After potions I took a walk by myself.
I know what you're thinking. Why, Percy? Look, I might've been Harry's guard, but we didn't need to spend every minute together. Hogwarts was pretty safe, it would be fine if we split up for an hour or two.
And most importantly, when I came back from the bathroom, I'd seen Hermione dragging him and Ron straight to the common room to cram a charms essay into our free period. Some things, even I couldn't save Harry from. There was no reason for both of us to go down together.
I'd gotten a couple funny looks off the other kids from our class when they saw me loitering outside potions class, hiding behind a corner. I say it was a necessary sacrifice.
Anyway, I walked all around Hogwarts, half-lost for most of it. Despite all having so many students, Hogwarts was way bigger than it needed to be. Between all the different floors, towers and classrooms, it probably could've had twice as many kids and still operated just fine.
I was somewhere on the ground floor when I found something fun. Let me set the scene.
It was a long straight hallway. Like most of the school, it was decorated— there were portraits all the way along the wall. I already knew that portraits could move between frames, like how Phineas Black was still dodging his cummy canvas in Grimmauld Place.
These portraits were special, because all of them in the hallway were connected. They were painted like different parts of nature. There was a field of wheat grass, an old growth forest, reeds next to a lake, and so on. When I walked past the first one, six baby mice peered at me out of it. When I stopped, they hid behind the grass. When I stepped toward them, they ran to the next frame.
Don't ask me why, but I wanted to touch one.
I knew that chances were, it would just feel like a coarse canvas. But something about the way they were running made me want to catch them. I shuffled to the next frame and poked it. The mice were faster, already running into the reeds one frame over.
I went back and forth, lunging and coming close without succeeding. At one point, I acted like I'd given up, turning my back. When I spun to the portrait again, I heard the mice squeak. My finger came down a centimeter above one's back.
I think I would've pulled it off, too, if right as I lunged someone hadn't said, "It's you!"
This hallway didn't get much traffic. It was out of the way, and after playing my whack-a-mouse game for a solid eight minutes nobody had passed by, until right now. I turned around and saw two girls with yellow ties. I actually recognized them, which explained how they seemed to know me.
The one who was pointing at me had two blond pigtails framed around a narrow but cute face. Beside her was a red-haired friend— the same one she'd been looking for the first time we met.
"It's the guy who walked in the lake!" said the blond.
I hadn't gotten her, but I knew her friend was Susan. "You told her about that?"
Susan shrugged. "It was an awfully strange thing to do."
"You were dipping your toes in. I just went for a little more."
"Yes. That's strange," Susan said.
"I'm Hannah," said the blond. "Hannah Abbott. This is Susan Bones. Did she introduce herself? She was very out of it when you met."
Susan turned her head away, not disagreeing.
"It's fine," I said. "We got along alright."
Hannah smiled, seeming relieved, before turning to the portraits. By now, the young mice had scattered throughout all six of them, each peeking at us from a different corner. "What were you doing?" Hannah asked.
"I wanted to touch them."
"Touch… the mice?"
"Uh-huh," I said. "Aren't they cute?"
Hannah seemed a bit disoriented. Susan moved past her, bending down to peer into the closest portrait. As soon as she got close, the nearest mouse ran like it had from me. Susan poked the portrait. She was slower than me, so she missed by a wide margin.
"Now you're doing it?" Hannah said.
"They're cute." Susan sounded distracted as she followed the mouse.
"See?" I said.
Hannah huffed. "Well, I have a class to get to. Enjoy the mice, you two. If that's what you want to do."
Although she said that, Hannah didn't immediately leave, choosing to watch Susan. As the redhead moved back and forth poking the paintings, she giggled to herself. Hannah smiled.
"Keep her company, if you don't mind," Hannah whispered to me.
I wasn't busy, so I shrugged to say that I would.
She watched Susan flail around for a few more seconds, then tightened her grip on her books and left.
As one of the mice ducked back into the reeds to dodge Susan, I jumped forward and tried to poke where it was going. The mouse squeaked and barely dodged.
"Why do they try so hard to get away?" Susan said, laughing.
She barely noticed Hannah's absence. Her mood was completely different from the last time we met, when she'd retreated to the Great Lake to stay away from everyone. Grief worked like that. It comes in waves.
I didn't know who she'd lost. Technically, I didn't know that she'd lost anyone. It was just a hunch.
"I guess we're scary," I said. "If you were that small, would you want someone to touch you?"
"That doesn't sound so bad," Susan insisted. "A hand would be like a warm bed. It might be quite nice to be picked up."
"Then get them to come closer," I suggested. "Maybe it's the poking that's scaring them."
Even I wasn't sure why we were putting this much effort in anymore. I was half-joking about coaxing them, but Susan dropped down onto her knees in front of the painting in the middle.
She cupped her hands, making a welcoming bowl-shape. She hummed for the mice. I didn't hear any words or recognize the melody, all I knew was that it sounded enticing.
"Hmmm hm hm hm hmm," Susan cooed. "Hmm hmm. Hmmm."
The little mice peeked out at her, scattered around the paintings. They just looked. Then, they started emerging.
They walked so slowly, I was worried someone would stumble into the hallway and spook them. But the mice collected in the middle painting, forming a semicircle by the trunk of a big painted oak tree.
Susan smiled at them. She kept humming, extending her cupped hands. They didn't run.
Instead, the mouse in the middle jumped out of the painting.
Susan didn't even have time to be surprised. The mouse's body looked hazy, like a puff of smoke in the shape of an animal. It landed in Susan's hands, and the second it made contact, the two of us were gone.
Splash!
We reappeared in the air. For a second, I saw a flash of rolling hills, not-so-distant woods, and a pane of water underneath us. After that, gravity promptly kicked in. We made a massive wave of ripples as we submerged.
Susan kicked her legs and flailed her arms. She could swim, but she was panicking. It was a struggle to keep her head above the water. I slid my arm around her stomach and effortlessly kicked hard, treading water for both of us.
"Hah… Hah… Hah…" Susan heaved in heavy breaths. Her hair was a shade darker than normal, the top part hanging down in her eyes. I guided us toward the shore, and after a few strokes, she separated from me and swam for herself.
We both pulled ourselves on the grass, wet to the bone. It was only a few degrees warmer than on that frigid Hogsmeade visit. When the wind hit our bodies, slapping our clothes against us, Susan's teeth chattered.
I took my wand out. "Dryus Maximus!"
I made a really fancy spiral shape to go with my very real spell. As I 'cast' it, I dried us both off. Right away, the worst of Susan's shaking stopped.
"I've never heard of that spell," she said. It was good to see she could talk again, now that she was dry.
"It's pretty rare. Hermione taught me."
Apparently, Susan was familiar enough with the Gryffindor that she accepted the story. "She must have read ahead, like the Protean Charm," Susan said.
A follow-up gust hit us, and even though our clothes were dried, Susan's shiver came back. We looked at each other, put our heads down, and ran.
Susan made it halfway before she ran out of breath. I dropped to one knee in front of her, holding my hands out, inviting her to climb on. Between the embarrassment of getting a piggyback ride and the thought of freezing any longer than she had to, Susan climbed on.
She slid her arms around my neck, while I held the bottom of her thighs to keep her in place. I did my best to ignore the two large shapes pushing into my back. It was hard while running— they kept bouncing whenever Susan loosened her grip, slapping the base of my neck.
When we got inside the castle, I let her down, and the two of us slumped down against the wall of the first hallway we got to, not caring if anyone walking past gave us funny looks.
Slowly, Susan started to laugh.
"What was that!" she said.
"Don't look at me! I'm new to this school. I'm still learning how to get to class. I have to master that before I even think about teleportation."
"You really didn't know?" Susan asked. "That wasn't why you were trying to catch the mice?"
"I just thought it looked fun, honest. I do have a pretty good intuition, though... It's not the first time I've stumbled on something without meaning to."
Susan leaned forward, drawing her knees against her chest and looking at me.
"You seem like you lead an interesting life," she said.
"Trust me, I don't go teleporting into lakes everyday."
"But you walk into them, in winter. You talk to strange girls who're sitting by themselves."
I remembered when I first saw her, dangling her toes in the water while avoiding everyone possible. She looked so different when she was smiling. She had one little dimple on her right cheek, directly under one of her biggest freckles.
"Sometimes, you can just tell when someone needs to talk," I said.
"I didn't think I needed to talk."
"That's usually how it is."
"Did you lose someone too?" Susan suddenly asked.
"Yeah. Best friend."
There were a lot of ways I could describe Annabeth. Girlfriend. Lover. The greatest thing I had.
Over time, I settled on best friend. It felt the most accurate. That's what she was, first and foremost. I had plenty of friends… but she always came first.
"When?" Susan asked.
"Two years ago."
"Does it get better?"
The question burst out of Susan, who leaned toward me. She got so close that a Ravenclaw boy walking past blushed when he looked at us, thinking he'd stumbled in on a couple's intimate moment.
"It gets better in some ways," I said. "The pain goes deeper. It's not the only thing you can think about. But it still hurts, and I don't think that ever stops. Not completely."
Susan's shoulders relaxed. She finally realized how close she had gotten, retracting her head and resting it against the wall.
"I suppose I'll take that," she said.
"Who did you lose?"
"You don't know?" Susan said. "I thought everyone in the school did by now."
Well, I didn't, so I could only wait for her to tell me.
"It was my aunt. Amelia Bones? They had her name all over the Prophet's front page for a whole week."
Susan paused. She sniffed, revisiting a bad memory. I patted her shoulder which I think she appreciated.
"My parents died when I was little. They were killed for opposing He Who Must Not be Named. Auntie Amelia raised me… Then He came back, and now she's gone, and she'll never braid my hair in the morning again."
No one was walking past now. I was glad, because Susan had started to cry.
"How did she do it?"
"French braid," Susan sniffed. "In a ponytail. Hannah tried, but she doesn't know how."
I pushed myself onto my knees. "Turn around."
Susan blinked. Only a few tears had actually fallen. She looked at me, more confused than suspicious— I got the feeling she was pretty trusting. Even though she thought about asking me why, instead, she ultimately shifted, turning her back away from the wall and toward me.
When I touched her hair, it was soft and billowy. That was normal after I used my powers to dry someone off. I swept her hair out so it wasn't caught in her robes. Then I started weaving it together.
"You can braid hair?!"
Susan did her best not to sound shocked, and it didn't really work. I chuckled.
"I have these female friends… actually, they're more like little sisters. They think it's the best thing in the world when I do their hair. But they're little taskmasters! If I'm off by even a little bit, they make me start all over! It took me hours to get it right the first time. I think they just like watching me suffer."
I wasn't sure which of them had the idea first, but the youngest Aphrodite Campers got the idea that having your hair braided by the camp's most famous hero made it extra glamorous. Lacy was the first one to ask. That was fine, because she was a sweetheart, but then the others wanted in! My head still swam just thinking about all the products and styles I'd been forced to learn.
Apparently, my distress leaked into my voice, because Susan was suddenly giggling.
"It's sweet of you to do that for them," she said.
"Yeah, well, I've gotta be good for something. Tilt your head down."
Susan did. At some point, she'd closed her eyes. I wove slivers of ginger hair together, focusing as if Cabin Ten were here to hit me with hairbrushes if I got it wrong.
I think it took… thirty minutes? I was in a flow state, and after the start, Susan and I didn't talk, so there wasn't much to keep track of time. When I pulled my hands back, I thought I'd done a decent job.
"Finished."
Susan cracked her eyes open. She'd kept them closed almost since the start. At first, she brought a hand up, touching her hair. She patted it at least five times, then hurriedly stood up.
She went to the closest window, turning to see her reflection. Her hands swept her ponytail over her shoulder so she could see it better. "Perfect," Susan whispered.
I joined her by the window. "Really? The left side is a little sloppy—"
"It's perfect!"
Susan moved faster than Hermes to hug me. I was surprised at first, but I hugged her back. "Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you, thank you."
"No problem," I said.
It was a while before she let me go.
O-O-O
"Look, Percy! It's really gone!"
Susan was bent over in the hallway where we'd met, staring at the portraits of the baby mice— all five of them.
The sixth that jumped into Susan's hands was nowhere to be seen.
"You don't think it died, do you?" Susan said.
"I don't think they're really alive," I reassured her. "If I had to guess… maybe the mice are like charges? You can only use the magic a certain number of times before it runs out."
"I don't want to use any more of them up," Susan said. "They're so cute!"
"Then let's avoid teleporting. I'm fine walking to class."
She looked at me and laughed, her palm resting on the marshy portrait. "But why did it drop us in the lake? That's so random!"
"Well…"
I hadn't mentioned it before, but I noticed something Susan hadn't. We didn't just get dropped in the lake— we landed right where we first met, on the remote side close to the Forbidden Forest. When I explained that, Susan developed a thoughtful frown.
"I was thinking about that day when the mouse jumped out of the frame. Could that be why?" Susan said. "Maybe you visualize where you want it to take you. That's how Apparition works."
"You're guess is as good as mine," I admitted. "Actually, your is probably better."
We heard footsteps and looked down the hall in time to see Hannah returning. When she saw us, she laughed in disbelief. "You two are still here? Don't tell me you've just been watching mice this whole time!"
Susan and I looked at each other.
"They're very cute mice," Susan said.
I knew right then that we were going to keep this as our secret.
Hannah rolled her eyes. "Honestly, you could have at least done a bit of homework— Your hair!"
She actually dropped her books, running forward to touch Susan's new braid. As Susan fielded rapid fire questions from Hannah: "How—?" Who—? When—? He did—?" I started to slip away. I should probably get some work done, and it definitely wasn't going to be happening after dinner. That's when Harry and I had our second meeting with Dumbledore.
"Percy!"
It was Hannah who shouted for me first. When I turned around, they were both looking at me.
"Thank you," Hannah said.
"Don't mention it. I had fun too," I said.
"I— We'll see you around, right?" Susan said.
I smiled.
"You know where to find me."
O-O-O
When I sat down at their table in the Gryffindor Common Room, Ron's head jolted up. He'd been drifting off, soothed by the nearby fireplace and put to sleep by his two pages of scribbles on the many applications of Coloring Charms. Harry was next to him, only looking a little more awake as he slaved away on his essay.
"And where were you?" Ron asked.
"Chasing mice and teleporting into the Great Lake."
Ron snorted. "You could've just not told me."
I shrugged. "Hey, do you guys know Susan Bones?"
"Susan? She was in the D.A.," Ron said. "She's nice as can be. Hufflepuff to the core."
"She has very respectable grades," Hermione felt the need to add.
"She cursed Malfoy into a slug one time," Ron said. "She's good in my book."
Everyone around the table nodded, including me, because you know what? That was sound logic.