cxviii. between these yearning stars

The gentle scratching of quills was the only sound to be heard in the quiet classroom.

Professor Babbling sat at her desk, idly turning a page in her book as her students identified and copied the long lines of runes drawn upon the blackboard. Most had blank, tired looks on their faces, resting their chins on their folded arms. Some watched the clock in hopes of time going faster.

A moratorium had been placed on all conversations concerning Sirius Black after Hallowe'en, but that hardly meant much to the students, who spent their free time in the corridors gossiping and glancing about as if expecting Black to come popping out of a suit of armor. In an effort to curb the panic and rumor-mongering, some professors—like Babbling—had implemented assigned seating and separated chatty groups, a consequence Harriet loathed. Even so, It hadn't taken Hermione more than a quick trip to the library to find a work-around.

Seated near the front, Harriet paused in her transcribing to glance at Professor Babbling, then over her shoulder toward her friends. 'Do you think they're going to send Aurors?' she scribbled on a note. 'For the Prat Who Lived's protection?' Harriet folded the slip of parchment, eyes still on Babbling, and when the professor paused in her reading to yawn, Harriet twirled her wand below her desk and muttered, "Permuto."

The folded note flickered—suddenly replaced by a different slip of parchment, her own note landing either on Elara or Hermione's desk. Harriet was never certain which one it'd make it to; she could use a bit more practice with the Switching Spell. Pretending to work, she unfolded the new note, spotting Elara's handwriting. 'The breach is on the front page of the Prophet. They're citing Dumbledore's incompetence as Headmaster and Slytherin's lack of efficacy. As usual.'

A soft scoff left Harriet as she dipped her quill in the inkwell. 'Of course,' she replied. 'The Prophet's basically run by the Ministry, innit?' She folded the note, returned it to the corner of her desk—and it switched on its own, swapped out for her original note. Glancing at Babbling again, she opened it and read Hermione's response.

'Well, the Ministry doesn't seem very keen on action, do they? They seem more amiable to the idea of giving Professor Dumbledore just enough rope to hang himself with, if you'll excuse my expression.'

Harriet replied, 'As long as they don't post a Dementor INSIDE the school. Or send another tosser like Lockhart.'

'You write to that "tosser" at least once a week.'

'He's a funny tosser. But, at heart, still a tosser.'

Harriet heard a muffled laugh from the back row and Professor Babbling raised her gaze, surveying the busy students, then went back to reading. The note flickered again, replaced by Elara's parchment.

'The Prophet presents its own bias but provides a powerful tool in swaying public opinion, don't you think?' Another line below that read, 'We need that map.'

'The Weasleys' map?'

'Yes.' A large inkblot marred the page as if she'd held the quill above it, pausing for thought. 'It would be prudent to have if Black has managed to infiltrate the school. If he can do it once, he can do it again.'

Unease wriggled in Harriet's middle as if she'd swallowed a worm. She was pleased Sirius Black apparently wanted to get into Gryffindor Tower and murder Longbottom—not that she was necessarily happy about someone wanting to kill Neville, rather more relieved the madman hadn't tried to go after Elara. Still, Harriet had learned from Quirrell that attacking one student didn't make a bloke incapable of attacking another. It'd be dead useful to have a map that could tell them if a bloody murderer was in their school with them.

The night before had been a startling experience for the entire student body, but more so for Elara, who'd spent hours staring at the Great Hall's ceiling, her blankets bundled in white-knuckled fists. Everyone they passed in the halls kept whispering or pointing. An older Hufflepuff prat told Elara, "Hey, can you ask your dad to take it easy on the rest of us?" and Harriet hexed his shoes to the floor when he wasn't looking. Hearing the thump! and alarmed cry of his body falling behind them had been satisfying.

'We have to finish the Moon Mirror map, then. Or rob the Weasley twins. Think we can break into Gryffindor Tower? They got that portrait of Sir Cadogan now, y'know, the nutter from the south tower? Apparently, he changes their passwords fifteen times a day.'

'We obviously need to finish the map.'

Harriet stifled a groan. She didn't want to finish the map. Finishing it meant finding Rowena Ravenclaw's portrait—which meant returning to the Aerie.

She could almost feel Elara's gaze burning a hole in the back of her head, waiting for a reply, and Harriet was saved by Professor Babbling, who dropped a clean quill into her book to mark her place and returned to her feet. "All right, class. Eyes up front! Let's see what you've come up with…."

When the bell rang and released them, Harriet needed only to wait a moment in the corridor for Elara to turn to her with an expectant look. Elara didn't often look at her like that; really, Elara didn't often want anything, which made denying her all the more difficult. "Bugger it," Harriet whispered under her breath as she shook the nervous, buzzing tension out of her hands and wrists. "Okay," she said louder, shoulders slumped. "Okay, you're right. We'll finish the map. Let's go to the Aerie."

Hermione—who had only ever heard the stories of the Aerie and the vast aisles of books—brightened, then paused. "But we have Charms right now."

"Flitwick is out with the flu," Elara reminded her, the upper-year Slytherins having told much of the rest of the House they'd arrived to class earlier in the day only to find a substitute waiting for them. "We can skip it."

Sputtering, Hermione said, "We can't just skip a class!" then lowered her voice despite the lack of other people in the corridor. "Are you mad? We'd be in so much trouble!"

"What else is new?" Harriet shrugged. "Who's teaching it, then?"

"Madam Pomfrey, they said."

"Hmm." Harriet waffled over the idea, weighing the threat of imminent detention over the looming drudgery of two hours in what would basically be a study hall. Swaying, she took a decisive step in the direction of the Aerie and Elara grinned. Hermione put up a fuss as they walked, but it was half-hearted at best, and soon the idea of wandering into Rowena Ravenclaw's hidden trove of knowledge won out. They reached the library's floor by the time the bell rang to signal the end of break and hurried onward, worried they'd cross a professor curious why they weren't in class. All the while, Harriet's hands continued to shake.

Don't be stupid, she chastised herself, wiping her sweaty palms off on her robes. It's empty now. It's just like the library. Perhaps better, given Pince isn't in there lurking.

Exhaling, Harriet concentrated on their destination and the hidden passage revealed itself, the three witches taking the corner past the portrait of the goose wrangler to find the faceless bust waiting for them. The uncanny eyes seemed to watch as Harriet approached.

"Once I thought, but can no longer. Once I saw, but now am blind. Empty, empty am I."

Frowning, Harriet glanced to her friends, both of whom shared thoughtful looks as they considered the statue's riddle. Hermione figured it out first. "You are a skull?"

The bust slid backward, receding into the wall, replaced by the smooth, flat surface of the Moon Mirror reflecting the trio of Slytherin witches. "Open," Harriet hissed in Parseltongue, and she slipped through the Mirror with Elara and Hermione coming right after her. Hermione blinked to get her bearings—then gaped, taking in the new corridor and the solemn bookshelves stretching in either direction as far as they could see.

"Wh—? Are all these shelves filled? How large is this place?!"

"Bloody huge," Harriet answered as she peered first one way, then the next. Either passage looked identical, and Harriet couldn't remember which way she ran the first time she entered the Aerie. Had they entered at the same place as before? She couldn't tell.

"It's about intent," Elara reminded her. "The Aerie leads you to where you intend to be."

"Right. You're right." Taking a deep breath, she added, "Hopefully Slytherin and Ravenclaw are still there."

Standing about wouldn't get them anywhere, and so Harriet chose a path and took it, picturing in her mind the lounge with the brass armillary sphere and the portrait above the hearth, one of the few memories of this place Riddle's Cruciatus hadn't scrambled or distorted. It didn't appear with any expediency—and Harriet fully blamed Hermione for that fact, seeing as the other witch couldn't take more than a dozen steps before getting distracted. Her friend's propensity to get lost in knowledge was both endearing and—at the moment—incredibly frustrating, so Harriet resigned herself to mindless feet shuffling while she waited for Hermione to sate her curiosity.

An hour passed. As Hermione studied a shelf of books on the idiosyncrasies of magical Byzantium emperors, Elara came to stand next to Harriet, her hands folded behind her back, her expression contemplative. "We haven't seen any evidence of the fire," she commented, turning her head as if searching the corridor again. "Even if we didn't encounter direct damage, we should have seen ash on the shelves or smoke damage. Both are pervasive after a blaze."

"The Aerie's huge," Harriet repeated, glancing toward one of the windows and the gentle orange glow beyond. "I've seen it with Professor Dumbledore, remember? I mean, it's actually tiny, only about the size of my palm—the relative size is massive when you're inside. It's possible we just haven't found anything yet."

"Perhaps it has something to do with the Aerie itself."

"What d'you mean?"

Elara gestured ahead of them, toward the far end of the corridor that never appeared to end and yet continued to turn and twist in upon itself. "There's some level of…cognizance here. Of intelligence. It's possible the Aerie is keeping us away from the area. The Founders concerned themselves with the safety of their students, so I would assume Ravenclaw's Aerie would actively seek to route us away from perceived danger. It would also explain why it took so long for Longbottom and I to find you, if the halls kept counteracting our desire to run straight into Riddle's clutches."

"Maybe," Harriet said. The Aerie's ability to read intent might be picking up on Harriet's wish to avoid the corridors the Basilisk had traversed, or the atrium where Riddle and Luna had been. Her entire body vibrated with gratitude as her shoulder finally relaxed.

"Or," Hermione chipped in, hefting a large tome off its shelf. "The Charms upon the space might have shut down areas where the outer containment was damaged, like an airlock on a Muggle ship. We're apparently the size of a pin's tip at the moment, and whatever spells Professor Ravenclaw used—oh, and they must have been so clever! Rendering matter this tiny without incurring disturbance or diminishing returns? I haven't seen anything like that, even in the more advanced tomes! It's far beyond N.E.W.T level and beyond most masters! Could you imagine—? Anyway, the Charms would have a limit, a boundary, and if the Fiendfyre damaged that boundary, the afflicted area would be…wonky."

Harriet snorted and shed the last of her unease. "Is that a technical term, now?"

"Shut up," Hermione grumbled, tucking the book under her arm. At their questioning looks, she stuck her nose into the air and said, "I'm borrowing it. For a bit of light reading before bed, you understand."

"…sure we do."

Another ten minutes of focused searching brought them to the arch they sought, and inside Harriet found the lounge just as she remembered it: the arms of the astrolabe spinning at very slow increments, the ceiling above spangled in painted stars. She immediately looked to the portrait above the stone mantel—and discovered it empty.

"Oh, come on," she muttered, peering into the flat, barren backdrop within the frame in hopes of spotting the Founders. Dropping her school satchel by a sofa, she shoved an ottoman closer to the hearth and stood on its pillowed top, pushing her face nearer the canvas. "Erm—Salazar Slytherin, sir? Mr. Slytherin?"

"According to his book, he was a professor, master, and Hogwarts' almoner. Those are his titles. Ravenclaw was a professor and a master—Mistress of Charms and Transfiguration. Gryffindor was a Grandmaster and Hufflepuff was Hogwarts' first Headmistress."

"What's an almoner?"

"Well, back in his time, he was in charge of—never mind that now. Just call him 'Master' or 'Professor.'"

Tossing a funny look over her shoulder, Harriet returned to the task at hand. "Professor Slythe—. No, that's bollocks. Master Slytherin? Master Slytherin?"

The use of Parseltongue appeared to have the wanted reaction, as the dark-haired wizard with his oiled beard and knowing eyes shifted into view, his brow jumping when he came face-to-face with Harriet. "Ah, child of mine House. You have escaped the guardian."

"Oh—er, yes, sir." Harriet cleared her throat and tried not to fidget. "That's been taken care of now. The, um, Basilisk was killed. Sorry."

Slytherin waved a ringed hand. "'Twas a simple beast corrupted to madness, its purpose perverted from mine goals. Tell me of what fate met the pretender?"

"The pretender?" Harriet blinked. "D'you—do you mean the Heir?"

"Bah!" The sharpness of the portrait's exclamation made Elara and Hermione jump. "You say Heir and I say nay; he is no Heir of mine—besmirched! A wreck of a boy, a monster of a man, I tell you. To see my House so far in disgrace, taken by the errant mewlings of an inane cur!"

It fascinated Harriet to learn Salazar Slytherin had no love for Riddle, and though she wondered if he knew more of Voldemort and what had happened to him, she decided they didn't have time to explore the issue at present and the topic seemed to only infuriate Slytherin. They needed him compliant, not belligerent. "He died with the Basilisk."

"Then perhaps Fate has levered itself at last in veritable recompense."

Hermione—all but bursting with excitement—whispered, "What is he saying?" Slytherin glanced past Harriet to her two friends.

"You have brought compatriots. Maids of my House."

"Yes, sir," Harriet said. "This is—oh. I haven't said my name, have I? I'm Harriet Potter, and this is Hermione Granger and Elara Black."

Slytherin's eyes sharpened on Elara. "Of the Black Circle?"

"I—don't know?" What was he referring to? What circle? The mention of it tickled her mind, and Harriet dredged up a vague memory of Elara once mentioning 'Circles' existing before the Wizengamot came together. "It's an old family, the Blacks, but I'm not sure."

Master Slytherin feigned disinterest, but Harriet had been around enough Slytherins to notice how his eyes brightened ever so slightly in curiosity. "Hmm. You have come calling for a reason, yes?"

"Yes, sir. We were hoping to ask you and Professor Ravenclaw a few questions about the Moon Mirrors."

"Very well. A moment."

Slytherin disappeared out of the frame once more and Harriet exhaled, wiping her hands off on her school robes again. Conversing with one of the Founders was nerve-wracking, like Merlin suddenly turning up on the doorstep for a spot of tea and a nice chat. It left her feeling decidedly wrong-footed. "Hermione? Could you grab Mr. Flamel's translation primer from my satchel?"

"You're carrying it around with you?"

"Sometimes. It helps in Ancient Runes, not that we needed it today."

Hermione fished out the requisite book and joined Harriet on the ottoman, the stool just wide enough to accommodate them both. She set the primer on the mantel and flipped through it, glancing over the pages until she found the well-used section on old Anglo-Saxon English. Master Slytherin had returned by then, Ravenclaw joining him inside the portrait. The other Founder smiled when she saw Harriet, and Harriet guessed she was pleased she'd survived the Basilisk as well.

Hermione jumped into a rushed, breathless introduction and Professor Ravenclaw latched onto the attempt at conversation. Slytherin raised a bemused brow at the exchange and addressed Harriet in Parseltongue. "There is much change to the language in these intervening years. Your companion speaks with…an odd tongue."

Harriet coughed to cover a laugh. "It's a lot different now. It's been a thousand years, after all."

"A thousand years…."

Slytherin looked away, expression distant, and Harriet wondered what it was like for portraits, if they were conscious during that passing time, or if they slept like the portraits in the Headmaster's office and just didn't wake for long, uninterrupted years. Maybe they only came to life in the presence of magical beings. A lesson in Transfiguration earlier in the year had discussed the exchange of menial energy between magical items and the people who made them. That continued exchange fueled Harriet's magical golems past their projected expiration dates, and it explained why Muggle things didn't mesh well with magic. Harriet thought it was the reason why Hogwarts remained so very alive centuries and centuries after its construction.

"She asks after the glasses of silver."

Roused from her thoughts, Harriet nodded, pushing her glasses a little higher up her nose. "We're trying to understand them more and make a map. I've started one but it's been difficult finding them all."

Slytherin raised a brow again and, for an instant, Harriet thought he looked so eerily like Snape, she almost laughed. Shaking her head, she pulled her rough map out of her pocket and opened it with all the tentative, bashful awkwardness of a child showing a stern adult something they'd made themselves. Slytherin huffed—but it wasn't the outright derision Harriet thought he would give. "Do they not offer tutelage in cartography in the school?"

"No? Did they before, sir?"

"At a time. A passable attempt, then."

Shrugging, Harriet folded her map again, pleased to have at least been given a 'passable.' Hermione tugged on her sleeve. "Professor Ravenclaw says she has a map we can use. We have to go to her workroom."

"Where's that?"

"Apparently where everything else is here: just a thought away."

Bidding Slytherin a quick farewell, Harriet hopped off the ottoman and the trio of witches returned to the arch. This time, she allowed Hermione to go first, the other witch's face scrunched in concentration—and they walked right from the lounge to a new, broad room filled with towering shelves and vibrant, glittering spheres of light hovering above their heads. The lights followed them like small moons encircling their planets as they took a few hesitant steps into the workroom. The space brightened, orange light fluttering from a circular window set high on a tall, stone wall.

There were books, of course, hundreds of books and journals and tightly bound scrolls sorted into a rack resembling a wooden lattice, but there was also an inordinate amount of stuff. Harriet couldn't think of a better descriptor for the crates and boxes overflowing with all manner of objects—broken quills and polished horns, bones, stone slats, withered plant bushels, rumpled balls of parchment, and bolts of fabric. A barrel by the entrance had been filled with bricks, runes etched into the dry clay—and against the wall where the single window resided could be found a massive, flat workspace Rowena Ravenclaw must have utilized to conduct her experiments. It contained dozens of odd glass beakers and brass contraptions.

"It's almost a bit sad, isn't it?" Elara commented, voice soft, unwilling to break the strange, solemn sanctity of the room. She brushed her fingertips against one of the larger glass receptacles, a gray, undefinable powder left inside.

"What is?"

"The thought that Ravenclaw left here one day and simply never came back. Here it's sat for a thousand years, untouched and unknown. Lost."

Harriet nodded, gaze sweeping upward, studying the many portraits and paintings and diagrams framed and hung above the well-used desk. The landscapes showed sweeping vistas and forests, rising gray mountains and tumultuous storms boiling on distant, unknown horizons, but most of the portraits had long been abandoned by their inhabitants. One, a younger witch with a striking resemblance to the Founder, shot them a haughty, unfeeling glare before staking out of sight. Professor Ravenclaw appeared in a small frame positioned above an empty cauldron and addressed Hermione, speaking in that too fast rush of Old English Harriet had no hope of following.

Hermione listened to Ravenclaw, then turned to survey the rack behind her, her sharp, quizzical eyes searching the tomes and bound papers. "She says it should be—here."

She snatched up a large scroll almost as large as she was and Harriet rushed forward to help her lift it. Elara rolled her eyes and used a Levitation Charm to lift it out of their arms and dropped it onto the desk, rattling the glass containers.

Blushing at her lapse into Muggle habits, Hermione undid the ties binding the scroll and spread it flat. Harriet scrounged about the bins until she found several heavy geodes she used to weigh down the corner threatening to curl back up, and the three witches brought their heads together to look at the revealed design.

"These…these are the original architectural plans to Hogwarts," Hermione breathed with reverence, daring to touch one of the faint lines made by a quill and a steady hand. It was a marvel to see in Harriet's opinion; each floor had been sketched and inked onto a single sheet, every passage and door, window, tunnel, and parapet, done in loving, exacting detail. Had it been made by magic? Or had the Founders pored over this as she, Elara, and Hermione did now, creating their dream one inch at a time?

"They're not entirely accurate," Elara said, pointing at various sections. "This tower isn't there any longer, and there should be another wing here. The greenhouses moved from there to the other side of the castle. However, look—the Underneath is shown here. Ha, so much for Slytherin's secret chamber."

"It would make sense for the castle to have experienced renovations over the years," Hermione conceded. On the wall, Ravenclaw watched the trio with interest before calling Hermione's attention again. Hermione listened, consulting the translation primer, then returned to the rack for another scroll, this one roughly the same size as the blueprint but far thinner and lighter. Harriet helped her unroll the sheet and winced at the oily texture of the transparent vellum, realizing it must have been made from the skin of a magical creature.

"This is a celestial map. An old one."

"Why's it on something so thin? Why not parchment?"

"I'm not sure."

Sighing, Elara leaned past them both to flatten the new page, using both hands to press it firmly to the sheet below. Only then did they see how those lines and arches creating the constellations fell into place over the inked walls of Hogwarts, and Hermione gasped, smoothing more of the vellum out, ogling at the revealed design. "Oh," she uttered in pleased shock. "They match. They—the Founders mapped Hogwarts in relation to the stars. See, here? Polaris? It's the Sundial Garden. And the three points of the West Tower? Orion's belt. The curtain wall here makes the arm of Aquarius."

Harriet dipped into her pocket and retrieved her map again, unfolding it to make note of where the Moon Mirrors would land on Ravenclaw's constellation chart. After a minute of consideration, a snort escaped her. "The Moon Mirrors are planets—and moons. Bloody cheeky. But how would Ravenclaw know all their names? While we learned in Astronomy that a lot of the moons were discovered earlier by wizards than they were by Muggles, they didn't have the names they do now back in Ravenclaw's time."

"The paper must be self-adapting," Hermione said, running a reverent finger over the oily vellum. "Consuming and replicated knowledge, just like the Aerie itself, feeding on Hogwarts' collective knowledge. Oh, this is the most fascinating place I've seen in all of Hogwarts…."

On the wall, Ravenclaw interrupted with new information, and though Harriet didn't know what she said, the Founder sounded awfully smug.

"Really?!" Hermione blurted, checking the primer again. "She says the relative position of the Mirrors serves as their passwords!"

Harriet opened a drawer and searched for a quill, ferreting about until she found a magically sealed inkwell that was still usable. She almost burst into giggles when she realized she was using Rowena Ravenclaw's quill. Surreal.

It came as a pleasant surprise to learn that Harriet had managed to find many of the Mirrors on her own sporadic wanderings, but it was less pleasant to learn how many of the Mirrors had been lost to the slow ravages of time. Those places she'd taken to be exits she now theorized might have been connected to Mirrors that either never came into being or were no longer in existence. Several towers and the Moon Mirrors noted on the blueprints weren't part of modern-day Hogwarts. Had they ever been built? Where had they gone?

"I think I've been using the Moon Mirrors wrong," Harriet muttered to her friends, leaving an inky smudge on her nose as she scratched it. "I don't think they're actually passwords. Not exactly."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, I think, when I tell the Mirrors to open in Parseltongue, it kind of…forces them the wrong way, like a door bending on its hinges or something. We keep considering them in terms of single passages, but they're not. Like these Mirrors here—." Harriet placed her map next to a spot on the blueprint, the desk's wooden edge digging into her hips and she strained to reach. "This is the Underneath—and bloody hell, I didn't see even half of all of this while I was there! Slytherin must have been part mole, I'm telling you. Anyway, the Mirror here, in his study? It's Jupiter."

"And?"

"The Mirror I came out of when I landed on top of you? The one over…here? It's Ganymede, one of Jupiter's moons. I think—I think giving the password, Ganymede, to that Mirror would take me back to Jupiter."

"And Jupiter takes you to Ganymede?"

"Not necessarily. I'm just guessing here, but from Jupiter, I think you can go here—to Callisto. Or even here, Europa. But those could only go to Jupiter. It might be why I couldn't open them when I tried before."

Elara and Hermione considered this information while Harriet continued adding new Mirrors to her list and naming the ones already sketched within. "You can't add Jupiter and its moons to the map you give the Weasleys," Elara said, considering her words. "From your own account, the Underneath is dangerous, isolated—and patrolled by Slytherin."

Harriet shook her head. "I'm not telling them where to find that. I'm not telling them where to find the Aerie, either. Which, for future reference, is Neptune."

A strange expression crossed Elara's face and she glanced from the work table to Ravenclaw's spectating portrait.

"Well, write down what you can for now," Hermione said. She was looking at her watch and nibbling on her lower lip. "We'll have to come back for the rest—because we've been here far too long. Charms ended an hour ago and supper's halfway over!"

A bolt of dread went down Harriet's spine. They needed to get back before Snape realized they were missing!

They scrambled to gather their things, leaving the maps as they were, stopping only to give polite goodbyes to Professors Ravenclaw and Slytherin when they grabbed their bags from the lounge. They dashed to the nearest Moon Mirror they could summon—Proteus—and Harriet was delighted to find her theory worked, as a single utterance of the moon's name sent them right back to the Mirror Neptune beyond the faceless bust. Their proximity to the library made it possible to feign coming from there, having gotten lost in the archives if anyone thought to ask. Hopefully Snape—and the rest of the staff—were distracted enough by Sirius Black to not notice their absence.

The trio neared the entrance hall, and then slowed to an easy, unassuming walk, listening to the general warmth of voices and clattering flatware meet their ears through the open doors. Elara paused by Harriet and faced her, the pair stopping just shy of the entrance while Hermione continued on to the Slytherin table. "I know Hermione doesn't believe much in astrology, nor does she seem to recognize its symbolism."

Confused, Harriet furrowed her brow. "What symbolism?"

Elara shrugged, lifting one shoulder and dropped it again. "I found it curious, the planets Ravenclaw chose for her and Slytherin's respective domains. Neptune and Jupiter."

"How so?"

"When Neptune is in aspect with Jupiter—when they are together—it can reference a desire for escape." Elara turned to the Great Hall and the welcoming glow of candlelight shone in her pale eyes. "A deep and abiding need to escape reality into a wanted fantasy."

Together, they continued on to their House's table and found their seats, but while the others chatted about classes and Quidditch and Sirius Black, Harriet sat thinking about what Elara had said, ruminating on a wizard and witch a thousand years dead whom fate had conspired to tear apart. She thought about how Rowena Ravenclaw could make all the stars align except for the ones she wanted most.

A/N:

Harriet: [Holds up picture she drew]

Salazar: I deem this worthy.

Harriet: Thanks, snake-dad.

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