clviii. little poisons
Harriet peeked into the swirling amber liquid inside her teacup and grumbled.
Next to the cup, the old wooden table held her open potions kit and Herbology textbook, the page held down with a carved salt shaker shaped like a leering skull. There was also a tiny cauldron set above a dish of sand and a little canister of student-grade phosphorus. Harriet consulted the page again, propping her cheek against her hand, and then rattled through the mostly depleted packets and bottles inside the kit.
She'd used almost everything last year, and they weren't due to go to Diagon Alley until the end of the month.
"'The leaves of the 'Mandragora officinarum' are a source of tropane alkaloids (atropine, scopolamine, cuscohygrine, et al.),'" Harriet read. "'As such, the leaves cannot be used in topical or internal potions without first being prepared in the proper inertia agent. Symptoms of Mandragora poisoning mirror those of atropine poisoning, including tachycardia, hallucinations, dizziness, and vomiting.' Merlin!"
Harriet was inclined to spit out the Mandrake leaf currently stuck under her tongue, but she knew Elara had prepared it before giving it to her. She knew that. It didn't stop the leaf from tasting bitter and strange and vaguely poisonous.
She skimmed the rest of the entry—trying not to linger overlong on the list of poisoning symptoms or the creepy drawings of fully-grown Mandrakes—and found the addendum, which listed the proper companion book meant for potions. Harriet memorized the title and dashed upstairs to the library, asking the portrait of Headmaster Black for assistance in locating the appropriate tome. It was out of date by a whole century, but it would serve her purposes.
She returned to the basement, ignoring the muffled voices in the living room.
Bloody idiots, the both of them.
Sighing, Harriet opened the stiff textbook and searched for the page she needed.
"'The magical composition of 'Mandragora officinarum' reacts negatively with the other flora of its family and with reagents of similar alkaloid compositions.'"
That meant if Harriet had the sudden hankering to mix in anything poisonous, it would probably ruin her mandrake leaf, but it didn't mention anything about normal, non-poisonous plants. Relieved, she read the rest of the insert, going through it twice, before she dropped a sprig of rosemary, mint leaves, and three drops of grapeseed oil into the cauldron with three cups of witch-water. She checked it twice before spilling some grains of phosphorus into the sand dish. It was different than the stuff found in the Muggle world, but it still burned hot when ignited, leering red flames curling around the bottom of her blackened cauldron.
The voices overhead grew louder. Harriet stirred her concoction, ignoring the noise, and counted the rotations under her breath. She went to stick her face into the steam, then remembered her lab safety training at the last second, sitting back with a grunt and wafting the fumes to her nose.
It smelled okay. Rosemary and mint bound together were meant to mask the taste of most anything, though she'd read that the majority of potions didn't react well to the addition. It made sense, given you couldn't go about throwing things willy-nilly into the brew just because it tasted bad.
Harriet lifted the heated cauldron from the flame and set it on the cooling rack, using a ladle to spill a measure into her tea. She gave the cup a dubious glance and shrugged. "Cheers."
She gulped down a mouthful—and grimaced. "Yuck!"
When giving Harriet the Mandrake leaves she'd need to keep in her mouth for the Animagus potion, Elara had failed to mention it made absolutely everything taste like warm, sun-baked rubbish. How Elara, who got sick when something simply looked a bit off, had managed to keep the leaf in her own mouth for an entire month without spitting it out would go down as one of the world's most puzzling unsolved mysteries.
The mint and rosemary potion made the tea taste less like soggy garbage and more like a mouthful of prickle bush. Harriet pondered how it could possibly be spicy.
"Definitely don't have a career in potion inventing," she groused, giving the tea another sip, shuddering. "Bloody hell."
A month. She had to keep the leaf in for an entire lunar cycle. Harriet thought she might go spare or waste away before then.
Overhead, something fell with a dull thump, and a door slammed open. "Elara!"
Harriet exhaled and leaned on her elbows, rubbing the pads of her fingers over her face, slipping them under her glasses to press on her closed eyes. They were arguing in the hall now. Well, they really never stopped arguing because if they weren't arguing, they were sniping, and if they weren't sniping, they were snarling, and if they weren't snarling, they were ignoring one another with a heavy, expectant tension that Harriet hated most of all.
She'd read about Chinese water torture in a spy novel before and how the unpredictability of the drops had produced such anxiety and stress in the protagonist, he'd almost gone mad waiting for each splash of cold water on his face. Harriet felt something similar living in Grimmauld; it came as a relief when Elara and Sirius did start yelling at one another because lingering in silence only prolonged the inevitable, like holding a breath until it physically hurt, though the relief never lasted for long. It morphed to irritation, to anger, to sheer impatience.
They were just so bloody loud!
The stairs creaked under the weight of stomping feet, and Elara slammed into the room. Bright red color flushed her cheeks, and Harriet thought steam might escape her ears if she got any angrier.
"Of all the impossible morons in this world," she seethed through clenched teeth. "I share genes with the most moronic one of all!"
Harriet chose not to comment, having no desire to insert herself into whatever argument they were playing out now. She concentrated on the potions' text—which included even uglier illustrations than the Herbology one, whole diagrams on dissecting roots that looked like wailing, knobby infants.
"Horrid Gryffindors!" Elara spotted the teapot left by the hob and went to fashion herself a cup, sloshing hot liquid on the counter. "The absolute audacity of that man!"
Again, Harriet said nothing, and her silence only served to irk Elara. Once she had her drink, she came to stand next to Harriet and glanced into the messy cauldron, quirking a brow. "Why aren't you using the potions lab?"
Harriet ground her teeth and closed her books, disregarding the blackened door off the kitchen—and the ominous occupant therein.
"Ah, that's right. Because you're quarreling with Snape."
"I'm not quarreling with anyone."
"No? Then why aren't you using the potions lab?"
"Elara, leave it alone."
A bang from upstairs interrupted whatever Elara meant to say in response, something solid colliding with the floor, and a reciprocal snarl erupted in the potions lab Elara kept bothering Harriet about. Snape burst out of the room and didn't spare them an ounce of notice as he darted up the stairs and started shouting at Sirius. "Black, will you SHUT UP?!"
"Bugger off! This is my house, Snivellus! I can be as loud as I want!"
Harriet wished he wouldn't. She wished Snape wouldn't and Elara wouldn't—but Snape was already in the foyer yelling up the stairwell, and a yelling Snape was a furious Snape, which meant the whole bloody house would suffer for it. The portrait on the landing started screaming hateful invectives about Snape's mum, startling Elara into dropping her cup, Harriet kneading her brow to abate the headache within. Her head hurt so much she could barely see straight.
"Sirius knows shouting will set off Walburga," Elara complained as she fished out her wand and pointed it at the broken teacup. "He knows that! And she gets more and more impossible to quiet each time she throws off the curtains! God help me, having such an impossible wizard for a father!"
"At least you have a father."
Harriet regretted the words the moment they slipped out, and she squeezed her eyes shut, unwilling to look at her god-sister. Elara froze, and the portrait went silent as someone managed to get the curtains in place, but the house still felt much too loud to Harriet, like the ghost of their anger was hovering against her back, breathing on her neck. She pushed away from the table and left the basement, Elara calling after her. Harriet stopped in the foyer for a second, glaring at the gloomy stairwell, and strode out the front door into the sunlight.
It wasn't much better outside; the temperature had risen as the summer matured, and not a lick of breeze could be found in the humid London streets, but it was quieter, and Harriet didn't pause as she walked out of Number Twelve and shut the door behind her. She reached the edge of the wards, turned right, and headed in that direction along the sidewalk.
The ache in her shoulders and head abated the farther she went, sweat beading in her hairline under the sun, and Harriet exhaled loud and forceful, startling a bloke on the stoop of Number Three.
She didn't blame Elara for her resentment or need to antagonize Sirius, even if Harriet didn't empathize with it much. Sirius was difficult, prone to mood swings and stubbornness, adamant that Livi couldn't wander the house and that Harriet couldn't have snakes at the dining table. Elara didn't help matters, flying off the handle if something as silly as a coaster went missing, and Harriet suspected Kreacher was moving stuff about to goad his mistress into having a row with Sirius. Snape lurked like a demon in the basement waiting to be set loose, Mably cried and fought Kreacher, and Harriet just wanted to sit in the lounge and do her homework without someone throwing crockery.
She crossed the road and wandered into a busier avenue, though she stayed aware of her surroundings, checking the signs and landmarks as she went. Merlin forbid she got lost in the city.
What would life be like if James Potter suddenly came back from beyond the grave? Would Harriet be angry, too, if her own father slid into her life without warning? Well, she told herself. It's not the same thing. Elara's dad was in prison for a heinous crime, and mine's dead.
But Elara grew up thinking her parent was just as dead as Harriet knew hers to be, so did it make it worse to discover him alive but beyond reach? Did that fester bitterness, and was it worth the constant agony of living in a house where everyone bloody hated one another?
Maybe, Harriet thought without much conviction, pausing outside a bakery to let the delicious smells roll over her. She swallowed and could taste the Mandrake leaf's essence in her saliva. Merlin, that's gross.
Whatever Elara's hangups, Harriet would have traded a great deal of things to have her own father back—or her mum. She really wished she had her mum with her. She wished Aunt Petunia didn't despise her. She wished she could stay with the Flamels if Elara and Sirius intended to bicker all summer until blue in the face.
Harriet glimpsed a familiar logo among the milling Muggles and realized she'd stumbled upon a charity shop. She went inside and hummed with appreciation when the cool, conditioned air poured over her sweaty nape and sensitive ears. The man behind the register in the front gave her a cursory look, then went back to chatting with another customer, and Harriet wandered deeper into the store.
Some of her only fond memories from life with her relatives came from visiting charity shops with Aunt Petunia. Her aunt never bought anything new for Harriet, so she'd taken her niece to second-hand stores whenever Harriet absolutely needed clothes that Dudley's hand-me-downs couldn't provide. Of course, Petunia never let her buy anything herself, but she'd allowed Harriet to explore and to look around at all the odds and ends. It'd been a great deal of fun to a child who'd never been permitted anywhere aside from the grocery store or the park.
Harriet didn't have any Muggle money on her, but she still browsed the aisles. She'd been lucky she hadn't stormed out of the house in robes or something magical, instead wearing a pair of shorts, a thin jumper, and her school shoes, which were getting worn on the bottom from overuse. She discovered a shelf in the back dedicated to tatty old paperbacks—and to her delight, many were fantasy novels, including a few of her favorites. Wizarding fiction didn't have anything on Muggle fiction. Harriet sat on the carpet, folded her legs, and started to read.
She didn't know how long she stayed there, but it was cool and quiet with the sunlight softened by the height of the shelves and the buzzing fluorescents, and no one came to bother her so far into the store. Harriet knew the longer she procrastinated, the worse her eventual telling off would be, but she remained seated and pushed thoughts of Grimmauld Place and her complicated life from her mind, concentrating on the book in her hands.
It was peaceful for a time.
Someone came to stand next to her, and Harriet blinked, looking at a magenta trouser leg.
"Good afternoon, Harriet," Albus Dumbledore said, smiling at the befuddled Slytherin witch. He wore the gaudiest Muggle suit she'd ever seen, though she guessed it was passable enough for London. Anywhere in the country, and he would have been better off wearing robes.
"Err—hullo, Headmaster," she replied. "What are—?" She nearly asked what he was doing there but then rolled her eyes at herself for being such a numpty. "How d'you find me, sir?"
Still smiling, Dumbledore dipped his wizened hand into the pocket of his jacket and withdrew a familiar glass lens. Harriet had a copy of the same lens hanging under her jumper, along with an Erkling-bone spoon and Hugh's skull. The Argonaut's Atlas would show where any three of its paired lenses were at any given time. "A fascinating invention. Miss Black was kind enough to lend it to me."
"Oh."
Professor Dumbledore returned the Atlas to his pocket and tipped his head as he observed her, keen blue eyes lingering on the paperbacks she'd set next to her. "Everyone was quite worried when you left without mentioning where you intended to go. It's quite dangerous to go off on your own."
"Oh," Harriet repeated more dully than before. She knew that. They must have been worried if they'd contacted the Headmaster and Elara had handed over her Atlas. Harriet felt guilty causing a panic when all she'd really wanted was a bit of time to herself. "I'm sorry, sir."
"It's quite all right, dear girl. I imagine it's stifling being indoors so often."
It wasn't just being indoors; it was the constant confrontation, the conflict. It needled at Harriet as it had when she still lived with the Dursleys, and she had an overbearing need to get away from it.
"Is Elara okay? We—her and me and Hermione—promised to never give anyone our Atlases. She must've been scared."
"Oh, Miss Black is in good health, though she seems to believe you two had a misunderstanding of sorts." He peered at Harriet over the top of his half-moon spectacles. "Don't worry. Even the best of friends will have tiffs from time to time, my dear. It's healthy to express one's self and disagree with a friend or loved one when you feel the need to."
Sirius and Elara must be the healthiest people in England then, Harriet thought, amused and annoyed in equal increments. "If you say so, sir."
"Severus was so concerned, he was about to look for you himself when Miss Black brought her Atlas to my attention."
The mention of Snape hit Harriet like a snowball to the back of the head, and she clenched her jaw, glowering at her folded knees. Her derisive snort did not go unnoticed.
"Is something amiss, Harriet?"
"No, sir." Gathering her courage—and no small amount of indignation—she forced herself to look up and meet his gaze. "Why did you hire him, Professor?" she asked. "When you know what he is?"
Shock flickered through the older wizard's face, his white eyebrows lifting toward his hairline. "He spoke to you about that? I must admit, I'm surprised."
"More like he shouted it at me. After—after that night, with Greyback, when I stopped by his office."
"Ah," he muttered mostly to himself. "I had wondered what was bothering the boy, but never mind my maundering. I have my reasons for Professor Snape's appointment, and I believe wholeheartedly in his character despite what flaws might linger. Has he done something to abuse your trust since his revelation?"
Trust? Did—did Harriet trust Snape? What in the world? It had never occurred to her, but then again, trust did not come easily to Harriet. Did a perceived slight to that confidence have more to do with Harriet's anger and emotions than what the wizard did fourteen years ago? She didn't know.
"No, Professor." He hummed a thoughtful note as Harriet closed the book she'd been reading and gently returned it and the others to the shelf, getting to her feet. "Snape told me…he told me about what he did. What he said to—him. About…about how my parents died, and there being a proph—."
Headmaster Dumbledore interrupted her by squeezing Harriet's shoulder. Not hard, but with enough pressure for her to know he didn't want her to publicly mention the prophecy. Harriet didn't think there'd be Death Eaters or agents of the Dark Lord out poking through discount bins, but better safe than sorry.
"I believe this is a conversation to be had in private," he said, and Harriet's face fell, thinking about Grimmauld Place and the lecture no doubt waiting for her. "Would you care to come with me to my office? I can let the others know you're with me from there."
Relief poured through her, though it mingled with a seed of dread as she thought about what he could possibly have to say about Snape. At least she didn't have to go back yet. "Yes, sir."
"Excellent. That leaves one last thing—." He dipped his hand once more into the pocket holding the Atlas, and to Harriet's curiosity, withdrew a folded Muggle tenner. He handed it to her with a wink. "I'll meet you outside."
Harriet watched Professor Dumbledore turn and stroll off toward the shop's entrance. A Muggle woman and her teenager glanced in his direction with shared looks of incredulity and broke into a fit of giggles. With a soft snort, Harriet plucked the stack of novels she'd been perusing off the shelf and headed toward the register.
She wasn't looking forward to this conversation.
A/N: Before someone goes off on how childish Elara is being—well, yeah. The fourteen-year-old with unprocessed trauma and a budding Dark magic addiction is going to be childish and unbearable at times, especially when the environment she previously controlled is being challenged. She'll get better, but not overnight.
Dumbledore: "I found her in a charity shop."
Snape: "Can you get a refund?"
Dumbledore: "Severus, no."