Holly sank into the comfortable knitted seat right by the window. The rhythmic hum of the train engine echoed through the compartment, its vibrations resonating through the worn, polished wooden floor. It was finally time to get back to Hogwarts.
The summer had felt way too short. On the one hand she'd barely done anything she had planned, like finding a way to sell her rune designs or just developing new ones.
And on the other hand, she got to spend weeks in the magical household of the Brown's, doing magic and working ahead in the curriculum. Not to mention exploring a magical forest with her friends.
One of said friends chose that moment to poke her cheek.
"Ow, you know that hurts," she swatted at Lavender's hand.
"And you deserve it. I'm still mad at you for getting a better 'tan' by sleepwalking for a single night than me the whole holiday actively trying. You really really do deserve that nasty sunburn," Lav replied snappily with a pout on her face. "Now stop spacing out, we want to play exploding snaps until the train departs!"
Holly still couldn't believe they'd actually believed her lie of sleepwalking. She hadn't, of course, but it was just the only excuse she'd managed to come up with as for why she walked back into the house one morning, completely filthy and sunburned. Turns out, magical fire could give you sunburns somehow and that was why her skin had felt so dry after 'burning' the bowtruckle tree. Thankfully, it was almost healed by now.
Holly concentrated on the game. Even if seeing Lavender mad was quite funny, she didn't want to risk getting poked more or having the cards explode in her face.
The train whistle going off a while later broke them out of the game, wasn't it a little too soon to depart? Looking out the window at the clock hanging over the platform confirmed it, it was only 10:55. Children still saying their goodbyes scrambled to load their luggage onto the train, shoving other's parents out of the way to get on.
A flash of ginger hair caught Holly's attention, the Weasley's had just arrived through the barrier to the muggle side in a mad scramble to board the train. And right behind them…
"Eeep," Holly squeaked and ducked down under the window sill in a panic.
"What are you doing, Holly? That was just the train whistle," Parvati giggled.
"I know, but I'm hiding from someone," she replied. "Can you check if there's a house elf by the barrier?"
Lavender walked up beside her, looked out the window and scanned the platform.
"I don't see anything, but it's not unusual for a house elf to be helping their family with loading up the luggage."
Holly peeked over the window sill and breathed a sigh of relief when the coast was indeed clear.
"Definitely not this one, I saw Professor Babbling's house elf by the barrier, doing something." She shuddered at the thought that he could have been waiting for her by the barrier to harass her on the crazy Professor's orders. Or just because he found it fun…
"Are you sure, why would a Professor's house elf be at King's Cross?" Parvati asked.
"Pretty sure yes. I don't know what he could have wanted, but it was definitely suspicious."
The train lurched forward, and Holly, still crouched by the window, fell over, making her friends laugh, Holly joining in a second later. So what if the train departed a little early and the house elf was doing weird things on the platform? They were going back to Hogwarts!
Holly was a little sad that they didn't get to take the boats across the lake again. Instead, when she greeted Hagrid collecting the firsties, he quickly shooed her off towards the carriages. He was busy and took this job seriously, Holly understood.
Didn't make riding the carriages any less boring and uncomfortable. To say that the ride was bumpy would be an understatement, wizards had a softening charm, how had they not invented suspensions? And they weren't even being pulled by an animal she could pet, just magic at work.
Truly, outrageous!
At least they instantly got to find a seat in the Great Hall without having to wait for Professor McGonagall to lead them in like last year. Of course they still had to wait out the sorting which Holly barely paid attention to, too occupied with ignoring the piercing gaze of Professor Babbling who was staring at Holly from across the hall. She didn't even dare look in the direction of the High Table. Hopefully the Professor would leave her alone if she didn't pay attention to her.
As such, it took Holly until the last new student had been sorted, Ginny Weasley to Gryffindor, and the feast had long since started, that something was wrong. It was way too quiet and no food was flying out of a certain individual's mouth across the whole table.
Longbottom and Weasley were still missing.
Hermione had been by their compartment earlier in search of them, Malfoy too actually. Why they thought Holly would know where they were was a mystery to her. Her best guess was that they had somehow missed the train… Huh, weird, the train had left early. Not that she cared though.
But Holly couldn't savour the treacle tart for dessert, her eyes always straying to Hermione who was chewing on her hair instead of eating and looking quite distraught. Holly hadn't forgotten what happened between them at the end of last year of course, what with Hermione almost killing Holly by accident, but seeing her like this didn't give Holly any satisfaction.
"I'm sure they're fine, starving yourself won't help them," she said across the table.
Hermione's head shot up from just looking at her empty golden plate to glare at Holly.
"And what would you know," Hermione snapped at her. "Why don't you go back to your rule breaking and leave me alone?!"
"Right, okay. Sorry." Hermione could be really mean when she was angry. And quite hypocritical considering she and the two berks constantly broke the rules too, but that was justified in their mind cause they always had 'a good reason'.
Holly didn't let her mood dampen… too much. She was back at Hogwarts, new magic to be learned and she could finally start working on that with Professor Snape. It had taken all her persuasion skills (and quite a lot of begging) for him to agree to it. Not to mention, the ingredients had been bloody expensive, she really hoped this worked. One just didn't disappoint the Mrs. Flamel.
Dinner ended without any other disturbances bar the camera flashes of a new muggleborn wanting to take pictures of everything. He even managed to blind half of the great hall with the camera flash towards the end somehow, shocking everyone, including himself. Apparently the flash wasn't supposed to go that bright, but nothing else could have caused it.
Properly fed and cosy, Lavender, Parvati and Holly went to bed with big smiles on their faces.
Compared to last night's feast of various roasts, sausages, pudding, vegetables and desserts served on golden platters, breakfast was a simple affair. Porridge, toast, eggs and bacon were the staples and made for quite the unhealthy diet. At least there were bowls of fruits, berries and nuts you could mix into your porridge.
With no classes set for the first day, Holly's friends wanted to sleep in and she had decided to pay a visit to her favourite Professor today. After quickly shovelling a bowl of porridge with blueberries down, she left breakfast early, hoping to avoid a certain Runes Professor. As she left, she took note of the big hourglasses counting the house points having grown an area to display negative points.
Well, only the Gryffindor one to be precise. Holly herself didn't care too much about house points, but quite a lot of others would get themselves in a tizzy having to earn what looked like quite a lot of points, just to reach the baseline of the other houses. She knew only one Professor who could be responsible for such a thing, coincidentally also the one she was on her way to.
Holly paused at the entrance to the dungeons, they seemed a little off. Maybe it was the addition of chains and shackles hanging from the ceiling, the new spikes on the torch holders or the walls looking extra wet and cold. Filch must've had his fun during the holiday.
The sound of stone grinding on stone made her turn back around, but when she couldn't see anything out of the ordinary, Holly began descending the stairs. Only to jump in fright and trip when sudden shrill shouting echoed out of the Great Hall, reverberating through the corridors.
She caught the handrail before her tumble could end with her at the bottom of the stairs with several broken bones. Clutching one hand to her chest and the other to the rail, she lowered herself to sit on the stairs and calm down.
"… STOLE THE CAR… STOPPED TO THINK… MINISTRY…!!"
The shouting continued, so loud that Holly's ears kept ringing. She couldn't fathom what had happened, but whoever was on the receiving end of the lecture must surely be deaf by the end of it. She quickly fled down the stairs, not wanting to end up the same.
Holly got a lot of weird looks on her way to Professor Snape's office. The Slytherin's certainly wondering what she was doing on their turf so early in the morning, going in the direction of their head of house's office no less.
He was quite famous for not being impartial at all in the race to win the house cup and took pleasure in punishing the other house's students for the smallest transgressions. Especially Gryffindor, her own house. So it was odd for a Gryffindor student to seek him out on their own.
She pounded on the thick office door with her fist, in case he wasn't awake yet, which she doubted. But mostly to annoy Snape, who opened the door with an unimpressed look on his face, before she could knock more than twice.
"No," was all he said before shutting the door in her face again, actually hitting the tip of her nose.
A group of older Slytherin girls passing by giggled at her. Holly just glared back at them until they left and knocked again, harder this time. The door swung open so fast it banged against the wall and her hair was pulled into her face by the negative air pressure.
If Holly was any less familiar with Professor Snape, she'd be quite intimidated by the hard, unyielding glare he shot her.
"Fine, but make it quick."
He turned on the spot and stalked, as that was the only way to describe his gait, back to his desk, all the while making his black robes and long hair billow behind him. He still hadn't shared with her how he did that.
"Now," he sat down in his big office chair, "to what do I owe the displeasure of having you sit in my office on the first day of school, Holly?"
"We talked about this in our letters this summer, did we not? I asked if you would teach me how to brew the cleansing potion."
"We did, yes, but not when," he began. Holly was just about to protest when he continued. "You do realise that the cleansing potion is a NEWT level potion and I only agreed to teach you because it's not part of the usual curriculum?"
"Well, no. But I really need to be able to brew it, hopefully within the year."
Professor Snape raised a single eyebrow, looking unconvinced.
"The potion is incredibly dangerous, if you make even a single mistake it'll be your last one. I was thinking of maybe teaching you starting 5th year, when you have a grasp of the basics. So why pray tell, would you need to be able to brew it so quickly?"
Wasn't that the crux of the whole issue? Holly looked down at her lap where she had folded her hands, fingers playing with the hems of her gloves.
"I was told that it could maybe heal my scars."
The Professor remained silent for a bit, staring at her and contemplating. She didn't meet his eyes.
"Impossible," he eventually told her. "I… tried that when you were still in a coma after the attack."
"But, but I was told if I brewed it myself, imbuing it with my own magic that it'd be different," she looked back up at him. When he didn't look convinced, she blabbed it out. "A-and I have a secret ingredient!"
"…what?"
"It's, ehrm, very rare and I'm not supposed to say," but Professor Snape just shook his head slowly.
"If you can't even trust me with the nature of your ingredient," Holly gawped, he sounded actually hurt. This was the first time she'd seen his impassive facade crack. "Then I don't know if I can trust you with brewing such a dangerous potion, so please, leave."
"Wait, it's… it's an alchemical reagent!"
Then the impossible happened, Professor Snape's already ghostly pale complexion drained of even more colour, making an even greater contrast between the black robes, hair and dungeon walls. Holly had to suppress a giggle, he looked like a face floating in the room now.
Slowly, the 'colour' returned to his face, and the expression that had remained passive all throughout their conversation, turned to a nasty smirk. No, wait. Not a smirk, but a… grimace. Her own amused expression faded.
"I knew something was wrong when the enchantment on the key room was entirely broken," he muttered to himself. "Longbottom wouldn't have the gall and… and the Dark Lord is too taken with obscure magic to not solve the challenges the intended way. No, someone else had to have been down there."
Oooooh no, oh nonononono. This couldn't be happening!
"Do enlighten me, Potter, on the brilliance behind your decision-making. Did you ever consider consulting your brain, or did you simply charge headlong into danger, fueled by your Gryffindor recklessness, clearly inherited by your father," he spat the word out as if it disgusted him to just say it out loud.
"I didn't," she squeaked, but shut her mouth instantly when Snape shot her a withering gaze.
"Detention, for lying straight to my face! How dare you, after all that your mother sacrificed to keep you safe, you… you just try and throw it all away for the flimsy promise of a cunning alchemist to heal your stupid scars!? You should be ashamed of yourself!"
Heat rose to her head and tears welled up in Holly's eyes, what was happening?
"One would think that after spending months in a coma, on the verge of death, you would have developed a modicum of self-preservation. But clearly I was wrong. So tell me, why trample on your mother's memory, you wouldn't be so stupid as to do it just for not wanting to be a magical cripple anymore. Was it the gold, knowledge, TELL ME?!"
"I wasn't promised anything," she screamed out, tears flowing freely now. "I DID IT FOR MUM!"
A heavy silence filled the room. The only sound being her tears slowly dripping onto the cold dungeon stone beneath their feet.
"It was always about mum, everyone who knew her keeps telling me, telling me how beautiful and talented and kind she was, how we have the same eyes. But…" Holly wiped tears and snot out of her face and looked straight in Professor Snape's shocked face.
"But I can never be as beautiful or talented as her, being the cripple I am as you so kindly put it!
So when I happened across people in need of help to survive I thought to myself, 'what would mum do', surely she would help them? She would help someone in need because she was a good person, and because she would want me to be a good person. So I decided to help.
But she also would want me to grow up strong, independent, able to stand against all the hardships I could possibly face with my head held high.
And, and she would want me to be my own person. I am not Lily Evans, Professor!
Because that's what you see me as, isn't it? You hate me for being my fathers child for some reason, and you love me for being my mothers daughter, but the combination, who I am without them, you couldn't care less about. I am not Lily Evans and I am not James Potter, I am more than just the sum of their parts.
So yes, I snuck into the forbidden corridor all of last year to play with Fluffy. Just because I like animals.
So I risked my life going even deeper, to help someone in need, because I want to be a good person like mum.
So I work on runes in my free time, because they fascinate me and are fun.
So I came up with my very own way of flying, because I absolutely love it but can't use brooms.
So I sneak out at night to the forbidden section of the library, or to fly and explore the forbidden forest. Because. I. Love. It
And so I wanted to learn more about potions from her best friend, because it made me feel closer to her.."
Holly didn't know where she was going with all this, too angry, too sad and hurt to care.
"Do you know what the first thing I asked for was when Mrs. Flamel offered me a reward for stealing the stone back?
'Can you help me heal my parents, please?' I couldn't think of anything else I wanted more and I still can't.
When she told me the mind was too complex and the stone couldn't help with this kind of wound I was devastated, it took her hours of prompting me to even consider healing my scars. And I only did so because she argued that if I got rid of the curse and had access to my 'full potential' we could find a way to help them, together.
So excuse me for being so selfish, Professori!"
Holly fled, slamming the door on her way out, leaving behind a shocked Professor Snape. The glass of an old picture frame, that was visible to no one but the Professor, had cracked. It held a simple muggle photograph, but the fresh crack in the glass seemed to split it right down the middle, separating the two happily smiling children to be on their own.
