Author's Notes: I had to republish Chapter 36 when I released this chapter to correct a slight oversight. It's in the Three Broomsticks scene if anyone wants to go and find it without rereading the whole thing. Thanks for reading!
Harry Potter does not belong to me but to JK Rowling.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
As Heather had hoped, the day in Hogsmeade seemed to have gone a long way in releasing the growing sense of tension filling the castle. Trying her best to enjoy this rather than dwell on other things she didn't want to think about, Heather spent the rest of the weekend in the common room playing exploding snap with Seamus, watching his face turn red every time someone made a kissy face at him, or chatting with Pavarti. The story of Seamus' uncomfortably public reunion with Katie had quickly spread throughout the tower giving everyone a good laugh, himself included.
By Monday morning, Heather was feeling so good that she had entirely forgotten about her upcoming detentions. It wasn't until she was stopped by Hagrid outside the Great Hall after breakfast that she remembered. "Here yeh go, got summat fer yeh," Hagrid said softly, handing her a slip of parchment that looked ridiculously small in his massive hand. "Professor McGonagall told me ter give yeh that." After a quick smile he was gone, carving a wide path through the mass of black robed students headed for their first lessons of the day.
Aware of the fact that she was blocking the way, Heather stepped aside and allowed a group of fourth year Hufflepuffs pass while she read the note's two short sentences quickly.
You will report to Professor Brindlemore's classroom at six o'clock every evening this week for your detentions. You are required to bring your wand.
After Charms, Heather tracked down Ginny to tell her that she would need to take over leading quidditch practice for the week. Ginny's giddiness, which had been permanently plastered across her face since Saturday, hardly dimmed at this news. Even though the fact that her date must have gone well was evident, she hadn't mentioned it once so far. Near the end of their conversation, Heather briefly considered asking for details but decided not to. Ginny would tell her everything, possibly more than Heather would want to know, when she was ready.
At five thirty, Heather triple checked that her wand was safely strapped her arm and left Gryffindor Tower for the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom on the third floor. The thick wooden door was ajar when she turned the corner, and as she drew nearer she was unable to discern anything inside. The reason for this became apparent the moment she pushed it the rest of the way open and gazed into the classroom. The shutters had been closed over the tall windows on either side, blocking out the weak evening sunshine. Other than a few sputtering torches and a single lamp on the teacher's desk there was no other source of light, leaving most of the room in darkness. In the glow of the lamp Heather saw Professor Brindlemore sitting in her high backed chair behind her desk, reading through a stack of essays.
"Err, excuse me, Professor?" Heather coughed when Brindlemore made no sign that she had noticed her entry.
"What?" Professor Brindlemore barked sharply, looking up and blinking repeatedly as her vision tried to adapt from the brightly lit desktop to the consuming darkness of her classroom. "Oh, yes. Potter. Come in." She set her quill down in an ink pot and slid backwards from her desk. Hoping that whatever punishment Brindlemore had in mind wasn't too gruesome, Heather walked down the aisle between the student desks slowly. Somehow, the smile that Professor Brindlemore was now giving her as she approached did not bode well.
"Tsk, tsk, Potter. Detention for attacking students?" Professor Brindlemore asked when Heather stopped directly opposite her, crossing her arms and relaxing further into her chair. The smile never left her face.
A flash of heat cracked across Heather like a fiery whip and she took a long, steadying breath to contain it. She wasn't at all appreciative of being cast as the aggressor and momentarily wondered just how Professor McGonagall had related the incident when arranging for these detentions. "That's one way of putting it," she grumbled at last once she was sure she wasn't going to overreact.
Slowly shaking her head, Professor Brindlemore pushed herself to her feet and moved around Heather towards the door. In a loud voice that felt like it would carry clearly all the way to the Entrance Hall, she continued speaking to Heather. "Well, Potter I can't deny that I'm disappointed in you. I would think that after everything you've done for this school that you would have enough restraint to not violently assault other…" her voice faded slightly as she stuck her head out into the corridor and looked both ways. Heather hardly noticed. By now she was brimming with fury at this lecture. The sound of the door slamming shut and locking made her whirl around. Professor Brindlemore was now leaning against it, still staring at her with that same loose grin. Even in the darkness Heather could see that her eyes were twinkling with barely repressed mirth. She clapped twice and the torches on the wall instantly burst into life, flooding the room with light.
"Professor?" Heather asked warily. Instinctively she began to flex her arm so that her wand would be readily available if needed.
"No need to defend yourself, Potter," Professor Brindlemore said easily, having caught the movement and interpreting it correctly. "Sorry about what I said, but the Headmistress insisted I read you the riot act again. Besides," she shrugged back at the closed door behind her, "you never know who's listening."
"Err, I suppose," Heather replied nonplussed, and still feeling a bit off put.
"If you ask me," Brindlemore continued as though Heather hadn't spoken, "those little warty toads deserved everything you gave them and more."
In the roughly two months since her first lesson with Professor Brindlemore, the woman had never failed to dodge expectations with superb ability. She seemed to take pride in her skill at leaving a class dumbfounded with an unexpected joke or comment. Even knowing this, Heather was still taken aback by this rapid shift in the conversation. "Well at least someone sees it my way," she said as Professor Brindlemore returned to her desk.
Professor Brindlemore settled back into her relaxed seated position and considered Heather in much the same way an art collector might look at a new addition to their collection. "Yes, quite. In any case, here we are. Five evenings together during which you are supposed to be shown the error of your ways. I see you brought your wand, excellent. Shall we get cracking then?" Even after Heather nodded silently, Professor Brindlemore made no move to get up again or instruct Heather on what she was to be doing.
After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, Heather coughed once and then asked, "So…what are you going to have me do, Professor?"
Still not taking her eyes from Heather's face, Professor Brindlemore pointed aimlessly off to her right. Following her finger, Heather stared into a corner of the classroom and saw a trio of tall wooden statues that had been hidden in darkness when she had first entered. "See my training dummies over there? They're brand new from Wizeacre's in Diagon Alley. Just got them delivered three days ago. Cost me a pretty galleon too, let me tell you. What do you think of them, Potter?"
Hesitantly, Heather took a few steps towards them to examine them more closely. They were without a doubt the nicest training dummies she had seen, certainly nicer than the ones she had spent hours decimating in the Auror Office training gym. Of course, those poor things had been used and abused to the point that they could hardly be recognized as human shaped anymore. These were fresh and new. They were huge, probably somewhere in range of seven feet tall, and made of a dark, highly polished wood banded in thick straps of black painted metal that gleamed in the torchlight. They had been carved in the shape of cloaked and hooded figures that strongly reminded Heather of dementors, except that each one carried the replica of a wand in its right hand. "Erm, impressive," Heather called back at last, still at a loss.
Turning back, she saw that Professor Brindlemore was once more leaning over the desk, her quill moving along an essay and making the occasional mark on the parchment. When the professor reached the bottom of one page she picked up the next without a word to Heather. At the end of this one she looked around. "Haven't you gotten to work yet, Potter?" she asked.
Irritation slowly edging in on her confusion, Heather explained slowly. "You haven't told me what I'm supposed to be doing. Am I supposed to be polishing them or something?"
She might have suggested that mandrake's had a lovely singing voice for how dumbstruck Professor Brindlemore gaped back at her. "Why in the name of Merlin's prettiest parasol would I want you to shine training dummies?" she asked incredulously. "No, no poor child. I want you to ding them up some for me."
Certain that she had misheard, Heather ran and reran this statement through her head several times. At last, once she was sure that she had in fact heard those exact words, she stammered, "You…you want me to…"
"Blow them up, yes," Professor Brindlemore replied cheerfully. "Do to them what Hagrid stopped you from doing to those hags in the common room the other night." To emphasize her point, she snatched her wand up from the desk and aimed it at the center figure. Instinctively, Heather ducked out of the way as Professor Brindlemore cried, "Expulso!" The robed figure erupted into a shower of splinters with a deafening bang! Heather had to work her jaw several times before her ears popped enough to hear past the ringing. A moment later the dummy reformed itself without anyone casting a repairing charm, looking as though nothing had happened. Professor Brindlemore returned to her work, leaving a flummoxed Heather standing there feeling bewildered.
"Professor…" she began then trained off when she realized she wasn't entirely sure which of the dozen questions in her head she wanted to ask.
"Oh my poor, sweet, clueless Potter," Professor Brindlemore sighed, turning again in her seat to face Heather. "You aren't here to be punished, haven't you figured that out by now? I've already told you that I don't think you did anything wrong." In a slightly kinder tone she continued, "I just think you need a way to vent whatever frustrations you have boiling up inside of you that won't send anyone else to the Hospital Wing. So, that's what you're going to be doing this week."
Slowly, far too slowly for her liking, comprehension finally dawned inside of Heather. She stared at the three figures for a few more seconds, wrestling with the realization that she wasn't here to be punished. In fact, this was as close to a reward as any detention could be. A split second after this solidified in her mind, she leapt into action. Her wand slid from its restraints into her waiting hand and was instantly aimed at the central dummy. "Bombarda! Confringo! Reducto!" she cried, shifting her aim with each incantation. All three of the statues vanished under the impact of her spells, only to once more repair themselves a moment later.
"Fantastic," cheered Professor Brindlemore from her desk, having turned around at the cacophony of noise. "You know, I think the one on the left is still too shiny. Care to fix that for me?"
Grinning a wide, feral smile and feeling better than she had in weeks, Heather set to work unpolishing the dummies with a will. Their blank faces quickly took on the likenesses of each of her tormentors in her mind as she repeatedly demolished them under a barrage of blasting curses. Then, when the fun of watching them disintegrate had dimmed somewhat, she began burning each of them to the ground in turn, leaving only smoking piles of ash on the floor. Next she would freeze them, trying hard not to equate the coldness she was inflicting on them with how she felt every time she saw Neville and Hannah together.
Time and time again she struck, her wand moving through well-remembered sequences that Honeywell had drilled into her. One by one she worked through every slight and injustice she'd faced since term began. While these dummies were innocent of any crime against her, but that did not stop them from taking the beating for those people who had and then some.
When her two hours of detention were over, Heather was breathing hard and her skin glistened with sweat. She was tired but felt triumphant. It was like the old fire was back, the strength she'd feared she'd lost all those months ago, returned. Bidding farewell to Professor Brindlemore she returned to her dormitory, all the while wondering if she'd have anything left to dish out for the rest of the week or if she'd used it all up already.
She hadn't. Her next three detentions passed as barely remembered blurs as she allowed herself to succumb to her feelings. No matter how creative her spells and combinations however, no mark or blemish remained on any of the three figures once they had repaired themselves. By Friday night they were still looking as brand new as they had been at the start of the first evening's work. If they had been capable of it, Heather might have thought they were mocking her.
"You're on form, Potter," Professor Brindlemore said during the final detention. She wasn't bothering to pretend to work tonight. Instead, she was watching Heather's work with rapt attention. "The aurors taught you well."
"Thanks," Heather replied, catching her breath after an almost two minute long flood of spell work. She had to blink several times to clear the sweat that had begun to sting her eyes.
"Feeling better?" Brindlemore asked, crossing in front of Heather to inspect the dummies. As her training had drilled into her, Heather's wand immediately fell to her side as someone entered her target range.
"Loads actually. Thanks for this," Heather breathed, nodding.
When Brindlemore rose from her inspection, her wand was now in her hand. "Up for an opponent that fires back?" she asked, spinning around suddenly. "It's been ages since I've had a good tussle."
From the moment she'd seen it, Heather's eyes had not left the tip of the professor's wand. Her pulse, which was already elevated from exertion, now began to race in a completely different way. The skin along her back flushed as a freezing sensation crept outwards from her spine. The feeling of being back in that dark cellar whispered from the back of her mind. She nodded mutely, not exactly sure if she was able to decline the challenge.
After pushing back her sleeves, Professor Brindlemore raised her wand in front of her face in the customary salute. Then she whirled it back behind and above her head. She waited, bouncing back and forth on the balls of her feet until Heather returned the gesture. Once she had, Professor Brindlemore called out "Come on then, Potter. You get one free shot. Give me your best."
Heather did not strike immediately. Instead, she watched as her opponent, it was hard not to think of her as such suddenly, continued to wait. Turning to present as small of a target as possible, she chose to start off with something simple. It wouldn't do for her to accidentally put a teacher in the Hospital Wing by overestimating her ability to defend herself. "Expelliarmus!" she cried, levelling her wand at Brindlemore's chest.
With an ease thick with derision, Brindlemore batted the jet of red light aside with a silent shield charm. "Really?" she jeered. "I give you a free shot and that's the best the famous Heather Potter can do? Anteoculatia!" A beam of purple light erupted from her wand tip and flew towards Heather who got her own shield up in time to stop it from hitting her. "Shame, I was curious to see what you looked like with antlers." She teased before following it up with another jinx. "Calvorio!"
This time Heather was a half second too late to defend herself and took the spell on her right shoulder. Instantly her vision was obstructed as her long, dark hair began to drift downwards. Several strands of it caught themselves in her glasses, further blinding her. With fumbling fingers, she reached up and felt the bare skin of her scalp. She completely bald.
As she cleaned away the hair stuck in the hinges of her glasses, she watched as the blurry figure of Professor Brindlemore doubled up in laughter. She glared back, feeling the fear and chill slowly drain from her. This wasn't a life or death situation, she realized. Yes, she should still have been able to block that spell, but she didn't need to be terrified of something going wrong. She could let go, just this once.
Ignoring the cool air that made her bare head tingle, she returned her glasses to her face and readied herself. Tapping back into her weeks of training, she started out with a basic sequence. Attack, attack, block, feint, attack, block, distract, attack. She had to keep her opponent off balance and on the defensive. The laughter was gone as Professor Brindlemore found herself being continually pushed backwards as Heather's wand repeatedly slashed the air.
Then Professor Brindlemore slipped up. One of Heather's jinxes skated off the edge of a hastily cast shield charm and burned its way across the top of her head. The smell of burning hair and flesh suffused the air, weaving themselves together to create a scent that anyone who has seen battle can never forget. As the smell entered Heather's nostrils, she found herself transported back in time once more. The voice erupted into life inside of her, urging her to strike with everything she had and prove how strong she really was once and for all. The sound of it was enough to make her want to vomit. It was like a light inside of her went out. Her wand dropped from her hand of its own volition to clatter on the floor. With a force of will she pressed the voice back into the box from which it had briefly escaped, momentarily forgetting she was in the middle of a duel.
"Something wrong, Potter?" asked Professor Brindlemore from ten feet and a thousand miles away. She hadn't lowered her own wand yet but was making no move to strike her now unarmed opponent.
"Nothing," Heather called back in a deadpan, trying to bring what had just happened to her into focus. She still wanted to throw up. Was it possible that she couldn't duel anymore, even in a friendly environment? Practicing against training dummies hadn't had this effect on her, but not even five minutes facing a live opponent had re-awoken something inside her she never wanted to feel again.
Professor Brindlemore had taken her by the arm and was guiding her silently to a chair. After sitting down, Heather felt a large cup of something being pressed into her hand. "Drink," Professor Brindlemore ordered, and Heather complied without question. The hot chocolate burned her mouth and throat, but she drank it greedily anyway. As the warming sensation reached her stomach it began to seep outwards until her fingers and toes tingled comfortably.
Seated in her desk chair, Professor Brindlemore was drinking from an identical cup and was gazing sideways at her. "You alright?" she asked.
Heather did not immediately reply. She was too caught up in trying not to think of herself as weak to be able to think up an answer to the question. She hadn't lost control of herself, this time, and that was certainly something positive. But still, if she couldn't duel anymore how was she going to…and did that mean she was always going to have to contain herself?
"I'm…not sure," she replied at last, opting for honesty or at least something close to it.
"Take another sip," Professor Brindlemore said quietly, doing likewise. "Ahh, chocolate," she said, smacking her lips appreciatively. "A stronger magic than almost anything I know. It can dry tears, soothe the soul, and nothing is better at healing the heart after a breakup."
"Professor Dumbledore once said something similar about music," Heather replied softly, allowing the conversation to be momentarily diverted.
"And he was right." A few moments passed before she asked, "where did you go?"
"What do you mean?" Heather attempted to evade the question.
The older witch wasn't fooled for a moment. "You know exactly what I mean. When we were dueling, you went somewhere. Was it the Battle of Hogwarts?"
Heather shook her head. "No, it was something over the summer." She didn't say anymore, trying to remember just how much of her work with the aurors was still supposed to be classified. Figuring that since it had been in the papers it would be alright, she told Brindlemore about the raid in Upper Flagley, leaving out a few of the more personal details.
She hadn't quite got to her flashback to the Battle of the Astronomy Tower when Brindlemore interjected, "So you stopped yourself before you could lose control."
As there wasn't much point in denying it, Heather chose to ask, "how'd you know?"
"A guess really, but a good one," she shrugged. "For one thing you're handling this too well for it to be your first time dealing with it."
"I'm what?" spluttered Heather disbelievingly. I mean, she wasn't comatose on the floor right now, but how in Merlin's name was this handling what was happening well? Her cup was shaking in her hand.
The professor reached forward and steadied the cup. "Trust me, Potter. You're doing alright. The important thing is that you stopped yourself before you crossed the point of no return. This isn't the first time I've seen something like this. The first time it happens, the person is usually too lost to panic to make much sense for a while. The second time they tend to panic even worse and take longer to recover. By the third or fourth time it's usually easier to reach them. They've accepted what's happening even if they don't want to admit it. You on the other hand managed to keep it from happening all together."
"Almost," Heather half agreed as she watched the last tiny marshmallow melt into the hot chocolate. "It was different this time. I was actually doing alright once I realized I wasn't in any real danger. Before I wouldn't even be able to move or fight or do anything at all really. It's why I had to leave the aurors."
"You weren't afraid when you cursed those girls in the common room," Brindlemore reminded her.
"I was angry," Heather argued, wondering if that was what made the difference. The voice hadn't come back to her that night. She hadn't felt strong, or weak, just angry. "I thought that if I left the Ministry then this sort of thing would stop happening. That maybe I'd be alright if I could just stop fighting."
Professor Brindlemore chuckled quietly to herself. "That isn't how this works," she said sadly. "You don't just walk away from what you've seen and done without it leaving a mark on you. No one can." Heather didn't need to look into her eyes to hear that she was speaking from personal experience. Her eyes had taken on a far away look and were probably as empty as Heather's had been minutes ago. The usual flush of life was gone from her skin and she looked older. "Was this the first time you've dueled someone since you quit being an auror?" Heather nodded. "And, when you retaliated against those girls, was that the first time you'd used your wand in anger since?" Heather tilted her head to one side before bobbing it up and down again. Where was Professor Brindlemore going with this?
"Personally, I'm amazed you didn't do anything to them sooner. Anger is a powerful fuel. It's almost like fire. Take your eye off it for a single moment and it's turned into a raging inferno you can't stop. Couple that with everything that's happened to you in the past few years. You've still got it inside of you, Potter. The way you've carried on against my dummies this week proves that as much as anything else."
Heather's eyes drifted over to the three figures. How good had it felt to rip them to shreds? How right had it been to imagine that they were the people who had tormented her for months now? She didn't feel right or good now, just empty. "I'm tired, so tired," she whispered.
"I know, and I know what you mean. I even think I can relate to what you're going through," Brindlemore said gently. "Oh, I can't say that I've defeated dark wizards by the dozen or toppled a government or any of the other things you've accomplished, but I still get it. Being a cursebreaker isn't all that different. On the job you're the one everyone is looking at to get the difficult jobs done, particularly the ones that they don't want to do themselves. Got a temple of enchanted skeletons that needs emptying, get the cursebreaker. Have a sealed door with a deadly curse laid on it that you want opened, get the cursebreaker. I used to joke that my bosses would throw one of two things at a problem, money or cursebreakers."
"Err, right," Heather said, trying to match her own experiences to what she was hearing and coming up blank.
Seeing this, Brindlemore pressed on more quickly. "What I'm trying to say is, when you're good, when you manage whatever difficult or impossible job you've been handed, it's all smiles and pats on the back. When you can't, or when you do it the way that keeps you alive but isn't how your employer wanted it done, well, then you're done, I mean you're really done."
Now Heather was nodding. "And when you're done, when you fail, nothing good that you've ever done matters anymore.
"And that makes you angry," Brindlemore agreed. "And when you stay angry enough, it becomes a part of you. Lingering beneath the surface until it springs up at the worst possible moment. It's a fire that fuels you, like I said."
"So…what do you do? I'm tired of fighting." Heather repeated.
Brindlemore peered curiously at her. "Are you? Are you really?"
"What do you mean? Of course I am, didn't I say so?" Heather asked, feeling a warmth creep into her cheeks.
"Woah, settle down there, Potter. I was just asking a question. The short answer is you find something else. Find something to live for. It doesn't have to be much, but you've got to find something. And…figure out another way to work through your problems beside whipping out your wand." She added this last part with a smirk. "For one thing, you should know from your long association with a certain red headed family that the best revenge is not always the most obvious kind."
Heather smiled. That was certainly true. Somewhere in the distance the clock tower chimed eight o'clock. Her final detention was over. "How are you feeling," Brindlemore asked.
"Alright, I think. You're right, I've done alright keeping out of fights since I came back to Hogwarts, but I can't just keep running from what I'm feeling either. Thanks, Professor."
"Anytime, Potter." Professor Brindlemore said with a smile before escorting her to the door.
Back in the common room Hermione was pouring over a large piece of paper that Heather at first took to be some obscure rune translation. As she drew nearer, she saw that it was in fact a large diagram of the sixth floor. Hanging halfway off the table and sticking out from an edge of this parchment Heather saw the Marauder's Map. "Oh hi," Hermione said when she noticed Heather's presence. She had been prodding this larger map with her wand making small dots move this way and that in much the same way Heather did when planning quidditch practice.
"What gives?" Heather asked a little testily, snatching up the Marauder's map before it could fall to the floor.
Hermione flushed pink. "Sorry, I was going to ask you if I could borrow it, but you were in detention and…what's up?"
Heather almost replied with "It's nothing" and went up to their dormitory, but she knew from long experience that if she didn't tell Hermione the truth, she wouldn't hear the end of it. Quietly, making sure that no one was near enough to overhear, she told Hermione what had happened during her duel with Professor Brindlemore.
"Oh dear," Hermione said when she was finished. She cast a long look over the map she'd been working on and bit her lip. "I was actually hoping you'd be able to help me with this, but I don't know if that's a good idea anymore."
"Why not?" Heather asked heatedly.
"Well, you just said…"
"What is it?" asked Heather wearily.
"Plans for where I'm going to assign prefects to stand watch during Slughorn's party tomorrow night."
Heather arched an eyebrow. "Do you really think that's necessary?"
"Yes, I do." Hermione nodded fervently. She bit her lip again before continuing. "The prefects have told me that there's still whispers about something happening, but…"
"Have you told Professor McGonagall about it?" Heather asked.
"I did. She said she was going to talk to Professor Slughorn and ask Professor Sprout to keep watch with us."
"Then what's the problem with me helping you with it?" asked Heather. "Unless you expect it to turn violent?"
Hermione looked thoughtful. "No, I don't, but I'm still not sure it's a good idea to get you involved."
"And why is that?" Heather grumbled.
"Because I know your temper, Heather. And from what you just told me you don't have a firm grip on your emotions in stressful situations right now."
"Oh, come on Hermione." Heather cried exasperatedly. Her friend's overprotection was well meant but that did not make it any less unbearable at times. "I kept my cool and didn't lose control of myself. Doesn't that mean that I can help?"
Hermione fixed her with a cool expression. "Heather, I'm saying this with love. I know you want to help, and that you feel like you need to save us all. But I need you to stay out of this and leave it to us and the teachers." Before Heather could argue she continued, "This isn't something that we need an ex-auror to handle. We need calm and rationality. You said you're tired of fighting, right? Then leave it to us. Leave it to me, do you understand?"
Heather grunted.
"I need your word you're going to stay out of it," Hermione pressed as Heather flounced down into a nearby armchair.
Rather than reply she scooped up an abandoned copy of yesterday's Daily Prophet. She flipped the newspaper open to a random page and began to force herself to read an article headlined Amos Diggory resigns in protest, but the words merely slid across her vision without making any impact. Somewhere on the other side of the paper, Hermione's brooding silence radiated outwards. "Fine, you have my word," Heather grumped, casting the Prophet away and getting up to go upstairs.
She wasn't happy about it. Even the next evening after she'd had time to cool down and think about it logically, the thought of leaving the handling of this group, whoever they were, to someone else did not sit right with her. It wasn't like she didn't trust Hermione or Neville or, to a lesser degree these days, Professor McGonagall to deal with the situation, but still. Hadn't it always been up to her to deal with things like this?
"That's exactly why I want you to keep out of this," explained Hermione patiently while she sat watching Heather get ready for the party. She had spent the whole day with Professor Sprout, Neville, and the prefects, working out how they would arrange themselves. Heather on the other hand had used that time to try and come up with the most logical argument she could to change Hermione's mind. She'd hoped that by keeping a cool head she might convince her, but it was no use. Hermione wouldn't budge.
"Ugh, fine. But I'm taking my wand," Heather sighed, looking into her wardrobe mirror.
"Is that really what you're wearing?" Hermione asked with a hint of disbelief.
Rather than the fancy dress robes safely hung in her wardrobe, or really anything nice at all, Heather had chosen to wear her school uniform. She tried to convince herself that she was refusing to dress nicely because no one, particularly a tall, brown haired no one, had asked her to the party, so why should she bother? This had worked about as well as her argument with Hermione had. In the end she decided that it could work as a semi calculated parry of Slughorn's enforced invitation.
"You know, I thought the war was supposed to be over," she said wearily to Hermione as they departed Gryffindor tower along with the four Gryffindor prefects.
"It is," Hermione said, trying and failing to sound reassuring. "But it takes a long time for the effects of war to go away."
The corridor outside of Slughorn's office had been transformed. Bright, multicolored lanterns hung everywhere, splashing the stone walls with a rainbow of lights. Under each lantern hung a small box with slits on the side from which wafted rich smells of flowers that were extremely pleasing to the nostrils. Already most of the partygoers and their guests were queued up at Slughorn's door. As she had expected, all of them were wearing fine dress robes or dresses in a wide variety of colors, particularly those who had been invited as a guest rather than being one of Slughorn's chosen. A few of the girls near the end of the line ran judging eyes over her choice of outfit as she joined them. She ignored them. So far as she could tell, none of them had bothered to bring their wands as she had. Hermione had made her promise not to use it if anything happened, but there was no way she was going to be caught without it walking into a potentially dangerous situation.
Neville and Hannah were easily identifiable near the front of the line. Even from her place at the back Heather thought they looked every bit the picture of a happy couple. He was wearing a newer set of dress robes then he had the night of the Order of Merlin ceremony. At first glance she thought they must be black in the varied light of the corridor, but when he shifted slightly, they turned a dark indigo. Hannah was likewise dressed extremely nicely in an off the shoulder dress that showed much more back than Heather wished she would.
An outburst at the far end of the corridor drew her thoughts away from their jealousy. A trio of prefects that Heather would swear had not been there two minutes ago were now blocking the way of a dozen or more students. At a distance of nearly fifty feet, and what with the lack of proper lighting, Heather had trouble identifying any individual faces, but there was little doubt who they were and why they were here. Taunts and jeers echoed off the walls and floor, rendering them almost unintelligible by the time they reached Heahter's ears. She wasn't sure but she thought she picked out the words "pureblood lovers" and "traitors."
Maintaining an outward calm that she was rather proud of and wished Hermione would notice, Heather watched as her bushy haired friend raced past them to reinforce her prefects. The two on the left did not appear to be handling the pressure very well at all. As Hermione reached the mob, there was no other word Heather could think of to describe them, they immediately quieted. If Heather didn't know any better, she might have thought they were scared of her. But that couldn't be right, could it? Not when threats of detentions hadn't swayed them from showing up here. As Head Girl Hermione did have more authority than the average prefect, but certainly nowhere near the level that Professor Sprout held. So why did her arrival seem to take the fight out of this group? In any case, the situation did appear to be currently under control, so Heather let her wand arm relax.
At this moment the door to Slughorn's office swung open and their host sauntered into the corridor. He was dressed in emerald green robes trimmed in white with a matching waistcoat that looked black in the light of the lanterns. "Oh ho, welcome, welcome." His joviality faltered as he looked around at what was happening down the corridor behind him. "Ahem, yes. Do come in,"
Slughorn greeted each of them individually as they crossed the threshold into his office, even those he had not invited himself. Catching sight of Heather and her choice of outfit, his brow furrowed enough for her to know that he took the point. However, his greeting was no less enthusiastic than it had been for anyone else.
The party ended up being exactly what Heather remembered from her first time with the Slug Club. For the entire first course, a backed mac and cheese, Slughorn spoke to each of his guests in turn, asking about their famous relatives and connections. When it was Neville's turn, Slughorn did most of the talking. He expounded greatly on what Neville had done during the last year during the death eater occupation of the school.
Heather listened to this with great interest. She still had not heard more than a handful of details about what Neville, Ginny, and Luna's resistance had accomplished. None of them had ever seemed very interested in discussing it. As Slughorn continued to go on and on about him, Neville's face grew steadily pinker and he repeatedly adjusted his collar.
No one else at the table proved very interesting to Heather. Ernie had been invited because of some award an uncle of his had been given over the summer. The Carrow twins were two of Slughorn's potions favorites. Blaise's mother was still rich and famous. She wondered just what Slughorn would want to talk about when it came to her turn. Would he ask for a public retelling of what had happened at the end of the Battle for those who hadn't been there?
"And now, I suppose there is no point in introducing young Miss Potter," Slughorn said, turning his massive bulk in his chair to smile at her. "The Heroine of the Battle of Hogwarts and one of Kingsley Shacklebolt's first picks to join the aurors afterwards." Heather groaned inwardly at yet another title being foisted upon her. "I wish we had the time for her to tell us of her many adventures this past year, one of which involves her saving yours truly." He winked broadly to the entire table. Heather stared hard at the opposite wall wishing he would finish with her quickly and move on before he said something dangerous. Slughorn must have caught sight of Heather's expression because he coughed once and said, "But if we were to get started on that tale, I fear we would still be here by the end of term." He chuckled self-consciously before shifting his attention to Heather's neighbor, a third year Ravenclaw girl. He made no further mention of Heather the rest of the evening, something she was not all that sad about.