clxxiii. waiting for a name
As he stood, Headmaster Dumbledore tapped his fork against the rim of his goblet, and Harriet and the rest of the student body quieted at the sound of the soft crystal chimes.
"If I may have a moment of your time," the wizard said, silencing those last few scattered voices. "Today, while venturing from class to class, you may have noticed members of the Aurory in the halls. I want to ensure you they are here on the behest of the Ministry to guarantee your safety, as well as the safety of our Tournament guests when they eventually arrive."
"Wish he'd mentioned that before," Harriet muttered as she poked her spoon at the remnants of her pudding. Dumbledore bid them enjoy the rest of their meal and resumed his seat. "That bloke Moody scared the life out of me in the dungeons earlier."
Overhearing her, Katherine Runcorn looked around. "Moody?" she asked, turning from a conversation with Millicent. "Mad-Eye Moody?"
"The one with the—well, the eye?" Harriet pointed at her face for emphasis. "Yeah."
Runcorn shuddered, and across the table, Crabbe and Goyle exchanged shifty glances.
"He has a…reputation with certain families," Parkinson put in, her usual sour expression taking on a pinched aspect. Harriet raised an eyebrow, waiting for more clarification, and she continued. "With certain dignified families who don't deserve to have his lackeys from the Aurory swooping around, making nuisances of themselves. Anyone who got questioned after the war most likely has nothing pleasant to say about him."
Hermione cut across Parkinson's building tirade and asked, "What was he doing in the dungeons with you?"
"Well, he wasn't with me. And I suppose he was ensuring our safety," Harriet said with no little amount of snark. Given her run-ins with most Aurors in the past had been less than friendly, she didn't much appreciate being ambushed by one somewhere she hadn't expected to find them. Like a Boggart popping out of a teapot.
Under her breath, Elara murmured, "At least he's not a Guardian of the Magical Right."
"Some of those tossers are around?"
"Yes, of course. They're here on the Minister's orders, so his…people would be involved as well."
Harriet shut her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Brilliant. Just brilliant."
"Slytherin appears about as pleased by this change as you do," Elara pointed out, stirring milk into her tea. "Mind, don't look at him just yet. He's glaring."
Harriet heeded her advice and peered at the High Table from the corner of her eye, the peripheral look less clear outside of her glasses but solid enough for her to make out most of the wizard. His lips had formed a dangerous moue, and Snape looked just as frustrated. The Aurors sat at the other end of the table, the area extended by magic, though Moody himself looked to be absent.
He's probably off looking for another ambush spot.
Harriet stuck her spoon in her mouth and sighed.
Slytherin's expression didn't change much overnight; by breakfast, it had solidified into a low, simmering rage, and Harriet and the others had Defense later that day. Harriet wagered he'd be ready to set desks on fire after a few more hours.
By the time the fourth year Gryffindors and Slytherins marched into class, she'd seen several Aurors about the castle, mostly stationed in unobtrusive places in the halls or spotted at a distance, moving through the woods. Some wore the pins for the Guardians of the Magical Right, and others did not. For now, they appeared disinterested in doing much of anything, though Harriet kept a wary eye on them and grimaced whenever she heard the thump of Moody's wooden leg.
Slytherin hardly said a word as he swept into the room, announced only by the sudden bang of the door coming shut and the tremble of torches, as if the light itself was afraid of setting off his temper.
"Your assignment is on the board," he snapped as he reached the head of the aisle and went to his desk. He paused there to look out at the startled faces of his students, and his mouth curled in a nasty smile. "For your sake, do refrain from asking questions. It's just reading. If you can't manage that, I'll have to recommend your relocation to a primary school."
Chairs squeaked and papers crinkled as books were retrieved from bags, and Harriet took out her Transfiguration text, having already read the assigned chapter twice. She doubted Slytherin would care one way or the other so long as she stayed quiet.
The lesson commenced without further incident, their professor ignoring them in favor of his own book, reclining in his chair with his face more in shadow than out of it. Longbottom braved his mood in typical Gryffindor idiocy and raised a hand, but Slytherin merely scoffed and refused to call on him.
Longbottom dropped his hand and rolled his eyes. Next to him, Weasley shrugged.
Harriet scribbled a note on a scrap of parchment and passed it to Hermione.
What d'you think his issue with the Aurors is? The GMR might be here, but what does he care? They don't have authority over him.
Hermione scanned the message, then pretended to copy something from her open book as she replied.
They may have little power, but I doubt he appreciates the extra eyes.
Harriet hadn't considered that, and it seemed obvious in hindsight. She didn't like having the Minister's people about either, even if they couldn't do anything to her while in school. Imagining one of those pin-wearing prats telling Gaunt about her day made Harriet's skin crawl.
Hermione added a line: At least it's better than having the Dementors here.
A snort escaped Harriet, and she bowed her head an instant before Slytherin's gaze snapped up and scanned the room. She had the presence of mind to fold their notepaper and hide it inside her book before he noticed.
The remainder of the two-hour period passed in middling silence, pages turning and quills scratching, the occasional whisper daring to stir the monotony. Finally, when the bell rang, Harriet gathered her things together and slipped them into her satchel, readying herself to leave and head to dinner.
"Miss Potter," came the dreaded voice from the front. "Stay behind."
It was enough for her to utter a curse under her breath and drop her satchel on her abandoned chair.
"D'you think he saw the note passing?" she asked Elara.
"Probably. I would give the book to one of us before he asks for it."
Moving fast, Harriet shoved her entire bag into Hermione's hands just as Professor Slytherin stood and brushed his sleeve as if removing dust. He looked at the three of them with barely concealed annoyance.
"I didn't request for you to remain, Miss Black, Miss Granger. It would be in your best interest not to test my patience this evening. Go to the Great Hall."
Harriet's friends risked lingering for another moment, giving her worried glances, then shuffled out into the corridor after the others. Slytherin crooked a finger, and the door threw itself closed, sealing her inside.
The professor leaned on his desk and observed Harriet, pleased by the visible discomfort she couldn't entirely mask. She approached him and pointedly stared at her shoes, waiting for him to speak. He did so after taking in a deep breath and releasing a loud, indolent sigh. "I do hope you enjoyed Trimble's work."
Harriet blinked and lifted her gaze just enough to see his chin. "Sir?"
"I'm assuming you finished reading the book since you chose to spend my class period studying something McGonagall assigned."
His displeasure weighed on Harriet like a physical force, and she shrugged her shoulders under her robes to dislodge the feeling. "I'm sorry, Professor. I finished the textbook over the holiday already."
He raised a brow and smiled. "Nothing better to do?"
"Erm. No, not really. Sir."
What was this about? Surely he hadn't held her back just for a chin-wag over her reading preferences. If he had a problem with it, he'd have called her out during class and given her detention with Filch. He'd done it before for lesser infractions.
Harriet shuffled from one foot to the other—and forced herself to stop fidgeting, waiting for Professor Slytherin to get to his point.
Everything the wizard did was a pretense; the long pauses, the unsettling stare, the small simper on his red lips. He always seemed angry, but he wore that anger behind a disconcerting expression, a smile of straight, white teeth with eyes like bloody maws. He was always so—quiet, quiet as death, and if Harriet closed her eyes, she could almost believe him gone if not for the cold dread oozing off his person.
"Hmm." Slytherin folded his hands together before himself. "You haven't brought me your name."
"What? I mean—pardon, Professor?"
He sniffed, eying Harriet as if she'd morphed into a particularly stupid dung-beetle. "You have working ears, my dear, or so I believed. I told all Slytherins to bring me their names if they were interested in becoming my apprentice. You have failed to do so."
For one undignified moment, Harriet gaped at the wizard. He couldn't be bloody serious. There wasn't a thing she wanted less in this world—but his sickly red eyes remained fixed on her, unmoving, and Harriet knew he was dead serious and meant for her to answer him. Now.
"I—didn't want to waste your time," she said, wildly searching for the right words. "All the—the seventh years and sixth years have probably come to you, right? And I figured you wanted to pick one of them."
"I said the opportunity is open to all years," he told her. "If I thought it a waste of my time, I would not have allowed it. This is your fourth year under my tutelage, Miss Potter; have I struck you as a wizard who wastes his time?"
Harriet swallowed. "No, Professor. You haven't." She drew a breath to ask why he bothered bringing this up to her, why it mattered if she hadn't mentioned her interest, but she held her tongue. "I—when do we have to have our names in to you by?"
"By the end of October." His hands twitched ever so slightly, and his eyes flicked about her face. "If you simply have no interest, don't put yourself out on my account—."
"Oh no, Professor!" Harriet hurried to assure him. She didn't want to, but she had four more years as his student, and she'd gained enough bruises from the first time she'd inadvertently insulted him. She needed to get herself out of this mess. "I just—want to talk to my guardian first. It's a big commitment and everything, and I would want to take it seriously."
The comment mollified the wizard for the moment, his expression losing the hardening contempt—at least in part. "I told you before you have potential, did I not? Such a clever witch. I am looking forward to you proving yourself." Slytherin smiled, teeth sharp, glinting. "Don't wait too long to give your answer, Miss Potter," he said. "I do so loathe procrastinators."
Harriet muttered a vague, panicked reassurance, the whole of her courage seeming to sink from her heart to her shoes until she felt like vomiting on Slytherin's impeccable robes. He unlaced his hands and straightened, and though he didn't loom as he had when she was younger, Harriet still had to look up to meet his gaze.
A frigid sensation skated against her face, and she flinched, eyes jumping away. The shadows under her feet twitched.
The door came open and hit the wall with force, and Harriet stepped back, not having realized Professor Slytherin had drifted nearer, his hand extended toward her shoulder, a single inch away from touching her. Her heart clenched and raced, horror bleeding from her skin in cold, clammy sweat—an instinct she didn't have time to examine telling her to get away from the wizard.
What was he doing? What—?
"Auror Moody," Slytherin said, looking past her, and Harriet could hear the thumping leg now, the Auror's distinctive gait and his harsh grunt of breath coming nearer. Thank Merlin. "Have you not heard of knocking before?"
"Lesson's over," Moody replied, unbothered by Slytherin's cutting stare. His strange eye whirred and focused on Harriet as she turned around, her face pale and dotted with perspiration. "Don't see a reason for you to linger here, and I have to finish a security check, don't I?"
"In my classroom?"
"You never know where Dark wizards might be hiding, eh, Slytherin?"
Whatever the professor's response, Harriet didn't hear it; she gathered her wits, made excuses, and bolted from the classroom, gasping in the warmer air of the corridor. She tugged at her tie as she hurried, her footsteps echoing, putting much-needed space between herself and the Defense instructor.
She needed to talk to someone. Not Hermione or Elara, who'd be worried but unable to do anything about her situation. She could write Mr. Flamel—she would write him—but he felt so far away, and what could he do to help, really?
He'll know what to say, Harriet reassured herself. She took the stairs two at a time. He always knows what to say. He'll—.
She'd almost reached the Great Hall, walking through the dim passage adjoined to its side, hearing the laughter and smelling the food already—when she saw the familiar shadow of the Potions Master's lanky silhouette striding in the opposite direction, heading toward the staff entrance. He seemed to register her appearance at the exact moment she did because they both stopped and stared. His robes eddied about his ankles like the slow slosh of the tide.
"Late for supper, Potter?" he sneered. "Perhaps I should take points for loitering—."
Snape's voice cut off, not that Harriet had registered the words, her mouth dry and her throat tight, skinny hands trembling by her side. Something in Snape's face changed—his black eyes flaring, his snide, bitter bulwark lowering a fraction as he took in Harriet's frightened expression. Her panting echoed in the corridor.
"What is wrong?" he demanded, his volume low and suspicious.
"I—." Harriet stuttered, then swallowed, wetting her lips. "Slytherin, he—. He held me after class and wanted to know why I hadn't given him my name yet. For his competition. To be his apprentice."
Snape stiffened, drawing his wide shoulders higher as if bracing against something unpleasant. "What did you tell him?"
"That I needed more time." The ominous sensation from earlier pressed harder on Harriet's chest, and she looked wide-eyed into Snape's face. "What is going to happen when I tell him no? Bloody hell, he's not a bloke who takes no for an answer!"
Stirring, Snape stepped forward and took Harriet by the elbow, his fingers tightening as he drew her closer to his side. He pulled her along as they set off at a quick pace, passing by the open doors of the Great Hall, the golden light spilling across the gray flagstones. Their feet skirted the glow as they started down the stairs to the dungeons.
"Wh—where are we going?"
Snape turned to her, part of his face illuminated by a waiting torch. He wasn't frightened; Harriet had seen the wizard battle a werewolf and knew what he looked like when scared, but Snape still had an anxious cast about his furrowed brow and shadowed eyes.
"To speak with the Headmaster." His hand tightened, a solid, reassuring grip on her arm. "He will know what to do."
Harriet hoped so. She really did.