cxxiv. god-sister
November bled into December, and one dawn, the whole of Hogwarts woke to find the green hills beyond the castle grounds covered in a blanket of white.
The snow settled in, falling every passing morning and evening, and all too soon, a hard crust formed over the top of the lake. The forest creaked under the weight of ice, and more than one student ended up in the infirmary after falling down a slippery path. Harriet still ran outside on the track despite the cold and despite not being on the Quidditch team—avoiding the Slytherin players whenever she could.
She avoided most people outside of her friends these days. Since the last Quidditch game, no drama had occurred at Hogwarts, so chatter about Harriet's fall and subsequent dismissal from her team still popped up in the corridors or Great Hall. Harriet also kept her head down around Professor Slytherin, keen on escaping the wizard's expectant gaze whenever possible. Snape had been acting odd since he'd thrown Harriet from his office. He refused to look at her—not that Snape ever spent a lot of time doing that, but now his eyes pointedly skated over her table in the Potions classroom, and when Harriet raised her hand to ask or answer a question, he ignored it. She could only conclude that something she'd said in his office had deeply affected the wizard—but Harriet couldn't figure out what that something had been.
Maybe he lost someone to Voldemort, she thought. Maybe listening to me talk about how my mum died brought back bad memories for him.
Considerations of Snape and Slytherin aside, Harriet forced her mood to stay upbeat as the term's final Hogsmeade trip approached and her friends began to fret.
"We don't have to go," Hermione assured her. "We've already gone and seen it. Once was enough."
But Harriet urged them to go, just as she did for the previous trip, determined she wouldn't hold them back from having fun and getting their break from the castle. She promised she'd find Luna or Ginny while they were gone so she wouldn't be alone, but Harriet didn't mind having the time to herself and so didn't seek out her younger friends. While the rest of the school took the carriages down to the village, Harriet gathered Livi and headed out into the grounds, finding a spot on the lake's frozen shore. She practiced her Warming Charms as she sat there, feeling sorry for herself, watching the snow fall and melt.
"Snape's been acting weird," Harriet told Livi as the serpent dragged his belly through the sand, hissing in satisfaction. "Or, well, weirder, since he's always been an odd bloke. Most witches and wizards are odd, though. That's just a common thing." Sighing, she threw another Warming Charm toward the ground, and rills of steam issued from the drying sand. "I guess I shouldn't have told him about the Dementors."
Livi uncoiled and brought his nose to Harriet's, his eyes level with her own. "Bitter are the wordsss we asssk but do not want to know."
Harriet hummed and touched the gem on his head, tracing the smaller scales surrounding it. "Maybe. I think he lost somebody. I wonder what Snape hears when the Dementors come close?" It was an idle curiosity, the answer being too intensely private for Harriet to ever really consider asking the question. Concentrating, she waved her wand at the lake—or, more specifically, the ice—and applied Warming Charms until a small hole appeared. Livi flicked his tail in appreciation—spraying her with wet sand—and dipped into the cold, dark waters, vanishing out of sight.
Harriet's thoughts wandered to Snape again as she sat hunkered under her cloak, pressing her fingertips against a bruise on her red knee, watching the skin shift in color. She didn't know what to think of the Potions Master most of the time. He could be a right bastard, rude and snarky and just plain mean—but other times, he did things that contradicted his snide, cutting personality. Harriet got so caught up in things that she failed to think, but as more time went by, the more she remembered smaller details she didn't first consider. Like how Snape managed to get past the Moon Mirror into the Aerie and ran headlong into danger without missing a step. Or when Quirrell tried to kill her, and Snape was the first one through the door. Or when she was poisoned, and Snape was the one who shoved a bezoar down her throat.
Those details didn't mean much at the time, eclipsed by more pressing issues and dangers and woes, but Harriet didn't forget. Perhaps it was coincidental, the wrong person at the right time, and maybe Snape simply did as the Headmaster told him to do regardless of his own preferences—but Harriet didn't believe that, really. Snape was a quintessential Slytherin; he'd never do anything if he didn't want to do it.
Harriet laid back, not minding the cold or the wet grass or the stray snowflakes landing on her glasses. She plucked little pebbles from the dirt and tossed them into the air one by one, practicing her Shield Charms to bounce them into the lake. The clatter of stones striking the ice echoed.
"Hey, Potter!"
Harriet startled—and cursed as a pebble smacked her nose. Sitting up, she spotted the Weasley twins tromping down the snow-covered path toward her. "What?" she asked, mildly peeved, rubbing her sore face.
"Well, that's quite a tone to use on someone who's about to help you out," George—and she was fairly certain it was George—said as he sat on a flat boulder. "What's our favorite snake doing scrappin' around here instead of the village?"
"I'm not allowed," she grumbled, squinting up at the two twins now perched on the rock. "What about you two?"
"Oh, we're on our way—but spotted you out here."
Fred winked, and from his robe pocket he pulled out the Marauder's Map and gave it a wave. Harriet eyed it with wistful curiosity.
"Have you given our deal anymore thought, then?"
Harriet shrugged, pretending she didn't care, and pushed herself to her feet, smearing muddy hands against her shirt. "Yeah. I haven't had a chance to finish it yet. The map."
"But you've started it?" George asked, brightening. "We've been trying to find which mirrors are Moon Mirrors too, but haven't had much luck."
"Right? McGonagall caught us in one of the girls' loos the other day standing in the stinks—." Fred cut himself off when Harriet gave him a disapproving look worthy of Hermione. He held up his hands. "There was no one in there, promise!"
"She's as scary as Gin is when she's in a right snit, Freddie."
"Scarier, even." Fred shook his head, still smiling. "Listen, Harriet. Is your map almost finished?"
"…Almost. I have a couple I haven't copied down yet."
"We'll trade you anyway." He flapped the Marauder's Map about again.
"Why?" Harriet asked, confused. "If it's not complete yet, why trade?"
"Well, you have to give Georgie and me some kind of challenge, right? And Gin's been a bit worried about you."
"We think she's still feeling guilty over your glorious swan-dive."
Harriet huffed. "That's ridiculous—."
"Which is what we said, but what kind of honorary big brothers would we be if we didn't look out for our snakey extended family?"
Giving them both a dirty look, Harriet said, "You're not my brothers," and turned her shoulder.
"Aw, c'mon, Potter—."
Livi chose that moment to pop up from the broken ice, scaring both Weasleys into toppling off the flat boulder into the crunchy snow. Smug, Harriet smirked at the pair, and Livius slithered over, a dead grindylow hanging from his jaws. Livi hesitated upon spotting the boys and then went invisible—dead grindylow now suspended in midair.
"Wicked!" George said as he sat up and adjusted his lopsided cap. "Is this the familiar Neville told us about?"
"Longbottom has a fat mouth. He shouldn't be telling you anything."
"Don't be cross. To be fair, it seems an awful big thing to be quiet about." The grindylow started to disappear down Livi's gullet. "Blimey, look at that, Fred!"
Fred, for his part, appeared a tad more squeamish than his bother but kept a straight face. "Here, Potter. Take it."
He held the Marauder's Map out to her, blank now aside from a few spots of water dotting the surface from the snow. When Harriet made no move to grasp it, Fred poked her with it. "Go on, take it."
"I don't have the Moon Mirror Map on me."
"You can give it to us later. Take it, Potter, blimey. Do you remember how it works?" Harriet finally accepted the parchment, and Fred tweaked her nose, earning a grumble and a not-so-subtle hiss from an invisible Horned Serpent. George was trying to pet Livi and, judging by his jerking motions, Livius kept dodging his attempts.
"I remember how it works."
"All right. Put it to good use, yeah?"
"If I might make a suggestion," George put in. "You might want to find yourself on the third-floor this fine afternoon—."
"Visiting our good friend Gunhilda of Gorsemoor."
The name sounded familiar, something Harriet had heard or read in a textbook during History of Magic—but that class was easily one of her worst, no matter that Professor Lupin was a much better teacher than Professor Selwyn. "What are you two on about?"
In response, Fred and George shared an eerie, mischievous grin, and Fred simply tapped the Map in Harriet's hand. "You'll never know if you don't see for yourself."
x X x
On any other day, if Fred and George Weasley had told Harriet to find one of their friends on the third-floor, she would have known she was about to be pranked and would have had the good sense to ignore them both. Today, however, her inclination for caution had been replaced by bored inquisitiveness, and with the irresistible knowledge of the Marauder's Map in hand, Harriet decided to have a look.
She returned to her empty dormitory, ignoring the rambunctious first and second-years out in the common room, returning Livius to his comfortable nest of warm blankets and pillows under her bed. Satisfied, she sat on the mattress and considered the parchment, turning it round and round.
"If this curses me," Harriet muttered, retrieving her wand. "I'll tell their mother about everything prank they've pulled this year. I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."
Ink spilled across the old, weathered pages, and Harriet watched with captivated interest as the walls and thoroughfares of the castle she'd so carefully recreated on her own map appeared on the page. She could see the young Slytherins' tiny marks just down the corridor from her, and Filch was lurking in his office. Harriet folded back the map's edges. Snape crossed through the entrance hall, and Luna, Ginny, and a few other Gryffindors of Ginny's year loitered about the pitch. Slytherin conducted one of his "tutoring sessions," Accipto Lestrange, Patricia Parkinson, Desdemona Bragge, and Hector Gibbon all gathered in his classroom. Harriet could see all the names of the ghosts she'd never met. Professor Dumbledore stood at one of the windows in his office, unmoving.
Harriet glanced over the third-floor, not expecting to see anything on the Map itself—but, as she traced the curling lines with her fingertips—she realized a small, crooked section broke off and twisted away from wall, spiraling toward the empty edge of the parchment simply labeled, "Hogsmeade."
Eyes wide in excitement, Harriet hopped to her feet and dashed for the door—only to stop and double-back for her Invisibility Cloak, slinging it on over her head as she went. She stared at her own dot on the Map as she left the common room—diving into a spare broom cupboard when Snape's dot approached dungeon stairs. She couldn't hear the bastard pass by, but she could just barely see him on the parchment, illuminated by a weak shaft of torchlight managing to weasel past the door. Harriet watched until he disappeared and then released a low, gusty breath.
Well. The Map had already proved itself incredibly useful.
Harriet found her way to the third floor quickly after that, much of the castle vacant while the students visited the village. She walked until she stopped by the statue she knew only as the One-Eyed Witch—who was, apparently, named Gunhilda of Gorsemoor. The narrow little passage depicted in ink wended down and away from Gunhilda, but Harriet couldn't see a way to get by her stony, impassable visage. Grumbling, she consulted the Map again—and squinted at a minuscule speech bubble blooming over her stationary dot. It contained the word, 'Dissendium.'
A mini wand appeared next to it, mimicking a sharp, decisive tap. Harriet shrugged and checked the corridor despite knowing no one was about, then tapped the statue's side. "Dissendium."
Harriet jumped when the witch's stone hump lurched, then pulled in upon itself, revealing a dark, open recess, a tiny crawlspace just big enough for an average-sized man to squeeze through. That left plenty of room for Harriet, who quickly blanked the Marauder's Map and folded it into her pocket, levering herself up and into the revealed entrance. No sooner had she dropped down than the hump sealed itself off once more, and Harriet flinched in the dark, hurrying to light her wand.
The passage consisted of a narrow set of staggered steps plunging through a cavity built between the walls like a gritty mineshaft. Harriet covered her face against cobwebs as she went, and when the steps eventually ended, her wand illuminated the mouth of a rounded tunnel carved into the earth. She studied it for several uneasy minutes before deciding it had to be safe enough, especially if Fred and George had been using it. Harriet continued, listening to the harsh, quick beat of her heart in her ears, her school shoes catching on the uneven ground. The tunnel rambled on and on, so much so Harriet paused twice to check her position on the Map, noting how slowly her dot drifted toward the parchment's edges. After the second stop, she stowed the Map away again and picked up the pace, one hand balanced against the rough wall, another holding her wand before her.
At last, she came upon a set of rickety ladder steps, and Harriet climbed until she brushed her head against the underside of a trapdoor. It was locked, but not by anything a simple "Alohomora!" couldn't handle. Harriet inched the door open and peeked through the opening—startled by the loud guffaw of a dozen voices and clomping feet, the sticky smell of syrup and burnt sugar invading her nose. The room beyond the trapdoor was dark, but not overly so, an inviting warmth pervading the space that urged Harriet to lift the door higher, not realizing how cold she'd gotten in the tunnel below. Something slid and bumped against a hollow object.
Harriet crawled out and knelt among a dozen or so crates, obviously in some kind of cellar, the voices coming through the rafters and floorboards overhead. She let the trapdoor close, and it disappeared against the dusty, aged flooring, the outline invisible under the ancient carpet she replaced over the top of it. A door opened at the top of the steps, and Harriet clutched her Invisibility Cloak tighter around herself.
"Little blighters go through the stuff like Nifflers in a gold mine," a portly man chuckled to himself as he shuffled over to a long, wide rack bearing various glass containers. "Surprised their teeth don't rot out of their heads…."
Harriet spared him a puzzled glance, but when the wizard ducked behind a tall barrel in search of something, she made good on her chance to escape, weaving up the stairs and out the ajar door.
All the noise made sense once Harriet had a look about and realized she was in a shop—Honeydukes, given the overflowing bins of chocolate and licorice and jumping beans. Harriet had seen sweetshops before while touring various Wizarding quarters, but the sheer color and liveliness of the shop took her breath away, packed to the brim with her classmates choosing and bartering over their favorite treats. Harriet sidled out from behind the counter, and the throng of Hogwarts students was so thick, no one noticed the sudden invisible presence elbowing her way through their midsts.
Harriet couldn't suppress the elated giggle that escaped her when she managed to exit the shop and tugged off the Invisibility Cloak. It gave her a thrill to be out from under constant adult supervision present in the castle.
The main street of Hogsmeade sprawled in either direction, the tidy stone buildings looking like a Muggle Christmas card under their crisp layer of frost, all the lanterns along the road still lit and burnished. Students tucked into their winter cloaks darted from one place to another, laughter abounding, the crowd dotted here and there by the occasional villager passing through. The snow began to fall in earnest, but no one stopped to notice.
Harriet set off in search of Hermione and Elara, not bothering with the Invisibility Cloak after she spotted the two chaperons—McGonagall and Sprout—having perhaps one too many glasses of rum at the Three Broomsticks. No one else gave the scrawny Slytherin third-year a thought. She popped round the shops she thought her friends would most likely visit—Tomes and Scrolls, Scrivenshaft's Quill Shop, Gladrags—and when she failed to find them, Harriet turned her attention to Ceridwen's Caldrons, the post office, The Magic Neep, and even Zonko's. She walked into the joke shop and walked out holding her nose against the rotten smell of loose Dungbomb. She glanced into a seedy-looking pub off High Street called The Hog's Head Inn—and yelped when she spotted the barkeeper, who looked so much like the Headmaster, it sent Harriet sprinting back into the snow.
She'd almost given up the search when she finally spotted the cloud of Hermione's curly hair through a window. Harriet doubled back and checked the sign, wondering why in the world Hermione and Elara would be inside Spintwitches Sporting Needs.
A generous cluster of Quidditch players and enthusiasts had squeezed into the shop, Oliver Wood and Roger Davies both drooling over the single Firebolt on display behind a glass case. It smelled of leather and polish inside, and though Harriet usually enjoyed the scent, today it sent a prickle of tension along her spine. She purposefully ignored Marcus Flint and Derrick Bole's presence chatting in one of the corners and instead eased behind Elara and Hermione.
"…don't know if it's the right time to get her something like this," the former said as she studied a handsome leather book on Quidditch strategies. "I don't know if she'll enjoy it."
"Maybe. She should be back on the team soon enough, don't you think?" Hermione replied, frowning at the cheeky Chaser on one of the books who kept winking at her. "At least by next year."
"She's more put out by what happened than she lets on."
Harriet stuck her head between the pair. "I'm not put out!"
Elara dropped the book and gasped. The glass case surrounding the Firebolt shattered into dust.
In the resulting confusion of shouting students and furious shopkeepers, Harriet winced when a hand seized her by the wrist and dragged her bodily from the shop. "E-Elara!" she choked, taken aback by the strength of her grip, a sharp pain in her shoulder from being tugged too hard. "Quit it!"
Elara dragged her from the chaos unfolding behind them right into the narrow, dodgy alley separating Spintwitches from Scrivenshaft's. Ice layered the bricks of either building, and the wind cut bitter and cold as it howled through the byway. "What are you doing here?" Elara demanded when she finally let go and whirled on her. Harriet recoiled at her vehemence and bumped into Hermione. She'd never seen Elara so—urgent, so insistent. Her friend usually accepted things with grim deportment, a measured, sometimes apathetic calm. This was the opposite of calm. "You can't be out here!"
"I—? What, because of the bloody permission slip? That's bollocks, and you know it—."
"It's not about the stupid permission slip!" Elara swiped both hands over her face, looking to Hermione for assistance, then toward the alley. "Harriet, you have to go back to the school! You have to go back right now!"
"I'm not going anywhere until you explain."
"Please, go!"
"No! Elara, you're scaring me—."
"It's not safe for you!"
The more she spoke, the more confused Harriet grew. The confusion twisted into irritation because she'd been excited to see her friends, excited to visit the village with them, show them the Marauder's Map, and now—. "Not safe? Why? Because of the Dementors? They don't come to the village. Sirius Black? What does that have to do with me?"
"It has everything to do with you! Please, it's not safe!" Elara twisted her hands together, pulling so hard at the leather of her gloves, the seams threatened to tear. Her frustration grew as Harriet continued to stand there, disinclined to move.
"I…don't understand." Harriet said that too often these days, an echo of ignorance, a slow, disoriented spiral of forced ignorance. "If anyone should be worried about Black, it's Longbottom—or you. If it's not safe, what are you doing here? The bloke doesn't even know I exist!"
"Damn it all, Harriet, listen to me!" Elara shouted, fighting for volume over the keening wind and the noise from the Quidditch shop. "He doesn't know I'm alive! He—Harriet, please! There was no danger to me. It was about you, all the precautions this summer, Dumbledore and McGonagall not allowing you into the village—it's not protected like the school is! Black might be after you, like he might be after Neville!"
"What—? That's ridiculous, why would he—?"
"Because he killed your parents!"
Behind Harriet, she heard Hermione gasp, but it sounded a long way off. She stared at Elara as red crept into the girl's otherwise pale face, her gray eyes vivid and gleaming and frighteningly sincere, the words pouring from her in great, stuttering bursts—as if she practiced them. As if they'd been held in too long.
"Because he was their best friend! Because he sold them out to the Dark Lord! Because—he was your godfather! And he was the one who sent Voldemort to your house that Hallowe'en night! He sent him there, then went out and slaughtered twelve Muggles and his other best friend! That's why he was in Azkaban! He's mad and dangerous and—please. Please go back!"
Harriet didn't move. She didn't breathe—while Elara, on the other hand, couldn't get enough air, panting and trembling, clearly steps away from being sick. Concern burbled in Harriet's chest but couldn't seep by the sudden, pressing weight crushing it. She stared at Elara—the girl she'd known for years, had shared a bed with, had cried with, had laughed with—and felt as if she gazed at a stranger.
She had to have known. She'd memorized every fucking fifth and sixth cousin in her family tree, so there was no way—. Elara had to have known for all these years, had to have realized the moment she learned Harriet's name that they were god-siblings, and yet—.
And Harriet never asked about Sirius Black. Because she was an idiot. A stupid, naive little orphan girl—.
She kept this from me.
Harriet wanted Elara to take the words back, but she couldn't. They hung heavy and ugly between them, and they couldn't be taken back, couldn't be unheard. All Harriet could think about was the sudden, sparking realization of Elara's withheld knowledge hitting her with tangible weight.
She…lied?
The cold burned in Harriet's middle, against her wet cheeks, and the narrow strip of light painted between the two buildings seemed to grow thinner and thinner. She couldn't recognize the witch standing across from her.
Because he's your godfather!
Harriet grabbed the Invisibility Cloak out from under her arm, pulled it on, and disappeared.
A/N: Top Ten Anime Betrayals.
The One-Eyed Witch is canonically on the third floor, but like…how does it open to an underground tunnel?
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