lxxx. little lies
The Boy Who Lived stood not two feet from the door with his hand outstretched, looking as if he'd been reaching for the handle before it popped open.
Harriet gasped as they ran into one another. She went to quip a scathing remark—but the frightened, shocked look in Longbottom's wide-eyes stilled her and returned a measure of clarity to Harriet's anxious, startled thoughts.
He thinks I'm Professor Sinistra.
"Wh—what do you think you're doing, Long—Mr. Longbottom?" Harriet demanded, hoping his own surprise helped cover the strange pitch of her voice. She tried to concentrate and thought back on every lecture she'd ever heard Professor Sinistra give—but all her classes happened in the middle of the night, and Harriet could rarely concentrate on her voice without dozing off. It always sounded soft and far away, like the witch was a hooting night owl who deigned to fly over and teach at the school.
"Professor Sinistra!" Neville exclaimed, gone pale in the face. "I was—I—uh, have you seen Potter by any chance?"
"Potter?" She wanted to kick Longbottom in the shins. Was he actually following her?! What a berk! "Potter from Slytherin?"
"Yes, ma'am. You see, I was worried about her going off on her own, given what's been occurring lately. It's not safe."
Rubbish!
"Is that what you're doing, trying to go into a girl's loo—lavatory? Well?"
Longbottom gave her a funny look, though he had the grace to blush with embarrassment. "This is Moaning Myrtle's place, isn't it? I was told no one ever used it. I knew she came this way, and just, uh, wanted to make sure Pot—Harriet was okay." His eyes narrowed, a small furrow appearing between his light brows. "What are you doing here, Professor?"
Does he honestly talk to all of his professors like this?
"That is none of your business, Longbottom. Err—ten points from Gryffindor! Yes!"
"What?! But that's not—!"
"Get back to your dormitory, or I'll make it twenty! Go on!"
He didn't need to be told again, but Harriet did catch the second odd glance he threw at her over his shoulder as he retreated. He disappeared around the corner, and Harriet exhaled, her heart beating much too fast in her chest, her hands shaky where they clasped the book and newspaper to her chest. A laugh bubbled out of her mouth, and Harriet coughed, reminding herself to be serious.
She couldn't remember how long it'd been since she first drank the potion—ten minutes? Fifteen? How long was she in the loo before she left? How long until she reached the staffroom? What if she suddenly turned back into herself? What then?
Puffing out her cheeks, Harriet stepped forward, thinking it better to move than to stand frozen in place like a numpty. She hurried, shoes creating a steady, firm series of clicks against the stones as she walked and tried to set a casual pace, though walking in someone else's body proved difficult. She tripped twice, earning one muttered comment about being "drunk on the job" from a crotchety portrait of a wizard with an ear horn.
Set came alive at one point, whirling about her feet in the flickering torchlight, and he threw himself toward a convenient door. Harriet didn't question him and did as indicated, cursing her clumsy limbs as she stepped inside the room and eased the door closed. Moments later, McGonagall rounded the far bend and hustled by. Harriet didn't breathe until the witch was out of sight again.
Merlin!
The remainder of her trip to the staffroom proved uneventful, and Harriet felt profoundly lucky to find the room empty, embers sputtering in the wide hearth flanked by gargoyles, the antique tables barren with the chairs neatly tucked in. There were four tall, cushioned chairs facing the fire, their backs to the largest table probably used in staff meetings. Glancing about to make sure she was alone, Harriet set out the paper like Elara had suggested, tilting the chair as if someone had gotten up in a rush and forgotten it there. She went to the tea-station by the old wardrobe, made herself a cuppa, and quickly sunk into one of the wing chairs by the hearth, shielding herself from casual observation.
The carriage clock on the mantel chimed the hour. Harriet fumbled about in her pockets for the flask and took a measured sip. The taste of blueberries lingered as she opened the periodical on her lap and stared at the clock. Around her, the castle remained quiet and snowflakes stuck to the window's glass.
An hour passed, an hour spent fretting and twiddling with the pages of Elara's booklet, the tea cold as bones on the little table by Harriet's seat. She drank from the flask twice more, once after thirty minutes had passed, and then again on the hour. The lower the potion inside dipped, the more anxious Harriet became, sweat prickling on her spine. What if Hermione and Elara were wrong? What if no one came around? What if Harriet just sat drinking tea as Professor Sinistra until her time ran out? What then?
A clatter at the door put an end to her inner woes, and a second later it popped open, propelled by magic instead of a hand, Professor Slytherin sauntering inside with Professor Snape looming at his heels.
"—with that blond half-wit gallivanting about, dogging my every move. I've cursed the fool thrice and think a fourth attempt will render what little brains he has irredeemable."
Professor Slytherin spoke in a harsh, dark tone Harriet had only ever heard him once or twice, the same voice he used after she dared hex him and he chucked her into a desk. He slammed the door shut behind Snape with a wave of his hand.
"Lockhart is, in and of himself, harmless," Snape drawled. "He doesn't know half of what he's looking at and spends much of his time locked in his office, doing Merlin knows what."
He sounded odd to Harriet too, not at all like the Snape who'd spent part of the summer at Grimmauld Place. That Snape was always bitter and snappish and prone to sniping at them over dinner. His temper sparked with a word and fell just as quickly. This Snape was cold, laconic. He spoke with all the emotionless precision of a knife dicing potions ingredients, and Harriet didn't like it at all.
"Being utterly useless and inconvenient." The pair passed Harriet's seat, their shadows moving on the floor. Slytherin paused. "This rag! Who left this here?"
Harriet almost jumped out of her skin when Slytherin jerked the paper off the table and threw it over her head, right into the fire. The pages curled and blackened in an instant.
"Bloody Gaunt," Slytherin quietly seethed. The pair of dark wizards continued to the seats against the wall by the window, a chessboard between them waiting to be played. It was harder for Harriet to hear their voices, but not impossible. "He never called a session with the Wizengamot, and half the stupid population knows that, but they choke down the Prophet's tripe like gospel. He aims to start an inquiry that will remove both myself and the old man from the castle for at least a short period of time."
"It is a proverbial show of strength."
"There's nothing proverbial about it." Slytherin Summoned a bottle of wine from the rack by the tea-service, and his next words were given in undertone, so low Harriet almost missed them. "He means to 'conquer the beast' and thus further endear himself to the Board and undermine my authority. The Minister wishes for nothing more than to have a firm foothold here, one the Ministry has long been denied."
"Of course. How goes your search for the Basilisk?"
Harriet almost spat her tea out and had to swallow several times to keep herself from coughing, tears burning in her lashes. The WHAT?!
"Unsuccessful," Slytherin sneered, voice so cold Harriet thought Snape actually recoiled. Her Head of House poured himself a glass of dark wine and didn't offer the Potions Master any. Snape appeared bored and indifferent, unruffled by the slight. "Wherever Gaunt's agent has chosen to move it, I do not know, and it hasn't answered my call. I've scoured the Chamber from top to bottom and found no trace of the perpetrator."
By now, Harriet was silently wheezing in her chair, hands white-knuckled on the periodical in an attempt to hold onto something. Basilisk! How could it possibly be a Basilisk?! she wondered—no, demanded of her own thoughts. Merlin's fricking beard! And he thinks it's Gaunt—Minister bloody Gaunt!—responsible for all this?! He knows where the Chamber is! And Snape knows he knows and—.
Harriet continued to spiral, both wizards all but oblivious to her unobtrusive presence.
"I would suggest, again, that a second pair of eyes might help in—."
"And I would suggest, again, Snape, for you to stop parroting the old man's orders." Slytherin's eyes narrowed in such a way that Professor Snape bowed his head, the dark curtain of his oily hair falling forward. "As I've stated before, the knowledge of my ancestor's Chamber is not pertinent, and I won't allow outsiders to sully a thousand-year-long legacy for no reason. What help do you possibly think you'd be, anyway?"
Snape's dark eyes flashed in her direction, then away, fixing on Slytherin.
"I know Aurora's there, Severus. I haven't said anything not already brought to her attention in staff meetings." He scoffed and drank his wine.
Harriet's head swam. She was so disoriented, she didn't have a chance to panic about being brought to their attention. A Basilisk—a huge bloody Basilisk! How in the absolute hell was a fifty-foot serpent mucking about in the castle undetected? Snippets of the monster book she'd read in the library haunted Harriet, little passages about deadly venom and huge eel heads and a look that could kill. Holy shite! But how is it Petrifying people? The book mentioned nothing about that.
She glanced at the clock again—and jumped. Forty-five minutes had passed, lost somewhere between her own worrying, Slytherin's griping, and Harriet's private shock. The dark skin of her arms began to bubble, her hands looking like she'd thrust them into an active beehive. Harriet snatched the flask out of her pocket again and drank.
"Something the matter, Sinistra?"
Harriet didn't spill—she didn't—but it was a near thing, and she couldn't stop herself from trembling when she turned her head far enough to see Snape staring at her. "Bit of a head cold," she said, pitching her voice low. It came out rough and passably ill sounding.
"Hmm."
Slytherin set his goblet aside. "Are Potter and Black minding themselves?" he asked Snape—and Harriet flinched. "I told them to stay in the dungeons."
Snape looked at Harriet for a moment longer, face inscrutable, then faced Professor Slytherin again. "I've had no difficulty with the brats."
"I asked them both why they remained for the break and received unsatisfactory replies."
"The only type of reply they are fit to giving, I fear." Snape traced the row of buttons on his sleeve with an idle hand, his fingers long and pale against the black cloth. "Black was recently emancipated, as I'm sure she told you. She chose to remain with Potter, whose relatives work overseas for much of the year."
Slytherin grew bored of the conversation and returned to his wine, muttering scathing comments about Minister Gaunt again. He just lied to him, Harriet marveled. Snape just lied to Slytherin, right to his face without blinking an eye. How did he do that?
They continued to speak on inconsequential matters and didn't bring up the Basilisk—a bloody Basilisk!—again, only mentioning things concerning the students, their grades and behavior, and the school itself. Harriet knew they'd start talking about something more consequential the moment she left, but she'd already learned more than she thought she would. A lot more.
A Basilisk. Professor Slytherin thought Minister Gaunt—the Minister for Magic himself—was behind the Chamber's opening, behind his framing. Why? Headmaster Dumbledore told her he feared it wouldn't be safe for Harriet to have this knowledge, and though Harriet despised being kept in the dark, she understood he had a reason; she'd blundered headfirst into a problem she hadn't the slightest hope of solving, and it didn't lessen her worries to know what the snake actually was. It made them so, so much worse.
She stood, wagering enough time had passed, and gathered her periodical. Slytherin kept talking to Snape about a promising new lesson plan he'd devised—and Merlin, wasn't it weird to hear Slytherin talk as if he actually enjoyed teaching. The Potions Master's cold eyes snapped to Harriet as she moved, like a snake seeing something small and edible stir in the brush, then returned to the Defense instructor.
Harriet had a hand on the door when Snape stiffened and looked at her again—but this time, his eyes lingered on her shoes.
Harriet's shoes.
Snape opened his mouth as if to say something, and the Slytherin witch stepped into the corridor. She let the door come closed with a soft click—and then started running.