Harry stood beside his redheaded friend, who looked displeased when she approached. “You again,” he mumbled, loud enough for her to hear.
“Ron.” There was a distinct warning in Harry’s tone, though it vanished when he addressed her a moment later: “I, er, didn’t know you took Divination.”
“I don’t,” Cleo denied, breezy. May as well have fun with them.
“Oh.” Harry slanted a perplexed glance at the other Gryffindors in their group, though Lavender and Parvati were too busy chatting amongst themselves to notice. His gaze returned to her. “Well, we’re just here to help out, so I guess that’s what you’re here for then?”
“Yep,” Cleo exhaled, glancing down at the girl beside her. Thea beamed.
The redhead’s eyes narrowed, darting between them both. “Who’s this, then?” he questioned, puffing himself up.
“This is Thea Waters,” Cleo introduced the first year before looking to the two boys. “Thea, this is Harry Potter and-- err, Ron Weasley, is it?”
He crossed his arms, uttering a thick, “Yeah.”
Harry raised a hand in greeting, the motion a bit stiff. “Hi,” he said, peering at her curiously. “You, uh… Are you in this class?”
When Thea glanced her way, Cleo rose her eyebrows. “Yeah,” the first year announced without hesitation, arms crossing. “I brought Cleo.”
Weasley harrumphed. “Right, and I’m a ghoul’s granddad.”
Cleo feigned offense. “You doubt her?”
“Well yeah! She looks barely out of her nappies, much less--!”
“What Ron means to say,” Harry cut in, looking tired at that point, “is it’s nice to meet you.”
Thea appeared quite genuinely affronted by the comment about her age, puffing herself up as she stared ahead with a raised chin. “I suppose I can say the same as well,” the girl returned, pitching her voice low.
Cleo glanced up at the ceiling to hide her smile. Thankfully, Harry didn’t seem to take notice when he wondered, “What is it you’re actually learning in N.E.W.T. Divination, where you need extra partners?”
Thea fielded that question masterfully. “Libranomancy.”
Weasley nearly choked, accusing, “You just made that up!”
Cleo had to bite down on her lip hard to keep from laughing as Thea gazed, imperious, in Weasley’s direction, defining with ease: “Libranomancy, a subsection of pyromancy, where one divines the future through smoke burned from incense, wood, and--”
“What a load of tripe!”
Harry frowned at his friend. “What’s it matter, Ron? All we ever did in Divination was make things up, anyway…”
The boy’s face turned a brilliant shade of scarlet. “That’s not the same thing!”
Thea’s nose wrinkled. “How does that work?” she asked, glancing up at Cleo. “Divination’s magic, isn’t it? How do you make things up for magic?”
Cleo lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “It’s complicated.”
Before the boys had a chance to reply, another voice, soft and airy, blossomed beside them. “All magic is made up, actually.”
Harry turned a puzzled glance in the girl’s direction. “Er… Alright Luna?”
Weasley, on the other hand, looked even further put off. “Don’t you start blithering on about some harebrained Quibbler nonsense--”
Her dreamy words cut straight through the insult. “New spells and potions are invented every day, did you know?”
Thea glanced down at the floor, thoughtful. “Guess that makes sense…”
Evidently, Harry wasn’t quite catching on. “What has any of that got to do with Divination?”
The girl, Luna presumably, did not respond, her face alighting in a smile as she seemed to spot Cleo that very moment. “Oh! I know you! I saw you, just the other day.”
“Did you?” Cleo asked, wary.
“Yes!” Luna confirmed, rolling back on her heels. “You look lovely all dressed up in flowers, by the way.”
“What?” Thea blurted, her eyes darting between the two. “When did you--”
“I wish the trees liked me as much as they like you,” the whimsical girl lamented. “They took my favorite scarf, so I think they are rather cross with me.”
Cleo couldn’t decipher any of that, at least not properly. She could only manage, slightly slack-jawed, a meager question. “Who did you come with?”
With an open hand, she gestured toward the other grouping of girls, directing their sight to a sprightly Hufflepuff, talking animatedly in their midst. “Megan asked me.”
Weasley frowned. “Who’s that? Never met her.”
“I can’t imagine how you missed her,” Luna remarked, eyebrows lifted. “She is a very bright person.”
“Who’s bright?” Megan cut in, withdrawing from her previous conversation and as chipper as ever. “Miss Cleo? I thought so too. Your hair looks so silky today!”
“Thanks, Megan,” Cleo replied, tilting her head. It took a second before she pointed to the girl’s hands. “Cute nails. Did you do that yourself?”
“Nope! All Luna!” the girl enthused, crossing over the space to display them to Cleo. “Isn’t it pretty? She even spelled them to change color when I tap my fingers, look.”
Though the demonstration did not disappoint, they were then interrupted by a loud bang, the trapdoor above them having been thrown open. All eight heads looked upward in unison as the scraggly bush of Trelawney’s hair came into view.
“What’s all this noise?” she questioned, voice meandering as she squinted through the porthole.
One of the girls (Lavender Brown, if Cleo was remembering correctly) frowned back at the professor, nonplussed. “The door wasn’t open,” she explained. “We didn’t know if you were ready for class yet.”
Trelawney grimaced, appearing to mull that over. “It’s not class time,” she muttered.
“Oh! Um,” Megan chirped, hand raised in the air, “it’s just gone eleven, Professor! And we’ve brought friends along to help us, like you instructed!”
The professor’s face disappeared from view, but a hefty groan drifted down the ladder from the dark room above. The group exchanged looks, uncertain and uncomfortable. However, Megan, terminally joyful as she was, led the charge. The force of her enthusiasm encompassed them all, compelling them through the trapdoor despite their misgivings.
The classroom was full dark, to such a degree that everyone was stumbling around trying to find which cushion belonged to them. Where Trelawney had gone off to, she couldn’t tell, but there was nothing for it, she supposed. Cleo managed to move carefully to her regular spot toward the front of the room, Thea in tow, but even still, they encountered a good amount of elbows and murmured apologies along their way.
“Can’t we get a light in here?” she heard Weasley blurt out, his exasperation plain. A moment later, his wand blinded everyone with its sudden light, causing them to squint with discomfort.
However, no one was more disgruntled by this than Professor Trelawney herself, who reared back on the settee she was slumped upon, her arm swinging in a sluggish arc as it went to cover her face. “Put that away! ” she croaked, her words dragging themselves out on a painful groan.
“Professor?” That was Parvati, her worried expression stark beside Weasley’s Lumos.
The woman took hold of a nearby shawl, draping it across her face with an exaggerated swipe. Still, Cleo could plainly see the corners of her mouth twitch downward. “Turn. It. Off!” the woman shrieked ahead of another moan, her opposite hand clutching her glasses so hard Cleo thought they might snap.
“Alright, alright,” Weasley groused, the room falling dark once more.
The professor took in a huge breath, beads rustling as her voice emerged from the darkness. “Light bodes foul fortune today,” she stressed. “I advise you all not to try your luck.”
“Er… Professor?” That was Harry. “You alright?”
“Yeah, you’re making less sense than usual,” Weasley commented beside a soft thud, presumably made by him dropping down onto one of the plush pillows that were littered about.
Trelawney’s jewelry clinked once more as she moved, though it was hard to track her. “I have yet to recover from the lunar phases,” she lamented, indeed sounding ill.
It wasn’t very clear what exactly she meant by that, but Megan piped up, “Oh, you mean the full moon? Wow, you must be really sensitive, since it’s been off for a full week…!”
The words could have sounded condescending, but Megan had a way about her which was utterly sincere, such that Trelawney did not refute her. Or, perhaps, she merely hadn’t noticed her implication, since another drawn-out, melodramatic moan of pain emitted from the corner she'd curled up in.
Noticing there was nothing set up for their class, Cleo found herself searching the room for anything that even remotely indicated that there was a lesson plan. It was hard to make out much of anything in the overcast; even Thea, who sat stone still beside her, was nothing more than a silhouette.
Lavender Brown spoke again. “If you aren’t well, Professor, should you go see Madam Pomfrey? One of us could take you.”
“No, no, no --” Trelawney suddenly squawked, clawing at the layers of beads at her chest and shaking her head, the black mass of her form appearing to heave over the side of her seat. “I'm fine! Better than fine! Better than that-- ow --!”
Clutching her head and mumbling to herself in the dark, she looked properly insane.
“Have you hurt yourself, Professor?” Megan asked, her voice lancing clear and sharp in the dark.
“She has, I think,” Luna concurred from her nearby perch.
Parvati fretted, “Perhaps we ought to fetch Madam Pomfrey here directly…”
“Libranomancy,” Trelawney said in a perfectly normal voice, the shift in her demeanor quite jarring. “The ancient and formidable art of divining the visions of smoke and mist.”
The class collectively paused their chatter, waiting on the woman’s next words with wary anticipation. The woman’s hands shook as she lifted them into the air. “These secret arts are not to be trifled with… only those gifted with the Sight may gaze upon the aetherial plane… and-- ”
Trelawney doubled over, losing her steam and shriveling up on the spot as she cradled her face. Then, an arm slicing through the air to point off to the side, she grumbled, “Oh-- just get the sodding braziers…”
One student from each group, those willing to brave the dark, rose and made an orderly -- or as orderly as one could manage, stumbling about as they were -- queue to the corner where Trelawney had indicated. Cleo had to pat her hands around until her fingers brushed against a grainy, coarse metal spike. It took estimating the width of the bloody thing until she felt confident enough to lift it off the ground and begin to make her trek back.
Most of them had returned to their seats before they heard Trelawney announce again, her voice a low thrum as her head bent further downward against the side of her chair. “The tinder, too.”
“You joking?” Weasley scoffed. “Hoping we’ll stub our toes straight off?”
“C’mon, Ron,” Lavender coaxed. “Relax, please? She’s not feeling all that well.”
Before the boy could answer, Harry spoke up. “I’ll fetch some for everyone.”
“Oh, lovely!” Luna’s voice glided through the dark, sing-song. “That’s just like you, really.”
It was well enough the boy offered; Cleo didn’t feel like going back herself and was in the mood to take his charity if he was willing to give it. She arrived in front of Thea’s shadow, grunting softly as she lowered the brazier between them.
She halted, though, a few inches before the thing touched the ground. “Feet out of the way?”
Thea’s head twitched upward slightly, as if pulled from reverie. “Huh?”
“Your feet.”
“Oh,” the girl murmured. “You’re fine.”
She released the hunk of metal to the floor and carefully crawled back to her seating pillow, sigh escaping her once she situated herself. “How are you holding up?” Cleo asked, leaning toward the first year.
Her eyes were beginning to adjust to the dark; she swore she could see the slight twist in Thea’s lips as she shrugged. “Fine, I guess.”
Cleo’s smile was slight. “Scared of the dark?”
“No.” Thea’s voice was clipped. Bothered.
“Struck a nerve, have I?” Cleo teased.
“No, ” the girl returned again, just as icy as before.
At that moment, Harry reached them with an armful of wood, placing a few in the brazier and setting some off to the side for later use. He didn’t reply when she muttered her gratitude to him, stalking back into the dark to top off the other students. Probably not a bad idea. Were it her, she’d want to get this entire ordeal finished as soon as possible.
Were it.
Maybe she did just want to get this over with.
Feeling ungainly in her seat, she shifted toward Thea again, beseeching her attention in the gloom. The girl wasn’t exactly cooperative; she sat, the stiffness of her posture making her appear statuesque.
“What with the fire, it’ll be like camp, I’d wager,” was Cleo’s incredibly awful attempt at levity.
Thea’s acknowledgement was a soft hum, though she was otherwise unresponsive.
In her periphery, Cleo noticed Trelawney rise from her seat, unsteady. “Now, I want us all to be clear that this is the correct way, the only sane way to divine by fire--”
“Correct way, Professor?” Parvati asked. Her voice sounded closer than before.
“Yes!” the woman insisted, voice going rather shrill for a moment before she clutched at her head once more. Cleo couldn’t help but notice Thea flinch beside her. “Yes, correct. You’re not to go deviating into uncivilized practices-- It is my job, nay, my duty, to guide your minds in suitable paths, that your Inner Eye may open to its fullest!”
By the end, she’d worked herself up into a bit of a frenzy, if the frenetic jangling of her beads was anything to go by. “Now, let’s see some fires, hm? We’ll show him-- ”
It was unsettling. Cleo had never seen Professor Trelawney like this before. A bit ornery and frayed at the edges, sure, but…
“Him?” Megan questioned.
Apparently, it had been unwise to focus on that point. Just as one of the braziers sprang to life, the professor’s expression, pallid and contorted with fury, was illuminated.
“The horse,” she gritted, her hands clenching her shawls in a vice grip. “We’re doing it better than the horse.”
The horse?
Luna, however, seemed to shed some light on the matter, disquietingly serene as ever. “Oh, Professor Firenze?”
“That name is not welcome in my classroom!” the woman shrieked. “Nor the negative energy it courts! Not again, Miss Lovegood! This is a place of learning! ”
This drew a loud snort from Weasley, but he quickly covered it up with a cough.
The woman’s tirade reminded her of her mother in the worst way possible. Beyond that, matters hadn’t been cleared up all that much for Cleo. She had no idea who Professor Firenze was, or why he was apparently a horse . Whatever that meant.
“Now, if you’re all quite finished,” she said, her hand reaching up to massage her forehead, her eyes closing against what appeared to be pain, “shall we get on with the lesson?”
Silence met her pronouncement. She seemed to take it as permission. “When your fires are lit, you will be taken into a trancelike state,” Trelawney told them. “Brought upon by the fragrant Clancus wood and enhanced by Celtic sea salts, they will focus your Sight, allowing you to transcend the mortal world and behold strange visions of the beyond!”
In response, two other fires came alight across the room. The brilliance of the flames bade Professor Trelawney to retreat back to her settee. Tearing her eyes away, Cleo returned her attention to their kindling, lighting it with a prompt Incendio.
Thea’s face shimmered into view, materializing behind the tendrils of flame. Her eyes were planted at her lap, hands holding one another just above her waist.
“Thea?”
The girl blinked. “Mm?”
There was something Cleo had wished to ask ever since they’d entered the classroom. She thought better of it. “You should give me your hands.”
Thea looked as if she’d rather eat them than obey. “Oh.”
“Or you could just look me in the eye,” Cleo offered.
She didn’t seem to want to do that, either. But the girl managed, though not without her gaze ambling before it reached her stare. Cleo greeted her with a smile.
Thea didn’t appear to appreciate it much. “What?”
Cleo shrugged. “Just, hello?”
She scowled. “Why are you being weird?”
I’m not, Cleo felt herself near to saying. But that wouldn’t have helped, not with Thea’s sudden plummeting mood. “Are you okay?”
“Why do you keep asking that?”
“This is the first time I’ve asked,” Cleo countered.
The girl’s nose wrinkled. For the time being, however, she seemed to give up on being combative. “How’re you supposed to do this?”
Cleo stared at the crackling flames, feeling her eyes get a bit watery. “I think I’m supposed to breathe in the smoke and go into a trance.”
“Is that even safe?”
She frowned. Hell if she knew. She was already detesting the smell of the fragranced wood; it was a bit like the stronger incense her mother used when she did her Yule rituals, the ones that made her nauseated. She couldn’t stomach breathing that in, but…
Cleo leaned in slightly, flaring her nostrils on a slight, cowardly sniff. The scent careened like a punch to her nose, and Cleo reared back, covering her nose with a hand.
She heard a giggle flutter from where Thea was sitting. Cleo narrowed her eyes.
“Oh, so that’s funny, is it?” her words peeked out from behind her palm, muffled.
“Uh, yeah?” Thea shot back, snickering.
Beggars couldn’t be choosers, really. Cleo was at least happy to see her in a lighter mood.
Her hands slunk into her lap and she grimaced. Thea was peering at her. “Feel trancey yet?”
“My head aches,” she replied, squinting.
“Well, Miss Cleo?” the girl prodded, besetting herself with a dramatic, mystical tone. “Tell me my future?”
Cleo shot her a look. Very funny.
Thea’s lips pursed before she glanced over her shoulder, pensive. “Bet I have a prediction.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
Thea sat up straighter, her eyes searching just over Cleo’s shoulder. “That everyone will be dead before the hour is out,” she commented, unnervingly mellow.
“What?”
The girl appeared preoccupied with something. “Are there any windows in here?”
Still confused, Cleo stared at her, blank faced.
Thea scowled. “Carbon Monoxide?”
“Oh, Jesus--” Cleo sputtered, glancing over her shoulder as well. “I hadn’t thought about that--”
“It crossed my mind when you mentioned campfires,” Thea mentioned. “I thought maybe there’d be a fumigation thing at work but uhm. Please ask her?”
“You can’t?”
Thea grew impatient fast. “Please just do it?”
Cleo wasn’t all that excited to bother the beast when she’d seemed to settle, hunched over, on her satin pillows. But there was nothing for it, was there? Cleo leaned toward her, calling her with a subdued: “Professor Trelawney?”
She hadn’t heard her, apparently. Or maybe she didn’t want to be bothered. Cleo looked back at Thea, who frowned, eyes urging her. Try again.
“Professor Trelawney?” Louder this time.
Nothing.
Cleo, with a pained expression, cleared her throat. Then, louder still: “Professor Trelawney!”
The woman’s form flinched to dodge her voice, but for what it was worth, she did roll over, looking perturbed and worse for wear. “What? ”
“I--” Cleo swallowed. “Listen, I was wondering if we could open some of the windows.”
“Whatever for? ”
“Safety,” Cleo answered, purposefully calm. “There’s a reason why people don’t light big fires indoors--”
“My rooms are hardly going to burn down, Miss Croft,” Trelawney dismissed, groggy.
“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Cleo objected. “It’s just, if we don’t have a source of air, we’re unsafe--”
“We are perfectly safe, my dear,” Trelawney assured her, looking about as finished with this conversation as one possibly could. “And besides, it’s quite chilly outside…”
“I’m certain we will keep warm with the fires,” Cleo reasoned. “Please, I think it’s best if we open some of the windows.”
“I know what I'm doing!” the woman asserted, growing impatient. “All I ask is a little faith, child.”
Cleo was starting to feel a bit irritated as well. She saw Thea tense beside her, overwrought. The girl was completely wound up, appearing as if she had something to say. However, there was no resolve behind her posture -- just vigilance.
“It has nothing to do with faith,” Cleo objected, returning her attention to the professor. “Perhaps we should just move this outdoors. Maybe to the Astronomy tower? You can stay in the lower quarters while we’re up top--”
“Outdoors?! Like him? ” Trelawney uttered with disdain, as if the implication offended her to her very core. “I think not!”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” Cleo told her, doing her level best to sound as even keeled as possible. “Professor, I’m really not trying to insult you. I’m being serious. We either need the windows open, or we need to go outside.”
“You’ve yet to provide a suitable reason,” the woman near growled, her palm canopying over her eyes to shield her from the firelight. Cleo could see her eyes squinting behind the thick frames of her glasses.
She lowered her voice. “Because if we don’t, everyone is going to get very sick.”
She saw a few heads turn, particularly Weasley, who had struck up a whispered exchange with the other Gryffindors. Still, no one rose to her aid.
Trelawney, for her part, peered at Cleo with interest. “You seem very confi--” The woman gasped, force of it rocking the whole of her frame, causing herself, and several students, to flinch. Still, her rhapsodic realization appeared to transcend whatever ache she was struggling against. “My dear… Have… Have you had a vision ?”
“Yes,” Cleo leaned into this reasoning; anything to get the woman motivated and moving. “Just now. So could we please--”
“I knew this day would come!” Trelawney exclaimed, beside herself. “I always told you, didn't I? That one day, you would be awakened to--”
“Yes, I understand,” Cleo broke in, trying to tamp down the woman’s excitement. “Time is of the essence, though. So if you please?”
There was a bit of a bustle as she sat up, ready to acquiesce. However, in an instant, Trelawney's expression grew sour. “Wait,” she muttered, placing her glasses atop her nose to peer suspiciously at Cleo. “You haven't even added your salts.”
She wasn't sure how effective it would be to dig deeper into this lie. “I didn’t need to,” Cleo countered, quick on her feet. “Premonition.”
The woman frowned, pulling her shawls around her primly. “Clytemnestra, I am disappointed,” she announced. “I understand how you must feel, separated from your Inner Eye, but you need not resort to falsehoods, my dear.”
Okay. This wasn’t working. Foregoing Trelawney altogether, Cleo twisted her body in the direction of where Weasley and Harry sat, their bodies no more than slight slits of shadow struck through by the firelight. “Can you open some of the windows? We’re going to get Carbon Monoxide poisoning if we don’t keep the room ventilated.”
Weasley scoffed, “Carbon whatsit? ”
Harry's wand was in his hand when Trelawney spoke again. “Cleo. Listen to me.”
“Professor I would be very happy to, ” she oozed, emphatic, “but after the windows are open. Please.”
“This is my classroom, not yours,” the woman retorted. “I do not need you dictating to me-- ”
“Professor, I’m not trying to,” Cleo explained. “But this is a real thing. You can’t have large lit fires in a room with no ventilation. It can kill you.”
“I thought I made this clear,” Trelawney drawled, long-suffering. “No more lies.”
Maybe the woman’s conduct was bothering her more than she realized. Nothing else could explain the very rapid surge of anger that coursed through her, hoisting her to a stand. All instinct; all muscle memory. “I’m not lying?” Cleo balked. “Combustion reactions require oxygen! Every time a combustion reaction occurs, carbon dioxide results as a product. In a place that is oxygen deprived, combustion still occurs, but it’s incomplete! Instead of carbon dioxide, you get carbon monoxide! Which, when breathed in, attaches to the sites on your blood cells where oxygen should go and when that happens your organs start to suffoc--!”
“That will be quite enough!” Trelawney cut in, irate. She drew herself up, as if preparing for considerable difficulty. “And that will be ten points from Slytherin!”
A chorus of murmurs followed, the energy in the room falling further off-kilter, but Cleo’s anger wasn’t nearly spent; this was too familiar: Trelawney’s audacity. On anyone else, it could be borne. But this just ran too close to home--
“Just because you don’t understand doesn’t mean I’m lying!” Cleo seethed. “I don’t care -- take all the points you want! I’m trying to make sure you don’t get fired for doing something so irredeemably stupid and dangerous! ”
There was a horrible quiet in the classroom for the span of several seconds, punctuated only by the crackling of their four wood fires. Trelawney's chest was heaving, a hand to her forehead, but when she looked at Cleo, it was with the most resolute face she'd ever seen on the woman. “You are like something possessed, Cleo,” she accused, voice quivering.
“I’m possessed?” Cleo derided. She realized she’d seen this before. She knew this. Intimately. And that’s why she was mad, wasn’t it? Why she felt like she couldn’t stop? Couldn’t obey? “Do you even see yourself? What made you think you could come out here like this? In no state to teach, much less make decisions --”
“I am-- I am perfectly able…” was Trelawney's feeble objection.
“What do you call this then?!” Cleo challenged, indignant. “Completely strung out, unable to even to get your classroom together, completely losing it at the simplest--?!”
“Stop this!” the professor begged, distraught. “You-- You can’t treat me like this--”
“How can you possibly think you’re in any position to tell me what I can and can’t do?” Cleo sneered. “You actually believe --”
“Cleo! Stop!” a voice behind her entreated, shaken. Megan. “Look at her!”
The plea washed over her, stark and chilling, and she came to. Her eyes kept hold of an afterimage of the woman in front of her, brazen and bold, for only a moment longer before the current tableau settled in her vision. Cleo hadn’t known she’d taken steps forward, neither had she realized she was towering over the professor, collapsed on her settee, wide eyes staring up at her, glimmering with tears.
She was still breathing heavy, her hand clutching her shawls.
Cleo faltered, her leg swinging back to distance herself. She let out a breath.
Trelawney had run out of voice. Her eyes remained affixed to Cleo’s face. Terrified. She’d actually terrified her. God damn it. This wasn’t even Trelawney’s fault. She didn’t know better.
“You’re right,” Cleo admitted, ashamed. This was Tenenbaum all over again. “This isn’t productive. I’ll go.”
She turned and gathered her things. Thea was doggedly watching, but Cleo couldn’t bear to look her in the eye.
When she slung her bag over her shoulder, she glanced to Trelawney once more, who hadn’t moved one inch from her original position. A few of the girls in her periphery, she saw, were already bent over their fires, eyes locked on the professor with expressions of sympathy. They looked poised to spring to the woman’s aid.
Well. Once the storm had passed, anyway. Cleo’s head bowed. “Professor, whatever’s going on--” she stopped herself. No. Not her responsibility. Drop it.
“I’m sorry,” she tried instead, head shaking. She shifted the strap of her bag on her shoulder. “Please consider opening the windows.”
By the time she’d made it down the ladder, she heard a flurry of voices cooing above, silenced only once she’d shut the trap door and let herself plop to the ground.
That had been a failure all around, hadn’t it?
It was probably better to go off by herself at that point; perhaps plant herself at the furthest end of the castle and wait out the discomfort. However, there was the matter of Thea.
As much as Cleo hated the idea, she could brave whatever judgement came tumbling down that ladder when class time ended. But she had to talk to Thea. She had to at least explain herself. The way she’d handled the situation had been so… inappropriate.
So, she waited it out.
She parked herself in a corner with her chemistry text, skimming old chapters to kill the time. Eventually, the sound of footsteps rumbled above her. The trap door opened.
Oddly, Thea was the first one out, her descent on the ladder more of a slide. Better than any of the other students, she supposed. She didn’t think she could confront them right now. Cleo pushed off the wall, calling at once: “Thea?”
The girl stopped dead, her head snapping in Cleo’s direction. She offered the girl an apologetic smile. However, with barely a pause, Thea turned on her heel and ran down the flight of stairs.
Cleo picked up in a trot after her. “Thea?”
The girl did not relent in her attempt to escape. Cleo was only just able to head her off into one of the alcoves past the base of the Tower stairs, using the length of her arms to block her from escaping. “Thea, stop--”
“Cleo!”
The girl struggled to push past her body as Cleo pressed it against the side of the alcove, impeding her escape.
“Please let me explain--”
“No,” Thea whined. “Not right now! I want to be alone!”
Not right now? “I won’t blame you if you’re mad at me. How I acted was horrible --”
“Cleo!” she bleated. “It’s not that. Please, I just want to go--”
Cleo watched the girl, suddenly more alert. “Did something happen?”
“Yes--” the girl allowed to slip, before she grimaced. “No! Just--”
“Thea,” Cleo murmured in soft, soothing tones. “What happened? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing! ” the girl insisted.
“What is wrong? ”
“I want to be alone!” Thea pleaded, the tears emerging in her voice. She hid her face, humiliated.
The two of them froze as the sound of feet scraped behind them. Thea slammed her body into the corner, and Cleo remained as she was, back to the stairs, arms pinioned on either side of the alcove, her robes acting as a courtesy veil. It wasn’t until the sounds of the footfalls faded into the distance that Cleo spoke again, tender. “Please talk to me.”
Thea’s shoulders struggled with the weight of her breathing, and she shook her head against the wall, her curls bobbing haphazardly against her back. “I want to be alone,” she groused.
“I know,” Cleo said, leaning her head against her forearm. “And if you tell me again, I’ll let you go.”
Thea turned her face, looking up at the older girl squarely.
“But I’m your friend,” she reminded the first year. “You can talk to me. You don’t have to deal with this alone. Whatever this is.”
They stood at an impasse, their eyes beholding one another as the girl considered this. Her reticence seemed to fade, if only because it seemed she recognized solidarity. A safety, Cleo hoped.
“Trelawney--” Thea’s voice petered out.
Cleo had the sinking feeling that she knew what the girl was about to say. However, she didn’t speak. She turned into the alcove, allowing Thea more room to move, and gave her time to build courage again.
“Trelawney…” Thea tried again, holding her stomach. “You saw it too, didn’t you? She was--”
Footsteps echoed down to where they stood, fast paced, silencing Thea in an instant. Harry and his friend came into view, their steps stalling out as they took in the scene.
Harry spoke first. “Is everything, um… You alright?”
Thea’s distress mounted and Cleo turned to them quickly. “Not right now,” she warned them, quiet. “Could you please just give us a moment--”
“What’s it matter?” the cry burst from Thea as she slammed herself against the wall again. She pulled her hands over her face. “Now everyone can see. I told you, I wanted to be alone, and now everyone knows--!”
Cleo knelt beside her, grasping her upper arms. “Hey, hey-- listen to me. It’s just them. And Harry’s a nice boy--”
“Who cares if he’s nice? ” Thea sobbed, trying to bury herself out of sight again. “He knows and now everyone’s going to know , they’re going to see --” The cry that tore through her was painful and childish, familiar enough that she felt an urge to hold the girl close. Cleo barely resisted acting on it.
“Hey,” Harry addressed her, voice hushed and cautious. “Er, nobody really… Most people don’t really believe anything Trelawney says…”
Oddly, Weasley attempted to assist as well, his voice gruff. “Nobody believes what Harry and I say, either.”
“Say?” Cleo cut in, frowning, before she searched Thea’s expression again. “Did she say something to you?”
“Who cares what she--” Thea sputtered, the words carried on a hiccup. “That’s not--”
“What is it, then?” Cleo consoled her, patient.
Thea’s eyes, red and glassy, darted between Cleo’s face and the boys that stood just behind her. Her gaze plummeted to the floor, and something within her seemed to recede. That same look Cleo observed earlier, when Thea saw Trelawney first.
Trying to catch it before Thea shut it away, she tried, grasping the girl’s arms tighter, “Thea--”
“I don’t want to die.”
The sentence slid down between them, timid and mild. But then, Thea’s eyes jolted up, catching Cleo’s, more earnest and awash with a fresh batch of tears. She tried it again, more urgent: “I don’t want to die!”
It wasn’t a whole truth. Not even close. Not to the one she was going to share when they had properly been alone. But it did appear like the upfront truth; the truth that stood before them, panicked and wild. A truth that she should address, before any of her own suspicions could be worked through. Her hands slid to the girl’s elbows, propping them up. “Die? What are you talking about?”
When the girl didn’t answer, Cleo turned to the other two. “What is she talking about?”
Weasley was the one who answered. “Trelawney sort’ve went a bit off her block and told her she was gonna be turned to ash.”
“She paired up with Thea after you left, to ah-- divine her future,” Harry filled in the blanks. “And, er… yeah.”
“Absolutely mental, that one. Going on about how she’d suffer horribly, burnt up until there was nothing left and--”
“Ron, can you not? She’s standing right there.”
“Oh.” He at least looked abashed, his concerned glance going to Thea. “Yeah. Sorry.”
Cleo turned to the first year, appalled. How could Trelawney do something like that? Sure, Cleo had acted horrendously, but to take it out on an eleven year old--
“Is that what she told you?”
Thea’s head dipped into a solitary nod, nothing more.
“It’s completely ridiculous,” Cleo promised, finding herself scrambling to say something that could comfort. “She was picking up on the images around her, okay? She saw you burn in fire because there was a fire right there. It was like a cold reading. You know about that?”
Thea shook her head. “It’s not that --”
“Yeah, you don’t need to worry on that account,” Harry commented, quiet. “She predicts people’s deaths every other day, and we’re all fine.”
“Right,” Ron budged in, his tone more subdued as well, the most gentle she’d ever heard it, really. “Bit of a nutter, that one. She’s cooked up ways Harry’s gonna die loads of times. Once every year now, I reckon.”
“But you are going to die,” Thea pointed out, darkly.
“Well--” Harry frowned.
“No, he’s not,” Cleo broke in, ducking her head down so she could look Thea in the eye. “And I’m not going to die. Weasley’s not going to die. You’re not going to die.”
This, out of everything Cleo had ever said to the girl, upset her the most. “Yes, I am!” she exclaimed, tearing her body out of Cleo’s grasp. “That doesn’t work on me! You can’t lie like that! I am going to die!”
Her sobs starting anew, Cleo lifted her hands, supplicant. “I know Trelawney can sound incredibly convincing at times. But I promise you, it’s theatrics. She’s not a Seer. You’re not going to die.” Cleo’s eyes closed and she shook her head. “I shouldn’t have even brought you--”
“But I am! ” the girl wept. “Everyone dies! Potter will die! Trelawney will die! You will die! My mums will die!” Running out of steam, Thea took in a shuddering breath, her voice broke in with a timid: “I’m going to die.”
What Thea meant slammed into her; what she’d been trying to say the entire time.
Well, that was a losing game, wasn’t it? Arguing against the existential? Arguing against a universal truth?
Cleo crept closer to her again. “You’re right,” she conceded. “But that won’t happen for a very long time, Thea. And not how she said.”
The girl’s voice drooped with her posture. “You can’t know that.”
Harry tried to help. “It’s nothing to worry about right now; you know, there’s-- there’s Madam Pomfrey and other teachers to help out, and--”
Thea’s head shook. “I don’t know… how many times, I’ve seen my mum work on girls my age… or younger,” she admitted, fingers curling apprehensively at her robes . “And you see them at the funeral, and you just know. That can be me…”
“It won’t be you,” Cleo told her. “Do you know how fast I’d be there if I even caught the smallest hint of you being in danger? Nevermind the lengths your mothers would go. And I know they’re not here -- but I am. And I wouldn’t let anything happen to you. I promise.”
“You can’t promise that--”
“I am,” Cleo asserted, grave. “I promise that for as long as I exist in your life, I will not allow anything to happen to you. And that if you’re ever scared of anything, you can come to me. I will protect you.”
“Everyone has someone who’d protect them,” Thea argued, voice quivering. “But sometimes, that’s not enough. Sometimes things just happen, Cleo.”
It was a cynical position, but one that Cleo couldn’t argue against. To a degree, the girl was right. Not everything could be safeguarded. But there was nothing productive in worrying about it. When she glanced down at Thea’s hands, they were huddled close together, just at the girl’s left hip. Her fingers dug nervously into the crest of her wrist, leaving painful, crescent shaped-marks the more the girl absentmindedly squeezed.
Cleo reached up to grasp them, stilling the girl. “Okay.”
Thea blinked, nonplussed, two swollen tears crawling down the sides of her face.
“You’re going to die,” Cleo announced softly. “So, what do we do about that?”
“Nothing,” Thea whimpered, biting the inside of her cheek. “You can’t stop it.”
“Maybe not,” Cleo agreed. “But we can figure out why it scares you so much.”
Thea sniffed. “I don’t know--”
“Just think about it,” she urged, gentle. “When you think about how much it scares you, what’s the first thing that pops into your head?”
The girl hesitated, vacillating on one foot to the other as she stared at Cleo with a prominent frown. “I don’t know. Just--” She stopped, and Cleo could feel the girl’s hand squeezing hers, nervous. “I’m too young. There’s still things I-- things I want to do.”
“You know--” Weasley’s voice was strong and clear when it reached them, drawing their attention. “Last year, my dad nearly died. Got attacked by a magic creature. It was… really serious. But y’know what he was on about the moment we got in to see him?” He paused, as if waiting for a response, before going on. “He’s reading the paper, wittering on about some bloke named Willy Widdershins getting arrested for something or other, all pleased as punch about his new mates he’s sharing a room with.”
The boy shook his head, rolling his eyes. “Here we were, losing sleep for worry about him, and we go in and he’s asking us how we are, like nothing’s happened!”
Thea looked at him, scowling. “And?”
“Point being,” he emphasized, fixing her with a stare. “I thought he was mental at the time, but what’s he meant to do, mope about? Or would he much rather be spending time with his family, making the most out of those breaths he’s got left?”
Harry added, quiet, “Mr. Weasley always has been a very cheerful person.”
“He’s right, too,” Cleo affirmed. “All we can do is make sure our time is not wasted. So--”
Cleo suddenly stood to her full height, bringing the girl’s hands up with her, hoisted just above her head. “If there was anything -- I mean anything -- you could do right now, what would it be?”
Thea pulled her hands away, bringing them back down to her sides. “I don’t know,” she replied, flustered. “There’s not… It’s not like there’s a lot to do…”
Something dawned on Cleo, then. A spark of recognition flashed over her expression and she glanced over her shoulder, staring out onto the grounds that peeked in through one of the slats in the stone of the Tower. “What if we did something crazy?”
“What?”
Cleo’s head snapped back in Thea’s direction. “Do you trust me?”
Thea’s deliberation seemed only to be half a second. “Y-Yeah.”
Cleo grasped the girl’s hand and pulled her out of the alcove. “C’mon.”
“Hold on,” Thea objected, though she didn’t attempt to wriggle out of the older girl’s grasp. “What are we doing?”
“I told you,” Cleo replied, flashing the girl a slight smile as she began to lead her down toward the second flight of stairs. “Something crazy.”
Behind them, she heard Weasley’s voice bounce around the stone walls. “What’s she on about?”
Harry evidently didn’t reply, but, moments later, the redhead simply appeared close behind, directing his next question to Cleo herself, “Oi, what is it you’re up to, Croft?”
“Sorry, I’m not in the mood to get snitched on,” she called over her back, her steps pausing.
He looked positively affronted. “I’m no snitch,” Weasley insisted, disdainful.
“Well I can’t know that, can I?” Cleo countered. “What with Gryffindor’s reputation for integrity. ”
He snorted. “Oh, right. You’ve not met the twins, I take it.”
“I’m unacquainted with the Weasley clan,” Cleo pointed out, turning toward him. “But I don’t see any of you sneaking around much.”
“Well if you saw us, then we wouldn’t be any good, now would we?” Weasley retorted, hands on his hips. “So what’s this, then?”
Cleo looked down at Thea, as if searching for permission, but the girl appeared just as bewildered as before.
It was stupid. Not very cunning, when it came down to it, but...
“I want to take her to Hogsmeade,” Cleo explained. “So I figure, we get in plain clothes, and we sneak out across the grounds.”
“Oh ho,” Weasley replied. “Some good ol’ fashioned skiving off, is it?”
“But--” Thea fumbled. “Wouldn’t we get in trouble?”
“Maybe,” Cleo mused. “But, then it’s a story, isn’t it? And besides,” she tilted her head, staring down at the girl with a smile, “you said you wanted to show me where Saturn was, didn’t you?”
Thea’s expression crumpled up. “What’s that got to do with--”
“If you think the Astronomy Tower has a good view of the stars,” Cleo told her, “just wait until you see the plateau beneath the Shrieking Shack.”
“Actually,” Harry cut in, then, having evidently decided to approach them. “You don’t even really have to properly sneak out to get to Hogsmeade.”
Cleo squinted at him. “How d’you mean?”
He and his friend exchanged a look before he continued, “There’s secret tunnels within Hogwarts that lead directly there. We can show you one?”
“You’d do that?”
Weasley shoved his hands in his pockets, his gaze drifting to the side. “It’s not a big deal; just don’t tell anyone we told you.”
“You sure you can trust a Slytherin not to?” she prodded, perhaps a bit unwisely.
He glared at her, then. “Dunno, can I?”
Harry made a quelling gesture between them. “It’s fine. If we get in trouble, so do you. And I think we’d all rather stay detention-free, right?”
Cleo shook her head. “No, you’re right. I’m sorry.”
He looked between them all, soaking up the quiet for a moment before he said, conspiratorial, “So? Shall we go?”
Weasley crossed his arms, mumbling an agreement.
“Plain clothes is still a good idea,” Cleo pointed out. “So, we should meet somewhere.”
Harry nodded once, instructing, “By the Whomping Willow, in fifteen minutes.”
“What? The Whomping Willow?” Thea balked. “Isn’t that dangerous?”
Weasley’s grimace was sympathetic. “Yeah, very. But it’ll be worth it.”
Looking at the two boys, their eyes seemed to be shining at the prospect of unsanctioned adventure. For what it was worth, once the shock had worn off, Thea appeared quite excited too, but, despite it all being her idea, Cleo couldn’t help but notice the specter of dread pressing, heavy and oppressive, against her shoulders.
When they finally arrived at Cleo’s favorite stargazing spot, the landscape had fallen to deep purples and blues, the scant light at their backs from Hogsmeade obscured by foliage. She could hardly believe they had passed the whole of the day away, taking Thea around to virtually everything there was to see in the village.
Weasley was huffing and puffing at Harry’s side, still carrying the spoils from their excursion, parcels from Honeydukes, Zonkos, Tomes and Scrolls, Spintwitches, Gladrags, Dominic Maestro’s, and even some takeaway from the Three Broomsticks… It was an insane amount of things for any one person to transport, but Weasley had insisted on hefting Thea’s in addition to his own, and almost all of it had been purchased by Harry, though he’d bought absolutely nothing for himself. A strange pair, those two.
“I’ve er, never been this far out,” Harry remarked, gazing out across the landscape. “Everyone’s been around the Shrieking Shack, but I never thought to go… past it.”
“Because there’s nothing around for ages,” his friend pointed out.
“That’s why it’s perfect,” Cleo informed them, her head tilted toward the sky. “Makes it easier to see what’s up there.”
Weasley lifted his head to squint above, but Harry was surveying the landscape. “The grass might still be wet from that rain yesterday.”
“Nothing a drying charm can’t fix,” Thea pointed out, her eyes glued to the canopy of stars above.
At that, Harry looked alarmed. “But we’re still underage--!”
Cleo shrugged. “I’m not.”
Weasley gave his friend a strange look. “She already got us out of the Shrieking Shack with magic, Harry.”
“Oh.” The boy frowned. “Sorry, guess I… wasn’t really paying attention.”
“Well,” Cleo breathed, a sly smile playing on her lips. “Glad to know I don’t come off as an old hag quite yet.”
Harry merely hummed in acknowledgement, while Weasley awkwardly tried to balance his myriad of parcels on one arm, evidently to stretch out his shoulder. Cleo, not wasting time, pulled her wand from her jean pocket and began to delineate a large patch of grass in a similar way she had learned during her detentions with Professor Tenenbaum, muttering a soft drying charm all the while.
As the three of them settled, Thea remained where she was standing, her eyes planing across the night time sky as twilight began to seep from the corners of the horizon.
Cleo leaned back on her arms. “Well?”
Thea barely acknowledged her with a soft: “Huh?”
“Show me where Saturn is.”
Thea tossed her head over her shoulder, forehead wrinkling. “Already?”
“Well, it’s why we’re here!” Cleo laughed. “Thought you could dazzle us with your vast array of knowledge about the universe.”
“Yeah, we deserve a good dazzle after a hard day’s work,” Weasley yawned, flopping onto his back with a thud while Harry rested his arms on his bent knees.
“Well,” Thea hummed, her body lifting as she stood on her toes. “It’s not going to be as impressive without a telescope, but…” Cleo watched as the girl peered into the collection of stars, her teeth caught on her bottom lip in thought. It took a few moments, but the girl pointed westward, her finger hooking on a small cluster of darkness as she took a step back. “There.”
Cleo squinted. “Where?”
Her pointing grew more earnest. “There. ”
Weasley huffed. “Well, my guess was way off.”
“No wonder we’re not in N.E.W.T. Astronomy,” Harry remarked, wry.
“Still can’t see it,” Cleo remarked, straining her eyes.
“It’s the dim looking star,” Thea explained. “She’s not as bright this time of year.”
Weasley turned to look at her, considering. “Maybe you could find it on your new scarf.”
Thea looked down at the cloth hanging loosely around her neck, dimly illuminating her face as the embroidered stars glimmered in a pool of navy blue. “It’s a drawing, though,” she said. “Not the same as looking at her for real.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, I suppose. Should’ve got a telescope while we were out.”
Harry adjusted his glasses, staring upward. “Don’t think you’d be able to carry much more, Ron.”
“I could’ve,” Cleo chimed in, breezy. “Still can carry some of those packages on the way back, y’know.”
“I’ve got it,” he grumbled, not budging from his earlier convictions.
Cleo rolled her eyes, returning her attention to Thea. “Don’t get too comfy. I might start quizzing you on constellations.”
The girl snorted. “Child’s play.”
“How am I supposed to have any fun if I can’t even make you break a sweat?” Cleo teased. “So, little genius, can you tell me where Jupiter is?”
Without hesitation, Thea replied: “I can’t.”
“Hah--!”
“‘Cause Jupiter isn’t visible this time of night,” she interjected, cocksure. “Her orbit has her above the horizon in the early evening at this point of the year. We missed her.”
“You know a lot about it, for a first year,” Harry commented with a sidelong glance.
“I just really love space,” Thea admitted, sounding more enthralled than Cleo had ever heard.
“Glad you like it,” Weasley said to her, turning to lean on his side, “but me? I don’t see the appeal. It’s just loads of nothing and then some tiny lights so far away you can barely see them.”
Thea’s body turned in a motion so jilted and earnest that Cleo was afraid she’d topple over. “That’s not true at all! There’s so much substance to our universe, our galaxy, even our little solar system! It’s so massive that you can feel woozy just trying to wrap your head around it, not to mention how it just goes on infinitely, continually expanding since the very beginning of time itself--”
“Look at you, on about the beginning of time, and infinity,” he said, his tone laced with trepidation as he gazed up at the sky.
“Think Ron’s more suited to things like chess,” Harry saw fit to comment. “Where you can see all the pieces, know exactly where you stand.”
His friend grimaced. “Don’t make me sound like some daft muppet!”
Harry held up his hands in surrender, and the two of them seemed to achieve an unspoken understanding, since Weasley let go of his indignation a moment later.
“I don’t know,” Thea murmured, her attention going skyward once more. “I think… I honestly think that there’s no better way to know where you stand when you look up there and you realize that every little dot in the sky is a star system of its own, with its own planets orbiting about it, so numerous that you can’t even begin to count them and you just… know that you’re a small part of something vast and… and…”
“Unfathomable,” Cleo broke in with quiet reverence, her chin perched upon her knee as she observed the girl with the barest hint of a smile.
“Yeah,” Thea sighed, beaming as she cradled the back of her head with her hands. “Yeah.”
From his spot on the ground, Weasley shrugged, commenting, “Mmm… no. Still not my cuppa.”
“Shows what you know,” Thea replied, a bit snotty.
“Oi! Rude,” he shot back, though his tone entirely lacked any bite.
Thea wasn’t particularly bothered, her mind elsewhere. After a time, she shifted onto her heels, tugging her robes closer around her small frame. Then, with a furrowed brow, she remarked, “When I think about it, I get kind of jealous, I guess.”
“Of what?” Cleo asked.
“Missing the space race,” she answered. “Like, all the times we sent people to the moon and stuff.”
Weasley about choked. “What? Is that some kind of Muggle phrase I don’t know?” This question he directed at Harry, who shrugged.
“Not that I’ve heard of.”
“No, we actually sent people to the moon,” Cleo told him, tilting her head.
This seemed only to confuse the boy further. “Whatever for? ”
Thea clasped her hands behind her back. “Politics.”
The redhead squinted at her, forehead wrinkling. “So you expect me to believe there’s just some blokes mucking about on the moon right now, nice as you please?”
“They didn’t stay,” Thea replied, pursing her lips. “They returned a bunch of times, but only six of the Apollo missions involved landing and walking on the moon.”
Harry chimed in, then. “What’s politics got to do with it, then?”
The first year scratched her head, her sheepish smile breaking through the dusk. “So, after World War II, the Soviets and the Americans really loathed each other, and their fight got even worse when the Soviets launched this satellite called Sputnik. It was like… the first thing Muggles ever made that was sent into space. So, the Americans got scared, thinking the Soviets would be able to have a whole army up in space and--”
“Nope, can’t make heads or tails of anything you just said,” Weasley informed her, turning in the direction of Cleo and Harry as if pleading for help.
Taking pity on him, Harry said, “I mean, I don’t see how people going to the moon is such a shock to you, considering magical people do all sorts of impossible things every day.”
His friend’s nose scrunched as he replied, “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Most people aren’t used to magic,” Cleo told him, matter-of-fact. “I mean, it’s a commodity in the non-magical world. Magicians are practically celebrities, and they’re only utilizing illusionary tricks to pull off what they do. They can make a coin disappear from their hand, but you know that they’ve only moved it to somewhere you can’t see it. Wizards can actually disappear that coin. Lots of people would consider that impossible.”
“Muggles are a bit backwards, if you ask me,” Weasley saw fit to point out.
Harry shot the other boy a look. “You remember that Croft’s parents are Muggles, yeah?”
“I’m not saying--” He cut himself off as he sat up, grunting as he went. “All I meant was, it’s a mite off for Muggles to regularly swan off to the moon for teatime, but these ‘magicians’ still only pretend they have magic!”
“Well, I mean, what else can we do?” Cleo replied, her words riding on a chuckle. “I guess science is as close to magic as we can get, but--”
“You can do magic though, Cleo,” was Thea’s soft reply, her gaze at her rather pointed and bewildered.
Cleo’s lips slanted. “You know what I mean.”
“There’s plenty of Muggles who don’t really care about any of that stuff,” Harry remarked, chin resting atop his forearms. “The Dursleys never mentioned people going to the moon.”
“Well, they’re as backward as it gets,” Weasley countered, voice going hard.
Harry shrugged, expression suddenly gone odd. “At any rate, I guess we can assume there haven’t been any wizards to the moon, then?”
His friend shook his head. “Nope. Though I’m sure some crazy old hermit somewhere has wanted to try it out.”
“I want to do it,” Thea stated very confidently, glancing between the three of them. “So I’ll be the first witch in space.”
Weasley’s eyebrows raised, the corner of his mouth tugging upward. “Yeah?”
“Does Britain even have a space program?” Cleo asked, sitting up again.
“Yeah,” Thea murmured. “Not as big as America’s, but--” the girl paused, her head tilting upward.
“But?” Cleo prompted.
The girl stood there in a few silent moments of deliberation. “Hm,” she hummed, letting out a soft exhale from her nose. “I might have to move to America.”
“Ugh, don’t do that,” Weasley groaned.
“America’s not so bad,” Cleo said. “It’s where my mum is from.”
“Well, Percy was always on about--” He stopped talking, letting the rest of his air rush out of him.
Curious, she turned her gaze to Harry for an explanation, but he instead changed the subject. “I didn’t know your mum was American.”
She knew a hint when she saw one. Touchy subject. Right then. “Yeah. Born, raised, run aground there. When she needed a vast change of scenery, she ended up in England. She met my dad, and the rest is history.”
“Does she miss it?” he inquired.
Her stomach did a somersault. “Don’t think so,” she answered, a bit guarded. “I can’t be sure, though. Hard to know with her.”
“Hm.” Harry’s eyes drifted back toward the horizon. “I’ve never really been anywhere outside of Britain.”
By then, Weasley was recovered. “Egypt was nice and all, but I prefer it here honestly.”
“I get that,” Cleo agreed, wrapping her arms around her pulled up knees. “I’m a bit of a homebody, too.”
“Some of my family’s scattered about,” he replied, laying on his back once more. “Got a brother in Romania, even.”
“That’s far,” commented Thea, who had drifted down to the ground, her legs splayed out in front of her.
“Mum’s about bit her nails to the quick worrying when he’ll lose an arm or what have you,” Weasley snorted. Cleo and Thea shared a bemused look before he seemed to realize there was crucial context missing from his statement. “Oh-- he uh, works with dragons.”
“Well that’s certainly an occupation,” Cleo remarked, a bit taken aback. “So, how does one go about figuring out they want to work with dragons?”
“Not sure everything that went into it,” he admitted, scratching the side of his nose. “I know Dad took him to some kind of festival, and that's where he saw one for the first time, but... Charlie's seven years older, so he graduated Hogwarts just before I came in.”
“I always wished I had a brother or sister,” Thea chimed in, sounding wistful. Her voice held the thrum as if she had intended to say a great deal more, but her silence forced itself on her, lumbering and indelicate.
Cleo looked the girl over, quick to fill in the quiet: “Well, I’ll be your older sister, then.”
Thea rolled her eyes. “Oh jeez --”
“And as your older sister, my first act will be to ask you,” Cleo drew herself up with exaggerated prowess, “are you doing home schooling right now?”
The girl seemed slightly taken aback by this. “Uh, no.”
“Well, my little STEM sibling, you might want to get on that.”
Thea glanced down into her lap, pensive. “Oh. You know, I didn’t really think about that…”
Weasley snorted. “What, more school? Don’t have enough of it already?”
Cleo addressed him, calm. “Well, it becomes necessary when you…” She paused, redirecting her attention to the girl. “You want to be an astronaut, right? Or astrophysicist? Something like that?”
Thea’s nod was sharp.
“So, you’re going to need to keep up with your non-magical schooling,” Cleo informed her. “Like how I did -- spent my summers doing coursework from primary school to secondary.”
This was a bit much for the redhead. “School year-round? Are you mental?”
“Was it hard?” Thea asked, ignoring Weasley’s complaint.
“Sometimes, I suppose?” Cleo answered, head canted. “It can get overwhelming if you don’t keep to a strict schedule and skip assignments. For me, at least, it was relatively manageable.”
Thea appeared slightly put off by this. “I’m wretched at time management,” she complained.
“Well, that’s what I’m here for, isn’t it?” Cleo gingerly asserted, her smile sweeping across her face.
“What do you mean?”
Cleo leaned her torso against her legs. “Where do you live?”
“Southampton,” Thea answered, uncertain.
“Two hour train ride, not too bad,” Cleo mused. “I’d be happy to come help tutor you through the hard parts.”
Thea stared at her. “You’d do that for me?”
“I’ve been through it before,” Cleo explained. “I know how frustrating it can be. I’d be happy to help. I could even bring Gabriel, if you want to meet him and if it’s alright with your parents.”
A smile lit up the girl’s face. “Oh, yeah! That’d be fun. You don’t think he’d be bored, watching you help me study?”
Cleo’s shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I’d like to instill that boy with a proper admiration for learning.”
Thea giggled. “Like you?”
She smirked. “Of course.”
“Guess you’ll have the time for all that without Hogwarts clogging your schedule,” Weasley commented, his tone neutral as he stretched his shoulder again.
A jolt of unease shot up her spine as her head snapped to him. What on earth would possess him to say something like that?
Thea’s response was nothing more than a soft, bewildered laugh before she asked, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Weasley was horrendously tight lipped in light of that. And he had the gall to stare at her, completely dense. She could’ve throttled him.
“Cleo?” Thea urged, growing anxious from the pervasive silence.
She looked down, pressing her lips together.
The girl sat up straighter. “What does he mean by that, Cleo?”
Her pause was prolonged even further as she grappled with how to even begin addressing this. Her first word betrayed her completely. “Listen--”
“Oh my God,” the girl gasped, her voice strained.
Cleo leaned forward, frowning. “Thea--”
But by then, the girl had rose and begun stomping back in the direction of the Shrieking Shack. Cleo scrambled to her feet.
Now Weasley managed to find his voice, if only to thickly question, “What’s going on?”
“The fuck do you think?” Cleo snapped, brushing the grass stains off her skirt. “Good bloody work there, Weasley.”
He turned redder than his hair, his glare at the ready, although his retort was not exactly polished. “Sod off! I didn’t do anything!”
“Sure,” she shot back, virulent. Her steps carried her briskly in the direction that Thea had disappeared to, air burning in her lungs.
Maybe she was being unreasonable. Maybe there wasn’t any precedent for him to take a lion’s share of the blame. But all the same, this sucked.
She caught sight of a wisp of wiry hair just over a grassy knoll and hastened her steps, calling out into the darkness: “Thea, wait!”
She was met with silence, the girl’s steps continuing at a stalwart pace. Cleo sighed loudly.
“Thea, please.”
Nothing.
Then, just as she came into a slow trot at the first year’s side, she tried, “Thea, really. I’m so sorry.”
That invoked something in the girl, though not what Cleo expected. The girl’s expression bunched up, furious. “Do you even know what you’re sorry for? ”
“That I have to go,” Cleo attempted, her tone careful and mild. “I know it hurts. But it’s not as if you’ll never see me again, you know? I’m not going to shut you out--”
“You’re so--” Thea’s voice halted with a harsh, frustrated yelp. “You know you’re really dumb sometimes, right?”
Cleo allowed for that slight with a good humored smile, leaning down slightly in hopes to catch Thea’s gaze. “Yes, I do.”
“I’m not playing, ” Thea snapped, not having it. “Take me seriously, or don’t talk to me. I don’t want to be treated like a kid.”
“I’m not trying to patronize you.”
“Then what do you call not telling me?” the girl shoved her with this accusation, her breath hitching in her throat. “What do you call forcing me to hear it from some complete bloody stranger?”
“Disrespect,” Cleo offered. “I should have told you.”
“Yes, you should have,” Thea emphasized. “But you didn’t.”
“Would it matter if you knew why I didn’t?”
Thea’s legs picked up pace again as she spat, agitated, “No.”
Cleo’s long strides made it rather easy to keep up with her. “I was scared, Thea.”
“Scared,” the girl mocked, shoving her hands into her pockets.
“Yes, Thea, scared,” Cleo insisted. “I get scared sometimes, too.”
The girl stopped rather suddenly, making Cleo waver and stutter to a halt. “You’re an adult,” Thea pointed out rather coldly. “You don’t get to be scared.”
For the first time, Cleo felt herself dangerously close to losing her temper with the girl. “That’s completely unreasonable, Thea.”
“What’s unreasonable is what you’re doing!” the first year shouted.
“What am I doing?”
“Giving up!”
“It’s a bit more complicated than that. If anything, I thought that would be something you’d understand,” Cleo pointed out, perhaps a bit unfairly.
By Thea’s rapid shift in demeanor, Cleo could tell she didn’t appreciate it. Her shoulders tensed, face tightened, the pallor around her eyes and cheeks flushing a deep crimson. Cleo felt the guilt like a punch to the gut.
“Shit,” she whispered, harsh. “I’m sorry--”
“Stuff your apologies up your arse!” the girl exclaimed, her entire face straining as if she were attempting to hold back what Cleo could see was coming: Her eyes had gone glassy, and the redness had permeated toward her nose.
This was getting out of hand. Fast.
“That wasn’t good of me, I know,” Cleo attempted to smooth over. “But--”
“How can you think of me like that?” The girl fiercely interrupted, her voice stumbling so much that Cleo felt her heart sink. “Scared? Because of what? What would I do? Quibble and hate you and treat you like rubbish because I have to share you with your son? With your family? That I’m so selfish that I’d throw a tantrum? I bet this confirms it now, huh? All the bad things you thought of me? That kept you from telling me?”
“No,” Cleo said softly, tenderly, as she lowered herself to Thea’s height. “I didn’t--”
“Stand up!” Thea screamed, taking a step back. Her hands went up to the sides of her face, as if she felt the rush of something triumphant and frightening. “Stop doing that! I hate it!”
Cleo immediately stood up, her hands held up, contrite and pleading. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying sorry!” the girl shrieked. “Just stop doing this --” Thea’s face faded as she turned her back on Cleo, shoulders shaking with heavy breaths. Watching her, Cleo knew that this went far beyond what was happening now. She recognized it. The girl was torn between two places, fighting for balance.
All Cleo could do was stand there, waiting, watching her breathe. In a moment, the girl seemed to find herself again.
“Sorry.” Thea’s words were clipped, still drenched with the tears the girl clearly didn’t want her to see.
“Please don’t be,” Cleo entreated, unsure how to position herself. “I understand.”
“Do you,” the words collapsed from her, deadpan.
Attempting another track, Cleo rounded the girl from the side, frowning. “If something else is going on,” she began, mild and reassuring, “you can talk to me.”
Thea’s head turned away from her in what appeared to be instinct. Her answer was nothing but a redirection. “So that’s it, then?”
“I know you think I’m giving up, Thea, but--”
“You are giving up,” she insisted, her words honey-thick, swollen with implication.
“I realized that what I want and what’s good for my family are two entirely separate things.”
“What’s good for your family?” Thea questioned, still staunchly refusing to look at her.
“Being absent from my son’s life isn’t good for him,” Cleo explained, growing emotional herself. She paused and cleared her throat before continuing. “I have to be his mother. If that means attending university in the non-magical world and comporting myself there, then I’ll do it.”
“Won’t you have to be away for uni, too?” Thea challenged. “Aberdeen is in Scotland, too.”
“I can bring him with me--”
“And live where?” the girl questioned, rapid fire. “Where will you get work? How are you going to balance doing school, being a mum, and working? What about--”
“Thea,” Cleo broke in. “I’ll figure it out. I’m hardly the first single mother to manage such a thing. And I’m not alone. I have help.”
“You just don’t want to be here,” Thea accused.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Cleo shot back, agitated.
It was then that Thea turned to face her, red faced and teary, earnest in a way that made Cleo feel uneasy. “You deserve to be here. You know that, right?”
Cleo was at a loss for words. She struggled, watching as the girl’s eyes peered into hers, beseeching. Unsettled, Cleo’s arms barricaded her chest, a gesture so ridiculous and defensive that she scowled. Defend herself from what? This child? “Thea...” she waffled, grimacing. “Of course I do.”
“Do you?” the girl underlined, sounding skeptical. “Because I wonder sometimes. You never act like it. It’s almost like you believe them.”
“Them?” she found herself questioning rather uselessly. It wasn’t hard to work out what the first year meant.
“Being here means something,” Thea told her. “And if you can’t do it then… What does that say--” Thea hesitated. Her eyes slipped to the ground. “What does that mean for--”
“It’s not--” Cleo stammered, feeling her fingers fidget against her arm. “Thea, it has nothing to do with that.”
“Then don’t give up,” Thea begged, stepping forward to grasp Cleo’s taut forearms. “Please.”
Here it was. Thea’s last ditch effort. Her heartfelt plea. The one that she, no doubt, imagined would break through and make Cleo see reason. That would make Cleo realize that she was running away. That she had to be brave. It reminded Cleo of when they first met; the depth between them so vast that she couldn’t help but observe Thea’s conduct still held a twinge of the cinematic.
Though, perhaps that was cruel to think. Perhaps the girl was right; Cleo didn’t show she took her seriously.
So, she had to try, didn’t she? Address her with a modicum of respect, reason with her like an adult?
This time, it wasn’t a word that betrayed her. Just the tone and distance of her voice. “Thea--”
The girl released her and stepped away, her expression hardening. “Nope.”
Cleo’s arms dropped to her sides, her frown growing prominent as she watched as the first year began to walk away again. “Listen to me--”
“I heard you,” Thea called back.
“I don’t think you did.”
“I heard you,” Thea repeated, her steps not slowing. “We disagree. Let me be mad.”
Cleo began her pace anew, staring at the back of the girl’s head. “We’re not leaving it here.”
“You can’t fix this!” Thea shouted, turning to face her fully.
“I should have talked to you -- weeks ago. So let’s talk. Really talk. And I won’t--”
“Stop trying to manage me!”
The girl’s shriek pierced the gloom, so sudden and fierce that it forced Cleo’s silence. They stood there at an impasse, the quiet filling in the gap, punctuated by the distant, muffled sound of Thea’s heaving breaths.
Then, when the tension had its fill of their deadlock, the girl straightened herself, looking Cleo dead in the eye.
“Let me be mad,” the small of her voice somehow managed to climb outward and reach her with a strength Cleo could hardly fathom. “Okay?”
Something clicked. Her head jerked into a nod. “Okay.”
And the girl, tight mouthed and tense, marched away, cloaked by the dark and crowned by the stars.
“Erm… Miss… Croft, was it? Did you have a moment?”
Was this going to be a thing, now? Being accosted by Gryffindors after Charms? Hermione Granger stood in the aisle, hands placed primly behind her back, strands of hair escaping from the clip at the side of her head, and an overflowing bag of books slung over her shoulder. Cleo turned to her, eyebrow raised. “Sure. What did you need?”
“I don’t think we’ve ever met properly,” the girl said, her tone frank, but polite. “Hermione Granger.” Her hand jutted out in front of her.
Cleo looked at it momentarily before reaching forward to shake it. “Right, I know who you are,” she returned. “You’re in a lot of my classes. Couldn’t miss you.”
Granger’s chin lifted, but it seemed more a thoughtless act of self-collection than anything. “Let me be clear: I come to speak to you as Harry’s friend, not as a Prefect or the top of our class.”
She certainly had moxie, there was no doubt about that. “Right.”
The girl placed her school bag on a nearby chair, clasping her hands before her in a neat, no-nonsense stance. “First off, I feel it pertinent to apologize for my friend’s behavior earlier this week. Harry told me about how…” Her face scrunched momentarily as she searched out an appropriate word. “... reprehensible his conduct toward you was.”
“You don’t have to,” Cleo assured. “I understand where he’s coming from.”
This caught Granger off-guard. “That’s…” She frowned. “Well I don’t see how. You needn’t excuse him.”
“Gryffindor bravado is pretty easy to see through,” Cleo explained. “He’s very protective of Harry. I get it.”
“Be that as it may,” came her reply, her tone one of patience and formality. “I hope you understand that his behavior is not indicative of Gryffindor as a whole.”
“Just like Malfoy and his ilk’s behavior aren’t indicative of Slytherin as a whole?” Cleo parroted back.
Granger didn’t seem to have a ready answer to that, her gaze fixing in a far off corner of the room as her lips twisted in a manner that resembled a nervous tick. Gathering her thoughts, perhaps.
The silence dragged a touch too long than was comfortable for Cleo. “Presumably you had something you wanted to ask me?” she softly inquired.
“Yes-- sorry,” she rallied, adjusting her stance. “To, er… preface … the boys told me you all went to Hogsmeade yesterday.”
“Ah,” Cleo sighed. “Right. I imagine they weren’t pleased with my outburst.”
The bushy-haired girl gave her a quizzical look. “Um, I can’t really say, since they didn’t mention anything of that sort.”
“Oh, then--” Cleo frowned, nonplussed. “What about the trip, exactly?”
“Well. Ron’s made a habit of skiving off, so it was hardly surprising for him not to be around, but Harry?” The girl drew in a breath. “When I didn’t see him at lunch, I thought he might have been caught up by something. And when he didn’t come to Charms -- and Ron wasn’t there either -- I was quite upset with them both, going off somewhere together and shirking their responsibilities. I was going to give them an earful at dinner… but they never came. And by that time I’d started to worry.”
“About?”
“About the fact that it was half seven, and no one had seen Harry at all since nine,” Granger informed her, grave. “I asked around some of our housemates, his Quidditch teammates… Even our friends in other Houses admitted that they hadn’t spotted him anywhere. I skipped my study group to look around the usual places, even visiting Hagrid to see if the boys had come to call--”
“I understand,” Cleo broke into her long winded explanation, holding her hands up. “So, what do you want to say to me about it?”
At this, the girl’s tone became a touch more heated. “You say you understand, but I don’t think you do,” she stated. “And how can you? It’s difficult for even his closest friends to truly understand how precarious his situation is. When it reached twelve hours that I hadn’t seen or heard from them, I was forced to report his absence to Professor Dumbledore, who alerted all the teachers to search the castle and grounds.”
Near flabbergasted, Cleo didn’t have much time to consider her outburst until after it fumbled out of her: “Don’t you think that was a bit of an overreaction?”
By Granger’s expression alone, Cleo realized that this was, most definitely, the wrong thing to say. “An overreaction?!” she echoed, each syllable pronounced with sharp clarity. “Harry has nearly been killed every single year he’s been at Hogwarts!”
“Is everything all right, ladies?” Flitwick’s squeak traversed the room from where he sat at the podium, balanced on his usual stack of books. The classroom had completely emptied out by then.
Cleo looked over the girl before her once, careful, before addressing him. “Yes, Professor. Would you care for us to clear out?”
The little bobbin of a man looked between the two of him, prominent brow furrowed. “If you wouldn’t mind,” he said, polite but firm. “I have a class within the hour.”
Granger visibly reigned in her anger, her shoulders twitching downwards with her every revitalizing breath. “Of course, Professor,” she intoned, her voice remarkably even. She cast a glance at the man over her shoulder as she took hold of her bag. “Sorry to trouble you.”
There permeated between them a troubling air as they trudged into the hallway, Granger’s indignation hanging about her still. Granger was walking so quickly that she thought the girl would simply continue down the hall, cutting their communication short. Instead, she overtook Cleo’s pace in order to round on her, the motion so severe that her hair went a little wild. “I know you weren’t here, so you can’t possibly know what it was like the last time Harry disappeared,” Granger prefaced, her anger evident. “He was only gone for an hour-- one hour -- but when, by some miracle, he returned, it was alongside a dead body.”
Cleo wasn’t sure what she could possibly say in response to that, harrowing a statement as it was. She couldn’t ascertain what she was supposed to do with that information either, other than possibly pity the boy further. With a frown, Cleo attempted to dive to the point: “Would you like for me to apologize?”
The girl’s arms folded; her answer ended up being another question. “Harry told me you have non-magic parents. Is that right?”
“Yes I do.”
“Then you’ll understand what I mean when I say-- Being close to Harry is a bit like shutting yourself in the trunk of a car, except you have no idea who is driving or where you are going at all.”
“Being close?” Cleo inquired, eyebrow raising.
Granger sighed. “To put it plainly, I don’t know what your intentions are, but Harry seems to have taken a liking to you. And the more time you spend around him, the more dangerous your situation will become.”
“I think you’re overstating the case,” Cleo objected. “We’re not friends, he certainly isn’t fond of me, and I’m only trying to help him figure out a way to get through Potions without Snape giving him such a hard time--”
“Funny you should mention him,” the girl commented, placing a hand on her hip, “since Harry went to some lengths to ensure that Snape not be told that you were involved in his disappearance yesterday. Said you had to present a proposal to him, and Harry didn’t want you to be punished on his behalf.”
… Shit. Shit.
Her hand went to hold the side of her face as she stared down at the floor, gobsmacked. “That kid…” she murmured, brow furrowing. Shit. It hadn’t even been his idea. “He didn’t have to do that--”
“-- But he did, and that’s rather the point, isn’t it?”
Cleo’s head shook. “I won’t do it again,” she vowed. “Get him in trouble like that.”
Granger raised her eyebrows. “Let’s hope not. But honestly? I think you shouldn’t be around him at all.”
“I understand you think I’m a bad influence--”
“No,” she replied. “I’m saying this because the moment someone calls Harry a friend, they become a target.”
“I’m already a target,” Cleo countered, frowning. She gestured between them. “We’re already targets.”
The girl pursed her lips, disapproving. “Fine, but do you seriously want to put yourself in a worse situation than you already are?”
“What could possibly be worse?” she asked, head canting. “I’m marginalized, regardless who I associate with. Either I’m killed because I’m a Mudblood, or I’m killed because I’m a Mudblood who knows Harry Potter. At that juncture, the distinction doesn’t account for much.”
Granger’s expression was both skeptical and watchful. “Interesting opinion, coming from a Slytherin.”
“I thought we decided generalizations aren’t helpful?”
She waved a hand. “I’ve known plenty of Slytherins who weren’t categorically evil bigots,” the girl divulged, “but the majority still refuse to acknowledge the reality of an impending Second Wizarding War.”
“I think it’s hard for children to grasp that notion in general,” Cleo contended. “Especially privileged ones.”
“They ignore the suffering of others to preserve their worldview,” Granger said, voice hard. “It’s Fudge all over again. How many more books need to be burned for them to take notice? How many more Muggleborns have to die to compel them out of their cowardice?”
“This is why you don’t depend solely on the fleeting empathy of allies,” Cleo disclosed, shrugging. “You focus your time and effort forming a coalition with those who struggle alongside you. This is what we build communities around.”
Granger took in a breath, her fingers tightening around the strap of her bag. “Well…” Here she paused, looking Cleo up and down before she continued. “That’s exactly what I’m already doing.”
“That’s great,” Cleo said, resting her head against the wall.
“And you?”
“I never claimed I was even remotely useful.”
She found herself on the receiving end of a condescending stare. “Well, why not? This fight involves you as much as anyone else.”
“No specific reason,” Cleo admitted. “Rarely has Hogwarts allowed an avenue for politics, much less in a way that was safe for people like us.”
“The days of Hogwarts’s blissful neutrality are over,” Granger informed her, brimming with confidence. “I intend to make sure of it.”
“How, exactly?”
“I’ve created a new organization, targeting the injustices inherent to those of us born without magical parents.” She tucked a few strands of wayward hair behind her ear, standing straighter. “All I need are voices who want to be heard.”
She certainly seemed confident, that was for sure. “Have you done something like this before?”
“Yes,” she said, though with a slanted delivery. “And also… no. I created an activist organization last year, but I received some… backlash from certain small-minded individuals.”
“Backlash?”
With a short sigh, she expanded, “I founded the Society for Promotion of Elfish Welfare, which was meant to combat the forced enslavement of house elves, but wizards think that because the elves are happy with their lives, that it’s okay, what they’re doing to them.”
“Well define ‘happy’,” Cleo objected, suddenly heated. “Because every time I’ve interacted with a house elf, they’re always in a state of panic and agitation--”
“Exactly! ” Granger let out, invigorated. “That’s what I’ve always said, but here’s Ron on about how they don’t want help so I ought to give it up--!”
“What do they expect them to act like? We’re talking about generational abuse, for God’s sake--”
“-- Not to mention the long history of internalized inadequacy, and their near fanatical devotion to their ‘masters’, where even the slightest deviation prompts self-harm as a cultural necessity-- ”
“-- as if this isn’t something that’s been conditioned? Like, what? Just because one has been abused to the point where they’re content with their slavery, we’re not allowed to call it an absolute evil--?”
“-- which it is, honestly, with these creatures being stripped of their identities, separated entirely from whatever natural habitat they previously thrived in, to the point where the origins and heritage of house elves have been lost to time and indifference--”
“-- and we’re just supposed to act as if that’s an acceptable consequence? As if these hierarchies aren’t completely imposed and are instead the result of natural order? That anyone who questions that is inherently unreasonable--?”
“-- what’s unreasonable is for wizards to assume that elves don’t want freedom when they hardly even know what that looks like--”
“-- Well, what can they expect, when the concept of freedom comes hand in hand with the threat of bodily harm? With death? Like, what, because there hasn't been a successful House Elf led liberation front due to continuous subjugation, the obvious conclusion is that they're happy with their lot? That, if given the free choice, they'd want to stay enslaved and abused?”
“Did you know--” Granger huffed, obviously forgetting to breathe during their heated, intermingled diatribe. “Did you know, it’s common practice for old Wizarding households to mount the heads of their previous house elves?”
“What? ” Cleo expelled in a harsh breath, scandalized. “You can’t be serious?”
“I am! I’ve seen it with my own eyes; it’s absolutely disgusting,” she told her, expression pained. “And this isn’t just something in the past, it’s now -- Wizards act as if it’s completely normal!”
Cleo's brow crinkled as she grimaced. "Jesus--"
“And, I mean, most people react like Harry when you bring it up,” Granger continued. “They think it’s only ‘bad’ people who do this. And-- I mean, Hogwarts has elves, but they don’t-- you know. Behead them. So they figure it’s alright so long as you give them a good home, where they aren’t outright abused.”
Cleo's lips turned slightly into a frown. "Which is, you know--"
“Horrid?” she finished for her.
"Ignorant," Cleo put in. "But, yes, also horrid."
“Absolutely. But it’s hard to get people to understand, or care, really. House elves are also a measure of status, so most ordinary wizards hardly see one the whole of their lives.”
“And your friends… they were really against this?” Cleo questioned, her arms dropping to her sides.
Granger frowned. “I mean… Harry’s mostly got quite a bit already on his mind. Can’t blame him for focusing on the war first. And Ron, erm. Think he just disliked my methods.”
“Your methods,” she repeated. “What about them were disagreeable?”
The girl sighed, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. “You may think it silly, but I knitted the elves hats and scarves, and left them about the common room.”
Hm. It was weird to admit, but Weasley might have had a point. It wasn’t the best strategy. “You need to come at it from the angle of providing them a safety net. Liberation is more than freedom -- it’s having the means to support the liberated. The house elves would need resources. A place to stay that’s safe. A means to rehabilitate their psychological state. Stuff like that. That way they’re not left to flounder when the panic sets in after they’re given freedom with no clue what to do with it. Alone, no less.” Her lips twisted. "As well, it's better to get them involved with the movement. You're not a savior, right? You aren't meant to be a liberator -- it's a movement. You have to treat House Elves with that modicum of respect -- to know that they're intelligent and that they understand how they are oppressed, and require the tools and the assistance to do something about it. Leaving them out of it, bamboozling them with their freedom, it doesn't empower them at all. Which should be the point, right? But instead, it simply places them in a similarly uncomfortable position. Their freedom, their movement for their civil rights, their liberation -- it's something they have to be the face of; something they lead, on their terms, with you standing by them as an ally to use whatever power you have to help them achieve their goals."
Granger blinked, looking at Cleo as if she had two heads. “You… came up with all that just now? In about half a minute?”
“I’m repeating things I’ve heard from vastly smarter people on similar subjects,” she corrected her.
“Well, I’ve read that sort of thing before too,” she mentioned. “I just didn’t think to apply it to this.”
“Outside perspective helps, I suppose.”
“But… you don’t think I’m mad?” Granger questioned, puzzled. “For wanting to free them when they don’t want to be free?”
“I think you understand the concept of the greater good,” Cleo told her. “And that, were the house elves in a better state of mind, were they healthy and not at the whims of abuse, they’d crave their freedom as well.”
The other girl was quiet for a moment, in contemplation. Then, nodding absentmindedly, as if having come to an agreement with herself, she addressed Cleo once more. “You should join my new organization,” she brazenly announced.
Taken aback at the abrupt nature of the invitation, Cleo frowned. “I would,” she prefaced, glancing away. “But--”
“No ‘buts’,” Granger interrupted her. “If you know the danger to Muggleborns, and you have some worthwhile ideas about how to lessen the suffering we all have to endure, then what’s stopping you?”
“The fact I might be withdrawing from the school soon,” Cleo informed her, point-blank.
At that, the girl let out a disbelieving chuckle. “What do you mean? It’s not even mid-term!”
“Yes, well, my educational plan was contingent on specific factors,” Cleo expounded. “I have a chance to secure the spot I need to continue forward, but if I fail, I’m returning home.”
“And what spot is that?”
“An advisory position under Professor Snape.”
She could see the moment the realization hit the girl. “Ah, the meeting Harry didn’t want to sabotage.”
Cleo visibly winced. “Yes, that one.”
There was a shrewd glint to Granger’s eye as she posed her next question. “So, you’re hinging your entire magical career on whether or not you impress Snape? Isn’t that a bit…?”
“Over the top?” Cleo filled in for her, casual. “Maybe. But there are factors outside the school I have to consider.”
“Your family, right?” the girl assumed. “But you must know that the more you contribute to better conditions here, the more your family will benefit from it.”
Cleo shook her head. “My son doesn’t. This decision to continue my magical education -- this was for me. I had other avenues of making a life for myself that didn’t involve abandoning my kid for the greater portion of two years. Hogwarts was my last shot of doing something important to me.” Her chest felt painfully tight. It was weird, how much she told this absolute stranger. Yet the words flowed from her, effortless… Perhaps because she had no other means to purge them. “One last act of selfishness, I guess.”
Granger’s answering look was troubled. “You talk as if it’s a foregone conclusion,” she observed quietly. “Have you already had the meeting with Snape, then?”
“This evening,” she admitted, crestfallen. “And I don’t have anything.”
“Oh.” The girl frowned. “I see.”
A solemn expression overcame Cleo’s features as she looked Granger over again. “So, y’know. It is what it is.”
“Is it?” Granger inquired, those two words sounding like a challenge. “Because it seems to me like this is less an act of fate, and more an act of self-defeat.”
“It’s hard to motivate when you begin to forget the reasons why something that mattered to you was important in the first place.”
“Well then,” the girl said, no-nonsense. “Let’s start at the beginning, and try to remember.”
“Don’t you have better things to do?” Cleo questioned, skeptical.
“No,” she declared in a manner that indicated that she was actually meant to be elsewhere. Granger was a horrible liar, but her next words were quite earnest. “I think my time is better spent here.”
“If I’m honest with you,” Cleo broached, peering at the girl suspiciously, “I haven’t really the slightest idea why you think that.”
Granger’s expression grew curious. “Well… I suppose you have your principles, and I have mine.”
“I distinctly remember this conversation starting with a drastically different tone,” she pointed out, albeit good humored.
Her lips curled in a small smile. “Let’s just say, any friend to the house elves is a friend of mine.”
Cleo doubted it was that simple. But, looking a gift horse in the mouth and all. “Well…” she muttered, shifting on the wall. “I’m not sure where to start with this conversation, anyway.”
“Seeing as you’re soliciting Professor Snape, can I assume you want to specialize in Potions?”
“For the most part, yes,” Cleo answered. “The ultimate goal is mediwizardry, where a recommendation from an accomplished and renowned Potions Master like Severus Snape can get you far.”
“Okay,” Granger mumbled, thinking, “so what project did you need his advising for?”
“That’s basically the problem,” Cleo broached, timid. “My ‘plans’ were much too broad. Nothing that can be accomplished within the next couple of school years.”
“Well, I mean, you could just develop a potion, right?”
“Not likely,” Cleo scoffed. “That sort of thing is reserved for… I don’t know, geniuses with an unlimited well of creativity to tap into.”
“I wouldn’t say unlimited,” Granger argued. “We’re talking about one potion, not the Fountain of Youth.”
“Still, it takes an amount of ingenuity I don’t possess.”
“I don’t believe that,” the girl said, setting a hand on her hip. “All you need is one little idea, and -- my mum always says ideas are like seeds. You plant them, care for them, watch them grow… and eventually, they’ll bear fragrance, fruit, or frippery.” Her smile caught the very end of the phrase.
It was contagious, she supposed, since Cleo found herself smiling too. “Maybe,” she mused. “I mean -- my goal… my dream, I guess, is to bring the practice of gynecology and obstetrics to the Wizarding World. So… whatever potion I would engineer should revolve around that.”
“Oh!” Granger’s face lit up. “That’s brilliant, actually! It’s such a broad subject, but I’ve read a lot about Wizarding Britain’s startling infant mortality rate, the lack of practical knowledge, the societal taboos surrounding childbearing in general--”
“Bit of an autodidact, aren’t you?” Cleo broke in, good natured.
The girl looked simultaneously proud and bashful. “I just like to read, is all,” she provided, brushing hair away from her eyes.
“I'm not judging,” Cleo assured her.
“Anyway, enough about me. Uhm… Let’s see, ideas…” Granger frowned, gaze scanning the ground. “Hm. What about menstrual health? Something to-- well, I suppose wizards have pain-reducing potions already…”
Her brow furrowed quite severely with the force of her effort. “Eh… Perhaps something similar to birth control? In Potion form?”
Cleo twisted her lips, pensive. “I suppose that would be easy enough -- find a formulation and group of ingredients that would keep the levels of progesterone and estrogen high but… I don’t know if something like that would impress Snape or not. He’s not much for ‘simple’.”
“You're probably right,” Granger conceded. “So, something a bit flashier. Any disorders that affect pregnant women only?”
“Preeclampsia,” Cleo blurted out, automatic. Her own doubts caught up with her quickly, as she qualified, “A bit tricky, though.”
The other girl clasped her hands together. “Tricky?”
“Muggles haven’t cured it either,” she explained. “So, it’d be an undertaking.”
This took the girl aback. “Really? Do they know what causes it?”
“No.” Cleo shook her head. “They just know what the signs are before eclampsia hits.”
“Hence the ‘pre’ bit,” Granger surmised. “So, if you were to develop a potion for this, you’d be combating something mysterious. Lots of testing involved, I imagine.”
“Clinical trials would be more than difficult,” she admitted, sighing. “I’d still need to have a Muggle medical background in order to be able to accurately diagnose any witch that could possibly have it, so… this would be an incredibly long term project. Years. Decades, even.”
“Well, I should think so,” the girl replied, loosely folding her arms before her. “Developmental potion research very often is the work of years. I mean-- just look at the Wolfsbane Potion. Twenty-four years it took, though perhaps the length of it was because it was independently funded -- not to mention secretive… ”
“Comforting,” Cleo intoned, rubbing the back of her neck, before a self-effacing laugh spilled from her lungs.
Granger’s frown was anxious. “That’s-- that’s not to say it isn’t possible,” she hurried to say. “I mean, just think about it: Professor Snape’s gone out of his way to teach us why potions work, instead of just having us copy recipes directly. Though, uhm… Did you ever have those essays he assigned, about primary, secondary, and tertiary ingredient trees?”
Cleo’s expression screwed up, as if to say of course I have, but there was no way for the girl to know that, was there? Tamping down her attitude, she forced a smile. “Yes, I did.”
“Oh, good,” the girl remarked, so unfazed that she must not have noticed, “But I mean, it’s all about finding a good base, and then stemming new abilities or fixing the shortcomings of the primary ingredient, right? So, you know, if you were to begin making a potion of this nature, what do you suppose your primary ingredient might be?”
“Off the top of my head?” she questioned, pensive. Her next words flowed from her, stream of conscious: “Well… Preeclampsia’s biggest indicator is high blood pressure… probably. It’s where they start, anyway. And if you start there, I suppose you have to…”
She bit her lip. Well, there was one answer she knew of, at the risk of sounding ridiculous.
“Aconite,” she pronounced, looking Granger in the eye again.
The other girl’s gaze was curious as she turned her head, considering. “Aconite?”
“It’s used in Wolfsbane,” Cleo pointed out. “And I don’t believe it’s for that whole ‘poisoning the wolf’ reason. Too nebulous and romantic. ”
Granger shrugged. “Hard to say; I’m not sure exactly how that potion’s formulation works out, even after studying it. Funny thing about aconite, though-- Did you know it’s got a heap of nicknames, including ‘women’s bane’?”
“I didn’t.”
“Wizards evidently ascribe to the ancient belief that women are more susceptible to the poison,” she remarked, the corner of her mouth quirking.
Cleo pursed her lips. “Strange. Was there any real basis for this observation, or…?”
“There is a basis, but it’s up for interpretation how ‘real’ that basis is,” Granger said. “Those notions were founded on mythological principles. There’s even an origin story for aconite that suggests that ‘rock-flowers’ were created from errant foam which came out of Cerberus’ mouths as it was dragged from the underworld.”
“As much as I would really love to unpack that,” Cleo stated, sounding genuinely regretful. “We’re venturing a bit from the point.”
“Oh-- right, sorry--” The girl frowned.
“Don’t be,” Cleo assured her. “Really. It’s interesting. Just--” She hesitated, brow furrowing before she shook her head. “I know Aconite has properties that lower blood pressure. There are Muggles that even use it in diluted doses as an alternative form of medication. But even outside the problem of clinical trials, I can’t be certain that any secondary or tertiary ingredients could alter aconite’s properties enough to be efficacious. I’m working off a guess, as well. High blood pressure is a strong indicator, but it’s not a cause. That could be anything. It’s like trying to chase a ghost.”
Granger sighed. “Where does that leave you, then?”
Cleo tossed her head side to side, thoughtful, before she lifted her shoulders in an expression of nonchalance. “Where I hedge my bets and do a contraception potion.”
“Do you suppose that will be enough? For Professor Snape, I mean?”
“No one appears to have done it, or attempted to,” Cleo reasoned. “So I imagine it’s at least something.”
“How long have you got until you have to present it?” Granger asked.
At that, Cleo burst into laughter. “What time is it?”
Perplexed, the girl replied slowly, “Half three, maybe a bit later?”
“Three and a half hours, then.”
“So.” There was an uncertainty to her tone. “I mean, if you want, I could help you put a plan together? You know, before.”
“You don’t have class?”
There was a bit of pain in her expression as she said, “If it will enable you to join E.A.R.W.I.G., then I suppose it’s worth missing some History of Magic.”
Cleo squinted. “Earwig?”
The clangor of students passing by their spot -- the noise of shuffling feet, loud conversation, and girlish titters -- interrupted them momentarily. Granger’s brows lowered as she looked on, impatience and distaste in her expression, clearly unwilling to wait for them to clear out before saying what she had to say.
“It’s my new organization,” Granger explained, voice raised and head held high. “The Equal Academic Representation in Wizarding Institutions Group.”
Cleo, on the other hand, did wait until the last student filed into the Charms classroom to reply. “That’s cute, actually. But, uhm. Don’t worry about bribing me. It’s something I’d join anyway. Go to your class.”
The girl gave her a strange look. “It’s not a bribe.” She seemed put-off by the implication. “It’s just… People like you are exactly what my organization is for, isn’t it? How could I call myself its leader if I didn’t help you?”
“People like us,” Cleo emphasized, pulling her book bag strap higher on her shoulder, “are equally understanding that other things take priority sometimes. You’ve made it clear how you feel about skiving off class. I’ll be fine; I’ll do my due diligence. You’ll have your member.”
Granger fretted. “Are you sure? I really don’t mind.”
“More than sure,” Cleo promised. “Really. You’ve been a huge help, Miss Granger.”
“Hermione,” the girl corrected her, calmly shifting a tuft of her hair behind her shoulder.
Her head sunk into a slight nod as she stepped away from the wall. “Cleo.”
Hermione’s answering smile was warm. “Good luck, Cleo.”
The laugh she expressed was half hearted and nervous as she began to walk away, announcing over her shoulder. “Going to need it, Hermione.”
Snape’s office door was open when she arrived, but, from the voices emanating from inside, it seemed he was with someone else. Hesitating, and wondering if she should wait outside the classroom itself, Cleo’s ears caught on a familiar, unpleasant voice.
“It was Urquhart’s fault!” Malfoy was insisting, his voice raised near to hysteria. “Ask anyone there, and they’ll tell you! He attacked me! ”
“Do you think me a fool, Draco?” Snape replied, voice smooth. “Three fights in as many weeks? A dozen since school began? Each of them sending you to the Hospital Wing? You are barely standing even now.”
“Please, sir, I need the nights off.”
“Do you.” He sounded unconvinced.
“Yes,” Malfoy insisted.
There was a silence, one Cleo recognized intimately. Especially when the boy’s hesitant voice broke through to say, “I do, Severus! To--” He paused. “To do homework! ”
“Your hesitation suggests otherwise.”
“It’s my N.E.W.T. year!” The boy doubled down. “You can’t expect me to do well, and then cut into my study time--”
“I rather think it’s your frequent trips to the Hospital Wing which are ‘cutting into your study time’,” the professor echoed back, derisive.
Malfoy’s voice cracked when he burst out with, “I’ve been feeling ill constantly, Severus! Every day, these horrid pains in my chest and-- and sometimes I feel like I can’t even breathe-- !”
Snape’s reply was deeply unsympathetic. “Perhaps you should have thought of that before causing a scene. Or several of them, as the case may be. How is it you expect to procure anyone’s good will with outlandish behavior like this?”
“I don’t care what anyone thinks!” the boy spat, breathing heavily. “I just can’t have detention! I can’t! ”
There was an audible scoff before the professor dismissed, “Yes, you have made your objection on that point patently clear.”
“Then perhaps you could consider listening to me!”
“I believe that is what I am presently doing.”
“Could have fooled me,” Malfoy sneered. “Considering your predisposition to be unrelentingly obstinate, Severus--!”
“Professor,” he snapped. “You have taken quite enough liberties already.”
“Professor,” the boy corrected himself, sneering.
He must have been satisfied enough with that, since he continued, “If you are this adamant to evade detention, perhaps you should supply an acceptable reason.”
Malfoy huffed a strangled laugh. “Oh, now you care to know? Fascinating.”
“Draco…” His tone was barely patient, edged with malice.
“Either help me or not!” Malfoy demanded, and Cleo could see the back of his blond head protruding through the open door. “I don’t even know why I’m asking, since you’re a heartless traitor-- ”
“If you think I can be guilted, you are sorely mistaken,” Snape declared, firm. “You will serve your detentions with grace, or further consequences--”
“Grace?! ” There was a harsh bang, as if Malfoy had kicked something. “Don’t you dare threaten me--!”
“You are dismissed,” the professor cut him off abruptly. “Send Miss Croft in on your way out.”
Shit. Was he serious? Malfoy’s form came careening through the office threshold, his glare pinpointing her with weaponized hatred. “You,” he seethed, disdain written in every line of his face. However, in addition to his contempt, there were also signs of disarray which were not so familiar. His chest rose and fell rapidly, and she could see that he was even more pale than usual, a sheen of sweat laid across his forehead.
Still, she had no compassion to muster for the boy, especially when he continued speaking. “Eavesdropping, is it now, Croft? Didn’t your filthy mother teach you manners?”
It didn’t seem wise to rile him up. “I wasn’t--”
Snape’s voice, and his physical presence at the door, interrupted. “I will not have my time wasted.”
She stood aside, waiting for the boy to pass her. Incensed, Malfoy kept his eye trained on her as he moved. Just as he reached parallel with her, he jabbed his shoulder into her side, knocking her off balance and against the potions worktable. Then, before she could react, he was gone, the classroom door falling closed behind him.
It was pointless, but she couldn’t help herself; she frowned at Snape, gesturing to the closed door behind her. “What was that?”
“A petulant child whose theatrics have grown tiresome,” he replied, expression frozen in annoyance as he leaned against the door frame leading to his office.
“Why did you bring his attention to me like that?” she questioned, feeling rather irritated herself.
Snape eyed her, evidently not appreciating her tone. “I assumed you would prefer he not take up resources which were allotted to you. I do not have unlimited time to bandy about.”
“I would prefer not to have someone that unstable directing his energy and attention at me!”
He offered a disdainful sniff. “Intriguing sentiment from someone who has been drawing substantial attention of late.”
"There’s a distinct difference between me getting in trouble and me being in the crosshairs of some reactionary,” Cleo argued, no-nonsense.
“It is not trouble to which I am referring, though that could very well be where you end up.”
Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “You can’t seriously think I was part of that protest.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I do recall your name being mentioned rather prominently.”
“You weren’t even there,” she emphasized, scowling. “I was a symbol, nothing more. Same with Potter. Unless it’s to be believed that I’m actually the one, solitary person mistreated most by Dumbledore?” She could think of fifty students that fit that description better than she.
Unfazed, he looked down his nose at her. “The point, which seems to have soared over your head, is that despite my not being present, I somehow managed to catch wind that you were.”
“Oh Jesus,” she spat, disgusted. “Can you just act like a decent human being for once--”
“Miss Croft,” he warned, eyes narrowing.
The implication which came after was clear as day; her mind couldn’t help but amble to Trelawney. Snape was drawing a line here. She had to respect it.
Reigning herself in, Cleo ventured, “It makes me uncomfortable when you force me into a confrontation with the the son of a violent, convicted Neo-Nazi. I’m just asking you don’t. Please.”
Snape sighed through his nose, gaze drifting across the empty classroom before settling on her with a mild glare. “Very well,” he relented, folding his arms. “I shall endeavor to direct Mr. Malfoy’s foul attitude elsewhere.”
“Thank you.”
Snape fixed her with a look. “I imagine your purpose in being here is to say something a great deal more substantial.”
It was difficult to shake the unease she felt at the previous encounter, but she forced herself to take a few further strides towards him before announcing: “So, after research, I’ve sort of realized that the Wizarding World is more than a bit behind when it comes to contraceptive methods, much less gynecological health. And although the current zeitgeist is a bit more than conservative in regards to birth control, I find it more than suitable to spend my time developing a contraceptive potion in order to--”
“I said ‘substantial’, not ‘barely sufficient’,” Snape interrupted her, harsh. “You expect me to believe a week of contemplation brought you to such paltry conclusions?”
“It’s reasonable,” she argued. “And within the realm of actually accomplishing, especially within the next two years.”
His stare was disapproving. “‘Reasonable’ ideas ought to be left to those of below average intellect and potential. You, however, do not qualify.”
She scowled. “I hardly call developing a new potion anywhere near below average--”
“By the time I was your age, I had already done so,” Snape informed her. “If I am to invest my time in you, I expect excellence, not diffidence.”
“This isn’t the bare minimum,” she countered, vehement. “Wizards haven’t even realized what stops pregnancy, and I could easily develop something that actually works and--”
“Yes, you are correct about how easy it would be,” was his sneered remark. “So easy, in fact, that it could be accomplished in a mere handful of months. And then what will you do? Languish in your mediocre, reasonable success?”
“Is anything short of a Wolfsbane ingenuity not worth it to you?” she caustically inquired.
The man considered her, arms folded, his answer branching off into a separate direction. “You do yourself a disservice to set such a low bar. To have settled for such a safe plan, you must have considered one more precarious.”
“Infeasible,” she corrected, displeased.
At that, his shrewd gaze focused in, as if he’d caught her out on a lie. Cleo could only endure it for a few seconds before she was scoffing.
“Infeasible means infeasible,” she insisted. “I literally can’t do it. Not while I’m at school.”
“And why is that?” he prompted, a challenge.
“Because this isn’t just a Wizarding World thing,” she answered. “Muggles don’t have this quite figured out, either.”
“You are measuring yourself against those who do not possess the same tools which are available to you,” Snape pointed out. “It is the privilege of wizards and witches to understand the unfathomable, to accomplish the infeasible. It is simply in our nature.”
“Even if that were so, I’d need the training of a Healer to even begin doing that. ”
“It is fortunate, then, that you will shortly be receiving just such an education.”
Her expression contorted in disbelief. “What? ”
Snape’s stance shifted as he told her, “You are, in fact, expected to report to St. Mungo’s in two hours.”
She walked toward him, head canted and confused. “How am I expected at St. Mungo’s in two hours?”
“How?” he echoed ahead of an amused snort. “Your advisor arranged it.”
“But you haven’t even agreed to be my--”
“Not yet,” he conceded, a gleam in his dark eyes. “As I said, I only advise those of singular vision, who seek to accomplish that which others would deem impossible.”
“I don’t even know where I’d start,” she confessed, emphatic.
“Have I taught you nothing?” Snape questioned with a glare. “You start where all potions originate: their base components.”
“I can’t get past the primary ingredient,” she explained. “And I’m not even certain that it’s correct in the first place--”
“Well, this certainly seems like a moment in which an advisor could advise,” he retorted, mocking. “However, I appear to be missing crucial context.”
It was stupid, but still completely taken aback by these turn of events, she murmured rather inanely, “Huh?”
Snape stared at her, incredulous. “Your aspiration, you foolish girl! What is the potion’s purpose? ”
“Oh, right, uh--” she stammered, returning to herself. Then, the words managed to fumble out, disjointed. “Preeclampsia… potion.”
His lip curled. “The name is rather uninspired, but the idea less so. I understand there is no Muggle cure for this ailment, correct?”
“Nothing besides birth,” she said softly.
“And so?” he prompted, waving a decisive hand. “What is the intent? To mitigate the symptoms, allow for the child to be born at full term?”
“Until I could possibly find a way to understand the disease itself, that’s probably my best shot,” she replied.
“What do you suppose could accomplish the task?”
It was easier to say with Hermione. Snape was a horse of another color all together. “It’s going to sound--” she hesitated.
“Cease your dithering and speak.”
Her head turned toward the wall, the break in eye contact some meager attempt at gathering courage. However, it wasn’t getting easier, and with his stare boring into the side of her face, she confessed: “Aconite.”
His chin lifted, eyebrows raising as he commented, “Intriguing choice.”
The remark, in and of itself, was at least somewhat bolstering. She nodded, gaining steam as she continued, eyes still stubbornly directed to the wall: “It contains compounds that lower blood pressure. Even Muggles have utilized it for alternative medicine. So I figure, since the hallmark sign of preeclampsia is high blood pressure, then an aconite based potion could possibly…”
“... diminish the effect of the condition,” he finished for her. “Have you any idea which part of the plant should be utilized for this purpose?”
Her head shook. “I-- I hadn’t gotten that far.”
“I have limited experience with aconite, outside of its uses in Wolfsbane and select poisons,” Snape admitted, thoughtful. “Its medicinal properties are relatively unknown in this continent.”
“So, I need to do an aconite study,” Cleo concluded, her voice meandering away shortly after she’d spoken.
“It is still a notoriously dangerous plant to work with, you realize.”
“I’m well aware,” she remarked, turning her head to frown at him.
His fingers flexed, a slight gesture of capitulation. “I am merely verifying that you know what you are getting into.”
“I don’t,” she admitted. “But this is all I have.”
“Allow me to enlighten you, then,” Snape began, his gaze direct. “This idea you’ve posed, of researching aconite? It has merit. But a single good idea is not what will determine your success. It is merely the starting point, after which you will have to put in considerable work to prove to anyone your talents are worth sponsoring.”
“I know,” she pressed, crestfallen. “I know you think I’m an imbecile, but I’m--”
“If I thought you were an imbecile, I would say so,” he cut through her words, irked. “What I am presently doing is issuing a forewarning. I expect you to be very clear on the terms of my advisory role.”
“I can work,” she promised. “Really.”
At that, he pivoted away from her, re-entering his office and taking up a bit of parchment which was laid on his desk. “Then your labor begins here,” he prompted, proffering her the slip.
It took a moment for her to finally enter the room, stroll up to him, and take the parchment from his hand. “And this…?”
“An official document, outlining your provisional apprenticeship to Healer Rutherford Poke,” he explained, succinct. “You need only sign it to accept.”
A soft breath heaved out of her, both expressing some barely acknowledged excitement and a disbelief she hadn’t broken through. “Do you have a quill?”
With a careless flick of his fingers, a quill obediently soared into his open hand, but, as she moved to take hold of it, he did not release it into her grasp. Instead, he fitted her with a level stare. “Make no mistake, I will not allow you a moment’s rest in pursuit of this goal you have chosen,” he warned. “If you do not feel up to the task, now is the time to state it.”
“I can do it,” she reiterated.
An eyebrow of his twitched upward, head tilting minutely. “I expect you to remember that you said so when you encounter opposition.”
“I will,” she vowed. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
His eyes narrowed. “You will need to muster more conviction than that to convince me you will not simply abandon this venture whenever it suits you.”
“I’m not going to give up!” she said, more confident that time. “I can do it.”
He gave her a short hum of acknowledgement, letting go of the quill. She brought it and the slip to the edge of his desk, signing her name with a flourish, before passing the quill back to him.
“You will take that parchment with you when you go to St. Mungo’s.”
“To… Healer Rutherford Poke,” she checked.
“Indeed.”
“And…” she paused before clearing her throat. “And what about my transportation there?”
“The Headmaster has arranged a portkey,” he informed her. His gesture toward the only other object atop his desk, which appeared to be a small, splintered wooden smoking pipe, indicated that it was already in the room. “When it is time to leave, it will activate.”
“I’ll come here to use it, I suppose?”
“Precisely,” Snape confirmed. “It will remain in this office during your Hogwarts hours, and your mentor at the hospital will keep it while you are there.”
“Okay,” she breathed, bracing herself. “That… Yeah. That sounds good.”
“I expect a full report of your hospital expedition by six o’clock tomorrow,” he said, rounding his desk to resume his seat there. “And too, twelve inches on the known uses, risk factors, and cultivation of aconite.”
Expedition was a good word for it, daunting and impossible as it seemed. The foot of paperwork, too. “Anything else?”
“Cancel any plans for Sunday,” he said in a tone that brooked no objection. “You will be assigned several duties to occupy your time.”
“Like a workhorse,” she observed, smiling for the first time. “No problem.”
Leaning against the arm of his chair, his gaze flicked from her to the door. “Now, I suggest you make preparations for your interview.”
Interview. Fun. Her body rose as she lifted herself on her toes for a moment, before falling back on her heels. Her words were expelled on an exhale. “Yes, sir.”
She shifted and carefully tucked the slip into her pocket, but not without giving it another cursory look over. It was hard to believe the bloody thing was even real , but all the same -- it was right there, emblazoned in ink. By recommendation from Professor Severus T. Snape, Potions Master at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and by decree of the Ministry of Magic Healing and Recovery Management Office, it is my privilege as Overseer of St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries to extend to you a provisional healer’s apprenticeship...
Her eyes only glanced up again once she reached the door. However, she stopped just at the threshold, suspending her hand on the door frame. Her head bobbed down once before she looked over her shoulder. “Professor?”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Yes?”
She swallowed, fingers tightening their hold on the frame. “Thank you.”
He did not reply, though, up until she stepped out of the room, his gaze never left her.
When Healer Rutherford Poke regarded her, it was over the thick frames of his glasses. It was attached to a chain that floated just above his shoulder, keeping them propped up against the small length of his nose. His fingers released the entry forms she’d filled out earlier onto the surface of his desk, and when he leaned back in his chair, the chain tugged itself, lowering his glasses carefully down over his chest.
“Professor Snape mentioned you had experience in Muggle medicine,” he prompted, his fingers scraping over the side of his unshaven face.
Cleo’s head dipped into a nod. “I’m certified in First Aid procedures and I have worked in a Muggle hospital before,” she embellished. She’d volunteered as a candy striper for a couple weeks when she was fifteen, but…
“And your schooling?”
“Currently doing my N.E.W.T.s in Potions, Charms, and Herbology.”
He peered at her. “No Transfiguration?”
“Oh, uhm -- no. Is that required?”
His frown was conciliatory and thoughtful, his head bouncing from side to side as he considered her question. “Not necessarily. Future applicants tend to prefer to play it safe by remaining well rounded. It really does depend upon your N.E.W.T. scores, in the end.”
Cleo glanced down at her hands before leaning forward, a bit troubled. “Well, should I possibly--”
The man lifted a hand to stop her. “Please relax, Miss Croft. I’ve already taken you aboard. You needn’t worry on that account. I’m merely assessing.”
“Oh, well. Uhm--”
He picked up rather well from her gaffe, seeming unperturbed by her anxiety. “I imagine you’re looking to take up further education in healing after you graduate?”
“Ah-- yes.”
“In what position?”
“Healer.”
Healer Poke’s glasses hovered over his eyes again as he moved the top portion of the stack of papers aside to peer at something -- presumably, her transcripts. He appeared to skim over whatever was on that page, his glasses delicately perching themselves on his chest again as he looked up, pronouncing a solid, neutral: “Good.”
She wasn’t certain what he meant by that. He didn’t allow much time for interpretation either, as he confronted her with an observation: “I must admit, this is rather atypical; most often, applicants around your age are graduates.”
Cleo’s head dipped into a nod as she glanced down in her lap. “After my O.W.L.s, I had to take time off.”
“Weren’t sure you wanted to move forward with your N.E.W.T.s?”
She cleared her throat nervously, her eyes still directed at her lap. “No, I had uhm--” Cleo swallowed. “I took time off to start a family.”
She heard the plastic frames of his glasses clink against the metal chain as they signaled his perusal of her paperwork again.
“Ah, hadn’t noticed you claimed a dependent,” he remarked, strikingly casual.
Cleo looked up; his expression, for what it was worth, was genial.
“That will change the matter of hours, I think,” he remarked. “We prefer to accommodate for working parents.”
“That’s kind of you but--” Cleo hesitated. “I have help at the moment. My son is looked after. You don’t have to shorten my hours.”
“You’re certain?” he probed.
“Absolutely,” she urged. “You can have me as much as you need throughout the week.”
The same loud scritching sound reverberated about the room as he leaned back in his chair, nails raking the back of his neck. “As it stands, this is sort of a quasi-apprenticeship. We don’t usually organize these for current Hogwarts students, not unless their marks show promise and come with recommendation. These apprenticeship positions are generally reserved for graduates who wish to begin their training in healing or mediwizardry with earnest. Normally, you’d be working full time. However, as it is, we’ll be balancing your mentorship here while you finish out your schooling, and contingent upon your graduation, your current hours will transfer to a full-time apprenticeship here. It gives you a head start, so to speak.”
“That’s really great,” Cleo enthused, smiling.
“I should preface,” Healer Poke broached, leaning forward, hands interlinking atop his desk. “Apprentice or not, I need to remind you that this is a place of healing. You may not be a patient’s primary, but you are assisting in their recovery. That means you’re here. All of you. School stays at school; home stays at home. While you are here, all of you is here. Is that understood?”
Cleo’s head shifted in a series of confident, sincere nods.
“Misconduct, regardless of your status as a student, will be dealt with under full scrutiny of the Ministry's Healing and Recovery disciplinary board. So I’d advise that you familiarize yourself with the Code of Conduct for this hospital.”
“Yes sir.”
“Very well,” he intoned, leaning over to slip one of the five quills situated in the inkwell at the corner of his desk. He pulled some sort of form off of one of the stacks to his left and began to write.
Cleo took in a revitalizing breath. This was actually happening. God.
“Professor Snape spoke highly of your potion-making abilities,” Healer Poke dropped, offhand, as he leaned over to re-ink his quill.
Cleo’s brow furrowed. “He did?”
A soft chuckle rumbled from him. “Not in those words. But he isn’t the kind of man to throw around the word ‘decent’ unless he means it.”
Cleo felt a warmth settle on her shoulders; she sat up in her chair.
“What recommendations we get are usually fielded by Professors McGonagall and Flitwick,” the man remarked, blowing over the ink on the page. His eyes settled on her, deliberate. “Do you know how many Professor Snape has recommended over the entirety of his career?”
“No, sir.”
“Three,” Healer Poke answered, inclining his head toward her. “Including you.”
That was a hint. I expect a lot. Okay.
“I promise I’m worth his recommendation.”
His answer was merely a soft hum, one whose implication sounded very clear in her ears ( we’ll see about that ), eyes going to the form in his hand. When his once over finished, he leaned forward and passed it her way.
“You’ll be assigned to the Potions and Plant Poisoning ward,” he told her. “And you’ll give this to your mentor.”
“My mentor?” she questioned, glancing down to the piece of paper in her hand. Augustus Pye. “Ah, I thought I was apprenticed under you--”
“As Overseer of St. Mungo’s, all trainees are apprenticed under me,” he elaborated. “You are, in effect, my responsibility. However, you will be instructed by a Junior Healer. He will be the one you report to, who approves your hours, who will oversee your medical education, et cetera.”
“Right, okay,” she agreed, nodding. “Sounds great.”
He waved a hand to dismiss her and she rose from her seat, muttering another ardent thank you as she gathered her things.
“Talk to Pye about getting yourself fitted for some robes,” he mentioned, before his lips twisted. “How tall are you?”
“Ah--” Cleo halted as she stammered, glancing down the length of her body before answering. “Six foot--” She caught herself, brow furrowing. “I mean, one eighty three centimeters.”
He made a face at her blunder, but didn’t comment on it. “You can borrow one of the men’s today until we can get a Minder to fit one of the women’s for you.”
It turned out that Healer Pye was handy with a tailoring spell. Or, Junior Healer Pye, he'd made a point to correct her. But, alongside a laugh, he'd mentioned he didn’t mind the promotion much.
He could get used to hearing it.
Pye found her paperwork exceedingly amusing as well. “Severus Snape, huh?”
Cleo had been smoothing out her new lime-green robes. “Yes. My advisor.”
The man whistled. “Managed that, did you?”
“I did,” she answered, her smile meek.
“You must be tough.”
She wouldn’t describe herself as that at all. Not after Professor Snape practically cajoled her into it. “You must know something about it.”
“Got me,” Healer Pye replied, lifting his hands. “Must be ten years ago, now, when I was in your shoes? I owe him a lot, if I’m honest.”
So, this was the last person Snape advised… It felt odd to be part of what was essentially an exclusive club. And too, she was surprised to realize she was already benefiting from what was good thinking on Healer Poke’s part -- setting things up like this. It was thoughtful in a way she hadn’t expected. She might as well take advantage. “Got any advice?”
“Well,” the man sighed, his eyes going to the ceiling in thought. “I’d give up on any hope of a social life, for one. Whatever project Snape’s got you working on, you’d best be dedicating whatever free time you got to it. Nothing else matters.”
Daunting. Cleo forced a smile. “Okay.”
“Oh and his essays might not seem like they’re top priority, but they are. If you think you can skirt by a meeting without showing up prepared, Merlin help you. Just make sure you have everything settled.”
“Right,” she breathed.
He must have caught on to her unease, because in a moment he was looking at her, supplying a reassuring: “Though, hey -- nothing has to be perfect, you know? Don’t be afraid to go to him with questions. He might not seem it, but he actually likes answering them. It’s probably the most light hearted I ever saw him, when he was helping me work a problem. If that’s even the right term to use.”
“Suitable enough,” Cleo replied, charitable.
“But hey, enough about school,” Healer Pye transitioned. “Bet you’re excited for your first day, huh?”
“I really am,” she told him. “Scared out of my mind, but I’m really excited.”
“Don’t worry too much. We’re on the night shift so things tend to be pretty quiet. At any rate, most of the HICs have gone home, and the mix queue is usually empty until morning.”
Cleo frowned. “HICs?”
“Hah-- sorry.” Pye smiled, self-deprecating. “Healers-in-Charge. They're senior staff assigned to a ward. Juniors and trainees like me and you are their assistants.”
“What happens if there’s an emergency during the night?”
“Well, Healers have on-call portkeys for a reason, right?”
Cleo grinned as she looked down, slightly embarrassed. “Yes, right.”
“Honestly, I wasn't planning to work you much tonight anyway. Thought I’d introduce you to some of the Department Heads who are around, get you oriented in the potion pit, and set you on something simple.” His arm encompassed her shoulder with a jovial pat as he urged her into a stroll down the hall. “Sound good?”
“Yep,” she chirped, swallowing back her trepidation. “Let’s do it.”
For the next hour, she found herself shuffled around the building, accompanied by Pye’s running commentary. Starting at the very top floor where she'd spoken with Healer Poke, they traversed a hallway which housed a large collection of shop stalls (“They call it Green Row since everyone in the hospital eats here.”) and administrative offices (“The loo off the boardroom is loads nicer than the one in the staffroom.”)
The fourth floor’s Head of Spell Damage was in attendance, a kindly old Healer by the name of Rina Thickett, and they passed by a few wards involving transfigurative reversal, memory services, and wound relief (“Everyone who works this floor is either a saint or a nutter, honestly.”). On the third floor was Potions and Plant Poisonings (“The best department, obviously!”) where Pye pointed out a few of the areas they would be frequenting during her time there. The second floor smelled foul, a reddish haze hanging around the corridor (“I don’t envy the custodian who has to clean up Magical Bugs and Diseases…”). First floor involved Creature Induced Injuries, and they said hello to the Minder-In-Charge who was tending to the Acid and Flame Relief Ward (“Let’s shove off quick before Smethwyck spots me.”).
When they reached the ground floor, her mentor paused a moment at the foot of the stairs. “All that’s left is Reception, Crisis, and Artefacts, but how are you holding up?”
Cleo glanced at the sparse and near-empty waiting room. “Good.”
“Oh-- I ought to mention as well, you don’t have to always take the stairway.” Healer Pye gestured toward a set of three fireplaces lining the wall behind the Welcome Witch. “There’s Floo access to every floor. Our network’s separate from the normal one, though, so you won’t be able to go anywhere else that way.”
“Convenient,” Cleo commented. “Though, maybe the cardio’s better for me.”
“It’s mostly for the departments with debilitated patients,” he explained, speaking with his hands. “I can only assume it was a nightmare trying to float them up the stairway. But it’s handy for brewing deadlines too.”
“Good to know,” Cleo remarked, glancing to the row of Floos.
“Well, that’s an hour killed, yeah?” he joked. “I’ll set you free in a couple more. Think you might need some Wideye?”
She chuckled softly. “Probably, if I’m honest.”
The man nodded. “Worry not, I won’t subject you to the night shift often,” he promised. “And I’ll send you off at a reasonable hour. You have my word.”
“I appreciate that,” Cleo confessed, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her robes. “Snape has me on for work on Sunday. I think I’ll have most of Saturday to work on my first assignment, too.” Not to mention homework.
Healer Pye clapped his hand on her shoulder, another show of solidarity. “Seems like you’ll be needing that Wideye to survive --”
His words were cut short by the sound of the nearby door swooshing open, cold night air seeping in and curling at their legs. The uneven clatter of heels followed shortly after, and Cleo watched as the slender form of a woman materialized from thin air, the soft shimmer of her disillusionment charm receding from her. Making her way up to the front desk, attired in a light, floral-patterned dress, she kept something carefully afloat beside her.
Healer Pye’s demeanor shifted; Cleo had witnessed that stance before, evident on her father’s normally serene countenance. Before she could take in what was happening, he was already making his way across the space, leaving her standing alone.
His voice carried with spectacular ease, a practiced calm that was as soothing as it was businesslike. “Can I help you?”
“Are you a Healer?” Cleo could hear the woman speak, clear and unperturbed, as she shadowed the two. “This girl requires immediate attention… I wasn’t sure exactly what to do-- I found her while I was walking home; she was laying face down in the Bottlebrush town square and would not respond when I tried to rouse her.”
“Could you lower her to the ground for me please?” He rounded to the woman’s other side, pulling his wand from an inside pocket stitched into his robes. His wandwork was masterful and fluid, a conjured gurney cushioning the girl as she was gently lowered out of weightlessness. In a second, his gaze flashed to Cleo, and he gestured for her. “Cleo, come join me, if you will?”
So much for a quiet night.
But this was what she had been waiting for, wasn’t it?
She expelled all apprehension and quickly strode to his side. His directions were prompt. “Keep this pulled down for me.”
She grasped the piece of shirt he was removing from the girl’s shoulder, and it was there that Cleo finally had the chance to look at her: The girl couldn’t have been older than seventeen. And needing “immediate attention” was right. Bruises nestled tight against her incredibly emaciated frame, blooming from the torn crevices of her clothes. This was completely overshadowed, however, by the large slice that acted as a schism between her shoulder and torso, winding down beneath her shirt, its only evidence the splotches of blood that sullied the fabric. It wasn’t just a cut, either -- a swath of her flesh had been completely torn from her body, leaving the sinew exposed underneath. Cleo could clearly see the striations that made up her skeletal muscle, flexing and oozing with every subdued breath she made in her unconscious state.
A voice tore her attention away from the display. Healer Pye had paused in the midst of his diagnostic spells. “Do you know how to take a pulse?”
Cleo blinked. Then, a nod overtook her head, and she bent over the side of the girl’s body, pressing her fingers up against the girl’s carotid as she pulled a Tempus up with her wand.
She counted the beats to the minute. It wasn’t until she looked at Healer Pye again when she finished that he finally spoke. “Meant a spell,” he pointed out. “But creative thinking, anyway.”
Cleo’s fingers slipped from the girl’s neck. “Right.”
“I’ll teach you it later,” he offered before his gaze became expectant. “Well?”
“BPM is low,” she answered. “I counted forty five.”
It was his turn to look at her oddly, at least until she elaborated. “Oh, it’s--” she shook her head. “Her heart rate is low. It’s there, but it’s shallow.”
He nodded, the motion distracted as he focused his attention on the patient. He held his wand at an angle, poised against her sternum, as colorful ribbons of magic spread out across her chest and shoulder, encompassing the wound in a lighted cocoon.
“Pretty serious splinch,” he observed, before he addressed the woman hovering above them. “And you’re a bystander?”
“Yes,” she confirmed, holding her hands in front of her in a pose that might have looked dainty had her dress not been covered in an alarming amount of blood. “Theresa Rochford.”
“And you’re unacquainted with this young woman?”
“I have never seen her before, no.”
Cleo made a careful adjustment over the body, her hands going to dig into the unconscious girl’s pockets. She arose empty-handed. “Nothing.”
“No wand, even?”
Cleo shook her head.
Healer Pye addressed Theresa again: “When you found her, did she have a wand on her?”
“I’m not certain,” the woman answered with a slight frown. “I was engaged with transporting her here; I did not think to look.”
“Alright,” Healer Pye murmured, pocketing his wand. “Cleo, I misaligned the gurney, but we shouldn’t adjust her much. She needs to stay still. I’ll float her, but you need to keep her head supported. Understood?”
Cleo’s agreement was her movement as she pushed past Theresa, kneeling just above the girl’s crown, bending down to cradle the back of her head in both her palms.
“Ready?”
“Yes.”
Healer Pye stood back, a soft Wingardium Leviosa leaving him. Cleo followed the slow, gentle rhythm of the lift with her hands, keeping the girl’s head supported and still.
“Good,” he complimented. “Move to the side, and keep up with me. It’ll only be down the hall. You’re doing great.”
He adjusted his position behind the gurney, wand raised. Another muted spell passed his lips, and the two of them began to move, their pace brisk. Cleo’s fingers flexed across her skull and strands of the girl’s blue and black hair fell, matted, across her wrists as they guided her to the Crisis Ward.