April to May 1992, 1st year
"M-M-Miss B-Bulstrode."
Lynea leaned to the side as Professor Quirrel came to stand right between her and Harry at the Slytherin table. Did he have to stand so close? Millicent, who was sitting across from them, raised her head from her dinner to look at their teacher, but said nothing.
"You s-still haven't t-t-turned in your h-homework that is d-due M-Monday."
"But I did, Professor," Millicent said, "just yesterday. Don't you remember? I stopped by your classroom right after breakfast."
"O-Oh," Professor Quirrel said and then seemed to lose all of his strength as he seemingly collapsed into himself and braced his hands on the table. "I m-must have f-forgotten. T-t-terribly s-sorry about this, M-Miss B-Blustrode."
They all watched him leave with bewildered expressions on their faces.
"That was strange," Millicent said, "even for him."
They continued their meal, still wondering what that had been about, when another voice interrupted them.
"Good evening," came the drawling voice of Professor Snape, who appeared right in the same spot Professor Quirrel had vacated earlier, although he was leaving much more room between himself and his students.
"Good evening, sir," some of the Slytherins echoed.
Professor Snape nodded at them and then narrowed his eyes at Harry. "I hope you did not get yourself into trouble, Potter?"
"No, sir," Harry said quietly.
"Professor Quirrel was asking about a homework assignmetn I still had to turn in," Millicent said. "But I already did that yesterday."
"I see," Professor Snape said slowly, his eyes flickering back to Harry briefly, before he turned around and left, his cloak billowing behind him dramatically.
"He has it out for me!" Harry said. "I told you."
"Or he was just making sure everything was alright," Draco said, "you know, as our Head of House. Unlike the Gryffindors, we don't get into trouble, ever - not for missed homework or being caught breaking the rules."
Blaise chuckled. "Emphasis on being caught breaking the rules."
"But Quirrel wasn't even talking to me," Harry said. "And yet Snape still assumed I was the one in trouble."
"Maybe it looked like he was talking to you?" Lynea mused. "He was leaning in pretty close, after all." She shook her head. "No respect for personal space."
"Urgh, I think I've lost my appetite," Harry muttered, pushing his half-eaten dinner away from himself.
Vincent was already extending his arm to grab Harry's plate when Millicent slapped him. "Let Lynea eat it."
"Why?" Lynea asked.
Millicent narrowed her eyes. "Don't play innocent with me, you skipped breakfast and lunch today. You have meals to make up for."
"How would you even know that?" Lynea asked in dismay. "We attended neither of those together."
"I may have mentioned it," Draco said, deliberately not looking at Lynea and taking a sip of his tea. "And Millicent is right, so eat."
Lynea looked around at her housemates, but it seemed as if they were all in complete agreement – even Vincent and Gregory, who usually loved to eat any leftovers. Lynea sighed in defeat and begrudgingly stabbed her fork into a potato. Only when she had shoved the damn thing into her mouth and started to chew, did the others return to their conversation. Lynea frowned at the food. She didn't even like pork.
She made it through, somehow, and then ate some chocolate pudding Draco put in front of her and drank some more tea and by the end of dinner she was feeling so stuffed and nauseated she contemplated just ignoring her housemates the next time. They were right, of course, she really ought to eat proper meals, but doing so wasn't always that easy and she didn't think that making up for missed meals all at once was very healthy, either.
By the time they had made it back to their common room, Lynea had started to feel very sick. A slow headache was building behind her eyes and in addition to the nausea her stomach had started to hurt, as well. From the looks of it, Harry wasn't feeling any better.
"Do you two need to go to the hospital wing?" Pansy asked, giving them worried looks.
Lynea was about to decline, since she was used to such things by now, when Harry started choking and gasping for air.
"Never mind," Pansy said. "I'm bringing you to Pomfrey right now."
Lynea barely remembered walking up the stairs again, only registered Pansy and Draco talking in low voices and then the matron fussing over her and Harry. Madam Pomfrey conducted a series of spells on them, then took in a sharp breath and hurried off to retrieve a potion Lynea recognized. The moment the disgusting liquid had made it down her throat, Lynea's head finally started to clear.
"Would you please inform your Head of House?" Madam Pomfrey asked Pansy and Draco. "Tell him that it is urgent."
The potion had been an Antidote to Common Poisons. Harry and Lynea had been poisoned.
Professor Snape swept into the room not long after Draco and Pansy had left, the two following just behind him, and Lynea listened to her housemates telling him what had happened and Madam Pomfrey explaining what she had discovered.
"We shared a meal, professor," Lynea said, when they were finished with their respective stories. "Harry lost his appetite during dinner and I finished it for him."
Professor Snape observed them thoughtfully, before turning to Draco. "And none of the others displayed any signs of discomfort?"
Draco shook his head. "No, sir."
"Maybe it was Quirrel," Pansy said. "He was behaving rather strangely – claiming Millicent hadn't turned her homework in, even though she gave it to him personally the day before."
Professor Snape narrowed his eyes. "Do you have any proof of your claim?"
"No, sir," Pansy said. "I just can't think of anyone else who would have had the opportunity to poison Harry's food. Our housemates would never do such a thing." She paused. "And we think that Quirrel was behind that incident with the Bludger, too, sir."
Their teacher's eyes narrowed even further. "Rest assured that I will thoroughly investigate this." He let his gaze sweep over Harry and Lynea. "No one will attack my students and get away with it unpunished."
"Thank you, professor," Lynea said.
Professor Snape nodded and then left the room.
"What has this world come to," Madam Pomfrey said in a sad voice, "that people are poisoning young children …" She shook her head and then turned to Draco and Pansy. "Now, off you go. These two need to rest and you should really be in your common room this late into the evening."
"Yes, ma'am," the two said, before waving Harry and Lynea goodbye.
Madam Pomfrey fussed over them for a while, but eventually gave them some clothes to change into during for night and left them alone in the otherwise empty Hospital Wing.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Lynea asked Harry, who just shrugged. "That was the second attempt on your life now and there is really no other explanation this time, other than Quirrel being the culprit."
"Couldn't Snape have done it just as well?" Harry asked.
"How?" Lynea countered. "Unlike Quirrel, he was standing behind us, not between us. He never even got close to your food, whereas Quirrel leaned right over it."
Harry closed his eyes. "Yeah. You're right." He sighed. "I just don't get it. Why would Quirrel try to kill me?"
"I have no idea, Harry. We will have to trust in Snape to take care of it. Although that will be rather difficult without any substantial proof."
"You think he won't be able to do anything?"
"I don't know," Lynea shrugged. "Two attempts, yet we have nothing except some theories based on what we saw. Quirrel is the most obvious suspect, but it's not like we can pinpoint either crime to him and only him."
"And Snape has no reason to help me," Harry muttered.
"He has every reason to help you, Harry. You are a Slytherin, a student under his care – no matter his personal feelings towards you, Professor Snape would never willingly let any harm come to any of his students."
"If you say so," Harry said, not sounding convinced, and then turned to his side, facing away from Lynea.
"Good night, Harry."
o
The investigation turned up nothing. Or at least Quirrel faced no consequences and Professor Snape had no news he wished to share with his Slytherins.
Harry was, understandably, a bit more cautious with his food, but he wouldn't accept the offers of taste-testing the others extended. According to Madam Pomfrey, he had been lucky to have only ingested such a small amount of the poison or the consequences might have been much worse. Lynea, one the other hand, had actually ingested most of the poisoned food, but shown merely the same severity of symptoms because she had a moderate poison tolerance – one of the perks of being of Lémure blood. It was something she had never expected to actually need in her life.
The Lémures had developed a rather strong immunity to poisons over the generations for a number of reasons. Those that Lynea knew of were the necessity not to die when testing out potions and poisons they invented for their studies of the Forbidden Arts – often meant for dead or undead beings rather than living Necromancers – and the risk of assassination attempts coming from people who thought the world was better off without them. How they had managed to turn an immunity, build up via ingesting small amounts of poison, inventing special potions for lasting immunity and meddling with their own magic, into a hereditary trait of their family, Lynea would never be able understand.
By the time April came to an end and Beltane approached, Harry had started behaving mostly normally again. They did share the food that appeared on the table, after all, and poisoning a whole house would be a rather stupid move. Harry did guard his food very closely, though, and he wouldn't let anyone eat his leftovers anymore, but only Vincent and Gregory seemed to have a problem with that.
Beltane, sometimes called Walpurgis Night, marked the beginning of summer and was celebrated by the students with a great bonfire they had erected out on the grounds, around which they danced to music and over which some of the more daring jumped and into which they threw special powders that made it change its colour. The teachers mostly observed them from a distance, although Professor Flitwick and a woman Lynea didn't know eventually joined the festivities.
The younger ones braided flowers into their hair and made wreaths, while the older ones got up to less innocent activities, only to be reprimanded by their teachers – Beltane celebrated fertility and sexuality, after all. It was the kind of feast the Necromancers never quite mustered up enough enthusiasm for, because Beltane honoured life in a way they would and could never do – they did honour life, of course, as it was part of the cycle of life and death, but they did it in different ways. On Beltane, the Lémures planted trees in their forest and small plants and herbs in their gardens. They decorated the graves of their cemetery with special flowers and put wreaths around the headstones.
When midnight approached, Professor McGonagall rounded up the first, second and third years and sent them to bed, while the upper years were allowed to stay outside for a little bit longer. There was some grumbling among the few Gryffindors, who had attended the feast, but no one outright protested and once behind the closed walls of their common room, the Slytherins sat together and talked and laughed some more away from their teachers' eyes.
o
"Two more unicorns have been attacked," Harry said during breakfast one morning. "Hagrid is becoming very worried about them."
Lynea looked up to the teachers' table, searching for a certain turban that was mysteriously absent. "I wonder whether Quirrel has regained some of his health."
"You really think he's behind the attacks?" Theodore asked.
Lynea shrugged. "He is still dying. And he has been doing a lot of strange things over the course of the school year so far."
"I would like to visit Hagrid," Harry said quietly and ducked his head, "to see how he is doing."
The others looked at each other. They had promised to try.
"I'll go with you," Draco said and Harry's head whipped around. "Might as well try to get on friendly terms with Hagrid, since I will undoubtedly see more of him in the future, as I intend to stay friends with you."
Harry gave him a small smile. "Thank you, Draco."
No one else volunteered, but Harry didn't seem to notice and Draco made no comment about it. The two departed right after breakfast was over and Lynea didn't see either of them during the rest of the morning, where she joined Theodore and Hermione in the library.
"Hey, Hermione," Lynea said in a lowered voice, remembering something Draco had suggested but never actually gone through with. "Does the name Nicholas Flamel sound familiar to you?"
"Nicholas Flamel?" Hermione repeated, putting her quill to her chin in thought. "Yes, I think I have read about him before, let me see …" Then, suddenly, her whole face lit up and she darted off to disappear between the shelves.
"I forgot that we wanted to investigate that," Theodore said.
"Talking about Quirrel earlier somehow reminded me of our talk back when Hagrid got that dragon egg and how Draco suggested asking Hermione about Flamel." Lynea shrugged. "Harry thinks Snape might be after our mystery object, but what if it's actually Quirrel?"
Theodore looked a bit sceptical about that, but Hermione chose that moment to return with an enormous old book in her arms and the two Slytherins focused their attention back on her.
"I've got this out of the library months ago for a bit of light reading."
"Light reading?" Theodore said, raising an eyebrow at the book.
"Oh, hush," Hermione said. "You're one to talk." She gave the pile of books in front of Theodore a pointed look and the boy laughed in response. Then she flipped through the pages, until she found what she was looking for and pushed the book over to Lynea.
"Why are you asking about him, anyway?"
"I heard his name somewhere," Lynea murmured absentmindedly, reading the passage Hermione had pointed out to her, "can't remember where, and it's been bothering me ever since."
Theodore huffed lightly, but otherwise remained silent.
When Lynea finished reading, she gently closed the book. "Thank you, Hermione. This has been very informative."
Hermione smiled. "Glad I could be of help."
Once the girl was sufficiently distracted by her revising, Lynea pushed a piece of parchment over to Theodore on which she had written the words 'Elixir of Life' and 'Quirrel'. Theodore gave her a wide-eyed stare. There was no doubt about it, Professor Quirrel was after the Philosopher's stone, which was hidden somewhere in the castle.