lxxv. like the storm

Even hours after the game ended, Harriet could still feel the gentle struggles of the Snitch's golden wings fluttering against her palm.

Slytherin's second Quidditch match passed with little ceremony. In comparison to the bigger issues circulating inside the school, Quidditch seemed a small thing—at least for Harriet and her friends. Perhaps others still felt the tension and the rivalry, but for Harriet, the match barely sparked any of that nervous, twitchy energy she'd experienced before her first game, and she hadn't been anxious until she'd dragged her uniform on and found herself standing with her giant teammates on the pitch.

Really, the match hadn't been much at all, finishing before it began. Barely five minutes in, Harriet spotted the Snitch hovering by one of Ravenclaw's Beaters and snatched it up. The phantom touch of metal wings pressing into her skin reaffirmed the surreality of it all. She kept glancing at the hand, and her thumb rubbed against the side of her index finger where the feathers had left their red indents. The marks had long since faded, but Harriet swore they were still there.

"Longbottom looked particularly upset," Hermione reported after Harriet returned from changing out of her uniform in the locker room. "Almost as upset as Malfoy. You would think Draco would be pleased his House's team is performing so admirably, but I believe seeing you play only reminds him that he hasn't an ounce of your skill and won't have a chance of playing next year."

Harriet snorted at the memory, her breath escaping in a plume of steam. They stood now on the covered bridge halfway between one of the courtyards and the Sundial Garden, the open ravine yawning wide below the bridge's wooden slats, the struts groaning when the breeze rose and rushed by. It made for a curious choice of meeting places, but Harriet enjoyed the bracing air and the general solitude, especially after experiencing the noise down in the common room. Sunlight reflected off the distant lake, and Harriet squinted against the light, leaning her folded arms on the crooked rail.

"Are you all right, Elara?" Hermione asked in the sudden lull. "It's a bit chilly out here. All this cold air isn't good for—."

"I'm fine," Elara replied with a put upon sigh, her colorless eyes glinting below her dark lashes. The green and silver scarf wrapped about her neck muffled her voice. "Leave off, I'm not made of glass."

Relentless, Hermione kept fussing over Elara, just as she had done without end since their successful potions ingredient caper. Snape had been furious all week, glaring at anyone and everyone with blatant suspicion welling in the bottomless black oubliettes of his eyes. "Are you sure? We can go back inside where it's warmer if you want—."

"Hermione, if you don't stop asking if I'm all right, I will pick you up and throw you off this bridge. Don't test me on this."

Harriet snickered as Hermione huffed and Elara scowled at them both. "Don't be silly. You couldn't pick me up. I'm far heavier than you."

"I'm several inches taller than you, Granger."

Sizing the pair up, Harriet said, "You're both heavy," and earned a sharp swat on the arm and a pinch to the cheek. "Ow, ow, ow—my face!"

"Don't be cheeky, then."

"You're cheeky enough for both of us—ow! I'm just having a laugh!"

Elara let go, and Harriet did laugh as she rubbed her tender skin and the other witch made threatening shooing motions. They continued on their way, the bridge complaining all the while, until they stepped off onto solid ground. Crooked gray stones towered above them, eclipsing the view of the forest as they painted long, stretched shadows across the grass. The first time Harriet visited this place last year, Hermione had delighted in telling her the Stone Circle—or the Sundial Garden—was thought to be the oldest place at Hogwarts, predating the castle itself, making it an area of very old, mysterious magic.

Harriet just thought it was a nice place to linger, barring any irate Potions Masters who might come by, shrieking at them to go back to the castle. She shivered, and it had nothing to do with the cold. If he ever figures out it was us, he'll chuck all three of us into that ravine there and make it look like an accident.

"You know, Harriet," Hermione commented as she perched on a large bit of rock protruding from the earth. Harriet sat next to her—then saw there wasn't anywhere else nearby to sit, so she slid to the damp grass and gave up the spot to Elara. "I thought you enjoyed the party they threw after the last Quidditch match. Why were you so eager to get away this time?"

Shrugging, Harriet replied, "I liked it well enough before Malfoy broke my sodding nose. And, I dunno, the—the upper-years get loud. I can't say I like that very much." What Harriet didn't say was that the pissed sixth and seventh years started sounding as loud and belligerent as her Aunt and Uncle, and though she knew the comparison was ridiculous, she still felt…uncomfortable around them. "I like Quidditch for the flying more than anything. It's amazing!"

Hermione and Elara wore matching incredulous expressions as they looked down at Harriet.

"It's like—everything else disappears once I'm in the air, I'm weightless and floating and—peaceful." Sighing, Harriet turned her back, getting mud on her socks, and leaned on Hermione's legs, nudging Elara's feet over. She could see the lake better from here, a thin trickle of smoke rising where Hagrid's hut sat just out of sight. "It was nice to fly, considering how stressed Potions had me this week. I wish the match had been longer."

Hermione's hand settled on Harriet's head and gave an idle attempt at flattening the rogue cowlicks. "You needn't worry so much. He won't know it was us, Harriet. I left the folio with most of the samples in the staff room, so either another professor took it, or he found it and has to assume one of the other teachers borrowed from him without asking. Either way, someone's going to be caught red-handed, or he'll have to interrogate professors—and I can't see Professor Snape wanting to bother with that, honestly."

"Hmm," Harriet acknowledged, fidgeting. It was a clever bit of misdirection on Hermione's part, and it hadn't even been difficult, considering she went to the staff room all the time to ask professors questions about lectures or homework assignments. Still, in her own thoughts, Harriet admitted stealing from Snape didn't sit well with her. If it had been some other bloke, she probably wouldn't have minded as much and certainly wouldn't have dwelt on the issue. Undeniably, Snape was a git of the highest order—but he was a git who looked out for the Slytherins and had healed Elara twice. Taking his things seemed a shite way to repay the wizard.

A sudden, soft thump startled Harriet and she looked around, frowning at a familiar raven hopping by her knee, its leg extended to hold out the tied off twine. "Harriet Potter," it croaked.

Seeing the bird, Hermione brightened—and almost kicked Harriet in the spine. "Oh! Were you expecting another letter from Nicolas Flamel?"

"Mhm." Harriet freed the raven of its burden, and it clicked its beak as if expecting a reward—then squawked in dismay when Harriet showed it empty hands. The raven vanished in a puff of smoke, leaving Harriet to readjust her glasses and inspect her letter. She recognized Mr. Flamel's sprawling copperplate right away.

Chère Harriet,

I hope this letter finds you safe, well, and warm in Poudlard's frozen mountains. It is with no little amount of smugness that I tell you I am writing in the gardens, thoroughly enjoying the sunshine and the lingering late autumn blooms. My Perenelle tells me I should not be so pleased with myself, but I have always thought it healthy to inspire a spot of envy in others now and again. What is life if we do not enjoy what we have, non?

I have heard of the difficulties happening at the school, and again hope you and yours are staying safe and out of mischief. In your last letter, you asked if I knew anything of this Chambre des Secrets, and I cannot say I know more than you must at this point, petit oiseau. I am not an Englishman and did not attend Poudlard, but I do remember first hearing about this Chambre in the forties—the nineteen-forties. A student died, and the shock of the loss resonated even in France. I could not say what it is or what happened; I will not hazard a guess, for though I may know many things, there is much that I do not and cannot understand. Poudlard is old—older than me! Quite an accomplishment—and the witches and wizards alive during its creation were different creatures. You ask if I believe it possible Salazar Slytherin left a monster or curse within this Chambre of his? Oui. Do I think he left such a thing to kill Demoyennes? Non. A wise witch once said, "Magique is but an extension of your arm, and you cannot hold that what you cannot reach." If you would indulge my rambling, understand that I say whatever Salazar Slytherin's motivations, be they bigoted or not, he was said to be a very smart and calculating man; leaving behind something that he could not control, that lay outside his reach, something that could potentially destroy Poudlard, his true legacy? Non. I do not believe it.

On a lighter topic, the questions you pose on Birch's Law are complicated ones. You will find that the theories they teach in your lessons become more malleable once you experience magic outside of the classroom for yourself. This Prof. Slytherin is—. How do you say? A different story? Dangereux, Harriet. Moyenne science teaches how certain, inarguable facts of nature cannot be changed, but for us, magique is not so fixed. It bends to emotion. It is chaotic. Like the storm—beautiful, oui, but often unpredictable, and we could study it for a million years and still find ourselves surprised. Modern spellcraft arose from a need to create fixed incantations with measurable, constant results, but when I was a boy, magique was a primal thing, and my professeurs taught it was a skill more of the heart than of the mind. What is possible for one wizard may not be possible for another. But I am rambling again. I have some lovely texts on the subject I will have to dig out of the library and send to you.

Be safe, and careful. Your Defense Master is more than he appears.

Jusqu'à la prochaine fois, petit oiseau,

Nicolas Flamel.

Well, then. "Hermione? What's petit oi—? Ois—?" Harriet grumbled and spelled the word out one letter at a time. "What's that mean?"

The bushy-haired witch had a funny look on her face, and when Harriet twisted in place to see her, the corners of her lips jumped, repressing a grin. "It means 'little bird.'"

Harriet scowled, pink tinging her cheeks, and Hermione started laughing. Elara buried her own smile in her scarf.

"Yeah, yeah, very funny." The bespectacled witch scanned through the letter again, then handed it off to her friends, Hermione and Elara putting their heads together to read it at the same time.

"Interesting. What did you write to him about?"

"I dunno specifically. I asked him a bunch of questions about Un Guide Sur la Connaissance des Ténèbres, you know that book you translated for me? And then I asked about the spell Professor Slytherin used, how he managed to get it to bounce when I couldn't. I also asked about the Chamber, but I didn't know he didn't attend Hogwarts—or Poudlard. What does that even mean?"

"It's what the French call Hogwarts."

"Where d'you think Mr. Flamel went to school, then?"

"Oh, it's well-known he went to the Académie de Magie Beauxbâtons. He's undoubtedly the reason the school is purported as the richest magic school, as he's its biggest patron."

Harriet hummed in answer.

"It appears he knows something about Professor Slytherin but isn't willing or can't say more," Elara pointed out, easing the parchment from Hermione's hand before folding it and returning the letter to Harriet.

"It's probably because of Dumbledore."

"Dumbledore?"

"Yeah. He knows I write Mr. Flamel, so the Headmaster probably asked him not to mention something about Slytherin." Harriet traced a finger over the creases pressed into the parchment, wondering what the alchemist meant by calling Professor Slytherin dangerous. She knew he was dangerous, abstractly at least, and she'd suffered from more than a few bruises at the end of his wand. She didn't think that was what Mr. Flamel wanted to warn her against, however.

"Master Flamel."

Harriet blinked. "What?"

"Master Flamel, Harriet, not Mister. That's his proper title."

"Well, he hasn't corrected me in any of the letters he's sent," the younger witch replied, frustrated. Arguing semantics over a wizard's title wasn't important to Harriet, and she couldn't help the niggling lump of disappointment from turning over in her middle. She'd hoped he would shed more light on the Chamber and whatever it contained. Harriet and the others already knew the Chamber had been opened before; Professor Selwyn had said as much in History of Magic, but Harriet hadn't known someone died last time. Who had it been? How did it happen? Did they die because of the Petrification?

Footsteps echoed in the covered bridge and brought an end to their musings. The three witches waited, watching, and grimaced in triplicate when Neville Longbottom came tromping out into the open with Seamus and two older students Harriet didn't know. "He's worse than Malfoy," she muttered, despising whatever miserable fates conspired to continually cross their paths. She could very happily go the rest of her life never without ever seeing the Boy Who Lived again.

It only took a few seconds for the Gryffindors to spot them, and they froze as if they'd discovered actual snakes on the lawn and not just three young Slytherin witches sitting on a rock. "What are you doing here?"

"What does it look like, Longbottom?" Harriet retorted, biting her tongue to keep her tone even. "We're sitting here."

The taller, dark-haired Gryffindor said something to his friend, and they guffawed, an unfriendly tilt taking over their grins as they faced the younger witches again. "You know them, Neville?"

Longbottom hesitated, then gave his shoulder a lazy jerk as if fully shrugging would take too much effort. "Sure. They're in my year."

"So you don't know them," said the other older student. He had a heavy dusting of freckles over his cheeks and nose. "I mean you can't really know Slytherins, can you? Right, Finnigan?"

"Yeah," Seamus agreed. He and Neville looked at one another, then at the ground.

"Oi." The tallest Gryffindor approached, one hand on his hip, the other twirling his wand between his long fingers. "What are you little snakes up to, huh?"

Harriet eyed the wand and, though her hand itched for her own, she didn't remove it from its brace. Snape's warnings and reprimands bounced inside her thick skull, telling her it'd be worse if she reacted, because if that Gryffindor prat tried to hex her and she used a shield, it'd probably smack bloody Longbottom square in the face. It'd look like Harriet had attacked him, and she'd land herself in detention for a month—or worse.

"I think they're collaborating, aren't they, Rivers?" said the second Gryffindor, elbowing Longbottom as if looking for approval. "Are you out here waiting for your Heir to show himself?"

"What hogwash," Hermione snapped. Harriet bit her lip and Elara kept her face perfectly blank, though Harriet noticed how tightly she held her hands. "Just because we're Slytherins doesn't mean we have anything to do with this Heir nonsense. I'm Muggle-born."

"But you're not lying up in Pomfrey's ward like poor Creevey, snake," the one named Rivers snapped. "Isn't that convenient—and here you are, having a nice chin wag with Slytherin's cheating little Seeker. What'd you do to the Snitch, Potter? D'you have to Jinx it because you can't see with those nasty specs of yours? "

The freckled Gryffindor took out his wand, giving it an arrogant twirl. "What've you got there? Relashio!" Purple light flickered over her, and suddenly the parchment in Harriet's hand slipped through her numb fingers, falling to the grass. She tried to catch it, but another flick of the senior's wand sent the letter flying right into the boy's large fist. Harriet jumped after it.

"That's mine!"

The freckled boy held the letter high, away from Harriet's grasping hands, and she barely suppressed the urge to kick him in the shin. "Is it? Is it from your mummy, little girl? Huh?"

Heat prickled in her chest, in her neck, and though Harriet knew her face had gone quite pink, she didn't back down. She wanted to hex him. She wanted—. "Give me my letter, or I'll tell Professor Slytherin."

"You wouldn't, Potter," Longbottom said, crossing his arms, though he shot an uneasy look at his older friends and didn't sound at all sure of himself.

"I would—I will," she asserted, making another jump for the letter, only for the freckled Gryffindor to push her back and hold it higher. "Stop it!"

Hermione got to her feet with Elara. "Give it here, Wattle!" she said, and Harriet wasn't at all surprised she knew the prat's surname. "Harriet's letter is no one's business but her own!"

Harriet grabbed Wattle's sleeve, trying to yank his arm down, and he pushed her again, hard enough for Harriet to stumble.

"What's going on 'ere?"

The commotion hid the approach of thumping feet shuffling nearer from the forest, and the students looked up to see Hagrid—dressed in his hairy coat, balancing a crossbow on his shoulder with a dead rooster in his hand—standing off by one of the sundial's crooked stones. The disapproving look on his lined face showed that he very clearly knew exactly what was going on, but that didn't stop the Gryffindors from lying through their teeth.

"Oh, hey, Hagrid," said Rivers, stashing his wand away in his pocket. "These Slytherins were acting suspicious, and given what's been happening, we were just having a chat is all."

"That's a load of hippogriff dung and you know it, Rivers. Go on, give Harry her letter there and get yerselves back to the castle. Go on!"

Frowning, Wattle let the letter go, and Harriet managed to grab it before it could land in the mud. The Gryffindors shuffled off, Wattle and Rivers disappointed and put out, Longbottom and Finnigan clearly relieved. Harriet didn't care if they were relieved; they stood by and did nothing, and would've continued to stand by and do nothing while the older boys pushed Harriet around and took her things. Harriet really hated them in that moment—them and Professor Snape, because she wanted nothing more than to curse them blue as they walked away, consequences be damned.

"All right there, Harry?" asked Hagrid.

"Yes," she replied, because she wasn't hurt, even if she was upset and felt tears burning the corners of her eyes. Harriet decided those tears were just as stupid as Wattle and Rivers and refused to let them fall, scrunching her nose until the sting abated. "I'm okay. Thanks, Hagrid."

The half-giant nodded, shifting his crossbow, the bloody rooster swaying in his grip. "They don't mean nothin' by it, course. They're good lads usually—but fear makes people do dumb things."

Perhaps sensing Harriet's urge to snap at the man, Hermione piped up with, "What happened to your rooster, Hagrid?" which spared Harriet from saying anything she might regret.

"Oh, er—nothin', nothin'. At least, nothin' for you lot to concern yerselves with." Hagrid quickly tucked the rooster in one of his large pockets and wiped the bloody feathers from his fingers. "C'mon, you three, best be gettin' back inside now. It's a mite cold to be out here without yer coats."

Harriet didn't believe Hagrid really cared about them getting chilled, but she nonetheless allowed herself to be herded back across the covered bridge with her friends, Mr. Flamel's letter still clasped in her small hands, her fingers worrying the edges until the crisp parchment felt soft and old.

She would never understand why people hated Slytherins. Some said it was because of the Dark Lord, because he went to Hogwarts and he was in the House of Serpents, but what did his Sorting have to do with anything? Harriet was a Slytherin, and she'd lost almost everything because of Voldemort! She hated him, hated that he'd taken her parents, hated that he'd tempted her in front of the Mirror of Erised, and hated that every bad thing that happened at Hogwarts got turned around on Slytherin House because the Dark Lord once slept in their bloody dorms.

The letter crinkled against her palms as her fingers squeezed together.

Something Mr. Flamel wrote stuck in her mind like a thorn she couldn't quite pluck. Everyone claimed Salazar Slytherin left something in his Chamber capable of killing Muggle-borns, but Mr. Flamel didn't think so; he didn't believe the founder would endanger the school and his own legacy by potentially allowing a deadly curse or beast to be recklessly unleashed. Mr. Flamel was one of the smartest people Harriet had ever met, so she didn't dismiss what he'd said—but if Salazar Slytherin hadn't bequeathed his Heir a monster capable of Petrifying Muggle-borns, what did he leave behind? What was the point of his Chamber if not to eradicate the "unworthy"?

The castle waited ahead of them. Harriet stared toward the lights visible through the bridge's crooked arches and wondered at the mystery—and danger—of it all.

A/N: I dislike the term "Non-Magique," which is the canon French equivalent of "Muggle." So I use the term "Moyenne" instead, from the French word for "average," and "Demoyenne" is the equivalent for "Muggle-born." You can always assume it's the older version of "Non-Magique," if you want.