's eyes hardened again. "If you go through with this fool's errand, be ready to face the consequences of his displeasure."
Harriet took out her notes again, printed the numbers, and underlined Hermione's name twice, knowing that her friend could make much more sense of Snape's information than she could at the moment. Apparently, some spells bounced and some didn't, some were sticky and some weren't, and different shields blocked differently colored hexes and curses because of something called refraction. Her nose wrinkled as she considered how much more difficult dueling was than just pointing your wand at someone.
Well, it'd have to be, she thought, stuffing the parchment away again. Sure, I could block Malfoy easy enough—but he's twelve and doesn't know anything yet. If everyone could get by with a simple Shield Charm, I doubt Voldemort would have gotten anywhere at all.
Snape gathered the completed vials together, levitating several when his hands were filled. "Finish the knotgrass," the wizard instructed before swooping away, heading toward the storage cupboard on the opposite side of the room. Harriet heard the cupboard door swing open on its decrepit hinges, then swing shut—and she took the opportunity to quickly dice the rest of the grass shoots, doing a shoddy job, but finishing the task in seconds. She wanted to get back to the dorms and talk to Hermione before she went off to bed.
He won't notice if they're not all three-fourths of an inch, right? Right? He probably would, but hopefully not until Harriet was several corridors away.
Spotting a cleaning rag left on the professor's desk, Harriet hopped to her feet and went to grab it, thinking she should tidy her workspace before Snape returned—when a sound stopped her cold.
"Sso hungry…sso hungry…." A voice breathed, tickling at her ears, seeming to come from nowhere and everywhere—from Harriet herself, even. "Let usss kill…let usss rip…blood, yesss…let usss tasste—."
"Potter?"
Jolting, Harriet spun too quickly on her heels and fell against Snape's desk, bruising her back on the hard, unyielding wood. Surprised by her reaction, Snape did little more than stare at her, brow raised. "…Potter?" he repeated, voice less stern.
"I—. D-did you say something?" she asked, voice gone high, eyes wide. What had that voice been? Had she imagined it? Surely if Snape had heard someone whispering about killing someone he wouldn't be so composed. It was getting late, and though Harriet had never been one to hear voices before, Quidditch had tired her out, and stressing over her detention for the remainder of the afternoon had wrung her of what energy remained. The voice reminded Harriet of that nameless, terrifying thing in her nightmares, that harsh crooning clawing at the inside of her head, oozing from the dark places in the cupboard and between the floorboards at Grimmauld and from behind Professor Slytherin's every barbed word—.
It's not real, Harriet told herself, swallowing. It's never real.
She strained her ears, but she heard nothing aside from her heart's rapid beating and the very slight rush of Snape's breathing.
"Yes, I told you to leave your mess and get out of my sight." Snape furrowed his brow. "…what are you doing?"
"I—tripped," Harriet stuttered, as if the man hadn't just witnessed that for himself. "Do I—do I have detention again tomorrow? Professor?"
Scowling, Snape said, "No. I have better ways to spend my evening than minding disrespectful brats. I will forget the rest of your detentions for this incident. Don't make me regret my leniency, Potter."
"I won't." She scrambled to her feet, straightening her robes and glasses. "Can I go? Sir?"
The suspicion hadn't left his face yet, but Snape just frowned and crossed his arms, black robes falling around him like a bat's wings closing for the night. "Yes. Leave."
Muttering good night, Harriet bolted for the door—and she didn't stop running until she was safely shut inside the Slytherin common room, leaving behind the sullen Potions Master, the sickly smell of knotgrass, and all creepy, imagined voices whispering in her ears.
A/N: Harriet - "…You mean I can't just yeet the wand out of their hands?" Snape - "…no." Sorry for the gratuitous magical theory.