"This is the Gryffindor table."
Leo nodded, lingering but not sitting down. "Is there a rule about only eating with your own House? I can leave."
Percy shook his head immediately. "No, there's no rule like that."
"Great!" She sat in the empty space to his left. "Thank you for not telling the Gryffindor captain that I was playing," she said, not whispering but making sure she was slightly quieter than normal. She figured that Wood probably wouldn't be too happy if he found out that pertinent quidditch information had been kept from him, and she was in no hurry to alienate the Weasley. "Not that it did me too much good in the long run. Flint screamed at me plenty during practice yesterday. You'd think that I'd chosen to get hit with a bludger, the way he was acting."
Regulus complained loudly about how they would have been able to work on learning more about the third floor corridor or how to get into the restricted section if Flint hadn't extended her practice by several hours. Which he'd only done as punishment because she'd been far more focused on showing off her broom surfing skills to Pucey than answering their captain's questions. Similarly, she now ignored Regulus in favor of focusing on her conversation with Percy.
Percy's interest in quidditch wasn't something she'd investigated before, though he clearly enjoyed being only a spectator and was not anywhere near as devoted in that regard as Millicent. He only interrupted with a new topic to point out, both proud and somewhat rattled, that she'd eaten five muffins absentmindedly while they'd been talking. They were all blueberry, and she liked the texture when she chewed them. Not to mention that pulling the muffin apart into bite-size pieces gave her hands something to do.
"Malfoy."
Percy jumped in alarm, and Leo looked up. Regulus was already scowling at Snape, who was standing near the end of the table, closer to the Great Hall's main doors, with Draco beside him.
"Malfoy," Snape repeated sharply.
"That's me," she confirmed in confusion. She looked to Draco in hopes of that giving her some explanation, but he just looked somewhat annoyed. That wasn't that far off from normal for him, so it wasn't very helpful.
"Come with me."
She got to her feet, exchanging a brief and puzzled—or concerned, on his part—look with Percy. "Did I do something, Professor Snape?"
His eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Did you?" he demanded, his left hand curling a bit. The index and middle finger were stiffer than the others, crooking at the joint but not moving much beyond that. When she shook her head, he motioned sharply with his chin. "Come with me," he repeated. "Now."
"Yes, sir," she said, polite even as she turned her back on him to give Percy a wave.
She and Draco followed Snape out into the entrance hall. "The train will be leaving in an hour. Go pack your things and make your way to the gates. Professor Sprout will escort you and the other student to the Hogwarts Express in time for its departure. You'll return on Tuesday. You've been excused from your classes until mid-week."
Leo frowned, still confused. Draco glanced at her. "Arcturus died," he said.
Ah. A funeral. "I'm sure Grandfather Cygnus will be thrilled to see us."
"Thrilled to see me," Draco corrected smugly.
"Your things," Snape reminded. "Meet Professor Sprout by the gate." With that, he turned on his heel and walked back into the Great Hall.
Regulus started yelling about abandoning the third floor corridor as they headed down to the dungeons. He didn't stop as she packed her things or as she and Draco walked out of the castle and to the iron-wrought gates. When she finally snapped for him to shut up, Draco marched on ahead to speak to Professor Sprout first. Like Snape had said, another student was already there. She recognized him from Charms and Transfiguration, which were both classes Slytherin shared with Hufflepuff.
"What's his name?" she murmured to Regulus as they approached.
Regulus just snarled about how the corridor was more important than the funeral. She didn't exactly disagree.
"Good, you're all here!" Professor Sprout said. "We'll take a carriage down to the train."
Sure enough, there was a carriage waiting not far past the gate. Draco and the Hufflepuff piled their trunks in, but Leo stopped a few feet away and stared.
"What now?" Draco muttered to her as he came to her side and started moving her trunk.
"Just looking at the thestral," she murmured.
Draco frowned, his gaze flicking very briefly to the area in front of the carriage. Despite the large, leathery creature there, his eyes focused too low on something past it. "The what?"
"Oh, dear." Sprout sighed loudly, sadly. "Let's get you in the carriage," she said to Leo, voice soothing and overly soft. "Come on. Up you go."
Leo tore her gaze away from the thestral, which was pawing impatiently at the ground. Draco dragged her trunk up into the carriage, and she stepped up and in after it. "Thank you."
They were on the Hogwarts Express by the time she remembered the Hufflepuff's name. He knew theirs, so he hadn't gone to the trouble of introducing himself. But it was around the time that he was explaining that Arcturus's widow, Melania Black, was his great-aunt that she finally managed to grab the name.
"Ernest," she said, pointing at him. "Right?"
He blinked, eyes narrowed a bit. "Ernie," he corrected.
Draco scoffed. Leo nodded.
"Exploding Snap?" he asked, abandoning talk about the funeral and how little all three of them cared in favor of turning away and getting the game from his trunk.
Narcissa hovered. From the moment they stepped off the Hogwarts Express in London, where Ernie introduced them briefly to his parents before just as quickly leaving with them, Narcissa stayed close. She kept asking questions—about their classes and their fellow students and their free time—that Leo let Draco shoulder most of the burden of answering. She didn't want to fight through a conversation about Percy being a Weasley or how she only tolerated her teammates for the sake of the broom. It continued through dinner, though then it was joined by Lucius inquiring after their studies specifically. That, she was comfortable with. Draco finally sat back from the conversation as she talked about her success with Confundo and her quick advancement in Potions and Transfiguration.
It was after dinner that Leo finally got away. Though she was well aware that Narcissa was frequently looking out the windows to check on her, she was as alone as she could be as she escaped into the sky on her Nimbus 2000. Regulus lingered on the ground below, occasionally calling out a broom grip suggestion or a theory about the corridor. Quirrell wanted whatever was being hidden there. More specifically, Quirrell's master wanted whatever was being hidden there.
Regulus wouldn't put a name to Quirrell's master, and the thought about who it could be kept getting stuck in the back of Leo's throat.
So instead, she spent hours on her broom, practicing swooping low to the ground, balancing on one foot as she attempted a loop, and making catch after catch on her practice snitch that Narcissa had gotten her years ago. Her mother had charmed it to not leave the boundaries of the manor's land, which still gave it plenty of room to roam and hide. At one point, Draco stood among the hedges and stared up at her. When she started to hover circles around around him, reclined backwards on her broom, he spent several minutes bouncing between his complaints about the funeral and his complaints about Harry Potter and his complaints about her showing off with her flying. He went back inside, and she continued her soaring on the broom in the evening's dim light until a small figure arrived below her.
"Mistress Leonis needs to rest!" Dobby squeaked. "Master Lucius told Dobby to bring you to your room."
She dove down, swinging into a broom drift close to the ground as a way to come to a stop. "Dobby!"
He beamed at her. "Mistress Leonis," he greeted with equal enthusiasm. "Dobby needs you to come inside. The funeral is early, and Mistress Leonis must rest."
She pouted but complied, lowering herself to the ground and taking her broom in hand once she was back on her own feet. "Fine. When is it?"
"Master Lucius said departure will be at seven. Dobby will make sure Mistress Leonis has breakfast before leaving." He looked up at her anxiously, wringing his hands. "Will Mistress Leonis come with Dobby inside?"
"Yes, Dobby. Can I have tea?"
"Chamomile," he confirmed.
"I'll be in my room," she promised.
Dobby grinned and disappeared.
Leo made her way through the quiet house and to her room. By the time she got there, Dobby was already setting a cup on her side table. Then he flapped a hand in her direction. "Anything else Dobby can do for you, Mistress Leonis?"
"No." She took up the cup and sipped at it. "Thank you, Dobby."
He disappeared, and Leo set down the cup. She put up an imperturbable charm with a move of her wand before getting to her knees by her bed. She leaned down, sliding under it and pulling herself forward. Flat on her stomach, she pressed the palm of her hand down against the floor. A sticking charm let her shift the floorboard to the left just a quarter of an inch. Just enough to free one end of it from where it interlocked with the adjacent board. She lifted it up and set it aside. Then she reached into the floor and took out the ornate silver box she kept hidden there.
She adjusted the way she was lying, moving to the side just enough to set the box on the floor. She'd originally taken it from Number 12 Grimmauld Place along with the item that it was guarding. Kreacher had dug it up for her at Regulus's direction, and the house elf had similarly followed his orders—filtered through her—to adjust its use from its previous owner—Orion—to its new one—her.
The blazing sun on the top of the box served as a dial, and she turned it until there was a click and a tiny, one inch needle popped out of the side. She pricked her thumb with it and then pressed the resulting drop of blood into the lock. The runes etched into the lock glowed, and the lid unsealed. She opened the box.
There it was. Salazar Slytherin's locket wasn't in a mirror, and it wasn't destroyed. Instead, it was sitting against green velvet in a silver box under her bed.
"It's still here," she whispered to Regulus. "It's still here."
In her dream and in Regulus's memory, the inferi weren't scared of touching her. Not so long as they were ripping her apart.