lxiv. kill a king
"This has got to be the worst idea you've ever had."
Hermione, Elara, and Harriet stood clumped in the sunlit corridor beyond their Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, waiting for the door to finally open. Hermione spoke the thought aloud, just as she had for most of the morning, and for most of the Monday prior to today, shaking her head each time Harriet discreetly took aim at the hard, stone floor and fired another low-level hex at it. They were late for Transfiguration yesterday, having to stop by the infirmary after a forceful furnunculus struck Harriet in the face, and Hermione's best efforts to reduce the swelling proved fruitless. Madam Pomfrey didn't believe their excuse about a misfired spell, and Professor McGonagall gave them a tongue lashing for their tardiness.
Elara—who was not as opposed to the occasional spot of mischief—kept frowning.
"I can't believe Professor Snape would encourage this," Hermione whispered. "This is exactly the kind of thing he usually tells us not to do!"
"He might have a reason," Elara muttered. She eyed Draco, who stood nearest them, and though he kept sending murderous glances in Harriet's direction, he otherwise remained deep in conversation with Nott. Hermione knew he'd sent several letters home, and given how sullen his mood had been on Sunday and Monday, she gathered Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy weren't overly impressed with his whinging—or his being bested by a bunch of underage witches.
"How so?"
Elara shrugged, attempting nonchalance, though she kept wringing her hands inside her sleeves. "We know Professor Slytherin has…favorites." This was true. Several of the older Slytherins often boasted about earning their professor's regard, and though Hermione admitted to preening whenever professors praised her work, compliments from Professor Slytherin always carried a double-edged bitterness, scarcely given, and yet just as cutting as his insults. "Maybe this is Snape's way of making sure Harriet doesn't become a…favorite."
"Maybe this is his newest attempt to get Harriet murdered."
The witch in question huffed, readjusting her glasses, shifting her weight from foot to foot. "You know it was Quirrell who tried that, Hermione."
"Quirrell's actions do not preclude Professor Snape's." Not that Hermione truly believed Professor Snape meant Harriet harm, but a healthy dose of wariness would serve them all well—and honestly, what was the Potions Master thinking, helping Harriet find a way past Professor Slytherin's protego? It was idiotic. Did he mean to have her murdered? Expelled? Because Hermione thought both options a possibility when dealing with their inimical Head of House.
"He warned me against doing this, you know," Harriet said. "I think he called me a fool, and then said something about being ready for the consequences."
"Why are you doing this?" Hermione had asked before, naturally, and she received the same answer now as she had then.
"I just have to."
Hermione didn't understand. Trouble invariably found Harriet with startling frequency, but it was unlike the bespectacled witch to cause her own problems, and Hermione couldn't wrap her head around her reasoning. She didn't have to do anything; indeed, it seemed more imperative she do nothing, and should this risky plan work—which, Hermione wasn't convinced it would—Harriet would more than likely regret her actions. Purposefully seeking a way in which to strike a professor, even in a scenario where such a thing became plausible, would get her in so much trouble.
I just have to.
Why, Hermione wanted to demand, but she didn't, knowing how her temper rose when presented with a vexing problem. No answer was forthcoming, either because Harriet didn't want to explain, or couldn't. Perhaps, instead of Hermione simply not understanding, she couldn't understand; in contrast to Harriet, Hermione grew up well-loved and sheltered, hungry for knowledge but otherwise fed, safe, comfortable. If she'd been raised as Harriet had, questioning when her next meal would come, terrified her beast of a relative might turn around one day and make good on their violent threats, Hermione might want to prove she could best someone like Professor Slytherin too, if only to know she could. There was a powerful sense of security in knowing someone you found threatening could be—theoretically—defeated.
Lost in thought, nibbling her lip, Hermione almost missed when the door eased open, assisted by magic and a strong, sudden breeze. The students dressed in green and silver entered first—though Elara snagged Harriet's sleeve and held her back, whispering low and furious, saying something Hermione couldn't hear. Whatever she said, Harriet shook her off and marched into the classroom, shoulders rigid and head held high, taking her accustomed seat near the front. Hermione and Elara followed her, sharing apprehensive looks.
Professor Slytherin stood before his lectern, dressed in his ever-present robes of black with the fine, emerald lining hemming the inside. He waited, silent, wand in hand, for the final Gryffindor straggler to make it past the threshold, then he brandished his hand, slamming the door shut in their wake. The sudden, hard bang! stifled what little conversation had endured the transition from the hall to the classroom.
"Good afternoon, students."
"Good afternoon, Professor Slytherin."
He smiled, a bleak, ominous bearing of straight, white teeth. "Take out your essays on the etymology of the Conjunctivitis Curse. I will be Summoning them to me."
Papers crinkled and bodies shifted as Slytherins and Gryffindors alike shuffled through their bags to find their rolled-up essays. Professor Slytherin waited thirty seconds at the most before snapping his fingers, sending twenty or so scrolls sailing toward his desk at the far corner of the room. They settled in a tidy pyramid. "Now," the wizard said as he drifted from behind his lectern, robes rippling, the torchlight glinting on the shined silver buttons of his waistcoat. "We will be continuing with our practical studies, today examining the proper form and usage of the curse I had you write your essays on. If you did your research, performing the curse should be a simple task." A few students mumbled under their breath, uneasy, and Slytherin smiled all the more. "Let's see. How about…Longbottom. Yes, Mr. Longbottom, you're first. To the mark."
The Boy Who Lived made his way to the lion mark, and as he began what had become a standard ritual with the Defense professor, Hermione turned ever so slightly in her chair, looking at Harriet. The green-eyed girl glanced in her direction, and then away, watching Professor Slytherin and Longbottom, so Hermione looked to Elara instead. The Black witch didn't look away, but she always held her face so stiffly, Hermione couldn't tell what she was thinking.
Oh, I hope Harriet changed her mind, Hermione moaned in her own head. She prayed the reality of being in the classroom in front of the Defense Master had swayed Harriet from her path, and yet Hermione acknowledged the futility in such thinking. Harriet was not one to frighten easily. She carries around one of the world's deadliest magical serpents under her shirt, for Pete's sake.
Parkinson followed Longbottom, then Bullstrode, Finnigan, and Goyle. Hermione's turn came before Harriet's, and her concentration suffered to such an extent she could only make a half-hearted attempt at the curse, earning herself a snide comment from the professor and a few low snickers out of the Gryffindors. Elara went, putting forth a better—if no less disinterested—effort. Slytherin wiled his way through the accrued bodies, until finally—.
"Miss Potter," Professor Slytherin called, grinning again. "Our last participant today. To the mark."
Harriet stood, straightening her skirt. If she hadn't been looking for it, Hermione would have missed how the other witch's hands shook.
This a bad idea. A very bad, very, very, bad idea—.
The short walk to the green marker seemed to take an age, when in reality, Harriet found her place a few short seconds later and turned to face Professor Slytherin, her wand already drawn. Oh, but how she looked so small standing there, half her hair escaping the quick plait Elara had finished for her that morning, cardigan a size too big, robes slightly askew—and yet, Hermione couldn't deny a certain fluidity to her movements, an instinctual grace no one else in the class could quite mimic. Harriet just seemed to know where to put her feet on instinct, bending her knees, raising her arms. Hermione always felt awkward when she took the mark; if Harriet did, she gave no indication.
Without warning, the short witch took a breath and lunged forward, shouting, "Oculi irritare!"
A quick burst of mustard yellow light flew toward Professor Slytherin, who waited with his shield already raised. Hermione noted how his wand hand twitched inside his sleeve, and she knew he'd wordlessly adjusted his spell again, strengthening it against Harriet's oddly powerful attacks. Indeed, the Conjunctivitis Curse struck his shield, immediately slinging itself back at the witch, and Hermione held her breath, waiting for it to hit Harriet, when—.
Harriet dodged.
In the split second of time between the spell hitting Slytherin's protego and firing back at her, Harriet dipped below the curse, eyes bright, lit up in the ugly glow, and her arm darted forward, wand out—.
"Locomotor Mortis!"
The purple curse burst forth, the angle low, losing momentum against the platform, until it caught the stones properly, rocketing upward just as it dipped beneath the defined edge of Slytherin's transparent shield.
The wizard's legs snapped together, and in that instant, as he swayed, Hermione saw sheer, incredulous disbelief in the wizard's red eyes.
And then, fury overcame him.
The Leg-Locker Curse didn't even last a full second before Professor Slytherin broke it, stepping forward, into his next spell, and the whole of the classroom held its breath in shocked terror. The wizard's arm whipped down—not toward Harriet, as Hermione had expected, but rather to the side, the familiar light of a flipendo skidding right, spiraling, catching the stones just as Harriet's curse had so it could sail around the hasty shield the bespectacled witch had thrown up, striking her right in the side. The force of the spell threw Harriet off her feet and into Lavender Brown's desk.
"Harriet!" Hermione screamed, unable to help herself. How did he do that?! Is she okay?! Harriet tried that spell half a dozen times, but she couldn't get it to ricochet; how could he do it?!
"Sssilence!" Professor Slytherin hissed. It wasn't necessary; the whole of the classroom had descended into a deadly, terrible hush broken only by Harriet's short, quiet panting. She was quick to rise, mumbling a quiet apology to Lavender as the stunned Gryffindor picked her glasses off the floor and handed them over. "I do believe we are using the Conjunctivitis Curse today, Potter. Not the Leg-Locker Curse."
Professor Slytherin's voice hit Hermione's ear like oil, cold and slick and moments away from being ignited into a fiery cataclysm. The professor had his arms at his sides, pale hands clenching and unclenching in tight, furious fists.
"Well, girl?"
All eyes waited on Harriet as she swallowed, head down, eyes on the floor. "Sorry, Professor," she lied. "I didn't mean to. It was an accident."
"An accident—." The wizard took a silent step closer and Hermione stiffened. "An accident. Ah, yes…how very…unfortunate. An accident. Thirty points from Slytherin."
To their credit, none of Harriet's housemates batted an eye. Neither did the Gryffindors.
"Allow me to make one thing very clear to you all; I will not tolerate another…accident in my classroom. I am gracious in allowing you children to practice your craft upon a superior wizard such as myself, but I will not submit to being your practice dummy. You puling little—." He stopped himself, taking a breath. He ran a hand through his hair, straightening the mussed curl that fell across his furrowed brow. Hermione had never seen him come so close to losing his temper; the professor's constant, falsely genuine mask cracked enough to show a truly alarming visage behind it. "Do I make myself clear?"
Everyone nodded.
"Do I?"
"Yes, Professor Slytherin!"
Harriet said nothing. She looked like she was having difficulty breathing, one hand folded over her neck, the other arm wrapped about her ribs. Professor Slytherin flicked his wand at the classroom door, and it crashed open again, two of the torches going out in the draft. Smoke tinged the air. "Class dismissed."
The students hesitated, caught unprepared, but they moved a moment later, rushing to gather their things and get out of the room. Elara snatched up Harriet's things, seeing as the shorter girl had been the first one out the door, Professor Slytherin's gaze never leaving her until Harriet vanished into the corridor. Hermione and Elara rushed after her, and they needed only descend the stairs to the first floor, finding Harriet slumped alone on the steps, out of breath and sweating profusely.
"Are you all right?" Hermione asked as she knelt, worried. "He didn't break your ribs, did he?!"
"No," Harriet wheezed. "It's—. My neck."
Her neck?
Slowly, Elara set down their satchels and reached out, tugging Harriet's collar to the one side. The old curse scar was livid, skin raised, red, the white veins as stark as real lightning against her flesh.
That doesn't make any sense. Did the scar have some sort of reaction with the Knockback Jinx? It hasn't before, but then, Slytherin wasn't the one casting it then. It was Harriet herself, the spells coming off his barriers.
Groaning, Harriet lifted the edge of her shirt, displaying just enough of her side to reveal the fresh bruises already forming. They looked painful, but not serious. "Merlin," she grunted, jerking the fabric back into place. Her breathing leveled out as the pain faded in her eyes, color leaching from the raw, angry tissue about the curse scar. They could hear the rest of their class descending the stairs now, so they rose, Hermione keeping a hand on Harriet's elbow, making sure she didn't stumble. "Consequences be damned. He's such an arsehole."
"Honestly, Harriet."
Elara started to laugh.