The Wizarding World belongs to JK Rowling, although I so wish it didn't.
Chapter Forty-One
Heather awoke the morning of the Hogsmeade trip to find a folded paper airplane resting next to her pillow. It was made out of thick parchment with crisp edges on the folds. Around the edges of both wings the words Top Secret repeated in bright red ink that flashed in the morning sunlight glinting through the window. Trying hard to throw off the sleep that refused to let her go, Heather unfolded it and read the eight words printed inside.
Meet in the Entrance Hall. Wear muggle clothing.
-N
Now fully awake, Heather checked the weather outside the tower. Thick snow still lay everywhere, shining the light of the sun which had no clouds to hide behind today. It was going to be cold, but hopefully it would be a little warmer down at the level of the grounds.
Without further direction on what to wear, she opted for last year's Weasley Christmas sweater and a pair of jeans, finished off with a thick woolen hat, scarf, and gloves. After a third check that nothing about her appearance would give away the fact that she was a witch, she walked briskly out the door.
True to his note, Neville was waiting for her at the base of the Marble Staircase. He was wearing a worn leather jacket with a Gryffindor hat and scarf carried in one hand. Judging by his face as she walked down to meet him, he was very excited about whatever he had planned for the day. By mutual agreement from the night before, they avoided the Great Hall and breakfast, intending to get food down in the village. Hand in hand they joined the already growing queue to be checked over by Filch before being allowed out of the castle.
"So, where do you want to go?" Neville asked drew near to the village. Like Heather he had also been to Hogsmeade enough times that trying to think of something new to do was next to impossible.
"Erm, I don't really know," she replied. She wondered why he was asking her for ideas when he had given the impression of having something already planned out.
"How about we hit up the Hog's Head?" he suggested, indicating the direction of the pub with his chin. "It's been a while since I've seen Ab."
Heather agreed, desiring the quieter environment of the Hog's Head over the madhouse that would be the Three Broomsticks on a day like this. At the same time, she wondered why the pub would be open so early considering that historically most students gave the place a wide berth. Neville's reminder about his relationship with Aberforth Dumbledore also made her recall his comment the other night about things she didn't know about what had happened with him last year. She too would enjoy catching up with the younger Dumbledore brother who had played such a massive part in keeping Neville supplied last year during his time in the Room of Requirement.
The Hog's Head was as dirty ever. "Doesn't he ever clean this place?" asked Heather quietly as she followed Neville inside. Unfortunately for her, what conversation there was died at their entrance and her comment carried much further than she had intended. Aberforth, who was behind the bar wiping down a glass with a rag that was already filthy, glowered at her.
Unphased by this less than excited greeting, Neville pushed through the pub and snatched up two empty seats at the corner of the bar. He held Heather's out for her, which earned him an approving grunt from Aberforth. "Well, at least one of you has manners." Heather winced but caught sight of the wink between the bartender and Neville.
"How's it going, Ab?" Neville asked, settling into his own stool, and sliding some coins across the scarred wood surface.
In return Aberforth filled two sparklingly clean glasses that had been out of sight with butterbeer and set one in front of each of them. "Quiet, to tell the truth. Not much traffic's been coming through lately. What with the end of the war and my clientele of last year being mostly incarcerated or dead," he ended the sentence with a shrug.
"And without any underground armies to feed?" Grinned Neville, tilting his glass towards Aberforth in mock salute.
Aberforth grunted again. "About that, you ever going to settle up on that bill?"
"What bill?" asked Heather around her glass. "You mean you were charging him for all of that?"
Looking indignant, Aberforth turned to gaze at her. "Of course I was. You think I did all of that out of the goodness of my heart? I've got a business to run here."
Heather spluttered. Neville on the other hand sipped unconcernedly at his drink. "What's the balance?" he asked.
Aberforth stomped over to the register and kicked out the drawer. From under it he extracted a folded sheaf of parchment and opened it up. "Call it three hundred and we'll be even."
Neville rested his hand on Heather's to stop her from crying out. Her entire view of Aberforth Dumbledore had been shaken in the last few minutes and she was about ready to give him a piece of her mind. "And you know just where to send it, too," Neville said, still with that same lack of concern.
"That's what you always say," Aberforth replied, folding the parchment back up and shoving it into the drawer again. "They never seem to want to pay up, though."
Heather stared back and forth between the two of them feeling completely lost. Finally, Aberforth began to laugh heartily. His gruff demeanor faded away and he smiled at the two of them. "I think you'd best let Miss Potter there in on the secret quick. She looks fit to burst."
"It's an old joke," Neville explained. "From when the tunnel first opened up and Ab fed me. He tried to give me the bill and I told him to pass it off to the Death Eaters. In time, it turned into something of a ritual between us. It even became a passcode of sorts. If he grumbled about the cost of feeding us, I'd know everything was alright here."
"So, if he was in a bad mood then everything was alright? Yeah, I suppose that fits," Heather replied before innocently sipping butterbeer.
"Something like that," laughed Neville while Aberforth returned to growling.
"Oh look, everything must be alright," Heather said with a smirk. That would teach him to try and goad her.
Aberforth's laugh punctuated the air and he gave Neville another approving look. "You keep a hold on that one, you hear me? Wit like that's rare to find these days."
Heather's blush at the sudden compliment was lost in an outpouring of yelling from a table across the pub. All three of them whirled around to see Professor Maufe, who had so far been unnoticed by any of them, was standing and shouting at a hooded figure who was still in his seat. Like many of the patrons of the Hog's Head, very little could be seen of the seated person's face, other than his scrubby brown beard. He, at least Heather assumed that it was a man under that hood, continued speaking to Maufe in low tones that failed to carry to where Heather was sitting.
"No," shouted Maufe again. "No, I won't listen to reason!" He swept his cloak off his chair and threw it violently around his shoulders. "I'll have no part in this…this…" but it seemed as though actually saying whatever it was they had been discussing was beyond him. Instead, he stormed towards the door and disappeared through it. The seated man rose as well, abandoning two rather full glasses of some dark liquid.
"Oy, you'd best be paying for those!" shouted Aberforth as the man made to follow Maufe.
The unknown figure stopped and stared at the place where Aberforth was talking with Heather and Neville. Perhaps it was because she couldn't see his face, but Heather found the sightless gaze unnerving. Part of her even wondered which one of them the man was looking at. Finally, the man dug in a pocket, set some coins on the table, and hurried out of the pub.
"What the hell was that?" asked Heather when Aberforth returned with the two glasses and the money.
The bartender shrugged unconcernedly. "Don't know, don't want to know. So long as they pay and take it somewhere else, it doesn't concern me. I don't allow fighting in here." He dumped the contents of the two drinks in a basin behind the bar and rinsed the glasses. "Come to think of it though," he added as an afterthought, "I'm surprised to see the professor in here drinking with someone. Usually he's alone."
Is Professor Maufe in here often?" Neville asked casually.
"Every now and then. I wouldn't go so far as to call him a regular or anything. But he comes down from the castle about once a week maybe."
"I wonder who he was sitting with," Neville pondered.
Aberforth shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. Doesn't matter now though."
Taking in the number of people whose faces were obscured and remembering her own experience with disguised wizards here, Heather muttered, "You know, you might have better luck identifying people if you banned keeping hoods up in here."
The bartender acted as though she hadn't spoken. In between customers he and Neville reminisced about some of their more harrowing experiences last year. Heather listened closely. She'd always been under the impression that the relationship with Neville and Aberforth had been fairly straightforward after the secret tunnel had opened, with not much to speak of. But as it turned out, the Death Eaters seemed to know that the rebellion going on inside the castle was being supplied in some way from the outside. More than once they'd been close to catching Aberforth in the act.
As the hours passed, other students they both knew came and went from the pub. It took Heather a while to put together that all of them were former members of the second DA. When she pointed this out to Neville, he explained that the Hog's Head had meant a lot to all of them last year, and so it wasn't all that surprising.
They ended up having lunch there at the bar. The thought of eating there made Heather's stomach twinge, particularly considering she'd only expected them to be there for an hour or so tops. Only after Neville reminded her of the fact that he'd never gotten sick from anything Aberforth had fed him convinced her to change her mind. Together with Ab they shared a lunch of roast pork with potatoes and carrots. At the end of it Heather was both very full and even more impressed.
"Right then," Neville said after draining his last butterbeer. "I think we've been here long enough to establish our alibi."
"And why do we need an alibi?" asked Heather, interestedly. She watched as Neville surveyed the patrons to ensure no other Hogwarts students were inside. With a wave of his hand he led her around the end of the bar and into the pub's dingy stockroom. "Erm, are we supposed to be back here?"
Neville winked. "Oh, don't worry. Ab's in on it."
"In on what?" Heather pressed.
"You'll find out soon enough. Now, hats and scarves on."
After securing her own scarf tightly around her throat, she accepted Neville's outstretched hand and allowed herself to be drawn tightly into his arms. "You know-" she started to say but was cut off as he turned on the spot and pulled them both into suffocating darkness.
Wherever they were, it was much colder than the Hog's Head. The smell was no great improvement either, even if it was an entirely different kind of noxious. The insubstantial lighting provided by the blinking overhead lights revealed thick, square concrete pillars even spaced all around. In between them were a variety of parked cars. It didn't take Heather long to figure out that Neville had apparated her to an underground car park.
"Good grief that's a smell," he coughed as the overpowering odor of car exhaust fumes assaulted their senses. "I hadn't been told about that." He pointed towards a corner where a staircase sign flashed in irregular intervals and led her towards it.
"Where are we?" Heather waited until after they'd climbed two sets of stairs and the air quality had marginally improved to ask.
"Blackpool," Neville replied, glancing at the sign at the top of the next bend in the stairs to see how many more floors they had to go.
While this response did answer her question, it raised quite a few more. "And just why are we here?"
"Be patient. I know that's not your specialty, but try," he chided good naturedly. She fell silent and tried to quiet her hundred other questions for the moment.
On the top landing of the staircase was a metal door that Neville pushed open and ushered her through. Immediately Heather felt her entire body being assaulted by a strong wind smelling heavily of the sea. It threatened to carry her away like an old newspaper, or so she felt. She stumbled backwards into Neville whose larger build allowed him to weather the onslaught better. "Careful there," he laughed.
"Thanks. So, aren't we breaking a few school rules right now?" Heather said loudly over the wind, forgetting that she wasn't supposed to be asking questions.
Neville did not respond. Instead, he looked both ways down the sidewalk they were now standing on as though to get his bearings. From the inside pocket of his jacket, he extracted a folded map and consulted it. "Right, this way."
Trying not to be irritated at his lack of forthcomingness, Heather let her hand be taken once more. "Ahem, you didn't answer my question," she tried again after they had gone a block in silence.
"You weren't supposed to be asking any," he replied with a wink. "But since you did, the answer's yes. Technically we are breaking a few rules."
Heather stared at him as they walked. "And…you don't seem to be having a problem with this, oh high and mighty Head Boy?"
He shrugged. "No one knows but old Ab, and if the Death Eater's couldn't break him, I doubt anyone else will be able to either. Besides, we'll be back long before we need to be up at the castle. No one will be any the wiser."
Blackpool was a city Heater had heard about but only in passing. She knew it had been considered by the Dursley's for their summer holiday trips, but as far as she knew they had never settled on it as their final destination. Of course, even if they had it wouldn't have mattered to her. She was always left behind when they went away on trips.
It was very shocking at how abruptly they had gone between the two worlds, magical and muggle. After the past few months at Hogwarts and dealing with people staring as she passed, it was bizarre to her that strangers passed without a second look. The exception to this being a group of boys around her age that stopped for a second look at her as they passed by. It probably helped that no one was strolling slowly today with the brisk wind coming in off the sea. Even with her thick sweater on, Heather's arms were beginning to go numb. She was more than ready to be inside again when Neville came to a stop and announced they had arrived.
Having kept her face down and half buried in her scarf for the last several blocks, Heather looked up. "It's a cinema," Neville explained, staring at her to gauge her reaction.
"I can see that," Heather replied confusedly, her voice muffled by wool. "Wait, how do you know what a cinema is?"
A particularly strong gust of wind hammered them both, forestalling Neville's immediate reply. "How about we talk about this inside?" He suggested through chattering lips. Heather vigorously agreed.
The moment they were across the threshold, Heather's senses were overwhelmed with yet another flood of sights, sounds, and smells. This time however, it was a combination of heat, laughing people, and the strong scent of butter that made her mouth water. If she hadn't been frozen almost to the bone, she might have found the heat washing over her oppressive. As it happened, right now it felt heavenly.
The lobby of the cinema was full of muggles of all ages, all of them doing their best to speak louder than their nearby neighbors. The end result was that she and Neville would have had a better chance of continuing their conversation amid a fireworks display. With a nudge he pointed her towards a line that led to a food stand and slid some muggle bills into her mittened hand. He then joined the crowd in front of the ticket office.
The closer she got to the smell of buttered popcorn, the more it consumed her attention. The fact that they had just eaten and she wasn't all that hungry no longer mattered. She'd heard of popcorn before from Dudley back when he used to taunt her about all the amazing things his parents let him do. But this was the first time she'd ever had a chance to try it. Before she realized it, she'd reached the front of the line and ordered the largest bucket of it she could along with two drinks the man behind the counter recommended.
Neville was waiting for her and together they wandered down the corridor to theatre number four. Heather carried the popcorn while Neville had their drinks. She was already having to hold herself back from devouring the entire bucket. With almost half an hour until their movie was supposed to begin, the rows of seats were still mostly empty. "Where do you think we should sit?" Neville asked, stopping in the entryway. Apparently whatever research he'd done about going to the movies did not include all of the finer details.
"Beats me. How about there?" Heather suggested, pointing to the front row.
"Rrrright," replied Neville.
"So, how do you know what a cinema is?" Heather asked again when they were seated and had their snacks arranged. She had allowed Neville to take hold of the popcorn. He stared dubiously at the bucket before plucking out a single piece and sniffing it. "It won't bite, you know," Heather giggled, grabbing a handful for herself and munching away happily.
The transition from uncertainty to delight on Neville's face was instantaneous and quite enjoyable to watch. "You, erm, remember how my family used to think I was a squib," he asked so offhandedly that Heather was taken aback.
"You mean, before you got your letter to Hog…to school?" While there still wasn't anyone close enough to overhear them, she didn't want to go blabbing the name Hogwarts aloud.
He nodded and selected a few more pieces of popcorn. "Yeah. Well, it wasn't like I really fit in the first few years, you know? I always sort of felt like maybe me getting my letter was a mistake or something."
"I remember," Heather replied gently. While wherever Neville was going with this had given him the idea for this date, she wanted to spare him having to relive his uncomfortable past.
"By our third year, I had decided that if things didn't get better for me, I'd leave. It wasn't a serious plan or anything and I had no idea how I'd go about it. You remember how we both started Divination and Care of Magical Creatures that year? Well, I really wanted to take another class but I knew my gran wouldn't hear of it."
"What was it?" Heather asked quietly.
"Muggle Studies."
Pieces settled into place in Heather's mind. "So that way if you did decide to leave school, you'd know what to do in the muggle world."
"I wasn't serious about leaving," Neville repeated hurriedly. "I just…"
Heather took his hands. "I get it. You didn't feel right there and wanted out. So, that's what gave you the idea for this?" She gestured around the theatre, which by now had gotten steadily fuller.
He nodded, "Partly. I also remember something Susan said over the summer about how much you liked being in muggle London where no one recognized you. I thought it'd be nice for you to get a break from it all."
The lights in the theater suddenly dimmed and the screen directly in front of them lit up. Quiet fell as previews began playing. Heather paid no attention to them. She rested her head against Neville's shoulder and felt a warmth in her chest. It wasn't all that comfy with the hard plastic arm of the chair in between them, but it made her feel more connected with him. Also, it meant she didn't have to reach as far for the popcorn.
True to his word, Neville got both of them back to Hogsmeade with enough time left that they had no need to hurry to get up to school before breaking curfew. They followed a dozen or so feet behind another group of stragglers who had clearly spent much of their day in the Three Broomsticks. Choruses of what must be the current popular songs on the WWN carried back to them on the light breeze that had replaced the strong winds of Blackpool.
They were just climbing the front steps into the Entrance Hall, and Heather was on the verge of suggesting they find a nice place to spend some time alone together, when the knot of students ahead of them stopped singing. The stone walls all around the Entrance Hall flickered with reflected green light that moved this way and that as the torches burned welcomingly. It was as though a million tiny emerald stars had burst into life everywhere Heather could see. The group she and Neville had been following were still standing there, blocking the rest of the view.
Neville, his face set and his relaxed attitude of the past few hours gone in a flash, wasted no time with politeness as he pushed through into the hall. Heather stayed right on his heels, taking advantage of his massive frame that parted the crowd in front of him like a knife through soft butter. "Move!" he called, sounding not unlike Percy Weasley. "Head Boy coming through!"
What could easily be mistaken for beauty by someone who couldn't see the whole picture revealed its truth as Heather stuck her head out from behind her boyfriend's back and surveyed the hall. Outside the double doors leading into the Great Hall, the remains of the Slytherin hourglass lay on its side. Just as it had the morning after the Battle of Hogwarts, most of the thick glass had stayed intact. Through the missing chucks, thousands of emeralds that usually tallied the Slytherin's house points were strewn everywhere across the stone floor. There were still a handful of emeralds remaining inside the glass orbs, and as Heather watched as one rolled out and fell to the ground with an audible tinkling noise even from so far away.
Her eyes now drawn downwards, she realized that this was not even the full extent of the damage. Apparently not satisfied with their work thus far, the vandals had gone two steps further. Carved into the thick stone floor of the Entrance Hall was a large rendition of the school crest, a lion, eagle, badger, and serpent all surrounding an ornate 'H.' Someone had crossed out the snake with two long gashes that formed an X over the Slytherin portion of the crest. Lastly, in case the point hadn't sufficiently gotten across, a message had been left in bright green paint. Just above the school motto it read,
SLYTHERINS GO HOME
Professors McGonagall, Sprout, Slughorn, and Maufe were gathered at the base of the Marble Staircase. No one, not even the teachers, seemed willing to touch the scene yet. Heather found it was much like watching two players speeding towards each other on the pitch, knowing they would collide and that it would be horrible to watch, yet still not being able to turn your eyes away.
"Longbottom!" The Headmistress beckoned imperiously, catching sight of him across the call. Heather followed him around the periphery but he stopped her before she could interject on the gathering of teachers.
"Meet me back upstairs," he whispered in a voice that she knew it would be pointless to try and argue with.
Turning on her heels, she worked her way back around until she reached the door to the dungeons. She knew she wasn't going to get a chance to see Neville tonight. He'd be lucky to get back to the tower before midnight.