“This is a lot to take in,” Hermione admitted at length, arms sweeping behind her so she could rest her weight against her hands. The Haunt was not so busy that day but, regardless, Cleo had made a point to loudly proclaim that they were discussing E.A.R.W.I.G. matters for the benefit of anyone listening. They'd settled themselves in Cleo’s favorite alcove, which Cal had lovingly nicknamed “Merlin’s Armpit” many years before. It was an odd little corner with two adjacent window seats, a once coveted spot now marred by age: Both windows were cracked, forming a terrible draft, and where the two walls met, the stones were overwrought by a thick, creeping ivy. Still, it was its undesirability that made it so attractive; the space was always open for the taking and she'd hardly ever been bothered there.

The three Gryffindors seated around her had spent the better part of an hour listening to her recount what she could about Violet’s case. Strange as it was for their little group to meet in The Haunt in the first place, it was even stranger to be saying all this to two people she hardly knew, and all under the dubious cover of a makeshift Silencing ward to boot. Weasley had been asking the majority of the questions from his position standing in the corner, whereas Hermione had been echoing Cleo’s sentences at random intervals, committing them to memory from her window perch. Harry, for his part, had been largely quiet where he sat at the opposite window, his eyes fixed to a small flower which lay on the floor in the middle of their circle.

“This is just the abridged version, really,” Cleo prefaced, leaning against the sofa’s side table. “There’s stuff Violet hasn’t told me and information the Aurors have that I don’t.”

There was a brief quiet as they continued to mull over what she’d said. Weasley held his chin in his hands, directing his stare at Harry. “So… this girl? She’s the one you’ve been, er…?”

Harry nodded. “Yeah.”

“But you said the girl doesn’t know who took her?” Weasley mentioned, looking back at Cleo. “I thought it was You-Know-Who?”

Harry frowned. “I didn’t actually mention--”

“It wasn’t,” Cleo objected at once. “Violet was very adamant about the fact she had no idea who her captors were. Just one man and one woman.” She paused momentarily before sighing. “I mean, she did mention another man who she apparently had only seen once or twice, but if it were Voldemort, I doubt she wouldn’t be able to readily identify him.”

“I know for a fact it was him who took her,” Harry disagreed, solemn. “We tracked the both of them right up until they Disapparated. The scene was…” His expression fell quite suddenly, eyes haunted. “There’s no question he was there.”

Hermione’s hair fell against her back as her head dipped to rest against her own shoulder. “So we have our first conflicting facts,” she quietly observed before her gaze flickered toward Harry. “Remind me what you were tracking?”

“Her, ehm…” He squinted as if trying to organize his thoughts. “He was following… a trail or something?”

“He?” Cleo abruptly asked. “He who?”

The other three all shared a look, their deliberation happening in the span of a blink. Hermione seemed worried, and Weasley was particularly sour, but evidently Harry felt able to take the initiative, since he faced her squarely, warning, “You can’t tell anyone."

“Haven’t been, won’t start,” she assured him, though she felt uneasy. Why was he looking at her like that…? “I mean--”

“It’s… going to sound…” he told her, the words halting and bothered. "Just… he can’t know that you know, alright? I really shouldn’t even be telling you this, but… if it will help you believe me--"

“Right…?”

Harry’s mouth twisted. “The person I’ve been investigating with? It’s… Snape.”

The anger hit her body before it fully permeated her mind. On reflex, the butt of her palm slammed against the table as she leaned forward, seething, “Are you fucking serious?”

Harry winced and Weasley glared at her, admonishing, “Will you be quiet? The ward can only do so much, you know!”

Hermione huffed. “Well, it is a bit of a shock.”

“So what? We’re sitting in Slytherin territory!”

Recovering, Harry said, “It’s fine, Ron. It’ll hold up.” Then, after a pause, his gaze meandered back to Cleo. “Sorry I didn’t tell you before. It’s not really…”

“I’m not mad at you,” she was quick to assure him once she settled. Cleo forced her expression to soften. “This just… explains a lot.”

This seemed to pique Weasley’s interest. “Oh, yeah?”

She scowled. These three weren’t the ones this conversation was meant for, not that she could ever confront Snape about this anyway. Harry’s guilt about Violet made all the more sense. What the fuck was Snape thinking…?

“It doesn’t matter,” she dismissed, rubbing the back of her neck. “You and him were following a trail. A trail of what?”

Harry grimaced, sheepish. “Don’t really know. I can’t cast spells out there since I’m underage, so Snape was the only one who could see it.”

That sounded familiar. “Pertento Solus?”

His demeanor was alight with recognition before the words were even out of his mouth. “Yeah! And… somehow, in the dark, he was able to find the spot where she’d used accidental magic--”

“It reveals magical signatures,” Cleo explained quickly. “It’s the exact way he and I were able to track my son when he went missing.” Which explained why he had even come, now that she thought of it. Her jaw involuntarily tightened.

“He did what?” Weasley nearly choked.

Hermione shot him a look. “Ronald.”

He glanced at her, frowning, before slumping further into the corner. “Snape being helpful is… hard to believe,” he commented in the most diplomatic tone she’d ever heard from him.

“It’s complicated,” she excused, waving a hand. “The point is that we used the spell to track my son’s magic to the last place he’d been. So you’re saying that Voldemort’s signature is how you know? His magic was there at the place she’d been taken?”

“Yeah,” Harry said, tapping his fingers on his knees. “But it was weird-- he said, before that, it was only her trail alone, even though we knew she left the house with someone.”

Hermione squinted. “Who did she leave the house with?”

“Well.” He sighed. “We looked at her cat’s memories and saw Barty Crouch Jr. led her out of her house.”

This meant absolutely nothing to Cleo but, judging by Hermione’s wide eyes and Weasley’s muttered Blimey, this information was of some significance to them.

“How?” Hermione questioned after some very deliberate breaths. “He was-- I mean he should--” A few seconds passed as she gesticulated in a vague, restless manner, before she managed an unnerved, “He was Kissed, wasn’t he?”

Kissed…?

Harry’s hands stilled. “Yeah. But he was there. I’d… never forget his face.”

“Maybe it wasn’t really him, just… Polyjuice or something,” Weasley suggested.

Hermione was quick to shut that down. "If that was the case, then there should have been a third signature."

Everything I saw was real…

“But there wasn’t,” Harry corroborated. “Snape thought maybe she’d got away from him, but… Without her wand, it’s hard to think how.”

"Are you two actually saying this girl was running around with a dead man?" Weasley balked.

He's not dead…

"I don't know," Hermione quietly averred. "I'm only saying that there was no way there was another magical person there."

"'Mione--"

"This guy," Cleo interrupted, her gaze intent on Harry's face. "What does he look like?"

He frowned at the rug in contemplation. "He's got a sort of… wild look. Angular face, bulging eyes, messy brown hair… Why?"

"'The man with brown hair'…" Cleo murmured, eyes widening. She pushed off the table. "That's him! That's the man who hurt Violet!"

“But it can’t be,” Weasley demurred, visibly agitated. “The bloke’s dead as doxies! Has been for nearly two years!”

“Violet was certain,” she argued. “And so is Harry.”

“The point is,” Harry smoothed over, “regardless of what happened or who was ultimately with her between her house and the forest, it led Voldemort right to her. He came to get her himself.”

“Is she really so important?” Hermione abruptly asked, before slanting an apologetic look at Cleo. “Sorry, I mean-- It’s just that-- She’s a… regular girl, right? But there was all this fuss to get her out of her house and everything…”

“She is Muggleborn,” Harry pointed out with a shrug. “But otherwise… I don’t know.”

“Might have come to the door just to see in the house,” Wealsey remarked, nose scrunched in thought. “To make sure she was alone.”

Hermione stared at him. “What would be the point? She could just as easily have been taken right there.”

“Not if it’s supposed to be a secret,” he countered. “If they don’t want to make headlines about Death Eaters abducting a girl from her home, they’d have to be quiet about it.”

Realization gleamed in Cleo’s eyes. “Maybe not quiet. Just… not obvious.”

Their attention was nonplussed, so she continued: “I mean, the Wizarding World doesn’t keep track of every crime that happens in the Muggle one, right? So, if you make an abduction look like it was done by a Muggle, then there’s no reason for anyone to suspect Death Eater involvement.”

“So it keeps their movements under wraps,” Weasley agreed. “But that still doesn’t explain why they’d go to that effort just for one girl.”

“Because they didn’t,” Cleo said, gaze sweeping across the three of them. “She wasn’t special. She said there were others; that she was kept away from them.”

Hermione cast a swift look at Harry. “Did you ever hear about any other kidnappings?”

He lifted his head. “No. They… never mentioned any to me, anyway. But I don’t know-- I guess we probably wouldn’t have been sent to look into it if it was just a single case.”

Weasley leaned forward. “What about the tattoos?”

The unexpected change of subject was enough to draw incredulous stares from the other three. Cleo, however, was the one to prompt, “What about them?”

“You said Violet’s got tattoos that You-Know-Who put on her, yeah? D'you know if they're magical?”

“They move, if that’s what you mean.”

“They anything like the Dark Mark?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Not really?” Cleo replied, going to sit down on the couch. “Just a raven, an eagle, a lion, a badger and a snake, all in different places.”

“Hogwarts houses?” Hermione chimed in. “Though-- the raven’s a bit odd, but I could swear I read something about that ages ago…”

“Old snakeface wouldn’t go to all that trouble for nothing,” Weasley surmised. “And the fact he kept her around long enough to escape means something is happening. Just don’t know what.” He turned to Harry with a pointed air. “And Snape never said anything about this to you?”

By then, Harry was sitting more upright, but his silhouette was tense. “No.”

Weasley scoffed. “‘Course not.”

“Violet said…” Cleo’s voice trailed off as she leaned back, arms crossed. “I mean, she mentioned the fact that the ‘real Narcissa’, the one she was in captivity with, had those tattoos as well.”

“Bloody strange that she’s involved at all, if you ask me.”

“Not necessarily,” Hermione said. “Considering her husband’s in Azkaban right now.”

Harry fidgeted. “Well, that’s partly why I… uhm.” He gave Cleo a strange look, then. “I sort of… snuck into the Slytherin dorms yesterday? To see if Malfoy was hiding anything?”

Cleo only raised an eyebrow. “Should I even ask…?”

Another significant glance rippled through the Gryffindors. Harry seemed very cowed when he answered, “Let’s just say it was… eventful.”

Weasley held out a hand. “Have you got the watch?”

Harry nodded, pulling a little silver chain from his pocket. “Just, ah… don’t open it. Obviously.”

The other boy rolled his eyes, but took the thing carefully in hand. “It’s not done anything while you had it overnight, has it?”

“Nope. Nothing.”

Hermione glanced Cleo’s way. “That’s what Harry took from Malfoy’s room,” she wryly explained. “Since they forgot to mention.”

“I imagine there’s something important about it, then?”

“Well…” Hermione looked as if she wasn’t sure what to say.

Weasley piped up. “Harry reckons Malfoy’s been starting fights using this thing. But I figure, from what I’ve seen, it’s probably not Dark magic. Uh… sorry, Harry.”

He frowned. “If it’s not Dark magic, then what is it?”

“Well, I’ve been reading some things--”

“Have you got a fever?” Hermione lightly teased him, reaching over to press the back of her hand against his brow.

“Oi, I read,” he groused with another eye roll, ducking his head away. “The warding book Tenenbaum gave me uses a lot of stodgy old language, but she did say most of the concepts are still in modern use. And this thing? Doesn’t act like any Dark magic, but it does function exactly like an Amplifying ward.”

“Amplifying ward?” Harry echoed, uncomprehending.

“We’ve not got this far in Defense yet,” Weasley expounded, “but professionally, wards are classed based on their primary functions: Amplifiers, Dampeners, and Phylacteries. And the basic elements -- touch activation, power release, dormant sub-state -- that all indicates the watch is a standard Amplifier.”

Cleo couldn’t help but notice the way Hermione peered at Weasley with subdued astonishment when she asked, “An amplifier of what, though?”

“Emotions?” Harry posited. “Anger, fear… All the people he’s been starting fights with, this is how he was making them all fly out of control.”

“It seems like such a roundabout way of getting at it, though?” Cleo mentioned. “It’d be easier to just… outright attack people, wouldn’t it?”

He shrugged. “Maybe he just didn’t want trouble for throwing the first punch.”

Hermione tucked her hair behind her ears. “Maybe, but most of those fights are sending him to the Hospital Wing.”

Weasley gave her a sidelong glance. “Thought you weren’t paying attention to Malfoy and all that?”

She leveled a look at him in return. “Ron, if you remember, I had an extended stay in the infirmary. And because I was still suffering from the effects of Harry’s tainted Wit-Sharpening Potion, I could hear Madam Pomfrey whisper all the way in her office, so I know Malfoy was in and out several times during a three-day span. Once for a broken arm, another for a concussion, and two other times to claim some kind of prescription.”

Cleo bent forward to address her. “Prescription?”

Harry submitted, “He had a drawer full of potions in his room. I saw him drink one of them, so those might be it.”

“Remember any details?” Cleo pressed. “Color, smell, viscosity, texture--?”

“Uh…” He took in a breath as if he were bracing himself. “Well. I didn’t really look at them much, but… I think there were some blue ones, and a… pink foggy one…”

“I need something on the Chroma Scale, Harry,” Cleo asserted. “Blue what? True blue, or closer to cyan, or magenta, what? Same with pink.”

Harry’s eyes drifted toward the ceiling as he considered this. “Er… The uh, smoky one was… light rose?” he murmured. “And the other two… He drank one that looked like true violet? And it was really thick, tasted gross by the look on his face. The other one in the drawer had white foam on top, I think.”

“Smoky as in…?”

“It looked like smoke in a bottle.”

“That has to be Drowsiness Draught,” Hermione butted in. “It would need to be inhaled to work.”

“Right,” Cleo corroborated. “And… thick and true violet? That sounds like Stomach-Calming Elixir. Did it have any flecks in it? Look a bit like curdled milk?”

“Yeah.” He smiled slightly. “For a potion that’s supposed to calm your stomach, it looks horrid.”

“The other one though,” Cleo ventured with some curiosity. “Blue… with white foam. Are you one hundred percent sure?”

His expression was deeply not-sure. “Yes…?”

“Light blue?” she checked. “With white foam? Not any other color?”

“I couldn’t really see the color that well,” he admitted. “But it was in a… er, thin… tube? Not like a regular potion vial, it was longer.”

“That’s…” Cleo stared at him, dumbfounded. “That’s hospital-grade Relaxing Solution. It’s literally the stuff Healers use to treat Cruciatus-induced tremors.”

Weasley raised his eyebrows. “Seriously?”

“I gave that to Violet every day for a week,” she told him before clarifying, “Did it look clear? Like you could see through it? No cloudiness?”

“Kind of watery, yeah,” Harry mentioned. “But I mean, what does he even need all that for? Just seems like normal stuff otherwise, but that last one doesn't seem like something Pomfrey would have on hand. Nobody's enduring Cruciatus while they're at school.”

"Not anymore, anyway," Weasley muttered.

“I don’t really know how or why Malfoy got a hold of it,” Cleo admitted. “But I mean… the kid’s already reckless. Some of these potions are addictive. I know Relaxing Solution has some… pleasant effects. Maybe he’s, I don’t know… abusing them?”

Hermione hummed, considering. “It seems odd that Madam Pomfrey would keep giving them to him, in that case.”

“Who says she is?” Weasley commented. “Harry says there’s a whole stash in his room. He probably stole them.”

“Then why use the watch?” Harry questioned, standing up to meander around their perimeter. “If he’s just being a reckless teenager, why even bother with the watch at all? He could just get into fights the normal way.”

“Could be as you said,” Hermione remarked. “He doesn’t want to get in trouble.”

Ron shook his head. “Doesn’t want to get in trouble, but steals loads of medicine under Pomfrey's nose? Then leaves them lying about to get discovered? No way.”

“What if he needs the fights?” Cleo blurted.

The three of them paused at her words, each of them sharing a look in turn before facing Cleo again.

“Needs them how?” Harry asked, tentative.

If she were being honest, she hadn’t thought the idea all the way through. But it seemed like a good position for possible new ideas; they’d be going in circles if they remained deconstructing their rigid, previous premise. “Why would a person get into fights they know they’re going to lose?” she tried. “It’s only ever him that ends up in the Hospital Wing, right? Why is that?”

“Because he’s a terrible duelist?” Weasley blithely suggested.

“He didn’t used to be,” Harry observed.

Hermione seemed to be on to something. “He doesn’t--” She stopped before she got up and grasped Harry by the wrist. “Harry, when the two of you fought… he had loads of opportunities to get to you before you started bombarding him. And I mean, people usually fight back when they’re being attacked like that, right? But he just lied there and took it. He’s never been like that with you before.”

He looked between her and Cleo with confusion. “Yeah, but why? Why would he lose on purpose?”

Cleo shrugged, volleying another question. “What if he’s trying to get hurt?”

There was quiet among the Gryffindors for a moment, all of them stewing this over in their minds. In particular, the question didn’t seem to sit well with Harry, who sank back down into his seat as if his body was too heavy to carry.

Weasley was the one to speak first. “Up ‘til now, Malfoy’s only ever done what he can to live as easy a life as possible. Don’t see why he’d stop now, no matter if dear old Dad is locked away or not. Whatever he’s doing, I reckon he’s on You-Know-Who’s orders.”

“They have him…” Cleo repeated softly, absently.

She heard Hermione just off to her right. “What?”

“It’s something Violet said to me,” she explained. “It didn’t make sense at the time. One of the reasons Narcissa didn’t want Violet to tell anyone that she’d been involved in her escape was because ‘they’ had her son.” She looked up at them. “Would any of you describe Voldemort as… I don’t know, vengeful?”

Ron scoffed at her. “You joking?”

“I mean beyond the whole ‘I’m going to take back the world from Muggle filth,’ ethnic cleansing thing,” Cleo dismissed. “Do you think he’s personally vengeful enough to bother taking time to punish the people who’ve failed him?”

"Yes," all three of them chimed at once.

Harry was the one who elaborated, "He was pretty hung up on betrayals when… when he first came back. Didn't take kindly to followers who had given up the cause in his absence."

“Then it makes sense, doesn’t it?” she sought for confirmation. “Lucius completely dropped the ball by being found out and sent to prison; now Narcissa is in captivity, and she’s apparently helped Violet escape… Even if that last bit is still somehow a secret, it seems really likely that Malfoy himself is just paying the blood price for his parents’ stupidity.”

Hermione frowned, looking her way. "If he just wanted Malfoy to suffer, why send him to school instead of keeping him locked up too?"

"For most people, school is a punishment," Weasley pointed out, quirking an eyebrow at her.

“It's also publicly humiliating,” Cleo mentioned. “There's no way Voldemort isn’t aware of how important reputation is to the Malfoys. Forcing Draco to debase and ostracize himself would be the worst sort of torment for someone like him.”

"That's…" Harry looked troubled, his brows drawn low over his eyes. "Is that… really all it is?" His gaze was drawn to the pocket watch, still held carefully in Weasley's hands. "Voldemort's just… torturing him for fun? He's really not up to anything at all?"

“He’s still attacking students,” Hermoine said. “I wouldn’t call that nothing.”

“Could also be that this is what’s keeping his mother alive,” Cleo added. “Could be a million different things.”

Hermione bit the inside of her cheek in thought. “There’s really no way to know. Not without more information, anyway.”

“You know,” Weasley remarked, a malicious sort of glee overtaking his expression. “It’s bloody unreal that You-Know-Who's been wasting so much time lately. Most of his supporters were rounded up for Azkaban, but here he is, mucking about with Malfoy and not much else… It's honestly embarrassing. Off his game after that crushing defeat, I’d say.”

“Defeat?” Cleo inquired.

Harry rejoined the conversation, though he looked uneasy. “At the Ministry, when we made him reveal himself. Everyone spent all year saying he couldn't possibly return, calling me a liar--” At that, his gaze darted down to the back of his hand briefly before he fixed it on some faraway section of the wall.

Weasley clapped him on the shoulder. "Joke's on them, mate." Harry's answering smile was feeble.

That idea was odd, though. Cleo sat back on the table as she wondered, “Why did he reveal himself at all?”

“Forced his hand,” Weasley replied. “The, uh… well.” There seemed to be something he didn’t want to say; he looked to his friends for confirmation before continuing: “Some reinforcements came to rescue us, and then Dumbledore showed up. Guess You-Know-Who saw an opportunity to get rid of an old enemy.”

That tracked with everything Harry had said before, but the added context didn’t make the picture any clearer. In fact, the only bit of information missing was something Harry had mentioned very casually in their last meeting.

“… What’s the Department of Mysteries?”

Harry blinked. “Er… Why do you ask?”

“Because when you and I were talking the other day, you said Voldemort had tried to use you to get information out of there.”

He still looked puzzled, but explained, “It’s just a secret bit of the Ministry. High security, normally, but we got in because Death Eaters came before us. Lots of… erm…”

“Experiments, mostly,” Hermione filled in for him. “Looks like a research center. All sorts of strange artefacts and magical concepts that are unheard of in the outside world. Only Unspeakables are allowed in and out.”

“And he wanted you there,” Cleo repeated, deliberate. “For what?”

“A prophecy,” Harry replied. “Since it was about me and Voldemort, only we would be able to pick it up.”

What…? “Wait, prophe--” She stopped herself; it wasn’t worth it to derail the conversation, impossible and ridiculous as the idea of prophecies were. Shaking her head, she continued with an underlined, “Nevermind-- if that’s the case, then why didn't he take it himself?”

"What d'you mean?" Weasley questioned. "Of course he couldn't take it. He'd expose himself to the Wizarding World."

“As you said, his Death Eaters were able to handle the security at the Department of Mysteries,” Cleo pointed out. “He could have walked out with this… prophecy himself; the risk of exposure only came in once he invited you to come stop him.”

“Well,” Harry muttered, uncomfortable. “They probably wanted to get at me, too.”

Cleo braced her neck with her hands as she leaned forward, pensive. “I mean, what was this prophecy about?” Her gaze darted up to him. “How important was it?”

Neither of his friends seemed to know this either, their gazes just as curious as hers as they looked his way, but Harry only stared at the ground with a grim expression. “It was about… Voldemort's rise to power,” he divulged. “It's the reason he targeted me as a baby, the reason he killed my parents.”

Hermione’s eyes widened. “You never told us that!”

“Sorry, erm…” He winced. “I just didn’t… really think to talk about it. Not after--” Harry stopped talking abruptly.

“Yeah, we get it, mate,” Weasley sighed. “But-- we're talking now, aren’t we?”

“Yes, but--” Hermione faltered a moment before she pressed on with a more forceful, “Harry, how do you know it’s the reason Voldemort killed your parents?”

Harry folded his arms, his foot bouncing in a nervous tap against the floor. “Dumbledore told me. Said that after Voldemort learned about it from one of his spies, he… came after us.”

There was a strange disconnect between Cleo’s mind and body as it attempted to process this information: Her body tightened up in rejection of the very idea while her mind readily accepted that, yes, of course, the most powerful person in the Wizarding World was at the front of this. It was easier to envision than it had been with Snape. Even still, she couldn’t tell which part of her was in control when she inquired, “Dumbledore’s involved, too?”

Harry nodded while Weasley uttered a droll, “Yup.”

So this idiocy wasn’t on the head of one man, but two-- and God only knew how many others -- for purposes she couldn’t really fathom, outside of what vague assumptions she could cobble together.

But that didn’t matter right now. She could talk to Harry about it later, when this was over and things had quieted down.

“So, this prophecy was important enough to go to all that effort, then,” she marched on.

Weasley crossed his arms. "You pinning down something specific, or…?"

Before she could reply, Hermione was already speaking. "Wait-- Harry, what exactly did the prophecy say?"

His discomfort was plain. "Er… basically that I'm the only person who can kill Voldemort."

"We don't need basically, we need exactly--"

"I don't know?" He was starting to sound a little defensive. "It said the person who could defeat him would be born at the end of July to parents who defied him three times-- and that's me. He killed my family and then failed when he got to me, and that's… really it."

Hermione looked a little abashed to witness his grim countenance, but the moment did not deter her focus. "Harry, if… if all that is really true, then-- Voldemort must already know what it says, in full or in part," she murmured, tapping her lips with steepled fingers. "And if he just wanted to keep the information from his enemies, he could have smashed the record of the prophecy himself too. Arguably, the prophecy itself… didn’t matter to him, and the only reason to invite you was to capture or kill you."

At that, she cast another worried glance at Harry. His gaze was trained on his hands, clasped together and fidgeting. “I guess so.”

“I mean at that juncture, why do it so publicly?” Cleo argued. “If exposure was a risk, then why allow you to have reinforcements at all? Why go about inviting you in such a way where he had little to gain and so much more to lose?”

“Well, we wouldn’t have had any reinforcements,” Hermione averred, “if Harry hadn’t told Professor Snape.”

Cleo suppressed a scowl and forced herself not to interrupt; the blows would keep coming, she knew, and this would just be another thing to discuss later.

“Yeah but, You-Know-Who couldn’t have known that,” Weasley pointed out, his gaze meeting Cleo’s. “It would’ve been a complete toss-up, whether Harry would come alone or bring help. The Death Eaters didn’t know the rest of us would be there, but… that didn’t really bother them either.”

“We were just a bunch of children,” Harry said, his voice quiet. “Of course they weren’t bothered.”

“Yes, but Ron is right,” Hermione agreed, energy heightening as she fidgeted. “There was no way for Voldemort to anticipate that. I mean, he never stipulated in your vision that you had to come alone, right?”

“I mean-- it was just a vision,” Harry admitted, solemn. “It’s not like he talked to me or anything.”

“Oh yes, of course! Because they were supposed to seem like normal dreams, right? So he had to know that in order for you to take the bait, your vision had to seem like an accident,” she reasoned. Then, she blanched. “That… by default, he couldn’t set rules. That he couldn’t control the outcome.” Her voice had slowed to an uncertain, hushed crawl. “That… that you coming with help he couldn’t easily thwart was… a substantial risk.”

The trio of Gryffindors fell silent, then. Each of them was locked in thought, their eyes looking far away from the room they were sitting in, minds going where Cleo couldn’t follow. They paled, terrified. Daunted.

The air in the room chilled under the weight of their collective silence. For the first time, Cleo felt uncomfortable enough to search for confirmation, “Would he really take that big of a risk?”

Weasley swiped a hand across his mouth, expelling a breath through his fingers. “Dunno.”

“If…” Hermione cleared her throat, visibly disturbed. “If Voldemort didn’t care what would happen… then why did he come?”

“To get at Harry, like you said?” Weasley suggested, uneasy. “Maybe he thought he could beat Dumbledore.”

“Yes, but then why the fuss about the prophecy?” she countered. “The second Harry picked it up, Death Eaters surrounded us--” She paused as she grasped her own hand; her throat tensed against an anxious swallow. “If the prophecy never mattered, then why was Harry able to bargain with it? Why didn’t they just… kill us all where we stood?” Hermione struggled to take a breath. “How-- why did we survive?”

Harry’s voice was feeble. “It did matter. And we survived because they knew they could use my friends to… force me to give them the prophecy.”

Her tone ventured toward pitying. “But they didn't need to-- the Killing Curse is unblockable, Harry. There were six of us and… and twelve of them. Even if the prophecy was what they were there for, they could've just killed us all and took it. And yet, they went on for so long just talking to you--”

She cut herself off, gaze plummeting to the ground. When she didn’t look poised to continue, Weasley observed in a low, disquieted tone, “Like they were killing time.”

Cleo had been allowing the three of them to speak amongst each other, but something about what Weasley said…

“Are you sure,” the question ambled out, weighty and circumspect, “that the prophecy was the only reason you were sent there?”

Harry grew agitated then, his answer coming out more forcefully than the situation called for, “No. No, there’s-- there’s nothing else! What other reasons could he possibly--? ”

“Harry, they broke in ahead of us,” Hermione explained, concern coloring her voice. “They were sitting in a high-security vault of forbidden knowledge for hours before we got there--”

His unrest had evidently reached a breaking point. “Dumbledore said he wanted the prophecy!”

“As you’ve mentioned before, Dumbledore isn’t all-knowing,” she returned, patient. “The Death Eaters could have had any number of additional reasons for being there that night.”

“Why would Voldemort show up unless we’d backed him into a corner--!”

“Well that’s the question, isn’t it?” Hermione acknowledged. “Because it doesn’t make sense. What did he get out of appearing? It only made a horrible situation even worse.”

"Unless that was the plan from the start," Weasley murmured, the frenetic bounce of his legs thumping against the bottom of his seat. "Maybe he wanted to reveal himself."

Cleo’s gaze swept from Weasley to Hermione, the former staring upward at the vaulted ceiling and the latter staring at her own hands in thought. It was a heavy implication. And although it didn’t have the same personal meaning to Cleo, the sentiment sat dense between the four of them. So much so that it wasn’t at all surprising when Harry had a different interpretation of the matter entirely.

"Don't be stupid, Ron," he snapped. "He wouldn't spend all year in my head, trying to get at Dumbledore through me, if he planned to just announce himself anyway! He lost the advantage of surprise the second he appeared publicly--"

"Sure, he lost an advantage," Weasley countered. "But who's to say he didn't gain one as well?"

"Like what?"

Hermione fielded this with a grave, “We don't know, Harry." Her shoulders slumped. “Since we don't have all the facts, it’s impossible to know. But whatever it is… clearly, Voldemort would have to believe it was worth the cost to get it.”

"What's worth losing the freedom of secrecy and every last one of your supporters?" he argued.

“Whatever nets you the ability to raise the dead and control people, maybe?” Cleo suggested, a little too flippant for her own liking.

“You mean like-- what, Necromancy?” Weasley shuddered, horrified.

Hermione twisted her hands together in her lap. “As far as forbidden magic goes, it seems likely that would be near the top of the list.”

Harry frowned, his tone still doubtful. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“You said it was a research center,” Cleo pointed out. “It seems the most reasonable to place.”

“Something tells me he probably already knew a lot about it before he ever attacked the Ministry,” was Harry's subdued response, his frown cutting across his face like a wound.

Weasley sighed, his tapping foot starting up again. “I mean, it would explain Crouch Jr., wouldn’t it? Maybe Malfoy’s mum, too.”

Cleo’s countenance softened as she stared knowingly at Harry. “She’s her, but not her.”

He met her gaze for a moment before his eyes drifted off to the side. “I don’t know. Doesn’t quite… feel right, but-- I guess that could be it.”

“It’s something to look into, at least,” Hermione concluded before shifting in her seat. “But maybe we should get to the matter at hand. Whatever Voldemort’s plans are, it’s imperative we make sure Violet isn’t returned to him.”

“Right,” Cleo sighed. “Okay. Yeah.”

Harry much more readily latched onto that topic. “Saturday’s the deadline, so we only really have less than two days to get her out of St. Mungo’s.”

Weasley’s eyes were trained on the ward sitting on the floor between them as he mumbled, “Can’t check her out normally because she’s under investigation, can’t Apparate in the hospital, can’t Floo anywhere outside their network without a Mediwizard license-- and she can’t walk very far or be directly spelled.” His summary left him looking a little bleak. “Not a lot of options, there.”

Cleo blinked before she turned her stare toward Harry. “Did you not tell them about the portkey?”

“I told them it could be traced back to you,” he said. “So, we’d need to find another way.”

“Harry--”

“The only other options would be portkey, broom, or vehicle,” Hermione listed. “I would hazard a guess that Violet would not be particularly safe on a broom, much less for a journey of that magnitude. And to travel by train or car would take far too long, not to mention the impossibility of not being caught on your way out. A portkey would be ideal, if they weren’t so heavily regulated.”

There was a dread about Harry when he echoed, “Regulated?”

“They’re limited use,” Weasley cut in. “Dad deals with illegal portkeys all the time -- it’s considered misuse of artefacts if you make one yourself or tamper with a standard-issue. They’re only good for a certain amount of trips usually, and you’ve got to go through the Ministry to get more.”

“And they are thoroughly registered with three points of contact,” Hermione tacked on. “The starting location, the destination, and who is authorized to use it.”

“I mean, maybe if one of us used it instead of Cleo…?” Harry tried.

Weasley scratched the side of his face. “I mean, it probably wouldn’t work for us without Croft. Portkeys are tied to specific people, places, and times.”

“So, that plan’s out, then,” Harry sighed.

“No, it’s not,” was Cleo’s immediate, dubious rejoinder.

“Like I said, there’s not a lot of options, Harry,” Weasley reiterated. “Even if we went in impersonating Aurors or something, there’s really no other way that would guarantee us getting her out in time.”

“Not to mention… it’s the safest way,” Hermione concurred.

“But-- what about Snape?” Harry pointed out. “It’s in his office, isn’t it? What if he’s there at the time?”

“It honestly depends,” Cleo prefaced. “Sometimes he’s there, sometimes he isn’t. His schedule is next to impossible for me to predict, which is why he gave me a key to his office. So sometimes I’ll come back to an empty office and have to make sure to lock up for the evening; other times he’s there and wants to chat about how work went.” Her lips pursed. “So it’s an obstacle. Definitely something we should consider.”

"Diversion, maybe?" Weasley submitted. "I've got a few dungbombs that might keep him occupied."

Hermione shot him a look. "He'll just call Filch, and we'll have one more person to deal with. And besides, you shouldn't even have those."

"What're you going to do, Prefect?" he teased, rolling his eyes. "Confiscate them?"

Harry, who had been looking especially dire, relaxed minutely to comment, "She might, Ron."

"They're for a good cause!"

Cleo felt sort of bad for having to corral the topic back. “Snape doesn’t often deal with disciplinary issues like he used to, not even in his own House. So I doubt a diversion of that kind would get him away.”

Hermione piped up, “Maybe it would be best to go when he has a class?”

“Like Weasley said, it’s set to activate during my work hours,” Cleo explained. “My supervisor sets the charges for my schedule, week by week. So I can’t get to hospital unless I’m on shift.”

“So you can only come back at the end of your work day, too,” she surmised, pressing her lips together in thought. “When are you next scheduled?”

“Eight in the morning until five on Saturday.”

“Do you know when Narcissa will be there?” Harry asked.

“She’s being given an evening tour,” Cleo informed them. “Interdepartmental memo. I figure they think there will be less exposure to a majority of visitors who would openly disapprove of a Death Eater’s wife being associated with the hospital.”

Weasley snorted. “Fancy that.”

“So, five o’clock is a good time to get her out, then,” Hermione concluded. “But that still doesn’t solve the issue with Snape, especially since-- Well. Now I think of it, he won’t have any classes to distract him.”

“I mean, as long as he doesn’t see Violet, you’d just be coming back from work like normal, right?” Harry perked up.

“Right…?”

“My invisibility cloak!” he exclaimed. “If you bring her here with it on, you can keep her hidden in the castle, and then you can just bring her back later-- nobody will know you were involved at all!”

It wasn’t the worst idea, but it was marred by a detail that the boy was staunchly refusing to acknowledge. “Harry…”

The attention he directed at her was intent, eager, but Weasley’s words intersected it. “You can use my ward so he won’t be able to hear her walking around.”

There was a distinct aura to this pronouncement that implied that he understood what she hadn’t said. Hermione, too, was gazing between them with some concern when she questioned, “Ron, I thought your ward was…?”

“Destroyed?” he finished for her, shrugging. “Yeah… I remade it last night. And this one on the floor, too. Turns out when you study and practice a thing, you get better at it. Can you imagine?”

Her smile was small. “I can.”

“Anyway, so long as she holds onto it and doesn’t smash it up, it’ll work. Snape won’t know she’s there in the room with him at all unless she knocks something over.”

“That works.” Cleo was addressing the room, but she was watching Harry.

The boy himself was oblivious. “Brilliant! So should we meet at half seven on Saturday, then, to give you everything you need?"

What she should’ve done was confront him. What she should’ve told him was the truth.

Instead, she forced herself to smile. “Yeah, Harry. Sounds good.”

“Wolfsbane,” Cleo announced.

Snape met her with a raised eyebrow. It was the first word she’d spoken in the hour they’d been together.

“I’ve been thinking about it, is all.”

Standing, the professor brushed the dirt from his gloves, his newly planted Belladonna swaying gently in the winter wind. There were sparse patches of snow still lying about, but Snape’s garden was thriving under the heat of the Fireseed bush he’d placed on the outskirts of his plot, near the stream. By comparison, her aconite bushes were beginning to look a little sad and wilty, despite her having staked them the previous week.

“I presume you mean the potion, not the plant,” Snape remarked, blithe.

She couldn’t match his tone. “Yes.”

“And?”

“It’s a good map for a first prototype.”

He seemed to consider this momentarily. "Functionally, Wolfsbane is very different from your end goal."

“Yes, but the fundamental effects of Wolfsbane have physiological outcomes that would be beneficial to my goals.” She didn’t look at him. “Like I said, it’s a map for a first prototype.”

"To manage pain and induce a stasis, perhaps, but… Wolfsbane is a complicated brew," he observed, his boots crunching in snow behind her. "Difficult to understand, even to a Master such as myself."

Her hands gripped her wand tightly as she inspected a yellowed leaf. “Okay.”

His footfalls stopped. "Nothing more to say about that, Miss Croft?" Snape questioned, mildly amused.

“Just that if you think it’s not an avenue worth exploring, then I won’t.”

He paused. “I did not say it was fruitless.”

“Then what should I do?”

“Considering all that thinking you’ve supposedly been doing,” he remarked, his voice pointed away from her, “I assumed you had concocted a plan of your own.”

Maybe. Except all those things felt nebulous now. Pointless. Impossible. Something she could almost feel herself resenting, the longer she mulled on it. And she didn’t really want to.

“I guess.”

There was quiet for the space of a minute. A blundering, unwieldy silence that was stifled when he passed by her, stepping into her field of vision. “If that is so,” he began in an even tone, “then it is not very like you to keep quiet, Miss Croft.”

To be addressed in such an overly familiar way by someone who was beginning to seem more and more like a stranger was… well. She hadn’t quite managed to settle on an emotion she should feel. Amongst the prevailing apprehension, dismay, impatience, and agitation which was swirling and churning and battling and weaving into some paralyzing amalgam, she was left with the knowledge that she should be angry. But the notion was difficult to grasp and even more impossible to hold on to.

“Sorry,” she breathed, peeling her dragonskin gloves from her hands. She rubbed the back of her neck in some vain attempt to soothe her frayed nerves. “Just… been stressed ever since--” She pulled her palm over the side of her throat. “Work. And on top of--… y’know, been trying to figure out how to spellcraft and I’m awful at it…”

“Wards require regular maintenance,” he told her. “Especially weather charmed ones. Their weakening is not a reflection on the quality of your work.”

He’d told her this before; he was repeating it for her benefit. She hated how nice that felt.

Cleo shifted, visibly uneasy. “I know. I just… more or less, I meant, uhm-- I’d been trying my hand at actual spell creation and it hasn’t exactly been going well--”

“What is it you are attempting to create?”

“Well, trying for a diagnostic spell for preeclampsia,” she disclosed, sighing loudly. “I’ve read up a lot on the theory behind spell creation and have discovered that I am completely out of my depth.”

Snape crouched down beside the aconite bush, his robe spilling around him in dark folds. “A diagnostic spell, with all its information-gathering properties, is not an ideal choice for a beginner,” he divulged. “It is better to start with spells which have more quantifiable outcomes.” He tapped his wand to a sprig of fallen leaves, and as he drew the tip upward, a stream of liquid was extracted from the severed plant bits. Below, the leaves shriveled and browned. “It is easier to see your results with a simple cause and effect.”

“Right,” she blandly excused herself.

Snape shrugged, standing once more. “If you are lacking ideas, then you might simply re-invent a spell which already exists.”

“How do you mean?”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Spells are merely commands which you issue to the magic around you. It is common practice for spellsmiths to copy an existing spell using an entirely different combination of incantation, visualization, and wand movement… It is an exercise in honing your will against elemental magic as a whole.”

That sounded like how she utilized magic already, but that was much less comforting than it should’ve been. “That… makes sense, I guess. Thank you.”

She expected his usual dismissal, or perhaps no response at all, but was surprised when he replied, in the midst of walking away, with a short, “You are welcome.”

His cordiality hit her strangely. Any other time, it might have felt encouraging. Pleasant, even. Now, though? She couldn’t shake the thought that it was all… hollow.

Maybe she wasn’t angry at him, but rather that she couldn’t talk to him. Maybe she wanted to face him squarely to ask him what the fuck he was thinking. To demand to know why he’d treated Harry so badly. To ask how he managed to exist as two separate people at once; why that never seemed to bother him at all. To find out how much of him was concealed. To see if anything she knew about him was actually real.

She wanted it to be real. For reasons beyond all comprehension, she wanted it to be real.

And it felt stupid, how much she desired to test the bounds. To devote herself to an exercise in desperately seeking something she wasn’t sure was even there.

She very nearly touched her aconite bare-handed in her distraction and drew her fingers back against her chest. Her words came out before she’d even organized her thoughts.

“I wanted to ask you something, actually.”

He did not look up, but his eyebrows raised in question.

“The Dreamless Sleep exam?” She shifted so she was facing him. “I wanted to ask how Harry did?”

“Passably,” was Snape’s clipped response as he glanced at her sidelong.

She blinked, feeling a pressure in her chest. “That’s all?”

There was something distinctly snappish in the way he plucked one of the large pink flowers from its stem before shoving it into a glass bottle. “You were expecting more?”

To be honest, she wasn’t quite sure what she’d been expecting. “I was sort of hoping you’d noticed how much better he’s--”

“As laudable as your charitable efforts are,” Snape interrupted, “I fear they are too little, too late. You should be focusing more on your own progress, Miss Croft.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked through a nervous, uncertain laugh. “We’re barely toward the end of first term. How could it possibly be too late for him?”

“It was too late the moment Potter entered my classroom on false pretenses,” he explained with an edge of malice. “He did not meet the prerequisites to begin my N.E.W.T. class, and has since been riding on your coattails to survive the curriculum. He has yet to make up for his various absences and utter refusal to complete assignments.”

“Riding on my coattails? Is that what we’re calling tutoring now?” she balked. “He worked hard. He earned that passing mark.”

His scoff was loud enough to traverse the length of the garden plot. “He only barely managed not to ruin his entire brew at the half hour mark, and turned in a partial vial by the end.”

“Are you actually keeping track of mistakes he could have made, but didn’t?”

Snape leveled her a baleful glare, but said nothing as he continued bottling petals.

A despairing breath preceded her next question. “Why do you do that?”

He was silent for a full minute before turning her way. “I assume you are waiting for me to ask what you mean?”

Cleo’s expression soured. Her words were more of a plea than a demand. “Stop it.”

“You are not particularly suited to giving orders, Miss Croft,” he warned.

“Why does this topic make you so angry?” she pressed. “Not two minutes ago you were actually genial and now you’re just--”

“I have never boasted a pleasant personality.”

“That’s not even remotely what I’m talking about.”

Snape stoppered a vial, uncaring. “Then perhaps you should make yourself clear.”

She scooted closer to him. “I know you’re not a bad person.”

He scowled. “But?”

“There’s no but.”

"Is that so."

“I just don’t understand why he sets you off like this?”

Snape turned his back to her, attending to another section of the garden. “And I fail to see why you find him so worthy of merit.”

She very suddenly chucked her gloves at him, glaring as they bounced off his shoulder with an unspectacular slap. “He’s a kid, Snape.”

His eyes directed themselves to the offending garment, sitting abandoned beside his boots. “Evidently, so are you.”

“Can you even tell me one thing he’s actually done to deserve the amount of… unmitigated hatred you have for him?” she heatedly challenged.

“It is simply fascinating that you believe you know all there is to know about Harry Potter in mere months, where I have had to suffer his presence for years,” Snape told her, clearly annoyed. “He has always been a spoiled, arrogant, and reckless boy, and I have only ever attempted to disabuse him of his delusions of grandeur.”

“Delusions of grandeur?” she jeered. “Are you kidding me? Tell me one thing he’s ever bragged about!”

“You need only look to his conduct, Miss Croft,” he dismissed. “I daresay he feels at liberty to do whatever he likes.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Astute observation.”

“I told you to give me an example.”

“And I told you I’m not in the habit of taking orders from students.”

“You can’t do it,” she accused. “You literally can’t because you know there is absolutely no reason for you to act like this.”

“Ah yes, because your assessments are so vastly superior,” Snape intoned, vials clinking as he placed them in the crate. “Tell me, has he never mentioned his childish feats of heroism to you? Never spoken of his blatant disregard for any and all rules and regulations in this school? Or, perhaps, did he tell all, and convince you there was no harm in it?”

“He’s a kid!” The pitch of her shout clamored along the treeline; rustling leaves, disturbing birds. “How is that so impossible for you to wrap your head around?!”

“Children should still be held accountable for their actions.”

“Not to the point where they’re not allowed the room for growth!”

“That boy has been allowed all the room in the world,” he sneered. “His caretakers do everything in their power to enable him. Including you, Miss Croft.”

“Caring about him is enabling him?”

"Potter has performed many daring feats, year after year, which should have been grounds for expulsion," he flatly told her. "Were you in his place, the same concessions would not have been made."

“That’s not his choice!” she argued, breathless. “That’s people, outside of him, making those exceptions! Were it up to him--”

"Were it up to him, his demands would grow further egregious! In truth, they already have!" Snape practically snarled at her. "Even now, he defies order and reason to serve his own selfish purposes; the allowances made for him by his devotees are by virtue of his celebrity alone -- without it, there is nothing of value in his conduct to recommend him!"

"You're just conflating the behavior of other people with his again!" she accused, fists clenching. "This is about the class, right? Tell me, did Harry Potter himself barge into your office, demanding that he be put in your N.E.W.T. class, or did someone else make that decision for him?!"

"You are a fool if you think allowing someone else to solve his problems for him means that he bears no responsibility," he retorted. "Not once has he spoken to me about it. Not once has he shown that he disagrees with the Headmaster's direct order that the boy must attend my class. Not once has defiant, contemptuous, rule-breaking Harry Potter ever thought to go against this mandate. And why is that? Because it benefits him, and nothing more!"

Her own reaction surprised her more than anything else: Her anger immediately dissipated into disbelief as she laughed, actually laughed, before roughly snagging her gloves from beside him and sloppily pulling them on. Even more surprising were the tears, warm and unwelcome, caressing the length of her jaw as she turned back to adjust a crooked stake.

A few more tears slipped between her gritted teeth before she uttered, "You are unbelievable."

She couldn't see his expression but, considering his previous anger, he stayed quiet for an uncomfortably long time. "I could say the same of you," he murmured, a wary lilt to his tone.

A quiet scoff burst from her nostrils, curtailed by a sharp laugh, as she looked at him. “Do you even hear yourself?”

His eyes narrowed, displeasure plain, as Cleo looked skyward, yet more tears sliding down the length of her nose. “You’re angry because Harry Potter -- the vaunted Boy Who Lived, the kid who is fated to solve all the problems in the Wizarding World, the little boy who will save us and eliminate all evil and suffering apparently -- won’t do the right thing. You’re angry that Harry Potter, a boy who is cognizant of all of this, won’t give up on the very advantage that will help him accomplish what these people expect of him out of integrity and principle -- because he didn’t earn it.” Her face snapped toward him. “You’re angry because he’s acting a little too Slytherin for your liking.”

The professor kept himself very still, not outwardly reacting to what she'd said, but she could see her words roiling behind his eyes, his glare made fiercer because of it. "Ridiculous," he dismissed, gaze breaking away from hers.

“Then look me in the eye and tell me that if it were me in his position, you’d be just as furious.”

There was a cynical slant to his mouth, but nevertheless it stayed resolutely closed. With a disdainful sniff, Snape turned away to walk further down the row of aconite, heading toward the middle of her plot.

She pelted her words at his back. “Anyone who spends five minutes around that boy knows he practically wears his heart on his sleeves. He is one of the most self-sacrificing people I’ve ever met. The only way you wouldn’t notice is if you were too stupid to see it, or were outright refusing to.” Her fingers dug deep into the soil as she clenched them into fists. “And I know you aren’t stupid.”

He ignored that entirely, saying, "Show me your ward foundation."

She trained an incredulous squint on him. “Snape--”

"Last I checked, I am still your advisor," he replied in a voice soaked through with sarcasm. "Or have you forgotten?"

She leaned toward one of the stakes with contempt, unraveling a tattered looking old piece of cloth that had been tied to it. Seconds later, it was launched through the air, where the professor caught it hastily against his torso.

"I am beginning to dislike your habit of throwing objects at random, Miss Croft."

“Will you stop trying to deflect?”

His tone flattened. "I fail to see what more you could have to say."

“I’m trying to talk to you!” she bleated, the sound so dire that it frightened her. “Actually talk -- not share banal, pointless pleasantries! Communicate! Connect!”

"You have made your point already," he said through gritted teeth. "How do you expect me to respond? Are you waiting for an admission that I invariably treat you better than Harry Potter? I could have told you that much from the start."

Her tears resurfaced but for a different reason, that time. “Do you get why I told you about what happened during my pregnancy?”

He looked as if he felt his answer cumbersome, but was humoring her anyway. "Presumably to convince me to advise you."

“Because I look up to you,” was her vehement correction. “Which, apparently, is something you can’t comprehend.”

This admission only seemed to perturb him further. He said nothing.

“That’s… it,” she confessed, the words stumbling out, choked up on her breath. “No monologue. No grand proclamation. I look up to you. I don’t know why that doesn’t register or-- or even matter to you. But all I’m saying is that I admire you and that I am desperately searching for reasons to keep doing that.”

"If the task is so very onerous for you to complete, then you are free to despise me at your leisure." This was spoken with such a lack of ire that it verged on self pity.

“God you sound like my mother,” she vented into her palms as they made a frustrated swipe across her face. “Look, I can’t make you talk to me. But I’ll have you know it sucks. It really sucks. Because I thought--”

It felt idiotic to say, now that it came down to it. Her humiliation forced her into silence.

Unfortunately, Snape wasn't particularly disposed to patience. "What?"

“I thought that this was… a relationship, I guess,” she revealed after a moment of embarrassed waffling. “Maybe friendship is a stupid way to put it but, I don’t know? You’re my mentor and… I thought we enjoyed being around each other? Have a rapport? That you’re someone I could talk to, be real and honest with. That we could actually have an adult conversation regarding conflicts like this-- Like how I know what you’re capable of as a person, and how much it terrifies me when you choose… not to be that.”

His posture was thoroughly drawn up, voice austere. "And what is it you contend I'm capable of, 'as a person'?"

“Kindness,” she stressed, her expression strained against her tears. “Civility. Joviality. Empathy. Compassion.”

He hardly reacted except to say, "How very optimistic of you."

“Yeah, I know, how stupid of me,” she spat, sniffing as she wiped her cheeks against her sleeve. “How could I think the person who was understanding of me at the worst point of my life, who went out of his way to set up everything I needed for my academic future, who went beyond the pale for me in my time of need was anything other than a cold, unfeeling monster, right?”

He stared at her, eyes shadowed by the low overhang of the trees. Then, in a careful tone, he said, "You hardly know me, Miss Croft."

That was what terrified her, in truth.

“Maybe I don’t,” she conceded, sitting back against the grass, legs curled beneath her. “But, is that what you want? For me to think that what you are is essentially unreasonable? A person who could bully children? Traumatize them? Beat the enthusiasm out of them?”

A silence formed between them for a time, during which he never broke from her gaze. There was a stillness to the glade around them, as if even the forest was awaiting an answer. But Snape, for the first time, started to look antsy, his fingers twitching against the old cloth in his hands as if he wanted to wring it. Then, just as she thought he might actually reply, the breath drained from him in a sigh from his nose, and he turned away from her to fiddle with the ward.

Cleo hadn't set a password on it; after a moment, a brief Ostendo lit up the garden with two glowing white cords.

She didn’t look at hers, but she felt the slight thrum of energy up against her wrist. “That's the only possible conclusion I can come to. And there’s only so much I can excuse before I really do become an enabler.”

Wordlessly, he extended the scroll to inspect her weather charms. However, the small frown which formed on his face indicated he was still listening.

“I mean, it’s not just Harry, is it?” she uttered into the dense quiet. “Like how many times can I say ‘that’s just Snape’ before it becomes a tacit endorsement of how you treat people? Like Thea?” Cleo’s head shot up, peering at him in earnest. “She was so terrified of you that she had to stop coming to classes. She camped out in the Forbidden Forest just to avoid the possibility of running into you in the dorms.”

The movement of his wand arm hitched midair, the lapse brief but noticeable against his otherwise controlled demeanor. Still, he did not reply, resuming his inspection unhindered.

“Doesn't that bother you?” she probed, emphatic. “Hearing that you, a grown man, were so scary to this eleven-year-old that she was willing to risk her safety and expulsion just so she didn’t have to be in contact with you?”

This elicited even less of a reaction; he hardly moved at all.

“Say something!” she demanded, despondent. “She’s one of your Slytherins, for God’s sake--!”

"And I have treated her like one!" he suddenly snarled, the full force of his glare descending on her once more. "She has received the same consideration that you have--!"

"She doesn't need consideration! She needs to feel safe!"

Snape's fingers clenched the ward in his hands as his voice grew exponentially darker. "I have never threatened her."

“No,” Cleo agreed, low and raspy. “Just treated her in a manner that’s tantamount to emotional abuse.”

There was a deathly silence between them. She'd seen him be horribly angry before, was perhaps even hoping for it, if only to prove that he cared about what she was saying at all, but, unexpectedly, Snape's face disfigured before her eyes into some expression wholly unfamiliar. For an instant, he looked well and truly ruinous, like he might just tear her ward to pieces. Then, in the next moment, his expression had gone blank, the furor she'd witnessed deadening entirely before he unlatched his grip on the cloth in his hands. Turning away, he retreated to the farthest edge of the garden, returning to his previous occupation as if nothing had been said.

The very sight of it stoked a panic inside her she couldn’t contain. “Don’t!”

Nothing; he continued on his intended trajectory around the plot.

“Don’t just--” The fight in her voice petered out into a dejected, forlorn whine. “Don’t lock me out. Please.”

The glance he tossed her way was utterly impassive. "For once, Miss Croft," Snape said, toneless, "Permit me to perform my actual job."

“That’s exactly what I want!” she lamented. “I want you to do your job. I am begging you to do your job!”

His gaze caught on her again and held fast, a dubious squint narrowing his eyes.

“They need you,” she emphasized, the glowing cord in her chest following her upward as she sat straighter. “Every single child in that castle depends on you. You aren’t just some incidental figure in their lives -- you’re their bloody teacher. You’re one of the adults they’re placing their trust in -- to mentor them, to guide them, to protect them. Everything you say and do makes an impact."

"I am well aware--"

“It shouldn’t be me, Snape!” she interjected. “I shouldn’t be the one to properly teach Harry fundamental principles of potion theory! I shouldn’t be the one to inform him that there are actual workrooms he can practice in! I shouldn't be the one giving him tips to improve his brewing strategy and memorization! It shouldn’t be me catching him up on everything he should have known from day one! That isn't my job!”

Snape's glare was baleful. "If Potter lacks discipline, that is not my problem."

“He doesn’t!” she bellowed, a derisive laugh caught up in the coattails of her breath. “He categorically doesn’t! Because if he did, everything I’ve done wouldn't have worked! He wouldn't be improving at all, but he is! But for some unfathomable reason, you don’t want that to be true! You’re desperate for it to not be true!” The weight of her words bent her forward, emptying her indignation into the space between them. “The problem isn’t that he lacks the willingness or the ability to learn, but the fact you’ve never wanted him to succeed and have spent every waking moment trying to alienate him from trying!”

"Are you quite finished, Miss Croft?" he snapped at her.

She wasn’t. Not even close. And she struggled to her feet, the glowing cord seeming to tangle in her skirt as she rose from the grass. “He was a child. And it’s-- it’s so weird thinking about how I’d hear the newest way you’d tormented eleven-year-old Harry Potter just… casually bandied about the common room. Like it was funny. Like it was normal. But how is your treatment of him even remotely normal? What could this little boy possibly have done before you’d even met to make you hate him so much? To make you push him out of a learning environment he needed? To make you convince him that he was worthless? To make you--”

To make you take him to places children shouldn’t go; to tell him that it was his fault a girl could be dead.

Her jaw trembled as she kept the phrase from spilling out. It rattled strongly against her teeth, begging to be said. The pain of it burned hot against her eyes as new tears plummeted along the contours of her cheeks.

Snape didn't appear to have any answers for her. His stare was direct, piercing, but that was it. He uttered neither an explanation nor a refutation. In the end, all he did say was, "Your Aconites are wilting as we speak."

How could he even possibly be thinking about a stupid--

She took a step toward him, a frustrated, despondent exhale huffing from her lungs before her body spun away from him. Her legs carried her in a harried, frenetic pace around the garden, hands held up against her face as if she were keeping it from falling completely apart. The air was interspersed with the sound of her crunching footsteps and her heated, weepy breaths as she tried to calm herself. But each step led her deeper in; all ire and disquiet, bedlam and resentment. She rounded on him with a half turn, the movement so violent she was afraid she’d actually strike him.

“You know what’s hilarious?” she asked him, her tone frothy with unvoiced sobs. “I actually agree with you. I think the utter reverence everyone treats Harry with is so unhealthy.”

He sighed, pointedly turning his gaze toward the glowing scroll in his hands. "Hilarious," he echoed dully.

She very tightly grasped him by the crook of his elbow. “Listen to me.” Her breath tripped over itself. “Please.”

Predictably, he pulled out of her grasp. Despite this, though, he kept his glower fixed on her.

“All of it is so… wrong,” she told him. “He shouldn’t be eleven years old and plundering the castle; he shouldn’t be twelve and delving into dangerous, monster-inhabited caverns. He shouldn’t be fighting dragons at fourteen. He shouldn’t be fifteen and thinking that if he fails to save even one person, that he’s culpable for every death that comes after. He shouldn’t think that the entire fate of the world rests on his shoulders, especially when there are a lot of us who know that’s not even true.” Her tears felt cold against her chin as a nearby breeze fluttered against her face. “He should get to be a kid. He should have one adult in his life that looks at him and thinks, ‘what’s best for him? How can I be there and protect him from all this… pressure that’s slowly wearing him down until there’s nothing left?’”

"You speak as if he is not running headlong into that danger you are so concerned about, all of his own volition," Snape countered.

“Do you seriously think that if he didn’t have the entire Wizarding World in his ear with this Boy Who Lived nonsense, he would’ve made even half the choices he’s made?”

"No," he admitted, surprisingly. "But that is speculation without merit; the fact of the matter is that he is the Boy Who Lived. Conjecture to the contrary does not address present circumstances, in which his behavior is increasingly audacious."

“You can’t divorce his socialization from his behavior,” she argued. “And you can’t even hope to improve it unless you try to change that influence.”

"It cannot be changed, Miss Croft," he stated at once. "And neither is anyone in a position to make the attempt."

When she looked down, the effervescent glow of the cord warmed and smoothed the roughened contours of her cheek. She could almost feel it inside her, weighty, expectant. She blinked and a few stray tears plunged into its luminous void. She could barely hear her own voice when she murmured, “I can. If there’s no one else, there’s me.”

"I somehow doubt you will have sufficient resources to unravel the mythos of the Boy Who Lived between work, school, and caring for your child."

“If you think my time and energy would be focused so narrowly," she muttered, clear and determined, "then you don’t know me at all.”

At that, he scowled. "Your preoccupation with mothering everyone around you does you a disservice, Miss Croft."

She lifted her head, strands of hair messily clinging to her damp cheeks. Her smile was bittersweet. “Maybe. But I can live with myself.”

Can you say the same?

She didn't say it, but they both somehow knew she had.

Snape’s expression looked etched from stone. "I have neither the desire nor the patience to set myself up as Potter's caretaker when so many others clamor for the position."

Cleo turned herself back to the garden. “Okay.”

She heard him snort. "But, clearly, you will hold it against me all the same."

“No, Snape,” was her subdued reply. Her vision blurred as she forced herself to stare at a petal of Aconite, eaten halfway through. “I won’t.”

"What then was the purpose of this topic, Miss Croft?" he questioned her. "Did you mean to point out the flaws in my character and then carry on?"

“No.”

Because after tonight, it would be over. No theatrical exit; no exhausting screaming match. Their arrangement would quietly, carefully, resolutely finish. A fitting end to a relationship that never should have existed.

"Then what?"

The exhaustion was creeping up on her rather quickly. Cleo lowered herself to the ground once more, bowing her head into her arm to rub her eyes against her wrist. “I’m just tired of seeing people hurt on account of you.”

She could feel the way he was poised to retort in the way he drew breath, but a moment later, the words dissipated, never finding voice. They lapsed into a dissonant quiet, the sounds of the forest clanging around them, strident and cacophonous.

The sun had just begun its work of brightening the sky, but only barely, the light feeling cold to her. Insects droned, faeries dried dew from their wings, birds called out from high above. The forest was waking up, and time was running out. She couldn’t help but feel she was wasting it.

Then, quite suddenly, the air above her darkened, and a deluge of rain began pouring over her garden.

She allowed herself to be drenched, too dismayed to even care, much less move. In a second, Snape was by her side, casting a hasty Impervious to shield her from the rain's frigid sting.

"The timing of your charms is a touch… abrupt," he mentioned.

Her head swiveled away from him, feeling ungainly on her neck. Her response was a soft hum.

"Regardless, they seem to be more or less in working order. You have organized them well enough."

Her face scrunched, his compliment threatening to bring her to tears again. “Yeah.”

"Your plants are adequately watered, well-supported from the wind. Perhaps another deterrent for insects would suffice."

“Mhm.”

There was a pause, and a short sigh, before he prompted, "Miss Croft." When she made no move to respond, he tried once more. "Cleo."

The tears were inevitable that time. She was confronted with the realization that this had all been pointless; she’d gotten exactly what she wanted and it meant nothing. This was as vulnerable as she’d ever seen him, but they’d moved no closer to the truth. They’d approached an impasse that was as inescapable as it was harrowing: He could not reveal to her every hidden facet of his life just as much as she could not tell him that she was about to ruin everything he had built for her.

She was hiding just as much as he was, and she hated herself for it.

He wasn't looking at her directly; the rain sluiced off his shoulders in unhindered rivulets. "If the manner--" He paused to grimace. "Since you appear to find my conduct with Mr. Potter so… disruptive-- then… I may endeavor to… maintain a civil address," was his gruff, halting concession.

Her smile was a twitching, meager thing that had a hard time staying affixed to her face.

Snape eyed her, seeming as if he might say more along that vein, but apparently he'd reached his limit. "The prevailing issue is not with your ward, but rather the overarching canopy-- your Aconites are not seeing enough sunlight."

Her guilt forced her to slip the facade back on, at least for his benefit. "Even with the sunlight charm from the ward?"

"The Forbidden Forest is, in itself, magical," he told her. "It could likely be interfering with that charm in particular. You will notice I have not bothered with my own plot."

"Because your plants don't need the amount of sunlight mine do?"

"I have indeed chosen species which do not particularly require copious sunlight," he admitted, "but you are not afforded that same luxury. Your samples have been sourced from around the world for a reason."

"So we have to get rid of the canopy."

"Precisely. Allow the natural sunlight to do the work for you, rather than wrestling with your sun charms for the next several hours."

Her eyes went to the treeline. “I’ve never tried to cut tree boughs before.”

"A standard cutting charm is not ideal from this distance. And too, it would be unfortunate to destroy the garden entirely with a stray fallen branch."

"There are non-standard cutting charms?"

"Of a sort," was his vague reply. "I am familiar with one which might serve your purposes."

“Okay.”

He brandished his wand. "Sectumsempra. Slashing wand movement. Variable focus," he rattled off his standard summary. "It will carve in the direction of your wand's trajectory. For a single, clean slice, use a precision focus. For a wider range made up of many small cuts, less controlled, you will use an areal focus. For this exercise, the latter will suffice; separating the branch into many small pieces will protect the plants below."

She swirled her wand hand in a circle that encompassed a section of the boughs. “Like this?”

“Yes.”

Her first attempt split the branch lengthwise, one half of it sagging downward and splintering where it was bent over.

“Your focus is too narrow. Try again.”

The next slash of her wand was broad, forming shallow slits in the bark.

“Better.”

When she cast the spell once more, the canopy broke, a cavalcade of wood chips pelting down on them both. Only a pale, diffused light entered the clearing then but, come noon, her Aconites would be able to see the sun

“Well done.”

She busied herself with picking stray splinters from her hair as she remarked, “I’ve never heard of that spell before.”

“I imagine not,” was Snape’s breezy rejoinder. “Suffice it to say, you will never hear of it again. Nor will you teach it to anyone else.”

Her confusion gave way to shock; it dawned on her that what he’d just shared was likely intensely personal. An act of trust that both sickened her and forced unquestioning compliance. “Of course.”

He murmured a counter charm. The lighted strings attached to their chests disappeared, and he moved to hand her ward back to her. The moment she took hold of the ratty cloth, Snape said, “One further stipulation, Miss Croft.”

She lifted her chin. “Yes?”

“There is nothing this spell cannot sever.” He let the cloth fall into her hands. “Nothing at all.”

She observed him as bent toward her, expression gone severe.

“Be mindful to direct your wand wisely.”

“You know I couldn't." She grimaced. "I wouldn't."

His rigid stare lingered for a moment, but all he said was, “Your Aconites should begin flowering within the week, I expect.”

She forced herself to smile. “They’ll be alright during the holidays?”

“I will remain at the castle.”

“Ah… right. Thank you.”

Snape glanced in the direction of the rising sun. “Now, if I am not mistaken, you have somewhere to be.”

“Right,” she exhaled, bending over to gather her things. “Are you sure you’re alright to finish up?”

“I do believe I will manage to find it in me,” was his dry remark as he turned his back to her.

Cleo was halfway back to the trail leading back to the castle when she stopped. She glanced down at her feet. “Professor?”

His attention was inquisitive as he partially turned her way.

There was a dark, sobering moment where she considered telling him everything. Begging for his help. Apologizing for daring to squander everything he’d done to help her. Admitting how terrified she was of the possible consequences. Confessing that there was a part of her so cowardly and self-centered that it didn’t want to bear all the risks.

It lasted only the span of a blink. She forced herself to take a breath.

“I promised Thea I’d come with her to class as she tries to ease back in,” she said instead. “Is that okay?”

His expression was inscrutable. “Very well.”

“I’ll make good use of my time.” She didn’t know why she was still trying to sell something he’d already accepted. “I can assist you, or grade papers, if need be.”

“Do as you like, Miss Croft."

“Thank you,” she said in a tone that sounded awfully like goodbye.

Cleo’s arrival at the meeting spot was heralded by the sound of a door slamming open, rushed steps and panicked breath.

She was hunched over as she entered the empty music room, arms locked behind her back as she shouted to no one in particular, “Clear a table!”

She didn’t even know if anyone was actually there, but thankfully someone pulled a nearby work table toward the middle of the room, the sound of clutter falling haphazard to the floor in their wake.

Cleo grunted as she carefully delivered the bundle of nothing onto the surface. When she pulled the cloak down, Violet’s hair spilled forth first, wild and tangled. The rest of her slowly materialized as if knitted, piecemeal, from air to flesh. Cleo’s hands were on her in an instant.

“Tell me where it hurts.”

Violet’s expression was flat; her mouth moved, but no sound was forthcoming. It took Cleo a few moments to realize she was still holding the flower. Plucking the stem from between Violet’s fingers and setting it aside, she leaned forward and uttered, “What was that?”

“I said,” Violet emphasized, her eyes rolling. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine, you fell.”

“Cleo--”

“What happened?” Harry questioned, anxious. “Did you get caught?”

“Snape wasn’t even there,” Cleo quickly fielded, her focus honed to checking every inch of visible skin on Violet’s body. “I completely forgot how violent portkey travel can be to someone not used to it--”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Violet objected. “I just lost my balance, is all.”

“Of course it was bad. I completely lost hold of you!”

Violet pulled away from Cleo’s hands, face scrunching as she sat up slightly, perched on her elbows. “You couldn’t even hear me. How could you possibly know how bad of a fall it was?”

Cleo’s face looked weighed down by her frown. “You’re in a delicate state--”

“No, I’m not,” Violet lobbed back, defensive. “I’m getting better. I bet I could’ve walked up here, if you would’ve let me.”

“Violet,” Cleo’s stance beside the table shifted as she leaned against it, palms flat on the surface. “I already told you this at the hospital. While you’re here, you’re my responsibility and if anything happens to you--”

The other girl’s expression twitched slightly; a tick in the muscles of her face as her expression tried to match her thoughts, failing part of the way through. Despite this, however, her voice had softened to a more affable, gentle tone when she spoke. “I know.”

“So for my peace of mind, please.”

Violet winced as she sat up fully. “I don’t know; back’s a little sore, I guess, and my leg’s a bit scrammed, but that’s it. It’s really not that bad.”

Pulling her wand from the pocket of her robes, Cleo went immediately to the task of examining the glowing facsimile of Violet’s leg bones with a hastily cast Intus Videre.

Harry was watching intently, but furtively, his manner altogether… strange. He hovered a distance away, shuffling his feet and eyeing the door every so often as if a ghost might spring through at any moment. “Is she okay?” was his hushed inquiry.

“Yeah,” Cleo breathed as she took a step back away from the table. “Nothing broken. Not from what I can see, at least.”

“I told you,” Violet grumbled.

“You can’t fault me for checking.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the girl conceded absently, her eyes scanning the empty room. After a moment, she seemed to notice Harry for the first time. Her brow furrowed into deep grooves as she observed him. “Can you please not stare at me like that?”

He had that look again. That fearful, wide-eyed uncertainty. She realized she was witnessing something momentous: Two people looking past one another. Harry, with all the look of dread at finally meeting the girl he thought he'd killed. Violet, having no idea he was aware of any of it. “Er… sorry. Yeah, I’ll… stop.” Harry turned away before marching toward the door with stiff footsteps. “I’ll just-- be out here. To wait.”

He awkwardly disappeared into the hallway.

The girl’s gaze uncomfortably meandered back to Cleo. “What’s his problem?”

“Nothing,” she dismissed. “Just stressed. Putting the Masquerade together has been chaotic.”

Violet’s nose scrunched. “Masquerade? That’s what you’re calling this?”

“Oh, not, like, this,” Cleo’s head shook as she gestured between them. “A club is organizing a dance, is all. It’s happening in about an hour or so.”

“Oh.” Her brow furrowed again as she seemed to have a hard time processing that bit of information. “Didn’t think someone like Harry Potter would help out with a school dance.”

Cleo canted her head before craning it over her shoulder to look at the door. “You knew who he was?”

“I mean, yeah,” Violet replied. “He and I were in the same year. You’d kind of have to be an idiot to not notice him.”

“You should’ve said hi.”

The girl squinted. “Why? He doesn’t know me.”

Cleo’s laugh was explosive. “Well, yeah? That’s kind of why you introduce yourself when you meet someone new.” Admittedly, there was something uncomfortable and almost devious about the idea that Harry knew more about her than she even realized. Even things that Cleo was beginning to regret divulging, no matter how necessary that information had been.

Violet’s lips curled in resentment. “Don’t do that.”

She blinked. “What?”

“Talk down to me.”

Cleo’s posture unwound. “Violet, I--”

“Yeah. I know. You weren’t meaning to. That’s fine. But I’d be a shite friend if I didn’t point it out to you, right?”

“I was going to say sorry,” Cleo admitted, a slight sardonic curl to her lips. “But you’re right. I appreciate the honesty.”

The girl’s nose wrinkled. “You know, before we came here... I didn’t tell you about, y'know... my being autistic because I’m too dumb to figure out stuff like this myself,” she explained, visibly rankled. “I just meant-- I don’t know. I don’t know him. Don’t really get why he’s doing this, either. I don’t really want to introduce myself right now. How would I, anyway? ‘Hi, my name’s Violet, and my drama is the entire reason you’re basically going to get expelled from school. Want to be friends?’”

Cleo walked up to the table. “You’re stressed.”

“I’m stressed.”

“Is there anything I can do to make you feel safer?”

“No.”

Cleo tried to make eye contact, but it was impossible. “Are you sure?”

“Cleo, like,” the girl waffled, her discomfort making itself known as she fidgeted in place. “It’s not about anything you can or can’t do, you know? You could literally lock me in the most securely warded and guarded place anywhere and I’m still going to be paranoid that there’s--” The girl gritted her teeth as she winced and cast her furtive glance to one of the walls. “Like--”

“I understand. It’s not that easy to feel safe.”

Violet’s eyes darted to the ceiling as she rocked slightly in place. “This is stupid.”

“What’s stupid?”

“This plan!” she complained. Her fingers drummed on the inside of her thighs as she scowled into the room. “I mean, not being funny, but what am I doing here?”

“I told you that you wouldn’t be there while Narcissa--”

“Yeah, but what if nothing happens?” Violet blurted. “Like I've lost the plot over nothing, and it’s fine like the Auror said, and now I’m here and--”

“Violet.”

The girl fell silent.

Cleo was bent in front of her, hands resting on either side of her knees. “Look at me.”

It took a while for Violet’s eyes to obey: Their gaze went on a meandering, stumbling journey from ceiling to floor to mouth to shoulder to table to hand to shoulder again before locking onto Cleo’s, intent and apprehensive.

“I believe you.”

The girl’s expression twitched slightly before deadening again. “But he could be right--”

“I believe you.”

Violet’s body lurched slightly as a tremor roiled through her body. Her hands grasped each other in front of her chest. “What if--”

“I. Believe. You.”

The girl looked like she wanted to cry, but the rest of her wasn't willing to cooperate. Her limbs had to work through a few more anxious fidgets before her head was turning away, breaking their eye contact. “Will you hate me?”

Cleo spoke with a careful, resolute conviction. “No.”

“Will Harry hate me?”

Again, equally adamant. “No.”

“Will--”

“No one’s going to hate you.”

Violet leaned back before taking a bracing breath. “Cleo, I’m really sorry that--”

“Stop.”

“But--”

“No.”

The girl’s nose scrunched again. “We should talk about it--”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Cleo--”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

The girl raised her head a little, daring to make eye contact again. “That’s not very adult of you.”

The levity of the statement, at least, gave Cleo the room to chuckle. “Probably not.”

Violet’s shoulders drooped as she looked away again, the subdued fretting taking hold of her limbs once more.

Cleo felt a familiar compulsion emerging. “Can I hug you?”

The girl was staring down at her fingers as they picked at each other. “No.”

Violet was perhaps the only person whose rejection could make her smile. “How about sitting next to you? Is that okay?”

Her hair flicked over her shoulder as she gave a solitary, jerky nod.

Cleo perched herself beside the girl, observing her for a few moments more before she broke their silence. “I need you to stop thinking that.”

She could see the wrinkles forming around the corners of Violet’s eyes as she squinted, incredulous, at her hands. “What?”

“That this is your fault.”

Her skin smoothed out. “Feels like it.”

“It isn’t.”

“Okay.” Reluctant, resigned -- not like she meant it.

“I mean it. If it hadn’t been for--”

“I get it.”

Cleo raised an eyebrow at her. “I haven’t even--”

“Yeah. I know. I get it.”

“Violet--”

“I know what you’re going to say,” she asserted. “And I don’t want to go there. I get it.”

It was as good a boundary as any, Cleo supposed. She drew away and expelled a loud gust of air as she leaned back against her palms.

It was a few more moments yet before Violet braved speaking again. “Are you disappointed you don’t get to go to the dance?”

“That? No.” Cleo snorted. “Spending an evening surrounded by teenagers? No thanks.”

“I’m enough, yeah?” Thankfully, she could hear the slight smile in Violet’s voice.

“Between you and the Golden Trio, I’m about at my limit,” Cleo joked. She turned to look at the girl beside her. “Why do you ask?”

She shrugged. “Don’t know; people usually find those things fun.”

“Do you want to go?”

The corners of her eyes were crinkling again. “I didn’t even know it was happening until five minutes ago, so no, not really. Besides,” she lifted her legs up onto the table top, “it’d be stupid to put me in a crowd. You know, where people could see me?”

“It’s called a Masquerade for a reason, you know.”

The girl’s cheeks puffed up as she huffed, gesturing to her hospital gown with some measure of disgust. “Sorry, did this look like a costume to you?”

“No, but--”

“And aren’t we supposed to be watching for when it’s time to go back?”

Cleo’s frown was contemplative, if a touch sardonic. “Well, we won't have to--”

“Shut up.”

Cleo’s eyes widened in surprise. “What?”

“Don’t joke about that,” the girl warned. “It’s not funny.”

“It might be a little funny.”

Violet foisted a determined glare at the floor. “We’re going to wait.”

Cleo scooched down the table to dismount. “Violet--”

Just then, the door slammed open again. A violent flinch surged through Violet’s body; she fell back further down the table as Cleo’s head snapped toward the sound. Seconds later, Hermione’s voice was spilling into the air, hasty and a touch out of breath. “Oh, good, you’re here. I hope this--” The girl halted mid-stride as she looked Cleo over. “Why aren’t you dressed?”

Cleo’s frame relaxed as she heard Violet take a few calming breaths beside her. “What do you mean?”

Hermione’s stare darted between the pair of girls, baffled. “The Ball’s starting in thirty minutes. I brought a mask and dress for Violet.”

“I didn’t know we were going?”

Hermione’s shoulders drew back as her eyes narrowed, incredulous. “What else were you going to do? Bunker down here?”

Cleo matched Hermione with a disbelieving look of her own. “I mean, yes?”

“‘The perfect time to slip away is when everyone can see you, but they're too busy to take real notice,’” Harry recited, emerging from behind his friend. Hermione shot him an odd look, but he only shrugged. “Just something Ron said. I think it applies here too-- if anyone finds you in here, they’ll have questions. A teacher might even recognize Violet. But if you’re just in the crowd with us, wearing masks like everyone else, enjoying the dance… You’re less likely to be bothered.”

“Violet’s already said she’s not comfortable with going,” Cleo told them, slipping her hands into her robe pockets.

“Well, you’ll have to do something,” Hermione fretted. “The choir has practice here tonight.”

“We wouldn’t let anything happen.” Harry took an earnest step forward. “And, anyway… Be a shame if you missed Hermione’s big speech.”

The girl in question scowled. “Speaking of-- I ought to get back before Ann decides to rearrange the whole schedule entirely.” Unceremoniously, she shoved the garments she was holding right into Harry’s arms. Casting a quick look in Cleo’s direction, she finished, “I’ll keep an eye out for you if you decide to come.”

With that, she stepped out of the room, deliberately quieter than when she had entered it.

Cleo thought that the three of them would have to stand there in an uncomfortable, stilted quiet when Violet spoke, eyes locked on the dress draped over Harry’s arm. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.” There was a distinct flash of teeth as she grimaced, before she schooled her expression toward something more neutral. “What if something happens and--”

“We’ll take care of it,” Harry said at once, not a trace of doubt in his tone. “I mean, we came up with this plan, didn’t we? We intend to carry it out. So… why not enjoy your time here while it lasts?”

“Harry--” At this, Cleo witnessed the boy’s countenance twist into something grim, as if he couldn’t quite come to grips with the idea of this girl -- this very girl -- uttering his name. “I’m just really sorry about all this--”

Well, he wasn’t about to stand for that, either. “It’s no trouble,” was his quick interruption. “I… er. It-- It’s like this, um--” He exhaled, clearly frustrated with himself. “Look, the thing is, we just don’t want anything bad to happen to you. And I… want to be sure of it, okay? And, well. It would really help if you stuck close to us, so we could all keep watch. Four pairs of eyes are better than one, I think.”

Violet didn’t appear any more convinced, but surprised Cleo when she made eye contact with her again as the girl prompted her with an inquisitive, “Cleo?”

She shrugged with her arms crossed. “It’s the best plan we’ve got.”

“What about you, though?” she asked, her frown growing more prominent. “You don’t have a dress--”

“I’m a million years too old to actually be attending,” Cleo remarked, raising an eyebrow. “School robes are fine. For all anyone knows, I’m chaperoning. Like the teachers.”

“They won’t be getting dressed up either?”

Cleo forced a scoff. “I doubt it. Snape’s going -- could you even imagine him in dress robes?”

The girl’s expression seemed less strained, but she wasn’t all that entertained. “Probably not…”

Cleo toward Harry as she held out her hands. “Anyway, can I have that? I think I should be the one to help Violet dress, yeah?”

“Right.” He seemed more than happy to divest the clothes into her care. “Yeah, I uh-- I’ll see you down there, actually. I…” His face flushed. “I’m… meeting someone.”

Thankful for the opportunity to push things toward something more jovial, Cleo offered him a honeyed smile. “For the Ball?”

He grew more uncomfortable, if such a thing were even possible. “Yes…?”

She couldn’t describe what she was feeling around then; an odd amalgam of warm, blithe emotions that seemed to center around a sense of… pride. Maybe it was stupid, even inappropriate, but… “Well? Don’t keep them waiting. Go on.” Her head motioned toward the door.

“Right.” Harry blew out a tense breath. “Right. Yeah. Erm… See you.”

His departure was just as demure as Hermione’s had been, if a bit more fraught with anxiety.

Cleo was quick to turn on the girl. “How would you like to do this?”

Violet’s lips pursed. “I don’t know? You’re a nurse… sort of. You’ve basically seen all my…” Her brow knitted together as if she found the next word utterly bizarre to say. “… bits.”

“When you were unconscious and didn’t have much say in the matter, yes,” Cleo agreed. “But since you’re not, I thought you’d like some input in how you get changed.”

The girl looked rather helpless sitting there, uncertain how to position herself. “Not used to doing things by myself anymore,” was her meek admission.

Cleo’s expression softened as she took a step toward her. “We really don’t have to go if you don’t want to, Violet.”

Her head shook, hair brushing against her shoulders. “We should.”

Cleo placed the dress on the table. “Want to give it a shot, then?”

Violet’s eyes darted between the dress and the woman before her. “You can turn around but… can you stand there still? Just in case?”

“Of course.”

After she turned, it took a while for Violet to shimmy off the desk into a standing position. The landing wasn’t unstable from what she could hear, but the girl had to pause again and stabilize herself against the surface, her body hovering close to Cleo’s back. Every so often, Cleo noticed a shift in the air that felt as if Violet was going to take hold of her in order to steady herself but didn’t. The dress slipped off the counter in Cleo’s periphery, accompanied by a series of sounds: heated, frustrated breaths; cloth hitting the floor, slipping against skin; uncertain, wobbly shuffling of feet. Somewhere along the line, Violet’s hand came up onto Cleo’s shoulder, holding tight.

“Sorry,” she excused herself. “Trying to get the back part, but--”

“Do you need help?”

“No,” the girl said at once. There was another grunt, the sound of Violet tripping and catching herself. Cleo nearly turned around, but Violet’s squeeze against her shoulder kept her in place. There was another moment of hesitation before an annoyed, defeated, “Yes.”

The dress didn’t look awful on her, really. Cleo had expected it to be more baggy; it certainly wasn’t tight, but it clung, at least. Hermione, in all her infinite wisdom, had scrounged up a garment that covered all the salient spots, including lacy sleeves that ended high up on the wrist.

Something Violet, at first glance, didn’t appear to care for all that much.

Even as Cleo latched the buttons on the back of the dress, her arms would draw outwards every so often as if she were trying to shake something off.

Cleo tried to get a look at Violet’s face as she finished the top button. “You okay?”

“Fine.”

“Are your arms bugging you?”

Her mouth twitched as she admitted with some difficulty, “Don’t like lace.”

“Oh,” Cleo breathed. “Bad sensation?”

“Yeah.” Violet shook her head as her arms flexed uncomfortably again. “I can deal with it.”

No, because it wouldn’t do.

And without hesitating, Cleo grasped the frilly edge of one wrist and began the first tear, her movements halted by the slap of Violet’s other hand against hers as she tried to pull away.

“What are you doing?”

Cleo raised an eyebrow. “Fixing it.”

“But this is Hermione’s dress--”

“She won’t mind,” Cleo dismissed before she shrugged. “And if she does, I’ll pay her back.”

Violet made a few more paltry objections -- nothing that sounded like actual phrases, more like hemming and hawing -- before she relented, allowing Cleo to continue on her sloven, haphazard endeavor of tearing the lace sleeves from the dress.

When she finished, there was a pile of black strips huddled together on the tabletop.

“That better?” Cleo prompted as Violet’s arms waved out to test the air.

The girl seemed too embarrassed to look at her. “Yeah.”

“How about the dress itself? Is that material fine?”

“It’s soft,” the girl observed, biting her lip. “It feels okay.”

“You sure?”

Violet’s irritation flared at that. “It’s fine, Cleo.”

Cleo attempted to use her smile to diffuse the tension. “Okay.”

Violet took a few cautious steps around the room as her arms started to settle down at her sides. Then, with a cursory glance to her wrists, she approached Cleo again, proffering them to her. “I can see them, though.”

Cleo’s stare roved over the tattoos very briefly. “They’re not that conspicuous,” she concluded. “Besides, people don’t know what they are. Some might ask. Most of them won’t know they’re there.”

“I know they are, though,” the girl stressed.

The corners of Cleo’s lips dipped into a frown. Ah.

It was an inelegant solution, but as Cleo slipped her outer robes off and displayed them to Violet, it seemed the most reasonable. “How does this feel?”

Her fingers trailed over the seams of cotton fabric, lips twisting.

“Is it okay?”

Violet’s fingers retracted as she stared at the robe, uncertain. “Would it look off?”

“Black goes with anything,” Cleo promised. “If anyone asks, you didn’t realize how cold it would be and your very kind friend offered it so you could stay warm.”

It exaggerated her smallness when she wore it; covered the places she didn’t want to see. Which, as Violet wrapped the entirety of the outer robe around her silhouette, was more than just the tattoos.

She tried more than once to close it around her and keep it there. But as it continued to fall open after a few frustrated attempts, she gave up, twisting over toward the table as she pulled her hair over her shoulder.

“You look fine.” It felt like the only thing Cleo could possibly say. “Do you want to see?”

Violet’s answer was a quick, cutting, “No.”

Cleo’s smile couldn’t quite stick. “Okay.”

“I’m not--” Violet’s neck rolled against her shoulder as she looked away. “I’m not ready.”

Right. It had probably been a while since Violet had even remotely been near her reflection, and a month since she’d started healing. It was probably best not to dwell on the subject; if she wasn’t ready, she wasn’t ready.

So, Cleo made a quick half-turn to the table to grasp the mask. “I’m guessing you don’t care for things on your face either, yeah?”

The girl was slow to answer. “Yeah.”

“Just hold this where it’s most comfortable.” Violet obeyed, grasping the mask by the edge as Cleo held up her wand. “Wingardium Leviosa. Haeresco.” The sticking charm adhered the offending garment to air, hovering a few centimeters from her face.

“How’s that?”

The pads of Violet’s fingers traced the edges of the mask. Her eyes were downcast. “Cleo?”

“Hm?”

“What do I look like?”

A girl, enveloped in black, stood before her. The dress cut a nice enough silhouette, cinching gently at her waist, though the style wasn’t particularly suited to her in general. Understandable, given that it was Hermione’s dress, but at least the neckline was a flattering V-shape, softening the protrusion of Violet’s collarbone. Cleo’s outer robe further obscured the gauntness of her frame, but the mask was an elegant accent to her face, lacy and sequined.

“You look like… Violet,” Cleo said with some finality. “Just, Violet.”

Violet let out a breath that sounded perilously close to a cry. However, her face was unmarred by even the suggestion of distress.

Eventually, her arms crossed over each other, protective, as she looked up at Cleo. “You’re really going to do this.”

Cleo experienced and quelled the impulse to reach out for her, a twitch that started and ended at her fingertips. “I know.”

The girl’s tongue laved over her bottom lip as she vacillated from one foot to the other, uncertain. “I think I’m okay for you to hug me.”

Cleo’s hair slid from shoulder to back as she tilted her head. “Is it for you, or for me?”

She saw Violet wince from behind her mask. “You.”

Cleo couldn’t help it: A soft laugh ripped through her throat as she leaned forward and walked past her.

“C’mon, we’re going to be late.”

The Great Hall was absolutely transformed.

Fans of silver streamers gleaming in low candlelight, ice sculptures standing taller than students, crystalline snowflakes descending in gentle eddies, pale ribbons flowing through air in ghostly curlicues, glowing fountains of sparkling drinks, little colored chocolates arranged in bouquets, glistening icicles dangling from the raised platform, pristine table settings awaiting a banquet, swan-shaped folded napkins sliding along tablecloth surfaces as if they were taking a turn about a placid lake.

A star-strewn night sky. An assortment of fancy dresses. An entryway fashioned out of a rainbowed collage of masks. Everywhere, a lustrous sight. Everyone, hiding their faces.

Cleo was no stranger to the all-encompassing nature of wizarding fixtures, but even so, there was something distinctly excessive about the pomp and circumstance of it. Something a little contrived. For a gathering that was supposed to be made for and in support of Muggleborns, she couldn’t help feeling a little out-of-place.

It was going to be a long evening, she could tell.

And, as was immediately apparent upon arrival, not just because of the decor.

“Violet?”

It was a ridiculously idiotic thing to look over, in retrospect. A contingency they should’ve planned for.

“Merlin, is that you?”

The idea that, just perhaps, there would be people who might be able to recognize her, no matter how dolled up she was.

Upon being accosted, Violet pulled her hair over her shoulder, fingers drawing through the intermingled blue and black strands, accusatory.

They probably should’ve done something about that, Cleo belatedly realized. Not that she knew the first thing about permanent dyeing charms. Or whether such a thing even existed.

Cleo was the first to turn toward the source of the sound, with Violet trailing meekly behind. Padma Patil was still crossing from the hall into the entryway, her manner of dress quite striking. Considering the theme of the Ball, it was distinctly odd that she was adorned in bright, summer yellow. The bodice of the dress was fitted, sleek across her shoulders where a large brooch shaped like a daisy lay in the center of the neckline, and it tapered down into many thin, petaled layers of fabric. The girl herself carried off the look with a sanguine confidence, boldly sans mask, and her head was held high as she weaved around several other students to greet them.

Almost as soon as she arrived, Violet’s demeanor changed entirely. In a maneuver that surprised Padma just as much as it did Cleo, the girl threw her arms around the approaching Ravenclaw and let out a high pitched, “Padma!”

The girl in question stared down, wide eyed, limbs hanging limply by her sides before a sense of propriety snapped into place. In a second, she wrapped Violet in a brief, albeit good natured, embrace before pulling away. “Uh, it’s nice to see you, too.”

Cleo didn’t recognize Violet at all. The girl looked positively bubbly. “I didn’t know you’d be here!”

“I could say the same for you,” Padma laughed, her hands lingering as they held Violet’s elbows. “You doing alright?”

“Oh, yeah,” Violet gasped. “I’m alright. And you?”

“Great,” Padma supplied, if a little awkwardly, before her eyes trailed to Cleo. “Sorry, didn’t catch your name?”

“Cleo.”

“Right, I remember you from the meeting,” Padma offered by way of explanation. “Are you two…?”

Cleo’s head tilted. “No.”

“She just invited me,” Violet filled in.

“I didn’t know you knew any of the older students,” Padma observed.

“We met this past summer,” Cleo smoothly lied. “Our parents attend the same Muggle organization. Concordia.”

“Never heard of it, sorry,” Padma excused herself, drawing her arms back over her chest. “But that’s nice, though.”

“It’s a bit like E.A.R.W.I.G., actually,” Cleo added, finding her hands attempting to stuff themselves in her pockets, only to realize that Violet was wearing said pockets. Her palms smoothed over her skirt. “Which is why I thought this seemed like something Violet would like.”

Padma didn’t seem all that interested. “Oh, yeah, that makes sense.” Her eyes were scanning the area behind them, searching for something. “Are you, uhm, thinking about coming back to school, Violet?”

The girl’s smile was tremulous. “Maybe?”

“I really hope you do,” Padma said. “Sorry for startling you like that. When I saw you, I just -- I thought I’d say hi.”

Violet nodded. “I’m glad you did.”

Padma’s eyes darted back briefly to Violet before she cracked a grin. “Sorry, I’m just trying to find my date… Oh!” Her heels clacked against the stone flooring as she made their way past them, but she suddenly caught herself and turned halfway toward them. “I hope you have a really lovely time! Maybe talk to you later?”

Violet let out a breath. “Definitely, yeah!”

“Okay! Bye then!”

Padma crossed the room, distinctly toward the stage, where Hermione was pacing up and down, conversing with Professor Burbage.

The second the Ravenclaw was far enough away, Violet’s form unwound. Her expression blunted. She let out another trembling breath.

Cleo raised an eyebrow at her. “You good?”

“Knackered,” the girl quietly replied.

“You handled that very well.”

Violet was watching Padma from across the room. “I told you it was stupid to come here--”

Cleo reached to grasp Violet by the shoulder, but forced her hand to fall away before it got too close. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not--”

“No one knows about what happened to you,” Cleo asserted. “You’re still underage; Poke took your privacy very seriously. No visitors. No Prophet. No one outside of the Aurors in charge of your investigation. As far as anyone’s concerned, you’re a graduate who has every right to be here.”

“But what if--”

“It doesn’t matter.” Cleo took a step forward to dodge an incoming couple, pulling Violet with her. “Just relax. Have fun.”

“I don’t want to get you in trouble.” Violet’s expression was pained.

And Cleo’s smile was just as pitying. “Listen--”

“Hey, you’re here!”

Harry emerged from the quickly growing crowd with his date in tow. He was dressed in a far more dapper fashion than she was used to, but even so, her eyes had a hard time sticking on him when the girl on his arm -- Luna Lovegood, which was a shock in its own right -- was so much more interesting to look at: Her dress was plain, white, and vertically rippled, hanging just above her knees, but her mask was an intense, metallic red. Less of a standard face covering and more of a mind-bending head ornament, the mask was made up of thin metal strips which curved, coiled, and interlocked, weaving themselves in her hair, alighting on the corners of her eyes, caressing her ears, and loitering in lazy curlicues across her nose and forehead. Beneath the mask, her face was rendered further obscured by swirls of white and black face paint and, beneath her short slit-sleeve, there was an array of hundreds of colored ribbons tied to her arms. Whenever she moved, they fluttered behind her like a feathery curtain.

Attired in matching black-and-white, Harry still looked dull by comparison, despite his clean buttoned shirt and the sharp cut of his robes. “Not much for dressing up, then?” he commented with a teasing smile.

Cleo allowed herself to shrug. “Wouldn’t want to upstage anyone.”

Violet’s disposition had taken another jarring turn: Her eyes brightened considerably as she regarded the new girl, lips curved into a smile. “I love your mask.”

The dreamy blonde raised her chin a little. “Oh, thank you.”

Watching Violet was surreal. “Did you paint it yourself?”

“A bit, yes,” Luna continued, her voice sounding more like a sigh. “My friend Megan helped with the color--”

While the two girls were still talking, Harry sidled closer to Cleo. “Hey, er… Just so you know, I saw Malfoy here earlier.”

That pronouncement was enough to draw Cleo’s attention away from Violet’s gregarious display. “Wait, seriously?”

“Yeah.” He frowned, eyes sliding across a few nearby faces. “I haven’t seen him since, so maybe he was just in for dinner. But I’ll keep an eye out anyway.”

Cleo scanned the crowd herself, but couldn’t recognize anyone in particular. Not that it would’ve been easy under the circumstances; everyone was wearing masks. Even if Malfoy hadn’t bothered to dress up, trying to spot him in the utter chaos of a hundred students milling about would be near to impossible. As Cleo’s lips curled into a pained, uncertain grimace, she was careful to lower her voice. “Do you think we should leave, then?”

His eyebrows raised. “Don’t think he’d try anything with all these teachers here.”

That wasn’t all that comforting. “Why the hell would he show up like this?”

“Considering he has a habit of acting mental these days? Who knows."

Cleo’s lips twisted. “You-- uhm, stole that thing from him, right?”

“Yeah, I’ve got it,” he said. “Or-- well. Ron has.”

“Does Malfoy know you took it?”

There was a sheepish shift to his mien. “… Yeah, actually.”

Shit. “What if he’s here to take it back…?”

“If he is,” Harry stressed, looking at her directly, “then it’s nothing for you to worry about. I can handle him.”

“… Harry?”

His date captured his attention immediately, despite the fact her address was not particularly demanding at all. “Oh, ah… Is it starting?”

“Megan’s saved us a spot.” The blonde pointed out her friend, who was practically bouncing in her seat at the sight of them.

“Right, ehm,” Harry turned Cleo’s way again, apologetic. “If he comes after me, I'll be prepared.” Her doubt must have shown on her face, since he laid a hand on her arm briefly. “Don’t worry.”

Luna gazed at Cleo with a wistful smile as she grasped Harry by the arm and pulled him toward the seats without a care in the world. They practically floated together across the hall.

And there was Violet again, her posture drooping as a slight frown sagged her features.

Cleo’s hands looked for pockets that weren’t there again; a nervous tick that was growing rather annoying, if she were honest. “Why do you keep doing that?”

Violet’s gaze made a slow sweep toward her. “Doing what?”

Cleo’s eyes practically crossed as her lips curled into an over exaggerated, saccharine grin before her countenance shifted back to neutrality a fraction of a second later.

Violet rolled her eyes. “It’s called being friendly, Cleo.”

“Well I don’t remember you being like that with me--”

“I was,” the girl claimed. “Just-- different. Because you were being creepy.”

Cleo pouted. “I wasn’t being creepy. I was trying to be nice--”

“Hello, everyone, welcome!” Hermione’s voice boomed over the noise of the gathered masses, instantly quelling half the conversation in the room. Her wand was in one hand, directed to her throat, and a small rectangle of parchment was in the other, slightly bent in her grip. As Cleo and Violet scrambled to find a pair of seats, Hermione passed by what looked to be a jazz band and walked further toward the center of the stage, her floral, peach-colored gown flowing gently at her heels. Nervously readjusting one of her off-the-shoulder sleeves, she glanced toward the side of the stage. Padma was positioned at the foot of the steps and, when their eyes met, she gave Hermione a quick thumbs up.

Stark beneath the spotlight, Hermione took in a measured, revitalizing breath which was, unfortunately, magnified to the whole room. A few amused titters rippled across the students, but she didn’t seem to notice, shuffling her feet as she glanced down at the parchment in her hand. “I’d like to thank you all for coming, and for all the support given to the Equal Academic Representation in Wizarding Institutions Group.”

Cleo led Violet toward an empty, circular table on the outskirts of the gathering, ducking as they passed in front of several onlookers.

"For-- for those who don't know me," Hermione stumbled over her words, her voice a little tremulous. "My name is Hermione Granger. I'm the founder of this club, and I'm a sixth-year student… studying for nine N.E.W.T.s, and, ah… I've been a Gryffindor prefect for over a year--"

A voice interrupted her, one which was just as expected as it was unwelcome. “Let’s have a round of applause for our fearless leader!” Ann declared with a dazzling smile, her enthusiastic, high-pitched voice drowning out Hermione as she walked past the band and across the stage. The crowd clapped politely, but she hardly seemed deterred by their tepid response; rather, she made an expansive gesture which showed off her poised figure and lavish gown. To make things worse, she was quite literally sparkling. Festooned with a vast gradient of blue silks and decorated with thousands of white gemstones, Ann’s every movement was dazzling in the extreme, drawing attention effortlessly. “It is absolutely marvelous to see so many faces here! Welcome, everyone, to the Masquerade Ball!”

The cheers from the gathered masses grew more genuine. She favored them with another smile, this one a little more demure. “What an exciting night we have planned for you! I’d like to thank all those who helped us put this little soirée together! You know who you are!”

She sure did know how to whip up a crowd; they were even louder that time. Ann was positively glowing as she waited for the noise to die down but, just as she was about to address them again, something unexpected happened.

Hermione spoke up.

“And, as club president, I would like to personally thank Miss Ann Rochford, head of the planning committee for this Ball!” she announced, her voice decidedly less energetic, but quite resolute. Most of the audience did their due with applause, unaware of what had just occurred, but Ann herself looked stricken, eyes a little wide, the smile sliding off her face before she seemed to consciously renew it.

“Yes, well-- Thank you, of course--” she uttered, her demeanor stilted.

“We are all so grateful for your hard work,” Hermione continued, her stare pointed directly at Ann. “And now, all that’s left for you is to enjoy the party. I will take it from here.”

Ann swept her eyes across the students as if she were searching for a word which might keep her on the stage while also saving face in front of so many people, but evidently she found none. Her smile was remarkably weaker when she performed a practiced little curtsy to the audience, who cheered her on one last time, before she finally walked off.

On brief inspection, it was clear many of the other Slytherins had noticed. In particular, Rhys Urquhart was sporting a rather severe frown as his girlfriend resumed her seat beside him. Cleo made eye contact with Harry, who was grinning from ear to ear, and winked as Hermione resumed speaking. “Thank you, all of you, again, for coming,” she said, not a trace of nervousness about her voice any longer. “It means so much that you are here, and willing to learn more about what we stand for. Our club, which is on track to become a Ministry-sanctioned organization by this time next year, was formed to help protect Muggleborns from social and academic discrimination, and to preserve our right to express ourselves as people who exist between two separate communities: the magical, and the non-magical. I intend for this group to steadily grow more able to extend a helping hand to all those who are feeling marginalized by any form of purism, abuse, or bigotry.”

Her audience was, for the most part, quiet and attentive. There was, however, some measure of boredom evident, particularly from a nearby table made up mostly of what looked to be fourth-years. They fiddled with silverware and whispered amongst themselves, casting occasional glances at Hermione.

“Headmaster Dumbledore has recently announced that, in three weeks’ time, every student currently attending Hogwarts will embark on a tour of the Ministry of Magic, in the interest of education and recruiting opportunities. This is a huge step forward in expanding cultural literacy and integrating those of non-magical upbringing, but it is not enough. Ex-Headmistress Dolores Jane Umbridge has once again resumed her post as Senior Undersecretary to the Minister, and has set her sights on suggesting --” This word was uttered with utmost contempt “--that select departments receive severe budget cuts and downsizing immediately. Conveniently, these ‘unnecessary’ departments are those concerned with Muggle cooperation, regulation, and protection. We cannot allow this to happen. And as such, I have arranged for us to join with employees of the Misuse of Magic Offices, as well as five allied departments, in a general strike to protest these cuts. With all our voices together, we can put pressure on the Minister and instigate real change -- a change for the better, where every last one of us can feel safe in our places of school or work, and a sense of belonging and pride in the communities we call home.”

There was collected applause; the loudest coming from Terry Boot, who was practically hollering in excitement. The applause tapered off with his voice crying out, “Atta girl, Granger!”

Her amplified, nervous chuckle suffused the space before she cleared her throat to continue. “In this room, we are all equals. Each of us is stripped of title, rank, house crest, and blood status. We are people only, gathered together in harmony for a common purpose. It is my hope that, when this night is over, when your masks are finally removed and you return to your normal lives, that you will remember to carry with you that same respect and dignity for each person you come in contact with. And if you find you cannot sit still, if there is a fire in your heart for the suffering you have seen, or in defense of the people you love, then I ask that you join with us, and lend your strength to our cause.”

The support in the room was deafening, despite only a third of the school being there. Most of the noise was concentrated in one section of the room, though; Cleo spotted several people near Harry standing and cheering. By their exaggerated enthusiasm, she could only assume they were Gryffindors.

Hermione’s smile overtook her whole face. “Let’s not keep you waiting on the festivities any longer -- I want to thank you all again, and please, enjoy yourselves tonight!”

Following her pronouncement, the orchestra began playing a dulcet melody fitting for dinnertime. Professor Burbage was standing at the foot of the stairs, her excited clapping drowned out by the din of conversations resuming. Hermione descended the steps with Padma beside her, wrapping together in a tight embrace at the bottom. Surprisingly, Professor Tenenbaum also rolled up to them in her brightly decorated wheelchair and, even more surprisingly, beckoned the girl down for a hug as well.

“Stay here,” Cleo murmured to the girl seated next to her.

Violet didn’t sound all that pleased. “Where are you going?”

“I want to congratulate Hermione,” she answered before waving down Harry. When their gazes caught, she gestured to Violet and mouthed watch her; the boy acquiesced with a nod.

The girl was protesting as Cleo rose from the chair, one hand grappling her wrist. “Why can’t I come?”

“That teacher,” she indicated with a slight jerk of the head. She was careful to whisper this next part, “is Minder Tenenbaum’s granddaughter. She knows Aurors, too. Just stay here and eat.”

Violet’s stare lingered on the woman in the wheelchair as she slowly, albeit reluctantly, loosened her grip on Cleo’s arm. And as Cleo trotted around the table, she called back after Violet, “I’ll be quick!”

The professor and Hermione had only just disengaged when Cleo strode up alongside them; she could hear the tail end of something she’d murmured against Hermione’s shoulder: “… wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Hermione’s answering smile was sheepish.

“Congratulations, Hermione,” Cleo greeted upon arrival, her arms waffling to open in uncertain invitation.

Hermione was quick to plunge the two of them into a tight embrace as well. “Thank you.”

Cleo patted her on the back. “You did really good.”

She looked near to tears when she pulled away. “Thanks, I just-- I don’t know how I did it, really.”

Professor Tenenbaum’s voice sounded from behind Hermione, practically preening. “Perhaps because you followed some very wise and amazing advice from… who was it again?” Her mock-thoughtful expression was clearly a setup for--

"Why, that would have to be you, now wouldn't it, dear?" Quite suddenly, Ren popped out of the crowd with a little twirl. Her skin and hair were a canary yellow, smile wide with teeth that were as large as a horse’s, and her bright blue eyes were wide with oblong pupils, like a frog. A cascade of pastel, rainbow-colored tulle layered asymmetrically down the length of her, bunched at her waist and gathered into huge, floppy bows atop her shoulders. By contrast, Professor Tenenbaum was attired in an overlarge suit jacket that emphasized how emaciated she looked, embroidered with flowers on the shoulders and cuffs, an untucked button-up, and a plain black pencil skirt.

“Merlin, I think you’re right,” the woman fawned, falling back against her lavender wheelchair with a clatter. “Amazing foresight on your part, I think, Granger.” There was a pause, where a devious, conspiratory glint seemed to overtake the professor’s gaze. “Seven hundred points to Gryffindor for your utter brilliance.”

Hermione lifted her head with alarm, her gaze bouncing from the professor to Cleo to Padma to Ren and back as if searching for an explanation. Ren, however, was entirely oblivious to her distress, too busy clutching the wheelchair for support as her body trembled with laughter.

"Good lord, Bridge, you haven’t a shred of mercy, have you?!" she cackled with pure delight, clearly enamoured of this fact. "Ugh, I can’t wait to see the look on Snape's face; he's going to be livid!"

“I bloody well hope so,” Professor Tenenbaum oozed, head tilted back to admire her partner. “The thrill from my last screaming match with him over Croft’s point loss was starting to wear off.”

"Ohh--! How cross do you reckon McGonagall's going to be?!" Ren asked with hushed excitement.

The professor’s eyes bulged open with glee. “When she has to rebalance the point totals?” Her demeanor was the utter picture of cunning. “Very.”

"Think they'll tag team you? Look, they're already glaring about like cats with glasses--!"

The professor hoisted herself upward on the armrests of her wheelchair as she grinned from ear to ear, a loud gasp escaping her. “Have they noticed already?!”

Simultaneously, their heads swiveled around, seeking out Snape and McGonagall. They were indeed standing together, skulking near the far wall, neither looking pleased. Ren’s resulting grin was mischievous, but her next words were quite earnest. “Bridge, I swear on Peeve’s Porkpie, they’re going to do the pose! By God, I can feel it in my teeth--!”

The professor’s stare intensified, her next sentence coming out rushed and excited. “C’mon, you cunts, Twin Cross, I know you want to--”

At that moment, both Snape and McGonagall folded their arms. This sent Ren and the professor into a paroxysm of laughter, actually breathless and near to tears as they watched the synchronized display, but Cleo’s expression mirrored Hermione and Padma’s -- that of both vague trepidation and utter bemusement.

“Right.” Cleo’s hand reassuringly patted Hermione’s forearm. “Just wanted to wish you congrats. I think I’ll go sit back with Violet.” Her smile suddenly exploded onto her face. “You can join us if you want?”

Hermione let out a short breath, her expression relaxing. "Later, I think? Lots to do, yet. But thanks."

Several girls descended on them, then; Cleo wouldn't have known their names even if their faces weren't purposely obscured. "Hermione! That was amazing!" a redhead enthused.

A blonde girl was grinning. "You sounded proper qualified!"

Hermione faded from view as Cleo extracted herself from the group. The Great Hall was filled with voices, as it usually was, but the energy in the room was different. There was a palpable excitement, an air of celebration.

Even Harry looked brighter. As she approached the table, he was speaking animatedly with Violet. “… help with it, I think. Ron and Hermione were up late making all the posters and leaflets.”

Though Violet was in full chipper affectation, she couldn’t quell her brutal honesty. “They’re kind of ugly.”

Harry blinked, clearly unsure how to respond. “I… guess?” He squinted about as if he was trying to examine them. “I suppose you would know better than me.”

Violet’s expression screwed up as she shot Harry a look. “What?”

“I’ve seen your drawings,” he mentioned off-hand. “They’re really good.”

The girl squinted, suspicious. “How have you seen my drawings…?”

“Oh, er…” Harry’s face transformed in an instant, eyes widening with panic. “That’s…”

Cleo plopped down unceremoniously beside them. “Having fun?”

“Oh, loads,” Harry replied with some relief, removing his mask before scratching at his nose. “I’ve missed watching Hermione put people in their place.”

“That was pretty brilliant, wasn’t it?”

Violet was fiddling with a napkin, clearly displeased with the change in subject, though evidently not enough to push. “Was she having trouble with that girl then? The posh one?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Yeah, she’s been a right harpy for weeks.”

Violet didn’t appear to have much of an opinion on that, her flat affect meeting them impassively as she turned her napkin ring over, food notably untouched. Cleo shifted in her seat after a moment and announced with some aplomb, “Well, I learned something fun about Tenenbaum at any rate.”

“Oh really?”

“She likes to fuck with the points,” she explained, trying to hide her smile but failing. “So she probably wasn’t nearly as mad at me as I thought she was--”

Cleo was interrupted by a tap on her shoulder. As she turned, a familiar voice shouted, “Surprise! Hey, Captain Gabe! Look who it is!”

It was gauche and it was stupid, but her only proper, natural reaction was to scream. Her hands came up to her mouth to stifle it in an instant, but it was too late. There was a turn in the energy of the room, eyes pinning themselves to the epicenter of the disruption, only to find a woman rising from her seat to ensconce her arms around the newcomer and the small child he was holding.

Cal was beaming as he loosened himself from her embrace, and Cleo’s voice pitched higher when he transferred the little boy to her in a maneuver that could only be described as graceful. “Hey baby, oh my God--!”

“Mama!” his voice trickled out into laughter as he was beset upon by a myriad of kisses.

“You’re here!” She sounded inane; she sounded unhinged. She was as horrified as she was elated. She didn’t care. “How did you get here, baby? Oh my God--” She buried her head into his neck as she pulled him tightly to her.

“Unckoh Cow!”

When she looked up, eyes wide with shocked curiosity, Cal’s smile had encompassed his entire face, joyous and triumphant. “Well, y’know. Might’ve pulled a few strings here and there.”

“Who’s this, then?” Harry inquired.

Before she could answer, Cal performed a flourishing little bow, showing off his two-toned dress robes, vertically split between light blue and dark grey, along with a matching harlequin mask. “Caleb Dedrick, at your service! I’d ask the same, but you hardly need an introduction.”

Harry’s expression was distinctly odd when he asked, “You, er… wouldn’t happen to be a Gryffindor, would you?”

Cal barked a laugh. “No, thank Merlin! The lot of them would have driven me mad, I expect.”

Gabriel squirmed happily in her arms, hanging tightly around her neck, but when she was finally able to get a proper look at him, she could see he was wearing blue woolen dress robes, a puffy little cravat, and a tiny black cloak, looking properly wizard-like for the first time in his life.

Cleo, still quite overcome, strode up to the two of them, hiking Gabriel up higher on her hip. “Cal, he looks so cute--”

“Yeah, Mum’s doing. Got a bit carried away if you ask me, cooing over us both. Apparently, I wore that at my aunt’s wedding when I was just a small bean,” he explained, shrugging. Then, his gaze grew conspiratorial. “Say, who wore it better: me or him?”

No matter how dramatically Cal drew himself up or popped his collar with an air of grand importance, there simply was no question. Cleo pressed a few more kisses against her son’s cheek as she squealed, “My Bedbug, of course!”

Gabriel’s hands flew up in excitement as he let out a chorus of laughter. Cal, however, clutched at his heart, mock-wounded as he cried, “No fair! I call nepotism!”

Harry peered at them both with some confusion while Violet seemed preoccupied with her dinner. The former ventured, “I’m guessing you two know each other?”

Cleo inclined her head toward the boy. “Cal is Gabriel’s godfather.”

“Wait, what?” Cal fumbled with eyebrows raised, animated even in his surprise. “Really? When did this happen?!”

“Probably when you managed to put all this together,” she pointed out rather seriously, before her expression brightened as she looked toward her son. “Huh, Bedbug? Did you and Uncle Cal surprise Mama?”

The little boy’s answer was a chirping, bubbly, “Train!”

“He liked that bit,” Cal informed her. “Red like your fire truck, yeah?”

“Yeah!” Gabriel yelped, excitedly bouncing on his mother’s hip. “The-- the lady gave, um… Sweets! There’s a blue one an’ a green one an’ a red one an’ a blue one, uhm… an’ a green one, I-- ah, I have tenty candy, Mama--” The boy spoke with enthused, animated gestures, underlying every detail of his incoherent story with utmost importance. His pause was only to smile and take a breath before he continued, “Unkoh Cow tell me-- ahh, tenty. There tenty tree! And train go--!” His lips puckered as if he were trying to whistle, but the air puttered out in a loud raspberry.

Cal grinned. “He means compartment twenty-three. Had the royal treatment with the whole train to ourselves.”

“Oh,” Cleo breathed, beaming. “Did Uncle Cal teach you a new number?”

“Ah huh,” Gabriel affirmed. However, he left very little room for the current conversation to continue. His bright blue eyes focused on Harry before his lips twitched into a wide, welcoming grin. His voice was cloying as he introduced himself, “Hi, I’m Gabe.”

He lifted a hand, hesitant. “Er… hi. I’m Harry.”

The two year old didn’t appear one whit bothered by Harry’s awkwardness. His head swiveled about, wide eyes taking in the beautiful glimmer of the room. “Mama?”

“Mhm?”

“Where Snape ‘ceptable?”

Cleo blinked. “What?”

The boy repeated his question, voice pitched higher, as if that would make a difference. “Where Snape ‘ceptable?”

“Probably with the other teachers, Bedbug,” Cleo answered, bewildered. “Why?”

“He’s the one who checked us in earlier,” Cal supplied.

Both Harry and Cleo were equal amounts perplexed by this statement, but it was the latter who ventured with a soft, “He did?”

Cal favored her with a patient glance. “What, did you think I snuck in? I mean, I am pretty brilliant, but why do things the hard way when you can just convince the Head of House to allow it, hm?”

“When the hell did you have time to convince him?” she scoffed.

He shrugged. “While you were having a lovely chat with your mum, I was taking advantage of Snape’s inability to decipher how to act around little Captain Gabe over here.”

“Bit underhanded of you,” Cleo commented, though with no small amount of amusement.

“I have my moments,” he preened, tossing his bangs with the backs of his fingers. “Honestly, you should have seen me; I was proper sly! There’s Snape, his spindly little knees knocking together -- because two-year-olds are terrifying, you understand -- and here’s me, with a giant list of--” He cut himself off, his apparent urge to pantomime the size of the parchment, and likely the rest of the story, too great. “No I mean it-- giant, really. It’s like I’m fifteen again; I’ve written twelve actual inches on why he ought to let me bring Gabriel to Hogwarts. I mean-- I’d sing a blinking musical number or-- or dance a bleedin' jig if I thought that would work, but Snape’s looking like he’d rather die than listen to me, and he starts to say something, you know. Mean. Because he is. And my best mate Captain Gabe, he just sort of interrupts him, and in the most precious voice he says, ‘Where’s Mama?’ And he starts walking about, looking for you, and-- Listen, I look Snape dead in the eye, and I say, ‘He’s had to ask that enough times already hasn’t he?’ And he starts grumbling on about oh, well, Christmas break, this and that, but I mean we all know that’s a load of rubbish, and Snape -- he’s all stiff like he’s ready to make his grand escape at the drop of a hat -- but he’s finally sat down, right? So, you know… I do the only rational thing.”

“Uh huh,” Cleo deadpanned.

With a proud smirk, arms akimbo, Cal announced, “I plop Gabriel right in Snape’s lap! Tell him, ‘Alright then, you can explain to him why he has to wait extra time to see his mother again.’”

Cleo grasped him by the arm and led him back to the table, stepping a few feet out of the way to pull an empty chair next to hers, single-handed. When she flopped down next to Violet again, it was with a grunt. “Well, that must have been traumatic.”

Cal joined them, colliding to his seat with a dramaturgical flare. “He didn’t much like that, no, but I mean-- it worked, didn’t it?”

“I mean, obviously,” Cleo granted, situating her son on her lap. The little boy had taken an interest in Violet, though was a little more bashful this round, his greeting nothing more than a little wave that Violet mirrored. “But, like, what did he say?”

“I expect he was a little preoccupied telling Gabe not to pull off his buttons.”

Cleo threw him a look. “After that.”

“Merlin, you should have seen it…” A grin slithered onto his mouth as he leaned back against his seat, relishing the memory. “Snape lets Gabe down lightning quick, but he’s got this sour look and-- It’s like he’s about to take points off Ravenclaw, ha! Nice try, but there’s no more detentions for me, thanks!”

“Right,” Cleo chuckled.

"And well-- I hit him with the facts; didn’t write that essay for nothing, after all! In the Hogwarts Charter, it’s permitted for professors to house any family members they like up to a certain limit, regardless of age. So in the past, many children younger than eleven have lived in the castle. And guests can be approved on a limited basis under special circumstances. Honestly, if one of your parents had been magical, they might have been allowed to visit you once per term. But, y’know… They aren’t, so the castle looks like a trash heap to them. And still, I mean, I wouldn’t call Hogwarts baby-friendly exactly, but there’s nothing technically barring Gabe from entry. So I talked Snape’s ear off about how we’d be coming on a Saturday, there’s no classes, it’s an extracurricular activity, you and I are both of age to take responsibility for him, Gabe’s magical so there’s no issue with warding-- you know. All the salient points.”

“And… how exactly did you dig up all this information?” she pressed, watching as Gabriel leaned over to grasp and pull at Violet’s sleeve. The girl graciously allowed him her arm and he began to play with her fingers, one by one. “I wasn’t with my mum for that long.”

“Well, I mean, it’s public record…” Cal dissembled, shifty for a moment before giving it up. “Alright, you got me. I’m too lazy to read the full charter, but my mum isn’t. So since she works at the Ministry, I had her write up an official-looking summary… thing. Saying everything’s above-board as far as the rules are concerned.”

“Wait--” Cleo squinted at him. “You’d been planning this before we’d even met up?”

“Sort of? I mean I was thinking the timeline was going to be a bit different, y’know… Maybe aim for Gabe’s birthday or something, but then you mentioned going to a Masquerade with general non-enthusiasm -- which is criminal by the bloody way -- and it just seemed like the perfect opportunity to surprise you.”

She reached over and laid her hand on his wrist. “You did all that for me?”

“Of course! You’ve been so down about being away from Gabe for so long, and I remember how you always would get homesick while we were in school. And… you know. We’re best friends, yeah? So why wouldn’t I?”

“Thank you,” she said quietly, hand giving his a tight squeeze. “Really.”

Cal’s smile turned a little shy, his gaze skirting the curve of the table. “Your best thanks to me is having fun at the party-- that’s all I ask,” he murmured just as quietly, meeting her eyes. Then, in typical Cal fashion, he followed it up with a jokingly dramatic sigh. “So, there you have it! The gripping tale of how I annoyed Snape into letting your son visit you.”

Gabriel shouldn't have come; it was the worst possible moment to arrive. And yet she was equal parts selfish for feeling happy she would get to see him at least once before--

“Didn’t think you were capable,” she teased, tucking that thought away as she placed a kiss on the top of her son’s head.

“Excuse me?! Any fool can see I am a master of manipulation!” was his over-loud, sarcastic claim. “Hand over your house crest this instant, Clyde! The Sorting Hat was clearly off his block when he first met me, and, let’s be honest-- I look good in green.”

Cleo’s lips puckered sardonically as she leaned toward him. “You look good in everything, darling.”

He pulled in an exaggerated gasp. "You know what? You're absolutely right! How could I be so blind?! I should've been sorted into all the Houses!"

Cleo let out a soft laugh. “Cal--”

He continued right on. "I’ve been robbed, truly! My school years wasted on only one color of striped scarf-- I’m gutted!"

Cleo reached over to rest a comforting hand on her friend’s shoulder. “You poor, poor dear.”

Cal’s bottom lip quivered in a show of mock distress, but a moment later the expression was wiped from his face entirely, replaced by a manic exuberance. “Ohh-- I can’t believe…! Is that the Red Cap Rag?!”

The music swelled behind him, the sudden wail of trumpets infusing Cal’s voice with giddy energy. “Yes! C’mon!” He grabbed hold of her arm and practically dragged her from the table, not waiting for a reply. “I’ll teach you the dance!”

Gabriel’s protest was only a startled, “Oh!” as Cal insistently pulled them along. The song wasn’t only popular with him, it seemed; as the band rattled out the jaunty, driving ragtime tune, many of the students swarmed around them to begin crowding the dance floor in fervent excitement. Many of them paired off, but many more were looking just as confused as she felt.

In particular, a Gryffindor girl from the meetings, Scarlet, was questioning her girlfriend nearby, “Is it supposed to be a line dance?”

Fay let out a good natured snort. “What the bloody hell is a line dance?”

Ann and Rhys were nearby, though they appeared less than energetic, and Cleo spotted Hermione and Padma taking a turn about the outskirts; Justin Finch-Fletchley graciously accepted a proposition from a younger Hufflepuff girl, and Terry Boot conversed with a gaggle of Ravenclaws before choosing one of the boys as his partner. But, after that, Cal demanded the rest of her attention for what he called “an incredibly important cultural lesson”.

It turned out that the Red Cap Rag was not quite a line dance, but rather a sort of choreographed game where the band would charm several red kerchiefs to attach themselves to dancers at random, prompting them to switch partners at several points in the song. Cleo glanced at the line of wallflowers who had kept far from the limelight, and nearly wished she’d joined them instead.

Still, with Cal so beside himself with happiness, and Gabe as a buffer between her and total strangers, she managed well enough not to step on any toes. On one switch, Cleo was even lucky enough to pair with Harry, though the first words out of his mouth were, “Thank God-- I have no idea what I’m doing.”

Her ear splitting grin belied the hopelessness of her reply. “Me neither!”

The song swirled around the gathered masses, picking up speed and throwing the room into chaos. She switched partners so often that she hardly remembered what any of them looked like and, when the music swelled to a climactic forte before hitting a final low sting, there was a round of cheers and bows that Cleo was only a few seconds late to. Cal found her when the next song started and, though there was no gimmick to the rest, Gabriel’s ecstatic squeals and Cal’s boundless enthusiasm kept her on the dance floor for a while.

She joked and reminisced with her best friend, swayed to slow songs with her son, danced as cheerfully (and poorly) as she liked. She checked in with Harry so often about Malfoy; who was, for the most part, keeping to himself. Harry seemed unbothered, which made it easier for her to enjoy the general ambiance of the party: There were some younger boys putting ice down each other’s trousers, a group of friends who were purposely trying to melt icicles on top of the chaperoning teachers’ heads, a handful of students who were fully engrossed in trying to charm the stone floor into an ice rink, a few mischievous students following Ren’s lead as they poured something into a punch bowl, and a few scattered couples who were dancing far too close for McGonagall’s comfort.

Eventually, though, Gabriel’s patience started running thin. Whining and restless, he demanded her attention.

“He’s probably hungry,” Cleo surmised, glancing toward where the fountains stood on the other end of the room.

“I’ll walk him around,” Cal offered, taking hold of her pouty child. “Meet you at your table?”

“No problem.” She stopped mid-stride to look back at him. “Any preference?”

“Nah. Surprise me.”

It was short work to gather some snacks suitable for Gabriel, though she wasn’t feeling peckish herself. There was a bit of a line at the drink’s station when she arrived, a gaggle of people talking and laughing amongst themselves as they perused the assortment of punch bowls. Cleo snagged a few empty cups as the queue dragged on and was quick to serve herself once a space opened up.

“I’d stay away from the pink one if I were you.”

Weasley was stationed beside the fountain like a sentry, attired in normal school robes, just as she was.

“Ah.” Her hand withdrew from the ladle.

“Normally, I’d be all for getting sloshed, but today? Best we keep our wits.”

“That’s probably for the best.”

No other words were exchanged between them as she filled the cups. He was staring off into some middle distance, hands in his pockets. For an awkward few moments, they simply existed in the same space, neither of them particularly comfortable. So it came as a surprise when, just as Cleo had finished with the spigot and had begun figuring how to balance a plate and three cups in her arms, Weasley spoke.

“Hey.”

She addressed him skeptically as she started sliding the drinks in between her arms. “Yeah?”

“I just, ah… wanted to thank you,” he said plainly. “For not telling Harry.”

Cleo stared at him.

He looked out over the crowd with a sigh. “We could all use a break, but him more than most.”

She turned slightly toward him. “I’d agree with that.”

Weasley vacillated in place, obviously nervous. It looked odd on him. “He doesn’t like when we keep things from him, but in this case? The more he knows, the more he’ll blame himself for not stopping you.”

“I have a feeling that’s inevitable.”

He shrugged. “Maybe.”

“But I appreciate it,” she thanked him, albeit awkwardly. “Didn’t think you cared.”

“I’m not your greatest fan or anything,” Weasley scoffed. “But you’ve been a good friend to Harry. And that’s enough for me.”

“Well, thanks,” she mumbled. “I’m glad you think so.”

“It’s…” he grimaced, taking a breath. “You’ve really just been tutoring him all this time -- weren’t even angry after the whole Malfoy… incident. And what with all this you’re doing for a girl you barely know, and seeing how you act with kids like Thea and him--” Weasley inclining his head in the direction of Gabriel, who was delightedly pulling at Cal’s fringe and giggling. “It’s just, y’know…”

“Surprising?”

“Normal,” Weasley corrected, favoring her with a bland look. His face scrunched when he continued, “Guess what I’m trying to say is… You’re alright, Croft.”

“Cleo,” she offered softly as her smile wobbled. “I’d give a handshake right now but--” She twitched her overburdened arms.

“They’re occupied, yeah,” he filled in, matter-of-fact, before tacking on a self-conscious: “Cleo.”

“You’re alright too, you know.” She hesitated, uncertain how to navigate this new territory with him. “I’ve… admired how determined you are to protect him.”

“Well, y’know… I reckon if we don’t, who will?” he murmured, swirling around the drink in his own cup. “He’s gone to hell and back for us, so… Don’t see how I could ever refuse to do the same for him.”

“What happened at the Ministry must’ve been…” Her sigh was all hollowed out as she leaned against the table.

Ron shrugged again, nonchalant. "We're pretty much used to this sort of thing by now."

They shouldn’t have been. She hated that they were. “Right.”

It seemed he had nothing further to say; without preamble, he took hold of the plate she’d set down before walking away, effectively ending the conversation. They returned to the table without a word, and Cleo was surprised to find it filled to the brim with people she knew.

She was welcomed first by Gabriel’s jubilant screeching; Cal was hanging him upside down by his ankles, loudly singing some jaunty nursery rhyme she’d never heard before. Hermione was watching with wide-eyed alarm, but Luna was laying all the way across her seat, head inverted to mirror Gabriel’s and smiling dreamily whenever he burst into raucous, side-splitting laughter. In fact, the two of them were more engaged than Cleo anticipated, since, as she reclaimed her seat, Gabriel was giving quite a boisterous rendition of, “Luna, Luna bo-buna, banana-fana-fo-funa--”

He stopped halfway through, seeming to forget the rest of the lyrics. Luna looked pleased as punch regardless.

“You’re going to give him a headache,” Cleo warned Cal as she doled out the drinks.

“His face has gone red,” Hermione fretted in agreement.

Gabriel’s breath hitched before bursting into a laugh as Cal abruptly swang him right-side up. “Ta-da!” Cal blared, hoisting the boy over his head to sit on his shoulders. “Captain Gabe, ready for duty!”

Harry was staring strangely at them. “Are you always this…?” He looked like he wasn’t so sure how to finish that sentence.

“Energetic?” Hermione supplied, even keeled.

“Mostly!” he chirped, beaming around at everyone before his expression sank into consternation. “I mean, except at work.”

Ron pilfered a chair from a neighboring table as Cal sat down on his own. “Oh, yeah? Where at?”

“Gringotts,” Cal grumbled, sticking out his tongue with disgust.

“That’s sound,” was Ron’s neutral reply. “I’ve a brother who works there.”

“Good luck to him, honestly.”

“What area you working in?”

Their conversation turned to friendly, businesslike banter, and it fell from Cleo’s attention when a pair of masked students walked up to Harry, cuffing him on the shoulder. “Oi, Potter! You’re lookin’ class!”

“Archway turned out alright, eh? Poor Ed’s had to swallow his tongue.”

Harry smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “Well, I’m just glad we were able to pull it all together.”

“Where’s your date, then?”

“Yeah, doing lots of friend things, I expect?”

Both of them were sporting conspiratorial smirks at this and Harry’s face instantly flushed. “Oh, er. She’s…” His eyes drifted to Luna, who was still laid across the chair beside him, back arched over the seat of the chair as she observed a reversed view of the dance floor, her fingers tapping irregularly on her stomach.

One started laughing while the other looked mildly concerned. “Is she ill?”

“Maybe it was the punch?”

The two of them broke down into snickers as Gabriel whined at Cleo from his perch, leaning heavily sideways toward her. “Ow, ow, ow,” Cal muttered, his neck bending at a painful angle as he extracted himself from Gabe’s grip. The second her son was in her arms again, he grabbed at the plate of food she’d brought before triumphantly holding his spoils aloft.

“Biz-ket!” he screeched before shoving the thing wholesale into his mouth.

“He is so cute,” Padma leaned over to say. “Do you mind if I hold him?”

Cleo craned her head over the side of Gabriel’s face. “Want to sit with Padma, Bedbug?”

He still had crumbs on his lips when he threw his even crumbier hands toward the table. “Yeah!”

The trade off was rather arduous: Cleo extended the two-year-old over Violet’s lap as the girl leaned back to give them room, with Padma fumbling to take purchase on Gabriel’s hips as she pulled him to her. When she’d finally settled him in her lap, he reached for her plate too.

“Oh, um, can he eat these?” Padma inquired, indicating the pile of grapes as she blocked his trajectory.

“Oh, yeah, please,” Cleo quickly fielded. “I count myself lucky he’s even excited to touch a fruit.”

“Grape, grape, grape!” he sing-songed, waving the grape up and down several times before eating it. “Uhm, Miss Carrie!”

Unexpectedly, Violet questioned, “Miss Carrie…?”

By then, Padma had given Gabriel full room to assault her plate. He seemed more interested in playing with the grapes than actually eating them, though he did deign to take a small bite of the one he was holding. “Miss Carrie, ahh--”

He was distracted when he noticed Padma’s fork for the first time. He was able to grab it after a few clumsy swipes and poked the tines into his half-eaten grape before banging it on the table.

“Think that’s one of the nursery school aides,” Cleo mused before she reached across the table. “Kiddo, don’t do that. It’s loud.”

“Bam, bam--!”

“Gabe.”

The boy did stop, but it was only to place the handle into his mouth. Hermione, who had been observing all this with a puzzled focus, looked from him to Cleo. “How old is he again?”

“He’ll be three in May.”

“Oh, really?” Padma said, peering at him curiously. “He’s so small; I thought he was younger.”

“He was a premie,” Cleo explained, watching him exaggeratedly chew on the fork as his wide eyes stared up at the girl holding him. “So he’s always been a bit smaller for his age.”

The fork flew out of the boy’s mouth as he clapped his hands together, shouting, “Premie!”

Hermione asked, “Are you very familiar with children?”

“A little,” Padma divulged, smoothing back Gabriel’s errant hair. “I have a few nieces and nephews.”

“Oh, do you and Parvati have--?”

“No, no, our parents stopped at twins, thankfully,” she lightly snorted. “But our cousins have families, so we see them sometimes, when we can make it out to visit. We’re all very close.”

“What about you, Cleo?” Hermione prompted. “Did you know anything about children before Gabriel?”

Cleo’s initial reaction was a loud, honking laugh. Gabriel sucked in a big breath. “Mama is… ah,” he stumbled. “Mama’s… Uhm… Mam-- uhm, Ma-- Mama is the best Mama!”

“I got pregnant just before the Triwizard Tournament,” Cleo expanded, as if this thought had any association with the two year old’s rambling statement. “And I dropped out of school at seventeen. That’s about the extent of my experience with kids.”

Padma’s eyes bulged with surprise. “He’s… yours, then?”

“They look identical and he’s been calling her mum for the past three hours,” Violet cut in, incredulous. “Of course he’s hers.”

“So, ah,” Padma began, seeming uncertain how to properly express what was on her mind. “Are you still, uh-- the, uhm--” She took a moment to cover Gabriel’s ears -- which the boy didn’t mind, as he was enthralled with the silverware -- before she whispered, “The father?”

Hermione, Violet and, surprisingly, Harry looked at Padma with varying degrees of shock.

“What?” she backtracked, wide-eyed. “Oh, is that bad?”

Cleo cleared her throat as she sat back. “It’s fine.”

“I’m sorry, I know I’m nosy--”

“Really, it’s not that big of a deal.”

“-- I mean it’s your business--”

Cleo shrugged. “I really don’t care. Benjamin has never been a part of Gabriel’s life, most likely never will, and that’s fine with me.”

“Oh.” That was Hermione.

“Oh,” Padma mirrored, her hands dropping away from Gabe’s ears. “Well, that’s--” She faltered. “Well, I mean, good for you.”

Violet piped up, not even remotely bothered by the awkwardness of the exchange. “Does he ask?”

“Sometimes.”

“What do you say?”

Before Cleo could get into much of anything, Gabriel was hollering again, “Goose! Goose! Goose!”

He was pointing vigorously at the folded napkins gliding around the tablecloth. Cal was quick with his enthusiasm on this change of topic. "Ohh you were so close, Gabe! It's a swan!" He swooped in to grab one, cupping the enchanted napkin in his hand.

Her son blinked, mouth hanging open. "Shawn?"

Cal's resulting laughter turned to a yelp of surprise as the napkin in his hands started attacking his fingers. "What the--?" He slammed a hand down on it, pinning the napkin to the table.

Hermione drew her wand, giving it a decisive flick. "Finite." She sighed as the napkin went limp, losing its shape.

Gabriel was deeply concerned by this. "Oh no!”

"No, no, it's okay!" Cal said immediately, eyebrows raised with exaggerated unease. "He's just… sleeping!"

Despite this assurance, Gabriel appeared quite stricken. “S'eepy?”

A sudden realization seemed to hit Hermione then. "Oh, God, I'm sorry! I didn't… I didn't think it would upset him--!"

“It’s fine,” Cleo cut in. “Right, Bedbug? Is it okay if the swan takes a little nap?”

His eyes looked a little weepy as his lower lip jutted out. “Shawn…”

Padma went right in for the rescue. “That swan may be sleepy but, look!” She was quick to coax one of the other swan-shaped napkins closer. “This one wants to play! Do you want to hold him, Gabe?”

The two year old took this question quite seriously as he held out his hands, decidedly sullen. “Uh huh.” He paused and took in another deep breath, seeming to remember his manners. “Yes p’ease.”

“Okay, gently now--”

Hermione leaned forward in her seat, earnest as she spoke to Cleo directly. “I'm so sorry, I-- uhm. It’s just… I’ve never really-- I mean, I’ve always been an only child, and--”

“Count yourself lucky.” This particular lamentation came from a newcomer, who sidled up to Hermione with a casual familiarity. “Some siblings just aren’t worth having.”

This was said with a pointed glare in Ron’s direction, who met the girl’s ire with a scowl of his own. “Will you give it a rest, Ginny?”

She sniffed. “I don’t think I will, actually.”

“Hermione! Tell her we’ve made up already!”

The girl in question seemed to have calmed somewhat, but her distress was still plain. Ginny's eyes narrowed at her brother. "Have you been bullying her?"

"What?!" He looked affronted at the mere suggestion. "Of course not--!"

At the same time, Hermione held up her hands in a quelling gesture. "It's okay Ginny, there's no need--"

Harry’s previous visitors were gone, so he was also at liberty to cut in, “Let’s not start a row--”

“I haven’t come to start anything,” Ginny declared, unperturbed. “I came to tell Hermione she did a good job.” She very pointedly turned her way. “So, good job.”

“Thank you,” Hermione murmured with relief. “And um, sorry I didn’t have a chance to tell you before, but the decorations look lovely.”

“You were fighting off the hellhounds; I can’t blame you. But, this was all mostly Megan’s doing anyway, so I can’t take credit.”

“Well, you helped us with the archway, at least,” Harry mentioned.

Ginny offered a little mock salute. “Always ready to be of service,” she intoned before her attention fell on Padma. “But, hey. Kind of surprised to see you here, Patil.”

Padma’s eyebrow raised. “Are you?”

“I mean, yeah?”

“I’ve forgiven you for worse, if I remember.”

Ginny’s hands went to her hips. “I do believe that happened after I’d apologized.”

Padma leaned forward. “Well, so did Hermione.”

“Eh?”

“Did I forget to tell you?”

“Clearly?”

“Oh, well, she did,” Padma explained, smoothing out Gabriel’s hair again. “Caught me in the library and gave me a very well thought-out and thoroughly articulated apology. And then an even sweeter invitation to be her date.” She snuck a cheeky smile in Hermione’s direction.

“Granger!” Ginny cried out, grinning rather salaciously herself. “You sneaky bint!”

Ron choked on the sip of water he’d just taken as Cal’s face lit up with laughter. Harry, for his part, looked deeply confused by the proceedings while Luna, who had since resumed a normal posture in her chair, peered at everyone around with a vague, dreamy smile. It was Hermione who spoke next, determined despite her obvious embarrassment. “If any of you has a problem with that--”

“Anyone with a problem can shove it up their arse,” Ginny proclaimed without a second’s hesitation, staring directly at her brother.

“What?” he croaked, still coughing. “Who says I have a problem?”

“I seem to remember you being a right berk to Padma at the Yule Ball--”

“What’s that got to do with anything?!”

“I’m just saying--”

“Well, Hermione’s quite the considerate date,” Padma cut in, preoccupied with watching Gabriel shove the head of the fabric fowl into his mouth. “Brilliant dancer, lovely conversationalist, gorgeously dressed--”

“Oi,” Ron warned, his feathers clearly ruffled. “I’ll thank you not to compare notes!”

Ginny rolled her eyes at him. “Anyway, I’m off. Just thought I’d visit on the way to the desserts.”

With a short wave and a chorus of goodbyes, she left. In her absence, Cal took center stage once more, rapid-firing questions at every person in attendance. He talked about his mum’s novelty snitches with Harry, reenacted the time one of the Beauxbatons boys broke his arm for Ron, chatted about his favorite Wizarding bands with Padma, dutifully oohed and ahhed while Luna spoke of her father’s magazine, enthused about History of Magic with Hermione, and, all the while, found time to make faces at Gabriel and include him in the conversation. However, though he had diligently tried to involve her, the only one of them who refused to engage was Violet.

She’d become progressively more taciturn and wound tight as the night wore on; so, it was of little surprise to Cleo when Violet suddenly turned to address her. “I need a break.”

By then, Gabriel had been in her lap for a solid hour and was making good use of his time napping in the crook of her arm. He barely stirred as she adjusted him into a more comfortable position atop her chest. “Yeah?”

“Starting to get a headache,” the girl tacked on.

“Too much in here?”

The girl furrowed her brow painfully as she nodded.

“Okay,” Cleo breathed. “No problem. Uhm--”

Cleo fumbled as she attempted to stand while holding her son in such a way that he wouldn’t rouse. She wasn’t doing a good job; the boy’s eyes opened and blearily stared up at her, confused. Cleo’s smile was apologetic as she spoke to the table, “Violet and I are going to get some fresh air.”

"Oh!" Cal exclaimed, rising abruptly from his seat. "I'll come too!"

Violet didn’t look too happy about his barging in; it was a testament to her exhaustion that she didn’t object.

The three of them began their trek out when suddenly a soft spoken voice accosted them halfway through the Hall. “Wait, Cleo?”

Luna was already beside them when Cleo finally turned in her direction. Without warning, the girl lifted a hand toward her face, the smooth surface of her painted nails brushing away at something on Cleo's cheek. Cleo’s forehead creased as the girl continued to swipe away, expression frozen in concentration.

“Hm,” Luna concluded, allowing her hand to drop back down. “Guess not.”

When Cleo glanced at Violet and Cal, the two of them appeared just as bewildered as she was.

“I know you didn’t mean to dress up,” Luna continued as if nothing particularly odd had transpired between the two of them. “But I wish you had. I think the red suits you.”

“I, ah--” Cleo floundered. She had no idea what the girl was talking about. “Thank… you?”

“Could I say goodbye to Gabriel?”

Maternal instinct had her quite hesitant. However, she permitted her with a soft, “Sure…” though her arms refused to unlatch from the toddler she held against her torso.

Luna, it appeared, didn’t want to hold him at all. Her hand pressed up against his back as she stood on her toes to reach him from Cleo’s considerable height, fingers reaching up briefly to trail against his neck. She hummed, pensive, before she went to press her head against the child’s spine, hands going to his sides in a small, makeshift hug.

“I hope it’s peaceful,” she murmured against the boy’s dress robes.

“He sleeps like a log,” Cleo supplied, trying not to question the girl’s behavior too deeply. “But thanks for your concern.”

Luna slipped away from him with a soft sigh, a meek smile playing on her lips. With her eyes half lidded and almost… sullen, she regarded the two of them a bit longer before taking a step back. “Thank you for that. Goodnight.”

She pirouetted away without a moment’s hesitation.

“The fuck was that, Loony?” Violet uttered, deadpan and exasperated, appearing to be at her limit.

Even Cal's amused grin was a little off-kilter. "Couldn't have said it better myself, honestly."

They exited and meandered further down the corridor, the noise in the Great Hall growing more muffled and distant with each footstep.

“You know, I’m actually pretty glad I got convinced into going,” Cleo mentioned, hand going to the back of Gabriel’s head to hold him steady against her shoulder. She noticed in her periphery Violet was pacing up and down the length of the wall.

"Convinced?!" Cal's eyebrows raised. "I had it on good authority that you were a member of the club!"

“I am,” Cleo prefaced, leaning her cheek against Gabriel’s temple. “I just didn’t intend on going to the dance. The whole thing wasn’t even Hermione’s idea in the first place.”

"Well, Snape said you'd requested it off on your schedule. Planning to skive off, then?" he teased, nudging her in the shoulder.

“Wanted a break,” she easily lied. “He works me like a dog, Cal. You have no idea.”

"Oh I do, I do," he said, patting her arm sympathetically. "No judgment from this quarter. In fact-- you should take more breaks, and spend them with me instead of that old git!"

“I mean, Christmas holiday is coming up,” she mentioned. “I’m not sure if you and your mum are doing anything big…”

"No, not really," Cal sighed. "She's scheduled to work on Christmas anyway, so she's thinking of sending me off to my aunt's-- ugh."

“Oh, can’t get out of that, huh?”

He rolled his eyes. "I think she wants me to keep in touch with Dad's side of the family, but I mean? He didn't even like them. So I dunno why she's trying so hard."

Cleo shrugged. “I mean, maybe she thinks it’s important you’re able to stay connected to your dad, y’know--”

"I am connected to Dad," Cal stressed. "He's just dead. And no amount of tea with his busybody sister is going to make a difference."

They’d gone down this road a million times before, so Cleo conceded with a delicate, “Yeah. Well-- I’m probably going to have some free Hogsmeade visits after Christmas if you ever want to meet up again.”

As always, he proved easy to distract; the smile returned to his face so quickly it was like it had never left. "Oh! Spellbound is playing there in January! We should go!"

“Still really into them, huh?” she teased.

"You know me: I love a good tambourine."

“Don’t see why not.” She shifted as Gabriel gurgled sleepily against her neck. “It’ll be fun.”

"Yeah it will!" he enthused. "The band tonight was really good too; d'you know what they're called?"

“I don’t know,” she murmured. “I’m not really up to speed on this stuff.”

"Oh well." He shrugged. "I'll ask around."

“Ann’s your best bet,” Cleo informed him, rubbing the toddler’s back.

"Ooh, Miss Shining Star herself, eh?" Cal wiggled his fingers snootily. The boy paused as he squinted off to Cleo’s left. "Actually, isn't that her?"

It was, and her boyfriend was with her. With the Entrance Hall being what it was, the couple was out in the open, and Cleo realized they had inadvertently wandered close enough to hear what was being said. “… like you aren’t even listening to me, Rhys!” was the tail-end of Ann’s sentence. Her arms were folded and stance infused with annoyance.

“No, actually,” Urquhart argued, stopping mid-stride. “I’ve spent too much time listening to you.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Ann demanded. “She humiliates me, in front of everyone, and your response is to insult me?!”

“It wasn’t humiliation, Ann--”

This only further incensed her. “I’m the one who put all this together! Not that buck-toothed cow! If it wasn’t for me, nobody would have bothered to come!”

Urquhart pulled a hand over his scalp, a disbelieving scoff escaping his throat. “The fact you think--” He stopped himself suddenly, a frustrated energy leading him to pace away. Ann trailed behind him a few steps before he abruptly turned to her. “You understand that Faith is a Squib, right?”

Without any context, this statement seemed nonsensical. Ann, however, quickly drew back the hand which she’d previously reached out, holding it tightly to her chest.

His eyes darted to it before an embittered smile slithered across his lips. In a level tone, he announced, “I think we’re done.”

There was a pregnant pause. Ann’s dress looked dull in the shadowed corridor, the silence stretching on for so long that Urquhart stopped waiting for a reply and walked off. “Rhys!” Ann called after him, turning around, but the movement made her catch sight of their trio, stopping her in her tracks. Her ex-boyfriend didn’t respond and she didn’t pursue. Ann simply shot them all a vicious glare before whirling about in the other direction, heading out toward the grounds.

Urquhart passed them all without a glance to re-enter the Great Hall. When they were alone once again, Cal let out a low whistle. “Gotta love school dances; they’re so sensational.”

Cleo’s gaze remained affixed to the spot where Ann once stood. “You know,” she began, contemplative. “I never quite realized how young she was until just now.”

“Yeah,” he conceded, stretching his arms over his head. “They all seem like that now, don't they?”

Cleo leaned her cheek against Gabriel’s forehead. “Hope she’s okay…”

Cal cast her a considering glance. “Isn’t she one of those bullying sorts; y'know, like the kind who used to hounded you year after year?”

“Yeah,” Cleo submitted with a sigh. “But she’s a kid, too. Kids are idiots sometimes.” She glanced toward her best friend, one of her shoulders lifting in a half-shrug. “Can’t hurt to hope someone will teach her better one day, right?”

His nod was vague. “Well. Speaking of kids, I think it’s about time I got yours to bed.”

Cleo couldn’t help but pout as her arms tightened around her baby boy. “Already…?”

“Yep!” he said, smiling as he patiently held out his arms. “I’m the malicious baby-snatcher, come to steal him away!”

“I don’t want to,” she whined, twisting away slightly. “Doesn’t feel like I’ve had enough time…”

“You have Christmas hols, don’t you?” he coaxed her. “You’ll see him again before long.”

“I guess…”

“Promise I’ll keep him happy. And I’ll only feed him half the sweets from the trolley.”

She felt the beginnings of tears blistering against her eyes as she pressed a kiss to the toddler’s temple. Gabriel’s head reflexively pulled toward her, even as she began to transfer him into Cal’s waiting grasp.

Hooking an arm around Gabriel to keep him situated against his chest, Cal briefly pulled Cleo into a one-armed hug. “Hey, take care of yourself, alright?”

Her head perched on Cal’s shoulder as she stared down at the boy’s slumbering face, her hand cradling the back of his head. “I don’t want to wake him, but I kind of want to say goodbye--”

“Either way, he’ll hear you.” Cal grinned. “Kid’s got sharp ears like his mum.”

Cleo let out a shuddering breath. “I love you, Bedbug. So much.”

He broke away with a backward step, moving to pat his free hand on Gabriel’s back. “Six more days! You can do it, Clyde!”

I know, I know, I know, I know, I know--

“Travel safe,” she entreated, hands holding the warm spot on her chest that her son had once occupied. “Be careful, please.”

He offered a jaunty little salute and a wave before he left, the Entrance Hall doors closing quietly behind him. Violet let out a sigh that could shake the foundations once they had gone.

Cleo had the good sense to be amused. “Bit much for you?”

“He’s fine,” the girl admitted quietly, her attempt at being polite. “Overwhelming. But fine.”

“Hope we didn’t prevent you from decompressing.”

Violet shrugged under the sound of a distant crowd cheering from the Great Hall. She stood leaning against a wall, head pressed against the stone.

Cleo was happy to stand with her in the quiet, listening to the muffled orchestra, the undercurrent of childish laughter, and the dull roar of conversation. Violet, however, had other ideas.

“They didn’t come,” she saw fit to point out, giving her a look that bragged: I told you so.

“They have not,” Cleo ceded.

“What time is it?”

Cleo glanced out one of the nearby window slats rather than opting for a Tempus. “Nearing half ten would be my guess.”

Violet didn’t appear pleased by this lean toward impreciseness, but was gracious enough to let it go. “We could get back right now, you know.”

“How do you mean?”

The girl’s mouth slanted as she balked, “What do you mean what do I mean? We could sneak back to the hospital, right now, and put me back. They haven’t missed me yet. We could end this clean.”

Fuck.

Cleo’s posture unwound, shoulders sloping at first before her entire body dipped, a loud sigh escaping before being caught by the hands that went to rub her face.

“What?” Violet prompted. When Cleo didn’t answer immediately, she pushed off the wall and stepped toward her. “What?”

“I thought when I explained this to you at the hospital, you understood,” Cleo divulged, letting her hands drop to her sides.

“I did,” Violet objected. “But the point is that none of what you said would happen has happened. So we can still go back--”

“There’s no going back, Violet,” Cleo said at once, hand going and failing for pockets that weren’t there, yet again. “The portkey is inactive until my next shift. There is no back.”

The girl’s confusion settled in an uneven, maudlin blink against her eyes; below, her mouth peeled open, fell back closed, and open, and closed--

Her first reply wasn’t a word. It was a breath. A disbelieving, incredulous breath. She took a step back. “But--” Her expression bordered on bleak. “Cleo--”

“Hey, Cleo, Violet--!” Harry was jogging to meet up with them, his mask off once again. “Oh, er… Where’s the other bloke?”

Although Violet seemed rather perturbed still, Cleo was grateful for the interruption. “He just headed off to take Gabriel home.”

“Right,” he replied, glancing behind him. “… Right.”

“Cleo--”

“Needed a break too?” Cleo pressed on, obstinate.

“Sort of?” Harry said. “Luna’s being… herself.”

Violet was insistent. “Cleo.”

“I imagine that’s… exhausting,” Cleo responded, ignoring her.

“Well-- I wouldn’t really put it like that.” Harry fidgeted, his gaze finally settling on them for the first time. “It’s just…I don’t know what happened. She just started crying…”

“Are we seriously not going to talk about this?”

Cleo shot her a piercing look. “Yep,” was all she said before addressing Harry again with a much more gentle, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset her if I did.”

“No, er, I don’t think… Well, I don’t know. She left after that, so I can’t really…” He only just seemed to take notice of the mood between them. “Oh, er… Have I barged in the middle of something?”

“No,” Cleo stated as Violet uttered, “Yes.”

Harry’s eyes darted between them. “Right.”

Cleo’s arms crossed. “Was there something you needed?”

“No, ah-- Well. Yes, actually,” he stumbled a bit before collecting his wits. “I was thinking maybe you should be heading back?”

God damn it. “Why?”

“Well--” He paused to frown. “I’ve been watching this whole time, like I said… but, after uhm-- Well, I sort of lost track of Malfoy.”

“Isn’t that good?” Cleo remarked. “Probably means he left. Maybe he couldn’t find an opening and just decided to give--”

She was cut off by her own reflexive, startled intake of breath. Before Cleo could properly register what was happening, a fan of thick cords had burst out from behind Harry's back, enveloping him. In an instant, he was tangled up, bonds coiled tight around his legs, torso, and neck, tipping him off-balance so he was leaning against the wall.

The first of Harry's shouts was dampened by the hemp contorting his misaligned jaw, but her attention was wrenched away from him when a wand was suddenly shoved in her face, forcing her to step away.

Malfoy stood before her, body tense, knees bent, shoulders drawn back: a Dueling stance. His gaze was sharp as he took another step toward her, not even glancing down as he slammed Harry the rest of the way to the ground.

Cleo’s hands drew up by instinct. “Malfoy--”

“Shut up.”

Her eyes darted from Malfoy’s stony face to Harry’s prone body.

“We won’t fight you. We won’t tell anyone--”

“Croft, shut up.”

“You can have it back,” she reasoned. “It’s not on him, but you can--”

His wand jabbed painfully into her neck as the boy’s face contorted with a barely restrained rage. “Leave.”

What?

She remained affixed to where she stood. “I’m not--”

“This doesn’t involve you,” he seethed through gritted teeth. His eyes darted over Cleo's shoulder and she suddenly understood. He was resolved, but more than that. Desperate; frantic, even. “Last chance, Croft. Go.”

The sound of Violet's labored breath bloomed just behind her head. Cleo’s expression hardened. “No.” She stepped toward him, undaunted. "Malfoy, you can't save her like--"

Suddenly, the muscles in his wand arm tensed, indicating movement. By instinct, her arm raised and knocked his sideways. She could barely hear the harshly whispered Diffindo over the sound of her own sucked-in breath that preceded a horrible sting winding down the length of her shoulder. Goosepimples formed against her skin under the unsettling sensation of her blood flowing in thick rivulets down her arm.

She was distracted and unable to anticipate the sudden way he grabbed her body and slammed it against the wall opposite. And, with her out of the way, he made his first encroaching steps toward Violet.

Without thinking, Cleo righted herself and approached him from behind. With a grunt, she wrapped one arm around his neck and the other across his torso as she attempted to pull him back and away from the girl.

The music from the Great Hall picked up, masking the sounds of struggle. She and Malfoy twisted against one another as he attempted to break free.

Then, the loud echoes of Violet’s first fleeing steps cascaded around them. Malfoy’s attempts grew more violent. His limbs scratched and pinched and pulled and groped every bit of her that he could, until he wrenched hard right and slammed them both back up against the wall with all his might.

Cleo choked as the air left her lungs and Malfoy broke free. He made it two steps out before Cleo grappled him again, pushing him back against the wall, both forearms pressed firmly against his neck, the rest of her pinioning his form to the stonework.

Her pained breath fluttered his fringe as she pushed harder against his neck.

But then, the tip of his wand jabbed hard into her armpit.

A wordless spell shot up her spine.

Indescribable, bone pulverizing agony.

She didn’t realize she was on the ground until she felt the bloom of secondary pain against her skull, a somehow tender undercurrent of ache against the bigger plume of torment. Convulsions. Cell death. Electrical haywire. Every inch of her protesting against a loud, harrowing anguish.

She didn’t know if she screamed. Maybe she hadn’t, but her throat strained. Her first gulp of air was a gasp. Time had slowed to a crawl.

But adrenaline kept her aware. The sudden rush and realization that Violet was running, that Malfoy had stopped the spell to pick up chasing after her, washed over her in a chill so cold it made her physically shudder.

She struggled to sit up; she could barely see.

Cleo’s hands went for her pocket, forgetting there was nothing there.

Violet had her wand.

Panicked, she patted around on the ground. She found Harry’s a few feet out from where he’d dropped. Her mouth harbored a painful, suffering groan as she twisted herself in the direction of the pursuit.

Her eyes barely focused; Violet was halfway down the hall. Malfoy was catching up.

Her arm rose up and quivered.

She just needed--

“Incarcerous,” she whimpered.

Nothing.

Cleo struggled to breathe. Then, again, louder, “Incarcerous!”

The ropes flew out but hit wide left, working like a bolas against Malfoy’s feet, tripping him. It wasn’t enough to stop him. She couldn’t fucking see--

Harry struggled beside her, his voice muffled and earnest behind his gag.

Cleo’s uncooperative body hunched sideways as she brought her tremoring, disoriented hand to his binds.

She heard the first of Malfoy’s attempts at capture: A shouted Bombarda, a frightened wail, the sound of struggle, all hidden under another song starting.

“Abscindo,” she groaned. With a swipe, Harry’s arms were freed.

He snatched the wand from her trembling fingertips, undid the others.

Her arms rose with him, glued to his sides, as he stood. “Help her,” she bleated, feeble. She pushed him as he began to run. “Go!”

She fell back against the wall, eyes closing.

The sounds stumbled over one another, sequentially, but chaotic.

The music picking up in the Hall; filtering in, drowning out the bellow of footfalls.

Stupefy underpinning a louder Crucio.

Malfoy’s grunt; Violet’s loud, piercing shriek.

The sickening thud of flesh against marble.

Harry’s voice careening down the hall, distressed.

Her own panicked breathing.

She didn’t understand a word, but she struggled to stand anyway. She stumbled against the wall on her first few steps but eventually found her footing. It took her an eternity to make it where Violet was splayed.

Malfoy was nowhere to be seen. But she didn't have time to worry over that.

Harry was bent over Violet, hands hovering above her, frozen.

Cleo took a few bracing breaths; shook her head to set her mind straight.

It wasn’t working, but she fell to her knees beside Violet anyway. Her head was pinned against the marble step of the staircase, held disturbingly aloft as her motionless limbs curled outward from her body at odd, unsettling angles.

Blood splattered against the first three steps. Cleo quickly grasped her by the hips.

“You have to… help me,” she murmured to Harry, shaking her head again as her vision blurred. “We need… to get her on her back, okay?”

Although he appeared shaken, he nodded.

“Hold her neck,” Cleo instructed. “I’m going to--…” she let out a breath. “Flip her over. Don’t let her head move.”

“Okay--”

It took a few moments for her to collect herself to dare the maneuver. Harry’s hands held fast to her neck and kept her head elevated as Cleo turned her body over and dragged her down against the floor.

The gash against her head spread from the middle of her brow to her left temple, impossibly deep. The dull shine of her skull peeked through the tangled mess of hair and blood.

Cleo’s arms were trembling something awful when she released Violet. She had to flex her fingers against her palm to regain some amount of sensation.

“You need to-- to do an Episkey,” she instructed. Her teeth felt like they were vibrating.

“Is that going to be enough?” he questioned, eyes wide. “It looks--”

“It’s enough to stop--… stop the bleeding for now.” She grasped her left hand to keep it from trembling.

At the behest of his tremulous spellcasting, the flesh against Violet’s brow knitted together and sealed.

“Okay-- good--”

He looked at her, alarmed. “What about you?”

“Not now--”

“But your head--”

She barreled into the next instruction. “Sanguinem Cir--” she swallowed and shuddered, shaking her head. “Circumitus. Pin-- Pinpoint wand movement.” Her expression bunched up as she winced. “Areal… focus.”

Harry had a white-knuckle grip on his wand. “Pinpoint where?”

“Heart.” When he hesitated, she pointed. “Left side.”

He did as he was told, sucking in a breath as his wand jutted toward her heart. “Sanguinem Circumitus.”

Nothing happened. Harry appeared to grow further dismayed.

“It’s-- it’s okay,” she reassured him. “Try again--”

He glanced up at her, the action quick and panicked. “Right, ehm. Sang--” He cleared his throat. “Sanguinem Circumitus!”

Yet again, the magic failed.

No time for more attempts. Cleo was quick to lean over and press two of her fingers against Violet’s neck.

She felt a thrum, but she couldn’t tell if the pulse was coming from Violet or her own fingers. She shook her hand. Tried again. Felt nothing. Shook her hand--

She drew away with a frustrated exhale. “Put your--… your fingers here and… and tell me if you feel a pulse.”

Harry did as instructed but, though they passed several seconds in anticipation, he shook his head. “I don’t feel--”

Adrenaline kicked in again, blood pounding in her ears. In a second, Cleo knelt over Violet, pulling the front of her dress open.

Base of the sternum at the xiphoid process. Two knuckles above. Hands folded together.

“Get a professor,” Cleo ordered as she did the first compression. “Now!”

As the sound of his rushed footsteps cluttered the hall, Cleo’s labored breaths lingered in time with her continued, determined presses.

One.

“C’mon--”

Two.

“Wake up--”

Three.

“God--!”

Four.

“Please!”

Five.

“Violet!”