Chapter 9Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
"You know," said Tracey Davis, a hint of frustration noticeable in her voice. "When I told you I was in, I never imagined you'd have me spend Hallowe'en morning looking at art!"
I paused to turn away from the painting I was examining, depicting a Dodo —sorry, a Diricawl— along with its baby chicks, all gathered around an egg that was shaking slightly on its own, cracks beginning to appear across its smooth surface.
"We're not looking at art," I reminded her, gesturing at the many paintings that covered the corridor's walls. "We're looking for a secret."
"Yes, yes. A painted apple, you told me already."
"A pear! Don't tell me you've been looking for an apple all this time! Oh, come on Tracey! We'll have to start again–"
I stopped my tirade when I realized she was sniggering at me behind her hand. I shook my head. "You prat."
She continued laughing as I walked up to the next canvas over, of a wizard eating some grapes. Fruit at last! So close and yet so far. 'Do you mind?' the painted man asked me, annoyed at my staring.
"I just don't know what's so special about it," asked Tracey, recovered from her laughing fit and now examining a painting of a chocolate cake. "Why spend our entire free hour doing... this?"
"It's a surprise, Tracey. The point of a surprise is that you don't know."
"I don't think I like surprises anymore," she commented in a rueful tone, "I used to like them, but then the Sorting Hat went 'Surprise!' and sorted me into Slytherin."
"What were you hoping for? Hufflepuff?"
She shot me a glare. "My father is a Hufflepuff."
"Nothing wrong with it," I shrugged, stepping in front of a portrait of a broken lute. "And I mean, you are at least patient and loyal, if you're still down here with me rather than... you know, up there and flying on a broom by the lake or something."
For a moment I thought the reminder of what else she could be doing with her time would prove to be a dire mistake on my part, as I saw her resolve waver for a moment, but then she simply turned towards the next painting on her side of the corridor and said: "Sure. But no, I didn't have a favourite. It's just... I guessed it would be either Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw, like my mother. I never expected to be in the pure-blood house, you see."
"That I can sympathise with, believe me. I even asked the hat to put me into Gryffindor, but here I am."
She seemed to remember then who she was talking to, because she remained awkwardly silent after that last comment of mine, her attention focused on the paintings once more.
"The Sneakoscope was buzzing before, by the way," she commented at last. "Right after we woke up."
"It's always buzzing. That's why you had to put it under all those clothes."
"Yes, but it was buzzing harder. Maybe Parkinson and Bulstrode are up to something."
"They always are."
She let out a frustrated huff. "You're impossible!"
I nodded wisely as I paused in front of yet another canvas, this one much more promising. And sure enough: "I think this is it."
"You know," commented Tracey as she approached to look at the piece of art. "We could have saved a lot of time if you'd told me the painting was of a bowl of fruit."
I gave her a shrug. "I wasn't sure, couldn't remember that detail. But look at this..."
Tickling the pear felt oddly invasive, all my previous visits to museums in two separate lives almost screaming at me at the taboo nature of the act. I could see Tracey felt the same, because she cringed and looked at me accusingly, like she was thinking: 'You only look at the art! You very definitely never ever touch the art, you degenerate!'
But the pear itself seemed to like it, because it let out a chime that resembled a laugh as it morphed into the shape of a doorknob, emerging out of the canvas' surface.
I grabbed it, said "Voilà!" to Tracey, and opened the door at once, stepping into the Hogwarts' Kitchens, with her following on my footsteps.
And in retrospect, perhaps visiting the Kitchens on the day of the Hallowe'en feast wasn't my brightest idea. Because it was madness.
The five tables that mirrored the distribution of those in the Great Hall above were bursting with all sort of platters, dishes and pitchers, some magically piled on top of each other into unstable stacks that rose far above our height. A dozen stoves were burning hot, with large pieces of beef levitating on top of some of them, enormous bubbling cauldrons over the others. Flying across the air were bowls of ingredients, knives and spoons, tableware and pieces of cake. I had to crouch to dodge a very aggressive salt cellar that shot by my head the moment I stepped foot into the cavernous kitchens. And pumpkins. There were bloody pumpkins floating everywhere.
There were also house-elves everywhere: elves running down the isles and under the tables, elves perched to the top of the tower of puddings, elves shouting about missing carrots, elves cleaning dishes by the sink visible in the far distance, elves handling the stoves with one hand while peeling potatoes with the other, elves carrying bowls of soups larger than themselves, elves running towards us and saying: "Studentses! Studentses in the kitchen! Oh no, they must be hungry if they's here!"
I rose my hands, trying my best to placate their onslaught, but it was futile and a moment later I found myself holding a tray of biscuits and a glass of pumpkin juice in my hands.
"Uh... thanks. Thank you, but–" aaand now one of them was crying because I had just thanked them, the other calling for even more elves to join us, just so that they could also witness my gratitude. In the distance, I heard a couple of plates crash into each other and shatter into a thousand pieces, as the elves' attention went to us.
I turned my gaze at Tracey with no little desperation, hoping that her magical background would be more effective at dealing with the little creatures, but she was still in her shell-socked-at-the-pandemonium stage; her mouth open wide and her hands holding a bowl of peach rings that hadn't been there a moment before.
I sighed, took a bite off a biscuit and made some pleased noises to pacify them —which seemed to work, because slowly they started to return to their work— and then approached the two of them who had noticed us the first.
"The food is great," I said, carefully walking my way around the word 'thanks', "but that's not why we're here, actually."
"Ith's noth?" asked Tracey behind me, munching on a peach ring.
"Oh, does you need something else? Your clothes cleaned, your bedspread mended? You can tell Dripple!" said one of the elves, taller than the others, with a full face and droopy ears.
"Or Plixiette!" said the other, which I guessed was a her. She was stick-thin and with a sock worn as a scarf around her neck.
"Well... now that you mention it, one of my socks is a little worn out, but– wait! Hold on! That's not why we're here either! Actually, I'm looking for a house-elf. I ran into him some days ago and he was hurt and bleeding. I guessed you guys would know who he was."
"Bleeding elfses?"
"Hurt elfses? In Hogwarts? Impossible! Master Dumbledore always treats us good. He would never!"
"No, no, I'm not saying it was the Headmaster," I clarified. Then sighed, this was going nowhere. "Just... do you happen to know a house-elf named Squeeble? Does he work here too?"
Both creatures scrunched their faces in concentration, muttering 'Squeeble, Squeeble...' Then they rushed back into the depths of the kitchen, towards the little shanty town that covered one entire wall of the room, built out of stacked barrels with small doors and windows opening into them.
I turned towards Tracey, who was shaking her head: "How did you know about all this? This place?"
"I read it in a book," I said, completely honest.
"And do... these elves make all the food we eat?"
"Where did you think it came from? It can't be conjured; remember that lecture of McGonagall about Gamp's Law?"
She shrugged. "Don't know... I never thought of it, I guess."
"It's slaves. It's always slaves. Just like with the pyramids."
"House-elves aren't slaves!" she protested, indignant.
"Are they paid?" I asked, waving my hand to encompass the dozens of creatures... well, slaving in the kitchens. "Can they refuse an order they don't like?"
"That's such a Muggleborn thing to say! House-elves actually like helping wizards."
"Yeah, and I'm sure there's no magic involved in that, at all. They totally don't look like they're under the effects of a love potion or something. Like... definitely, no wizard ever cast some sort of will-binding curse on their bloodline or anything like that. Riiiight."
She crossed her arms and frowned at me. "You don't know that."
"No. But I know wizards."
"What do you mean? You're a witch yourself, you know."
"Exactly."
She had a confused look, as if expecting me to elaborate. I really, really didn't want to. Because I could understand it just too well. Virtues of my fore-memories, I guessed. Or perhaps this came out of this very life as Sylvia. Of my experiences at the foster homes, what little scraps I'd gathered about the pasts of the Residence's other kids.
I gave it a try anyway, knowing Tracey was too young, not nearly jaded enough to understand that it wasn't always the Voldemorts of the world. It wasn't always the Grindelwalds. Sometimes it was the ordinary people: the Elliots and Miles, the Mr. and Mrs. Coverdale, the Petunias and Vernons.
Sometimes it was even the Traceys and the Sylvias.
"They are called house-elves," I started. "Meaning there are, or were, some other kind of elves, no?"
"Like those crazy ones in Germany?"
"Uhm... sure, probably. But here's how I think it happened..."
And so I started explaining my little pet theory as we waited: that, say, hundreds of years ago, maybe two or three thousand years, who knows... some of those wild elves did one too many nasty things against us humans. Or maybe it was wizards themselves who started it, because really, just take a serious look at human history, will you?
So there is a war, wizards against elves. Except that elves' magic is completely and terrifyingly powerful, without many of the limitations of human magic, right?. So it wouldn't have been a cakewalk for the wizards, and at some point I could imagine them starting to get desperate. The losses mounting, things not going their way.
And then, someone comes up with the idea. Or maybe they find a dark spell in an old tome, like what Professor Duskhaven said. A binding. A grand Imperius curse, a love potion of sorts that would be inherited, that would affect an entire race of magical beings.
I could imagine how appealing that would have sounded, to people who had been fighting and had lost loved ones, or who were simply afraid of losing them and wanted to put an end to the fighting before it happened. I could see how they'd leap at it, convince themselves it was even better for the elves too, because if they could be slaved then they wouldn't have to be killed. And maybe that they'd look for a better, more permanent solution in the future.
But of course they never do, nobody does; because it's more convenient like this. And so they put it off, until some generations later the knowledge is finally lost —maybe even on purpose— and new wizards simply take their helpful dispositionfor granted. Why would you look a gift elf in the mouth, after all?
Tracey scoffed after I gave her the abridged version, rolling her eyes: "Now you're just making stuff up."
I shrugged. "Maybe? But name me any creature that exists just to help some other being at the cost of themselves. That just doesn't happen, Tracey. Not naturally."
She seemed unconvinced, which to be fair, wasn't that surprising. It's not like I had really expected to shift her entire outlook on the whole house-elves' situation within the span of a single conversation, especially since she'd been raised in the Wizarding World and she probably just took it for granted too; the way a millionaire's kid would take for granted the existence of 'the help'.
Besides, she wasn't wrong: I was making stuff up. Sure, if I had to place a bet, I'd wager my story was closer to the truth than 'they just love Wizards so much that they have to help us, tee-hee'. But it was still a tall tale without any solid evidence. And there might be other stuff I simply wasn't aware of that could also explain it.
But truth or not, at least Tracey was now looking at the little magical creatures with a thoughtful expression; so I chalked it as a win.
Not that I planned to do anything about the house-elves, or to join Hermione's little future S.P.E.W. club, if that still happened this time around. I had already way too much on my plate, thank-you-very-much, and liberating the house-elves seemed like the kind of world-altering quest that could take you years, if not a lifetime. I would have to content myself with treating them decently, and do my best to ignore the lingering sense of guilt at consuming the food they cooked and that I pretty much hadn't paid for.
In any case, the two elves were returning, all but dragging a third one along with them, each grabbing one of their arms.
I said: "Uhm... that's not the elf that I saw, sorry."
"Oh, no, no," said Dripple, shaking the other elf's arm. "This be Dizzlenob, and he knows Squeeble! Tells them, tells the studentses!"
Dizzlenob didn't look too happy at his comrades. Had they just woken him up from his nap or something? But he simply furrowed his brow and spoke in a gravelly tone: "Yes, yes... Dizzlenob knows Squeeble. He wasn't an elf of Hogwarts, he belongs to one of the professors. But they isn't here no more."
I tensed, because this was just what I had feared. But still, I had to ask, if only not to arouse Tracey's suspicions, and to give me a cover story in case I needed it later to justify how I knew what I knew. Because one thing was knowing how to find the kitchens, and another thing was knowing too much:
"Which professor?"
"Professor Quirrell," he replied, his voice bitter. "He always liked his own Squeeble better than us Hogwarts elfses. If you seen Squeeble, maybe his master forgetted something here and he was recovering it. But he is no more a Professor's elf, so he should have askeds us!"
Yep, he was recovering something all-right. And that definitely confirmed my suspicions: Quirrell had not simply disappeared into the ether thanks to Duskhaven's arrival, and his plot to steal the stone was still very much in motion. It's just that now he didn't have direct access to the castle, so he was sending a minion in his place. I imagined whatever protective spells were in place around Hogwarts prevented the undead abomination from simply barging in; but maybe elves were immune to those.
I also imagined this Squeeble had been unsuccessful so far, given the sorry state I saw him in, plus the fact there was no giant Dark Mark skull in the clouds above the castle. Better not to chance it though: "That's incredibly impolite!" I said. "You should definitely be on the lookout in case he comes again, and have a stern talking to him."
"Oh yes!" said Dripple with a savage smile. "Dripple likes stern talkings, he does! He will stern Squeeble if he sees him again!"
We started receding towards the door after that, Tracey appearing a bit confused about the whole interaction —which, to be fair, I was starting to think was simply the normal side-effect of talking to house-elves— when the realization hit me.
"Say, Plixiette. You wouldn't happen to be French, would you? I mean, your name..."
"Yes, Yes!" she said, bouncing up and down. "Plixiette was an elf at Beauxbatons before she was an elf at Hogwarts!"
"Oh, really?" I said, a grin with too many teeth splitting my face.
"Crepes?" asked Tracey.
"No," I said. "Crêpes."
She rolled her eyes and returned to her own treacle tart, the philistine. At least Daphne Greengrass seated by my other side had the good sense to eye the piece of culinary art sitting in front of me with a certain disguised envy. Parkinson was trying so hard not to look at my plate that she was in danger of permanently twisting her neck into a corkscrew.
We were at the Great Hall, and after much anticipation the Hallowe'en Feast was finally underway. Unhealthy amounts of delicious sweets —and jack-o'-lanterns— surrounded us; but I only had eyes for the love of my life, for the crêpe sucrée I had managed to extract out of Plixiette.
"Just eat it already," said Perks. "Stop being weird!"
"You are weird," I said half-heartedly. I just wanted to spend a few more seconds staring at this fallen piece of heaven, take in as much of its mouth-watering aroma as I could. Eventually I took a first bite, my hands trembling and my heart trying to escape out of my chest.
"Oh là là ! C'est incroyable !"
Zabini scoffed, because of course he did.
"It tastes of Paris!" I insisted, inhaling another bite.
"Have you even been to Paris before?" he asked.
"I was French in a previous life," I confessed distractedly, earning myself a roll of his eyes. Half the crêpe had already vanished somehow, so I tried to pace myself to make it last longer. "You know," I added. "This... this changes everything!"
"Uh-huh" said Tracey.
"It's not just the crêpes, it's all of it! Now that Plixiette knows my tastes, the sky is the limit. Begone, foul British cuisine, for the béchamel is here! Get lost, breakfast toast, you can't compete with the mighty croissant!"
"Plixiette?" asked Zabini.
"She's a house-elf," clarified Tracey.
"You can't bring your house-elf into Hogwarts!" protested Draco, two seats away but still listening on us, apparently. "I would have brought Dobby myself if I could, but my father said I wasn't allowed."
"And how can you of all people have a house-elf?" asked Pansy Parkinson, looking haughty at the 'you' in question.
"It's a Hog–" started Tracey, but she shut up when I kicked her —softly, because I wasn't a bully— under the table.
I bit another piece of my perfect desert, looked at Parkinson as I chewed it down, then simply said: "Délicieuse."
For a single moment she looked outraged, and I wondered if she'd do anything stupid. Oh, please, Pansy, please do something stupid.
She didn't, though. Her twisted expression going away under a mask of feigned indifference. Then, she turned towards Malfoy and asked, first making sure that I was still looking at her: "Say Draco, what were your plans for winter break again? It's little more than a month away now, you know."
Draco seemed to miss her little byplay, because he launched himself into a detailed explanation of how Yule Ball was celebrated at the Malfoy Manor, which caused Zabini to audibly groan, and pretty quickly lost the interest of those among us who weren't either simpletons or shameless arse-lickers.
But that reminded me of something, so I downed my crêpe and then switched seats with Tracey, ending up next to Theodore Nott. The young boy's face was serious, consuming his food while pretty much ignoring all of us. He'd quickly gotten a reputation of being aloof and acting as if everyone was beneath his notice; but unlike Zabini, I didn't think that was true in his case. I thought he was just shy. Possibly sad, too, by how he could eat sweet after sweet with no emotion at all showing on his face.
"Hey Nott," I started. He turned his head marginally, but then he returned to his desert, pretty much ignoring me.
Yeah, I could see how he'd obtained that reputation of his.
I rested my head on my hand, and simply stared at him. I could see he looking at me out the corner of his eye, now and then. It only took a couple of minutes for the awkwardness of the situation to become overbearing.
"What do you want, Sarramond?" he asked at last. "I don't want to be seen associating with you."
"No associating necessary," I assured him. "But they tell me your family knows a thing or two in matters of blood status."
"They?"
"Yeah. People. Mates."
"Your... mates." It was hard reading him. I wasn't sure if he was unbelieving, making fun of me, or simply unfamiliar with the concept of talking to people.
"I get around, you know? Well, maybe you don't, but I do get around. And that's the rumour on the grapevine. So I was wondering if your family does, in fact, have some sort of secret info on magical bloodlines, or any sort of test that I could use to–"
He turned to look at me fully. His tone was neutral: "Do you know anything at all about my family?"
"Uhm... well, I do know about the book of sacred bloodlines. And that you... your family I mean, don't like Muggleborns too much."
Zabini let out a low laugh, like the eavesdropper he was. He commented: "That's one way to put it, for sure."
Nott grabbed his plate and moved even further down the bench, almost to the very end of the communal table; I shuffled after him and said, in a lower voice: "So? Is it true then, what they say? Do you have something that could help me? I'm quite certain I have a magical origin," I half-lied, "and I'm looking into the Ministry angle for confirmation. But getting the records might take some time, so it'd be nice to have some sort of alternative to that."
"If you know about my family, then you know why I don't want you to be seen next to me. I can't help you."
"Can't or won't?"
He didn't reply, returning his gaze to the dish in front of him. I remained there, biting my lip as I thought of what to say, how to get him to do what I wanted. Because I had noticed what he hadn't said, the unvoiced implication: it was his family that wouldn't like me. Not necessarily he himself.
"You know... it would help you, and your family," I said at last. "If I've got magical blood, and you help me prove it, then I would owe you a big debt. And if I turn out to be a Muggleborn... well, then you gain respect in front of the other Dea–... eh, the other pure-bloods; because you'd be the one to expose me for good."
"My family's reputation is already flawless. We don't need more... respect."
Well, this wasn't going well. Should I... be myself? Perhaps I shouldn't.
I could do without yet another enemy.
But I could also do with his help... decisions, decisions.
"You could also lose respect, you know," I said, almost nonchalantly, placing my own arm around his shoulders. He went completely rigid, as if I had just petrified him with a spell. "Like, if... I don't know, people start seeing us sitting together at lunch and such."
His look was murderous. Oh well, too late to stop now.
"The Slytherins will know the truth, sure," I continued. "But think about the others, like the Gryffindors over there. Ron Weasley already thought Malfoy was my boyfriend just because he saw me talking to him once. So what do you think he'd say if he saw us like–"
Nott pushed my arm off his shoulders, shuffling away from me as much as he could in the limited space, his buttocks almost at the very border of the bench. "You! You can't–! I will just–!"
He was so apoplectic he couldn't finish a single sentence, just sputtering angry sounds my way. I let him calm down for a beat, giving him some space, then lowered my voice further, making sure he got just how serious I was:
"You don't have to be my ally. You don't have to be seen with me. And I will pay you for any information you give me, so it won't cost you anything. But if you won't help me, then... well, you know what they say about caged beasts, no? They lash out. If I'm going down for the crime of being a Muggleborn, why wouldn't I take you down with me; the son of a Death Eater?"
He went very, very pale. To be clear: he was still furious, but now he was also furiously pale. He looked at the other students sitting around us. Only Tracey and Zabini were paying us any attention, but I hoped our lowered voices couldn't be heard in the cacophony of the Great Hall —most of which somehow seemed to emerge entirely out of the lions' table.
"I'm– I'm neutral," he whispered.
"Then be neutral! Just give me what I need to prove my own status, and you'll benefit no matter what! That's not helping a mudblood, Nott, that's helping yourself. Even Selwyn would understand that."
He considered my words for a moment, then said: "I will send a letter, that's it. But you don't talk to me again. You don't sit next to me again. You don't–"
"Yeah, I get it. We got a deal, Nott." Then I stood up and stepped away. "Come on Tracey, let's go pester the Gryffindors!"
She doubted for a moment, but then she followed me. She also looked annoyed, and I wondered how much of the interaction she'd heard.
"It was your idea, you know," I told her, once we were a few steps removed from our house's table.
"I didn't tell you to threaten him, you nutter!" she replied sharply. So, she'd heard enough.
I gave her a helpless shrug, as if to say 'what did you expect?' But we were already close enough to the Gryffindors that I let the matter lie. I was sure she'd bring it up again once we were on our own, anyway.
The reason I wanted to confront the Gryffindors —or, more specifically, two Gryffindors in particular— was that Hermione wasn't in the Great Hall.
I hadn't been sure whether she'd be here or not. According to my fore-memories, she wasn't supposed to be. But now she had the Read-Ahead Club, so she probably wasn't feeling quite as lonely as in the original timeline. That said, the group met only once per week, and we weren't friends, not exactly; there wasn't much emotional support going on in there, just book discussions.
Tracey herself was the only friend I had in there, and she was only sort of an unofficial member: she'd been present at one of our gatherings, but had been bored so out of her mind that eventually she'd just used the time to advance her homework.
So with no actual friends, and having to deal with Ron Weasley's tact, or lack thereof, it wasn't so surprising Hermione had refused to attend the Feast after all.
The problem was that, without Quirrell here to release a troll —something I'd half-expected to happen anyway, but the Feast was already about to end with no trolls in sight— there was no reason for Harry Potter and Ron Weasley to go looking for her.
And this... this was one of those key plot elements, wasn't it? One of those whose consequences echoed into the future for years to come, like the waves on a lake's surface after a stone had dropped into it. Harry and Ron saved Hermione from the troll, and the Trio was born.
Which meant: no troll, no Trio.
I couldn't do much about the lack of trolls, but I hoped if I could make Harry see the error in his ways, he'd go look for the girl of his own volition and apologize. Would that be enough to kickstart their friendship? Who knew. But it needed to start somewhere, and subtly nudging the boys into apologizing seemed like a good first step.
"Oi, Potter!" I said as we approached the boys, loud enough that other people at their table turned to look at us, "I heard you've been bullying Granger!"
There. Subtle enough.
"W–what?"
"What's it to you?" said Ron, frowning at us as he took the lead role.
Oh, right, I was the self-serving snake to him. Had to keep appearances, couldn't look too charitable now.
"She happens to be my Potions partner, if you haven't noticed, so I've got a vested interest in her well-being."
"Then you go look for her, if you like her so much!"
I ignored Ron and focused in Harry, who was looking sort of guilty. Ron was a tough nut to crack, me being in Slytherin and all, but Harry I knew where the weak spot in his shield was. Because he'd been bullied himself, by his cousin; so I only needed to remind him of that:
"What did you say to make her cry, Harry?"
"I– I didn't say any–"
"Maybe they insulted her and laughed at her?" commented Tracey, following my lead, her arms crossed as she too stared down at the two Gryffindors in false indignation.
"They're bigger than her," I said to Tracey, "Maybe they chased her around?"
She gasped. "Do you think they would hit her?"
"You know bullies," I said with a shrug.
"We would never hit her!" protested Harry.
"But you would insult her, no?" I replied, bitter. "Why?! Maybe you think that she is less than you? That she is a freak?!"
That might have come out a bit too harsh, a bit too honest. Too many emotions about Elliot-and-Miles and my foster parents mixed in my voice, too many things that I thought were already behind me. Tracey turned marginally and looked at me with hidden curiosity.
But it seemed like the right comment to make, judging by how Harry jerked at that, his face red with shame. Ron too had gone silent, looking at his desert as if it contained the answers to the nature of the universe.
It was Harry who first stood up. His gaze went everywhere but to my face, as if he was afraid I was a legilimens myself or something. But he said: "You're right. We should apologise to her. Come on, Ron."
I believed for a moment that the red-headed boy would remain sitting, too stubborn and too reluctant to lose face to a couple of snakes. But he surprised me by giving us a curt nod of acceptance and rising up to follow Harry. They headed towards the main entrance.
I let out a breath, my muscles finally relaxing even under the curious looks Neville and the other nearby lions were giving Tracey and me. It seemed the manipulation had worked, now I just had to wait and see what fruits it bore.
"Sylvia," said Tracey in a low voice. "Were you–"
And that, of course, was when all hell broke loose.
We heard a loud screech coming from the entrance, causing most heads across the entire Great Hall to turn to look at its origin. I saw Ron and Harry pause in their steps, doubting whether to approach the large wooden doors.
Then the ghostly figure emerged through the doors as if they weren't there, floating a couple of feet above the ground. It rushed straight into the Great Hall, flying over the students and the tables and ignoring the two Gryffindors in his path. I realized the screech was coming from him, and it took me a moment to identify him as Peeves, even despite his ridiculous clothing.
Because Peeves never entered the Great Hall, not during dinner and not with all the Professors present.
"Ruuuun!" he screamed, "Run! Acromantulas! Acromantulas in Hogwarts!"
Then he pirouetted in mid-air and shot upwards, disappearing once more through the enchanted ceiling.
There was a beat of stunned silence at his announcement, before the uproar started. Shouts and voices and noises of cutlery clattering and benches dragging across the floor as dozens of students all stood up in a hurry; Professor McGonagall's orders getting lost in the cacophony.
"Prefects!" boomed Dumbledore's voice; he was doing something with his wand pressed against his throat. "Prefects, gather your students! Make sure everyone is here! Severus, Minerva, come–"
I was close enough to the entrance myself that I heard clearly how Harry said "Hermione! We need to find her!" and rushed out of the Great Hall, pushing the doors open. Ron's face was completely white, but in the end he gritted his teeth and followed in Harry's wake.
"Shit," I muttered, unsure. Because on one hand: 'Yay, Golden Trio, here we come!' but on the other hand, this wasn't a troll, it was something new: Acromantulas.
Were they more dangerous than a troll? I wasn't sure. I guessed it would depend on how many of them they would encounter: Perhaps they'd win against one acromantula. But against five? Or ten?
I had told myself I wouldn't be a hero.
That nobody could demand that of me.
But I had a strange sense of deja vu... a vague impression of something horrible hurling towards us at full speed. Something foreboding, that made the hairs in my arms stand on end. It was as if the future wasn't... certain... anymore. As if nothing was guaranteed all of a sudden. And I could see the image in my head, almost: Hermione surrounded by two of those spiders, having somehow ended up separated from the boys. Hermione, being dragged away towards the Forbidden Forest, wrapped inside a giant silk cocoon.
And then myself, alone at our Potions table. With nobody to tell me —in a bossy tone, of course— how to check for magical balance in a brewing potion, or why I should crush the ingredients with the left side of the knife rather than the right.
Alone, and in a twisted world. A broken version of the story, of the future I remembered, hopelessly ruined.
"Shit!" I repeated, letting out a tired sigh, before dashing towards the entrance myself. It seemed like the plan was for the Prefects to gather everyone together at the far side of the Great Hall and put some order there, so I had only brief instants to escape the room before the chaos cleared enough that it would become impossible to slip by.
"Wait!" shouted Tracey behind me as I pushed open the Great Hall's doors again. "What are you doing?!"
At least the corridor outside seemed clear. I turned towards her; she looked bewildered, but still decided to follow me into the rest of the castle, apparently.
"No, you stay here!" I ordered her. I wasn't planning to put even more people into danger. "I will follow those two and make sure they don't die, double back here if we run into trouble. Go tell a prefect, quick! Or better yet: a teacher!"
She gave me a confused look, a mix of relief and exasperation; then bit her lip as if she was about to say something more. But in the end she just nodded and rushed towards the rest of the students.
I crossed the door and let it shut close behind me, muting the racket from the Great Hall. I ran towards the nearest corner, behind which I'd seen a couple of dark robes disappear a mere few seconds ago. My quick steps echoed on the stone walls, no doubt attracting the attention of whatever creatures hid in the dark crevices.
I extracted my wand and held to it as if it was a lifeline, the only solid thing I could find within reach.
Notes:
I just want to bring everyone's attention to the fact I published the Hallowe'en chapter on Halloween, and what that says about my enviable scheduling prowess.
Also thanks for reading, that too.
Chapter 10Chapter Text
I followed the two Gryffindor boys along the corridors, and was still a good few yards away when they went through the bathroom's door. In their rush they never noticed me behind them, and so I doubted for a moment whether to join them in the bathroom, or to wait outside. In the end I opted for the latter, and decided I would act as a lookout, hidden from view behind one of the suits of armour.
It was the safest choice for the timeline, all things considered, and for me. This was meant to be Ron, Harry and Hermione's bonding moment after all, the forging of their friendship; so it was best if I didn't intervene, didn't meddle into that. Let them have their own little emotional scene without a Slytherin in there to make them wary, to force them into keeping their walls up, so to speak.
And if an acromantula did appear, I'd wait and see whether or not they could deal with it on their own before intervening. Hopefully they'd be able to, and so I'd be free to slip by unnoticed and go for the forbidden corridor instead. Because I was very aware that all of this was just Quirrell's distraction to get to the stone, and with the changes from the version I remembered from my fore-memories, I couldn't be certain he wouldn't succeed this time around.
The wait was tense, continuously looking to one side of the corridor then the other, sweat making my wand hand sticky. I almost let out an audible breath of relief when I saw the three of them emerge out of the bathroom. Hermione's eyes were red and puffy, but she looked glad to see the boys had found her.
And they simply... stood there, the absolute idiots! Chatting in front of the bathroom door with not a care in the world. I was about to emerge out of my hiding place to berate them out of sheer indignation when Hermione paused and emitted a broken cry. Ron and Harry turned to follow her gaze. I did the same.
There was an acromantula on the ceiling, right above me.
I shouted and dashed out of the way and towards the middle of the corridor, right as the monstrous arachnid jumped and impacted the very same spot I'd been hiding in with a loud thud, the suit of armour collapsing to the floor in a shower of rolling metal pieces. The creature screeched and lunged at me again. It was way, way bigger than I remembered from the movie —or perhaps it was my small body that made the creature appear as a massive beast, almost as tall as I was.
I rose my wand desperately towards it and shouted "Protego!"
I'd been trying to learn the shield charm for a while now, practising it now and then when I could find some free time away from everyone else. It was difficult, probably the hardest spell I'd tried to tackle so far, and it didn't help that I felt on the verge of panic right now. So I was quite surprised when a semi-transparent barrier emerged out of my wand, separating me from the acromantula. I only had gotten it to do that once before.
And maybe it was because of that very surprise that my focus failed when the monster swiped one of its many legs at me, its bladed tip simply piercing through the barrier as if it was nothing but tissue paper. I managed to dodge at the last second, but the leg caught the end of my robes, and I heard my clothes ripping as I retreated back and towards the boys and the frizzy haired girl.
"Sarramond?" she asked me, her voice breaking. "You also came to–?"
"Not now!" I shouted, harshly pushing her back to keep our distance with the creature advancing on us.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" said Harry. I saw the breast plate of the armour suit rise in the air and shoot towards the acromantula. It simply bounded off its carapace, the monster not even noticing.
Yeah, that wasn't going to cut it this time around.
Hmm... cut it.
I slashed my wand diagonally in the air as I shouted "Diffindo!" and pushed as much magic and intention into the spell as I dared. Then I repeated the motion once more, trying my best to aim at the spider as I slashed one, two, three more times. "Diffindo! Diffindo!"
I saw faint pale lines appear on the exoskeleton of its legs where my severing charm had hit, criss-crossing one another; some of them deep enough that drops of dark ichor seeped from the wounds.
But it didn't seem to discourage the acromantula, which simply kept moving towards us with exactly the same agility, as if the wounds were only superficial. And judging by the screech and how its mouth pincers moved, I guessed I'd only managed to anger it further.
"Shit! What the hell is it made of?!" I exclaimed in frustration, right as Ron shouted "RUN!" and Harry grabbed my free arm, all but dragging me and Hermione into a run.
We rushed along the corridor, and I gave up all pretence of precision and control, aiming with my wand at pretty much every painting and suit of armour that lined its walls and shooting panicky wild magic into them. There was no invocation, just a vague wand motion that resembled that of a levitating spell and sheer magical force; but it did the trick and paintings jumped out of the walls, and suits of armour collapsed on our wake. Ron noticed what I was doing and quickly imitated me, adding to the chaos. All that we could do to distract the predator after us for even the briefest of instants.
And if all the ruckus and noises helped bring the teachers' attention to us sooner, all the better.
Then Ron suddenly stopped in his tracks, causing us to run into him and nearly fall to the floor. I was about to shout something at him when I realized just why he'd stopped. A second acromantula was crawling at the end of the hallway, pretty much blocking our way back towards the Great Hall.
Shit.
"Here!" said Harry, moving towards a nearby door. It turned out to be locked, though. I moved to cast the unlocking charm, but Hermione was faster: "Alohomora!"
We scrambled through the door and into a classroom, and I had the time to take a quick glance around while Potter closed the door after us: I didn't recognize the room, and judging by the diagrams on the walls full of complex arithmantic symbols, I guessed this was one of the older years classrooms. But more importantly: there was no other door, no other exit.
Except for the three large windows opposite us, which opened to the cliff side of the castle, offering a great view of the lake. A lethal one, if we tried to escape that way.
"You wouldn't... happen to have any... brooms with you?" I asked, panting.
"Brooms?" asked Ron, unbelieving. "Are you mental? Where would we have any brooms?"
I turned to face him, my arms crossed. "Well, everybody says your brother Percy has one up his arse, no? So I figured maybe–"
"You shut up about my family! And why are you here anyway? Why were you stalking us?"
"Is it really the right time for this?" Harry scolded us.
"Sorry, Harry," said Ron, shaking his head.
Harry turned to look at me, and I realized he wanted me to say something too; oh God. I sighed and spoke a short "No."
"No," he said. "And the door isn't going to keep them out for long," he added, after one of the acromantulas crashed against it with a bang.
"We are trapped!" said Hermione.
I looked around the room, searching for something –anything!– that could be used as a weapon. But it was simply yet another classroom, with nothing but the usual furniture of chairs and desks. No giant swords or clubs or any sort of sharp ends in sight.
"That desk," said Harry, walking towards the teacher's desk, on top the short dais. "How much do you think it weights?"
I saw his point. The piece of furniture was an old-fashioned Victorian monster of a desk, made out of thick dark mahogany wood and with silver finishings.
"Too much," replied Hermione. "I don't think any of us can levitate that thing."
"Maybe together? We can keep it over the door, and when they get through–"
"We drop it on their heads!" said Ron. "Brilliant!"
It was a plan, and there didn't seem to be anything else we could use here, so we quickly set to it. Or they set to it without waiting for my opinion, and I simply joined them. We surrounded the desk, and chanted together 'Wingardium Leviosa!' while aiming all our wands at it. Slowly, clumsily, it began to float.
Harry directed us: "Move a little to the left, Hermione. Push it forward now, Ron..." It was slow going, our different forces causing it to want to spin and list in mid-air; and the continuous banging coming from the door didn't help either. But after a moment of panic when the desk seemed to lose lift for a second and almost crashed into the ground, we managed to place it right above the entrance and hold it in place.
Just in time, because a moment later the door exploded inwards, finally breaking under the impact of one of the acromantulas. The monster squeezed itself through the now clear entrance.
"Now! Drop it!"
The desk plunged on top of the spider, crashing into it with a sickening crunch even as its joints failed and broke apart. The acromantula's legs twitched for a few seconds under all the pieces of broken furniture, then they went still.
"Yes!" Ron exclaimed. "Take that, you bloody–"
"Watch out! The other one!"
The other one, as it were, was entering the room now, crawling over the corpse of its crushed companion. Not much camaraderie between fellow acromantulas, I guessed.
Harry and Ron started levitating random crap and pelting the creature with it: chairs and inkwells and books from the nearby shelves; the spider just shrugging it off. It jumped at Hermione, who was doing nothing but shrieking in alarm.
"Protego!" I cast once more, right before it could impact. This time I knew I couldn't fail. I couldn't afford to lose focus; so I kept my mind empty of everything except my intention, the idea of a solid wall: thick and made out of layers of reinforced concrete, as tall and strong as that Hoover dam in America.
The acromantula crashed into the barrier, its sharp legs scrabbling at my shield, trying to find purchase, probing for a weak spot. I could feel the pressure, the monster's force pushing my wand, my entire arm and upper body back. I narrowed my eyes and threw even more magic into the spell to meet its force, strengthening the shield further. The spider moved a few steps back, then lunged once more, hitting the invisible wall at full speed. This time I felt my feet sliding back on the polished floor.
More worryingly, I could also feel my stamina leaving me, my body getting tired. It's not that I had a certain reserve of magic that I was running out of, but simply that my physical body was getting exhausted. Professor Flitwick had explained it in one of his classes: magic was essentially endless, he'd told us, as wide and deep as the ocean. But even then, moving large buckets of water around was always tiring.
Next to me, Harry was casting severing charm after severing charm, but he had no better luck with those than I'd had before. And as the creature moved back once more to take impulse, I realized my shield wouldn't hold another one of those charges. So I grabbed Hermione's robes and pulled her back, rolling along with her on the floor as we barely dodged the attack, the acromantula landing a couple of feet away. We jumped to our feet and ran towards the opposite corner of the room as the creature turned quickly to search for its prey.
Harry levitated a piece of wood from the destroyed desk and launched it at the creature, trying to call its attention away from us. But it was ineffective, and its many eyes locked on us once more. The Boy Who Lived was shaken and panting, his face a mix of frustration and fear.
I wrecked my brain, trying to think of all those jinxes and hexes I'd been learning and practising all these weeks. Not because I'd expected to fight acromantulas, mind you, but just in case one of my housemates —or someone from another house— had a go at me. Defensive spells, offensive spells... what good were all those hours spent reading books if I couldn't put it to use when it actually mattered?
So I remembered one of the so-called 'spell chains' in the duelling book I'd been following, a set of spells meant to limit your opponent's movements, to push him around. Spell chains were a duellists technique, a set of predetermined spells you could practice together and train to cast them at the fastest rate possible, invoking one after another without delay; even going so far as to link the wand movements of each one into the next for faster casting.
No time like the present to put it into practice, I guessed. I aimed my wand at the creature and started casting, while the others tried the best to distract it.
"Locomotor Mortis! Flipendo! Depulso! Depulso! Locomotor Wibbly!" the five spells hit one right after the other, the acromantula falling to the ground and being pushed back slightly before it simply climbed back upright. I didn't waste time trying to gauge how effective my spells were, or which one of them I was mangling —because I knew I was mangling at least one of them, if not two, judging by the limited effects. I simply kept waving my wand and casting, trying to overwhelm the creature with rapid fire, and pushing more raw magic to compensate for my lack of finesse.
"Flipendo! Depulso! Depulso! Locomotor–!"
It wasn't enough. Of course it wasn't. I started trying to cast another shield, but I knew I was too exhausted for it to work. And the acromantula simply ignored my weak hits and jumped straight towards Ron, who let out a blood curling scream as he fell to the ground, covering his face with his arms.
"Impedimenta," said one calm voice from the entrance, and the spider simply stopped in mid air, still moving forwards, but as if through molasses.
I turned to see Professor Duskhaven entering the room, her every movement precise. She gingerly stepped over the debris of the desk and the other arachnid's corpse, taking her time, then pointed her wand at the living creature once more, and said with careful enunciation: "Incendio".
A monstrous torrent of flames emerged out of her wand and impacted the floating acromantula, its entire body igniting and rapidly combusting among shrieks. The smell and heat were overpowering, so much so that we all had to cover our noses and walk as far away from the eight-legged shaped ball of fire as possible, within the limited confines of the room.
Duskhaven looked casual as she maintained the spell even after the spider stopped making noises. She was unperturbed, not even strained at the massive amounts of magic she was pushing through the air, more than all of our previous attacks combined. When she finally stopped, there was nothing left of the spider but some black ashes that fell down and spread across the floor.
She then continued her display of magical excellence by casting a Patronus charm, invoking some sort of phantasmal bobcat. She said to the apparition: "I have found them, we are in the Ancient Runes classroom."
The bobcat nodded and bounced away, disappearing fast into the hallway outside. Only then did she turn to look at us: "Are you injured?" she asked in a neutral tone.
I looked at my thorn robe. I didn't even know if... with all the adrenaline through my veins I wouldn't have noticed it, if I was. But it looked like I was shaken around but otherwise intact, as were the Gryffindors.
She waited for us to confirm we were okay before saying "Good. I take it that you understand you should be dead by now, had I not intervened."
We replied with silence and downcast gazes. She waited for a few seconds, but before she could continue with whatever it was she was going to say, another voice interrupted her.
"Merlin!" exclaimed McGonagall, crossing the door and looking apoplectic at the devastated classroom, and then straight at us. I heard Ron's gulp as she advanced on us, scarier than any acromantula could ever dream to be. "What on Earth were you thinking of?!"
"I– uhm..." started Harry. Behind the older witch, I noticed a third figure entering the room.
Dumbledore. Oh, shit.
"Well? Mr. Potter?" McGonagall's voice lashed.
I was about to interrupt and explain the whole situation when Hermione said, in a low voice: "It was my fault, they were looking for me."
Oh right. I remembered it now: she didn't want to tell the truth, because that would mean admitting to the teachers that Harry and Ron had... well, bullied her, however lightly. So now, because she was grateful, she began to spin a lie to protect them. I grinned at Ron's astonished face.
"–you believe you could defeat an acromantula on your own? I thought better of you, Miss Granger!"
I let out a relieved sigh as McGonagall started berating her, the three Gryffindors looking ashamed. And thus the Golden Trio is born. One more bullet dodged.
Except maybe there was one other bullet coming for me tonight, because Dumbledore was looking at me funny. I was standing a little to the side, separated from the three Gryffindors and doing my best at remaining inconspicuous. I tried to avert my gaze, but to no avail.
"I must say I'm curious," he started, once McGonagall finally calmed down after removing a handful of points from the house of the lions. "I can see quite clearly the reasons why Miss Granger's housemates felt compelled to come to her aid. But you, Miss Sarramond, you belong to a different house altogether. So what drew you into this? Are you perhaps another friend of hers?"
"She's not," clarified Ron, ever so helpful.
And I frowned. Because what was Dumbledore trying to get at, exactly? That I was a Slytherin, therefore I must have had an ulterior motive? That having good intentions was a perfectly valid justification for Harry and Ron, but not for me? Because how could a Slytherin possibly do something good for its own sake, right?
I almost let out a bitter laugh. Because this was exactly how Ron thought, wasn't it? What he'd accused me of when I tried to warn them about the duel. And here we have the mighty Dumbledore following on the footsteps of the prejudiced eleven year old.
And the rub of it was... he was correct. I had ulterior motives. Loads of them, just not even in the neighbourhood of the ones he was probably imagining.
I opted to tell a partial version of the truth and hope for the best. After all, I wasn't wearing my sunglasses on account of it being at night, and I suspected he was experienced and observant enough to pick on subtle clues. If I tried to sell him the lie that I was Hermione's friend, I doubted he'd buy it.
"We were talking when Peeves entered into the Great Hall, and then they ran off to find Granger," I confessed, waving my hand at the boys, "which was stupid. So I instead told Tracey to warn a teacher and then followed after them, because I suspected they would only get themselves killed on their own. I figured I could make a difference since I'm much better at magic than they are. Uhm... defensive magic, I mean," I amended, noticing Hermione's betrayed glare.
Professor Duskhaven intervened then; she said: "While you do show a certain aptitude to the subject, Miss Sarramond, you shouldn't allow that to get to your head. You certainly lack the expertise to tackle a fully grown acromantula on your own, and it's only by luck that you all are still alive."
Dumbledore nodded gravely at that, his eyes still examining me with an inquisitive expression; but then he had one of those strange mood shifts of his and clasped his hands with a clap, saying: "Ah, but lending aid to fellow students in a time of need is a noble act, especially when it's in opposition to house allegiances. Acts we should strive to celebrate, let us say with... five points to Gryffindor, and another five to Slytherin!"
"But Albus–!" started McGonagall, unbelieving. They looked at each other for a beat, having some sort of silent conversation; then the witch sighed and shook her head. Duskhaven observed all of this with an indifferent look.
The Professors talked among themselves for a couple of minutes after that, leaving us to our own devices once they'd verified we were in fact unhurt. From what I could gather of their whispers, there'd been another three acromantulas out there that the Headmaster had already dealt with.
"Severus," Dumbledore said, turning towards the door where Snape had just manifested. "Is everything in order?"
They walked together a few steps away, Snape limping slightly —which caused Harry to shoot him a suspicious look. Snape replied in a low voice that I strained to listen: "...first door was open... guardian stopped the... still undisturbed..."
The guardian? Did he mean Fluffy, the three-headed dog? So Voldemort had made an attempt on the stone after all, perhaps through that house-elf of Quirrell again. And I guessed he must have failed, judging by how calm the two wizards were.
"Very well," said Dumbledore, returning to us. "Now that the immediate danger has passed, I think we've had our fill of excitement for one evening. Severus, Minerva, might you escort your respective students to their common rooms? And dear Xenia, would you be so kind as to assist me in restoring order to this chamber?" he asked, waving his hand at the general mayhem we had caused.
We departed then, with me following a silent and possibly bitten Snape down towards the dungeons. At some point he must have noticed the state of my robes because he asked me: "Are you hurt?"
"What? Oh, that... no, it didn't hit me."
Snape nodded and resumed limping down the staircase. Was he even supposed to be bitten at this stage? I thought not, so I couldn't help but ask: "What about you? You look hurt, uhm... sir."
He side-eyed me and said through his teeth: "That's not your concern, girl. Instead, you might think on your own actions. While such... foolhardy behaviour is almost a given from the Gryffindors, one would think you'd have the sense not to plunge head first into danger."
Oh, did that mean he cared about me?
"I asked the hat to sort me into Gryffindor, you know," I confessed with a shrug. I was aiming for nonchalant, but couldn't help the rest to come out sounding bitter instead: "It would have saved me some headaches."
"Regarding... your lineage, I presume."
"My lack of one, yes. So you know?"
"I am the head of our house, Sarramond. Obviously, I am aware of the various... matters within the common room."
"Then why don't you do anything?" I asked, my voice laced with indignation. "Tell Selwyn and the rest of them to cut it already with the racism?"
He paused to turn at me, looming overhead: "For the same reason you've refrained from asking for my help, I suspect. Slytherin fosters a distinct... self-reliance. Should I openly aid you, it would let all your housemates know that you're incapable of standing on your own feet. Such a mark on your reputation could haunt you for many more years than Mr. Selwyn."
Yeah, sure, I thought. That, and because helping the Muggleborn would go against the pretended image of sympathy towards the Death Eaters' cause that he worked so hard to project, wouldn't it?
I felt... conflicted about Snape. For someone who was supposed to be one of the good guys, he seemed to enjoy the trappings of the bad evil wizard a bit too much for comfort. As a Professor, he was intensively mediocre and inconsistent. He could explain stuff when he wanted to, teach it well enough to make you understand the reasoning behind, say... how an unmatched number of clockwise and counter-clockwise stirrings in a particular potion could affect its magical balance.
The thing is, he almost never wanted to. Teaching didn't seem to be even in the neighbourhood of Snape's interests, and it showed. Most of the time his explanations only came in after one of us students had made a mistake, messed up their potion assignment simply by virtue of being unaware of some obscure aspect of its brewing that Snape had refused to clarify ahead of time. And then he didn't just explain the mistake, he also berated us: dunderheads and fools and half-wits. It was clear to me the only reason he was a teacher was because Dumbledore wanted to keep his spy close at hand.
And then there were his other failings: like how he was a creep still obsessed with Potter's mother —and I had met people like that in my fore-memories, people who were unable to move on after rejection, who felt entitled to someone's love and attention and resorted to stalking and destructive behaviour when they invariably failed to receive it.
Snape chose to be a Death Eater after all, joined Voldemort's side of his own volition. And he didn't betray him out of some realization of the wrongness of his cause. No, it was only out of selfishness. It was only when Voldemort threatened someone he personally cared about that he turned turncoat.
Odd, then, that I still felt a certain kinship with the big bat, despite knowing all that. Maybe because he was the outsider, the other among Dumbledore's staff; and I couldn't help but identifying with that, being an outsider myself too, one who didn't fully belong in my house, or even in Hogwarts. Or because of how well he embodied that moral greyness, that no-man's land that I felt myself drawn to.
"Right," I said at last. "Maybe I'd rather take that mark to my reputation than a Killing Curse to the face. Because I'm not that sure Selwyn knows not to cross that line."
"I doubt such a thing will occur," he sentenced, which was an outright lie if I ever heard one. "But, if you find yourself in true danger, you can turn to me. Just be mindful of the... repercussions."
I nodded, but I had my doubts. This was Snape, after all, the man who had pretty much dedicated his entire life to becoming a spy among the side of the dark. Would he risk a crack in his ironclad cover for the sake of the random orphan girl? Or would he simply choose to look away, if Selwyn tried something? I couldn't help but remember a scene from the movies: the Muggle Studies teacher floating above a table during that meeting at the Malfoy Manor, asking for his help. A help that he never provided.
Would my death be just one more atrocity he was willing to ignore? Just the cost of doing business for him?
That was the thing with Snape, I guessed. For all his capabilities he wasn't someone I could depend on, not really.
He left me at the entrance to the Slytherin common room, the wall opening up when he spoke the password and pushed me inside. Then he turned away without a word and disappeared from sight as the entrance closed once more behind me.
It was only then that I realised how expertly he had diverted my attention away from his own injury and what had caused it. Hats off to him, I guessed.
I entered the common room as I always did: my gaze low and walking purposefully towards the first year girls' dorm, aiming at crossing the danger zone as fast as possible and spend as little time in the luxurious lobby as humanly possible, doing my best to keep under everyone else's radar.
This time it didn't work, though. Maybe because most of the Slytherin students had congregated there, talking among themselves about the night's unique events. Maybe because of my messy appearance, tired and with my robes torn, my hair even more dishevelled than usual. But the moment their eyes landed on me, conversations stopped across the room and I received a dozen curious stares.
It was Tracey who first addressed me. She walked fast up to me and said: "That was stupid! Are you okay?"
I nodded to both statements, slowing down but not stopping; she must have realised this was not my favourite place in the castle to spend leisure time at, because she went silent after that, shadowing me towards the dorm.
Except that we were then intercepted by Prefect Farley, who planted herself right into my path and forced us to stop: "Oh, so you're still alive?" she asked.
I gave her a curt nod.
She looked down at me arms akimbo, her voice deceptively chipper as she said: "Oh well, I guess that's it then, right? But next time, please do follow mine and the professors' instructions, would you, you nobhead? I really don't want to be remembered as the Prefect who lost a firstie to a bloody acromantula. It would be a real stain to my reputation, you see."
"I'm fine," I grumbled, because while I respected Gemma Farley for her help so far, I really didn't appreciate being publicly humiliated in front of the entire house.
She took hold of a fistful of my damaged robes, aiming her wand at me. "Yes, I can see that. Reparo!"
The robes fixed themselves under my gaze. "I can do that too," I grumbled, refusing to thank her. She twisted her mouth.
"Can you not get killed, as well?" she asked.
I shrugged. "I have a good track record: eleven years without getting killed even once."
"Let's make it three more years, then," she deadpanned. "Once I leave Hogwarts you are free to go hunt as many five-X beasts as you wish. But not until then."
Right. If I made it that far, that was; which this wasn't helping me with. At last she took a step to the side, leaving me to resume my walk of shame followed by Tracey; but we didn't get further than a couple of yards before Pansy Parkinson's voice interrupted us.
"I was sure she was dead," she spoke, as if talking to Bulstrode, Malfoy, and the rest of their little group of twats, but loud enough that I would hear her. "You see, being a mudblood and all; so I decided to help myself to some of her things before they were thrown away. Look Draco, I got her diary."
"Oh, you did? Let's see what's in it, then."
I stopped in my tracks to turn and look at them. Parkinson was seated on one of the leather couches, opening a notebook she held in her hands: a notebook with little orchid flowers drawn on its purple covers. One that I knew pretty well, given that it was supposed to me at the bottom of my trunk. It was my notebook of thoughts about the future, that I still had to protect with some sort of enchantment, some day.
"Spoilers," she read aloud to general sniggering, the absolute witch. "The Secret Strategies of Sylvia Sarramond, Sagacious Snarker of Sublime Style. Merlin, she's such a baby," she scoffed.
What can I say. In my defence, I was seven when I'd started writing it down.
I felt my body tense up, the noise of my blood pumping in my ears. My wand found its way to my hand almost without my notice. But I tried to keep my cool: it wouldn't do to attack a pure-blood in the middle of the Slytherin common room.
"Buy all the Apples from the Amazon that you can afford, but never be a Yahoo," she read, confused. I hoped the little code I'd used when writing my thoughts down would prove too much for her smooth brain, but she was determined to find something embarrassing in there. She went a few pages ahead.
"Oh, what's this? Did she write a story for little children too? Of course she did. Let's see... Little Tom split his Riddle into seven pieces: the first he put into a ring–"
No.
"DEPULSO!" I shouted, the spell flying straight at her.
I had tried to aim more or less at the notebook, try to push it out of her hands. But focus and intention were key to magic, and the rush of panic combined with the adrenaline of the night made it so that my aim failed, and I pushed much more magic than intended. The banishing charm made the book fly out of her hands, sure enough, but it also pushed Parkinson hard against the back of the couch, with enough force for the ornate piece of furniture to tilt back. Draco managed to jump out of the way, but his sudden absence left the couch without a counterweight, causing both Pansy and Millicent Bulstrode to come crashing to the floor.
I ignored the sudden chaos and the gasps and chuckles among the onlookers, moving forward even as Parkinson scrambled back to her feet. I crouched and picked up my notebook with my left hand, the wand in my right never straying far from her.
"You– you can't–!" she babbled, digging in a pocket to produce her own wand. It was as if the mere idea of me using magic against her had never even occurred to her. "You will regret–!"
"Do you think I'm afraid of you?" I taunted her in a cold voice. "Pancy, I just fought and killed an acromantula tonight."
Sure, I hadn't killed it on my own, but she didn't have to know that. And I saw her face go pale when my words registered, words what were no doubt also strengthened by my overall messy appearance, by the tear in my robes that Farley had just mended. I heard whispers starting among some of the older students at my declaration.
"Now, now," drawled Selwyn, who chose this moment to approach us, towering over us first years with a lazy self-assured smile. "We are not animals here, are we? We don't simply attack each other like Muggles in a tavern."
I paused for a moment, looking at him, then eyeing Parkinson. I was a mix of furious and still sort of scared —because the amount of damage Parkinson could have caused, just by reading aloud some of the sentences in that notebook, could easily have been catastrophic— but I wasn't so off my rocker that I would risk openly defying Selwyn.
And yet, I wanted to shut Parkinson's mouth. I wanted to hit her, for daring to touch my things, for all the little insults she sent my way daily, for having been a pain in my arse ever since my first day at the castle. And perhaps she wasn't Selwyn, she wasn't the Sorting Hat, she wasn't my fore-knowledge, one of those surprisingly resistant acromantulas, or any of the many other forces acting to ruin Hogwarts for me. She was a nuisance at best, and not even the stronger one.
But she was the one I could beat.
"You're right," I admitted to the psychopath next to us, then turned to search for Daphne Greengrass and met her surprised eyes; because I'd need the support of another pure-blood for this: "But still, I've been insulted and stolen from, so I want to challenge her to a duel. Isn't that my right?"
For once, Daphne looked out of place: for the briefest moment I could glimpse the eleven years old girl she was behind the princess mask that she liked to wear. It was in how she looked bewildered and confused, her eyes jumping from me to Selwyn and then Parkinson, unsure as to how to react. I guessed her parents hadn't exactly instructed her in the proper protocol to follow when the Muggleborn in your dorm challenged your pure-blood housemate to a duel; not that I blamed them. And then, a moment later, her mask fell back into place, almost with an audible snap; and she spoke aloud in a calm tone: "a witch has the right to issue a challenge when insulted, yes."
I glanced at Selwyn, but he looked amused at this new development, and like he wouldn't mind seeing some more violence between the two of us. For once, we were in agreement.
"Right," I snapped at Parkinson. "You, me, duel, right now!"
I walked to the centre of the common room without waiting for a response, and adopted the customary combative position I'd read about on the Duelling Primer: my right side turned towards my opponent, left foot angled sideways, my wand aimed at the sky instead of at her because we hadn't bowed yet.
"Prefect Farley," I said, "can you be the Arbiter? And you are my second, Tracey; not that you'll need to do anything, of course."
"Ahm..." replied Tracey.
"Well, Pancy, what are you waiting for?!" I said.
Around me, the other Slytherin students were moving back to clear a circle. I took that —and their hungry, hyena-like expressions— to be a sort of tacit approval of my challenge, even though I was stretching the duelling rules to the breaking point by choosing 'immediately' as both time and location. You were supposed to issue a challenge hours, even days in advance.
"A... duel?" asked Parkinson, unbelieving. "That is... barbaric! It's not done anymore! Duels aren't–"
"Formal customs must be followed," interrupted Farley, who was shaking her head slightly but apparently accepting her role as Arbiter. She sighed and said: "You have been issued a challenge, Parkinson."
"By... a mudblood?!"
"If I'm a mudblood you won't have any problems putting me back in my place, no?" I taunted her. "No matter that I'm top of our class in Defence."
She looked bewildered around the common room, glancing at older students here and there as she searched for an exit, but none of them offered her any. They were a bloodthirsty bunch, the Slytherins. And a self-interested one too, because I knew none of them would offer her a lifeline unless there was something to gain, not when a Greengrass had tacitly approved of my challenge and neither Farley nor Selwyn seemed to mind it. And Parkinson's own allegiances lied with Malfoy and Bulstrode, who didn't seem like the strongest allies you could hope for, given that both of them were now making themselves scarce so as to not be called as her second.
"I... I don't have anything to prove to the likes of you!" shouted Parkinson at last, before retreating towards the dorms.
Wait, what? She couldn't just... do that, could she? Just walk away?
It seems she could, because Prefect Farley announced: "Sarramond wins the duel by forfeit. Now, enough of this: time to go to bed, you lot!"
I scoffed, relaxing my posture as Tracey passed by my side without a word. She probably hadn't liked me volunteering her as my second, I guessed.
This... this didn't feel like winning. My heart was still hard at work pumping blood; and while I felt drained from all the spell-casting I'd done before, my magic still was pretty much alive in my veins, my wand hungry for more.
At least my diary notebook was safe, and intact. This had been a mistake on my part, and also a waking call: I'd need to protect it better going forward, if I was to keep it. Perhaps I should ask Hermione if she knew any tips for that; I half-remembered she'd performed some sort of protective spells at some point in the story.
And as I looked at the other students around me, I noticed I wasn't the only one feeling let down at the anticlimactic resolution. There was scoffing and sniggering; but for once, those weren't aimed at me, but at Parkinson. I could even see some of them glancing at me in passing, as if their appreciation of the little orphan mudblood had shifted ever so slightly, hopefully for the better.
That, it felt nice; I wasn't gonna lie.