His eyes refocused on Hermione as he came back to his senses. “Er, yeah-- of, of course…”
The look she gave him was as patient as it was skeptical. “Well then, what did I just say?”
“You, er… Something about a… a plant…?”
“Yes,” was her dry affirmation. “Believe it or not, we do study plants in Herbology.”
He blinked, the corners of his mouth turning down as he realized how thick he sounded.
“Harry-- are you feeling alright? You’re not really…” Hermione offered him a sympathetic frown. “I mean, if you want to take a break, we can.”
“No-- no, it’s fine,” he insisted, rousing himself with a deep breath and a quick slap on his cheeks.
“You’ve been really tired lately,” she observed, brushing a tuft of hair behind her ear.
Shrugging, Harry sighed. “Haven’t been sleeping well.”
“I would imagine not,” she observed, leaning into her hand. “Are your… extracurricular activities more strenuous than you expected…?”
He frowned. His late night excursions for the Order could very well have something to do with misaligning his sleep schedule, but to admit that to Hermione might provoke worry. “I wouldn’t say strenuous,” Harry commented, stretching his neck out. “More annoying than anything else.”
“Annoying?” she inquired, her nose wrinkling. “I thought this was something you wanted--?”
“Well, yeah,” he replied. “But I didn’t want it with Snape.”
“I suppose that’s fair enough,” Hermione conceded before she leaned closer to him. “I’m still not certain what the Headmaster is attempting to accomplish with that.”
He shrugged. “Who knows?” Then, his eyebrows lowered as he suggested, conspiratorial, “Wonder if he actually means for me to keep an eye on him? Make sure he doesn’t do anything dodgy.”
“No offense, Harry,” she asserted, trying to sound much more delicate than she actually did, “but I honestly doubt it.”
A smile overtook his face, unbidden. “Oh, yeah?”
“I mean, why would he?” she challenged, raising an eyebrow. “Even if by some chance Dumbledore didn’t trust Snape, ‘babysitting’ him is hardly a job he’d give to a student--”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re probably right,” Harry conceded, leaning back in his seat. “But it leaves a better taste than Dumbledore just liking Snape. I mean, that whole bit about how Snape’s so great at everything, and they way he just thought it was so funny that Snape was being accused of hurting a student… It was awful.”
“It is a touch… difficult to understand,” she admitted, mouth twisting. “But at the very least, you aren’t going to have to see him privately for a while.”
“Actually,” he groaned, “I’ve another meeting tonight.”
“Oh,” she breathed, a bit stunned. “That’s quick.”
His mind went to the kidnapped girl, the things Snape had sneered at him in the alleyway. He mumbled, “Yeah. Time is sort of an object, in this case.”
She nodded, sympathetic. “Well, if you needed to get some sleep, I wouldn’t mind--”
“No, it’s fine! I still want to help. After all that work you missed, I figured...”
Hermione reached out to give his hand a pat. “I really appreciate it, Harry, but there’s no need to strain yourself. I know you’ve got your own work to do too.”
“Well,” he slouched in his seat, “if it weren’t for me--”
“Don’t you start on that again.”
“I just--”
“You’re not responsible for anything except being hopelessly unprepared for that practical.”
Despite himself, Harry huffed a laugh. “Straight to the point, I see!”
Hermione flung her arms above her head, stretching her back over the couch cushions. “True, though, isn’t it? Professor Snape may have it out for you, but you aren’t exactly proving him wrong.”
Harry winced. “Ouch, Hermione.”
“You’re even going on those outings with him, for the old crowd, and not taking a single note during--”
“It’s not a classroom,” he groused, lowering his voice. “I don’t actually have time to take out a quill, you know!”
“I’ve been telling you,” she countered, matter-of-fact, “this year is really serious! It’s nearly November, and you’re still not caught up on readings, you’re late with your assignments…”
“I know, I know,” he murmured before raising his eyebrows at her. “Maybe I should have left you in the Hospital Wing…”
Harry ducked as Hermione sent a pillow flying his way, laughing. “Harry, honestly! Ron’s been rubbing off on you, hasn’t he?”
“Ha! Yeah, quite a bad egg, that one.”
Hermione glanced toward the window. “Do you suppose he’s actually gone to his detention, or is he skipping that too?”
“Cut him some slack, Hermione. He was really worried about you.”
“That’s not an excuse to skip Transfiguration! And besides, it’s been going on for a while. Haven’t you noticed? He’s almost never showed up to Herbology with us.”
“I, er, sort of… assumed he’d dropped the class?”
“Well now he has,” Hermione fretted. “I just don’t know what’s to stop him dropping them all!”
“I don’t think it’s that serious, Hermione.”
“Well, I do!” she countered. “I mean, the two of us have things we want to do after school, but what has Ron got?”
Harry shrugged. “Figured he’d work at the joke shop.”
“Maybe,” she granted with an air of displeasure, “but do you really think that’s all he wants to do with his life?”
He’d never really thought about it in those terms. Ron liked to do all sorts of things, but, now that Harry thought about it, he couldn’t recall his friend preferring any one thing over another. He liked to have fun, sure, and normally enjoyed his classes well enough, despite his complaining. But what was it that Ron really, properly, liked to do?
“I thought he might have liked to stay on with Quidditch,” Harry ventured, though his suggestion lacked energy. “Since, you know... that’s what he saw in the Mirror of Erised, back in first year.”
Hermione slanted him a look, pausing her quill. “He was eleven, Harry. You can’t just assume he wants the same things now as he did then-- and, besides, he quit the team, so that should tell you all you need to know--”
“I know,” he stressed, hoping to stop another lecture before it started. “Maybe I could talk to him? You’ve still got a lot of catch up to do, after all...”
The girl before him sighed. “I’ve been trying to get through to him, but-- maybe he’ll listen better to you. I don’t suppose there are a lot of other options at this point.”
“That’s the spirit,” Harry remarked before rubbing his tired eyes. “You know, I’d much rather all three of us get together, but your schedule is brutal, Hermione. I mean--” He gestured to the mountain of books on the table. “Somehow, you’re still taking on nine classes, when I can barely scrape by with five!”
“Well, as they say, ‘scientia potentia est’.”
“... What? Who on Earth says that?” Harry choked out.
“‘Knowledge is power’,” Hermione quoted. “Thomas Hobbes, though of course the phrase originates long before him but -- you really ought to study more Latin, Harry. It helps a lot with understanding spell syntax.”
“Looking to pile even more homework on me?” he chuckled, half in disbelief, his mind going to the Chemistry text in his bag. “I think I’ve got enough already, thanks.”
She shrugged. “Suit yourself. But there’s all sorts of information around that can help you in school, in life. The more you know, the easier it is to understand the world, you know?”
Her philosophy didn’t surprise him, considering Hermione had never met a book she couldn’t devour in a day. But Harry? Reading always gave him a headache, and theory was often hopelessly dull, needlessly convoluted.
Which was exactly why all the extra reading he was doing for Croft was melting his brain.
“Yeah, I get it,” Harry caved, glancing pointedly at the overburdened tabletop. “But we’re not all cut out for your workload, Hermione. I mean honestly-- you’re going for a N.E.W.T. in History of Magic? I’m surprised you haven’t died from boredom.”
“I like history, Harry!” she laughed, snatching the offending text from atop a nearby pile. Then, her mien shifted into thoughtfulness as she looked at him. “Actually… I’ve been meaning to tell you and Ron something… but, um…”
This piqued his interest. “You been keeping something from us?” Harry raised his eyebrows, amused. “Well, come on, then! That guilty look of yours says it all!”
“It’s not a secret,” she insisted, her bashful expression vanishing. “I just didn’t want… a repeat of last time.”
“Last time?”
“I’ve been trying to start a new organization,” Hermione continued, pulling her bag onto the table to rifle through it. “I haven’t given up on S.P.E.W., but there was something else I noticed since this year started. Something that no one else seems to have realized.”
Harry frowned, watching her movements. “What do you mean?”
She pulled a long slip of parchment from her bag, unrolling it on the table. Along one side, there appeared to be a list of book titles. “This here is a list of all the books which have been moved from their normal place to some obscure corner, or have been categorized incorrectly, from last year to now. There’s about thirty in total. And this--” Her finger travelled to the opposite edge of the page, where there was another, much longer list. “This is all the books which have been removed from the library altogether. I can no longer find them anywhere at all.”
Harry glanced from her to the page. “They could have just been checked out, or lost…”
“Give me more credit than that,” Hermione huffed. “I’ve been to the library every day, all year. I’ve talked to Madam Pince. These books aren’t around anymore, and she says she can’t replace them either, since nobody is selling them. A lot of them are very rare.”
“What about the Restricted Section?” he inquired.
“She says even more have gone missing from there. She’s a very dedicated librarian; I mean, you’ve seen how she gets if anyone even hints that they intend to mistreat a book! The fact that all these are missing, without being checked out, is worrisome.”
Well, that was a puzzle. “Er… stolen, then?”
“Maybe, but by whom? I mean, so far, we are talking dozens of books that have gone missing, Harry. Dozens. There are entire shelves of the Restricted Section that are cleared out, gone. A student would have a hard time managing that, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, probably,” he had to admit.
Hermione sat up straighter in her seat, pointing at her list earnestly. “And the real clincher? Most of these books, if not all, were either written by Muggleborns, or were inclusive of Muggle rhetoric, including works with intersectional theory and goals, such as--”
Harry held up his hands in alarm. “Uh, Hermione, you’re losing me…”
She appeared winded as she slumped over again, her top row of teeth gnawing on her bottom lip in thought. “Right. Well, what I mean is -- a lot of these works are what some… specific people would call ‘radical’. Simply for being sympathetic to Muggles, or Muggleborns for that matter!”
“So… the sort of stuff that would make purebloods mad,” he summarized, resting his chin in his hand. Then, he looked at her in alarm. “Wait-- you don’t think… the Slytherins are stealing the books. Do you?”
“Weren’t you listening?” Hermione murmured, exasperated. “This is hardly the work of students. It would be entirely too difficult--”
“But… you’ve seen them! All those big displays they’re doing! What if they were all in it together?”
Hermione leaned back in her chair, arms crossed over her chest. “So droves of Slytherins have been piling in -- secretly of course -- to steal all these books, completely under Madam Pince’s nose? And where are they putting these books, Harry? How are they disposing of them -- and so covertly, at that? How are they getting mass permission to access the Restricted Section, without seeming suspicious? How are they--”
“Okay, okay,” Harry groaned. “I get it. But I mean, they’ve done plenty of dodgy things before…”
“My point, Harry,” Hermione sighed, features softening. “Is that prejudice doesn’t begin and end in Slytherin. This was an administrative decision. The Ministry, most likely. This was the result of politics, not the antics of school children.”
“Oh.” He frowned, glancing at the scars on the back of his right hand. “You mean Umbridge.”
“It could’ve ramped up with her, yes,” Hermione mused, her hand automatically reaching over to cover his with her palm. “She produced so many Decrees that I often lost track of them, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she started weeding out ‘unsafe texts’ for our protection.” Her eyes screwed shut as she held back a sigh in frustration. “But this has been ongoing. And considering how many Purists work within the Ministry itself -- not to mention the school board -- I can promise this has long been precedent.”
Harry looked down at her hand atop his. “That sounds…” Confusing. Sinister. Inescapable. “... difficult to combat.”
“Maybe,” Hermione replied, pensive. “But, far be it from me to allow something as silly as difficulty to stop me, right?”
“Well then. What are you going to do?”
“I’ve some vague ideas,” she replied, cagey. “I’ll get back to you when I have something more solid.”
“Er… okay?” Harry frowned at her, worried. The last time she’d kept things from him and Ron, she’d been mucking about with time travel!
“Don’t worry about it,” she assured him, though it was hardly a comfort. “Mind handing me my Arithmancy text? Since you don’t seem much for plants at the current moment.”
He leaned around one of the stacks, getting a good look at the spines before locating the she was asking for. “Here.” A sigh. “You sure you want to skip lunch? You’ve got two classes in a row after this, don’t you?”
She opened the mouth of her bag in display, where some snack bars were teetering, perilously, over the covers of more books. “Don’t worry. I’ve handled a big study session before. I’ll even eat another helping of pudding tonight at dinner, just for you.”
Harry offered her a mock-salute. “Lovely. Now, if only I can live through the rest of this day, I can maybe catch the barest minimum of sleep, and we’ll both be satisfied.”
She took one of her bars out and peeled away the plastic, closing her mouth over a large bite of granola as she stuffed away the refuse back into her bag. “You can go to lunch if you want to,” she said, the words peeking out from under her hand as she used it to cover her full mouth. “Brilliant as you are, I don’t think you’re going to help me much with this.” She curled her pinky outward to gesture to her Arithmancy text.
“Ha, probably not,” he mused. “But I, er… technically need to finish reading something before Charms, so… No lunch for me, I think.”
“Oh, Potions?” she assumed, her eyes brightening. “Good idea. Snape might have another practical prepared for tomorrow, I think. I could help you with that--”
“Oh, uh, thanks but no… I mean--!” He tried to head off the protest that was obviously on the tip of her tongue. “Yeah, I’m still behind on Potions, but actually I… got a tutor.”
Hermione stared at him for a moment, befuddled. “A tutor,” she repeated, disbelieving.
“I figured, you know, after everything that’s going on this year, I just needed some help.”
“Well, I could have helped if you asked,” Hermione replied, her tone subdued. Harry wasn’t sure what to make of her reaction; he thought she would be happy that he was finally taking his studies seriously.
“You help me a lot in all my other classes,” he told her. “And you’ve got enough on your plate, now that I’ve-- er, now that you were laid up in bed for days.”
She didn’t seem convinced, though she moved to open the front cover of the Arithmancy text. “Well, who is it, then?”
“It’s that Slytherin girl, Croft.”
“Wait,” Hermione interjected, squinting. “You agreed to be tutored… by a Slytherin?”
“Well, I was originally supposed to tutor her, but she doesn’t need it, so I uh… kind of asked.”
“You, Harry Potter,” she emphasized, almost as if she were trying to make sense of it, “asked a Slytherin to tutor you?”
“Yeah…” He smiled uncomfortably. “Doesn’t really sound like me, does it?”
“Not in the slightest,” she returned, concerned. “Are… well, are you sure it’s safe?”
He huffed a laugh. “I mean, anything’s safer than Snape, right?”
She was more than skeptical. “Not necessarily,” she broached. “But… You’re sure she’s safe?”
“No idea,” Harry admitted, hauling his bag onto the table. “I don’t know. It’s just a feeling, but I don’t think she’s really like the others.”
“What makes you think that?”
He glanced around the Common Room, secretive. “To start, she can’t even cast an Incision Spell, so I don’t think she intends to murder anyone. That already puts her a cut above.”
“What do you mean ‘can’t cast’?” Hermione questioned, incredulous.
He shrugged. “She just… can’t. I saw her try, and nothing happened.”
“That doesn’t prove much,” she warned him. “Just, maybe that she has control over her powers. She could’ve been pretending to try.”
“I’m not stupid, Hermione,” he grumbled. “I know when people are trying to trick me, and she just… wasn’t.”
“How do you know, though?” she pressed. “Not to sound like Ron, but you know how well Slytherins can deceive. Not to mention this particular Slytherin has been kicked out of the school once--”
“Actually, she left on her own,” was Harry’s waspish reply. “And seriously, it’s just Potions, we’re not best friends or anything!”
“I certainly hope not,” Hermione said, sighing. “I’m not trying to be mean, Harry. I’m just worried. Considering you’ve already seen her talk to Draco at least once, well…” She let that sentence hang, her eyes dropping down to look at the bar of granola in her hand.
“It’ll be fine,” he promised her, his tone evening out as he reached out to pat her hand. “You’ll see.”
She considered this a moment before hesitating, her shoulders drooping as she looked at him. “Promise me something, Harry?”
“Hm?”
“That if you were doing something like… investigating, trying to get close to Slytherin in order to figure out what Malfoy is doing… you’d tell me?” she asked, her hand turning under his to squeeze his fingers.
That hit a little too close to home, considering why he’d initially contacted the girl in the first place. He couldn’t deny that there was a part of him inherently curious, a part which realized that the more time he spent around Slytherins as a whole, the more likely he was to bump into Malfoy. Catch him in the act. And what with how involved Croft had been in that protest, it seemed that she might be just enough in the thick of it to serve that purpose. But… that wasn’t what he was doing now.
… Was it?
“Yeah,” Harry told her, leaning back in his seat again and cracking open the Chemistry text. “Of course I would.”
Fortunately, despite his earlier absence, Ron did show up to Charms later that day. Unfortunately, he was livid to find out what Harry would be up to directly after.
“You’re doing what?!”
His outburst was loud enough to pause several students in the process of packing up their things at the end of class. Harry shot him a look of warning. “It’s only tutoring, Ron! Nothing to get your pants in a wad over…”
“You have to be joking,” his friend huffed in the center of his disbelieving chuckle. “Hermione? Please tell me this is some kind of gag.”
Her bushy hair slid side to side as she glanced between the two of them. “Ehm… no. Harry really has got tutoring with Croft.”
“Excuse me?!” His face was full red, then. “And when were you lot planning to say anything to me? Since apparently everyone is fine with this!”
Hermione sighed. “Harry only just told me this morning, which you would know if you had come to class with us--”
“Oh, don’t start,” Ron spat, glaring at her.
“Hey, c’mon,” Harry interjected, placing a hand on both their shoulders. “Let’s not fight. And there’s no need to worry, either; I can handle myself.”
“You can’t trust Slytherins, Harry,” Ron told him, point-blank. “You know that.”
“I… I know,” he admitted, eyes falling to their feet, arranged triangularly below them. “And I’m not saying I am. I just…”
Just what? Needed a tutor? Harry knew he could easily have gotten one elsewhere.
He grimaced, continuing, “Look, I figured I would just… see how this goes. If it doesn’t work out, then it doesn’t work out.”
Hermione’s posture changed as she fretted, “Harry, not to be rude, but don’t you think it’s a bit reckless--”
Ron argued, simultaneously, “You’ve had five whole years of seeing how well that’s gonna ‘work out’--!”
“Alright,” Harry stressed, irritated. “I get it. You’re worried. But I’m doing this, okay?”
Hermione’s mouth was pressed in a thin line, but Ron immediately said, “Fine. Then I’m coming with you.”
“Ron, that’s not--”
“I let you talk me out of meeting with Dumbledore, but I won’t let you talk me out of this,” his friend argued. “I’m going to be there to make sure she doesn’t try anything funny.”
Harry grimaced. “It’s really not that serious.”
“What could it hurt?” Hermione proposed, cradling her Charms text to her chest. “Besides, Ron could do with a bit of tutoring anyway--”
He immediately rounded on her. “Oi! I’m not taking lessons from some snake!” Ron objected. “And Potions is rubbish anyway.”
With a sigh, Harry conceded, “Fine, if it will make you feel better. But you can’t sit there and run your mouth the whole time; I do actually need to learn things, you know.”
Ron snorted. “Oh, now I’m just a bother to you? Great.”
“Ron, honestly. That’s not what he was saying,” Hermione protested. “He is behind. And although I’m still very skeptical about his choice in tutor--”
“It will be fine,” Harry insisted. “Honestly. I don’t want to cause any trouble…”
“Pfft, there’s a first,” Ron muttered, shrugging Harry’s hand off his shoulder. “But not to worry, I won’t ruin your little meeting by breathing too loud.”
With that, he stalked off out the door, leaving Harry and Hermione frowning behind him. “I… didn’t mean it like that.”
Her head tilted. “I know you didn’t, Harry,” she assured him. “I-- I just don’t think he’s in a good place right now.”
“Yeah.” He hiked his bag up higher on his shoulder. “We’ll uh, see you at dinner, then?”
“Suppose so…” she answered, stepping away. “Save you a seat.”
Offering her a somber smile, his parting statement was a simple, “Thanks.”
Outside, Ron was standing, arms crossed, directly beside Croft, who seemed… Harry wasn’t sure. Confused, perhaps? If it was him, he certainly would be.
“So… my friend is coming with us,” he remarked, direct. “And, uh, speaking of, where are we going for this?”
“The potion workrooms,” she replied, although quite jilted still. “You didn’t mention your friend needed tutoring too.”
“He doesn't,” Harry replied, irked. “And, uh… Workrooms? We have those?”
She frowned. “You didn’t know?”
Instead of answering, Harry glanced at Ron. His friend's face was still sour, but he did grumble, “Snape is the one who reserves them.”
Well. That explained a lot. “Right. Lead the way, then?”
She glanced to Ron again. “Would it be outrageous of me to wonder why you need a chaperone?”
Harry performed an exaggerated shrug. “Beats me.”
Ron scowled at them both, and she had that look about her again. The one where she seemed to want to say something entirely different than what she ended up saying: “Well, more the merrier, then. This way.”
There was an acute awkwardness that clung around their small group as they descended to the dungeons. Things were strained enough with just the two of them, but the added “Ron” element was no help at all. He was sullen and mute, casting a dark pallor over their trip downward. Harry wasn’t sure if he would have felt comfortable making conversation, even without Ron there.
Beyond the Potion classroom was a short, dead-end hallway lined on either side with doors, six in total. Croft approached one, clearly pronouncing, “Heath milkwort.”
The door clicked open, allowing them entrance. The inside was sparse, the workroom simply a little square box with a rectangular table in the center. Four chairs were messily arranged about it, and there was a patch of stone wall that was charred.
“Take a seat wherever,” Croft announced as she pulled her outer robes off her shoulders.
Harry did as he was told, plopping his bag on the tabletop in a manner which ended up sounding far too loud in the small room.
After taking a seat herself, she looked to Ron again, who had taken position against the wall, arms crossed. “You sure you don’t want to sit?”
When Harry glanced up at his friend, it was to witness Ron’s scowl. “Yeah. I’m sure.”
“All right then,” Croft said, though it seemed more to herself than anyone else. In a moment, she pulled what looked like a stack of note cards from her bag, as well as the Advanced Potion Making text.
Her lesson started with an apology. “I’m sorry for the Chemistry text thing. I don’t really know what I was thinking. Must’ve slugged through hours of that, huh?”
Harry pulled it from his bag, looking sheepish. “Er… actually, I uh… hardly looked at it.”
“Fair enough,” Croft sighed as she looked at the cover.
“I mean-- I tried! I really did,” Harry mentioned. “It’s just… a lot of it was…”
“Technical, dry, overwhelming?” she listed, casual. “Yeah, I figured. I tend to forget that the way I learn isn’t always… useful to other people, you know?”
“Yeah,” he agreed, handing her the book. “Plus, I think it was just a touch out of my league… I mean, I only went to a few years of primary school, so I couldn’t understand even half the words.”
She appeared instantly regretful. “Oh, God. Right. I’m sorry.”
Harry’s nod was absent-minded. “It’s fine.” His gaze flicked to Ron, who was just watching them. “So. Hermione had me catch up on some readings while I was helping her study, but… not really sure where to start.”
“That’s fine. Considering all this, I feel maybe it’s best for me to start this off by asking you: What methods have sort of helped you learn material in the past? Reading may not be your strong point -- but do you do okay with listening? Or maybe you learn with visuals?”
“Huh.” Harry frowned, pensive. “I guess I never really thought about it.”
“For me, I’m better with visuals. And I also do really well when I can relate certain concepts to others I’m more familiar with,” she gestured to the book. “Hence the Chemistry text--”
Ron cut in abruptly. “What the hell is this Chemistry you keep talking about?”
Croft looked bewildered that Ron had even said anything. “It’s, uhm,” she faltered. “The study of matter and how substances either combine or separate, or interact with energy-- you know, the study of molecules and atoms and elements and chemicals--”
“It’s like Alchemy,” Harry intoned, shooting his friend a look. “Nothing sinister about it.”
Ron huffed. “Not yet, anyway.”
Harry rolled his eyes, turning back to Croft. “Don’t mind him.”
“I don’t,” she returned softly, her hand digging through her bag. She paused as she pulled out a few items from her bag, placing them behind the spine of the Potions text. “About your learning? I’d hazard a guess you enjoy kinetic things. You do well at Professor Tenenbaum’s practicals… and you’re on the Quidditch team, yeah?” She looked him over. “Do you prefer being active? Working with your hands? Find it easier to remember stuff if you’ve actually gone through the motions yourself? Stuff like that?”
Harry shrugged. “Suppose so.”
Croft opened the front cover of the Potions text. “Because Potions, especially at advanced levels, is all a game of memorization. And I’m guessing sitting there staring at the book and just trying to brute force the instructions into your head hasn’t been doing the trick so far.”
“No, not really,” he grumbled, glum. “But I’ve got to suck it up if I want to get through these N.E.W.T.s, clearly.”
She didn’t respond for a moment as she thumbed through the pages, engrossed. “Well,” she exhaled. “When I was struggling a bit with studying for my A&P exams, I found what ended up clicking for me was hanging up one of my dad’s old anatomy posters on my wall, and then identifying the parts I needed to by sticking little Post-It notes on them.” She bit her lip, uncertain, before looking his way. “Not that Potions has any sort of visual we can utilize, but the principle is the same. So.”
She scooted closer toward him, pushing the text his way as she grabbed the note cards and placed them in front of him. “I’m pretty sure Snape is going to have us on a Draught of Living Death this week. So we can start there. First off, you’re just going to list each ingredient and step on its own card, so we’ll have a little stack of them. You can use my pen--” He noticed, just then, that she had a small stack of them piled in the area where the text had previously occupied. Reaching for one, she pulled the cap off, before stopping.
Her eyes drifted to Ron and, in a measured shift, rose slightly from her seat and bent over the tabletop, holding the uncapped pen in his direction. “You want to check them first?” she offered, diplomatic.
His expression markedly suspicious, Ron did, indeed, snatch the pen from her grasp. “What is it?” he demanded.
Harry scowled. “It’s a pen-- You’ve seen them before!”
“Yeah, but this one looks different.”
Exasperated, he said, “Of course it does, there’s all sorts! But it’s still just a pen!”
Taking the thing from his friend’s grasp, movements snappy with his irritation, Harry poised it over a notecard. For several seconds, he sat frozen in that position, before he turned to confess: “Er… I haven’t got a clue what’s in the Draught of Living Death.”
Croft’s smile was rather tender as she pushed the text closer to him and tapped her finger on the page it was open to. “Figured not. You can copy off.”
Then, unexpectedly, and in a way that struck him as oddly conversational, she looked at Ron. “How do you know about pens?”
Harry surveyed Ron’s reaction. His friend merely shrugged, mumbling his answer. “My dad works in the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts office.”
“Oh, that’s cool, actually,” she replied, breezy. “I don’t know much about that, but I imagine it’s an interesting job.”
Ron’s only reply was a short grunt.
“Okay,” she muttered under her breath, clearly picking up on his reluctance to talk. She leaned forward, pulling the Chemistry text open, but only to fiddle with the pages, it seemed.
Harry paused his surveillance to return to the task at hand. The pen glided against the cards much smoother than a quill, a sensation he was immediately grateful for. Still, even the task of writing the ingredients was frightfully dull. Seven litres of water, one litre of infusion of wormwood, five ounces African sea salt, one hundred ounces of powdered root of asphodel, one full sloth brain, juice of twelve sopophorous beans, three valerian roots, seed of lily of the valley…
“Wait, what’s--” He squinted at it again. “Lily of the Valley?”
Croft fielded that one quickly, without looking up from the passage she was reading in the textbook. “They’re poisonous flowers. Very pretty. They’re small and their petals are kind of hunched over, like little bells.”
“Oh. Right,” Harry muttered, staring down at the name. “That’s… yeah. Suppose that makes sense.”
Croft did look up that time, a bit perplexed. “How do you mean?”
He waved her off, his mouth at a sullen slant. “It’s nothing. Just… you know. Just kind of stupid, really.”
“I don’t consider any question stupid,” she replied.
“Not really a question,” Harry prefaced. “It’s just… my mum’s name. Lily. So… I don’t know. Seems a bit strange to see it around a textbook, even if it is just the name of a flower.”
The look she gave him was… odd. He didn’t quite know what to make of it, not even when she answered with a soft and vague, “Oh.”
“Yeah, like I said,” his voice meandered, embarrassed. “Nothing important.”
She brought her attention back to the book in front of her. “If it means something to you, then it’s important.” She didn’t let this phrase hang, however. Moments after, she tapped the page she was on again, reminding him, “Be sure to put the steps for brewing on their own cards, too.”
“Right.” He was grateful for the distraction. In no time at all, he had completed the remaining fragments of instructions, laying them out on the table in haphazard mounds. Ron, for his part, was surveying all this with a dour mien, arms folded where he was stationed against the wall.
Croft gathered the notes he’d written, piling them on one another like a deck of cards. “So, this will be simple. You’re going to take these note cards, and you’re going to assemble them in the correct order for the potion. You can use the book until you feel confident enough to make an attempt without looking. The point is to associate the movement to memory. To be honest, it’d also help if you maybe did something as you set the cards down in the correct order. Something like a tap, maybe. Step one, one tap. Step two, two taps. So on and so forth.”
Harry took hold of the stack, fidgeting with the corners of the parchment. He placed the first two cards together: Cut up all 12..., and Sopophorous beans. Then, glancing up at her, he tapped a finger against the pair, unsure.
“I know it feels odd at first,” she assured him, addressing a concern he hadn’t voiced. “But I swear it’ll tie into your muscle memory. And then during practicals, all it will take is for you to move your fingers and you’ll remember the steps.”
“Muscles don’t have memory,” came Ron’s grumble from across the room.
“Not in a literal sense, no,” Croft conceded, patient. “But your brain does. Moreover, you can train it to remember relationships between unrelated things. It’s called associative memory.”
“Well then, you won't be surprised when I use my associative memory to tell you that I think this whole business is rubbish.”
Harry paused his movements, giving Ron a look of exasperation. “Would you give it a rest? That doesn't even make sense.”
Croft merely rested her head in her hand, leaning against the table as she watched him place down a couple more cards. “Well, I suppose it’s a blessing for you that you’re not suffering under my tutelage.”
His friend stared at him, earnest but frustrated. “Harry, I don’t know what you’re playing at, but there’s no reason Hermione couldn’t have helped you.”
Harry grimaced. “I know that. I just… I asked Croft, okay? Give it a rest.”
“You asked a Slytherin,” he pointed out. “You know, the kind of nutters who have parents who want to kill you?”
“She’s sitting right there, you know!”
“Even if she doesn't want you dead--” His gaze shifted to the side to glare at her. “-- which I hardly find likely -- even if that was true, what is the appeal of this… this?” Ron gestured across the expanse of the room.
“I need tutoring?” Harry remarked, phrasing it like a question to demonstrate his utter confusion. “If I fail Potions, I can't be an Auror?”
His friend's eye roll was brief but snappy. “Oh, please.”
“I know what you're going to say, but don't.”
“You need to face facts, mate,” Ron told him, putting a finger in his direction. “Nobody in their right mind gives two shites about what grade Snape gives you in Potions. If Harry Potter waltzes into the Auror Office in the middle of a dark wizard apocalypse, they aren't going to say no!”
“I don’t want--!”
“Look, I don’t have a dog in this race,” Croft interrupted, sounding annoyed for the first time. “You’ve been thoroughly heard; you don’t approve of this set up. So, don’t worry. By Friday, I’ll be out of your hair entirely.”
Harry’s attention relocated to her. “Friday? What’s Friday?”
“A presentation with Snape,” she replied, shrugging. “If it falls through, I’m going home.”
Ron huffed. “What’s the worry? Snape is always Guzzling the Gaudens for you Slytherins.”
Harry shared a look of stunned bewilderment with Croft before he frowned at Ron. “He’s what?”
The redhead squinted at them, seeming just as baffled by their lack of understanding. “Guzzling the-- What, you mean you’ve never heard that?”
Unable to help it, Harry broke into breathy laughter. “No, of course not!”
Croft was apparently able to cobble together a vague understanding of Ron’s statement. “He’s not chomping at the bit to advise me, no. My standing as a ‘Slytherin’ has very little influence on that.”
Ron scoffed. “Like I’m going to believe that.”
“I don’t really care whether you do or not,” Croft countered, returning her attention to her book.
Harry cast his eyes toward her, surveying her as she expressionlessly kept on with her reading. Harry ventured, “So, er… you might be gone that soon, then?”
She turned a page. “I’m tired of disappointing my son,” she threw out, casual. “So yeah. That soon.”
His gaze flicked to Ron to examine his reaction to that bit of information, but there wasn’t one at all. He simply stood, arms crossed, glaring over the proceedings. Turning back to her, Harry remarked, “I thought you might stay, after…”
He cut off, not really keen on bringing up the topic, even if his mouth was determined to act on his prying nature.
“After?” she inquired, glancing up at him.
Too late now to take it back, he mused with a slight grimace. “After that whole… you know. Slytherin thing, with Urquhart.”
“Why would the protest make a difference?”
“Well, I mean-- obviously it was in your favor,” Harry pointed out. “The bloke singled you out and everything.”
“To emphasize a point,” she argued. “It wasn’t about me. It was about showing discrepancy in Dumbledore’s conduct. What the Headmaster is doing to Slytherin is nothing I agree with, but it’s not where my head is at.”
Ron puffed up at that. “Oh yeah? What’ve you got against Dumbledore, then?”
Croft squinted at him. “Nothing?”
Harry, hoping to temper whatever his friend might say about the topic, informed him, “It was just a thing on Friday where they blocked the hall, shouting about Montague and such. Didn’t you hear about it?”
Ron shrugged. “Heard Malfoy got in another fight, but what else is new?”
That was certainly a point. “Yeah, put him in the Hospital Wing. Urquhart nearly smashed him to bits.”
“Serves him right, the minted wanker.”
“We’re getting really off topic,” Croft broke in, sighing. “Harry, you should focus.”
Chagrined, Harry moved to return to his occupation, but Ron blew out a vindicated breath. “Oh ho,” he said, fitting her with a suspicious glower. “Don’t like it when we bad-mouth your good mate Malfoy, eh?”
Apparently well used to this by now, Croft rolled her eyes. “Malfoy? No. He can choke, for all I care.”
Placing another two cards down on the table, Harry heard Ron say, “Oh, that definitely explains why you and him are having little chats down in the dungeons--”
“He wasn’t chatting with me,” Croft corrected him with an undercurrent of anger that hadn’t been in her tone before.
“Fine, whispering, then,” Ron snapped back.
“He threatened me,” she asserted, her voice strained.
Rather than back down, Ron advanced the few steps toward the table with eyes narrowed. “Oh yeah?” was his mocking retort. “What about?”
“I have no idea why it’s any of your business,” she replied, scowling.
“See?” Ron said to Harry, gesturing a hand in Croft’s direction. “Already keeping secrets!”
“Oh, come off it--”
“Slytherins don’t just agree to tutor Harry Potter out of the goodness of their hearts, Harry.” He said this as if he very much doubted such a thing even existed. “Whatever it is they’re scheming, I intend to sniff it out, even if you won’t.”
“Even if Croft was planning something, it would be stupid to do it right off,” Harry sighed, facing his friend fully. “It’s just tutoring, and she’s actually been helpful this whole time, Ron. Unlike you.”
“Alright, fine,” Croft sighed with displeasure, crossing her arms as she leaned toward Ron. “I give up. This is a complete wash. So just get on with it. Ask what you bloody well want to ask.”
Ron leaned over the table, his hands curled into fists. “Yeah? And how do I know you’ll tell the truth?”
“I guess you won’t,” Croft volleyed, undaunted. “But considering the fact you won’t allow Harry to do a damn thing until you’re satisfied that I’m not the devil incarnate, we might as well get it over with.”
There was a moment of deliberation where Ron stayed quite still before he ground out: “Alright.” He leveled a glare at her. “Why’d you leave school?”
Harry tried to diffuse the ire that seemed to be crackling between them. “Ron, come on, don’t do this…”
“I got pregnant,” Croft admitted, deadpan.
Ron didn’t reply, instead rapid firing another question: “How much money did you have to pay to get back in at Hogwarts?”
The laugh that oozed from her was baleful and harsh. “None. I was given permission for a temporary withdrawal.”
“From who?”
“Who do you bloody think? The Headmaster.”
“Why did you come back?”
She scowled. “I have a kid. I have to try to make a living somehow, don’t I?”
“Haven’t got a Daddy who’s pleased as punch to enroll you back in school just to get close to the Boy Who Lived?”
“He doesn’t even know what that means; so, no.”
His eyes narrowed. “Don’t play dumb,” he demanded. “Are you, or are you not, allied with Death Eaters?”
Harry cut in, alarmed, “Are you daft, Ron? She’s Muggleborn!”
His scoff was loud enough to fill the room. “You expect me to believe Slytherin’s got Muggleborns, now? That whole tripe with ‘enemies of the Heir beware’ some misunderstood catchphrase? Hm?”
“You know Salazar Slytherin has been dead for hundreds of years, right?” Croft mocked, caustic. “They do let rabble like us in now.”
“You being Muggleborn doesn’t automatically clear your name,” Ron maintained, stubborn.
“How in the world wouldn’t it?”
“You wouldn’t be the first backstabber to be sorted into Slytherin,” he shot back.
“Right, because jumping in bed with the same fascists who would want people like me executed would somehow be advantageous to me?” she argued, clearly disgusted.
“Had to have jumped in bed with someone,” he commented, merciless. “So show me your arm.”
She rolled up both her sleeves without hesitation and presented her pale -- and notably bare-- forearms on the table.
He sucked in a breath, clearly ready to say more, but Harry slammed both hands on the table, legs propelling him to stand. His friend flinched, clearly so on edge that even this slight outburst was able to startle.
“Ron. Outside. Now.”
He burst into the hallway ahead of his friend, waiting until the workroom door was closed before nearly shouting, “Are you completely mental? What the hell was that?!”
Ron bristled. “She’s the one who--!”
Without letting him finish, Harry continued, “Who in their right mind talks to a complete stranger like that? I don't like Slytherins either, but even I could have told you she wasn’t a bloody Death Eater, Ron! In fact, we met most of them, and something tells me she wouldn’t exactly fit in!”
Ron seemed to have caught on to how angry he was, his expression shifting to one of worry. “Look, mate, I’m just trying to--”
“I don’t know what your problem is, but you need to fucking think -- for once -- and realize how way out of line you are!”
“Oh, so now I’m stupid,” Ron spat with a glare. “I’m some kind of arsehole for wanting to protect my friend? Piss off, Harry!”
“Protect me from what?!” he shot back, irate. “Some girl with a baby? Really?”
“We spent all last year being hounded by Slytherins, and then we got to almost be murdered by their parents too!” Ron heaved in a breath. “I’m not going to let that happen again!”
“What with you being such a prat, if she hasn’t hexed you yet, I doubt she ever will!”
Ron waved a dismissive hand. “You can’t know for certain what bad people might do, Harry. I thought you might have learned that after the last few years!”
Frustrated, Harry pressed his fingers over his eyes before sliding them away with a furious swipe. “I’m going to go back in, and you are going to keep your mouth shut, or get lost. Got it?”
“Well, I’m not letting you stay there alone. Especially considering--” He cut himself off, mouth pressed into a straight line.
Harry leveled a stare at him. “Considering what?”
“Considering she’s… y’know…” He lowered his voice. “A loose woman.”
Harry closed his eyes against that statement, unable to deal with it. “Stop talking, Ron. Just stop.”
“I’m coming with you,” he insisted.
“Fine. Whatever.”
Re-entering the room was a solemn affair. Croft answered the door when Harry knocked, but she barely looked at him, returning to her seat wordlessly. Ron took up an abandoned stool in the corner, folding his arms as Harry sat to continue his studying.
“Have you still got that pen?” he asked Croft, his voice feeling strange after all the shouting he’d done.
She pushed it toward him, eyes purposefully glued to her textbook. Muttering a thanks, his eyes went straight back to the recipe. The repetitive motions, the dry text before him, the blessed silence… all of it, eventually, quieted his ire.
And Ron, to his credit, said nothing more.
Taking a nap before his meeting with Dumbledore had seemed like a good idea at the time, but then, slogging his way up the steps, Harry felt a good deal worse than he had beforehand. Not to mention the fact that he was a few minutes late, even after all that rushing around he’d done in the dorms, stuffing his Invisibility Cloak in his bag at the last possible second.
He’d been mentally preparing his apology for the last ten minutes when his thoughts were interrupted by a disturbance within the Headmaster’s office.
“... is not sustainable, Albus!” Snape’s angry voice emanated from the partially-open door. Harry’s steps slowed and he lurked nearby, unable to resist eavesdropping when the opportunity was lying right at his feet.
The Headmaster spoke in a low voice, each of his words precise. “You, above all, should understand the danger residing within your House. Those children are susceptible--”
“If these children are anything like me, then the only thing they are susceptible to is extreme reaction to this kind of treatment--”
Dumbledore chuckled. “Well, that is the idea, Severus. I won’t tolerate radical behavior in my school.”
“Define ‘radical’, because the children of Death Eaters are not the only ones you are attacking,” Snape retorted.
Were they… arguing? This simple fact helped to rouse Harry somewhat, and he shifted his weight, leaning just far enough to peer inside at the two men.
The Headmaster was sitting behind his desk, brow furrowed. “These aren’t attacks; they are precautionary measures. Slytherin has long been home to predatory individuals--”
“Individuals; not the whole.” The professor shifted his weight, agitated. “If you take issue with a few, then punish them! Expel them, if you have to. Alienating the rest is foolhardy in the extreme.”
“The goal is not to get rid of them, Severus,” Dumbledore stated calmly. “But they must understand what is and is not acceptable. The influence of indoctrinated children must be diminished, so that the rest may thrive.”
“They aren’t thriving,” Snape spat, disgusted. “And the more restrictions you place, the greater their will to break those chains will be.”
“They are Slytherins, and as such, they understand power,” the Headmaster said, adjusting his spectacles. “They will come to accept this situation; those most well-behaved will be duly rewarded and purists will be separated from the rest.”
“Do you hear yourself?” Snape’s accompanying gesture was jerky, carrying with it a mountain of frustration. “They are children. Children.”
“Children grow into adults, Severus.” The Headmaster’s tone was harsh with reprimand. “Adults who must understand the enemy they are up against, should they decide to follow the dark path. Hogwarts has too long allowed Slytherin House the freedom to nurture evil. I will endure it no further.”
“You cannot just intimidate--!”
“The matter is not up for discussion,” Dumbledore silenced him. “My decision is final.”
There was a moment of quiet. Snape straightened himself, hands placed carefully at his sides. Then, with an accompanying snort, he remarked, “The consequences be on your head, then.”
Harry, sensing that nothing further would be said, gently knocked on the door frame. “Professor? Can I come in?”
Snape’s gaze snapped in his direction, and the Headmaster called for him to enter, voice leagues warmer than it had been a minute before. “Ah, Harry,” Dumbledore addressed him as he walked in. “How are you? Classes going well, I presume?”
“Yeah,” Harry commented, eyes flicking in Snape’s direction of their own accord. “Fine.”
“Good to hear, good to hear… I trust Miss Granger is now fully mended?”
Oh, right. He hadn’t talked to Dumbledore since he’d tried to file a complaint against Snape. Frowning, Harry did his level best not to look at the man standing nearby. “She is, yeah.”
“I knew Madam Pomfrey was sure to take good care of her.”
Awkward, Harry replied with another “yeah”. Wasn’t much else he could say to that under present circumstances, was there?
“Well, I imagine you’ll be wanting to head out soon. Your first destination is a bit of a walk.”
That perked him up. “Really? Where is it?”
“Professor Snape will be taking you to… another safehouse, of sorts. It is located in Dartmoor but, by nature of its protections, Apparition is restricted to some distance away from the building itself.”
“Makes sense,” Harry remarked, thoughtful. “Dartmoor… Isn’t that pretty… remote?”
Dumbledore drew in breath to reply, but Snape was the one who spoke first. “I see your knowledge of geography is not entirely hopeless,” he sneered, the compliment as backhanded as they came. “But regardless, we are losing time with this inane chatter.”
While the Headmaster did not seem happy with Snape’s tone, he appeared to agree with the sentiment. “A word of advice, Harry,” Dumbledore broached, gesturing toward the fireplace as he spoke. “Choose your words carefully when speaking to the caretaker of this safehouse.”
Perplexed, Harry asked, “Why?”
The older man brushed a hand through his beard. “She does not take kindly to strangers.”
Harry and Snape had been walking for roughly ten minutes before either of them said a word. Even then, it was only so the professor could reprimand him.
“What do you think you are doing?”
Having just taken out his wand, Harry cast an annoyed glance in Snape’s direction. “It’s the middle of the night in pitch dark marshland, and it’s raining hard enough to soak me through. Can’t even see where I’m walking, much less what’s beyond a few meters ahead!”
“Need I explain to you,once again, the laws against underage magic?”
“No, but if you’re not going to light the way, I’m at least going to defend myself against whatever’s out here.”
“‘Whatever is out here’?” Snape echoed, mocking. “I am simply fascinated that the Boy Who Lived is afraid of ponies, sheep, and fish.”
“Well!” he huffed. “Aunt Petunia was always on about ‘wild country’ having bears and wolverines…” Not that she was really a reliable source, Harry thought, his voice petering out with that realization.
“Put your wand away,” came Snape’s demand. “You are more likely to encounter a Muggle than a wild animal, and in either case, magic is not advised.”
With a sigh, he did as he was told, though his apprehension persisted. There was silence between them for another fifteen minutes. Harry was wet and cold, but it was useless to complain about it. Snape wasn’t going to care; he would probably say something about how his discomfort was evidence that Harry was a rubbish Order member, and he should just give it up…
His feet sloshed on the muddy ground, trodding over long grass and sodden heather. The landscape was lit only by the small sliver of moonlight that peeked out of the clouds at odd intervals. Whenever it did, Harry could make out that they were traversing a wide heath, swooping hills making the countryside appear like gentle waves in a sea of grass. Distantly, he could just barely spot a forest treeline, but he and Snape weren’t heading in that direction.
Curiosity getting the best of him, Harry inquired, “I don’t see any houses or buildings… Is it really that far off?”
The man did not look his way as he replied, “It is hidden.”
Oh. Of course. “Still, bit out-of-the-way for a safehouse.”
“It isn’t a true safehouse,” Snape told him.
Harry frowned. “How d’you mean?”
“Let’s just say, you’re ‘safer’ without than within.”
That wasn’t helpful at all, but Harry lapsed back into silence for a time. His foot sunk into a surprisingly deep puddle, causing him to stumble before righting himself.
Harry groused, “Any reason we’re slogging it in this downpour?”
The other man’s sneer was evident in his tone. “I seem to recall the Headmaster informing you about the Apparition wards, or were you not paying attention yet again, Potter?”
A sneer slashed across Harry’s face as he glared at the professor. “I know that; I meant who we’re supposed to be talking to, and why.”
“You will not be talking. It’s been made abundantly clear how abysmal conversations turn out whenever you open your mouth.”
He didn’t appreciate the slight, casting a glare at Snape as they crested another grassy knoll. “Going to ‘play nice’ again?” he questioned, derisive.
The man shot him a displeased look, but did not reply.
“Is this about the missing girl? Because I thought she lived in Cardiff.”
“No,” was his retort.
“No what? That this is about her, or that she lived in Cardiff?”
Snape’s expression was on all levels annoyed. “This visit is to inquire about the wards surrounding your summer home,” he explained through gritted teeth.
“Oh, are there--?”
A quick, withering glare silenced him. “No more questions.”
Harry deflated, stare affixed to the slick toes of his boots. They traversed in quiet for several minutes, with nothing but the muffled impacts of raindrops on vegetation to accompany them. He should have felt peaceful, should have felt like this journey across the landscape was a respite. But, this was a sort of quiet that Harry was seldom exposed to, accustomed to both the Dursley’s loud lifestyle and the crowded bustle of Hogwarts. Even though on some level he could appreciate the sound of empty air, he experienced a companion feeling of bone-deep unease.
“I’ve never been somewhere like this,” he found himself saying.
The other man did not reply, though he did slant a look in his direction as a gust of wind blew past them, strong enough to momentarily stagger Harry.
“I mean, I’ve been to Dartmoor once, but that was just for the Quidditch World Cup. And, er… that… didn’t quite work out.”
Harry scratched the side of his face, recalling the image of the Dark Mark in the cloudy sky and debating the wisdom of talking about this with Snape, of all people. “There’s country around Hogwarts, but it’s not really the same,” he changed the subject. “There’s still loads of buildings and people around. Plus, I’m never allowed to be on my own anyway, so… yeah.”
To his surprise, there came a response: “What a tragic existence you must lead, to never be alone.”
This comment, though laced with ridicule, held a note of something else. Perhaps it was due to Harry’s inability to see the man’s expression, or the gentle wind howling past his ears, but Snape’s pronouncement seemed… almost bitter.
He scowled, “Yeah, I get it. ‘The poor Boy Who Lived complains about being surrounded by people who love him’, is that it? Well, that’s not even what I’m talking about, so stuff it, for once.”
He expected a scathing reply, but did not receive one.
Then, “We are here,” Snape suddenly announced.
Harry stumbled to a halt. In front of them was a monument of some sort; there were many stone slabs jutting up from the ground, all arranged in two wide circles side-by-side. The stones were spaced far apart, some missing from the circumference of the circle they were a part of, standing like sentries in the untamed grass.
“What is this place?”
Snape turned toward him, his drenched hair sliding heavily across his shoulder. “The Grey Wethers. A tourist landmark for Muggles.”
Using his wand, he, strangely, cast a wordless Four Points spell. The wand spun towards North in his hand before he addressed Harry once more. “With luck, you’ll never come back to this place again, but if you ever do…”
His eye contact was piercing. “Never enter the north circle.”
Glancing between the man’s wand and the circle in question, Harry replied with a small, “Right.”
Snape headed toward the southern circle, and Harry followed, eyes straining around to survey any dangers that might be lurking. When they crossed over inside the circle itself, he spotted something strange. At the very center, where they were headed, there seemed to be nothing but air. However, Harry could just barely observe a strange phenomenon; the grass surrounding seemed to shimmer before his eyes and shift sideways just a titch.
“Is… Is the building disillusioned?”
Snape glanced over his shoulder to level Harry with a look of scrutiny. “No.”
“Oh. Well, I just thought, since the grass was kind of… off.”
The man paused before saying, “The entrance is disillusioned, but the house itself is not.”
Harry nodded, watching the ground as they drew closer to the center. A pile of rocks slithered into view, mirage-like. Wait, not a pile of rocks; it was a small rectangle of irregular stone, like a rustic welcome mat. Beside that was a single door, standing upright and solitary in the long grass, seeming to lead nowhere.
Intrigued but wary, he looked to Snape for further instruction. The man said nothing, but approached himself, opening a small metal box which was affixed to the wood of the door. Craning his neck, Harry watched as Snape pulled a rubber stamp from the box.
Then, without warning, the professor used his wand to create a wide gash across his palm. Harry frowned, watching as blood welled up from the cut. Snape, for his part, barely reacted, except to dip the stamp into his hand before marking the door with a blood-filled symbol.
The image vanished before Harry could get a proper look at it, but, in response, the door opened inward. Snape prompted him to approach and, despite how disturbing the last minute had been, Harry obeyed. Wasn’t like he could refuse, anyway.
The door, he came to realize upon entering, led to an astonishing amount of wizardspace. The room they walked into was not large, but the house appeared to be roughly the size of a smallish cottage, despite there only being a doorframe on the outside. His first impression was a strong smell of herbs and mold, powerful enough to cause Harry’s eyes to water. Before them was a derelict living room, decorated with mismatched, worn furniture and cobwebs. There was no fireplace, but there did appear to be a handful of disembodied lights that floated around the space, and a pit filled with blackened wood, over which a large, empty cauldron sat. Where Harry presumed a kitchen would normally be, there was instead a vast array of counters and cabinets, arranged messily together. An absurd amount of dirty glass jars was on every available surface, filled with various plant matter, animal parts, glowing liquids, and other oddities. The tools atop the counter looked like they were meant to be used for potions, but they were hand-hewn from stone and wood, primitive.
The room was dark, except for a single lit candle atop a nearby table, and it was by that light that Harry saw their host emerge from another room to greet them.
He noticed first that the woman was attired in all black, the lace fringes of her dress torn and frayed, and she had long, thin fingers which ended in jagged, soot-stained nails. His second realization was that she was… pretty. Her face, youthful and ghostly pale, was hitched up into a calculating smirk, eyes lined darkly, as if she had shrouded them in smoke.
Though there was an aura of disarray about the woman and her dwelling, there was an equally powerful sense of vigor and fearlessness to her attitude, as if they had wandered, unwittingly, into the territory of a cloistered beast.
And when she spoke, it was with a voice deep, clear, and emphatic. “So nice of you to drop in, Severus.” Her gaze turned presently to Harry. “But you know I don’t allow strays.”
“Then I suppose it is lucky that everyone here is spoken for,” he retorted, dry.
“You people always are,” the woman sneered, dirty teeth peeking through her lips.
Snape was unsympathetic. “We are here on Dumbledore’s orders.”
She rolled her eyes, the motion further exaggerated as it continued down her neck and across her shoulders. “Ob-viously.”
Turning toward her collection of jars, she beckoned a cloudy glass vial to her hand with only a hooked finger, plucking it out of the air with practiced accuracy. Then, her hooded gaze fell in their direction once more.
Holding herself regally, she held up the vial. “Pay the price, Severus,” was her prompt as her long nails clinked the glass.
Harry, confused, cast a look in the professor’s direction, but he was already moving. Striding purposefully, Snape produced a small vial of his own from his robes, placing it on the table beside them with a clack of finality. Within, Harry could spot a thick, deep red liquid. Like… blood. He grimaced, feeling as if he’d seen too much of it tonight already.
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t think you can swindle me. You know I need it fresh.”
“I think you will find it is preserved to your liking,” Snape countered, unrelenting. When the woman remained displeased, he raised his eyebrows, feigning ignorance. “Did you think to collect mine?” With a light scoff, his voice hardened. “I hardly think this small favor is worth that much.”
With a disdainful sniff, she snatched Snape’s vial from the tabletop. “Perhaps you should ask for less boringfavors, then.”
“And allow you the satisfaction? I think not.”
Harry, unable to keep quiet any longer, inserted his words between them, “What is going on?”
Snape shot him a warning look. Right. No talking. With a grimace, he clammed up once more, but it was too late; their host seemed quite pleased at this outburst. In a flash, her eyes were raking and turning him over, exploratory. Then, a moment later, she glanced to Snape again, her head jerking toward him in a fashion so jilted and fierce that it reminded him of Bellatrix. His stomach churned, unsettled, as a spike of panic sang through his muscles.
“And him?”
“Forget him.”
“Severus, you can’t seriously believe you can trounce such a healthy and youthful specimen in front of me and not expect me to notice?”
“Your powers of observation notwithstanding, he’s not a commodity you can afford.”
Her finger flicked hard, the vial in her hands sputtering outward and clamoring to the ground with a delicate crash as it broke into pieces on the ground. The woman remained in the same position, eyes locked on Snape, a challenge. “The price just went up,” she announced, blasé, her hand perching itself just under her breast.
Snape’s gaze narrowed. “You are in no position to negotiate.”
She was unfazed by his threat, a wiry eyebrow lifting as she leaned back against a nearby counter. “Aren’t I?”
In the space of a blink, the scene before Harry was entirely changed. Where Snape had been lingering near the door, he had progressed to directly beside the woman, wand brandished and posture tense. For her part, where her stance had been languid, attitude haughty, it had morphed into watchful amusement.
A shrill, tinkling sound pierced through the air, emanating from a dark corner of the sitting room. His gaze darting there on instinct, Harry felt the hair of his arms stand on end as he spotted the outline of an enormous, shadowed beast, its two milky white eyes fixed on the encounter. The creature lifted itself up, revealing its houndlike form, but when its muzzle opened in a menacing contortion, he saw that its mouth was filled with layers of razor-like teeth. The wiry black fur on its back was like a cloak of darkness, obscuring the line between the creature and the gloom. The room was small enough that Harry could feel the creature’s hot breath, could see the way its throat contracted as another sound, like the toll of a bell, rang from it more clearly than the first.
If he had once been frightened by the visage of his godfather’s animal form, it was nothing compared to this. He’d been exposed to many depictions of what Trelawney had called The Grim, but this creature surpassed even those horror-filled images.
The woman’s voice lanced the air with a hollow tsk-ing sound. “In my own home, Severus?” she mocked, feigning disappointment.
“Is this truly the hill you wish to die on?” Snape countered, unflinching. “Honor your agreement, wretch, or we are done here.”
“You are welcome to leave,” the woman murmured, silky and unperturbed. “And I can sell this information to a more considerate buyer--”
“So be it,” he announced, turning abruptly on his heel to head toward the door.
Harry tensed, looking between the two of them. He knew he wasn’t supposed to talk, but… didn’t they need that information? The Dursleys may be awful, but he didn’t exactly want them dead just because Harry was who he was; if some Death Eaters had gone and tampered with the house, the Order ought to know about it, shouldn’t they?
“I will pay the price if he won’t,” he said before he’d even made the conscious decision to, meeting the woman’s eyes. Snape’s form froze beside him, but Harry kept his solemn focus.
“Will you?” the woman purred, taking a small stride toward him. “What a good boy.”
Abruptly, the professor grabbed hold of his forearm, his grip crushing. “You will do no such thing.”
On instinct, Harry flinched away, squirming out of the man’s reach. “You’re the one always on about how useless I am!” he accused. “I’m not stupid; it’s just a little blood!”
“You have no idea--”
“What does it matter?” Harry glared at him. “Everyone wants a piece of me. Pretty well used to it by now.”
In fact, thinking about it, this was probably what Dumbledore had intended anyway. After all, there was never going to be a scenario where Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived walked into a witch’s den anonymously, leaving just as auspiciously as he came. His name, his scar, his blood… It was always by this currency that he lived. And, most likely, it was by that currency that he would die.
He stepped forward, rolling up his damp sleeve. “Right. Let’s get this over with.”
The way she gripped him was ravenous, her touch rough, finger pads smoothing over his forearm. She didn’t look up at Snape when she addressed him once more. “Severus. Out.”
“Absolutely not.”
“I only meet with customers,” she asserted, smooth.
“Your deal was with Dumbledore, not the boy,” Snape argued, a hard edge to his tone.
“And if Albus Dumbledore wishes to complete the transaction himself, he is free to,” she informed him.
“That was not the--”
“Must I repeat myself?” the woman asked, a wistful sigh escaping her. “As you can see, I am with a patron now, Severus.” Her head tilted, a calculated gleam glimmering in her eye. “And you know my rule about strays.”
Following this was an eerie silence. When Harry looked at the man, he was standing very still, wet hair dripping on his shoulders. There was a strange aura to his lack of movement, as if the air were charged with some wild intent; contained, but only just.
Just then, her voice drifted over Harry’s head, landing just a few feet behind him: “Liebchen,” Harry watched as her head jerked in Snape’s direction. “Pass auf.”
The great beast stalked forward, heaving a rattling breath, its gaze pinpointed on Snape, threatening.
“Five minutes.” Those two words were expelled from the professor with such acute malice that Harry felt an urge to shrink away. “Five minutes, else I feed your corpse to that pet of yours.”
She didn’t appear one whit intimidated. Her hand lifted to wave at him, dismissive, shooing him out of the house. The creature’s mouth unhinged again, the sound of bells frothing out, still encroaching on the professor’s space as the woman began to roughly pull Harry closer to the counter.
It was only when Harry heard the woosh of a door close behind him that she decided to speak again. “Much better. Now, hold still--”
Holding out a hand, Harry watched as a cloud of black smoke crashed against her ragged fingers and a wand emerged from the dissipated mist. It was a gnarled branch, grey and craggy, twisting out from the end of her arm as if it was a natural part of her form. He looked on with trepidation as she brought it close to his skin.
A surge of fear seeping into his veins, Harry interrupted her. “Before you do this--” His voice was stilted, but clear. “Tell me your name.”
She rose an eyebrow at him. “Lovelle.”
He huffed, eyeing her critically. “Seriously? That’s it?”
“Would you prefer a bit of flair?” she derided. “They call me the Mire Enchantress. The Moor Witch. Mother of Mist. Name whispered on every leaf, every breeze, every creeping thing that writhes in the mud -- blah, blah.”
He shrugged with a sideways glance. “Your type always seems to like being dramatic.”
“My type,” she repeated, slightly intrigued. “And tell me, little stray: What do you thinkmy type is?”
“The type who wants to see me bleed,” Harry countered, looking at her dead on.
A high pitched chuckle rumbled in the back of her throat. “That so?”
He opened his mouth to speak, however in a second she swiped the tip of her wand in a sharp slant against the inside of his elbow, catching him off guard. The pain was nominal -- he’d had worse before -- but the blood rushed from his arm in thick rivulets, dripping into a clay basin beneath.
It felt strange, to watch and let it happen. There was a certain way about it that allowed him some detachment, perhaps because he had instigated this himself, given his blessing. There was a certain power to it, even if it was unpleasant. In a way, it was reminiscent of that day in class… Croft patching up the over-deep wound he’d carved in his own arm, spouting knowledge about things that he barely understood. What had she called it? The brachial artery? Maybe that was why he was bleeding so incredibly fast.
Even so, there was none of the practiced care Croft possessed in his current circumstance; Lovelle held his arm in a vice-like grip, as if she were ready to squeeze every last drop out of him. He lifted his eyes back to the woman, seeing the veritable hunger in her expression. “Alright, you got what you wanted. Now tell me what you know.”
“Down to business,” Lovelle complimented, straightening herself. “You comport yourself very well, little stray. Like another stray I used to know.”
“Here’s hoping that whoever they are, you didn’t bleed them dry too.”
She chuckled again. “Remus was about as agreeable as you,” she commented, dry, as she turned his elbow upward to stem the flow of blood.
His mind stuttered to a halt, the shock radiating to the tips of his fingers. “Remus Lupin? You know him?”
“Of course,” she answered, sticking the tip of her wand in between his squeezed muscles. A muted word passed between her lips, and he could feel the wound righting itself, before she withdrew the wand, the bark of it stained with his blood. “I know just about everyone in that little flock of yours.”
“Of course you do,” Harry echoed, not really happy about it.
The woman bent toward him to collect the clay bowl. “You can tell Severus that the anchors are indeed attached to the residents of the home, as he believed,” she hoisted the bowl onto the counter with great care. “However, things begin to get a bit tricky after that. There is no physical foundation, not that I could find. And the ward was cast wandlessly, so finding the source will be difficult, if not completely impossible.”
His brow furrowed in thought. “So, a dead end,” he surmised, frowning.
“Yes and no,” she answered, turning toward him slightly. “You can also tell him that the parameters of the ward were very strict. The residents of the home were not allowed to touch the person whom the ward protected, and the ward also caused the residents to forget the protected person whenever they were not in sight.”
Harry listened to the whole of her pronouncement, a strange, undefinable feeling welling up in his chest. Afraid to ask, he prompted, “Who is the protected person?”
With a silent flourish of her wand, she began to siphon his blood into several vials, which lined themselves up on the tabletop. “You, presumably,” she said, blithe. “It is your home, is it not?”
Great, even this woman he’d never met knew where he was during summers! He had to think it absurd for Dumbledore to be so intent on secrecy, while he was practically giving out Harry’s address!
“Do you know how long the ward has been there?” he asked, mostly to deflect.
“Only this past summer,” she informed, droll. “I must say, it was a rather simple job. I was surprised your lot contacted me over something an entry level Auror could easily accomplish.”
Her shoulders lifted in a shrug as she finished sealing off the last of the vials, using her wand to direct their movement as they seated themselves primly on a nearby shelf. “But I suppose little could be done, considering.”
This, of everything she’d said, was most perplexing. Harry knew there were actual Aurors in the Order, which meant that she was either exaggerating, or something more was afoot. It pricked at his curiosity, prompting him to ask, “Considering what?”
“Well, there wasn’t much of a choice once Remus decided to up and disappear and abandon the only job he was good for, was there?”
Harry sucked in a breath. “What--?!”
She clicked her tongue, glancing toward the door. “Time’s up,” she announced, waving a hand. Harry felt an invisible force wrap around his middle and, like a relentless gust of wind, propel him backwards toward the door, which swung open against the wall behind him with a bang directly before he was thrown to the murky ground.
Rain pelted his face as he rushed to stand, and he caught the barest glimpse of Lovelle, surveying her prize to the sound of a ringing bell, before the heavy door slammed closed in his face.
“Hey--!” Harry pounded his fist into the door, though it had little impact. “You can’t just say that and kick me out!”
“Potter?” Snape was standing nearby with arms crossed, wand gripped in one hand beneath his elbow. His robes were soaked, hair in scraggly clumps, and his face was as inscrutable as ever.
“I don’t care what Dumbledore told you to say, you tell me right now--!” Harry demanded, walking right up to the man. “Is Remus missing?”
Snape stared at him, unmoving. Then, the moment he drew breath, Harry warned, “Don’t lie. I need to know.”
“You don’t need to know anything,” the man retorted, his eyebrows drawing lower in anger.
“He’s my--” Teacher? Mentor? An old mate of his father’s? What exactly was he? Harry shook his head, clearing those thoughts away. “He’s my friend. If something happened to him, I want to know about it.”
Snape regarded him with displeasure before his eyes slid away, dragging across the countryside. “Tell you what, Potter,” he remarked, conversational. “You give me the information you received from Lovelle, and I’ll consider providing what you want.”
“You’ll consider it?” Harry spat, disgusted. “Nice try, but no.”
The professor snorted, pocketing his wand. “Suit yourself.”
With that, he began walking back the way they came. Harry, irritated, gave the door beside him one last kick before following after, shoving his hands in his pockets.
It was raining even harder, then, like the previous drizzle had only been a warmup. Harry had to repeatedly wipe his glasses with a damp sleeve to keep the back of Snape in sight. Still, he at least knew the distance they had to travel, having walked it once already. It would only have to be endured for some twenty minutes.
He trudged along in sullen silence, staring at Snape’s boots. It wasn’t like he’d been considering withholding information that the Order so obviously needed, but now that the man had made it a point of contention, Harry wanted nothing more than to keep it all to himself just to spite him. “Tit for tat” his Uncle Vernon would say. Though, perhaps following any philosophy that a man like Vernon favored was, in and of itself, a bad idea.
Yet, how could he help it? His heart and mind were still racing, not only from his crushing worry for Remus, but from all the rest of it-- watching his own blood drain out of him, fighting with Ron, navigating the awkward situation with Croft, witnessing Malfoy’s increasingly violent attitude, his spat with the missing girl’s parents, the endless antagonism from Snape that he was enduring on a near constant basis… not to mention, the ominously specific wards on Privet Drive. His brain felt filled to the brim, close to bursting. Yet here was Snape, petty as ever, refusing to so much as utter a simple confirmation about whether Remus was around or not!
The further he walked ,though, the more he realized that Snape wasn’t the real problem; Dumbledore was. It wasn’t Snape who had started the year by proclaiming there would be no more lies, no more secrets between them. It wasn’t Snape who had made promises that weren’t kept, or professed his care and concern while his actions said the opposite. Despite there being no verifying word said on the matter, Harry knew that Remus must truly be missing; the fact that the professor refused to speak was confirmation enough. And, contemptible as the man was, it wasn’t Snape who had kept this from him, it was Dumbledore.
That, more than anything, set his blood boiling.
When Snape finally stopped in the midst of what seemed like just another grassy hill, one of many that they had passed on the way, he wordlessly grabbed hold of the man’s arm. A dense wind swept them away from that place, and Harry was glad to leave it behind.
They arrived in the same Cardiff alleyway they'd left from last time.
The nausea roiled through Harry, and he swallowed a few times, tamping it down as best he could. He’d expected Snape to have already been halfway down the sidewalk, but he was simply standing in the same spot, attention poised at the mouth of the alley, except now he was completely dry, his hair looking sort of strange and woolly.
Harry's was the opening remark. “We’re not going back to Hogwarts?”
“Apparently not,” the man jeered.
“Why? Aren’t we supposed to report to Dumbledore?”
“Only the first of two errands have been completed,” Snape informed him crisply. “There remains an ongoing investigation, despite your best efforts to sabotage it.”
Harry glared at him. “Fine. Guess you want me to patch up things with the parents, then, even though I don’t even remember what my fake name is supposed to be.”
“It’s Barrett,” the man replied instantly, tone disdainful. “But you aren't going to need it.”
He paused. “Why?”
Snape turned to face him more fully. “The Headmaster indicated that you have a propensity for trespassing where you are not wanted.”
Harry's expression took an odd turn at that pronouncement, the mention of Dumbledore flaring his anger. “Excuse me?”
“Your task is to investigate the missing girl's room in secret, and report your findings to me.”
“In… secret?” He frowned, that phrase not sitting right with him. “Why can't you just ask to see it?”
“After your indiscretion, it will require a disproportionate amount of grovelling to regain the Ayers's goodwill,” Snape remarked flatly. “We do not have the luxury of wasting that time. And if they become disenchanted with our efforts, they could involve Muggle authorities, which will not only restrict access to the house, but magical evidence could be thoughtlessly erased.”
Well, sure, that all made sense, but… “You want me to break into their house,” he muttered, uncomfortable. “After what I did before, you now want me to do something even worse?”
“It is not about ‘worse’ or ‘better’,” came the older man’s annoyed reply. “It is about obtaining results, by whatever means necessary.”
“I don't like that,” Harry stated.
“If you do not like it,” the man sneered, “then you have no business being in this organization at all.”
Frustrated, he snapped, “I didn't say I wouldn't do it!” He couldn't frame his thoughts, but there was something about the way Snape had said it that chafed. “Just-- Let’s just get on with it.”
Snape stared him down for a moment before saying, “You will draw attention in your current state.”
Harry looked down at himself, surveying his water-laden clothes, the mud smattered on his shoes and the cuffs of his trousers. With a grimace, he held out his arms at his sides. “Well? I said get on with it, didn’t I?”
The professor didn’t seem keen on his tone, but he did murmur a drying charm which vanished every ounce of moisture from Harry’s person. He blinked several times in succession, the charm so thorough that his eyes now felt pretty dried out. Running a hand through his hair, he tried to tame it to some semblance of neat, to little avail. When he looked up, Snape was staring at him.
“Anything else?”
The man looked away. “I trust you have that Invisibility Cloak of yours.”
Of all the things that had happened that day, learning that Severus Snape knew about his cloak was the least important revelation he’d received of late, but it still managed to make an impact anyway. “Er…” He hesitated, despite it being a pointless gesture. “... Yes.”
“And I imagine it goes without saying, what you will be using it for.”
He wasn’t an idiot. “Yeah,” was all he said, rolling his eyes.
“Very well,” Snape commented, raising his hands to his unruly hair to pull it back, as he had during their last visit. “Let anyone see you, and I will assign you a month of detention for each witness.”
Throwing him an odd look, Harry said, “What? How is that supposed to work?”
“If I have to suffer through the painstaking process of Obliviation, then you will be granted the privilege of suffering in equal measure.”
Harry fell into step beside the man as he began walking, the route once again familiar. There were a few minutes of quiet in which it struck him that he preferred the noise of a quiet street, with the occasional passing car or blaring telly, to the howling nothingness of Dartmoor. The bright rings of light from the streetlamps passed by at regular intervals, keeping pace with them. It was a soothing rhythm, coupled with the subtle sounds of life around him. At some indeterminate point, Harry realized that he was feeling a great deal less pressurized.
And, with that, his pettiness seemed to have dissipated as well. “So. Lovelle said she doesn’t know who set the ward, and it has no physical foundation, whatever that means.”
Snape cast a glance in his direction. “It is a simple matter to trace the magic to its wielder, with access to the information she has,” he replied, irked, though it seemed not to be directed at Harry himself for once.
He shrugged. “She said whoever it was, they didn’t use a wand.”
The professor’s eyes narrowed at the road ahead of them. “Go on.”
“Well,” Harry ventured, “that’s pretty much all she had to say about that. But she did mention, er, what exactly the ward did.”
An eyebrow was lifted in his direction, and this time he was on the receiving end of that annoyance from earlier. “And?”
“She said… the ward was attached to the people in the house. That its… rules, I guess, were very strict, meant to uh… protect someone.” He frowned, his tone shifting toward trepidation. “And that it prevented the Dursleys from touching that… person, made them forget them whenever they weren’t around.”
When Snape said nothing, Harry took in a breath, hoping to draw in strength as well. “And she said that, er, ‘protected person’ was probably me.”
There was continued silence, causing Harry to look up at the older man. He was looking straight ahead, gaze reaching far away, mouth set in a frown, gait uninterrupted, but Harry couldn’t place any of those observations together to form a cohesive whole.
“I mean, in that case it’s probably not a big deal, right?” he asked, more to fill the air than anything. “It doesn’t really do anything bad.”
This prompted a sharp look from Snape. “How would allowing the people charged with your protection to forget you exist be ‘not bad’?”
It was Harry’s turn to fall quiet. What could he say, really? Any justification he could come up with would just cause the man to accuse him of being selfish and ungrateful, and he’d just plain rather not hear it.
Quite suddenly, he was struck by a strange feeling. Lightheaded, Harry was thrown off-kilter, wobbling under what felt like a Jelly-Legs Jinx. He stopped walking when he stumbled into the professor's side, drawing the man's attention in spectacular fashion.
“Potter?” he questioned, irritated, before his voice changed to something more stern. “Potter, how much blood did you lose?”
Huh. Come to think of it, it had probably been… “A lot. I think?”
Snape grabbed hold of his arm, pulling up his sleeve. The touch was firm, purposeful. Harry was too woozy to object. “Where?” the professor prompted.
Rather than showing him, Harry parroted back his earlier thoughts, “Brachial artery.”
Evidently, he needed no further explanation. “Of course it was.”
His hands left Harry's arm as he rummaged for… something. It was weirdly hard to focus. He kind of just wanted to lay down.
Then, quick as it came, the feeling left him. He still didn't feel great, but he regained some small semblance of vigor. So, when Snape presented a little, bright-red vial for Harry to take, he refused.
“I'll be fine,” he said, pulling in a deep breath. “Don't need it.”
“Drink it, you imbecile,” the older man insisted, dangling it directly in Harry's line of vision.
With a sigh, he grabbed it, eyeing the contents. “What--?”
“Blood Replenishing Potion,” Snape cut him off, impatient. “The last thing I want to do this evening is Apparate your unconscious body back to Hogwarts.”
With a grimace, he did as he was told, shivering at the odd taste of copper. Then, he mentioned, “I really do feel fine.”
“Oh, what a relief that you feel fine,” came Snape’s acerbic retort. “I ordered you not to speak to her.”
He frowned. “Well, we needed to know about the wards…”
“The information did not warrant a pint of blood,” the older man pointed out.
“You were just going to leave without--!”
“The situation was well in hand before your absurd attempt at a ‘noble sacrifice’,” was the sneered reply. “It was foolish to set a precedent for desperation in front of a woman like her.”
“Like her?” Harry questioned, eyes narrowed.
“A cunning opportunist,” Snape elucidated, snide. “The natural enemy to Gryffindors, it would seem.”
He pulled a face, though another thought occurred to him, then. “Bit weird that I walked all that way without feeling anything.”
“Adrenaline has the capacity to keep you standing,” the professor filled him in. “But it should come as no surprise that the body requires blood to function properly.”
Harry shrugged, the potion kicking in and making his face feel hot. As they continued walking, he thought to ask, “You just keep blood restorative on you all the time?”
The answer drifted to him, quiet. “Yes.”
He'd half-formulated a follow up question when Snape spoke again, “You will need to enter the house on the east-facing side. The girl's room is on the ground floor, behind the garage. Be certain you are not seen, especially not by any concerned citizens.”
“Right,” Harry muttered, focusing on the task at hand. “What are you going to do?”
“Have a visit with the Ayers family,” came Snape’s prompt reply before he stopped at the mouth of a dirt path, gesturing toward it. “Third house on the left.”
He glanced down the way with suspicion. “You sure have this all planned out.”
The man’s expression tightened. “Yes, as that is precisely my job,” he commented, bland. “Now take this and do yours.”
Snape held out a thin, yellow-brown strip of wood, into which were carved various runes. A wand-- small, unassuming. Not nearly as refined and cared-for as the one Harry had kept by his side for five years. Looking at Snape with a question in his eyes, he reluctantly took hold of it.
“Do not use your own wand.”
The man’s strict instruction followed him down the path as he donned his Invisibility Cloak and made his way toward the house. It was strange, to be engaging in such… endorsed subterfuge. Even stranger was the fact that the directive had come from Snape, the person he and his friends had most desperately needed to avoid during their nightly excursions. This time, though, the stakes were much higher; getting caught wouldn’t just land him in detention. It could expose the Order, put his face in the Daily Prophet once more, and jeopardize a girl’s life.
When put in that perspective, Harry began to feel very nervous. His grip on the little strip of a wand tightened as he approached the tall wooden fence near the back end of the house. Considering what Dumbledore had told him, the Ministry knowing exactly where and when he had used magic, it seemed like a trick: Snape giving him another wand. Was it a test? And if so, for what purpose? Did he still want to see Harry expelled? Probably. But then, with seeing that act the man put on for the family, all his talk of doing whatever it takes to succeed, to win… Getting Harry arrested didn’t seem quite in line with that thinking.
Traversing the back perimeter, he began to suspect that Snape had merely had the foresight to divine this simple fact: Harry could not succeed without a wand. There was no gap in the wooden slats, no gate, nothing to hold onto for climbing. In essence, no way to get in by regular means.
Even though he knew what he had to do, his resolve was still shaky. An image of the full Wizengamot flashed before his eyes, the cut of their robes imposing as they bombarded him with questions. He’d be hard pressed to explain this away.
Blowing out a breath, he pressed the wand’s tip against one of the wood slats of the fence, mumbling a quiet Diminuendo. The wood shrank in size until it was only the length of a matchstick, allowing Harry enough space to squeeze through, but it also made a loud noise when the nails holding it together gouged a deep scratch in. Harry’s gaze darted about, ears trained for any disturbance, eyes seeking for anyone who may have been alerted, but there was nothing.
He crouched down, ducking underneath the horizontal slab of wood, careful not to catch his cloak on the nail, before he restored the wood panel to its full size. There was considerable damage done to it due to the nail, but it was the best he could do under present circumstances. Grimacing, he made his way toward the building itself, keeping himself in a crouch.
Through a window to his left, he spotted a person and froze on instinct. Lit with orange light, Charlie Ayers was squinting into the gloom, speaking to whoever was behind him before he moved away. Harry blew out a breath, his tense muscles unraveling enough for him to continue.
Violet’s room was easy to find. Not only was it beside the garage, as Snape had said, but it was the only window with a bright, patterned curtain. An attempt to pull it open revealed that the lock was latched shut, but a handy Alohamora fixed that. Sighing, he figured that if the Wizarding authorities hadn’t descended on him yet, they weren’t going to.
There was something very… freeing about that.
Harry slid open the window slowly, doing his level best not to make a sound. The window let out a soft shriek as it struggled on its track, but it was, fortunately, nothing too noticeable. Climbing down to the room itself, however, was bound to be a tricky affair. Below the window was a large space heater, which he’d preferred not to topple if he could help it.
He was busy contemplating how to make his way down without his Invisibility Cloak sliding off when he had a realization that made him want to smack himself. Gripping the borrowed wand in his hand, his eyes locked on the sight of the room before him and, with a soft pop, he Apparated directly into the center of the carpeted floor.
Now that he was in, the task before him seemed both easier and harder. On the one hand, he didn’t have to stoop over beneath his cloak any longer, letting it slide to the floor with a grateful sigh. On the other, the sound of his every movement was likely to draw attention. Standing in place, Harry contemplated what to do next. Silencing charm, probably? He wasn’t especially good at those, nor did he know how to place them on anything other than a person.
Best not, then, he figured, frowning. But, if he was going to be sneaking about, he’d need a bit of light. A hushed Lumos lit up the environs, and Harry kept a hand cupped over the beam as he surveyed the room.
The first thing he noticed was a large bed, the frame inlaid with metal curls. The sheet was white and pristine, draped neatly atop the mattress. In fact, everything about the room was neat: the chest of drawers nearby had nothing on it except for two framed photos and a stuffed black cat, the small desk was devoid of a chair and had nothing atop it but an adjustable lamp and a mostly empty pencil holder, and the closet was devoid of clutter, holding a modest amount of hanging clothing with shoes lined up in organized rows below. Harry had never seen a room so clean and well put together.
The sole indicator that someone lived there was the sheer amount of focused decor. Pictures lined every wall, their presentation just as neat as the rest of the room, but they all seemed to be related to some Muggle production called ‘Bedknobs and Broomsticks’, if the repeated phrase and featured characters were anything to go by. Harry approached one wall to survey them more closely, peering curiously at the image of a woman, a man in a bowler hat, and three children flying across a colorful landscape on a metal bed that looked identical to the one in the room. One of the official-looking posters was signed with black marker and bearing the note, “To Violet - Keep the magic alive!” signed with a name he didn’t recognize in flowing script. In addition, on the wall was a large schedule annotated daily up until when the girl had gone missing, a mounted broomstick (though not of any make Harry had ever seen while perusing Quidditch supplies), and a vast array of hand-drawn art.
Harry didn’t consider himself artistically minded, by any means, but the drawings seemed, to him, very impressive. In one, a woman and man appeared to be dancing on the ocean floor, surrounded by fish in fancy dress; in another, a man was refereeing footie for cartoon animals; and there was also depicted a clearing where several suits of armor stood in battle formation against the night sky. They were all signed Violet A. in cursive.
He turned away from the wall, eyes scanning around for anything he missed. Above the girl’s bed was a banner which read, Treguna Mekoides Trecorum Satis Dee and, on her bedside table, a line of miniature armors were placed atop her digital alarm clock. At the foot of the bed was a cushy little settee for a pet of some kind, and a dark grey knapsack lay beside it, decorated with the image of a woman sitting on a broomstick and holding a sword, a small union jack fluttering behind her.
Harry frowned at the strange sight, casting his eyes about listlessly. There was a lot to see, but there was a distinct separation between witnessing elements of this girl’s life and putting them together in a coherent way. His nerves returned as he gazed about. He was meant to be finding evidence, figuring out where she might have disappeared to, but that was easier said than done, wasn’t it? Harry wasn’t even certain what he was looking for; Dumbledore may have recommended him for sneaking about, but it was normally Hermione who fronted the research bits of their troublemaking.
Still, he was here. So he ought to do something, rather than remain fixed to the center of the carpet. It felt odd to be rummaging in a girl’s things, but Harry first inspected the chest of drawers. On top were the framed pictures; one was a family photo, Mr. and Mrs. Ayers along with three children, two boys and one girl. Except, Harry vaguely remembered the dad mentioning that Violet had a sister… Perplexed, he surveyed the second photograph, and what he found startled him.
He… recognized her. She was exactly his age, of course, but he hadn’t really expected… had never really considered what that meant. She’d gone to Hogwarts the same as he had, and he’d seen her around meals, hallways, club meetings, Quidditch games. She was a year ahead, and a Ravenclaw, but she was immediately recognizable to him. Otherwise a fairly normal, round-faced girl, she had shoulder-length black hair, but the underlayer was colored bright blue, a trait which immediately set her apart.
Stunned, he gripped the picture frame tightly. This was the girl. This was Violet. A teenager and a student, like him. Someone he knew. And… this girl could be tortured, even dead. Every moment he wasted standing there was a moment she might be suffering, wherever she was.
His hands shook as he placed the photo back in its place. The quicker he got this job done, the less time she had to wait for the Order to find her.
Blowing out a stilted puff of air, he moved on to the desk. There was only one drawer, long and thin just below the tabletop. There were more bits and bobs in there: a set of colored pencils, a manual sharpener, stationary, a notebook… He picked it up, opening to the front page, where there were several loose sheets of paper. Potions Notes, the first read at the top. Below was listed a bunch of second year material and a few doodles, including one of a tiny Snape with pointed teeth, yelling. Violet had written below, He’s marked me off for re-sorting the ingredients again!! Beside that, she’d drawn a small angry version of herself. Tell Maggie to give me back the quill I gave her.
Flipping through, all he found were notes and doodles, all penned in her hand. The longer he looked at it, the more tense and restless he felt. Harry placed it back in the drawer.
The closet didn’t yield much aside from clothing, but it was at that point that Harry realized that he was going about this incorrectly. Instead of aimlessly walking about, he should have checked for anything concealed by magic first. Grimacing, he pulled out the borrowed wand, drawing in the air a broad, twisting swirl and whispering, “Revelio!”
Two objects in the room glowed very briefly before the magic finished its work. One of the lights had come from the knapsack beside the bed, and the other had shone from inside the desk drawer.
The bag was closer, and he opened the flap to peruse the contents. Evidently, she possessed a wizardspace bag, since, at first glance, Harry spotted an entire bookshelf within. They were all magical books, many of them required texts for classes, all arranged alphabetically and by subject. Beside that was a rolling desk chair -- likely the one that was missing from the desk itself -- and a wooden easel, atop which sat…
Harry stooped down, taking the object in his hands, a feeling of dread sinking into his skin. It was a wand. And he had a sneaking suspicion that it was her wand.
Finding nothing else of import, he pocketed the wand and closed up the knapsack. Then, returning to the desk drawer, he was met with two sheets of paper which hadn’t been present before. Upon each was partially-legible handwriting, except, oddly, they were harshly scribbled over with dark granite, covering almost the entirety of both sides. The surface of the pages were gouged, one of them ripped in the center from the force of it, the shape of the movements frenetic, wild. He could only just make out a few words here and there, their meaning disjointed without context.
Just then, there was a thump on the bedroom door, causing Harry to jerk with surprise. Muttering a hasty Nox to unlight the wand, he dived for his Invisibility Cloak, pulling it on just as a second thump sounded against the threshold. He held his breath, sliding a panicked glance to the still-open desk drawer, and the papers he’d left out.
Right as he began to inch over in that direction, Harry heard a small, inquisitive meow from the other side of the door. Frozen in place, he waited before another came, this one longer and drawn out, demanding. His eyes slid to the pet bed on the other end of the room; evidently, it was for a cat.
Moving quickly, he snatched the scribbled pages from the desktop, shutting the drawer as well. Almost as soon as he had done so, he heard the sound of approaching footsteps. Then, right after, a voice on the other side, high pitched and muffled. He couldn’t make out what the person was saying, or who they were talking to, but after the silence hung for a few moments more, the door cracked open. The light and sound from outside found the chance to clamor inward, permeating the space about him. He waded in it, eyes trained on the door.
Harry saw the large protrusion of a stomach and the painted toes of two feet, just at the crack. The voice spoke again. “Alright, Cosmo?”
A little black cat poked its head in, giving another soft, conciliatory meow. The soft tinkling of a bell sounded as he walked further into the room and the door opened wider. A pregnant woman stood at the threshold, frowning into the darkness of the bedroom as she watched the cat scamper and sniff around.
Harry felt his toes curl when the cat came his way, sniffing at the area he occupied. He had no idea if animals could detect whether or not he was there, but by the way the cat was poking around…
“She’s not in here,” the woman at the door said softly, tenderly, as if she were breaking the news for the first time. The cat turned to look at her and meowed. Harry tried not to let out an exhale.
The cat jingled and jangled toward Violet’s bed and hopped on to the duvet, paws beginning to knead at the spot that, no doubt, Violet had once previously occupied. The pregnant woman at the door sighed, one hand resting on the large mound of her belly. She leaned her head against the door frame, pulling the knob close to her body. “I miss her too, baby.”
She seemed focused in reverie for a good solid while, until her attention was caught. Her eyes were trained on the spot where he sat, and Harry felt his heart sink. There was no way she could know. Absolutely no way. And yet, in seconds, the door was open all the way, and she’d waddled in his direction. Harry’s breathing hitched in his throat as he felt his body rear back, softly colliding with the wall, until--
“How’d you--?”
She stopped short of the windowsill. He felt the cloth at the top of his head sink slightly, the weight of her foot bearing down at the edge of his cloak, unwitting. Harry sat as still as he possibly could and watched as the balls of her feet shifted upwards, hoisting the entirety of her weight as she reached up and slammed the window shut. A loud gasp of air escaped her when she was on her heels again and she held her stomach, lips pursing.
A familiar shout climbed up behind the door. Charlie Ayers, calling for her. “Callie? Inspector Prince has a few questions--”
Callie glanced over her shoulder, body twisting with her. “One sec, Dad. Cosmic Creepers wanted into Vi’s room. I’m coming.”
A short walk later, the door shut, and Harry waited until the woman’s footfalls faded away to move again. When he did, the cat’s head snapped up with a short jingle, alert. Despite the noise of it, he Apparated outside, leaving behind the -- likely very confused -- cat.
Only then did he let out the breath he’d been holding. Merlin, that had been close. But, glancing down at the papers in his hands, he hoped that what he’d been able to find was enough.
He was waiting just outside the front door for twenty minutes before Snape finally emerged from the house. “... rest assured that we will be doing everything in our power to find your daughter,” he was saying, his tone earnest. Harry shied away from categorizing it as kind, considering he knew it was all an act.
“See that you do,” Charlie’s voice replied, guarded.
Sasha chimed in after, “Thank you Inspector. Good night.”
When the door closed, Snape began walking away immediately. Harry disliked that he was getting used to running in his wake.
At the end of the driveway, he addressed the man, “Will you slow down? I’m right here, you know.”
“I am aware,” was Snape’s reply.
“Well?!”
“Their neighbors have taken notice.”
Harry looked around, spotting someone peeking through the curtains across the way.
Snape spoke again, “Stay hidden, and be silent.”
Frowning, he followed, keeping step with the man before him for several minutes before they turned a corner, ending up… exactly where he’d left Harry when they’d first split off.
Stopping, the man was all business. “What did you find?”
Despite being able to think of nothing else for the past several minutes, his thoughts jumbled the second the question was posed. He slid the cloak from his shoulders as he answered, “Er… I, uh, found Violet’s room. Where you said.”
Snape’s expression was distinctly unimpressed. “Fascinating. You realize we are more interested about what is inside.”
He huffed, already irritated. “I know! I got in, and there wasn’t much to see. Everything’s really clean, nothing really left lying around.”
The man’s response was a curled lip, but Harry pressed on: “But I did find two things. She had a wizardspace bag, and that’s where I found this--” He pulled the wand from his pocket. “I don’t know if it’s hers or not, but…”
Snape took the wand from his hands, turning it over once. “Have you something else of hers?” he questioned.
“Yeah, actually,” he replied, offering the two ravaged sheets of paper. “I think it’s a letter she scratched out. It was hidden with magic.”
The professor took out his wand, touching the tip to the wand Harry had found and muttering, “Dominus Revelare.” A stream of light bonded to the wand, and Snape guided it toward the papers. "Dominus Revelare,” he repeated, and the band linked to the pages before fading away.
“It is her wand,” he announced, seeming confident.
Harry, however, frowned. “What was that? How do you know?”
Snape seemed to consider this question, likely deciding if it was worth answering. Harry underlined, “Might be useful, seeing as I could have done that way earlier if I knew how.”
The older man’s expression did not change, but he did reply, “Legal wands are registered to their owners, bonded to their magical signature. If a wand’s master is uncertain, it can be queried about any other object or person which possesses a latent trace of the master’s magical signature.”
Harry’s brain nearly melted halfway through with such technical terminology. “So… you’re saying you asked the wand if the magic used on the letter was the same as its master?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you could have just said that,” he muttered, wry.
“Did you find anything else?” Snape redirected the conversation.
He didn’t particularly want to say “nothing”, especially when he had a thought that had been hounding him for the past twenty minutes. “Before I answer, I have one more question.”
“I cannot tell you anything about Lupin.”
Harry’s expression fell. “That’s… er, I wasn’t going to say anything about that,” he said quietly, the reminder smarting. “I was actually wondering… Is it possible to use Legilimency on animals?”
At that, the professor raised an eyebrow. “That all depends on the animal.”
“Violet has a pet cat,” he explained, looking up at the man. “There wasn’t much to see in her room, but maybe her cat saw or heard something the day she went missing.”
Snape surveyed him strangely, then. Harry couldn’t put his finger on why it was so strange, compared to all the other times that the professor had sized him up only that day, but it was distinct from the others. “Did you bring it with you?” the man asked.
Harry squinted. “No, why would I do that? Wouldn’t the family realize it was missing?”
The look offered him was vexed to the core. “It’s a cat, Potter. If it disappears for a few hours, no one will notice.”
Well that had an ominous ring to it. “I’m not exactly keen to steal someone’s pet! Weird enough to take all this other stuff--”
“Your cooperation will not be necessary,” Snape announced. “Wait here.”
“What--?!”
Harry sighed, watching the man’s back recede. Great. More waiting.
He’d settled in to wait for a good long while but, ten or so minutes in, Snape returned. Frowning, Harry remarked, “You’re already back?”
The man did not grace him with a reply. Walking by without a word, he continued down the lane. Harry followed after, as he was forced to do yet again, sighing as he went.
There was silence along the way. Harry tried a prompt or two, but Snape remained stubbornly mute for the entire journey back to the Headmaster’s Office.
Even when they arrived, he did not respond to Dumbledore’s greeting, instead heading straight to a cabinet in the corner of the room. Watching curiously, Harry felt startled when the Headmaster addressed him.
“Harry? How did it go?”
What a question to ask. Free of other distractions, Harry’s previous anger came bubbling back. “Everything went right to plan, I bet.”
His tone did not seem lost on Dumbledore, who peered at him with concern. “I take it you are displeased.”
“You think?!” Harry exclaimed, approaching the desk. “Couldn’t just tell me that we were going to meet some bloodthirsty old hag in the middle of the swamp? Didn’t think to mention that I’d be breaking into a girl’s house, or what I ought to do when I got there?”
The Headmaster frowned, fingers threading before him on the desktop. “I understand that what was asked of you today may have seemed overwhelming--”
“Overwhelming?” Harry echoed, voice climbing in pitch. “What’s overwhelming is learning that Remus has been missing for who knows how long, and you didn’t bother to tell me!”
“Harry--”
“No!” Harry erupted, fists clenched at his sides. “I’m tired of excuses! I’m tired of people lying to me! Just tell me what happened to Remus!”
“Nothing has happened,” Dumbledore claimed, infuriatingly serene. “To my knowledge, Remus Lupin is not missing.”
Harry scoffed. He could hardly believe that. “Well then? Where is he?”
“I do not know.”
“That is the exact definition of missing!” Harry shouted, irate.
“Harry,” Dumbledore broke in, raising a hand. “Although his exact location has not been disclosed to me, Remus Lupin and I have been in regular contact. He is fine. He is safe. He is not missing.”
This stilled Harry, though the disquiet in his mind did not subside. “That doesn’t make sense. Why would he do that?”
“That, I cannot say,” Dumbledore answered, leaning back in his chair. “His reasons are his own. However, so long as he keeps contact, he is fully within his right to take time for himself.”
“Yeah, but why didn’t you tell me?” he stressed, fervor returning. “After all that talk about things being different from last year, you went ahead and kept secrets. Again.”
“What purpose would it serve to make you shoulder this?” the Headmaster challenged, unwavering. “What good would it accomplish? There is nothing to be done about Remus’s situation except worry, and I thought to spare you that.”
Harry’s head drooped, dejected, seeing the man’s point. Knowing that Remus wasn’t captured or dead was, in a way, little comfort. The fact remained that he had separated himself for some unknown reason, had evidently abandoned whatever post the Order had set him on. On some level… knowing this was, indeed, worse.
“I can assure you, Harry, that he is safe,” Dumbledore broke his long silence, the words quite tender. “I do not yet know when he will return, but should things take a turn for the worse, I will notify you.”
“Headmaster.” Snape’s voice broke into the fray, composed but urgent. “I am prepared to make a full report.”
Harry turned his way, having nearly forgotten he was there. Gaze inquisitive, he looked between the two men as Dumbledore rose from his seat with an affable, “Yes, Severus. Thank you.”
It was only then that he saw what Snape was standing next to. He had opened the corner cabinet, and inside was a large stone basin with a smaller metal dish lining the inside. The Pensieve. Harry was no stranger to its uses, but to see Snape standing directly beside it brought back unpleasant recollections of Occlumency lessons in the dungeons. Not to mention when he’d gone snooping in Snape’s own memories…
He didn’t have long to think about that, thankfully. Snape himself was straight to business.
“We will begin with the most pertinent findings first.”
As the Headmaster approached the Pensieve, he glanced over his shoulder. “Harry, my boy, you are part of this too,” the old man ushered him over with his voice. “Let us relieve Severus of a small part of the burden of telling the story, hm?”
The professor’s response was an irritated scowl, but Harry let himself be corralled into their semicircle around the Pensieve anyway. As he approached, Dumbledore gestured invitingly to the basin, his fingers lit up by the muted glow of the memories swirling below. “After you,” was his prompt.
Hesitating, Harry stooped over the wooden stand, gripping the stone for support, and slowly, carefully, placed his face beneath the surface of the misty liquid.
… and his feet touched carpet.
Not real carpet, he could immediately tell. Like a dream, the details of his location were hazy, indistinct. Mere moments after he arrived, Snape and Dumbledore descended on either side of him, materializing in wisps of dark, powdery smoke.
At first, it was difficult to discern his surroundings, muted in color and detail, similar to the times he’d lost his glasses. His hand lifted, automatic, to check if they still remained -- the lenses had drifted down the bridge of his nose, but no amount of adjusting fixed the image before him. He frowned and glanced toward the other men, who stood together, solemn and quiet, eyes directed ahead of them.
He followed their line of sight to the image of a blur hunched over a desk, fidgeting frantically in place. It took a few seconds more, but the area around him began to materialize and clear -- not much better than it had been before, but he was finally able to recognize where he was standing.
Violet was on her knees in front of her desk, violently brushing the edge of a stick of charcoal against something that laid on the surface. The sound of her voice was muffled, as if she were farther away than the distance she sat from him, but he could hear her cries, interspersed with the harsh staccato of her breath as her shoulders tensed against sobs.
Dumbledore roused at his side, taking a step forward. Snape followed suit shortly after, with Harry trailing behind, eyes focused on the slump of Violet’s back.
The visage of her grew clearer the closer he got, from the side he could see the redness of her face, or what he thought was redness -- the color shift was off, her skin tinted a light orange hue than the pink flush that usually came with tears. It wasn’t until he heard a soft mewling at his feet that he realized why.
Violet through a cat’s eyes.
“Not now,” the girl scolded, her teeth gnashing together, eyes wide and almost… feral.
Harry watched as the cat at his feet went and rubbed up against the side of her desk, meowing again.
Violet heaved in a harsh breath. “I said no,” she snapped.
The cat hardly relented, complaining to the girl in a series of loud, whining meows. Within seconds, Violet’s tense facade shattered, much in the way he’d seen Malfoy snap in his confrontation with Urquhart. She threw the piece of charcoal hard against the wall, her entire body foisting itself in the direction of the cat.
“Shut up!” she snarled, the words tearing through her, ugly and enraged. “Shut up! I can’t take it! Stop!”
The force of her anger left her spent rather quickly. The cat, while not outwardly terrified, did slink away, if only from the shock of hearing something loud so suddenly.
The image of it seemed to bring Violet back to her senses. Her expression shifted and softened as she stared at the cat, rueful. Her blackened hands lifted to cover her ears, pained, as her eyes closed.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered to the cat, eyes opening again. Her tears were in her voice. “I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.”
The cat’s tail curled around itself as it sat down, staring up at her. Violet sat back on her legs in a kneeling position on the ground. She pressed her forehead into the butt of one of her palms, the whole of her face contorted in distress, as if she were in severe pain. Harry frowned.
“I want to puke,” she announced, leaning forward to brush the ruined scraps of paper aside, leaving a clear space for her to lay her head.
The cat strode forward, rubbing the side of its body against Violet’s thighs. Harry could hear its purring loud in his ears. Violet’s hand drifted down, her fingers entangling in the mess of its long, wild fur. Her head shifted until she was rested on her cheek, half-lidded eyes watching as the cat pet itself with her unmoving hand.
Her hair drifted over her shoulder as she moved to look at the desk top, chin digging into the wood. She clenched her eyes again, seeming to roll through a sensation that Harry couldn’t define, before she rose to her feet and walked across the room.
Pulling something from her knapsack, the same grey one that Harry had rummaged through that day, she moved toward the desk. The thing in her hands had the look of a mini cauldron, except the shape was attired garishly, bright yellows, reds, and blues surrounding the words “Invisi-Paint!” There was subtext, of which the only word Harry could make out was ‘potion’, but Violet obscured his view, as she was busy unstopping the cork at the top. Dipping a fan-shaped paintbrush into it, she meticulously covered the whole of both blackened pages row by row, every stroke causing that section to vanish from view.
When she had finished, a sigh escaped her lips as she opened the drawer and brushed her arm across the tabletop, as if gathering thin air into it, and closed it shut with a snap.
She glanced over her shoulder, back down to the ground, where the cat was still seated, staring up at her.
“I’m sorry,” Violet apologized once more, slinking to her knees as she began to crawl to the animal. By the time she reached him, her body was laid out flat on the carpet, one arm perched on its elbow as she offered her fingers for the kitty to sniff and butt its head into.
“It just hurt, Cosmo. I can’t think.”
The animal merely purred, back arching as it approached her face. Violet appeared with such clarity before Harry’s eyes, every detail of her exaggerated and sharp, as the cat slid its face against her temple, its stride leading its entire body to caress her face until its bushy tail caught against her nose. He saw Violet try to smile, but her heart wasn’t in it.
Her arm and head dropped down onto the carpet and she watched as the cat moved away from her, dipping into a leisurely zigzag to and from her body, never remaining too close, or too far away from her. Eventually, however, the cat plopped down on its side on the carpet, within arms reach.
Violet shifted her head onto its side as she reached her arm out, covering the cat’s paw with her hand. Within an instant, the cat retracted its paw closer to its body. It was odd, how such an action made Violet’s face pull into a bittersweet smile.
There was a long, protracted period in which nothing at all happened. Awkward, Harry fidgeted, not particularly interested in watching Violet lay on the ground, inert, listening to the soft drone of the cat’s purring. Every so often, Harry glanced up at the adults in the room, only to be met with their stony expressions as they took in every detail of the scene, even in this length of silence.
Harry was about to speak, if only to break the uneasiness that was rising within him from all the waiting, when a resounding, frenetic knock thundered through the house. The cat’s head shifted toward her bedroom door. Violet’s eyes shuddered open.
“No,” she murmured, burying her face back in the carpet.
Her refusal didn’t matter much, nor did it prevent the next round of knocks from flooding the house. Violet’s annoyed groan bled into the carpet, her hands reaching up to cover her ears again.
Another pause. Then, another flurry of knocks.
Violet’s head snapped in the direction of the door, her entire body lurching as her fingers tightened around the domes of her ears. She appeared to be in pain again, overwhelmed and panicked, tears prickling in her eyes. He couldn’t quite understand her distress; from the story her parents told, she would have been, rightfully, angry. Upset, even. But in this moment, when all was otherwise calm and uneventful, a regular knock was enough to thoroughly disturb her. It seemed… wrong, to be witnessing these most vulnerable moments of a girl he barely knew. Harry frowned, his gaze flicking toward Snape and Dumbledore for a reaction, but there was none.
Violet was quick to wipe her eyes and stand when she realized that the knocking wasn’t going to stop. It took a few moments of staggering before she was rushing out the door, heading in the direction of the sitting room. Harry was quick to follow just behind, however…
As he reached the threshold, he felt his entire body jerk and still. He was unable to move further than the threshold of the open bedroom door, his body supplanted in place, paralyzed.
“Er…” Harry turned his head, baffled. “Is there something wrong with this memory?”
Snape’s voice carried to him as if it were floating from a great distance, the sound arriving long after his mouth moved. “There is nothing wrong with it.” His supreme indignation managed to reach Harry, even with the delay.
Dumbledore’s words were kinder. “I presume this memory belongs to little Cosmo, here.” He gestured to the cat. “We will only see as he sees.”
The cat in question had entrenched itself in the middle of the carpet, busy cleaning itself and stretching its legs out luxuriously. Harry watched it, mouth turning down in frustration. “Well! How are we supposed to know what Violet’s doing?!”
“Patience,” the Headmaster urged him, while Snape simultaneously hissed, “Silence.”
Harry almost wished he could urge the cat out the door himself, anxious and restless as he was to find out what the hell Violet was doing. This was their only shot, wasn’t it? Every second strung itself out and he felt it as a tensing in his muscles as he stared at the cat, willing it to move.
There was the sound of shuffling feet at the front of the house, which finally, thankfully, bade the cat to leave the room. Harry was the first to exit, rushing out on sprinting feet as he silently hoped that the cat would make a beeline for wherever Violet was, instead of getting distracted elsewhere.
The cat made it to the couch, the one that Charlie and Sasha had sat in when he and Snape had questioned them a week before. Thankfully, Violet’s body was in sight. She’d just returned, torch in hand, and had handed it to someone who was at the door.
“... thank you, yes. This will help so much,” Harry heard a male voice peek in, sounding relieved, but nervous. His accent was distinctly not Welsh.
“No problem,” was Violet’s meek reply, her form receding back into the house. “I hope you find him before it gets too late.”
“Me too.” Harry could hear footsteps moving away outside. “Thank you again. I’m so sorry for bothering you.”
“It’s nothing,” Violet lied, her hand dropping to hold the doorknob. “You can leave the torch on the front step when you’re done. Have a good night.”
Harry could hear words that sounded like “you too” lance through the distance, but he wasn’t too sure. He watched as Violet stepped away from the door, moving to close it.
However, there was the noise of a rushed step toward the entrance, the brush of a hand going to hold the door. “Wait,” he heard the man say, before pausing, reticent.
Violet’s shoulders tensed. “Yes?”
“I’m--” Harry heard a sigh. “I’m sorry. I’m not from around here and I know it’s late but-- is there any way I could get you to help? I promise it wouldn’t be long. I just don’t know this area well and--”
Violet vacillated from one foot to the other, uncertain. “I don’t know--”
“You don’t have to say yes. I just want to make sure I find him. He’s still a puppy, you know? And I’m worried about him. I would really appreciate it.”
Violet’s head dipped and collided gently with the door frame. Harry watched as she stood there, staring out at the front porch in clear deliberation. Then, she raised on her toes, her head dipping into a nod. “Okay, uhm. Just one sec. Let me get a coat.”
A woosh of breath escaped from the man. “Thank you. You’re so kind. Thank you, really--”
Violet stepped away from the door and trotted back to her room. Seconds later she reemerged, a large wool-knit sweater draped over her torso. She rushed her way across the house, however when she caught the cat’s eye, she made a quick detour where it was perched on the couch cushions.
“I’ll be back in a bit,” she promised as she leaned down and pressed a soft peck to the top of the cat’s head. It leaned in, eyes closing. The scene around Harry darkened. “Be good, Cosmo.”
Violet glided away from the couch and when the room brightened again, Harry noticed the door had opened.
Harry’s breath strangled itself. This man… The dark coat, that fair, freckled skin, the wispy mop of hair atop his head. That face, those expressive fragments which seemed more suited to snarling and shrieking in mania, now contorted into a calm, friendly affect.
How…?
“Ready?” His smile was beguiling.
Violet merely nodded, stepping out onto the front porch.
And Barty Crouch Jr., eyes briefly scanning the inside of the house, closed the door behind her.