lxxiv. thief's honor
In the wake of the Dueling Club's first—and most likely last—meeting, Hermione had come to two conclusions.
One, Gilderoy Lockhart was not nearly as talented and successful as he presented himself, and the realization punctured Hermione's budding infatuation like a lance through a balloon. Not that she'd ever admit to that infatuation, of course; it was embarrassing enough to think she'd found him so riveting and gallant when the wizard couldn't defeat an opponent not holding their wand or Vanish a golem before it attacked a student. How absurd.
Secondly, Harriet Potter had a problem with impulse control.
She wasn't thoughtless, no matter what Professor Snape said. No, if anything, Harriet was quite thoughtful; she always answered her letters in a timely manner, asked after people's welfare, helped first-years who needed assistance with directions or homework, and lent a hand when Hermione cleaned up her texts in the library. What Harriet lacked was faith in authority—and Hermione didn't mean the Ministry or the Headmaster. Subconsciously, the other girl simply had far too much difficulty understanding she didn't need to always act, whether to help someone or protect or attack another, because she'd never had someone to depend on in her life. The thought of it wrenched Hermione's heart.
If Elara hadn't noticed her that evening, if Harriet had stepped up and commanded that cobra away from Longbottom—oh, Hermione could visualize the resulting chaos with ease, and it sank heavily in her middle like a stone. Soon enough, rumor would have twisted Harriet into some sort of terrible, bigoted monster, and witnesses would have sworn they saw her egging the snake on, urging it to attack Neville or even Lockhart. Azkaban hadn't been an idle threat given by the Potions Master.
Hermione had several hypotheses on how Professor Slytherin would react if he discovered Harriet's ability, and few had favorable conclusions. Elara once made the joking comment that Professor Slytherin and Harriet might be related, and naturally Hermione disagreed—but, in the privacy of her own thoughts, she did have to wonder if Lily Potter had been indiscreet with Slytherin's father, Slytherin himself, or perhaps Minister Gaunt. Parselmouths didn't appear out of nowhere—not in Britain, at any rate. There was a connection between Slytherin and Harriet, though the exact nature of that connection had yet to be revealed.
Harriet spent much of the weekend quiet and withdrawn, sitting with them at their favored table in the common room but contributing little to the conversation. Truly, Hermione wished she had the right words to comfort the other witch, that she was as empathetically competent as others and could inherently know what Harriet needed—but Hermione found herself far too distracted by thoughts of the Chamber and their maturing Polyjuice to give Harriet her full attention.
It never strayed far from her mind. There hadn't been an attack for almost a month, but Hermione little doubted the perpetrator was still at large and simply biding their time. Harriet and Elara tried to understand her urgency—but they couldn't, because they were of magical blood from magical families, and they didn't feel the same sting of revolted eyes on her person, didn't hear upper years like Accipto Lestrange and his cronies whisper, "Hopefully the Heir does a bit of House cleaning for us." The first time Hermione heard the word Mudblood she'd thought it absurd sounding, and yet with each spat repetition, the word started to weigh heavier and heavier upon her, as if by the mere fault of birth, she carried with her all of magical society's problems, and couldn't wipe the stain off.
Mudblood.
Hermione shook herself and forced her mind back to the present. She, Elara, and Harriet stood cramped together in the stall in Myrtle's loo, looking down at the softly simmering potion perched on the toilet—the clean, empty toilet Hermione purposefully disconnected from the pipes so Myrtle wouldn't flood their brew. Harriet still looked queasy at the idea of drinking anything concocted in a loo, though Hermione assured her she came by every day during lunch and after dinner to make certain nothing fell in or disturbed it.
"We have a…bit of a problem," Hermione said as she nibbled her lip and fussed with the ladle, making sure the wings didn't clump and burn at the bottom.
"Is there something wrong with it?"
"Not at the moment, no." She lowered the ladle, hooking the curved end on the cauldron's lip to keep it in place. "Right now, everything is coming along perfectly. It's the next step that will prove—difficult."
Elara and Harriet grimaced in unison.
"We need bicorn horn and boomslang skin—male boomslang skin, I should say, as the text specifies the green coloration—." Hermione breathed out, frustrated with her own urge to prattle. "Boomslangs aren't rare, per se, but they aren't exactly thick on the ground in the Scottish highlands."
Harriet snorted.
"The skin has to be imported from Africa and isn't readily available to the public. It has to be ordered through shop inventory catalogs, issued against a registered license to an apothecary, alchemist, researcher, Healer, or Potions Master. We could, potentially, attempt to attain some through the Muggle world—but we haven't the contacts for that, honestly, and it could take—."
"Months," Elara finished for her, folding her arms against her middle, eyes downcast in thought. Harriet leaned on the stall's partition, but Elara steadfastly refused to touch anything in the loo, even with her gloves on. "We'd also run into difficulties getting the skin here, since it's not like Muggle post can be delivered to any of our homes, is it?"
"Exactly—and the bicorn horn is a restricted substance. Demand often outweighs supply because it's needed in so many different potions, and the Ministry has issued several mandates against bicorn poaching—or so I saw in my research."
"I don't know what a bicorn is, but do you think Hagrid has one?" Harriet asked. "If he does, will he let us have a horn? We don't—err—have to kill it for that, do we?"
"No, a bicorn sheds its horns, but only once a year, and only in the spring. Even if he has a bicorn, he won't have kept the horns himself."
The trio shared worried glances. "What d'you think we should do, Hermione?"
"Well…" the eldest witch hedged, uncertain how her idea would be received. "We're in luck, because we have all the ingredients we need right here at Hogwarts. We simply need to—erm—borrow them from…Professor Snape's private stores."
Harriet turned green and Elara shut her eyes. She grimaced.
"Hermione, the wizard knows where Harriet and I live during the summer. He sleeps in the bedroom above mine. On the off-chance he didn't have us expelled, he would make our lives very, very miserable if we were caught."
"You won't get caught," Hermione asserted. "None of us will get caught—and I will do the stealing."
Elara's brow rose as she opened her eyes again. "Are you certain this is worth the risk? The chance we'll find out anything worthwhile is already slight, and this complicates things, Hermione. A lot."
"I will do it without you if I must. It's important," Hermione replied, squaring her shoulders. Harriet had yet to say anything, and Hermione knew by the look on her face that stealing from Professor Snape might prove more than she could stomach. "We won't get caught," she reasserted, speaking softer. "I promise you. But, you needn't do anything you're uncomfortable with, Harriet. I won't ask that of you."
Harriet gave a weak smile and fiddled with her spectacles, pushing them farther up her nose. "It's okay, Hermione. I'll do what you need."
A wash of gratitude went through Hermione and she squeezed Harriet's arm in thanks. "Now, we just need an idea of how to break into Snape's stores. He keeps them in his office, warded—you remember, don't you? We saw the room some weeks ago, and I specifically remember seeing bicorn horns in a wire basket by several other keratin-based appendages. The shape of them is quite distinctive"
"Err…'keratin-based appendages?'"
"Hair, horns, scales, fingernails."
"Oh, gross."
Hermione dragged a hand through her errant curls and tucked the worst offenders back behind her ears. "Really, the problem we have is opening the portrait. Professor Snape didn't use any magic when he pulled the portrait aside; I assume the wards are simply keyed to his touch. If we mean to get into his stores, we can't simply try to break in at night or even while he's busy in classes, not unless we can figure out what type of ward he's laid on the portrait, and I doubt we'd be able to figure it out without extensive experimentation—the kind of experimentation that would be impossible to undertake without his noticing."
"So…what you're saying is, we need Snape to open the door first."
Grim, Hermione nodded. She knew how ridiculous that sounded. "It's the only way."
"Bloody hell. We might as well just ask for the detentions now."
A small, despondent part of Hermione agreed and thought she'd bitten off more than she could chew with this aspiration. Though she didn't have the same experience with the wizard as Elara and Harriet, she recognized enough of Professor Snape's character to understand he was not careless enough to leave his stores open, or his office unattended. Careless was perhaps the very last word Hermione would use in describing the Potions Master—right alongside forgiving, kind, or merciful.
"What do you expect us to do, then? Hex him?"
"Oh, nothing that drastic, Harriet. Really."
Elara made a thoughtful noise, a furrow forming between her dark brows as Hermione watched her think. "I believe…I have an idea."
Harriet perked up. "Yeah?"
"Yes." She smiled the kind of narrow, secretive smile that both worried and filled Hermione with anticipation. "I think I fancy a bit of run…."
x
Three days later, the morning dawned cool and gray, thick mist crawling over the grounds from the lake's shores to lay heavy and indolent against the grass. Bird calls echoed in the Forbidden Forest, the perennial, mundane avians drowned out by the louder and far more sinister Augurey cries. If one listened closely and turned their ear toward the dirt trail meandering near the tree line, the sound of three pairs of feet striking the wet earth could be heard, as could the short, asthmatic breathing of a witch very near passing out where she stood.
"We're almost there," Harriet muttered as the trio traveled along the final stretch, the cold air searing in their lungs, the main courtyard waiting just ahead. The shorter witch barely panted and had yet to break a sweat, while Hermione herself felt clammy and overheated despite the chill weather, and Elara had long since subsided into strangled wheezing. "I really don't like this bloody idea."
Hermione couldn't say she much liked it either. Success pended on far too many variables—like Professor Snape's disposition, placement of the items they intended to st—borrow, and whether or not he left the portrait open when he turned from it. Elara asserted the simplest plan of action would work best of all, and she wasn't wrong, at least not entirely so, because they had already witnessed Snape opening the storage room before. That was how Hermione saw the ingredients in the first place. They needed to replicate the situation, which was why the trio now came stumbling up toward the castle far too early in the morning with Elara half-supported by Harriet and Hermione's anxious hovering.
Professor Snape was in his office, they knew. They had checked—discreetly, or as discreetly as they could—for the past few mornings, and this was the first time they'd heard the rustle of cloth and scritch of a quill beyond the shut door. Elara tripped once they'd slipped over the entrance hall's threshold, and Harriet—being shorter and already holding much of the other girl's weight—went down in a tangle of cursing limbs.
Hermione almost cursed as well, jumping forward to drag a very pale and woozy Elara upright while Harriet jumped to her feet sporting a red mark on her chin and lopsided glasses. Footsteps echoed down the far corridor toward the main stair vault, someone undoubtedly coming down to see what all the noise was about, and so the three witches scrambled away from the entrance hall as fast as they could manage, plunging down into the dungeons once more.
Once they reached their destination, Harriet took the lead, sending Hermione one final, anxious look before she banged her knuckles against Snape's door. She had to knock again before it was jerked open, and the Potions Master stood looming in all his dour glory, the heavy smell of mysterious brews seeping into the corridor from the open door.
"What—," he began, voice gone quiet and cold like a knife slicing through the otherwise somber hush of the dungeons. His gaze landed on the fresh bruise forming across Harriet's chin and narrowed. "Do you think you're doing?"
"Err—."
Elara, blue in the face, started to cough, and Hermione couldn't say if she was doing so for theatrical effect or not. Snape instantly realized what had happened, of course. He hissed and grabbed the witch by her shoulder, jostling Harriet out of the way as he dragged Elara to the nearest desk and all but threw her into it. Unavoidable, but not ideal; they'd hoped she could sit at a desk farther into the room and farther from the portrait, but there was nothing they could do now. Hermione shrunk back, remaining as quiet as could while Elara gasped and Harriet, standing against Snape's shelves, eased her weight from one nervous foot to the other.
The portrait had changed. Where the serpent charmer once played now hung a painting of a quiet library, a single bearded wizard dozing at a reading desk while books flickered by over his head and a candle guttered in the resulting breeze. Hermione didn't have long to consider the change before Snape slammed the portrait open, ducked into the storeroom, and returned holding a vial and a shorter, opaque canister. He dropped both onto the desk next to Elara, and slowly Hermione edged toward the open storage room. She could barely think over the roar of blood in her ears.
"What did I tell you?" Professor Snape barked at Elara as he grabbed her hand and twisted it, studying the bluish tinge staining her nail beds. "I assumed I had used small enough words when I told you not to overexert yourself, Black! Did I overestimate your vocabulary, or just your own self-awareness?"
"Too cold," Elara choked out. "It's too cold. It made it—worse. Worse than normal."
Hermione's heart raced in her chest as she stepped into the storage room, torn between watching Professor Snape's back and searching for the necessary ingredients. In a rush, she had a moment of doubt; what were they doing? This was so, so foolish. She was terrified of what was happening with this Heir of Slytherin nonsense—but Elara had induced her own asthma attack, for goodness' sake! They knew help was only a few minutes away, but still! What if they hadn't have gotten back to the castle in time? What if they were delayed? What if she'd really hurt herself?
Hermione's hands shook as she found the basket of bicorn horns and quickly grabbed one.
Professor Snape had the orange potion vial pinched between his thumb and forefingers as he held it out to Elara, who hesitated, visibly trying not to glance over the wizard's shoulder in Hermione's direction. "Black—."
They were running out of time. Oh, Hermione hadn't considered how quickly everything would pass once they got inside the office, every second seeming to come faster than the one before as she scanned the shelves in search of his boomslang skin. The professor had very few labels, and if he had a system of organization, Hermione couldn't decipher it. All her knowledge of potions seemed to ooze from her ears and she couldn't recognize anything at all. The names of everything blurred in her head.
How does he find anything?!
The bicorn horn poked her ribs as Hermione stuck it inside her Muggle zip-up jacket. Elara and Snape bickered, but Elara's voice was failing her, and the Potions Master was running low on patience. Hermione's eyes flicked back and forth over the shelves, searching, panic building as she failed to find anything remotely snake-like in appearance. What if he didn't have any? What if—?
Why doesn't he keep the skins together?! That's infuriating!
She jumped when the now empty potion vial came sailing past her, slotting itself neatly in by other used bottles and jars sitting in a grubby tub waiting to be cleaned. Oh no. Hermione swallowed, knowing Snape would turn at any second, would find her standing here half-frozen with nerves—.
"Professor!" Harriet stuttered as the wizard stepped back toward the open portrait.
Snape paused and flicked loose hair from his eyes. "What is it, Potter?"
"I, uh—. I, I feel a bit—dizzy!"
"What—?"
Before the question could fully form, Harriet's legs went out from under her, and she fell hard into the shelf behind her, knocking over books and ghoulish canisters as she collapsed. Jars split and shattered on the stones, hideous smells escaping the broken glass. A loud—and surprising—yelp left Professor Snape, and he hurried to bend over the slumped witch while Hermione renewed her frantic search.
Her fingertips skated over something leathery—there!
Hermione yanked a folio from a shelf holding preserved specimens and found various cut and dried pieces of reptilian epidermis separated by wax dividers. There were spaces for labels on the pages, and yet Snape still didn't write the name of the skins. Hermione knew she could figure out which was which—if given enough time, and just a touch of light, and—.
Before she could reconsider, Hermione shoved the whole folio inside her jacket and did up the zip, hoping the padding disguised the irregular edges pressing into the cloth. Hands shaking again, she darted out of the storage room—almost tripping in her haste—and latched onto Elara's arm just as Professor Snape levered a disheveled Harriet upright once more.
"Merlin only knows what I did to be cursed with you three," the professor snarled, his insult clipped and rather tame for the amount of frustration evident in his harsh, lined features. He vanished the ruined glass scattered about Harriet's feet, then flicked his hand at the desk, summoning the opaque container he'd grabbed earlier.
"Sorry, sir—urgh!" Harriet complained as Professor Snape slapped a generous glob of smelly gel onto the witch's bruised face.
"Rub that in," he barked as he screwed the lid back into place and checked on Elara. His black eyes flickered over Hermione and narrowed, then moved to Harriet, who gave him an angry look as she smeared bruise cream off her chin. "Whatever foolishness you three intend to perpetuate at this hour stops now. You're not to use the track for the rest of the year. That includes you, Potter."
"What!"
"Ten points from Slytherin."
"Wh—? Why? We're not doin' anything wrong! It was an accident!"
Hermione's fingers clenched tighter on Elara's arm, and the folio inside her jacket suddenly felt as if it weighed a hundred stone. She had never stolen anything aside from Harriet's birthday present before—and that hardly counted. If anything, stealing from the Malfoys was a good deed, not a bad one.
"Once is an accident, twice is idiocy!" Professor Snape dismissed the bruise cream into the potions' storage and slammed the portrait closed. Hermione swallowed. He rounded his desk and sank into his chair, scowling at the three witches in turn before coming back to Harriet. "Stay inside the castle."
"What about Quidditch, sir?" Harriet retorted, nose in the air. Hermione and Elara elected to slowly edge toward the door. "And Herbology? Should we stay inside the castle then, too?"
"That's another ten points, girl."
"Harriet," Hermione hissed when she opened her mouth to reply. "Let's go."
"Listen to your interfering friend, Potter, before you further aggravate me." Professor Snape sneered and leaned upon his arm. "Get out of my office. All of you—and next time, faint in the Transfiguration corridor so you become Minerva's problem, not mine."
The three witches did as told, and they didn't miss how loud the door was when it slammed shut at their backsides, the sound echoing deeper into the dungeons' confines. "Why did you antagonize him?" Hermione demanded as she dropped Elara's arm. "He's going to be furious enough when he realizes he's missing ingredients!"
"Because if he's brassed off with me, then he won't be thinking about what you were doing while we were in the office," Harriet muttered in reply. "Ugh, I think I stepped in dead squid or something. That's disgusting."
They continued until they reached the entrance to the dorms, at which point Elara—breathing normally but still somewhat pale and sweaty—stopped and said, "I'm going to go lie down."
"Oh, Elara, do you need anything? Are you all right? I know this was your plan, but—."
The taller witch shook her head, forestalling Hermione's well-meaning diatribe. She dragged a hand across her brow and swept back the few untidy strands stuck to her skin. "I understood perfectly well what I was doing, Hermione—and I won't be in a rush to do it again, I assure you. I'm fine now. Go, hurry before Snape or Slytherin catches you loitering about."
They parted ways, Hermione and Harriet leaving the dungeons back toward the entrance hall. Other students were up and about at this hour, but not many, mostly studious older years or Quidditch players like Harriet heading out to practice on the pitch, so the two Slytherin witches kept their heads down and hoped they wouldn't be noticed by any professors. Harriet wished aloud for her Invisibility Cloak, and Hermione agreed that even if Professor Snape could see through it somehow, the other teachers couldn't. Stewing lacewing flies wasn't illegal, but embarking on the next part of the potion would be; the Cloak could prove invaluable for discretion.
Water dripped somewhere in the loo when they entered, echoing in the vacant confines, morning sunshine struggling to illuminate the grungy window set high on the far wall. Hermione locked the door, then went to their commandeered stall housing the simmering potion and the spare kit she'd hidden and Charmed behind the water tank.
"You did manage to get everything, didn't you? If we have to go tell Elara we missed something, I think she might murder us in our beds."
Hermione laughed the kind of breathless, incredulous laugh she'd heard people make after waiting and stressing over an important phone call or interview or meeting. The relief came in a burst, like fizzy water in her middle, and though apprehension and fear still tingled in her limbs, Hermione felt leagues better once they'd escaped Professor Snape's vicinity. "I'm almost positive I did."
"Almost positive? What does that mean?"
With a guilty shrug, Hermione unzipped her Muggle jacket and brought out the horn and the hard folio. "Well, I might have taken a bit more than just the boomslang skin. I was running out of time, and the infuriating man doesn't label anything! He's hundreds of ingredients in there! Honestly, how does he remember it all? Anyway, I…panicked."
"You panicked?" Harriet's eyes grew as round as Galleons when Hermione opened the folio to display the carefully preserved sheets of snake and lizard skin. "Holy shite. If he figures out we took all that, Snape might really expel us."
"It's not as if I can return what we're not using. I'm sure he'd find some way to trace it back to us, and at least now Professor Snape can't be certain of what we're brewing. If he discovered someone was making Polyjuice, he'd be more paranoid than usual. Ah—there!" Hermione let out another one of those relieved-beyond-words breaths as she extracted the glistening green boomslang skin from the folio and transferred it to the spare potions kit with the bicorn horn. They had everything now. The potion would be finished before they knew it.
Hermione stared into the murky water settled within cauldron's belly. She considered again the sheer absurdity of what they would attempt in just a few short weeks—the sheer absurdity of what they'd already done, and Hermione felt…uncommonly blessed. She wasn't one for religion really, having always ascribed more worth to science and academic study than to legends and theocracy, but as she stood in that stuffy loo lost in her own thoughts, she pondered the possibility of a heretofore unseen deity giving her a boon—because for all the fear and uncertainty currently burdening Hogwarts, Hermione had Harriet and Elara. She had friends who were willing to steal from terrifying men like Professor Snape and risk their own health simply for her state of mind.
She didn't know what she'd done to deserve them. Bigotry plagued Salazar Slytherin's House like a particularly persistent and nasty case of boils, but how bad could the wizard have been if the Sorting Hat imbued with a part of his personage looked into the heads of people like Elara and Harriet and decided they belonged there?
"Hermione?"
"Hmm?"
"We should probably return to the dungeons. Let's find Elara and go get some breakfast."
"Yes, of course." Hermione closed the potions kit and Charmed it back into place behind the tank, hidden from view. She took Harriet's hand in her own and, smiling, said, "Let's go."
A/N: Breaking News - Three tiny witches rob poor, unsuspecting Potions Master blind. More at eleven.
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