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Chapter Text

Dear Snape,

Dear Professor Snape,

Dear sir,

Dear Seve

Dear Theos Theíos,

I thought I would write you a letter for absolutely no reason at all. Coincidentally, I received a set of shrinking, concealable potions flasks for my birthday last weekend, sent to me completely anonymously. I have absolutely no idea who might have sent them, but they’re very nice and I’m very grateful.

I tried sending you a letter the other day, but it was returned unopened because I guess you weren’t at Hogwarts, so I had to get this address from Aunt Mi Professor McGonagall. She says you’ve gone home for a few weeks?

It’s funny, I didn’t even know you had a house! It’s weird to think of you living anywhere but Hogwarts. Besides, I thought you would be spending the whole summer bravely fighting man-eating spiders. Are they all dead already?

I’m just here at the Urquhart Mansion like always, taking lots of lessons on, you know, all the pureblood stuff. Some of it is really boring, but other things aren’t so bad. Miss Catherine (that’s my tutor) has been helping me learn a bunch of spells off the International Dueling Commission’s list. We started last year, but there were too many to get through in a single summer. And when I get through my lessons without making any big mistakes, she lets me fly my Firebolt in the garden, so that’s nice.

On a more serious note, have you heard anything about you know who? (No, not him, the other one. Lady You Know Who.) I saw Auror Tonks the other day and asked about it, but she wouldn’t tell me anything. Is this one of these cases where no news is good news?

Speaking of, nothing’s arrived from grandfather yet, but then, I wouldn’t expect to see anything until I arrive back at school, since I know the anti-tracking charm you performed means that his owls can’t find me here.

Anyway, I don’t want to take up too much of your time. Goodbye for now!

Sincerely yours,
Mary Elizabeth

Minerva and I are going to have a talk about giving out my personal information to students without my consent when I return to the castle.

Yes, you ridiculous girl, I do have a house, and I do occasionally exist outside the context of Hogwarts. Object permanence is typically learned at an age of seven or eight months, so I am uncertain how you have apparently managed to go fourteen years without. Perhaps Miss Urquhart can add that to your lessons.

The acromantulae colony is exterminated as of last week (though to refer to them as “man-eating spiders” is a gross oversimplification). I returned to my home shortly after to avoid the inevitable overwrought blubbering when Hagrid discovers what has become of them. The Headmaster has not yet attempted to reprimand me, meaning that he either does not know or is pretending not to know what I have done. I suspect he may be privately relieved that someone else has taken the matter out of his hands, sparing his conscience the “burden” of killing the vile things.

As for “Lady You Know Who,” as you have dubbed her, there are rumors she has been sighted in Carthage, but I would not allow that to coax you into lowering your guard, as she could return to Britain at any moment.

Sincerely,
Severus Snape

P.S.: I am glad you are enjoying your new potions flasks, which I have never seen before and do not know why you mentioned in the first place.

Please don’t blame the Professor. As I’m sure you know, I can be very persistent. Anyway, complain all you want, but if you were actually annoyed about getting a letter from me, you wouldn’t have even responded. You see? I’m wise to your tricks.

“Oversimplification” or not, I for one am glad that the school isn’t going to be overrun with man-eating spiders anytime soon! If the Headmaster won’t thank you for killing them, then I will. (And so will the centaurs, I guess.) Good job!

Other than the mass murder of acromantulae, how has your summer been? You know, I realize I don’t actually know what you even do over the summer (other than, probably, enjoy the fact that you don’t have to deal with us dunderheads for two whole months). What kind of house do you have? Is it the same one that you grew up in? I’m only asking because I recognize Cokeworth as being where my mum and Aunt Petunia grew up, so I assume that’s your hometown as well.

It must be quieter there than in the castle, which I’m sure you enjoy. Do you ever get bored? Do you still have to let Dumbledore boss you around? Somehow I can’t picture him giving you a break, even over the summer. Maybe if you fled the country or something…

To tell the truth, I’m dreadfully bored here. Catherine has not been teaching me object permanence, but she has been making me memorize a bunch of old Wizengamot precedents. I know it’s important, but some of this political stuff really puts me to sleep!

The main thing I have to look forward to is that I’m attending the Quidditch World Cup later this month! It took some convincing for Aunt Minnie to let me buy the tickets, even though it’s my money, but she’s taking Lilian, Hermione, and me! I was afraid the Professor would be too busy to go, but it turns out that she’s even more of a Quidditch fanatic than I thought, and had already intended on going even without me. (Hermione, on the other hand, doesn’t get Quidditch at all, and I’m pretty sure she only agreed to go to hang out with Lilian and I.) Will you be attending? Maybe I’ll see you there.

I’m very glad to hear that LYKW is somewhere far away. (Yes, yes, I’m not going to let my guard down. Don’t worry. We’re being very careful about the QWC trip, and I’ll have my portkey with me the whole time.) Fingers crossed that she and my grandfather (both of them) disappear to the Bermuda Triangle and we never see or hear from any of them again.

One more question before I go: When is your birthday??? I just realized I’ve never asked, even though I have gotten such lovely presents the past two years from someone who is definitely not you.

(If you don’t tell me, I will ask Aunt Minnie!)

Sincerely,
Mary Elizabeth

P.S.: Catherine says, “Tell Professor Snape hello for me, and that I hope he is having a restful summer.”

Have you considered that perhaps I responded to your letter because you require supervision to make sure you are not about to run off and get yourself killed, abducted, or laid up in a muggle hospital with a broken arm as you did last year?

For example: you are attending the Quidditch World Cup? I hardly see how leaving the security of the Urquharts’ property to mingle with thousands of strange wizards, any one of whom could curse, kidnap, or simply kill you, in order to watch a bloody Quidditch match, can in any way be termed “being very careful,” regardless of the relative silence of our various enemies. Please do tell me what, exactly, Minerva and yourself are thinking. Perhaps, “Oh, I suppose I could stay in my thoroughly warded and unplottable foster home, but that would simply make Severus’s life far too easy.”

On that topic, no, I will not be attending. Do I seem like someone who would pay my hard-earned money to be surrounded by hordes of noisy, drunken idiots for hours or days on end, sleeping in a tent? I am contractually obligated to care about the success of the Slytherin Quidditch team, and the sport can certainly be interesting on occasion, but not enough to willingly endure all of that.

To answer your other questions, ridiculous as they may be:

My summer has been much the same as every summer, which is to say, marginally better than the rest of the year, when I have to deal with the idiocy of those who purport to be my students, but still containing far too much work and far too little free time, some of which is now being taken up trying to ensure that you do not get yourself killed over your obsession with Quidditch.

Yes, I inherited my father’s home when he passed. It is quite dreadful, but not worth the effort to sell and replace, given how little time I spend here.

Yes, I do continue to perform various tasks for the Headmaster over the summer, as he, like certain other people, does not refrain from imposing upon me whenever the whim strikes him. However, it is marginally more difficult for him to do so when I am away from the school, or else I would never set foot in this bloody house again.

When I am not at Hogwarts or under the old goat’s thumb, I consult at St. Mungo’s, catch up on advances in potions and the Dark Arts, pursue my own research, and so on. I do not get “bored,” as that would imply that time in which I am not obligated to do anything is a common occurrence rather than a rare luxury.

Finally, if you absolutely must know, my birthday is January 9. However, if this results in my receiving twice as many novelty coffee mugs from some anonymous pest come winter, I will make you regret it.

Sincerely,
Severus Snape

P.S.: Say hello to Miss Urquhart for me, and tell her that she has been promoted to my favorite current or former student in your shared residence, given that she never wheedled my home address out of one of my colleagues in order to send me ridiculous letters.

Please. This is twice now that you’ve responded to my letters immediately and answered all my questions, so I know you’re not that annoyed. Actually, I’ve come to the conclusion that you are horribly bored without me around to make things interesting, and you’re secretly thrilled to hear that I am doing something idiotic (in your opinion) that you can get all worked up about. Scolding me about attending the QWC is probably the most exciting thing that’s happened to you all summer. (Other than murdering a bunch of giant spiders I guess.)

As for “what I’m thinking,” based on prior experience, I expect to be perfectly safe at the World Cup—it’s not Hogwarts, after all. Okay, but seriously, you’re the one who said I should just accept LYKW could kill me whenever and wherever she wants and get on with my life! It’s not like she or my grandfather are just going to be hanging out at the QWC waiting for me to show my face, and I’m being as careful as I can—besides the portkey, I’ll be wearing a disguise. With “thousands of strange wizards” around, no one will even know I’m there!

In any case, Aunt Minnie thinks it’s safe enough, and she’ll be with me the whole time. So if you have a problem with it, you can go argue with her instead of me. OR, if you’re really that worried about it, maybe you should change your mind and come along. It’s not too late for us to get another ticket!

While you didn’t ask me a single question in your letter, other than what I was thinking going to the QWC (answered above) and whether you seem like someone who would attend said event (which, now that I think about it, you don’t), I’ve decided to read between the lines of your letter so that you don’t have to break your grumpy misanthrope act in order to keep our conversation going. I believe that you were actually intending to say, “Mary Elizabeth, please tell me every detail of your summer, I would like nothing better than to hear about your fascinating life.”

Sure I will!

Let’s see. I’ve been writing Hermione a lot, and I’ll be visiting her in a few weeks, after the QWC. Mrs. Dr. Granger has only been encouraged by the success of her petition last year, and has been owling the Ministry on a near-daily basis with “suggestions.” Also, I think I mentioned before that they’d talked about adopting me in muggle Britain; well, I’ve agreed, so she’s started the paperwork for that as well. And this, of course, is on top of the “project” we gave her at the end of last year, which she’s been absolutely obsessed with. I’m sure you’ve seen the articles in the Prophet. Before long, I might finally be allowed to take my puppy home.

(Yes, yes, I know you hate dogs. If you’d rather I get a snake, do try and convince Aunt Minnie to make an exception for me this year. Or maybe you could just give me a snake and dare her to take it away. Just a thought.)

Hermione is about to take her O-Levels, because she is actually insane (and, as you know, had a lot of extra study time last year—you must have been so relieved to hear that the Ministry was taking away her toy). She’s worked herself up into a frenzy about how she’s going to fail even though she’s clearly more than prepared, but that’s hardly new.

Lilian is doing better, I think. She and Aerin have been getting along again, at least, and she came out for a short visit a few weeks ago. She and I are very excited for the World Cup. We’ve been reading everything we can about the two teams and writing back and forth about it. I think she’s mostly just excited to have something to take her mind off of, well, I suppose you know. She thinks Ireland is going to win, but I’ve heard Viktor Krum, the Bulgarian seeker, is amazing, and as a seeker myself, I feel like I have to support him.

Finally, there’s a mystery afoot. Aunt Minnie and Catherine are currently very concerned with my brushing up on my dancing before I return to school, and they’ve insisted I buy new dress robes even though I already have a perfectly good set. Aunt Minnie even joined us for dancing practice the other day, saying she needed to “brush up on her skills,” though I don’t know what she’s talking about—she’s way better at dancing than me! But anyway, this is all very confusing, since I won’t be allowed to attend the Festa Morgana until next year! Whenever I ask why, they just smile mysteriously and say I’ll find out when I get back to school. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?

Aunt Minnie got me thinking: can you dance? It’s hard to picture you dancing, but it’s also hard to picture you outside of the castle, and I’ve recently been informed that things happen even when I can’t see them.

Sincerely,
Mary Elizabeth

P.S.: I will tell your “anonymous pest” that you would like even more novelty mugs. Beware!!

Perhaps I was incorrect about your object permanence—perhaps the truth is that you spend entirely too much time imagining what happens in your absence, to the point that you have invented an imaginary version of myself in your head: one who is putting on a “grumpy misanthrope act,” has any interest in the trivialities of your summer and deliberations on which Quidditch team you ought to support, likes dancing, and, of course, enjoys “getting all worked up” over your continued determination to fling yourself headfirst into danger.

The degree to which you delude yourself is rather concerning. Are you sure you do not have me confused with some other Severus Snape? Or perhaps you have gone mad out in the countryside. If you are looking for someone who might welcome hearing every thought which passes through your ridiculous little head, I would suggest writing to Lupin instead. Even your correspondence can only be an improvement on the company he presently keeps.

As for the Quidditch World Cup, I hardly think that a hair glamour and a portkey will be sufficient to protect you if someone there wishes you harm. I will be speaking to Minerva about this.

I must admit I was briefly tempted by the idea of presenting you with a snake in September, if only to take my revenge on her for encouraging your nonsense, both in regards to the World Cup and in giving you my home address to begin with, but I’ve come to the conclusion that your pestering cannot be rewarded. I will simply have to find some other way to pay Minerva back, perhaps involving fleas.

Yes, I do know the purpose for your dancing lessons and dress robes, and no, I will not be telling you what that purpose is. You will just have to bear the torment of waiting nearly three entire weeks to find out for yourself.

Yes, I can dance, much as I can bring myself to sit through a Quidditch match every few months in the name of House spirit. This does not mean that I seek out either activity of my own volition. In this vein, no, I still will not be joining your foolhardy expedition to the World Cup.

Yes, I do keep in touch with some of my colleagues over the summer—primarily those who, like yourself, refuse to leave me in peace.

With that, I end my letter. I would ask you to endeavor not to get yourself killed, but I suspect I would be asking too much.

Sincerely,
Severus Snape

Your overuse of sarcasm and insults seem to me like a sign of overcompensation designed to hide the fact that my letters are definitely the highlight of your summer, and that you do wish to hear “every thought which passes through my ridiculous little head.” How sad for you that I am not falling for your ruse.

As you once again failed to ask me any non-rhetorical questions, I guess I’ll just tell you more about my summer.

Hermione says her mum’s been meeting with Lady Malfoy on a semi-regular basis. Does that terrify you? It terrifies me. (Although maybe it’s Dumbledore who should be afraid… Muahaha.) She and her parents are still in France, visiting her dad’s family, but Lilian (and Aerin and Sean) came with Catherine and I to Diagon Alley on Saturday to buy our supplies for the new school year. Lilian and Aerin and I picked out dress robes together at Peaseblossom and Puck’s.

We also ran into Morgana Yaxley there; did you know her little brother Anton is starting at Hogwarts this year? He’s dead set on Slytherin, but Morgana kept teasing him and suggesting that maybe he’d end up in Hufflepuff instead, and then he’d get all red and upset. It was very cute. I can’t believe I was that young once! It feels like forever ago.

Let’s see, what else… Every Sunday, I have to go to these incredibly boring tea parties. Like the ones Daphne Greengrass hosts at Hogwarts sometimes, if you know about those, but even worse, because some of the other girls’ older sisters or aunts show up just to walk around and make sure we’re behaving ourselves, and they’re only for the girls from Noble Houses, so even Lilian isn’t invited (much less Hermione, Ginny, or Luna). Honestly, it’s enough to make me consider breaking my arm again, since that got me out of them for a few weeks last summer. (Oh, don’t freak out, I’m kidding!)

Honestly, there’s not much more I can say. Still learning to dance. Still memorizing Wizengamot precedents. Probably doing better at the former than the latter, though that’s not saying much. I thought I had dancing down last summer, but I’m being punished for my success by being forced to try it in heels now. Aren’t you glad you’re not a witch??

I made a new friend, by the way. He’s a pretty green snake living in the woods behind the mansion, and he says his name is “Winding Through Fallen Leaves.” He is very smart and polite and says he would very much like to see a real castle, hint hint. I think he’d make a good House mascot. (Maybe he could be your snake officially, but then he’d stay in my room and I’d take care of him and bring him mice to eat? It’s not like they’d stop you from having a snake.)

No more mysterious visions this Lammas; I only saw myself living in a creepy old house with a portrait that screamed insults at me every time I came through the front door. I bet it was even worse than your house!

I hope being in Cokeworth hasn’t been too dreadful. I hope that you have been sitting in a comfortable chair in perfect silence, reading a book or a potions journal and drinking good coffee. I hope you have not been forced to see another human face for weeks on end. You see? My imagined Snape can be perfectly in character after all.

Sincerely,
Mary Elizabeth

P.S.: Which colleagues do you talk to over the summer? Is it… Professor Sinistra? (Not that there’d be any special reason for you to see her instead of any other professor haha please don’t kill me.)

Sadly, it seems that your delusions have grown to a truly alarming degree. Frankly, I am worried about the damage it will do to your delicate psyche when you discover that there is, in fact, no “ruse” covering up my secret desire to hear every detail of your shopping trip. I imagine you might look rather like your “puppy” after being called a “bad dog.”

Which, incidentally, is not unlike the expression I anticipate seeing on the Headmaster’s face when he discovers the muggle parent who sent him a Howler some years ago is now actively conspiring with the leader of the Allied Dark. Perhaps I ought to send Mrs. Dr. Granger a thank you gift.

Do you know what the vision of the “creepy old house” pertained to? We should not rule out the possibility that it could somehow be of importance. Who was the portrait of? Where was the house located? Can you remember any distinctive details?

I will admit, the picture you paint of my summer is an attractive one. Would that the old goat would leave me in peace for five fuc bloody seconds.

On the topic of people who will not leave me in peace: I am not going to agree to allow you a bloody snake against school policy. If you want one so badly, you are welcome to attempt to bring it to school while remaining in compliance with Rule Two. Unfortunately, given that you have made the questionable decision of alerting myself, your Head of House, to your desire to break said school policy, I might just decide to instruct the prefects to increase the frequency of their random dormitory inspections. In the future, you might consider being more discreet.

As for your insinuations about my professional relationship with Professor Sinistra, they do not merit a response, other than to remind you of the puppies you dissected for me last autumn, and to kindly invite you to consider how easily such a procedure might be applied to a young witch who oversteps her bounds.

Sincerely,
Severus Snape

Oh no, I’m so sorry for offending you, you mean, scary Death Eater! Please don’t chop me up and use me for potions ingredients!! I’ll be good, I promise!

…

Hahahahaha. I can’t even pretend to mean it. I’m fourteen and I’m laughing at the idea of being scared of you. How far you’ve fallen!

As for the snake, of course I would never break school policy. I can’t believe you’d suggest such a thing! I’ve learned my lesson and there is no reason at all for you to tell the prefects to search my dorm.

Don’t worry about the house!! I just asked the Powers what would happen if I moved in with… my puppy. Into his doghouse. I think the portrait was of his mum or grandmum or something. There were these stuffed house elf heads on the walls too, it was horrible. Honestly, no wonder he left.

I’m making progress on the Dress Robes Mystery with or without you, you know. So far, by polling the other girls at the tea parties, I’ve managed to determine that dress robes were added to the supply list for every student in fourth year or above. I think some of the girls already know what’s going on (Daphne and Tori Greengrass and Tabbi Diggory in particular, since their parents are on the Board), but they’re enjoying holding the knowledge over everyone’s heads too much to tell us what’s going on. But I will figure it out… Mark my words.

As for the Headmaster, I still think my “fleeing the country” idea has merit. Maybe you can fake your own death first. Just make sure to tell me where to write you, and under what assumed name. They’ll never get it out of me.

Sincerely,
Mary Elizabeth

I know it’s not my turn to write yet, but something concerning happened, and I think it may be related to my grandfather. Not the one who sends presents, the one we haven’t seen since my first year. I’m pretty sure this is one of those things you would tell me not to write in a letter, but I don’t want to wait until we’re back at Hogwarts either.

Can we meet? You can Floo me at the Urquhart Manor at any time before Saturday afternoon, when I’ll be leaving for the Grangers’ and then the World Cup. If you can’t contact me before then, the Grangers have a Floo now too. Their address is the “Quibbler Associate’s Auxiliary Office.”

Sincerely,
Mary Elizabeth

Chapter Text

“You have failed me.”

“No, my Lord, no—”

“Crucio.”

From his seat in an ancient armchair which far dwarfed his simulacrum of a body, Lord Voldemort watched dispassionately the wizard writhing on the floor before him. Firelight played over his straw-colored hair, clinging to a face twisted in agony and soaked in sweat. The blank, apathetic expression on his own face—or, more accurately, the face of the magical construct which he currently inhabited—masked his true feelings, a potent mixture of rage and pleasure.

He always loved the taste of suffering, more so when he had inflicted it himself. Many things had changed over the years, but not that. To ride the waves of another’s pain, their helplessness in the face of his power, to feel it as though it were his own…

It would have been even more enjoyable had he been able to possess his servant—the feeling sharper, more immediate—but he could not afford to burn this one out as he had the last. A temporary possession had been necessary in order to free him from the prison in which he had been kept these past twelve years by his self-righteous sire, but it was best to avoid doing so when not strictly necessary.

Besides, trying to torture oneself was difficult to accomplish without getting distracted. That was what Bellatrix was for. Or, had been for. He was still adjusting to the reality of a world in which his most loyal servant had seemingly forsaken him—nearly two months, she’d been free of Azkaban, and yet he had seen neither hide nor hair of her. Instead, he was left with this boy, weakened from captivity and half mad.

And yet, he would have to do. There was hardly any other option.

When he released the spell, the wizard collapsed, trembling, onto the ground. Lord Voldemort savored his servant’s relief just as he had his pain, the rush of endorphins as his body sought to heal itself—positive or negative, the sensations which he stole from others were always so much more vivid than his own.

“You gave me false information,” he continued, as though he had never been interrupted.

Unable to muster the strength to even lift his head—they’d been at this for some time—the man turned his face instead to the side, just enough to keep his words from being muffled by the half-rotted hearth rug on which he was sprawled.

“T-t-told you everything I knew, my Lord,” he stammered. “Must have… changed the wards. After my escape.”

Changed the wards indeed. It had been—was—infuriating, to find himself—Lord Voldemort—unable to break through the meager defenses mustered by someone so far below himself. Not, at least, without alerting his target’s employers, which would entirely defeat the purpose. And this useless wretch before him had sent him off on this futile quest—he who had once been Voldemort’s best cursebreaker. To think he had begun to believe he had finally found a loyal, useful servant—a replacement for his lost viper—to aid him in returning to his former glory. To help him crush Dumbledore and his so-called savior beneath his heel.

“You ought to have foreseen this,” Lord Voldemort said coldly. “Crucio.”

This time, when he finally ended the curse, agony lingering in his mouth like the aftertaste of a fine wine, the man didn’t move. He only went limp, as though his strings had been cut—had Lord Voldemort not been able to feel his mind, his magic, he might have thought him dead. But no, he was only drifting, his mind attempting to flee from his body and the pain contained within. Without mercy, Voldemort grabbed hold of the man’s mind and wrenched him back to horrible consciousness.

The servant let out a wheeze, jerking on the floor, and began to cough. No, not to cough—he was attempting to speak. “N-n-n,” he said. “‘Nother way.”

His interest piqued, Lord Voldemort lifted the man off the floor with a simple twitch of his wand. He hung in the air before him, head hanging down, legs stretched out on the floor behind him, back arched, lifted by the nape of his neck like a puppet on a string.

“What other way?”

“Th-th-the World Cup. He’ll have to leave. Not home, not work. We c-can hide in the crowd, take him from there. There will be—thousands.”

Lord Voldemort broke the spell, dropping the man unceremoniously onto the floor. Yes, that could work. However, he could not risk being seen. Not in this body, too small and unfamiliar to allow him to fight as he once had.

“You will go,” he informed his servant, who was still wheezing against the filthy rug at his feet. “Find him, once the events conclude and there are no longer eyes on him. Bring him to me. And after that… we will have all we need to get our hands on Mary Potter.”

In a dark room in the Urquhart Mansion, Mary Potter woke up and scrambled for her wand, clutching at her aching forehead with her free hand. “Accio dicta-quill! Accio parchment!”

After the visions she had seen on Lammas and Mabon of the previous year—visions which, if she had paid more attention to them, could have led to her godfather’s name being cleared months sooner—she had learned her lesson about ignoring things like this. Sure, it could have been just a strange dream, seeing as she had just been sleeping, not taking part in a ritual or anything, but if it hadn’t been…

Besides, her scar hadn’t hurt like this since Quirrellmort more than two years ago, and she had promised Snape that she would tell him if it ever happened again.

Unfortunately, even as she began to speak, to recount her dream to the dicta-quill, she felt it slipping away like sand through her fingers. Mary squeezed her eyes shut, trying her best to hold on tight to every detail she could.

The thing she remembered best was, she’d been the Dark Lord—feeling his emotions, thinking his thoughts. Only, there had been another wizard with him—someone she hadn’t recognized, she didn’t think, though she was already forgetting what he’d looked like—and she’d felt his emotions, too, which made everything even more confusing.

The Dark Lord had been hurting him—that she was certain of. He’d been… angry. Something hadn’t gone according to plan, and he’d thought it was that man’s fault. But he’d been pleased, too, because being angry meant that he had a reason to hurt the man, and he liked hurting people. Even his Death Eaters—because she was pretty sure that was what the man had been, one of his old servants returned to him.

She’d known that already: that he liked to hurt people even when he didn’t have to. For fun, for his own pleasure. Her friend Ginny had told her that—about the boy he’d made her cut when he was possessing her.

But his sadism wasn’t important. The important thing was what he wanted. There was… someone he was after. Not her—a wizard. Someone important.

But why? She couldn’t remember.

All she knew was, the Dark Lord had been angry because he couldn’t get to him, but then the other wizard—the one he’d been hurting—had come up with… something. A plan? She didn’t remember what he’d said; all she remembered was the Dark Lord feeling pleased.

About that, at least. There were other things he was displeased about—like that Bellatrix wasn’t with him. Which didn’t make sense, because Trelawney’s prophecy had said they’d be reunited that night in June, the night she’d broken out of Azkaban, but the person with the Dark Lord had definitely been a man, and the Dark Lord had been… confused, and angry, that Bellatrix hadn’t come back to him yet. But… if she wasn’t with him, where was she? Carthage, like Snape had said in his letter? Why?

That wasn’t the only detail of the dream that didn’t make sense. Like, the Dark Lord had been really small for some reason? Like a weird, creepy little doll or something. That was strange enough to make her wonder if it was just a mundane dream after all, something her unconscious mind had come up with to torment her. She really hoped it was, because the other thing she remembered was what he’d said at the end: that this man, their target, was just a way for him to get to her.

A horrible thought struck her, just then: what if the man was Snape? What if someone had found out what she was to him—that she was his unofficial goddaughter? She’d only told Remus and Hermione, but if they’d told someone else, if word had gotten back to the Dark Lord… Snape wasn’t within the wards of Hogwarts right now, but at his house in Cokeworth, where he and her mum had grown up. And he was certainly important.

She didn’t want to believe it, but worry caught in her chest nonetheless, and before she’d even taken a second to think about it, she’d grabbed a regular quill—she’d learned last summer not to send people letter that weren’t in her own handwriting if she didn’t want them to decide she’d been kidnapped again—and began scrawling out a note to him. Eirene wouldn’t be pleased, having only just returned from delivering Mary’s last letter to Snape, but she’d take it to him nonetheless.

Writing the note didn’t take long, but then Mary had to throw on an overrobe—because one did not walk around the Urquhart Mansion in their nightclothes, even if it was so early no one was likely to see—before creeping out of her room and through the enormous house to the owlery where Eirene stayed when she wasn’t taking letters to and fro.

By the time Mary returned to her room, the last fragments of the dream seemed to have faded altogether, leaving behind only the feelings it had inspired: fear, and helplessness, and frustration. She sank down in her bed, still in her overrobe, and covered her face with her hands.

The Dark Lord was back. He was coming after her, and maybe Snape as well. They’d had two years’ reprieve, if she didn’t count the diary… but now, it seemed, their time was up.

Mary didn’t get much more sleep that night. She tossed and turned, there in her little bedroom in the children’s wing of the mansion. Some moments, she’d convinced herself that it was nothing more than a mundane dream, that she’d overreacted, and wished she could call Eirene back before bothering Snape for nothing. In others, however, she convinced herself that this was it—that the Dark Lord was coming for her, that there was nothing anyone would be able to do to stop him.

Maybe she should have been more specific in her note? What if Snape didn’t understand? Only, from Intro to Slythering, she knew better than to put anything as important as this in the owl post where it could theoretically be intercepted. Maybe she should have sent a Patronus instead? Remus had taught her to use the charm to send messages, but he’d never actually mentioned what the range on it was…

Finally, as the first dawn light filtered in through the windows, Mary gave up on sleep entirely. Climbing out of bed once more, she crept down the hall to the bathroom, where she indulged in a long, hot shower, for once without any kids hammering on the door demanding their turn. She shared the bathroom in this wing of the house with her tutor Catherine Urquhart and the little ones—Laina, William, Thomas, Angelica, and Bryce—but none of them, even Catherine, seemed to be out of bed yet.

If she were back with the Dursleys, or even with her best friend Hermione’s family, Mary might make her way down to the kitchen and get started on breakfast, but the Urquhart house elves didn’t really like humans in their kitchen. Not that she missed being ordered around and made to clean up after everyone, but at times like this—in this big mansion with half a dozen elves taking care of all the chores which had once been her responsibility, back with her aunt’s family—she didn’t quite know what to do with herself.

Instead, she returned to her room, getting herself ready for the day. Unlike with the Grangers’, there was no going about in her pyjamas or a jumper and denims. No, when she was with the Urquharts, she had to be dressed from head to toe in fashionable yet modest robes befitting a young witch of her station, her wild black hair pinned up neatly or plaited down her back.

And these were just the clothes she wore for her morning lessons. When it came time for afternoon tea, she’d have to put on even fancier robes, with underskirts and stockings—and if her clothes were wrinkled, or her hair untidy, or she got a run in her stockings, the older Urquhart ladies would titter behind their hands and made snide comments, and Catherine would scold her, and then she wouldn’t be allowed to go flying in the garden before dinner.

(The first time Hermione had seen her in one of her tea outfits, she had described her as looking like a 1950’s housewife, and hadn’t been entirely wrong.)

This was her third summer with the Urquharts. She’d initially come to them just after her first year at Hogwarts, as her guardian, Professor McGonagall, spent her summers in the castle and hadn’t the time to see to Mary’s education on her own. Aunt Minnie’s husband had been Catherine’s great-uncle, and even this long after his death, she was still considered a part of their family, especially as House McGonagall was rather small now.

Anyway, for the most part, Mary had gotten used to the way things worked here. Two years ago, she could hardly make it through afternoon tea without making so many mistakes in her etiquette that she’d have to spend hours writing essays for Catherine about what she’d done wrong, until her hand cramped and she wanted to run away to live in the woods where no one cared if her braid was untidy or she used the wrong fork, but now, she hardly ever messed up badly enough to be assigned a punishment essay, and even the formidable Madam Urquhart seemed to find little to criticize about her on the rare occasion they crossed paths.

In the morning, she and Laina—who was eight now, old enough to begin her real training as a pureblood witch—would have a dancing lesson, followed by charms practice, occasionally helping Catherine instruct the younger children in magical theory and wand movements when she had her hands full. Then, after lunch, they would all work on separate lessons while Catherine read aloud to them from her history books. At the moment, Mary was working on basic magic-sensing exercises, which Catherine said would normally be taught in Divination class if Hogwarts had a competent professor rather than a drunk old hag teaching it.

After that, at three, she and Laina would be sent to change for afternoon tea with Catherine’s mother, Mrs. Urquhart, and sisters-in-law, Mrs. Primrose and Mrs. Nanette. Thankfully, Catherine’s great-grandmother (Madam Urquhart) and grandmother (Lady Urquhart) only joined them on special occasions. The younger witches in the family weren’t nearly so intimidating.

While exhausting, Mary knew that this packed schedule was for her own benefit. Unlike Catherine and Laina, who’d grown up in this world, she had only a few short summers to learn everything she needed to know to step into her role as Lady Potter on her seventeenth birthday. And some of it, like the dueling spells she’d been working her way through memorizing, could be quite useful.

But now, faced with a Dark Lord who seemed to be actively making plans to murder her, Mary wasn’t sure how she could possibly bring herself to focus on dancing lessons, or making sure that she didn’t lift her teacup wrong and make herself look like an ‘ill-raised rube,’ as Madam Urquhart had once called her.

Last summer, after Sirius had escaped and she’d accidentally run away and broken her arm, she’d been granted a small reprieve from her lessons. Maybe she could get out of them again? The Dark Lord plotting her death seemed like at least as good of an excuse as that. Only, then she would have to tell Catherine that she’d been having strange visions of the Dark Lord in her sleep, and she wasn’t sure that was the sort of thing she was meant to be telling people. If she asked Snape, she’d bet he would tell her to keep it a secret—he was always paranoid like that.

Wait, Snape. Mary had written to Snape in the middle of the night asking him to Floo her—and she hadn’t asked Catherine’s permission first. That was definitely not something a proper young witch was meant to do.

Oh, bother.

The sliver of light under Catherine’s door, at least, told Mary that she was awake. She’d been in the older girl’s room once or twice before, but never uninvited, and she hesitated a moment before knocking.

“Miss Catherine?”

“Come in, Mary,” her tutor called, indicating with her manner of address that it was okay for Mary to address her informally as well. Which, normally she would have, since they were alone, but since she was about to possibly upset her, it seemed prudent to be as polite as possible.

Entering the little bedroom, Mary found Catherine seated at her vanity, still in her nightdress, brushing out her long, wavy auburn hair in the early morning light from her window. She looked quite pretty, Mary thought, like someone out of a painting—and also younger than usual, without her neat, practical robes and the subtle glamour charms she wore during the day.

It was easy to forget sometimes that Catherine wasn’t that much older than her. She’d been in the year above Auror Tonks at Hogwarts, though she’d been a Slytherin while Tonks had been a Hufflepuff. When she was in her schoolteacher mode, though, Catherine seemed somehow older, more intimidating, than her mere twenty-two years.

Catherine was the First Daughter of the House of Urquhart—meaning, basically, that she was the oldest unmarried witch in the family, so she was in charge of taking care of all of the children. (Riddle’s birthday gift the previous year had actually addressed Mary as the ‘First Daughter of the House of Slytherin.’ Not that they were the official Heirs to the Slytherin line, but since Riddle liked to claim he was, he seemed to have decided that gave Mary, as his granddaughter, her own position of importance in his House.)

When Mary had first come to stay with the Urquharts, it had taken her a week to figure out which children belonged to which of Catherine’s brothers and sisters-in-law, because they pretty much left all of the actual childcare to her. This would be the case until Catherine left the house, either by getting married or by moving to Italy to study history, as she’d been considering for ages.

Every Lammas—at least for the past three years, since Mary had been with them—Catherine had asked the Powers whether she should stay in Britain and keep teaching Mary and the Urquhart children, or look for a husband and leave the House, or else apply to Mastery programs abroad.

The Powers seemed to tell her the same thing every year, from what she’d confided in Mary: that if she stayed where she was, she was more likely to die before her time, but that she would have a more meaningful life, somehow shaping the future of wizarding society. And every year, despite going back and forth on it, Catherine decided to stay, though she always insisted that she might choose differently next time.

Mary wasn’t sure what she would do if it was her. It was strange, thinking that Catherine was that daring, when she usually seemed so calm and practical. Or thinking that something as mundane as staying at home, teaching her brothers’ children and her great-aunt’s ward, could somehow be so dangerous.

“Was there something you wanted?”

“Oh! Sorry.” She’d gotten lost in thought for a moment there. Closing the door gently behind her, Mary took a seat on the edge of the bed, and Catherine turned in her chair to face her. “I need to talk to Professor Snape about something—in person. It’s rather urgent, I think. I was wondering if maybe I could visit him for tea, or maybe he could come here?” Then, reluctantly, staring down at the floor in embarrassment, she added, “I… might have already sent him an owl asking him to firecall me to arrange something.”

“Mary!” Catherine scolded, mouth falling open, and she winced.

“Sorry, I didn’t think. I know I should have asked first, I just… didn’t want to waste any time.”

“What on earth is so urgent?”

She’d been considering what she could say to Catherine, and had come to the conclusion that she couldn’t tell her the whole truth. Not yet, at least—not until she’d asked Snape what she should do.

It wasn’t like she didn’t trust her—Catherine had been nothing but kind to her since they’d met, and while her House had been neutral during the war, she knew that they weren’t in support of the Dark Lord or anything. The oldest members of the House could be a bit prejudiced about muggles and commoners, but Catherine didn’t believe all that nonsense; she even took tea with Hermione’s mum on a somewhat regular basis.

It was just that, this seemed like something big, something really important, and Mary didn’t want to mess it up by being a dumb teenager and speaking without thinking. Snape had fought in the war, and he’d been a spy, and he was just generally really smart. He’d know what to do.

“I can’t say,” she said, fighting the urge to cringe at Catherine’s look of annoyance. “Look, you know that I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important—like, really important. Like, someone might be in danger, and I—I can’t explain, I just really need to talk to Professor Snape, and it’s not safe to put it in a letter.”

Catherine frowned, and for a moment, Mary thought she would push her, demand to know what was going on or why she couldn’t tell Aunt Minnie instead. But apparently she did trust her, at least enough to say, “Alright,” even if she shook her head ruefully at the same time. Then, frowning, she said, “You certainly can’t go to him, though. He’ll have to come here. And we’ll have to think of a way to explain this to my parents… Hmm, this could be complicated.”

Mary had expected Catherine to be upset with her for not asking permission first, but she hadn’t expected this to turn into a whole thing. “Why?” she asked, curious. “I mean, why is it complicated, and why can’t I go to his house?”

It had been a while since Mary had managed to say something stupid enough to earn herself one of these withering looks from Catherine, but she seemed to have done it now. “Mary, really. He’s a grown wizard—and an unmarried one, at that. You’re a young witch. Think of how it would look.”

Instantly, Mary felt her face heating. “He’s—he’s my Head of House,” she stammered. “I talk to him alone at school.”

“Yes, but you know the rules are different here—you hardly go around Hogwarts greeting your friends with formal curtsies and titles, after all.” Oh… right. “At school, he’s your professor, but out in the world, he’s simply a grown wizard of no relation to you. Obviously you and I know there’s nothing untoward happening, but at your age, it is important to consider what image you are projecting to the world when it comes to your relations with men.”

‘Relations with men’? Mary didn’t think she could blush any harder than she was blushing right now. Did Catherine really have to make it sound so… so inappropriate? “He’s not a—a man, he’s Professor Snape,” she protested nonsensically, and Catherine bit her lip, like she was struggling not to laugh. “Besides, I’m only fourteen.”

“You’ll be fifteen in less than a year, and in the eyes of pureblood society, that will make you a young woman—old enough to be seriously considering marriage. If you were to be alone with him, it will raise eyebrows—great-grandmother would never stand for it. And even if you were to be supervised, we don’t want to accidentally give the impression that Professor Snape is being considered to court you.”

Oh, look at that: apparently she could blush harder. It wasn’t like, theoretically, she didn’t know that she was approaching the age of consent. Blaise and Daphne were the same age as her, and they’d probably be getting engaged this year. But there was a big difference between knowing that and thinking of herself as a ‘young woman,’ or nearly one. Even if she’d finally started her period last month, she was still just Mary—all skinny legs and flat chest and untameable hair. The idea that anyone could look at her and Snape and think that he—that he wanted—

“Court?!” she repeated stupidly, staring at Catherine. “That—people would think that? He’s my professor.”

“They might,” Catherine said, though she was smiling a bit now, apparently entertained by Mary’s distress. “It’s not exactly unheard of among the noble families for a witch your age to be courted by a wizard his age—perhaps even a professor—though it certainly has been many, many years since such things were common.”

Unable to overcome her embarrassment, Mary covered her face with her hands for a moment and took a deep breath. Well, if anything were to distract her from her dream…

Finally, face burning still, she made herself look up and say, “Would it make a difference if… I never mentioned this before, but Professor Snape actually grew up with my mother. Like brother and sister, almost. He says that he would have been my godfather, if not for the war. Does that make it… better? For me to meet with him.”

Catherine’s eyes widened. “Is that why you’ve been writing him so much?” she asked. “I have to admit, I was surprised he wrote you back in the first place; I wouldn’t have expected him to correspond with a student.”

“Yes, that’s why.” Well, it was close enough, anyway. Mary still had the urge to keep the whole sort-of-godfather thing to herself for whatever reason, but she had to admit, it was a very useful thing to point to when people thought it was strange that she and Snape were… friendly, or whatever it was that they were.

Seeming to consider this for a moment, Catherine said slowly, “Well… you still oughtn’t go to his house. If he were formally registered as your godfather, it would be different. However, if I can tell Mother this, I don’t think they’ll have a problem with him dropping by to speak with you. But… you said you need to speak to him alone?”

Mary nodded, and Catherine’s frown deepened. She thought for a moment before nodding to herself, as though she had come to a decision.

“How about this? Professor Snape can come here, and the three of us will take a walk in the gardens. I will give the two of you some space to speak privately, but so long as I’m nearby, there won’t be any question of impropriety.”

Though Mary wanted to throw her head back and groan at how incredibly complicated and embarrassing the process of having a bloody conversation with her professor about something so important was turning out to be, she knew that Catherine was doing the best she could. It wasn’t her fault that pureblood society was still stuck in the bloody Victorian era, or that the Urquharts were one of the most old-fashioned Houses, thanks to Madam Urquhart being basically a million years old and keeping her son, the alleged Lord of the House, on a short leash.

“Thank you, Catherine,” she said. “And, sorry again for the trouble. It really is important.”

Catherine shook her head slightly, but she was smiling. “I know it must be,” she admitted. “You’re hardly the type to make a fuss otherwise. Besides, it’ll be nice to see Professor Snape again—it’s been a few years. Now,” she added. “Give me a moment to get dressed, and then you can help me get the little ones up.”

Chapter Text

Although Mary appreciated Catherine finding a way for her to meet with Snape, she still felt uneasy about the whole situation. She had never thought she would miss being a child, and yet she found herself feeling nostalgic for simpler times, when no one would have thought twice about her being alone with Remus or Snape or whoever else. She didn’t feel like she was any different than she had been before—or, not in that way—but Catherine’s words had made her self-conscious.

To her, they were just Mary and Snape. The idea that anyone could look at them and see something else was disorienting, even if Catherine had made it clear that she knew it wasn’t anything like that.

She was probably especially self-conscious because it reminded her of her worries earlier that year, when she had first seen the form of her Patronus and wondered what it said about her feelings for Snape, before she’d been distracted by his betrayal. And it also reminded her of, well, the nasty thing Pettigrew had started to say about them, but she was pretty sure he’d just been trying to get under their skin.

At least Snape responded quickly rather than leaving her to agonize over it—the dream as well as her newfound awkwardness at the idea of seeing him. He fire-called them as soon as Eirene delivered her letter, which happened to be not long after tea. Thankfully, the older witches had already left the room, leaving only Mary, Catherine, and Laina in the parlor. Not that it was a secret or anything—Catherine had discreetly informed her mother of their plans before tea—Mary just didn’t really want everyone’s eyes on them, or to have to wonder if any of them were thinking anything weird about her and Snape.

“Hello,” his voice called out from the flames once Catherine instructed the wards to allow him access. “This is Severus Snape. Is Miss Potter there?”

“Hello, Professor Snape,” Catherine replied as Mary hung back, relieved that her tutor was taking the lead on this one. “She’s right here with me. You can come through, if you’d like.”

Wait, right now? Mary had thought that they’d schedule a time or something! Immediately, her eyes flashed to the mirror hanging on the parlor wall, checking if she was presentable. Not that she shouldn’t be—Mrs. Urquhart definitely would have said something if there was anything wrong with her appearance—but still, she just, she wasn’t expecting this! And she was so dressed up, too—he’d never seen her this dressed up before, except for after the Wizengamot session in January. What if he laughed at her?

She had no idea why she was suddenly stressing out about her appearance. It was just, she’d never seen Snape outside of Hogwarts before. She felt almost like she was someone else entirely here, someone far more formal and polite than the way she acted at school. She didn’t want him to think that she was, like, putting on airs or something. And she didn’t want Catherine, or anyone else who might be watching, to think that she was… like, inappropriately close to him?

Basically, she just had no idea how to act as Snape’s Anipsiá and as Mary Potter, Heir Ascendant, fosterling of House Urquhart, at the same time. And after her conversation with Catherine, she felt like she had to act especially normal around him today, so that everyone else would see how normal she was being, and they would have to be normal, too.

Mary kind of wanted to scream. She didn’t always mind this pureblood etiquette stuff, but she really didn’t want to have to think about what kind of ‘message’ she was sending just by having a conversation with her professor about something urgent. If she hadn’t been so worried—and if she had realized what a bloody endeavor this whole thing was going to be—she would have just waited until she was with the Grangers and under less scrutiny.

Unless that would have been even worse? Emma had this way of just seeing right through her sometimes. Not that there was anything to see, just, Mary didn’t like the idea of being watched like that when she was trying to talk to Snape. It unsettled her, somehow. Made her feel weirdly guilty, even though she wasn’t doing anything wrong.

Whether the Grangers would have been better or worse, it was too late now: Catherine stepped back, and then Snape was coming through the fire, stepping smoothly right into the Urquharts’ parlor as though he belonged there. Mary straightened her posture immediately, because that was what one did when there were guests, and from the corner of her eye, she spotted Laina shifting slightly closer to Catherine—like she wanted to hide behind her skirts but knew she was too old to get away with behaving in such a way.

Snape, however, did not look the slightest bit uncomfortable. While Mary was still inwardly panicking, trying to figure out which one of them was supposed to address the other first—at Hogwarts, he was in a position of power over her, but here, she was of higher social standing, so maybe she should wait for him to speak—he just went ahead and greeted them all. “Miss Urquhart. Miss Potter. And…”

Disguising her nervousness as her training took over, Laina stepped forward, took her skirts in her hands, and curtsied. “Miss Laina Urquhart, sir.” Mary and Catherine mirrored her movements, though obviously neither of them needed to introduce themselves.

“And I am Professor Severus Snape,” he said, despite having already said so from the fire. “Well met.” And then he bowed to the three of them, but—was that—it was the correct bow for a common-born Master addressing a group of younger witches from Noble Houses. Who had taught him that?

“Well met,” Laina replied, raising her chin slightly as though trying to pretend not to be intimidated by him. It was kind of cute, actually.

Looking both pleased and a little amused, Catherine put a hand on Laina’s shoulder and said, “Miss Laina here will be starting at Hogwarts in another three years. Miss Laina, Professor Snape is Head of Slytherin House.”

Laina already knew that, of course—he came up in both Catherine and Mary’s stories from school, and Catherine used him as an example sometimes in her etiquette lessons. (One time, she’d had Mary and Lilian roleplay running into him and Draco Malfoy in Knockturn Alley.) Still, the younger girl nodded thoughtfully, as if she was hearing this for the first time. “I’m going to be a Slytherin, too,” she informed Snape seriously. “Like Miss Catherine and Miss Mary.”

Despite the serious look on his face, Mary somehow got the impression that Snape wanted to smirk. “Then I expect to see you in my House in three years.”

Smiling, Catherine said, “Miss Laina, why don’t you go check on Bryce for me? He should be nearly finished with his nap. Miss Mary and I are going to show Professor Snape around the gardens.”

Accepting her dismissal, Laina gave Snape one last, slightly less formal, curtsy, then walked from the room with far more grace than Mary thought any eight-year-old should be able to muster. Sometimes, watching the younger girl, it struck her all over again what a disadvantage she was at, having to learn all this stuff over the course of a handful of summers.

When they entered the gardens, there was a moment of small talk, mostly Snape inquiring as to what Catherine had been up to since leaving school. Mary herself was a bit too nervous to say much, and was grateful that, at least, the two of them already knew each other, so the burden of maintaining a conversation wasn’t solely on her.

Finally, Catherine gave her a knowing look and said, “Miss Mary, why don’t you show Professor Snape that belladonna we found the other day? I’m sure he’d be interested to see it. I’ll wait here for you.” At that, she simply pulled out a novel and took a seat on the nearest bench, pretending to ignore them entirely.

(It was one of the really naughty books of hers, too, though you’d never know that to look at the cover—or at Catherine herself, with her long robes and neat bun, looking like an uptight, proper young witch.)

Turning to Snape, who looked slightly amused—probably at the transparency of the excuse—Mary hesitated for a split second. She knew how she was meant to act, but she wasn’t used to having to be formal around him, and the intersection of two parts of her life made her all too aware of how unnatural the etiquette sometimes felt to her, even now. But he extended his elbow, and after taking a second to steel herself, she slipped her hand into it, allowing him to escort her down the garden path.

It was late afternoon, but summer still, and the garden was well lit, trees and flower bushes almost seeming to glow in vibrant green and gold in the sun, dark shadows pooling beneath them in contrast. Bees and butterflies flitted here and there as they walked, arm in arm. Mary didn’t spend much time walking through the gardens, preferring to fly above them whenever she was given permission, but she couldn’t deny they were beautiful.

“You’ve made impressive progress here,” Snape said, pitching his voice low so that Catherine wouldn’t overhear. “I would say you could pass for one of them.”

There was the slightest hint of irony in his voice, but she thought that the joke was on the admittedly uptight purebloods, rather than on her, so she didn’t take offense. In any case, she wasn’t sure if he was flattering her or simply lacked the eye to see it, given his background, but she knew that he was wrong. Especially after watching how naturally Laina slipped into her role in front of him. Anyone who was truly raised pureblood would be able to see that Mary wasn’t a native after two seconds.

Still, pointing that out would be needlessly self-deprecating, so instead, she said, “Thank you. I was surprised at how well you fit in, if you don’t mind my saying so. I didn’t think that you had much interest in this sort of thing.”

“I’ve spent enough time with the Malfoys and Blacks, among other noble families, to pick some things up.” As they came to another bench, separated from Catherine’s by a handful of flowering shrubs, he guided her to sit, placing his hand lightly against her upper back as he did so. She stiffened, a strange little jolt going through her.

Of course, being Snape, he followed this up by taking out his wand and casting a bevy of privacy spells, only some of which she recognized. Muffliato, of course, and a handful of palings, at least one of which was intended to prevent scrying, but the rest were a mystery to her.

When he was finished, he took a seat beside her, and with no further small talk, said, “Tell me what happened.”

Snape sat and listened silently, an inscrutable look in his eyes, until she was completely finished recounting the dream, including every detail she could remember. When she finished, he sighed. “You were right to come to me,” he told her. “This is the first time something this has happened?”

Mary nodded, her heart sinking. Part of her had hoped that he would tell her that it had meant nothing, that she didn’t need to worry. “My scar did hurt a bunch first year, when Quirrellmort was around. And I think maybe it hurt a few weeks ago, too, except that I only thought it was a headache at the time. But this is the first time it came with a dream.”

Frowning to himself, Snape said, “What you describe—seeing through his eyes, experiencing his emotions—sounds incredibly similar to legilimency, a talent which tends to be inherited, and your biological grandfather happens to be one of the most talented legilimens in recent history.” Mary made a face at the reminder. “It could have a more innocent explanation, but it is best to be safe. May I legilimize you to examine the memory directly?”

After a moment of hesitation, she nodded, meeting Snape’s eyes. He had already legilimized her twice before—in second year, when he was screening the Slytherins to make sure none of them were the Heir, and again at the end of the year, to examine her memories from the Chamber. It hadn’t been exactly enjoyable, but not as horrible as she had expected, either. Besides, she trusted him not to look at anything but the relevant memory.

Mary’s heart sank further at the expression on his face when he finished examining the memory, all remaining hope that she was simply overreacting extinguished. “Mary Elizabeth, it would be much easier for me to fulfill my promise to protect you if you would stop doing things like legilimizing the Dark Lord in your sleep.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose!” she protested.

“You never do,” he said with a sigh. “And yet.” There was a long pause in which she could practically hear Snape thinking about all of the unbelievable situations that Mary had managed to find herself in over the past few years. She was unable to stop herself from blushing, unaccountably embarrassed at the reminder of the trouble she was constantly causing him.

“So… what does this mean?” she asked, trying to focus. “How could I possibly be legilimizing him—or anyone—in my sleep? I’m not even a mind mage.”

“It seems that you are,” Snape said. What?! “Inborn talent for mind magic tends to first present itself during puberty. One of the first signs is often something called ‘dreamwalking,’ in which your unconscious mind wanders into the psyches of those physically near to you, with a slight preference for people you are more familiar with.”

All of that made sense, except, “He’s not physically close to me, though! Or, at least, I really hope not. Shouldn’t I be dreamwalking into Catherine or Laina’s minds instead?”

Snape shook his head, looking slightly grim. “Whatever happened on Samhain of 1981 forged a connection between yourself and the Dark Lord—between your very souls, it seems. Because of this, your mind seems to be interpreting his as the nearest in some metaphysical sense, despite the physical distance between you.”

“So… what does this mean?” Mary asked, mind racing. “I mean, am I going to start hearing other people’s thoughts now? I think in the dream, I—or, Riddle, I don’t know—could feel what the other wizard was feeling, but I… I don’t remember.”

“Your recollections were too hazy for me to make out much,” Snape admitted, to her disappointment, “but yes, you did seem to be experiencing the Dark Lord’s victim’s pain vicariously, as he was. The Dark Lord, you see, is what is known as an empathic legilimens—a rarer gift. Unlike those who are solely legilimens, like myself, he possesses, in addition to the talent for legilimency, a natural ability to sense and manipulate the emotions of those around himself.

“In fact, I would not be surprised if you had inherited that trait as well. While I never thought Lily was a mind mage, looking back, I now suspect she possessed at least some latent empathic ability—most likely, she inherited her father’s aptitude for it, but lacked the magical power to present as a full empath or legilimens. You, however, have significantly more channeling capacity than your mother did at your age, and it is highly likely that you will find yourself developing legilimentic and empathic abilities very soon, if you haven’t already.”

Mary frowned, trying to wrap her head around that. A few years ago, Snape had told her that she was ill-suited to occlumency. Now, he was saying that maybe she’d had the inherent talent for reading people’s minds and emotions this whole time, and had just needed to wait until she developed the magical power to activate it? She didn’t think she could remember ever sensing what other people were thinking or feeling, but maybe she’d missed it? Or thought she was just reading their faces or something…

“Regardless of how you came by this ability, it is imperative that you learn occlumency before the Dark Lord realizes that he has a way into your mind. In addition, I would suggest that you learn lucid dreaming—the art of controlling one’s dreams—so that you can consciously stop yourself from wandering into his mind, rather than waiting until you have learned enough occlumency for it to become automatic, as this might take years.”

“Lucid dreaming?” Mary asked. She had heard of occlumency before, but not that. “How do you do it?”

“I should be able to send you some books on the subject; I will have them delivered to the Grangers’ if you give me their address. As for occlumency, I suppose I had best start teaching you…” He didn’t sound very excited about the idea.

In truth, he wasn’t the only one—Mary found herself surprisingly anxious at the prospect of learning occlumency from Snape. She had wanted to, at the end of her second year, but that was before she had started having those embarrassing thoughts about whether her Patronus meant she fancied him or wanted him to be her dad, neither of which she wanted him to know she’d thought about. She’d thought maybe his betrayal in the spring had cured her of those thoughts, but the conversation with Catherine this morning seemed to have brought it all rushing back, worse than ever.

“Is there anyone else who could teach me?” she asked, trying to keep the desperation she felt out of her voice. Then, trying to come up with an excuse, so she wouldn’t accidentally offend him by telling him that she didn’t want him to be her occlumency teacher, “I mean, I know you’re busy, and last time I asked, you didn’t sound enthusiastic about the idea of teaching me occlumency, at least when I’m still… you know, a teenager. And… you’d have to tell the Headmaster you were teaching me, wouldn’t you? I don’t know that I want him knowing any of this…”

Snape thought for a second—Mary holding her breath the whole time. “You might try Blaise Zabini.”

“Blaise?” Mary repeated skeptically. She’d been thinking he might name, like, another professor or something. She knew that Blaise already knew occlumency, but didn’t lots of people?

“Like your grandfather, Mr. Zabini is a true empathic legilimens, and one who presented at a very young age. His mother has been training him in the art of occlumency since then, to help him manage his gifts, and I have taken over his training while he is at Hogwarts.

“He is undoubtedly the best occlumens, and the most familiar with mind magic in both theory and practice, among the student body. In fact, he might be better suited to teach you than myself, as I would have only secondhand advice to impart when it comes to managing the empathic side of your powers. In any case, he should agree to tutor you if I ask him; after all, I have certainly spent enough time on him over the years, and as I understand it, you’re already friendly.”

Mary considered that for a moment. Blaise was, well, kind of unsettling (though now she wondered if that was just what happened when you could read and manipulate people’s minds since you were a kid), but Snape was right: he was her friend, more or less. He’d never given her a reason not to trust him.

“I guess that sounds alright.”

“I will write Mr. Zabini this evening and ask if he has time to meet with you once the term starts.”

“Thank you.” But, as insane as this revelation was, this wasn’t what she’d called him over in such a hurry to discuss. “So, you weren’t able to pick out any details that I missed? Like who the other wizard was?”

To her disappointment, Snape shook his head. “Viewing a memory of a dream, especially from someone with no practice lucid dreaming, is a difficult task. I can see no more than you are able to recall—it was more of a collection of impressions and images than anything. You do not clearly remember his face, therefore…”

She winced. “I’m sorry.” Maybe she should have stayed in bed longer, burning the details into her mind, before starting to write it down—never mind running off to the owlery. She’d just been so worried.

“There is nothing to apologize for. You did the right thing in bringing this to me, and in writing down as many details as you could.”

“What about Bellatrix?” she asked. “What does it mean, that she’s not with him? Does that mean she’s not the person Trelawney was talking about in her prophecy?”

Snape’s brow furrowed, and his eyes went slightly unfocused as he muttered, “‘Tonight, before midnight, the servant will rejoin the master.’ It would be an extraordinary coincidence if Bellatrix managed to break free of Azkaban on the same night the prophecy was made if she was not the subject, but the prophecy does seem to say that the servant went to the Dark—to their unidentified ‘master,’” he corrected himself, “whom I had assumed to be the Dark Lord—that very night.

“It is… possible that the prophecy could refer to a more intangible meaning of ‘rejoin’—for instance, that Bellatrix would take up again their old cause, and begin searching for a way to restore the Dark Lord to power, without physically returning to his side. However, it is also possible that her escape was an odd coincidence, and that the subject of the prophecy was the wizard you saw in your dream.”

“So… we have no idea, basically?” Mary summarized, and he inclined his head slightly, looking annoyed.

“Neither interpretation of the prophecy is… intuitive,” Snape said. “I cannot help but think we are missing something.”

Great, just what they needed. An ominous prophecy that they didn’t even understand. Still, “At least she’s not working with him right now. That’s good, right?”

“It… could be,” he said slowly. “Or it could not. As I said to you in June, if they find themselves at odds, Britain might be crushed between them. However, there is something to be said for our only having to deal with one of them at a time. With any luck, whatever drew Bellatrix to Carthage will keep her there for a while.”

Then, with a frown, he added, “Carthage is currently under the control of a local Dark Lord, known by the name of Nazim. If somehow, Bellatrix were working for him, rather than Riddle, that could explain the prophecy. However, my impression as a Death Eater had been that the Blackheart was unshakably loyal to her master, and I was given no reason to believe that she had any connection to Nazim whatsoever.”

Mary was briefly distracted by the thought of Bellatrix coming back to Britain with another Dark Lord and picking a fight with Riddle. Scylla and Charybdis indeed.

“I don’t like this,” she muttered. “Not knowing what she’s doing, or what the Dark Lord is planning, or who that wizard was.” It made her feel like a child lost in the dark, feeling monsters lurking silently all around her, just waiting to strike. Helpless.

Snape let out a sharp huff. “No, neither do I.”

“Theíos…” she said quietly. “The wizard they’re after. Do you think it’s you?”

“I doubt it,” he answered, and some tension left her, although she couldn’t help but wonder if he only sounded so certain because he was trying to reassure her or something. “While it is difficult to tell without hearing the details of the conversation, if the Dark Lord wanted me, he would only have to call me through the Mark.”

Snape had mentioned the Mark before, and so had a few of her friends in Slytherin. She’d never seen one, but as far as she understood, it was some sort of magical brand the Dark Lord had put on his followers. Once, Snape had told her that he’d been Marked at seventeen—and Bellatrix at fifteen. One year older than she was now.

“If—if he did call you,” she said quietly. “You would go?”

“Yes.”

“But…” Mary knew he’d been a spy in the war, and had gotten the feeling that he didn’t want the Slytherins to know his real allegiance, but she had just thought he didn’t want the House to turn on him, not that he was going to go back to being a Death Eater! “You killed Quirrellmort when he was possessing him, and then you banished his wraith. Do you really think he’d take you back after that?”

“I don’t know,” Snape said, his own voice as low as hers. “But I have to try. My intention is to claim that I did not know it was him—that I believed Quirrell to be possessed by some common demon, and that, as part of maintaining my cover with Dumbledore, I acted to protect you from it. Perhaps I can feign disappointment that he did not trust me enough to share his identity with me and ask my help in his quest.”

Mary really did not like the sound of that plan. The Dark Lord’s wraith had said, “Kill her, my servant!” She still thought it was more likely that he’d been addressing Snape than Quirrell; if he’d had to speak out loud to control the wizard he was possessing, surely he wouldn’t have made it all year without getting caught.

If she was right, then in the Dark Lord’s mind, he’d given Snape a direct order, and Snape had responded by killing his vessel and using Light magic to send his spirit back to bloody Albania or somewhere. Given that she had just seen the Dark Lord torturing his only follower at the moment for—well, she couldn’t remember what, exactly, except she didn’t think it had been the other wizard’s fault—and that he was, by everything Snape said, paranoid and, well, insane, did Snape really think he was just going to say, ‘That’s okay, I accept your apology’ and welcome him back into the fold?

She’d thought he was smarter than that.

“What do you mean, you ‘have’ to?” she asked. “I guess it could help stop him if you spied again, but if he kills you, then you won’t do any good at all.”

Snape stared out at the flowering belladonna plant in front of them, looking suddenly very tired. “When I came to Dumbledore for help,” he began, “we made a deal. He kept me from Azkaban, and promised as well to protect Lily.” He snorted, a bitter scowl flashing across his face. “In exchange, I swore a magically binding vow to serve the old goat until such time as the Dark Lord is completely defeated. If Dumbledore wishes for me to return to his service, then I have no other choice.”

“That’s—”

Before she could rant about how unfair that was, however, he continued. “I always knew that this day would come. I have prepared for it. And, as you say, my position as a spy could prove crucial to defeating him—and to anticipating what he plans to do with you.”

“Assuming he doesn’t just kill you the second he sees you.”

“Yes. Assuming that.”

He wasn’t even reacting to the anger in her voice, which just made her even more angry. Or—or sad, or scared, or a million other things. “Can’t you get out of it somehow?” she asked, almost pleading.

“Even if I could, I would not,” he said, still looking at the flowers. “This is the path I have chosen, and I will see it through till the end.”

That was so stupid. Or, not stupid, exactly, it wasn’t that she couldn’t understand, just—ugh. “Doesn’t the Headmaster care that the Dark Lord might kill you?” She didn’t have much respect for Dumbledore in most ways, but she didn’t think he was evil or anything.

A small smile touched Snape’s lips, like he had thought of a private joke. “I believe he considers it an acceptable risk.”

To her surprise, Mary felt a wave of not just anger but hatred go through her. How dare the Headmaster just—just plan on throwing Snape’s life away like it didn’t even matter?

But before she could say anything, Snape added, “As do I, truth be told. If the Dark Lord does manage to return, having a spy within his camp will be invaluable, and there is no one better suited for the job than myself. This is what I have prepared all these years for. I will find a way to convince him of my loyalty—there is simply no other choice.”

“But you—”

Mary didn’t even know what she was going to say, just that Snape was being stupid and crazy and she needed to stop him. Before she could, though, he abruptly turned back to her, seeming to come out of the melancholy he’d slipped into.

“You will need to be on your guard,” he said. “We do not know what, exactly, the Dark Lord has planned for you, but we know he has at least one ally, and that they are setting something into motion which he believes will lead him to you.”

Damn. Mary had been angry and frightened enough at the idea of Snape going back to spying that she’d almost forgotten to worry about herself, and was not especially pleased to be reminded. “I’ll try,” she said. “But I don’t know how to protect myself—not when we don’t know who’s working with him or what they’re planning.”

Instead of reassuring her, Snape frowned and said, “Yes, and unfortunately, this coming year will provide plenty of opportunity for his ally, whoever they are, to get close to you.” At her confused look, he explained, “That is your ‘dress robes mystery,’ as you so described it. Hogwarts will be hosting an event known as the Triwizard Tournament, during which a few dozen students from both Durmstrang and Beauxbatons, as well as their accompanying headmasters, will live at the castle from November through June. In addition, on certain occasions, press, families of Hogwarts students, and other spectators will converge upon the castle to watch the events.”

Even the fun, silly little mystery of the dress robes was being ruined for Mary by the bloody Dark Lord. Fantastic. From the tone of Snape’s voice and the look on his face, she was almost certain Dumbledore had gone forward with this tournament against his express wishes, too. Which, knowing now that he was magically obligated to follow the Headmaster’s orders, she had a whole new perspective on how frustrated he must be.

“Wonderful,” she said, slumping slightly out of the carefully upright posture she usually maintained while at the Mansion. “Any idea which of them are most likely to try and kill me?”

Though it had been mostly a rhetorical question, Snape took it seriously. “Well, the Headmaster of Durmstrang is a former Death Eater—”

He paused as Mary barked out a short, highly unladylike laugh. “Of course he is.”

“I don’t think he was the wizard you saw in your dream, however,” Snape continued. “Karkaroff has a heavy accent and a quite distinctive appearance—you would have remembered that. In addition, he claims to have been a spy himself, and only escaped Azkaban when the Scandinavians forced the Ministry to release him into their custody. He would be unlikely to risk his tenuous freedom to attempt to restore his former master to power.”

On the one hand, Snape probably knew better than she did. On the other, it seemed like a hell of a coincidence. But then, the Dark Lord could just possess any random student from one of the other schools and they’d hardly be any the wiser.

Merlin, this was going to be a disaster.

“More imminently, there is the World Cup,” Snape added. “I cannot attend, as much as I would like to see to your safety myself.”

“Why not?” Mary frowned—she’d honestly expected him to insist on it now, even though he’d said in his letters that he wasn’t interested.

“If the Dark Lord were to contact me, to demand that I hand you over to him…” Oh. “Or, even, if it were to become common knowledge that you trust me enough to allow me to accompany you to an event outside of Hogwarts, this could prove… problematic when I return to spying.”

Right, duh. “Okay,” she said. Then, with a slightly pleading look, she added, “I think I should still go. I mean—I don’t remember everything he said in the dream, but it didn’t seem like he was going to do anything to me right away. He still has to catch… whoever he’s after.” Snape scowled, like he was about to start berating her for being stupid and reckless, and she rushed to continue, “What if I—maybe I can ask Auror Tonks to come with us? I don’t know if there are still tickets on sale, but she could at least come along for the camping part if she isn’t busy with work.”

“It would still be safest if you were to forgo the event entirely.”

“It would be safest if I dropped out of Hogwarts, ran away to another country, and changed my name, but I’m not going to do that,” she argued. “I don’t want to just—stop living my life because I’m afraid of him!” To her surprise, she found herself getting angry again. The Dark Lord had already ruined enough things for her. She wasn’t going to let him ruin this, too! It was basically the only thing she’d been looking forward to all summer.

Snape sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose. “For the record, I think this is an absolutely terrible idea,” he said. “But if you insist on going through with it, bring Auror Tonks, and make absolutely certain to keep your Portkey within reach at all times. I will be speaking to Minerva about your security measures as well.”

Relief rushed through her. Not that Snape could stop her from going—he wasn’t her guardian, after all—but she didn’t want to fight with him. “Will you be careful as well?” she asked. “I know you said that he’s probably not after you, but just in case, maybe you should go back to Hogwarts…”

Thankfully, Snape didn’t argue, just said, “I will return this evening.”

Mary frowned as another worry occurred to her. “What are you going to tell the Headmaster? I don’t want him to know about—about my dream, or about me being connected to the Dark Lord. I don’t want anyone to know, really, except for you. I mean, if you think that I should tell someone—Aunt Minnie perhaps—I will, but I’d… I’d just rather not.”

“I agree,” Snape said, “it is probably best that you keep this to yourself. Even the fact that you are a mind mage; between that and your being a Parselmouth, it is too likely that Dumbledore or someone else might realize the familial connection between yourself and the Dark Lord. If you must, you can tell Miss Granger, but no one else.

“In the meantime, I will add an element to the wards on your room at school to prevent dreamwalking. It sadly will not keep you from the Dark Lord’s mind, but it will at least prevent you from wandering into the dreams of your yearmates. There is a chance you may dreamwalk while you are with the Grangers, but as you will only be there a few weeks, it hopefully should not become an issue.

“For now, I will speak to Minerva myself and tell her what I have already told the Headmaster, which is that I have reason to believe the Dark Lord is gathering his strength, as my Mark has been darkening over the past several weeks and beginning to ache—most likely, I suspect, since he made contact with this ally of his and found his way into a temporary body. There will be no need to mention anything which I learned from you, seeing how little we know thus far. If you have any more dreams which seem at all connected to the Dark Lord, you will contact me at once.”

Mary nodded absently, wondering if that was why he had reacted so fast, and taken her letter so seriously: because, to some extent, he’d already known. Even having heard about the Mark, it had never occurred to her before that Snape might be able to use it to divine what the Dark Lord was up to.

“May I see it?” she asked, not even thinking about the words before they came out. “The Mark, I mean.”

Snape hesitated, then said, “Very well,” and began to unbutton and roll up his left sleeve. Slowly, the skull and twisted viper were exposed. The lines were sharp and clear, as though it had only just been made. It was a dark, vivid red, which she hadn’t expected. Mary extended a hand, then thought better of it.

“Will it do something if I touch it?” She didn’t want to accidentally alert the Dark Lord or something—if she was connected to him, and the Dark Mark was as well, maybe he would be able to feel it. Snape had drilled into her the importance of not touching Dark artifacts without thinking, and this seemed like it counted.

“Only the bearer of the Dark Mark can use it to communicate with the Dark Lord, and even then, there must be intent. You may touch it if you wish; nothing harmful will happen.”

Mary tentatively traced a fingertip over the Mark. It didn’t feel like anything, just skin. In fact, she found herself somehow less interested in the Mark itself than the novel sight of Snape’s forearms. It was easy to forget that he wasn’t simply made of the heavy layers of black cloth that he always wore—even in the summer, it seemed. Just seeing his arm up to the elbow felt as shocking as seeing another person naked would have been, and touching the inside of his arm made her realize that she had never touched his bare skin before. It felt softer than she would expect, for someone who seemed so impervious.

Catching her fingertip beginning to trail away from the Mark, Mary flinched and pulled away, hoping he hadn’t noticed. “What does it do?” she asked, forcing her mind back to more important matters than the discovery that Snape had arms. “When he’s active.”

“He can use it to summon his followers. When he wishes us to come to him, it will burn.” Mary noticed with a sinking feeling that Snape was already talking about the Dark Lord in the present tense—and about himself as one of his followers. She couldn’t help but feel that things were spiraling out of control, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

They sat in silence for a moment, side by side on the bench, looking again out over the garden as the shadows slowly lengthened. “It’s going to be really bad, isn’t it?” She wasn’t even sure what she was talking about exactly, just… all of it. The Dark Lord’s return. His plans for her. Dumbledore’s plans for Snape.

“I believe so, yes,” Snape confirmed. That was one thing she liked about him: he never tried to protect her from the truth, or soften it for her. She was sick of people treating her with kid gloves when she was living under a constant threat of murder from what sometimes felt like the entire wizarding world. He turned to her then, and his eyes were sharp, focused. “It is best that you do not tell anyone you met with me today,” he told her. “I suspect Miss Urquhart will mention it to Minerva, but my hope is that she will not tell the Headmaster.

“In truth… perhaps I ought to have told you to keep our connection—the fact that you are my goddaughter—secret entirely. I had thought… well, I had thought there would be more time. But if I am to return to his side, it’s best that no one know. Do you understand why that is?”

Slightly nervous at the sudden intensity of his attention, Mary considered it for a moment before saying, “For the same reason you can’t come to the World Cup with me. If the Dark Lord, or the other Death Eaters, find out that I trust you, then he can just ask you to bring me to him.”

“Exactly.” At any other time, she might have been proud at his approval, but now, she only felt a sense of suffocation as the world—the reality of it all—seemed to close in on them once more. She’d known, in her heart, that the Dark Lord would be back someday, but—she was only fourteen!

“As for the Headmaster…” Snape continued, either failing to notice or choosing to ignore her growing panic, “he is aware that you trust me far more than you do him, and that your safety is a concern of mine, but it is best that he remain in the dark about exactly how important you are to me. He has quite enough leverage against me as it is.”

Mary’s heart caught in her throat. “How important you are to me,” he’d said. So important that he was worried about her being used against him—and he could mention it so casually, like it was obvious. She put all of her focus into keeping her face normal. Snape so rarely shared his genuine feelings, and she felt that if she reacted at all, he would probably withdraw.

Besides, she really should be more focused on the impending doom than on something so small as this.

And yet, even as they ended their conversation, not wanting to stress the limits of Catherine’s willingness to help them speak in private, and he escorted her back to where her tutor still waited patiently on her bench, Mary couldn’t stop thinking about it. Her brain just kept repeating his words over and over: “How important you are to me.”

When he had departed, Mary excused herself from Catherine’s company as politely as she could, walked upstairs in a daze, and sat on the edge of her bed, knowing that, at any moment, she would be called back down for dinner. But her thoughts raced, pulling up memories from throughout the day: her momentary panic when Snape had said he was coming through the Floo, and the way she’d immediately looked to the mirror to check her appearance.

She thought about Catherine saying, “We wouldn’t want anyone to think he’s being considered to court you,” and how her first thought had been, “How could anyone think Snape would want to court someone like me?”

She thought about her fear that Catherine, or Emma, or whoever saw her interact with Snape would look at them too closely and see—what, exactly? Or that Snape, teaching her occlumency, would look into her mind and find… something. Something he couldn’t be allowed to see.

She thought of Snape resigning himself to go back to the Dark Lord’s side, and the overwhelming hatred she’d felt in that moment towards the Headmaster, the helpless frustration which had welled up inside of her—the desire to shout that Snape couldn’t go back. That she needed him to survive and stay by her side.

And then, in her mind’s eye, she saw herself trailing the tip of her finger up Snape’s bare forearm as if mesmerized.

The first coherent thought to come to her was this: I don’t think I want him to be my dad.

Chapter Text

Mary tiptoed down the corridor of Urquhart Manor, floor cold against her feet, hem of her nightdress swishing against her bare calves. She shouldn’t be out of her room dressed like this—not when there were other people awake, and she knew there were, she could hear them talking through the door to the main parlor—but there was no time to go back and change. Her bedroom was so far away, and they were waiting for her.

When Mary reached the doors, they swung open without even waiting for her to knock, revealing a strange collection of people. Lord, Lady, and Madam Urquhart sat on one sofa, and, in chairs nearby, she saw Aunt Minnie and Catherine. That wasn’t so strange. Next to them, however, were none other than Snape and a teenage Tom Riddle. The group were all huddled over a long scroll, but when the doors opened, the latter wizard looked up and gave her a charming smile. But his eyes were blood red, like on the Dark Lord’s wraith and the face on the back of Quirrell’s head.

“There you are, granddaughter,” he said. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

Though her heart caught, no one—not even the old Madam Urquhart—seemed to react to him addressing her as his granddaughter. They all only looked at her expectantly.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said. “Only—for what?”

“Why, for your betrothal, of course,” Aunt Minnie said with a smile. “Your grandfather has given his blessing; all you need to do now is sign the paperwork.”

“Betrothal? To whom?”

All eyes in the room turned now to Snape, who’d been sitting rather quietly off to the side. He looked at her with one of those inscrutable expressions, so that she couldn’t tell if he was pleased or displeased. She felt trapped under his gaze, pinned like a butterfly to a corkboard.

“You—you want me to marry Professor Snape?!”

Aunt Minnie chuckled to herself, like Mary was being very silly. “It’s not about what we want, lassie, it’s about what you want. I should have seen it sooner, but you must have known you could only hide it for so long.”

“But—but I don’t—”

Tom Riddle was standing right beside her now, although she hadn’t seen him get to his feet. One of his hands settled on her chest, long fingers digging into the fabric of her nightdress. <I see what is in your heart, granddaughter,> he hissed. <You cannot lie—not to me.>

<I—I’m not lying.>

But Riddle laughed and pressed down with his fingers, harder and harder, digging into her chest and closing his hand around her heart. He pulled, and it tore loose from her body. She could see it now, sitting in his palm, red and wet and beating still, and they were all looking at her, Snape standing just behind Riddle and staring down at her pulsing heart with those cool, dark eyes.

It was somewhat of a relief when she fainted.

In her bedroom in the Urquhart Mansion, Mary came back to consciousness with a groan, pain lingering in her chest. Her first thought was, Dark Powers, there’s no way I’m putting that in the dream journal Snape wants me to start.

True, it was a dream related to the Dark Lord, and she was meant to be writing those down—along with all her other dreams, because apparently it would help with lucid dreaming or something. But she was pretty certain it had just been a normal dream this time, and she didn’t really want to put it on paper—yes, the journal was meant to be for her eyes only, but what if someone read it anyway?

It was fine. She’d just… skip this one. Anyway, she’d be able to tell if it was really the Dark Lord if he was small like he’d been in the other dream. Snape had theorized he was probably inhabiting something called a ‘blood golem’—like they thought Riddle had made in the Chamber, actually, except smaller.

No, this dream didn’t mean anything—other than, well, the obvious, which she was trying not to think about.

With a sigh, Mary stood and reached for an overrobe, meaning to slip down the hall to the loo before the little ones began their daily stampede. By her Tempus spell, she knew she had about twenty minutes before Catherine woke them. With any luck, the older girl would need Mary’s help with the kids today—anything to keep her mind occupied until she left for Hermione’s after tea.

It wasn’t until halfway through shrugging on the overrobe that she noticed the blood seeping through the white fabric of her nightdress, staining the pristine white fabric red. Her breath caught for a second, her irrational, half-awake brain thinking, It’s my heart!

But it wasn’t, of course—too low down for that. Just her period, because she didn’t already have enough to deal with right now. The clenching in her chest she’d felt in the dream and upon waking, she realized now, was coming from lower down as well. She groaned again and set about casting the stain-removal and cramp-relief charms Catherine had taught her last month, thinking, The World Cup can’t come fast enough. No Dark Lord, no confusing thoughts about Snape. Just good old Quidditch.

First, though, she had her reunion with the Grangers to get through—and even they, it turned out, weren’t immune to the ripples beginning to make their way through the wizarding world.

“She didn’t even have the decency to say it to my face!” Emma ranted, nearly throwing a forkful of mashed potatoes at her husband in her vehemence. “She just sent me a letter through Andi, of all people. I guess even writing to a so-called ‘blood traitor’ is better than a muggle!”

“Dear, calm down,” Dan said, frowning at her. “We always knew she’d only work with us as long as it was convenient for her.”

Emma did not seem especially interested in ‘calming down’ about the fact that she had been unceremoniously dumped by Lady Malfoy. “But it was,” she insisted. “We’d worked out an entire plan for the next three years. The alliance was beneficial to both of our interests. Why would she end it now? And without any explanation, just—thanks for helping me get those professors sacked, now, get lost!”

“Um,” Mary said—the first thing she’d said since Emma had begun her diatribe. (Honestly, she was just like Hermione sometimes.) “I think I know why, actually.”

As expected, she immediately had three sets of curious eyes on her. Having only gotten to their house shortly before dinner, she hadn’t had the chance yet to catch Hermione up on everything—only that Auror Tonks had decided to come with them for extra protection. She wasn’t entirely sure Hermione would want Mary to tell her parents this without asking first, not with how they were likely to react, but, well, Mary had learned her lesson about trying to hide things from them that directly related to Hermione’s safety.

“This isn’t something you should spread around,” she said. “Well, maybe to Mrs. Tonks, but not Mrs. Diggory and the others.” It wouldn’t be good for them to start wondering where a muggle like Emma was getting this sort of information. “But I had… a letter from Professor Snape. He said that there have been signs over this summer—signs that only a former Death Eater can see—that the Dark Lord is getting stronger. Snape thinks that he’s trying to come back. And if Snape can tell—”

“Then so can Lord Malfoy,” Emma finished quietly. “Shit.”

“I don’t know exactly what they’re thinking,” Mary continued, “but, if I was them? I would be worried about the Dark Lord popping up again and asking questions about why the Allied Dark is suddenly in support of muggleborn integration.”

Despite having been the voice of reason a moment ago, Dan was the one who looked the angriest at this. “So they’re just going to go right back to saying that people like Maia-bee—” He broke off, not able to finish that thought.

“No,” Emma said, her anger replaced by that strange, almost Slytherin thoughtfulness she sometimes had. “No, Narcissa wouldn’t. Not until she has to; she wouldn’t want to close off any options. She’s going to hold off on taking a stance for as long as she can, just wait and see how this ‘Dark Lord’ thing plays out. If someone gets rid of him for her, then she’ll probably write me and ask to pick up where we left off. If he comes back, then the Malfoys jump right back into their old ways and claim their flirtation with progressive politics was just a way to undermine Dumbledore.”

Sometimes it startled Mary a little to realize just how well Emma understood the political landscape of Magical Britain. Then again, she supposed that politics was politics, no matter where you were.

“I told you we shouldn’t have gotten involved with people like that,” Dan grumbled. “Bloody opportunists jumping on whatever political trend they think will keep them on top.”

Emma, though, waved him off. “It was worth it,” she said. “It’s going to be a pain to change all our plans now, but we can work around this.”

Mary and Hermione, the latter of whom had been oddly quiet as she processed this news, exchanged a look, and Mary wondered if it was an empath thing or a best friends thing that she knew just what Hermione was thinking right now.

“I think…” Mary said slowly, knowing that Emma and Dan weren’t going to take this well, “that Lady Malfoy might be doing you a favor. Maybe you should, er, step back for a while. From the whole politics thing.”

She wanted to wince when Emma turned her sharp eyes on her, but kept her gaze steady. “What do you mean, Beth?” she asked.

Hermione, though, was the one who answered. “She means that it’s not safe. If you keep going like this… They killed muggleborn babies before, just for the crime of being born with magic. What do you think they’d do to a muggle who’s actively trying to influence our politics?”

“What Maia said,” Mary agreed, grateful not to be the one to have to put it into words. “Snape told me one time that just being the Girl Who Lived and attending a Wizengamot session put a target on my back, because it let people know I intended to have a voice in politics. And I’m—well, a Potter.”

It wasn’t like Emma hadn’t made enemies all throughout Magical Britain by this point, at least among the people who knew who she was. Between the people who hated her just for being a muggle who stepped out of her place and those who hated her for undermining Dumbledore—or just those who hated having to deal with her constant letters of complaint to the Ministry—she was not exactly a popular figure. If the Dark Lord came back and started emboldening people to deal with jumped-up muggles and muggleborns the way they had in the ‘70s…

As she had expected, this only seemed to fill Emma with that sort of self-righteous, contrarian fire she’d passed on to her daughter. “Then it will be more important than ever to resist. To show them that they can’t silence us.”

But Dan looked not fired-up but hesitant, glancing between his daughter and Mary before turning to Emma. “Em… Maybe they have a point. You know it won’t just be us they’d come after, but Hermione. I think… I think maybe we should revisit the idea of moving to France.”

Hermione, who’d momentarily looked relieved that her dad was on their side, jerked like she wanted to jump out of her chair. “What? No—”

“Beth could come with us, if we got Minerva’s approval,” Dan was saying, ignoring his daughter’s protests. “We could all go, enroll you both at Beauxbatons. Or, well, Beth would need some intensive French lessons first, but she could start a term or two later than Maia. We wouldn’t have to split the girls up.”

Mary very nearly reacted the same way Hermione had before she remembered that, unlike Hermione, they couldn’t make her go. Even when the adoption went through, they’d only be her guardians in the muggle world; Aunt Minnie would still have the final say on her magical education.

Not that she hadn’t, since the dream, fantasized about running away where no one could find her, but the fact was, the Dark Lord was after her. If he came back, he’d track her down whether she was at Hogwarts or Beauxbatons. Besides, the thought of leaving when her friends were still here—some of them, like Theo, in Death Eater families—or when Snape was still here, with no other choice but to step back into the Dark Lord’s ranks… She could never do it.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said, having to raise her voice a bit to be heard over the explosion among the Grangers. “Sorry.”

“Well, neither am I!” Hermione chimed in.

“If it’s not safe for us, it’s not safe for you!”

“You’re muggles, you can hardly defend yourselves—”

From there, unfortunately, it just escalated. Emma was already a bit sore, Mary had noticed, about not being able to come with them to the World Cup—not for the Quidditch, but to meet mages from all over the world. Telling her that she was less able to protect herself than her fourteen-year-old daughter (or fifteen, if the time turner was taken into account), while true, was a surefire way to provoke her stubborn streak.

Dinner was nearly forgotten as the argument raged on about whether they should move to France, or stay in Britain and keep their heads down, or fight back—about whether Hermione was a hypocrite, or her parents were just too stubborn to accept that she should be the one protecting them, and not the other way around—about whether, if there was so much danger, Mary and Hermione should even be going to the World Cup at all, even with Tonks’s last minute addition to their party.

Once again, Mary comforted herself with the knowledge that they couldn’t actually stop her. Hermione, though, despite the fact that she didn’t even like Quidditch, hated being told what to do. “Lizzie said that Snape said he’s just starting to try to come back!” she shouted. “It’s not like You-Know-Who is going to pop up in the middle of the Quidditch pitch and start another bloody war right then and there!”

Something pinged in Mary’s mind, though at first, she couldn’t figure out what. Something about the Dark Lord and the Quidditch World Cup…

Luckily, she’d already been sitting down and mostly keeping her mouth shut, letting the three Grangers shout back and forth at each other, so no one noticed her closing her eyes and trying hard to remember whatever it was. It was something from her dream… Something the unknown wizard had said…

Mary’s eyes snapped open. She wasn’t completely sure, couldn’t quite remember the words that man had said, but… this person they were going after. What if they were planning to find him at the World Cup?

That sounded plausible, only, she wasn’t certain. Aunt Minnie had told her about all of the extra security the Ministry had placed on the stadium. How could the Dark Lord even think he’d get in and out of there—never mind attack someone or kidnap them or whatever it was he planned to do?

If only she could remember what they’d said in the dream… But if there had been a way to help her remember, she was sure Snape would have brought it up when he visited her. She could Floo him at the castle, tell him what she thought she remembered, but… what if she was wrong?

For that matter, what could they even do about it if she was right? There would be thousands of mages at the World Cup, and they had no idea who the Dark Lord was after, except that it was an important wizard. They could maybe tell Dumbledore, or the Ministry, have them tighten security—but there was already a lot of security on the event. How much more could be done?

Plus, they’d have to explain how they knew. Most likely, people wouldn’t believe it. ‘I maybe heard it in a dream’ was not exactly credible evidence of the Dark Lord’s plans. And even if they did believe her, then everyone would know about the connection between her mind and the Dark Lord’s, and who knew what they’d do with that information.

And… if she told Snape, and he told Dumbledore, then he’d have to do whatever the Headmaster said, even if that meant putting himself in danger trying to stop it from happening.

Not to mention… oh, this was awful of her, but she just didn’t want Snape to tell Aunt Minnie and bar her from attending the World Cup like the Grangers were trying to do! She’d been looking forward to this since January, and she might be totally wrong about it—and even if she wasn’t, it wasn’t like they were even after her yet. And like Hermione said, the Dark Lord wasn’t going to just reveal himself and declare war right then and there.

The most likely outcome was that nothing happened, either because she was wrong about the dream and worrying over nothing or because the Dark Lord—or his follower—tried but couldn’t get past the security measures. And if he did get into the event, he’d probably just sneak in and out and do whatever he was trying to do, and they wouldn’t even be able to stop him if she did tell someone, and it wouldn’t affect her at all.

Really, the only unlikely scenario she had to worry about was one where the Dark Lord did infiltrate the World Cup and then managed to spot her and try to kill her or kidnap her or something. But it wasn’t like that sort of thing didn’t happen all the time at Hogwarts anyway! At least at the World Cup, she’d have a crowd to hide in. She was already planning to disguise herself, and to have an Auror bodyguard—plus, she’d have the Portkey. Worst came to worst, she’d just pop right out of there.

Maybe she was a hypocrite, like the Grangers had accused Hermione of being, but there was a big difference between a muggle making enemies in the Magical British government just when an anti-muggle Dark Lord was returning to power versus Mary attending an event at which an unknown wizard who wasn’t her might get attacked, if she wasn’t just making a big fuss over nothing.

Or maybe she was rationalizing it to herself, but… she really didn’t want to tell Snape and Aunt Minnie. Not until after, at least. Like Snape had said, if the Dark Lord came back, things were going to be really bad.

She deserved to have at least one good day before that happened, didn’t she?

Somehow, they convinced the Grangers that Hermione and Mary should still be allowed to attend the World Cup (not that Mary had any intention of allowing them to stop her, but they didn’t need to know that). They’d be talking to Aunt Minnie and Tonks about the security measures in place when they came to pick the girls up tomorrow, but the news that Mary had a Portkey that could instantly transport them to safety at the Ministry in an emergency had pretty much sealed the deal.

The question of whether to allow Hermione to continue at Hogwarts, on the other hand, or whether Emma and Dan (mostly Emma) should at least lower their profile in the political realm, if not stop completely, was put off for another day, as everyone involved—well, except Mary, who was still trying to stay quiet and not draw attention to herself—got too heated to continue the conversation.

Even now, Hermione was pacing back and forth in her room while Mary sat on her bed, saying, “I’m not going to let them just, just take me away! I’ll be sixteen next month, I can prove it. Maybe I can get myself emancipated or something. I mean, if a sixteen-year-old witch says she wants to stay at Hogwarts, are they really going to let her muggle parents force her to change schools?”

Mary winced, imagining just how well that argument would go down. It was kind of awful, from a certain perspective, for Hermione to consider using her parents’ complete lack of rights in Magical Britain against them—but on the other hand, if Mary were in her shoes, she’d probably do the same thing.

“They’ll come around,” she said, hoping it was true. “They always have before. Just… maybe don’t mention you’re thinking of staying no matter what they say, not unless you have to. It’ll just make them dig their heels in.” In a war of stubbornness between Hermione and Emma, Mary wasn’t even sure who would come out on top.

At least she didn’t seem cross with Mary for telling them the truth. Then again, Hermione probably knew as well as she did that they’d find out one way or another—they’d heard about the petrifications in second year from Catherine, of all people.

“They’ll just have to,” Hermione muttered, before plopping down on the bed beside her and turning to face her. “Snape really thinks he’s coming back? Soon?”

“Yeah,” Mary said, “but I didn’t tell your parents everything. I… I had this dream.”

From there, she told Hermione everything—or, almost everything. She’d made up her mind that she was probably worrying over nothing when it came to the World Cup. For all she knew, the Dark Lord could still be in Albania! There was no sense in freaking Hermione out over it when she didn’t remember all the details.

That, and there was one more thing she left out. But that—the feelings that she maybe thought she might have for Snape—wasn’t important right now. There were bigger things for them to worry about.

Like, “You’re a legilimens?” Hermione repeated, frowning to herself.

“Snape thinks so, anyway. I haven’t actually, you know, read anyone’s mind. Other than maybe the Dark Lord’s.”

“Were either of your parents, or anyone in the Potter family?” Hermione asked. “Because, we already know there aren’t any Parselmouths in the Potter family going back, like, centuries, and since the Dark Lord is known for both… Do you think it’s related to what happened the night he tried to kill you? Like somehow both those traits got passed to you? Only, that would be weird—I don’t know if things really work like that.”

Hermione went on speculating, not even noticing Mary’s sudden silence. She should tell her, she knew she should. There wasn’t really any reason not to. Mary trusted her—hell, even Snape trusted her enough to say Mary could tell her about the dream, and he was prone to secrecy most of the time. Not to mention, she’d already told Ginny Weasley. It was just, she was so used to it being a secret. Telling more people would… make it too real, maybe.

“He’s my grandfather.”

It took Hermione a solid ten seconds to realize Mary had spoken and stop talking. “Wait, what?”

“Tom Riddle… is my biological grandfather.” Hermione was already trying to interrupt, but Mary talked over her. “Lily… she and Aunt Petunia were cousins, not sisters. Her real mother, who she thought was her aunt, was a muggleborn Auror—Lily didn’t even know she was a witch, though. Riddle raped her and left her for dead—maybe as part of a ritual, Snape thinks—but she survived and had Lily. Left her with her muggle sister and tried to track Riddle down, only, he killed her, or had her killed, or something.”

Or, well, tortured her into a coma, which she never woke up from before her death years later, but Mary didn’t really think Hermione needed that gruesome of a detail.

“Oh my god.” She felt self-conscious, for some stupid reason, at the way Hermione just stared at her with her mouth wide open. Like it was somehow a reflection on her. (Wasn’t it? She did carry his blood.) “How long have you known?”

“Since the end of second year. Snape and I did a blood test. Sorry I never told you, I just… He thought it was best to keep it secret.” She decided not to mention that she’d told Ginny first; that had been a weird conversation, and it had just kind of slipped out.

Hermione’s only response to her apology was a dismissive wave of her hand. “Does he know? Riddle, I mean.” Then, before Mary could ask for clarification, “Either of them.”

“The Dark Lord doesn’t—at least, not so far as we know. The younger one from the diary, yes. There’s something else I didn’t tell you… He sent me a birthday present last year. Or, technically a Mabon present—it was that mysterious book on Parsel I got. I guess he’ll probably send me another this year once I’m back at the castle. Snape and I talked about it, and we think he’s probably hiding out at Miskatonic.”

At this, Hermione wasn’t quite able to hide her irritation. “Would have been nice if I’d known this back when we were looking into the ritual in the Chamber,” she grumbled, then looked up sharply, eyes widening. “I mean—I understand why you didn’t want to tell anyone, I just—”

“It’s alright, Maia,” Mary assured her. “But, yeah, now you know… I’m a Parselmouth and a legilimens because he was, and I inherited it the normal way, no crazy magical accidents. Snape thinks Lily was probably at least a minor empath, but she didn’t have much channeling capacity, I guess, so she never realized it.”

Which hadn’t entirely made sense to Mary at first, but once she thought about it, she thought she understood. Most legilimens didn’t present until puberty because that was when their channeling capacity increased; Snape called it ‘coming into your power.’ So obviously there was some sort of, like, minimum threshold of magical power below which it wasn’t noticeable.

Only, did that mean that Blaise Zabini was secretly like a magical prodigy or budding sorcerer or something? Or was there something else that could awaken the gift early?

At least Hermione took the news alright. In true Hermione fashion, she jumped right into speculation on whether there might be blood magic they could do to attack the Dark Lord—and then on how best to guard Mary against either version doing the same to her.

Once they exhausted that topic—or, at least, the limits of what Hermione could think of without getting into Snape’s books, which he might or might not grant her access to—they ended up spending a while playing around with trying to get Mary to read Hermione’s mind. It didn’t seem to work, though, which was kind of disappointing. It seemed backwards to her that she should be able to legilimize the Dark Lord in her bloody sleep, but not sense what her best friend was thinking or feeling.

Okay, probably she should start with learning occlumency first, but it was still annoying that she wasn’t just like instantly a super talented mind mage like the Dark Lord (or Snape). Although honestly, she’d accept never learning to get into other people’s minds if only she could manage to keep the Dark Lord out of her own! It was daunting to even consider, given that he was apparently the strongest legilimens Snape knew—even the teenage version of him had been able to plant what Snape said were extremely subtle compulsions on her. She just had to hope that he didn’t notice their connection.

They ended up staying up later than they should have, but that was alright—they didn’t need to leave for the campsite until late afternoon the following day. She’d heard that some people with really cheap tickets had to be there weeks in advance, but luckily, Aunt Minnie had allowed her to buy, if not the best possible tickets, at least ones good enough that they only had to arrive the day before. Mostly, she thought, so that Aunt Minnie wouldn’t have to be away from work for too long. (Mary would have waited two weeks to see the World Cup if she’d had to, but she was glad she didn’t.)

Lilian would be Flooing over an hour or two before Aunt Minnie and Tonks were meant to arrive, and Mary found herself wondering what, if anything, she should say to her about all this. Snape had given her the go-ahead to tell Hermione, but not, she realized, her other best friend—and she suspected this omission was intentional. Not that Snape disliked Lilian or anything, he’d just gotten to know Hermione a lot better during the time they were doing research together, and had apparently come to the conclusion that she was trustworthy. Lilian, on the other hand… Maybe Mary was just imagining things, as he’d never said so, but she almost got the impression that Snape thought her friend was… a bit flaky?

(Hey, maybe that was her empath thing at work!)

Mary wasn’t quite as bothered by that as she maybe should have been. In truth, without meaning to, she had grown closer to Hermione and further from Lilian since the spring—the result, obviously, of the months when Lilian hadn’t been speaking to them, and the fact that it had been Hermione who’d helped her uncover the truth about Sirius. It was a little uncomfortable to think about, because the three of them had once been thick as thieves, but the World Cup would probably be the most time the three of them had spent together since Lilian’s blow-up at Aerin back in April.

Point was, excluding Lilian from their conversation about the dream, and Mary’s legilimency, and the Undead, Evil Grandfather Thing, while it would have been unthinkable a few years ago, was now just… kind of sadly normal for them. Mary felt bad about it, but if Snape thought she should keep this between herself and Hermione for now, she would. There was a lot more at stake than Lilian potentially feeling left out.

Hermione usually slept in later than Mary when she could, but the next morning, she came knocking on her door early enough that Mary hadn’t even gotten up yet—although she’d been trying to sleep in a bit, given how late they’d been up the night before.

It seemed that Hermione had taken the opposite approach: from the bags under her eyes, the frizzy hair poofing up around her head, and the collection of matchsticks in her hands, Mary immediately got the impression that she hadn’t slept at all.

(The revelation from the other day had her second-guessing everything: did Hermione just look that tired, or could she somehow feel it with her alleged mind powers? How could she even tell?)

“Check these out,” Hermione said, jumping onto Mary’s bed atop the covers and holding out her hands.

“Cantrips?” Mary asked, looking at the dozens of matchsticks Hermione held, all labeled and tied together in neat bundles. The Weasley twins had given her a collection of them for her birthday last summer. “I didn’t know you knew how to make these.”

“I’ve been picking up some enchanting over the summer,” Hermione explained, “since I can at least do that much without setting off the Trace. I had to sneak out to the park down the road to activate them—oh, don’t give me that look, I do it all the time, it’s just to escape the monitoring charms the Ministry’s got on the house.”

“I thought we were going to dye my hair the muggle way this time?” Mary asked. “Auror Tonks said that was safer.”

“These aren’t for your hair,” Hermione said. “These,” and she held up one small bundle of matchsticks, “will change your face a bit, enough to not be recognizable, and to look more like my sister. You’ll probably have to use one every two hours or so, but I’ve made enough to cover all the time we should be out of the tent, with extras to spare.

“Then these have different healing charms in them, in case something happens, I’ll go through those in more detail in a sec, and these are for self-defense—like, this one is a blasting charm, you just break it and throw it at whoever’s attacking you, and this one will make a shield that you don’t have to maintain yourself, so you’re free to cast other spells.” She went on, speaking quickly—sounding almost manic—as she detailed the enormous number of enchantments she’d apparently set into each matchstick while Mary slept.

A little overwhelmed, especially first thing in the morning—oh damn, she’d forgotten to write down her dreams, and now she’d already forgotten them!—Mary waited for her (slightly terrifying) friend to run out of steam before saying, “Thanks, Maia. Did you stay up all night working on this?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Hermione said, leaning forward with an eager glint in her eye. “Now, try one of the face ones so I know if I did it right, and we’ll save the rest for when we get there.”

Taking one of the matchsticks in her hand, Mary snapped it in half and felt a shiver pass over her skin. When she looked at Hermione questioningly, her friend was grinning, clearly pleased by her own success. “Now you look like a real Granger.”

They spent much of the day packing, doing Mary’s hair—bleaching it enough to get some of the color out, then dying it a brown about the same shade as Hermione’s—and working on their safety plans. Hermione had decided that she was going to enchant them some maps which should show all of their locations while they were at the campsite, just in case they got separated. Mary, meanwhile, worked on the last piece of her disguise, putting muggle makeup over her scar like Emma had taught her and removing her glasses.

While she still wasn’t able to get her eyes magically fixed—she had to wait for them to stop getting worse first, and the Healer had said she probably still had a year or two to go, at best—and couldn’t see a muggle optometrist without the Dursleys’ permission (at least, not until her adoption by the Grangers was finalized), she’d managed to acquire some contacts over the summer by giving the Grangers some money and the details of her prescription, converted from magical measurements into muggle. She didn’t have enough of them to stop wearing her glasses completely (mostly, she planned to save them for Quidditch matches), but she could spare a few pairs to make her disguise more convincing.

Compared to Hermione’s enchanting prowess, Mary felt kind of useless, but at least all this preparation made her feel less guilty about the decision not to tell Snape—or anyone else—her suspicions about the World Cup.

Around teatime, Lilian came over, and there was the usual shrieking and hugging—especially between Lilian and Hermione, who hadn’t seen each other since the end of term. Then they set to raiding Hermione’s closet, trying to find clothes that would fit the taller girl for the next few days, since they were meant to wear muggle clothes at the campsite and Lilian didn’t actually have any. Finally, they managed to kit her out with some shorts, long skirts, and t-shirts, though she kept on shooting nervous glances at her own bare arms and legs; mages tended to dress much more conservatively than muggles.

Aunt Minnie and Tonks showed up earlier than planned—her guardian wearing the same ancient skirt suit she’d worn the day she’d come to the Dursleys, and Tonks looking peppy in colorful overalls and combat boots, hair done up in pigtails. After greeting the Grangers, whom she’d met at the shopping trip the year before, the Auror glanced around the house curiously and asked, “Who did your wards? They’re great.”

“Bill Weasley,” Dan said. “Do you know him?”

“Yeah, we dated for a bit back in school,” Tonks said with a grin. “He actually asked me to marry him after I graduated, but, well, he was kind of a dork back then, and I’m not really one to be tied down.” Then, frowning to herself as though concentrating on the wards, she added, “Good cursebreaker and wardcrafter, though. I bet these are strong enough that you girls could do magic in here and the Ministry would never even know—er, not that you should!” she added quickly, noticing Aunt Minnie’s glare. “That would be illegal and I’m an Auror and you should always uphold the law.”

Mary and Hermione exchanged an excited look. “Right,” Hermione said. “Of course. We’ll do that.”

Aunt Minnie pursed her lips, but she didn’t start lecturing them, probably because she knew it wouldn’t make a difference. (Or maybe she thought it was as stupid as Mary did that Hermione couldn’t do magic over the summer just because of who her parents were.) Instead, she just said, “If you wouldn’t mind having a seat, there are some things I think we need to discuss.”

The seven of them squeezed into the Grangers’ sitting room, and Aunt Minnie and Tonks began going over the exhaustive list of safety precautions they’d be taking at the World Cup. They got sidetracked several times, first by Lilian going through the same ‘The Dark Lord is coming back?!’ journey the rest of them had been through already, and being sworn to secrecy on the subject, and then by Hermione showing off her cantrips and explaining her idea for a map, which the Professor and Tonks seemed highly impressed by.

Finally, after what felt like a million years, they hugged Emma and Dan goodbye and made their way out to the garden, outside the anti-apparition wards: rather than find their way to one of the Portkeys that had been distributed around the country, their two chaperones were just going to side-along them, though that meant one of the girls had to be left behind for a second before someone came back for her.

This whole World Cup thing was turning out to be a far more complicated endeavor than Mary had expected, but at least she was keeping her promise to Snape. With all the precautions they were taking, there was no way anything could go wrong.

Chapter Text

Aunt Minnie’s tent was aggressively Scottish. It looked like a really old-fashioned muggle tent, the sides made of plain beige canvas, except that draped over the top was a thick tartan fabric in the green, blue, and red of House McGonagall. The overall impression it gave off was of having been designed for winter hunting trips in the Scottish Highlands roughly two hundred years ago, and Mary found herself wondering if it would be too hot inside, given that it was late summer.

She needn’t have worried: inside, it was no tent at all, but rather, a small set of rooms not unlike Aunt Minnie’s quarters in the castle. They were decorated much the same, too, in her House colors, with squashy, mismatched furniture.

While Mary and Hermione were staring around in awe, Aunt Minnie clucked her tongue and said, “It might be a bit cramped. I’m afraid there’s not enough room for you girls in the bedroom, so you’ll have to sleep out here. But Miss Tonks and I can transfigure a few beds for everyone.”

“It’s fine,” Mary said quickly—she’d been expecting to sleep on the ground in a sleeping bag! Not that she’d ever been camping before, but she’d seen it in movies, and that seemed to be what people did. Even Lilian, who had probably been in a magical tent before—maybe when she and her dad and sister were hunting down that demonic hound the summer prior—chimed in her agreement.

Nearly as soon as they were done fixing the beds and getting out the blankets (even more tartan), Aunt Minnie said, “Well, then, I ought to be off to bed.” Then, glancing around at the three younger witches with a knowing look, she added, “I won’t tell you three you have to go to sleep. You’re a little old for that, I think. But try not to keep Miss Tonks up too late.”

“Oh, don’t worry about me,” Tonks said with a laugh. “I’m a heavy sleeper. Comes from seven years in the Badger Den.”

Aunt Minnie gave the Auror a small nod. “I suppose I don’t need to tell you all to stay in the tent until morning?”

“Of course we will,” Mary said quickly. It wasn’t like she wanted to stumble around in a dark field in the middle of the night; all she wanted to do was catch up with her friends.

“Right, then. Goodnight, girls.”

“Goodnight, Professor McGonagall,” the three girls—and Tonks—chorused. It was a bit weird to call her that outside of school, when she was clearly being Aunt Minnie, but it wasn’t like Hermione or Lilian could call her that like Mary did, and she supposed even Tonks hadn’t gotten out of the habit of calling her Professor yet.

Mary had thought Hermione might go to bed too—it was still pretty early, but she had stayed up all night—but she only turned to Mary, Lilian, and Tonks and said, “I’ll need a few strands of your hair.”

“Er. What?” Mary exchanged a glance with Lilian, who looked as taken aback as she felt.

Pulling out a crinkled piece of paper from her pocket—the map of their campsite that muggle had given them when they’d arrived, Mary realized—Hermione said, “I’m going to make copies of this for all of us and enchant them to show our locations, remember? That way, if we get separated, we can easily find each other again. I’ll either need some hair or a few drops of your blood, but I thought…” She trailed off, casting a nervous look at Tonks.

“That you shouldn’t do blood magic in front of an Auror?” Tonks asked with a grin. “Mary here can tell you I don’t have a problem with that, but if the Professor comes out of her room and sees…”

“Right,” Hermione said, looking anxious at the very thought. “Better stick to hair, then.”

Lilian let out a shocked little laugh. “You think? How do you even know blood magic, Maia?”

“Yeah, what she said,” Tonks agreed, as though it hadn’t occurred to her to even question it until Lilian pointed it out.

“Read a book about it,” Hermione said dismissively. Mary was sure she knew exactly when and how Hermione had gotten her hands on such a book, but she didn’t comment. “Now, hair?”

The three of them pulled out a few strands of their hair and watched curiously as Hermione began sketching runes on the map with her quill. As she was prone to do, she talked absentmindedly as she worked.

“The boys and I tried for a while to make copies of the Marauder’s Map, you know,” she mumbled to herself. “The enchantments were a bit too complex for us, but I learned a lot from the process. Enchanting a map to show a person’s location really isn’t that difficult so long as you have something of theirs… I’ll ask Professor McGonagall in the morning, once I show her it works.”

Lilian, who had already heard all about the cantrips Hermione had made for the trip, and her summer adventures with enchanting, commented, “You know, Maia, by the time you graduate, you’re going to be bloody terrifying.”

Hermione paused in her writing and glanced up, a puzzled frown on her face. “What? It’s just a map.”

“You’re just an evil genius, you mean,” Lilian corrected her. “Anyway, ‘terrifying’ is a compliment.” Then, at Hermione’s skeptical look, she added, “For Slytherins, anyway.” Mary nodded, while Tonks stifled a laugh.

Though Hermione scoffed and returned to her work without a word, Mary thought she saw the hint of a pleased smirk on her face.

Hermione finished the map and copies in less than an hour, and by the end, she was yawning so widely that her jaw kept popping, so it was no surprise that she decided to turn in early. Tonks, meanwhile, announced with a groan that she had some paperwork to do—she’d begged off work at kind of the last minute in order to tag along with them. This left only Lilian and Mary, so they put out the candles and got into one of the other beds together, putting up a quick sound paling so as not to keep their friend from sleeping.

Under the blanket, Lilian whispered, “This is just like a slumber party, isn’t it? The three of us have never really had one before.”

“What about last Samhain, when Siri—Black broke into the castle and we all had to sleep in the Great Hall?”

“Oh, yeah, I guess that counts.” Then, unsurprisingly considering that Mary had raised the subject, “You really think he’s innocent, huh?”

After the news had broken in the papers that Sirius Black had sought asylum in Aquitania—a magical state which overlapped with the southern portion of France—and was demanding a retrial, and that Peter Pettigrew had been remanded into Auror custody by an unknown mage, Lilian had immediately written Mary. If Mary was ever going to tell her friend the truth about her and Hermione helping to find Sirius and clear his name while they weren’t speaking, that would have been the moment for it, but in the end, Mary had decided not to tell her.

At the time, she had justified it to herself by saying that she could hardly put something that incriminating in a letter, but even now… well, if she told Lilian now, she’d have to explain why she and Hermione had kept it a secret for so long to begin with. And then she might be angry, and that could spoil the whole trip. Plus, there was an Auror in the tent with them, and Mary wasn’t entirely confident of her sound paling’s ability to keep them from being overheard.

Instead, Mary decided to tell a half truth, now that they were at least able to speak in person. “I do,” she said. “Professor Lupin is with him, you know. And they’ve been writing to me.”

Lilian let out a sort of strangled gasping noise, like she wanted to shout but didn’t want to test the limits of the paling. “Sirius Black has been writing you?”

“A bit.”

“What’s he like?”

“I don’t know,” Mary said. “Kind of hard to get a good read on him. I definitely don’t think he’s a murderer, though—you know they caught Pettigrew.” Lilian, actually had been the first to realize there was something fishy about the whole story, all the way back in December. “He seems a bit… scattered, but I suppose twelve years with the dementors would do that to a person.”

“No kidding.”

Lilian still sounded kind of awed, and Mary felt… weird. Far away, as if just the act of keeping the truth from her friend had driven a wedge between them. Or maybe it was just a symptom of how much they’d drifted apart since April. It was just strange, feeling like Lilian didn’t really know her in the way she used to—like she was just another person who only saw the front Mary presented to the world.

“Hey,” she said suddenly, before she’d even had time to reconsider the impulse. “I’ve missed you, you know?”

“Lizzie, I’ve missed you too,” Lilian said, sounding—not teary or anything, but a little shaky. “It’s been a weird year, huh?”

You could say that. For Mary, of course, there had been the revelation of Sirius’s innocence—plus all the drama with Snape, when it had come out that he was lying to her about it. As for Lilian, since last summer, she had learned that she and her sister Aerin had accidentally killed their little brother with a magical outburst as children, then been obliviated; had spent months agonizing over whether to tell Aerin the truth; and, finally, had had a mental breakdown that had nearly destroyed Ravenclaw Tower before being dragged off to St. Mungo’s to see a mind healer.

Instead of dredging any of that up, though—they were both already thinking it, so there was no need to say it—Mary just said, “Yeah.”

“I’m just glad things are kind of back to normal now,” Lilian said.

“Um,” Mary said, because—hadn’t Lilian heard Aunt Minnie earlier when she’d told them that there were signs the Dark Lord was trying to return? Maybe it just wasn’t real to Lilian in the way it was to Mary, though. After all, she wasn’t the one dreaming of being him. She wasn’t the one he wanted to kill.

It made sense, that all the stuff with Aerin and their brother would seem more immediate to Lilian than the ambiguous threat of the Dark Lord’s return. Really, it did. It just… made Mary feel kind of lonely, like she’d been left alone to worry about what would happen next.

“Yeah,” she said after a second, because things were still strained with Lilian, and she really did hope this was the start of them getting better—dwelling on the way they didn’t entirely fit anymore wouldn’t help with that. “Back to normal.”

They didn’t get to sleep in much the next morning, since Aunt Minnie was up and making tea and toast at an ungodly hour. She announced, somewhat guiltily, that she’d need to do some work on her lesson plans before the match that day.

Aunt Minnie was always busy, but it wasn’t really her fault. Basically, the fundamental issue was that Headmaster of Hogwarts and Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot were both meant to be full time positions, but Dumbledore had ended up with both of them simultaneously. Which meant that not only was Aunt Minnie the Transfiguration Professor, Head of Gryffindor, and Deputy Head of the school, but also that she ended up taking over the Headmaster’s duties whenever Dumbledore was off doing stuff for the Wizengamot.

Anyway, Mary understood, but there was no way she wanted to spend all day in the tent while Aunt Minnie worked. Luckily, that was what Tonks was there for. The Auror had dragged herself out of bed with a groan and promptly fallen over, having transfigured one of her legs shorter in her sleep for unknown reasons—being a metamorph seemed really weird sometimes. But after a couple cups of tea to bring her back to full consciousness, during which Mary put on her disguise and Hermione proudly presented her maps to Aunt Minnie (the Professor described them as ‘absolutely brilliant, a beautiful work of enchanting,’ making the Ravenclaw blush heavily), the three girls and their chaperone were set loose with the warning not to stray too far, and to be back in plenty of time to head to the Quidditch pitch together.

So the four of them set out into the mass of people, practically skipping with excitement. There were more mages than Mary had ever seen in one place, of all different ages and backgrounds, transforming what had been an empty field into something, well, magical. Many of them weren’t even trying to pass for muggles but she could hardly blame them. It was the World Cup!

Tonks didn’t seem to care, acting like she didn’t see anything—probably because if she started writing people up for violations, they’d never get to actually do anything today—but Hermione clearly disapproved, looking around and clucking her tongue. “This is why the Statute is doomed to fail,” she muttered to herself.

“Easy there, Grindelwald,” Tonks said with a startled laugh.

“Really, Maia,” Lilian agreed. “I know you didn’t mean it that way, but if you say things like that, everyone is going to think you’re a neo-Grindelwaldian or something.”

Actually, Mary could kind of see that. Professor D’Onofrio had had them discuss Grindelwald’s ideas in History back in the spring, and some of them hadn’t seemed that far off from things she’d heard Hermione say. Mostly stuff about overthrowing the nobility—that was why there were basically no European Noble Houses left, as the Grindelwaldians had executed them all—and ending the Statute of Secrecy.

It was weird to think, as people said, that Dumbledore had been the one to come up with a lot of their ideas and rhetoric. They’d read some of it for History, and Mary really couldn’t picture the Headmaster being that, well, radical.

“I didn’t say I want it to fail,” Hermione said—although Mary, as a Slytherin, was quick to notice she wasn’t actually denying it either. “Just that it will. If you read Arithmancy Quarterly—”

“Hey, look over there,” Lilian interrupted, probably in the hopes of keeping Hermione from lecturing them for the next half hour. “Isn’t that an awfully familiar group of gingers?”

It was. Mary hadn’t met all the Weasleys, just the younger five and their parents, but she’d seen the picture in the paper last summer when they’d gone to Egypt, and that definitely looked to be the entire Weasley clan standing around in front of a pair of tents—or, nearly all, she didn’t see the mum. The tents looked pretty small for eight people, but given the example of Aunt Minnie’s, that didn’t necessarily mean anything.

Without really discussing it, the four of them headed in that direction. Hermione was friends with Fred and George, Tonks was… exes? with Bill, and all three of the younger girls were friends with Ginny, so, why not? And it wasn’t long before their approach was noticed.

“Firecracker!”

A very familiar pair of twins came rushing towards them, causing Mary to flinch and step quickly out of the way—but luckily, they didn’t want her. They went straight for Hermione, embracing her with such force that they lifted her clean off the ground as she let out a high-pitched shriek.

“Get off me!” she complained, almost hidden from sight—only her brown ringlets were visible from where she was sandwiched between the two taller boys. “I just saw you idiots two weeks ago!”

They didn’t seem inclined to let her go, though, and Mary and Lilian exchanged amused looks at the fuss—Tonks had already split off from them, heading for the older Weasley boys. Mary still didn’t really get Hermione’s friendship with the twins, even if she’d accepted it. Most of the time, when she saw them together, Hermione seemed constantly exasperated by, well, pretty much everything they did. All they did was tease and provoke her, and yet, for some reason, she not only put up with it but willingly sought them out.

But she did like them, despite her frequent rants about how ridiculous they were, so Mary did her best to tolerate them.

Having finally released her from the group hug, the boys each put an arm around Hermione’s shoulders and practically dragged her up to where Tonks was standing with their older brothers and dad, announcing, “This is our Maia! She might look boring and studious, but don’t let that fool you. Bloody madwoman, this one is.”

“Why does everyone keep saying stuff like that?” Hermione complained.

Mary and Lilian were about to follow them, but then a voice behind them said, “Mary? What did you do to your hair? Where’s your glasses?”

“She’s in disguise, obviously,” Lilian said, smirking.

Damn, and she’d thought her disguise was really good this time. “How did you know?” Mary asked, a bit of a whine in her voice as she turned to face her own favorite Weasley (not that the competition was stiff).

Giving her such a scathing look that Mary was momentarily reminded of Snape, Ginny said, “Well, who else would be going around the World Cup with Hermione and Lilian?”

…She probably should have thought of that. Well, she’d just have to hope the Dark Lord and his follower didn’t know what her friends looked like. Pouting a bit at having been so quickly found out, she asked, “How’s it going, Ginny?”

“Gin.”

“Hm?”

“I’m going by Gin now,” the younger girl said, tossing her ponytail back over her shoulder. “It’s less girly.” Several feet away, her brother Ron rolled his eyes.

“Alright then,” Mary said, but since Ginny—Gin—hadn’t actually answered her question, they just kind of ended up standing there awkwardly for a second. But that happened a lot with Gin, somehow. Mary liked her, but didn’t quite get her, if that made sense.

“So…” Lilian said, apparently deciding to come to her rescue. “You excited for the game?”

At that, Gin lit up as quick as a Lumos charm. For all their differences, the one thing Gin and Mary had in common was their love of Quidditch. Like her, Gin played seeker, though she was only the reserve for her team (and only since last autumn, when Mary and Lilian had put the Gryffindors’ main seeker in hospital and Wood had finally realized he needed backups). Mary was hoping Gin might actually make the starting string this year, so they could fly against each other at the match in November.

“We’ve got incredible seats,” Gin gushed, which surprised Mary. She’d actually been wondering how the Weasleys even had the money to bring nearly their entire family to the World Cup, but certainly wasn’t rude enough to ask. But Gin went on to say, “One of Dad’s friends at the Ministry got them for us—we’ll be in the Top Box!” which she supposed explained it well enough.

Lilian let out a little gasp, and while Mary contained herself better, she felt pretty much the same. “I wish I could’ve gotten tickets like that,” she complained. “But Professor McGonagall said it would be a waste of money. I bet you’re going to be able to see everything.”

Not that their tickets were bad or anything, but, Top Box! Damn!

The three girls quickly fell into Quidditch talk, chattering away about the upcoming game. Gin’s brother Ron hovered awkwardly nearby, clearly eavesdropping, torn between his dislike of Mary and Lilian and his desire to talk Quidditch; none of the rest of his family seemed to be paying him much attention. Hermione and the twins had taken a seat on a nearby log and looked to be poring over the map she’d made—the one thing Mary knew they did have in common was an interest in enchanting. Meanwhile, Mr. Weasley and Prefect Weasley (he’d graduated now, but he’d always be Prefect Weasley to her) seemed to have wandered off after a rotund blonde man in ill-fitting Quidditch robes, while the two oldest boys and Tonks were talking quietly amongst themselves.

Mary glancing over in their direction seemed to remind Gin of her brothers’ presence, and she interrupted herself to say, “Oh, wait! Have you guys met Bill and Charlie yet?”

All Mary had to say was “No,” and then she and Lilian were being dragged along behind Gin in the direction of her oldest brothers. Ron, who’d looked like he was about to get up the nerve to actually speak to them, frowned and set off after his father and Prefect Weasley instead.

Mary knew of Bill and Charlie, at least. They’d been the years above and below Catherine at Hogwarts, respectively, but both in Gryffindor. (Actually, she had this theory that Catherine had fancied Bill, based on very little evidence other than that she’d once asked Percy to say hi to him for her.) Gin spoke more highly of them than the rest of her brothers, so Mary was already inclined to like them.

Not only had Bill put together the wards for the Grangers’ house—which, according to Tonks, were even stronger than she’d thought—but he’d also sent over a friend of his to (unsuccessfully) try and make them a magic-powered generator last summer. Plus, if he’d dated Tonks, she figured he had to be alright. All in all, she was inclined to like him already—but as she approached them, she thought to herself that the fact that he looked really cool certainly didn’t hurt.

Not that Mary was interested in him or anything—he had to be, what, nine or ten years older than her? (Still better than Snape, a small voice in her head reminded her). He was just impressive, was all, with the long hair and the earring and clothes that made him look like he was in a muggle rock band or something. She couldn’t really see what Tonks had been talking about when she’d called him a dork, but then, maybe he’d been different in school.

Though now that she saw him in person, she couldn’t help picturing him next to Catherine, with her long, schoolteacher-y robes and perfect braid, and had to fight back a smirk. The Urquharts would have a fit. (Ooh, what if she and him and Tonks had been in a love triangle, like in one of Catherine’s novels? That would be so exciting. Maybe she should come up with an excuse to mention Catherine and see how they reacted…)

Charlie, she knew less about, but she knew at least that he was a dragon keeper in Romania. Back in first year, Hagrid had mentioned him, and when she and her friends had been faced with trying to smuggle that ridiculous baby dragon out of the school, they’d roped the twins into sending a letter to him asking for help, and he’d sent a couple of his friends to pick Norbert up.

And, on a much less cheery note, she knew that he’d talked Gin out of killing herself the summer after her first year, when she was trying to deal with everything Riddle had put her through, so—yeah, Mary liked him just for that alone.

“Hey, Tonks,” Gin said—Mary hadn’t known they already knew each other. “Bill, Charlie, these are my friends, Mary Potter and Lilian Moon.” Then, like an afterthought, “Mary’s the brunette right now. She’s in disguise, I guess.”

Bill gave them a crooked smile, and out of the corner of her eye, Mary noticed Lilian blushing in response. Charlie, on the other hand, looked positively delighted. “These wouldn’t be the girls who gave us that gorgeous Norwegian Ridgeback two years ago, would they?”

Tonks, who already knew the story, immediately started laughing, while Gin’s mouth fell open. “They what?” Beside her, Bill looked confused, but was already starting to grin, like he knew this was going to be a good story.

Lilian burst into giggles—higher pitched than normal, maybe because of Bill—and Mary smirked. “Of course not,” she said. “We certainly could never admit to such a thing.” Then, unable to help herself, she added, “Want to hear what Professor Snape said when he found out? Or, you know, would have said, if there had been a dragon?”

“What dragon?!” Gin demanded, clearly furious to be out of the loop.

Mary and Lilian exchanged a glance before saying, in unison, putting on their best Snape voices, “For future note, Miss Potter, the proper procedure when one is aware of a ‘hypothetical’ class five highly dangerous magical creature on Hogwarts’ grounds is to report it to a professor, not sneak it off the top of the astronomy tower!”

Bill and Charlie and even Tonks, who’d heard this all before, cracked up, and Gin, while she’d folded her arms over her chest and seemed to be doing her best to resist, finally gave in and started laughing, too.

“How many points did he take off?” Charlie asked when he’d finally gotten ahold of himself.

“He didn’t take off any for the dragon,” Tonks interrupted—this had been her favorite part of the story. “Just for getting caught out of bounds. Told that pointy little git Draco off for trying to snitch on them, too. Wonder what Narcissa thought…”

Mary nodded smugly, enjoying Bill and Charlie’s stunned looks. “He said it was… ‘patently impossible’ for three first year girls to have secretly transported a dragon through the castle by ourselves. The third being Maia over—where’s Maia?”

The others turned to look as well, but the log where Hermione and the twins had been sitting was now deserted.

“Shit,” Lilian said. “We’ve already lost her.”

“Oops,” Tonks said, looking a little guilty, probably at having been too busy chatting with her friends to notice the disappearance of one of her three charges.

“Hang on a second,” Mary said, pulling out her copy of the campsite map, and the three Weasleys all leaned over it curiously. “Looks like she’s right next to us… Maia!” she shouted, in the hopes that Hermione would hear her.

A second later, Hermione’s head poked out through the flaps of one of the Weasleys’ tents. “What?”

Well, that made more sense than Hermione just disappearing without a word when she knew they had to be careful. But, “What are you doing in there?”

“Arithmancy.” And with that, she slipped back inside, the tent flaps swinging closed behind her.

Tonks snorted. “Is that a euphemism for something?”

“I don’t think so,” Mary said slowly. Sometimes she did wonder about Hermione and the twins, but she’d asked once last year, and Hermione had said she wasn’t dating either of them. Gin thought they were just friends too. “Leave it to Maia to do arithmancy at the bloody World Cup.”

“Did she make this map too?” Bill asked—right, he was into enchanting, the twins had mentioned it before. When Mary nodded, he said, “Impressive work for an… incoming fourth year, right?” And with that, he and Tonks launched into an alarmingly technical discussion of the mechanics of Hermione’s maps.

Mary waited until they’d left the Weasleys behind to interrogate Hermione on what she and the twins had actually been doing.

“They modeled the World Cup as part of their arithmancy OWL and wanted me to check their numbers before they put money down on it,” Hermione explained with a long-suffering sigh.

“Money?”

“Yeah, the profits they got from the sale of the basilisk. If they can find a decent bookie without their dad catching them first, they’re going to put half of it down on Ireland winning but Krum catching the snitch.”

Mary stopped walking for a second, exchanging a glance with Lilian, who seemed to be thinking exactly what she was. “Maia, I swear to Merlin, if you just spoiled the outcome of the World Cup for us…”

Faced with two very angry Quidditch fans, Hermione swallowed heavily and said, “Are you guys hungry? I’m hungry. Let’s go find some lunch!”

They didn’t feel like going all the way back to their tent, so instead, they found a stall that was selling pasties and ate as they walked, taking in the sights and sounds of all the various cultures around them. Mary knew the population of Magical Britain was pretty low, thanks to the war, but it was another thing to see just how many non-British mages there were—and that was just those who’d come out for the game!

Here and there, in the crowd of unfamiliar mages, they managed to spot various classmates of theirs, and as the afternoon stretched on, they came across a group sitting out in front of a relatively small tent. It was one of the more muggle-looking ones, and there wasn’t anything obviously magical about the scene in front of it, just kind of… weird.

For one, there was what looked to be a Persian rug spread out on the grass in front of it, with a bunch of cushions for seating. For another, there was this bizarre contraption that kind of looked like a vase, except much taller, with hoses coming out of the sides and glowing coals sitting on top. Sitting around on the cushions were Blaise, Theo, Daphne, and her little sister Tori, but even that was a weird sight, and not just because Blaise was… sucking on one of the hoses? No, what was weird was that Mary had never seen any of them in muggle clothes before.

At least, for purebloods, they weren’t doing too badly at fitting in. Blaise and Theo both wore button up shirts and slacks, though Blaise’s shirt was unbuttoned a good ways down his chest and his sleeves were rolled up—which was far more skin than she’d ever seen him show at school—while Theo was meticulously buttoned up (and, as usual, hunched over a book like he was attempting to pretend he was at home rather than at the World Cup). Daphne and Tori, meanwhile, were in fairly modest sundresses by muggle standards, but compared to their usual robes, they were practically half-naked.

Finally noticing them approaching, Blaise looked up, opened his mouth, and exhaled an enormous cloud of smoke—really, what was he doing? “Well, look who it is,” he said, one of those easy, confident smiles spreading over his face. “I assume the stranger there is Potter?” He made no move to get up and greet them, but caught her eye and held it for a moment. “And…?”

“Auror Tonks,” Tonks announced. “Mary’s bodyguard for the day. I think you know my mum?”

Blaise nodded, and Mary said, “Tonks, these are my yearmates in Slytherin—Blaise Zabini, Theodore Nott, and Daphne Greengrass—and this is Daphne’s sister Astoria, she’s a couple years below us.”

There were the general choruses of “Nice to make your acquaintance,” nothing too formal—they were in muggle clothes, after all, and Tonks clearly wasn’t into the whole Noble Houses thing. The boys didn’t even stand. Daphne, however, got to her feet with a smile that made Mary think she wanted to run over like the twins had, but was too proper to.

“I was wondering if I’d see you,” she said, hugging Lilian and then, slightly more hesitantly, Mary—they were friendly, but had never quite been as close as Lilian and Daphne were. Then, belatedly, she added, “Granger,” giving her a neutral sort of nod.

Hermione didn’t really like Daphne, though Mary wasn’t entirely sure why. She’d gotten the impression that Hermione thought she was a blood purist like Pansy and Tracey, even though she wasn’t. Yeah, Daphne hung out with them, but so did Lilian; Mary was the only girl in their cohort willing to put herself in the uncomfortable social situation of refusing to befriend them, and even then, she could play nice at tea parties and stuff.

In any case, Hermione was hardly going to be rude to her face, so she just responded, “Greengrass…es,” the plural added at the last second as she noticed Tori standing behind her sister.

Tori was an odd girl, Mary thought. Or, well, she actually seemed pretty normal. It was just generally odd the way that she seemed to fade into the background—a lot of the time, Mary genuinely forgot she was even around unless she said something. She’d never been sure if it was, like, a magic thing, some sort of anti-attention charm, or if Tori was just one of those people.

In any case, once they’d gotten through all the introductions, the girls all took a seat on the ground around Blaise’s contraption. “What is that?” Mary asked.

Blaise exhaled another cloud, this one in her direction, and she prepared herself to cough, but it didn’t actually smell that bad—nothing like the cigars Uncle Vernon would smoke sometimes. It was kind of… fruity, with a little bit of mint, she thought.

“It’s a hookah.” At her blank stare, he explained, “Muggles in India invented them for smoking flavored tobacco. I bought it in California; wanna try?”

Mary quickly shook her head, though Lilian extended a hand, and Blaise passed her the hose. “What were you in California for?”

“That’s where Seven lives.” Seven, of course, being Blaise’s mother’s seventh husband. “Mother and I visited him earlier in the summer.”

“Wait, I thought he lived with you,” Mary said, frowning.

“No, he’s got his own business in America. That’s probably why he’s lasted this long: she doesn’t even have to see him all that much.”

She was never quite sure how to react when Blaise joked openly about his mum killing off her husbands. By the uncomfortable look on Hermione’s face, she felt the same. Tonks, on the other hand, hardly seemed to react, which was kind of weird. For an Auror, she didn’t seem to care that much about lawbreaking.

Blaise smirked at Mary as though he knew exactly how uncomfortable he was making her and was quite pleased with himself, and she suddenly remembered what Snape had told her about him being not only the best mind mage in the school but an empath as well. Does that mean he’s reading my thoughts right now? If he was, though, he didn’t show any sign of it.

“So!” Lilian said loudly, coming to their rescue once again. “Have you guys seen anyone else from school?”

“The rest of our year is over at Draco’s tent,” Daphne said, rolling her eyes. “I’d avoid him if I were you. His family has seats in the Top Box and he won’t talk about anything else.”

Mary and her friends immediately started snickering.

“What?”

“The Weasleys are sitting in the Top Box,” Lilian explained, smirking broadly. “Who thinks Draco and the Little Weasel will make it through the match without cursing each other?”

Daphne hummed like she was actually considering the question. “Well, I think Draco will restrain himself, if only because Lady Malfoy will be there. The Little Weasel, on the other hand…”

Ron Weasley and Draco Malfoy were about equally unpopular, both within their own Houses as well as the rest of the school. Each boy had their own clique in their year—the other third year Gryffindor boys, for Weasley, and Vinnie, Greg, Pansy, Tracey, and sometimes Millie for Draco—but outside of that, they were generally considered to be, well, twats. One of the main reasons for that was that they couldn’t seem to be in the same place for more than a few minutes at a time without picking a fight with each other.

Mary wasn’t sure which of them she liked less. Draco was a racist git, and she had to deal with him more, but at least they could get along when they played Quidditch together. Weasley, on the other hand, she had less chance to encounter in her daily life, but she’d also had no real positive interactions with him to balance out his general boorishness.

In any case, she had been jealous of the Weasleys’ seats, but if being in the Top Box meant being caught in between those two boys, she’d rather stick with her perfectly decent seats in one of the higher rows.

None of them besides Mary and Lilian were really Quidditch fans, so they ended up chatting about the upcoming year instead of the match, Tonks listening with quiet interest to the Slytherin gossip. As they talked, Mary couldn’t help but sneak a glance at Theo, who was quiet as usual. His father was a Death Eater, so he must have noticed his Mark changing, right? Had he told his son yet? She wondered what Theo would do if the Dark Lord came back. Would his dad want him to follow him into his service?

There was no way Theo would want to be a Death Eater. He was the only one in their year from a Death Eater family who didn’t follow Draco around, and he absolutely hated his father. All Theo seemed to want was to be left to read in peace; he wouldn’t be looking forward to the Dark Lord’s return any more than she would.

He wouldn’t be the only one, either. While there were a lot of blood purist idiots in their House, she didn’t think that even most of them would want to become Death Eaters. It was one thing for Draco and Pansy to go around bragging about their blood status and calling people mudbloods, but it was something else entirely to let an insane Dark Lord put some kind of magical Mark on you, or to have to fight and risk your life in his service.

She was still wrapping her head around the enormity of it: just how many people would be completely fucked if he came back. It drew her into herself, making the voices of her friends fade into the background.

Her melancholy was interrupted when the tent opened, revealing an incredibly beautiful olive-skinned witch. One whom Mary had seen once before—twice, if she counted the old photograph of her, Bellatrix, and the Dark Lord. She stepped out into the midst of teenagers, and for a second, all conversation stopped.

Like her son and his friends, Lady Zabini was dressed rather formally for someone who was meant to be camping, but unlike them, her outfit was—well. Between the v-shaped neckline that plunged down practically to her navel, the lace-trimmed hemline that skimmed the tops of her thighs, and the almost sheer quality of the fabric—not enough to really see anything, but enough to suggest the dip of a waist and the swell of her chest—it was closer to lingerie than anything that could reasonably be termed a ‘dress.’

Never mind comparing her to other witches—Mary had never seen a muggle dress that way before, at least outside of movies. Certainly not one of Lady Zabini’s age.

Beside her, both of them having gotten to their feet, Hermione literally gasped, which Mary thought was a bit rude of her. Even if the witch looked like a femme fatale out of a bad movie, there was no need to react like that. (Admittedly, Mary had been staring, but at least she hadn’t made noises about it.) But then Hermione said, “You’re Mirabella Zabini!”

An amused (and unfairly attractive) smile spread across the witch’s face, one which made the family resemblance clear. (Which, given that Blaise was much darker skinned than his mum and had those weird, almost golden eyes, wasn’t usually that strong.) “Well, yes.”

Letting out another slightly incoherent noise—this one, Mary thought, was meant to express frustration—Hermione said, “No, I mean… obviously you are. But I didn’t know that you were that Mirabella Zabini.” At the questioning looks of all of the other girls—because Theo was still trying to ignore them, and Blaise rarely betrayed emotions other than detached amusement—she explained, “The CEO of Leinster Electromagnetic Systems? Basically the biggest tech company in Ireland? She’s been on TV and everything!”

“What’s a CEO?” Lilian asked, and Daphne leaned over to whisper something to her. Mary was momentarily surprised that Daphne knew, but then, she and Blaise were practically engaged, so she had to know what his mum did.

Still looking amused, Lady Zabini extended a hand. Which, normally purebloods didn’t shake hands, but given that she apparently ran a muggle company, and that Hermione had made her status as a muggleborn very obvious with that little outburst, it was hardly surprising. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss…”

Hermione went a bit pink, though whether from embarrassment or at the weight of Lady Zabini’s attention, Mary wasn’t sure. “Granger,” she said quickly, shaking the witch’s hand almost a little too enthusiastically. “Hermione Granger.”

Mary had to fight back a laugh, remembering Hermione making fun of Draco for introducing himself that way on the train back in first year. But then Lady Zabini’s attention was on her, and Mary found herself momentarily flustered as well. “I’m Mary Potter,” she said, having mostly given up on the idea of pretending to be anyone else for now. In response to Lady Zabini’s arched eyebrow—almost like Snape’s, actually—she added, “I’m, er, in disguise.”

Lady Zabini’s lips twitched, but she shook Mary’s hand as well, actually taking it between both of hers for a second with a sort of warm familiarity that made Mary feel a little giddy. “A pleasure.”

Then, to Tonks, with a broad smile, “And Nymphadora. Tell me, how is your mother? It’s been some time since I’ve seen her.”

“She’s… well, thanks,” Tonks said, looking slightly uncomfortable, though Mary wasn’t sure if it was at the use of her hated first name or the older witch’s familiarity.

Lilian introduced herself as well, but Mary was too… something to pay much attention. Starstruck, maybe? It wasn’t just that Lady Zabini was so beautiful that she made Mary feel like an entirely different species in comparison. But also, every single move she made was so bloody elegant—and when she looked you in the eyes and focused her whole attention on you, it was like she was the only person in the universe.

Watching her, it sort of made Mary think, So this is what Blaise is imitating. Like, the way he carried himself at school, the way he interacted with people, made so much more sense when she realized that he was just doing an imperfect impression of his mother. Was she a mind mage too? It might explain her… aura, or whatever it was that made it so difficult to take one’s eyes off of her.

Finally, Lady Zabini smiled warmly and announced that she was off to go meet with some people from the Ministry about something or another, Mary wasn’t really listening. Though that was another weird thought: How can she be the CEO of a muggle tech company and the Director of Education at the same time? Plus, you know, all the murders. When she left, Mary and her friends watched her go, somehow unable to tear their eyes away.

“Circe, Morgan, and Lilith,” Lilian groaned, dropping down to sit on a cushion beside Daphne. “I wish I was, like, one tenth as pretty as her.”

“She’s always been like that,” Tonks chimed in. “Or, that’s what mum says. She used to spend a lot of time at their house when they were growing up—she was friends with my, er, aunt. She writes us sometimes—I think she thinks of us as family, kind of?” She sounded bemused by that, like she didn’t really know why Lady Zabini would do that. “Anyway, yeah, beautiful witch, even if she is a bit…”

As she settled back onto her cushion, Mary snuck a glance at Blaise, wondering if he’d be uncomfortable with them talking about his mum this way, but he was already smirking at her, like he’d just been waiting for her to meet his eyes. Was that an empath thing? Or just, like, a Zabini thing?

“Does she always dress like that?” Hermione asked, which Mary had also been wondering, but she hadn’t wanted to be the one to raise the subject.

“Oh, no,” Blaise said, with that sort of light, casual tone he got when he was teasing people sometimes. “She prefers not to wear clothes at all when we’re at home, but, you know, people take offense to that kind of thing in public.”

Despite having expected Blaise to say something outrageous, Mary somehow managed to choke on her own spit, prompting an unseemly coughing fit. Tonks smacked her on the back hard enough to almost knock her over, as though deciding that part of her bodyguard duties involved rescuing Mary from her own stupidity.

“You’re taking the piss,” Lilian insisted.

For the first time since he’d nodded hello to the four of them, Theo looked up from his book. “I really wish he was.”

Blaise snickered. “Don’t be such a prude, Theo. She usually throws a robe or something on when we have guests over.”

“She only started doing that two years ago,” Theo countered, “after Justin called her a MILF.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Don’t worry about it, Potter,” Blaise said, in a patronizing sort of way that made Mary bristle, but before she could retort, Lilian spoke up.

“Since when does Justin Finch-Fletchley hang out at your house?”

“Oh, we’ve known each other for ages,” Blaise said. “Since before we even came to Hogwarts.”

“Wait, isn’t he a muggleborn?” Hermione asked.

“Yeah, his family were friends with Jonathan—husband number four, I mean. Mother was actually the first one to realize that Justin was magical.”

Mary immediately caught the implications of that, exchanging a look with Hermione and Lilian. “Your mum’s fourth husband was a muggle?”

“Four and Six, actually. Where do you think she got the tech company from?”

Huh. Well, Mary supposed it would be easier to get away with killing your husbands if some of them were muggles, given that the majority of mages wouldn’t care as much about them. It was unusual for someone of Lady Zabini’s social standing to marry a muggle, but then, her social standing was already… unique.

The ‘Lady’ on her name was added out of respect, but Blaise’s mum wasn’t actually a Lady. Unlike the Greengrasses and Notts, the Zabinis weren’t a Noble House. In fact, they were technically below even Houses like the Moons, who at least had close ties to the nobility—Lilian’s mum had been a Rosier. From what Mary had heard, the Zabinis had been an unremarkable merchant family in Italy, neither especially rich nor politically powerful, and in Britain, they’d been all but unknowns.

These days, however, the Zabinis were considered basically as close to a Noble House as one could be without actually having a seat on the Wizengamot, but that was entirely on the basis of Lady Zabini’s fortune and position in the Ministry. Which put Blaise in a kind of unique position, being simultaneously an outsider among the noble kids without actually being beneath them in status (no matter what Draco liked to imply sometimes).

In some ways, he was her opposite: the Potter seat was her birthright, and yet, she never felt quite like she fit in in that world, having only been introduced to it at the age of eleven and having to struggle to learn things that her peers took for granted. Honestly, she’d say Blaise was more of a young noble pureblood than she was—and yet, because his House was just himself and his mother, who was… unconventional, at best, he could get away with acting in ways the rest of them never could.

For instance, lounging on the ground puffing on a muggle tobacco device with his shirt half-off. Catching her looking—not checking him out or anything, just kind of noting his audacity, the confidence with which he carried himself—he waggled his eyebrows, and she quickly looked away.

No, he wasn’t much like the other stuffy pureblood boys at all, but neither was he a commoner. He was just… a Zabini.

They took the long way back to their tent, just to people-watch some more, which was how they ended up in the Irish section. It was obvious the moment they crossed the border, as more than a few of the tents were all decked out in green shamrocks. More tastefully, Mary spotted a cluster sporting flags showing the crest of House Ingham, one of the five Ancient Houses of the Wizengamot.

Apparently Hermione noticed this too, because she made a thoughtful noise. “It’s curious, isn’t it?”

“Hm?”

“I mean, there’s no Magical Ireland—so why is there an Irish Quidditch team?”

“Beats me.” Mary knew that there was a faction of Gaelic Houses in the Wizengamot, led by the Inghams, who wanted to secede from Magical Britain, but Catherine had never said anything about how that connected to Quidditch.

“Hey, maybe they know,” Lilian said, nodding her head in the direction of a group of half a dozen boys who looked to be around their age. Before either of them could respond, she was already running off in their direction, raising a hand in greeting.

Mary and Hermione exchanged a look. “A galleon says she just thinks they’re cute.”

“No bet,” Hermione replied. “You’d win. Come on, then.”

Arm in arm, Tonks trailing like a shadow, they followed Lilian up to the group, where they were greeted rather enthusiastically and immediately provided with butterbeers. (This time, since they weren’t talking to people she already knew, Mary introduced herself as Elizabeth Granger. Unlike on the train, no one seemed skeptical of the claim that she and Hermione were sisters—that, or they just didn’t care.)

The boys, it turned out, went to… a school whose name Mary could never seem to remember. It didn’t help that Gaelic mages didn’t even pronounce things the same as Irish muggles would. In any case, she knew it was the largest school of magic on the British Isles, even if it wasn’t so famous as Hogwarts. She’d never met anyone who actually went there, though, and was pretty curious to hear about it.

Between Lilian’s flirting, Hermione’s interrogation of the amused boys on the political situation and the differences between the two magical cultures, Tonks’ easygoing enthusiasm, and Mary’s enjoyment of talking to friendly people who had absolutely no idea who she was, they very nearly missed the time at which they’d promised to be back to the tent to head up to the stadium with Aunt Minnie. Even then, they practically had to drag Hermione away, as she seemed much more interested in asking about traditional Gaelic wizarding practices than the upcoming match.

They ran into Mary’s guardian—almost literally—on her way out of the tent. “Oh, there you girls are,” she scolded, despite the map folded in her hand suggesting that she’d been watching them make their way there. “Come on, we don’t want to be late.”

Mary noted with amusement that Aunt Minnie looked nearly as excited as herself and Lilian. As they set out over the grounds, a deep, booming gong sounded, and Lilian let out a little shriek of excitement. It’s time!

Chapter Text

“I can’t believe you spoiled the World Cup for us,” Mary grumbled to Hermione as they made their way down from the stands. “Who knew arithmancy could be used for such evil?”

“Hey, don’t blame me. Blame the boys.”

“It was still amazing, though, wasn’t it?” Lilian asked, sighing dreamily. “Did you see how Tricia Mullet flew? I’ve got to practice extra this year if I want to fly like that someday.”

“Never mind Mullet, what about Krum?” Mary demanded. “That Wronski Feint he pulled off was incredible.” Tonks made an appreciative noise from behind her.

“It was impressive,” Aunt Minnie agreed, before fixing Mary with a stern look. “But you best not be getting any ideas.”

“Of course not. Wouldn’t dream of it,” Mary said as Lilian stifled a laugh. She supposed her guardian wasn’t aware that she and Draco had an ongoing competition where they both tried to get the other with a Wronski Feint, dating back to their first year flying class. After all, it wasn’t like they pulled that kind of stunt against each other in their games, and Aunt Minnie never watched their practices.

Anyway, if she didn’t like that, she’d probably would be even less pleased to know that Mary flew Suicide Dives on occasion, but there was no reason to tell her. Flint had forbidden Mary from doing that in practice anymore—though she’d snuck away once and tried it on her Firebolt, just to see how fast she could go. Wonder if Krum’s flown a Suicide Dive before… He must have. If only I could practice with him!

The three girls stuck close to Aunt Minnie and Tonks as they made their way through the rowdy crowd. People were singing and laughing, running around and hugging their friends, and leprechauns kept shooting over their heads (because apparently both teams used non-human beings as their mascots, which seemed a bit racist, but whatever).

“Oi!” a voice shouted. “British girls!”

It took Mary a moment to realize the voice meant them; she and her friends turned to see the same group of Irish boys they’d been talking to earlier that day. They looked a bit… well, like they’d been drinking, approaching them all in a cheerful, disorganized mob.

“Aunt Minnie, these are the boys we met earlier, from, er…”

“An Ollscoil Choiteann Caoimhe Ní Bhláithín,” one of the boys said cheerfully.

“Yes, that.”

“Minerva McGonagall,” Aunt Minnie said immediately, putting on her manners despite looking a bit perturbed at the boys’ state. “Professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”

After briefly introducing themselves, the seeming leader of the group said, “We’re having a party down at our tent to celebrate the win and were wondering if you girls wanted to join us.”

Mary turned to look at her guardian, but wasn’t surprised in the least when she pursed her lips and said, “I’m afraid we have an early portkey tomorrow, and it’s already rather late.”

Though Mary knew better than to fight her on this, Lilian did not. “Come on, Professor,” she complained. “It’s the World Cup! Surely we can go with them for an hour or so; there’s still plenty of time till morning. Tonks, you’d go with us, right?”

“Yeah, sure,” the Auror said with a shrug.

Though Mary was briefly hopeful, Aunt Minnie’s expression didn’t change. “I’m afraid not. I promised your parents’ I’d look after you all, and I’m hardly going to let you run off so late with these… young men.” Said in a tone of voice which implied ‘hooligans.’

Turning back to the boys with an apologetic smile, Mary said, “It was lovely to meet you all.” Personally, she didn’t care that much about hanging out with them more; she’d already gotten what she wanted out of the night.

Lilian added, pouting slightly, “Yeah, it was great meeting you. If you guys are ever at Hogwarts—or just in Britain in general—ask for Lilian Moon, alright? That’s Moon, like, the one in the sky.”

Mary and Hermione exchanged a look, both suppressing laughter. “Like the one in the sky.” Bloody hell, when had Lilian become so boy crazy? Aunt Minnie basically had to drag her away from the boys and back in the direction of their tent. She stopped sulking quickly enough, however, once Mary got her back on the subject of the match.

As she had the night before, Aunt Minnie turned in early—or, earlyish, it was already fairly late thanks to the match—warning them that they’d need to be up bright and early to catch their Portkey in the morning. Hermione followed not long after, because “if all you’re going to do is recount the match to each other over and over, I’m just going to go to sleep. I mean, honestly, we were all there! We saw it.”

Sometimes Mary didn’t even know why she even bothered with Hermione. That girl had no appreciation for the best sport of all time.

Tonks stayed up with them a bit longer, occasionally chiming in, but mostly just listening with a distracted grin on her face—but eventually even she got tired of the Quidditch talk, crawling into her bed and leaving Mary and Lilian at the table, still excitedly reliving every play that Mullet and Krum had made.

Mary had expected they’d stay up half the night talking, but about thirty minutes after Tonks had fallen asleep, Lilian said, “I’ve been thinking…”

“Yeah?”

Lilian shot a glance at Tonks and Hermione, as if double-checking that they weren’t listening, before turning back to Mary. “Okay, so, the Irish section isn’t that far from here. Everyone else is asleep, and we have those maps that Maia made…”

Mary immediately understood what she was suggesting, and didn’t like it at all. “No.”

“Oh, come on, Lizzie, don’t be such a goody two shoes. It’s not like it’s dangerous out there—we were walking around all day without any issues, and there’s still plenty of people out, it’s not even that late. We can just go for, like, an hour or two and be back before anyone misses us.”

“And if Hermione wakes up and freaks out and tells Aunt Minnie we’re gone? Or Tonks?”

Lilian rolled her eyes. “We’ll leave them a note. They can check the map and see that we’re where we say we are and that nothing’s happened. Anyway, Tonks is cool. I don’t think she’d rat us out to McGonagall, not unless she thinks we’re actually in danger or something.”

Mary wasn’t so certain of that. Even if she didn’t tell, Tonks would probably feel obligated to come after them and drag them back, which would be a shite way to repay her for coming along at the last minute. And if Hermione was the one to wake up and she didn’t tell, she’d probably sit there and fret over the map, unable to sleep until they got back.

Plus, she’d promised Snape she wouldn’t do anything stupid. Neglecting to tell him that she thought the Dark Lord might possibly be trying to attack someone at the World Cup was already stupid enough; she’d barely been able to justify that to herself. Sneaking out after dark, without the knowledge of her guardian or bodyguard, to hang out with a group of older boys they’d only met that day (who’d already been drinking) was a smidge too far.

“We don’t know that it’s safe,” Mary pointed out. She didn’t want to tell Lilian about her dream, not right now, but… “You know there’s been rumors that the Dark Lord is regaining his strength.”

Scoffing, Lilian said, “Yeah, regaining. If he was strong enough to attack the bloody World Cup, we’d have heard about it. Theo would’ve warned us or something. Don’t be so paranoid.”

“I’m not—” She broke off, frustrated. “Forget the Dark Lord. We don’t even know those guys. What if they turn out to be, like, creeps?”

“We talked to them for ages today! They’re perfectly nice and normal blokes. And there’s plenty of people around, it’s not like we’re following them out to some deserted shack or something.”

“But if something does go wrong, no one will know to look for us! They might not even notice we’re missing until the morning.”

Lilian, however, wasn’t swayed by that logic. Folding her arms over her chest, she said, “You’re acting like such a baby, Liz. We’re fourteen. That’s totally old enough to go hang out with some boys, especially with lots of other people around. Are you a little girl who has to do whatever McGonagall says?”

Why the hell is she acting like this? Here and there, since her outburst in April, Mary had noticed Lilian seeming a little different. Wilder, maybe. Wanting to take more risks, to do stuff just for the thrill of it. Even in the way she’d flown during practice in the final months of the term. And she’d always been a bit pushy when it came to things she wanted to do that Mary wasn’t sure about. But she was just being stupid!

“You’re the one who’s acting like a child,” Mary snapped. “Maybe I just don’t think it’s that fun to go hang out with a bunch of stupid drunk boys we don’t even know, just to prove that we’re grown up or something. What’s the bloody point? Anyway, if you want to go so bad, I don’t know why you need me to go with you, unless you’re too scared to walk across a campsite without me holding your hand.”

She’d hoped to make Lilian back off. What she hadn’t expected was for her to scowl and say, “Yeah, well, maybe I’ll just go alone then. It’s gotta be way more fun than hanging around here having a slumber party like a bunch of little kids.”

She seemed happy enough to have a slumber party last night. Unless she’d just been pretending, humoring Mary or something. Glaring right back, she hissed, “Fine, do whatever you want!”

Mary sat at the table, arms folded over her chest, as Lilian stuffed her map into her pocket and headed for the door. At the last moment, though, her concern overcame her anger. “Lils, come on,” she said. “Don’t be an idiot. Let’s just hang out here.”

Despite being called an idiot, Lilian didn’t look angry this time. She just gave Mary a fond, slightly patronizing smile, like she was being a silly little kid, and said, “You worry too much, Lizzie. I’m just gonna pop over there for an hour or two. I’ll be back before you know it.”

Before Mary could reconsider her decision not to tell Lilian about the dream, her friend slipped out of the tent and disappeared into the night. The increase in volume of the celebrations as the tent flap opened and closed made Hermione stir a little in her sleep, and Mary turned to watch her, half hoping that she would wake up—they could wake Tonks too, go after Lilian and drag her back—but she only hid her face against her pillow and settled down again. Tonks, on the other hand, didn’t even stir, sprawled flat on her back and snoring, looking dead to the world.

With a sigh, Mary changed into her nightdress and crawled into bed. She wasn’t going to waste her time sitting awake looking at the map and waiting for Lilian to come back. If she thought she was old enough to just go off whenever and wherever she liked, then Mary didn’t need to worry about her.

And yet, she did. She tossed and turned, despite telling herself that even if the Dark Lord did come here tonight, there were thousands of mages attending, and he was hardly going to do anything to a random pureblood teenage witch. She tortured herself with thoughts of waking up in the morning to find Lilian still gone—of having to explain to Aunt Minnie that, after she’d agreed to escort them out here, Mary had just let her friend sneak off with some strange boys—of all of the things that could go wrong.

Part of her did wonder if Lilian was right—if this was a normal teenage thing to do, and Mary was just being a sheltered little kid and worrying over nothing. It wasn’t like she’d never snuck out after curfew at Hogwarts before, it was just… Well, it was the dream, mostly, and what Snape had told her. Maybe she ought to have told Lilian all that from the start, but if she had, that might have gotten them on the subject of the Dark Lord being her grandfather, and she just didn’t feel comfortable with sharing that with Lilian yet. She barely felt comfortable sharing it with Hermione, and if she was honest with herself, Mary was significantly closer to her than to Lilian. Practically sisters, even.

So maybe she couldn’t blame Lilian for running off when she hadn’t told her everything, but on the other hand, she was being totally stupid. What was so great about hanging out with those guys anyway? Why would that be more fun than just staying up late talking about Quidditch with her best friend? Sure, some of them had been fit enough, but Mary just didn’t get why that would make Lilian so desperate to see them again.

At some point, despite her worries, Mary must have fallen into an uneasy sleep, because she awoke to Hermione shaking her shoulder, saying, “Lizzie, wake up!”

“Mmph?” Mary mumbled, sitting halfway up on her bed and looking around blearily—without her glasses or contacts, she couldn’t see much. “What’s going on?”

“There’s something happening outside,” Hermione said, sounding near tears. Tonks was standing behind her, the sharp alertness on her face a stark contrast to the snoring, drooling witch Mary had seen before dozing off. “And Lilian’s missing.”

“She went off to find those Irish boys,” Mary mumbled, grabbing her wand and summoning her glasses from her bag, grateful she’d brought them as a backup. “I tried to stop her.”

“That foolish girl!” Mary turned to see Aunt Minnie standing in the entrance to the bedroom, a thunderous expression on her face. Oops.

Tonks was already heading over to the entrance to the tent. She stuck her head out, and for a moment, the commotion outside resolved itself into screams and jeers. When she retreated back in, she suddenly looked every inch the steely-eyed Auror Mary sometimes forgot she was.

“The crowd’s rioting,” she said to Aunt Minnie. “We need to go.”

Aunt Minnie’s face went pale. “Up, now,” she said, and Mary scrambled to obey. “Do you have your Portkey?”

Mary did, and was about to say so, but at the last moment, she hesitated. “I won’t use it,” she said. “Not without Lilian.”

“There is no time for your foolishness, lass!” Aunt Minnie snapped. “You two will take the Portkey to the Ministry. Miss Tonks and I will find Miss Moon and apparate her to safety.”

As Mary hurried to throw her robe on over her nightdress, Hermione, who was already dressed, came to her rescue. “Elizabeth’s right,” she said. “There’s anti-apparition wards everywhere but the woods, isn’t there? If we leave, then once you find Lilian, you’ll have to fight through… whatever is out there in order to get outside them. But if we go with you, then the second we find Lilian, we can all take the Portkey and get out of here.”

“All of you can go,” Tonks interjected. “I’ll need to stay and help the other Aurors. And they’re right, Professor. It’s the fastest way to get all the kids out of here.”

Aunt Minnie stalled for a moment, clearly torn between her desire to get Mary to safety as quickly as possible and the knowledge that she was responsible for all three girls during this expedition—and, probably, realizing that she couldn’t actually make Mary use the Portkey if she refused, not without going with her or talking Tonks into it. Finally, she threw up her hands. “Oh, blast it! There’s no time for this.” Glancing down at her own map, she said, “She’s still at the Irish camp.”

Tonks nodded. “I’ll take the lead,” she said. “Mary, Hermione, behind me. Wands out. Professor, cover our backs.”

Looking a little relieved to have an actual Auror taking charge of their expedition, Aunt Minnie gave the younger girls one last sharp look and said, “If we get cornered or separated, take the Portkey and go.”

Mary nodded, despite having no intention of doing so if both her friends weren’t with her. Wand in hand, she followed Tonks out into the night—Hermione at her side, Aunt Minnie bringing up the rear.

It was a different world than the one they’d left behind. The laughing, singing crowd had vanished; those few people who were left were fleeing into the woods. Further off, there was a group of mages in dark robes—too far for Mary to see their faces. But as they got nearer she could see, in the air above them, four figures—two large, two small—dangling in the air, their bodies contorted like puppets. Beneath them, the mages were laughing.

“Oh my god,” Hermione whispered.

“Wait,” Mary hissed, stopping and catching Tonks by the arm, trying not to look at the figures in the air. “We should—hide ourselves. Disillusionment Charms? And maybe a Notice-Me-Not.” She was a bit ashamed it had taken her so long to think of that—and that she hadn’t even thought to use the cantrips, which were somewhere in her bag—but, well, she had just woken up.

“Good idea,” Tonks said, looking equally annoyed with herself for not thinking of it first, though her eyes kept flickering back to the group of dark figures as though itching to run off and confront them. Her voice was terse as she said, “Professor, help me out?”

Aunt Minnie nodded, and she and Tonks began to cast spells on the two girls—Mary could cast those charms herself, thanks to Snape, but she supposed it was better if the actual adults did so. Plus, they seemed to have more charms in mind than the ones she’d suggested. Some, Mary recognized as stealth charms; another, which she didn’t recognize at all, caused strands of blue light to stretch between herself, Tonks, Aunt Minnie, and Hermione for a second before disappearing. Afterward, Mary realized that despite the stealth charms hiding them, she could somehow feel exactly where the others were. Something to make sure they didn’t lose each other, then.

Finally, Tonks cast a Point-Me Charm, her wand spinning on her nearly-invisible palm to show the way to Lilian. Good thing it’s her that’s lost and not me, Mary thought: those charms didn’t work on her, not since Snape had used that tracking spell on her.

(Gods and Powers, Snape was going to be so angry with her after this.)

Quietly, the four of them set off towards the Irish camp. It wasn’t too far of a walk, thankfully, and it wouldn’t bring them past the group of dark-robed mages, but it did bring them a little closer. Close enough to recognize the man floating in the air as the muggle who’d given them the map of the campsite, which probably meant that the other three people were his wife and children. The woman was upside-down, her nightdress falling down to reveal her underthings, and she tried to cover herself. The mages underneath were jeering drunkenly at her.

Something brushed her arm, and she jumped, but the spell told her it was Hermione—and a second later, she felt her friend’s fingers intertwine with hers. They hurried onward, clinging to each other in their horror and fear.

There were Aurors there, at least, so Tonks didn’t have to feel too bad about being unable to help; they seemed to be trying to rescue the muggles, but couldn’t quite get through the crowd below them to whoever was holding the spell. Averting her eyes, Mary quickly hurried on, the spell tugging her chest in the direction of her guard.

Finally, in the midst of some deserted tents decked out in Irish colors, they drew to a stop. “The charm says she should be right by here…” Tonks muttered.

Lilian had taken Snape’s Slythering course with her, which meant she knew all the same stealth charms. “She’s probably hiding,” Mary said.

Tonks must have canceled the spells on them, because they all shimmered into sight at once. A second later, sure enough, a trembling voice said, “Lizzie! Maia!” They turned to see Lilian curled up on the ground, partially hidden in the shadow of a tent.

The four of them rushed over, dropping down to kneel beside her. “Are you hurt?” Tonks asked.

“Just my ankle,” Lilian said. “The boys ran off. Left me here.”

“Those bastards!” Hermione hissed, surprising Mary—not so much that she’d cussed, but that she’d done so in front of adults.

“We’ll get you fixed up once we’re gone from here,” Aunt Minnie said. “Mary, your Portkey?”

Mary was in the middle of rummaging in her pocket when an eerie green light fell over her. Freezing, she slowly turned her head upwards. There, floating in the sky, was the same symbol she’d seen on Snape’s arm a few days before.

The Dark Mark.

“I—I should go,” Tonks said. But she didn’t move, seeming torn, not wanting to abandon Mary and the others until they’d gotten to safety. She just stared up at the sky.

Aunt Minnie, too, had gone very still, and when she turned back to them, her face was a terrified, frozen mask in the green glow of the Mark. “Mary,” she said, her tone very flat. “The Portkey. Now.”

“Got it!” Mary held out the business card, gripping it by a single corner between two fingers—there wouldn’t be room, otherwise—and Aunt Minnie, Hermione, and Lilian each took hold of the remaining three corners.

Then Aunt Minnie said, “Portus!” and the four of them were ripped away to safety, leaving Tonks alone under the glowing sky.

They landed in a heap in an empty, dark Ministry office, Lilian letting out a little moan of pain as the movement jarred her ankle. It was so different than the hellish scene at the World Cup—quiet, normal—that Mary felt almost as though she was dreaming.

As she clung to Hermione, Aunt Minnie turned her wand on Lilian, casting a quick healing charm. “That’ll do for now,” she said. “You’ll want to have someone take a look at that in the morning. Now, Miss Moon, I’ll take you through the Floo to your home. Mary, Hermione, can you girls Floo back home without me? I’ll join you as soon as I see Miss Moon safely back to her parents.”

Mary was a bit surprised that Aunt Minnie was leaving her and Hermione, even for a short time, but then, Lilian was the one who’d been hurt, and splitting into groups of two meant that no one had to travel alone. Plus, it wasn’t like the Death Eaters—because that was what that crowd had been, she was pretty sure—could have somehow followed them to the Ministry.

Hugging Lilian goodbye and promising to send an owl in the morning, Mary watched her disappear through the fire, followed by Aunt Minnie. It was their turn next, but Hermione seemed a little out of it, staring off into space and only reacting when Mary gently touched her arm.

“You alright?”

“Oh! Yes…” Hermione said quietly, looking at her with tired, haunted eyes. “It’s just… those poor muggles.”

“Yeah.”

“And that Mark… You know what it is, don’t you?”

“It’s the Dark Mark,” Mary said. “I saw Snape’s when he visited me.”

“Yes, that, but also… the Death Eaters used to cast it into the sky like that when they’d killed.”

Mary’s blood ran cold. Whoever it was that the Dark Lord had been after, he must have found him. And she had just let it happen—hadn’t even warned Snape or the Aurors or anyone that someone at the World Cup might be in danger, not wanting them to stop her from going.

Now it was Hermione’s turn to ask, “Lizzie, are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Mary lied, shaking it off. “Let’s go home.”

They stumbled their way out of the fire grate in the Grangers’ Floo Shed. The wards must have alerted them, because despite it being the middle of the night, Emma and Dan met them at the door. Both were in their dressing gowns, and Emma’s golden curls were more disheveled than Mary had ever seen them. Hermione took one look at them and threw herself into her mother’s arms, bursting into tears.

Mary hung back, wanting comfort but not feeling quite bold enough to hug her best friend’s mum, and Dan caught her eyes. “Beth, what happened?”

“Aunt Minnie will be here in a moment,” she said, a little dazedly, instead of answering the question. “She’s just seeing Lilian home. Tonks stayed behind, to—to help.”

At last, Hermione released Emma, who examined the two girls with dry, shrewd eyes. “Why don’t we all sit down,” she said, putting an arm around her daughter’s shoulders and leading her to the sitting room sofa without waiting for a response. Mary trailed them, taking a seat on Hermione’s other side, while Dan sat in the armchair.

Since Hermione was still sniffling, it seemed like Mary had better be the one to explain. “There was—some kind of riot, or, attack,” she said. “Or—I don’t know. It was the Death Eaters, I’m pretty sure. The people who used to follow the Dark Lord. I think, maybe, they’d been drinking, and, um, they were—”

“Muggle baiting,” Hermione interrupted, and despite her tears, her voice was steady. Sharp. “There was a muggle man running the campsite, and I guess he had his wife and kids with him. They’d taken them and—hung them up in the air. Like puppets. They were tormenting them—laughing at them. For fun.”

Dan inhaled sharply, but Emma only tugged Hermione closer, and she leaned into her mother again, a tear running down her cheek. But she didn’t look sad; she looked angry.

“None of us were hurt,” Mary said quickly. “Well, Lilian turned her ankle, but Aunt Minnie fixed her up. Only, at the end, one of the Death Eaters cast this sign into the sky—the Dark Mark. The same one he put on the arms of his followers. Maia says it means…”

“That they killed someone,” Hermione finished softly.

Emma and Dan exchanged a glance, but before anyone could say anything more, there was a sort of gentle ringing noise emanating from nowhere in particular, announcing that someone else had arrived in the Floo Shed.

“That will be Minerva,” Dan said, standing up with a grim expression on his face. “I’ll go and fetch her.”

The second Aunt Minnie stepped inside, Mary jumped up from the sofa. It was stupid, but… “Lilian,” she said. “She made it home alright?”

“Yes,” her guardian said, and some of the adrenaline left her body. “Her brother and sister are with her.”

Good. Mary was glad it was them, and not Lilian’s parents. They’d only make things worse.

Turning to the elder Grangers, Aunt Minnie asked, “Did the girls tell you what happened?”

“The very basics,” Emma said. “Is it true that someone was killed?”

“We don’t know that for certain,” Aunt Minnie said. “It’s true that the Dark Mark was used, during the war, as a means for advertising that someone had been killed, but it’s only a spell. For all that we know, someone might have simply cast it in order to provoke panic. It will do no good to worry about it until we have all the facts.”

Easier said than done.

“In any case, it’s very late, and you girls have had a trying day,” she continued, turning to address Mary and Hermione. “Why don’t you go up to bed while Emma and Dan and I speak?”

Mary thought Hermione might protest—she wasn’t feeling very sleepy herself—but she just turned to look at Emma, who gave her an encouraging nod, and stood up without a fuss. It was funny: for all that Hermione complained about her mum trying to control her life, in a moment like this, she seemed to almost welcome having Emma tell her what to do.

“Goodnight, Aunt Minnie,” Mary said. “Emma, Dan.” Then, of course, the Grangers decided they needed to hug her as well as Hermione, and Aunt Minnie followed suit, but eventually, she and Hermione were headed up the stairs.

Mary had half-expected Hermione to want to sleep in the same room for comfort, but she seemed lost in thought again, probably about what they’d seen at the campsite. With one last hug, they slipped into their separate rooms. Which served Mary well enough, because there was one more thing she needed to do.

She’d never tried sending a Patronus as far as from Maidstone to Scotland, but Snape had told her to if anything happened, so… It was a struggle, and the charm failed to cast the first few times, preoccupied as she was, but she finally conjured the stag.

“Go to Professor Snape at Hogwarts,” she instructed it, “and tell him… ‘I’m alright and back with the Grangers now, but there was a Death Eater attack at the World Cup. Someone cast the Dark Mark in the sky. I think maybe, whoever the Dark Lord was after… I think he found him.’”

The stag’s presence calmed her, but too soon, it had bounded away through the wall and she was left in the dark once more, the silence seeming almost louder than the screams and jeers of the campsite.

Mary lay down on her bed, half delirious from exhaustion and yet somehow too wired to contemplate sleep. She stared up unseeingly at the ceiling, thinking again about that muggle family at the campsite—imagining how they must have felt. They wouldn’t have understood what was happening to them, not at all. She supposed the Ministry would obliviate them, but did that make it any better?

For the second time that night, despite not expecting to be able to, she fell into an uneasy sleep, but woke suddenly in what seemed, by the quality of the light, to be still the early hours of the morning—thinking about, of all things, the Werewolf Registry.

The Registry was a list the Ministry kept of all known werewolves in Magical Britain. When Mary had first suspected that Remus was a werewolf, shortly before the Slytherin prefects had announced it, Hermione had suggested they owl the Ministry for a copy. They hadn’t received it until after the secret was already revealed, but they’d looked through it anyway, and found Remus Lupin’s name, alongside which was written, “Custos: Albus Dumbledore.”

They discovered, to Hermione’s anger, that this was because werewolves were not considered citizens of magical Britain, and had to have a witch or wizard take legal responsibility for them, like the guardian of a child or a mentally infirm person. Legally speaking, Remus was a ward of Dumbledore, which was why he hadn’t been allowed to take Mary in when her parents had died.

Mary had thought about this off and on ever since. Not the custos thing, though she understood why Hermione was angry about it. But the fact that Remus’s name was just there, on an official list of werewolves that anyone could request from the Ministry. Part of her lived in fear of the day when the wrong person happened to see the list and decided to make his status public.

But why was she thinking about that now?

Mary was still turning it over in her head as she gave up on sleep, pulled on her clothes, and trudged downstairs, planning to make herself some coffee. But when she entered the kitchen, she found Dan and Emma Granger sitting at the table, cold-looking cups of tea in front of them, staring quietly off into space. She suspected they were here for much the same reasons as her.

“Couldn’t sleep, Beth?” Dan asked, all but confirming it.

Mary looked at both of them for a moment. She thought again about the muggles at the campsite, and about the Werewolf Registry, and about Hermione’s furious, tearful face as she’d leaned into her mother’s side—and then, before she even knew what she was doing, she opened her mouth and said, “You can’t adopt me.”

A few minutes later, Dan had brewed a fresh pot of tea, and the three of them were sitting at the table, looking at each other. “Now,” he said, “what’s this about?”

“You heard what happened last night,” Mary told them. “About what they did to those muggles, and about the Dark Lord’s Mark showing up in the sky. And before that, about how the Dark Lord is trying to come back.

“Only, I think I know what he wants. There’s… this prophecy that he thinks is about me, even though it’s not, not really. But that doesn’t matter. The point is, he thinks he needs to kill me, and now that he’s coming back, I’m probably going to be his first target. I might be even without the prophecy, just because I’m supposedly the cause of his downfall.

“My point is that right now, not that many people know that I’m with you, but if you adopt me, there will be a paper trail, won’t there? Anyone, if they had access to the right records, could look it up and see that I’m in the custody of the Grangers and find your address. They might come here to kill me, or else hurt you to send me a message. Or, well, just to make a point.”

After all, the Grangers were not popular with a certain subset of British mages, thanks to their political activities. There were plenty of people who would like to retaliate against them, and if things had already gotten to the point of random muggle families being attacked, children and all, for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, what would the Death Eaters do to a pair of jumped-up muggles who were sheltering the Girl Who Lived?

“The house has wards,” Emma began, but Mary cut her off.

“So did my parents’ home.” Hadn’t stopped the Dark Lord from killing them both, and almost killing her as well. “I really, really appreciate you both offering to adopt me, and I certainly don’t want to be tied to the Dursleys anymore, but this is bigger than that. I can’t put you guys in danger. I can’t put Hermione in danger.” At that, Dan swallowed heavily, and she suspected he was beginning to see her point.

“If you’re correct, then the Dursleys are the ones in danger right now,” Emma pointed out.

Which was true. Mary wasn’t sure how to say this, but, finally deciding that the Grangers probably wouldn’t judge her, when they knew how the Dursleys had treated her, she admitted, “Better them than you.”

Dan looked slightly shocked at her words, but Emma seemed to understand. Hermione’s mum had always been surprisingly Slytherin. Mary felt a bit like Dumbledore, honestly, saying that it was alright for the Dursleys to have a target on their backs if it kept the Grangers safe—but then, at least the Dursleys had actually done something to deserve it.

“Someone should warn them,” Dan said faintly.

Mary shrugged. “I’ll ask Aunt Minnie to try, but honestly, I don’t think they’ll listen.”

“Beth, you don’t need to worry about us. We knew what we were doing when we decided to let Hermione stay at Hogwarts, and to get involved in your world. You shouldn’t be left to face this alone.”

Mary felt a mix of things. Frustration that Emma wasn’t listening, but also, despite herself, gratitude. It meant more to her than she could say, that they cared enough about her to argue for putting themselves in danger just to make sure she’d never have to go back to the Dursleys.

But then Dan spoke up. “I don’t know, Em… I hate to say it, but she might be right.” He turned to Mary, looking conflicted. “You’re always welcome here with us, and of course, if things change, I’d be happy to make you our daughter legally. But maybe you’re right that it wouldn’t be a good idea to have a paper trail between us right now.” Before his wife could argue, he added to her, “It’s for Beth’s safety as much as ours. If people know they can find her here, she’ll be in danger, too. And… Hermione.”

Mary tried to tell herself she was relieved he was seeing sense, and mostly succeeded.

“We shouldn’t just give in to them,” Emma argued. “There’s an American expression: we don’t negotiate with terrorists.”

“It hardly makes a difference whether we make things official, unless she ends up in a muggle hospital or something again, which I assume Beth will be doing her very best to avoid,” Dan said, and she nodded quickly. “She can still stay with us, and we can wait and see what happens—if this whole ‘Dark Lord’ thing dies down—and continue the adoption once it’s safe. It’s not like we’re giving up on it, just… pressing pause for a while.”

“I don’t know about staying here,” Mary admitted. “I think… at least for now, for the rest of summer, I ought to go back to the Urquharts. If something happens, if the attack last night was just the beginning, I think it’ll be safer for everyone if I’m there.”

“There are other options,” Emma insisted. “We can all leave. Take you girls to France, enroll you at Beauxbatons instead—”

“It won’t matter,” Mary said. “The Dark Lord wants to kill me. He can find me in France as easily as here, and when he does, you’ll be in danger because of me. Hermione will be in danger because of me.”

Emma looked like she wanted to argue more, but Dan had already turned back to Mary to ask, “If we… press pause on the adoption, do you think Hermione will be safe here? As a muggleborn, and as your friend?” She knew he was thinking again of their argument the other night over whether to send Hermione to Beauxbatons.

Mary’s first instinct was to say yes, out of loyalty to her friend. Hermione had fought so hard to convince her parents to let her stay at Hogwarts. She would be furious if Mary said anything other than yes to that question. But the Grangers had always been good to Mary, and she owed them the truth. And the truth was…

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I really don’t. No one’s been trying to kill her so far—just me. But I don’t know what things will be like here when the Dark Lord returns. If she stays, I can do my best to keep her away from whatever danger I’m in.” She felt like she was betraying her friend even as she said it. Of course she wanted Hermione to stay; she didn’t know what she would do without her. But she had to think about what was best for Hermione and her parents, not just herself. She’d done enough thinking about herself lately—that was how they’d ended up in the middle of a riot in the first place.

Dan nodded grimly. “Thank you for your honesty, Beth. We’ll talk about it.”

Fed up, Emma finally broke in. “Dan, we can’t just abandon her. This is Beth we’re talking about, not some random kid. She has her own room here. And she’s going to be in danger whether we adopt her or not. She’ll need us.”

“You aren’t abandoning me,” Mary said quietly. “I’ll be alright. It’s my decision, and I’m saying I don’t want to be adopted anymore. I can still visit you over the holidays, or next summer, if things die down after this,” she added, although inwardly she thought that might not be such a good idea. “It’s just a piece of paper. Like Dan said—it shouldn’t make a difference.” She wasn’t sure which of them she was trying to convince: Emma, or herself.

Dan, she realized, was tearing up, and she looked away uncomfortably. “You’re a good kid, Beth,” he said. “This is exceptionally selfless of you.”

Mary wasn’t certain that was true. Her motives were partially selfish—she just couldn’t live with herself if she got Hermione or her parents hurt. Even if they survived it, she might lose them anyway. Hermione had been ambivalent from the start about sharing her parents with Mary. She knew that some part of her friend had resented her, at least for a little while, for taking some of their attention away from herself. If her parents got hurt, or even killed, because of Mary, Hermione might never forgive her—and if Hermione was the one hurt, the Grangers might regret ever letting Mary into their lives. It was better to push them away a little bit now than to lose them entirely later.

“You know you’ll always have a place here, right?” Emma asked, and Mary nodded, biting her lip to keep her composure.

The two of them pulled her into another hug, and then Mary went back upstairs, cup of tea in hand. She didn’t think she’d fall back asleep, but she kind of wanted to be alone right now. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she looked around the room, which had once been the Grangers’ study before they’d renovated it into a third bedroom for her. They’d even asked her input on the design—the green and gold color scheme was her doing. She remembered what she’d hoped once: that this might eventually be not just their spare bedroom, but her bedroom. Her house. Her family.

But it was okay. It was more important that everyone would be safe than having some legal document tying her to them, or spending the rest of the summer with them. As long as they didn’t end up like the campsite manager’s family, she’d be happy.

Mary burst into tears.

Stop it, she scolded herself, setting her tea down and wrapping her arms around her legs, but she was too bloody tired, and the tears just kept coming. You got what you wanted. You’re acting like a child.

Some part of her, though, despite knowing that it was irrational, that she’d asked for this, was hurt that the Grangers had agreed. It was stupid of her. Of course they were going to prioritize their actual flesh-and-blood daughter over a girl they’d only known three years, and had only seen for a few weeks here and there during that time. And like she’d said, it wasn’t like they were abandoning her. And it was safer for her, too, if no one knew she was staying with them.

It just still hurt, knowing that she was never going to have what Hermione had. For a little while, she’d been able to pretend—but a schoolmate’s parents, no matter how kind, were not the same as having your own family. She might be loved and cared for, but she would never be their first priority. She had never been anyone’s first priority, not as long as she could remember.

There was really no use crying over it. She was still way better off than she’d been with the Dursleys. She had so many people who cared about her now, even if none of them were really hers. The Grangers wanted to adopt her, and they might still want to someday, when things were different. This might not be her bedroom—it might, in the end, just be the Grangers’ spare room—but it was better than a cupboard under the stairs. She was still welcome here. She should be grateful.

Mary curled up on her side, staring at the wall, tears rolling silently down her face, and tried very, very hard to be grateful.

Chapter Text

Mary had never been happier to see Hermione Granger than at King’s Cross Station on the first day of their fourth year.

On some level, she thought this might mean she was selfish. She knew it would be more dangerous for Hermione to stay in Britain than to transfer to Beauxbatons like her parents wanted. Not unlike Catherine, actually, making the choice between going to Italy for her mastery or staying in the country.

But still, she was glad Hermione had convinced her parents to allow her to stay. She didn’t know what she would do without her. Of course, she’d known Hermione was coming back. She had written Mary when she’d finally talked them down—mostly by pointing out that, thanks to the time turner, she was nearly sixteen and thus old enough to decide for herself, and anyway, it was a bit late to transfer to a new school. But it was another thing to see her in person again when Mary had left the Grangers’ house not knowing if she ever would.

That was a small exaggeration—she supposed they probably would have at least let Hermione say goodbye to her before she left for France. But still.

Leaving the Grangers, and telling them they couldn’t adopt her, had been one of the hardest things Mary had ever done. After all those years wishing to have a family of her own, to have the option dangled in front of her only to be forced to give it up to protect them… It stung. But she knew it was for the best.

Mary had done a lot of thinking since the night of the World Cup, sitting alone in her bedroom or the garden of Urquhart Mansion, and had come to the conclusion that she needed to grow up. She had thought that Lilian was acting immature when she insisted on sneaking out of their tent to visit those Irish boys, but in truth, Mary had been just as immature as her, if not more so. Some part of her had suspected that something would happen at the World Cup, that the Dark Lord would act, but she had tried to convince herself she was wrong—had hidden that information from the people who were meant to be protecting her—just because she’d wanted to watch a bloody Quidditch match. Or maybe to pretend, for one day, that she was just a regular teenage witch.

After that long talk she’d had with Snape about the likelihood that the Dark Lord was coming back, and about what it would mean for all of them, she ought to have known better. She didn’t have the luxury of acting like a normal, irresponsible teenager, not when so much was on the line. For the sake of the people around her—both those she would put in danger by her recklessness as well as those who, like Snape, were risking their own necks to protect her—she needed to hold herself to a higher standard.

If she had told Snape her suspicions, would the Aurors have been able to prevent what had happened at the World Cup? She wasn’t certain. Maybe, like she’d told herself, it wouldn’t have made a difference. She didn’t even know for sure that something had happened, other than the bits that everyone knew. That was, none of the attendees had turned up missing or dead, so maybe the Dark Lord hadn’t gotten what he wanted.

But on the other hand, maybe he had. She had just assumed that he meant to kill or kidnap someone, but there were other things he could have done that wouldn’t have been as obvious as that. Maybe he’d been trying to possess someone again, like he’d done with Quirrell, and now he was going to infiltrate the castle and come after her. There was no way to know—not unless she had another dream, which she hadn’t so far.

In any case, even if things couldn’t have turned out better, even with a warning, they certainly could have turned out worse. If they hadn’t found Lilian… or if the Death Eaters had run across them on their way to her, had recognized the Girl Who Lived and her muggleborn best friend… it could have been Hermione dangling in the air alongside those muggles. Even if Mary had gotten away, she might have been forced to go back to the Grangers and confess that their only daughter had gotten hurt or killed because of her. Because she’d been a selfish, stupid child who’d cared more about the Quidditch World Cup than her and her friends’ safety.

No more of that. From now on, she would have her priorities in order.

Hermione hadn’t argued when she’d told her that she was leaving the Grangers. Normally, that might have surprised her, but after the way Hermione had looked that night, Mary could understand it. Even though Emma and Dan were the adults, she thought she and Hermione had a sort of unspoken agreement to protect them. After all, they were muggles. Hermione might have been willing to risk her own safety by making Mary part of their family, but when it came to her parents, she seemed to feel differently—just like Emma and Dan hadn’t been convinced to let Mary go until she’d pointed out that she was putting Hermione in danger.

She supposed that was what a family was supposed to be.

Even Aunt Minnie had seemed to agree with her decision to leave, rather than being annoyed that Mary was asking to come back from the Grangers’ house early for the second time that year. The riot seemed to have shaken her up, probably because she felt as responsible for putting the three girls in danger as Mary felt for her friends. After her return, they’d sat down with Lord and Lady Urquhart and discussed additional security measures for the house—though to avoid panicking them over the potential return of the Dark Lord, they’d only said that if the Death Eaters were becoming active again, the Girl Who Lived would be a likely target.

For the next ten months, of course, she would be at Hogwarts, so the security measures shouldn’t matter as much. Yes, someone could still attack the Urquharts simply for being Mary Potter’s foster family if that information became widely known, but she—and Aunt Minnie—felt that the Death Eaters were far less likely to go after an old, well-respected pureblood family than a pair of politically inconvenient muggles.

Really, the only person who disagreed with Mary’s choice was Emma, but that wasn’t surprising. She hated being ‘treated like a muggle,’ and she was already upset over Lady Malfoy choosing to sever their working relationship. And for all her shrewdness, Emma wasn’t exactly what Mary would call overly cautious. She wasn’t the type to keep her head down, even in the face of danger. Sometimes, Mary thought, she could be very American.

Of course, Hermione had inherited a little of that attitude. She might be willing to accept Mary going back to the Urquharts to protect her parents, but when it came to the possibility of transferring schools and leaving Mary to face the looming threat of the Dark Lord alone, well, she was never going to let that happen.

Despite the fact that Hermione was only a couple years older than her, and was, for all her talents, not all that good at defensive magic, and therefore wasn’t going to be able to actually protect her, Mary found herself feeling better, just having her by her side. Hogwarts, she’d learned, was not really a safe place for her—danger seemed to find her there more often than not. And after her dream and the World Cup, she had a bad feeling about this year. But as she walked onto the train, arm-in-arm with her best friend and almost-sister, she felt stronger, more able to face it.

It wasn’t only Hermione that she was relieved to see. Despite knowing that none of her friends had been hurt—she’d exchanged letters with most of the ones she knew had been at the World Cup, from Gin to Blaise—it was still comforting to see them all alive and well, like a reminder that the world was still as it should be. That it hadn’t all fallen apart that awful night.

Yes, bad things were coming—but they weren’t here quite yet.

“Lizzie! Maia!”

There was Lilian, for instance, fully recovered from her injury and rushing down the train corridor to greet them with Daphne and Tori at her heels. In their letters, they hadn’t really talked about what had happened that night—any anger that Mary had over Lilian running off to the Irish camp was counterbalanced by her own guilt at not telling her the full reasons they had to be cautious. So they greeted each other cheerfully, exchanging hugs, and Mary and Hermione followed the three Slytherin girls back to the compartment they’d already claimed with Blaise and Theo.

The boys were deep in conversation when they opened the door. “They’ll be arriving the day before Samhain,” Blaise was saying. “Only about a dozen are coming from each—Hey, Mary. Granger.”

“Who’ll be arriving?” Hermione asked curiously as they sat down on the bench opposite the two boys. Lilian squeezed in next to them, while Daphne sat herself on Blaise’s lap—Tori must have run off to find the other second years while Mary wasn’t paying attention.

Hermione didn’t seem to mind being the odd Ravenclaw out, she noticed. She didn’t especially like the Slytherins, other than Mary and Lilian, but it seemed she didn’t dislike them enough to find another compartment, at least.

Blaise and Daphne exchanged a look that clearly said, ‘Should we tell them?’ Mary had a pretty good idea of what they were discussing—actually, maybe she should tell Hermione if they didn’t, though then she’d need to get her alone to avoid admitting to the other how she knew.

Luckily, Blaise made things easy for her. “The delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang,” he explained. “Hogwarts is hosting the Triwizard Tournament this year.”

“What’s that?” Mary asked, not even having to fake her ignorance. Snape had told her that it would be taking place, but almost nothing about what it actually was. Though she did vaguely remember the phrase from when she and Hermione had read Hogwarts: A History together, but that had been years ago, and unlike Hermione, she couldn’t recall every little detail of everything she read.

“Big inter-school competition,” Blaise explained. “They select one student from each school to serve as a champion and have them compete in a series of trials. Mother’s on the organizing committee,” he added, like he thought they might ask how he knew. “Each of the schools is bringing a dozen or so students that they think might make a good champion.”

“Awesome,” Lilian said—she apparently hadn’t heard yet either.

“They used to hold it every five years,” Daphne added. “But they stopped because too many students died.”

“…Less awesome,” Lilian amended.

Mary and Hermione exchanged a look. “Of course they’re going to host a deadly tournament for schoolchildren,” Mary muttered. “It’s Hogwarts.”

Blaise laughed, resting his chin on Daphne’s shoulder. “It’s a publicity stunt, basically. Showing the International Confederation that Britain is still relevant. They’ve changed the rules, though, so only students of age—in Britain, I mean, so, seventeen—will be allowed to enter.”

Though Mary hadn’t realized she was tense, she felt herself relax slightly at the news. Maybe she was paranoid, but she’d just had this feeling that, well, nothing potentially life-threatening could happen at Hogwarts without her somehow getting involved. But she was three years shy of old enough to participate, so it should be fine.

As the day went on, various friends came by their compartment to say hello. Gin, Fred, and George stopped in briefly—seeming too uncomfortable with the Slytherin-heavy makeup of the car to stay long—and told them that their brother Ron had somehow ended up with the most hideous dress robes known to wizardkind. Dave, Alex, and Nora swung by as well, announcing they’d met a muggleborn firstie named Rachel and thought they’d convinced her to consider Slytherin.

They also wandered in and out of the compartment themselves, Mary and Lilian visiting the Slytherin Quidditch team and joining in recounting the World Cup game for those who hadn’t been lucky enough to attend, Hermione seeing some of her friends from the MSA and going off with the twins for a bit, and Daphne making the rounds of all the girls in their year and those below that she considered part of her clique. Since they’d arrived at Hogwarts, she and Fay Dunbar in Gryffindor had been competing to be the most popular girl in their year, and apparently the fact that they’d been briefly involved in the spring had done nothing to cool down their rivalry.

Mary saw Luna, Aerin, and Neville, though she didn’t hang out with the latter wizard for very long, seeing as he was with Weasley and their friends Dean and Finnigan, none of whom liked her much.

As she wandered through the train, she fancied that she could tell the difference between those who’d been at the World Cup and those who had not: the former group seemed a little separate from their surroundings, somehow, as though that night had somehow changed them.

Or maybe it was just her, and she was projecting it onto the rest of them.

In any case, not everyone who’d been at the World Cup had been matured by the experience the way she felt that she had. After lunch, when the original six of them were back in their compartment again, Draco, Vinnie, and Greg stuck their heads in.

“There you lot are,” Draco said, like they had been hiding all day instead of walking around the train like normal. “You’ll never believe what the Little Weasel’s got.”

“Hideous dress robes with lace all over them?” Mary suggested. “His sister told us.” Inwardly, she hoped that Draco hadn’t already gotten into a fight with Weasley by making fun of his dress robes; her patience for his antics felt considerably thinner today.

Draco scowled, clearly disappointed not to have the freshest gossip. “Well, you haven’t seen them yet, have you?” he asked, and she shook her head. “Wait till you do: they’re hilarious. He’ll be the laughing stock of the—oh, you wouldn’t know about that yet, would you?”

“The Yule Ball?” Hermione asked, her tone entirely too innocent. She’d clearly picked up on the fact that they could annoy Draco simply by already knowing everything he wanted to brag about knowing.

“Blaise told us about the Tournament,” Lilian told him, though her tone was friendlier than theirs. She actually liked Draco, at least some of the time. Last year, they’d gone to Hogsmeade together a few times, though both had insisted that they weren’t actually dating.

“Oh.” Draco seemed briefly flummoxed. Then, more casually, “Are any of you going to enter, then? I’m thinking of putting my name in. Not like I need the money, but it might be interesting, at least.”

Wait, was he serious? Mary glanced at Lilian and Hermione, both of whom appeared to be trying not to laugh. Draco had come into their compartment just to brag about knowing about the Tournament before other people, and he didn’t even know about the age limit?

“Good luck with that, Draco,” Blaise said with a smirk.

“What’s that supposed to mean? Don’t think I can do it? Not like you’d be any better—you’re rubbish at dueling.”

Well, he wasn’t wrong. Blaise wasn’t very good at all, from what she’d seen in Defense, and he’d never even shown up to Dueling Club. When she’d asked why, he’d said that he was ‘a lover, not a fighter.’ Whatever the hell that meant. But was the Tournament even a dueling competition in the first place? If Draco didn’t know about the age restriction, she doubted he knew what the challenges would be—even Blaise didn’t know yet.

Finally, Lilian decided to put him out of his misery. “Draco, they’re not letting anyone under seventeen enter.”

“…I knew that,” Draco lied. “I just figure, there’s got to be a way around that, don’t you think?”

“Maybe,” Lilian agreed, but Mary got the feeling she was humoring him more than anything else.

“Whatever,” Draco said, his mood clearly deflated by the entire interaction. “Better get back to our compartment,” he added to Greg and Vinnie. “Pansy’s waiting on me.” But he didn’t leave, not right away. Instead, his eyes flickered to Hermione. “Oh, Granger,” he said, like he’d just noticed she was there, in spite of her having spoken to him only a moment ago. “Have a good time at the World Cup?”

For a second, Mary wondered how he’d even known they’d been there, but then concluded Daphne had probably mentioned it to Pansy or something. But why was he asking Hermione specifically? Not to mention that tone in his voice—Draco tended to be nastiest when his pride was hurt. She had a bad feeling about this.

So, it seemed, did Hermione, because she only looked at him blankly and said, “Quidditch isn’t really my thing.”

Draco laughed. “I was talking more about the after-show than the match itself—personally, I thought that was the best part. I was a bit disappointed not to see you up there showing off your knickers with the rest of your kind, but maybe next time.”

With that, satisfied at having the last word, he turned to leave, and Greg and Vinnie stepped out into the corridor to let him out.

“Malfoy?” Hermione said, her tone light and casual, rising up from the bench.

Draco turned around, his mouth already opening to make what would no doubt be another stupid comment, but he never got the chance, because that was when Hermione slapped him hard across the face.

For a second, the entire compartment went utterly silent. Draco was just staring at Hermione in shock—actually, they all were. Mary, however, had at least enough sense to put her hand on her wand, just in case he tried to retaliate.

“What the fuck?” Draco finally said. “You crazy, foul little mudblood—”

“What happened?” Vinnie asked, his head appearing in the doorway behind Draco, peering into the compartment in confusion.

“She hit me! Like a—like a muggle! You’ll pay for this—”

But Blaise and Theo had both stood from the bench, stepping in between Hermione and Draco, wands raised, and Draco went a bit pale—remembering, no doubt, the last time that he and his followers had gone up against them, Lilian, Daphne, and Mary. He’d had not only Vinnie and Greg but the three other girls in their year on his side then, and they’d still lost. And since then, Blaise had grown nearly a foot, while Theo, still on the scrawny side, had proven himself possibly the best duelist in their year.

“That’s how the Truce works, you fucking moron,” Theo snarled. Mary had never actually seen him lose his temper before. “If you go around flouting it, people can and will retaliate.”

“I think maybe Draco’s forgotten the conversation we had about that back in first year,” Blaise added. Then, looming over Draco a bit, he asked, “Would you like us to jog your memory?”

“She’s not even a Slytherin,” Draco protested. “Are you really going to attack a housemate over a mudblood Ravenclaw?”

Deciding she’d had enough of him, Mary stood as well and said, “Draco?” Then, in Parsel, <You know better than to piss me off. Do you want another snake in your bed? I don’t think you liked the last one much, but if you insist…> Of course, Snape had added a school rule that no students were allowed to bring venomous snakes into the castle after what she’d done to Draco in first year, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t bring a non-venomous one and just tell him it was deadly…

In any case, without even knowing what she was saying, just the sound of her speaking Parsel seemed to be enough, because Draco’s eyes widened in fear and he took a step backwards, bumping into Vinnie. Mary smiled sweetly at him, though she doubted it reached her eyes.

“Come on,” he muttered at last, turning back to his idiot friends. “Let’s go.”

Mary shut the door firmly behind them and turned back around to look at Hermione. In fact, once again, everyone was looking at Hermione. The witch in question was wide-eyed with shock.

“I can’t believe I did that,” she muttered.

“I can’t believe you did either,” Lilian said. “That was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“I think I’m in love with you,” Daphne added from her seat on the bench, in such a casual tone that Mary let out a startled burst of laughter.

“Wait, I thought you were friends with Malfoy,” Hermione said—mostly to Lilian, Mary thought, but maybe a little bit to the other Slytherins as well.

“Kind of,” Lilian said. “Doesn’t mean I don’t want to slap him a lot of the time.”

“I think we’ve all wanted to slap Darling Draco on occasion,” Blaise added, dropping down to sprawl lazily on the seat.

Sitting down again between Mary and Lilian, Hermione swallowed and said, “Um, thanks. For sticking up for me, I mean. I honestly wasn’t expecting it. I know you Slytherins like to stick together, and it’s not like we’re really friends, and…”

“Shut up, Granger,” Blaise said with a laugh. “Anyone who puts that idiot in his place is a friend of mine. Also? Hot.”

Hermione let out a startled, slightly nervous giggle, shooting a glance at Mary as if to say, ‘How do I respond to that?’ Which Mary didn’t really know the answer to any more than she did. Blaise was just… Blaise.

“You just like violent women,” Daphne teased, climbing back onto Blaise’s lap. Sometimes, it really did seem like they were a couple. Well, they kind of were, since they were supposed to be engaged soon, but they also weren’t, because Daphne was, well…

“Like you don’t,” Blaise retorted. “Oh, Granger, I think I might love you…” He put a hand to his heart, letting out a dreamy sigh.

Yeah, that. A witch’s witch, as some people called it.

“Shut up.”

About twenty minutes later, Morgana Yaxley—sixth year prefect, prankster, and onetime friend of Mary’s—knocked on the door to their compartment.

“What’s this I hear about you all attacking Malfoy six-on-one?” she asked them in a long-suffering tone. “We’ve not even made it to school yet, guys. Professor Snape won’t be happy if I have to take points from you already.”

Daphne took charge, looking at Morgana with her most innocent expression, the one that said ‘I’m a polite little pureblood princess who’s never done anything wrong in my life.’ “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Prefect Yaxley.”

Morgana rolled her eyes. “Then how do you explain the mark on Malfoy’s face?”

“He fell into the door,” Blaise said. “He came by with Vinnie Crabb and Greg Goyle and they were roughhousing like a bunch of idiots. Draco tripped over his own feet and smacked his face right on the door.”

“He’s probably embarrassed,” Mary added helpfully. “Doesn’t want to admit what a klutz he is.”

Examining the six of them with a shrewd look, Morgana said, “Right. And… hypothetically, if someone had done something to Malfoy…”

“It would have been in response to an egregious breach of the Truce,” Mary said.

“Little shit,” Morgana muttered under her breath, and Mary choked back a laugh. “Alright then, but I better not get called down here again.”

They waited until the prefect had left, shutting the door again behind herself, before breaking out into laughter.

“I can’t wait until next year,” Blaise said, and then, at their questioning looks, added, “When Theo’s a prefect.”

“Are you suggesting I abuse my position to give you guys more leeway to knock Draco around?”

“Well, Pansy will definitely abuse hers,” Mary pointed out. “So, when you think about it, you’d only be balancing things out.” She thought briefly of Lily and Snape, and the story he’d told her about how they’d used Lily’s prefect position to torment Sirius.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a small, surprised-looking smile on Hermione’s face, and couldn’t help but smile as well. Both out of hope that Hermione might finally realize that some of Mary and Lilian’s friends in Slytherin weren’t so bad as she thought—and at seeing her friend reminded that, for every blood purist arsehole in Magical Britain, there were also plenty of people ready to have her back.

Shouldn’t McGonagall or someone cast a drying charm on them? Mary wondered, patting down her own unfortunately frizzy hair as she took in the row of soaked, shivering first years. Her curls never reacted well to charms, and she hadn’t had a towel on hand to try Sadie Rosier’s trick, but it was better than freezing her arse off like the first years seemed to be. One of them, a tiny boy who reminded her unpleasantly of that creepy third year with the camera, was even wearing Hagrid’s coat, but no one seemed to have thought to dry him off.

Well, whatever. They weren’t going to freeze to death in the time it took them to be Sorted—and once they were, hopefully their prefects would sort them out. The Slytherins would, at least. Mary watched with mild interest as the students stepped up, one by one, only really bothering to remember the names of the ones who ended up in her House.

There was a murmur of excitement from three second years—Dave’s trio, the lone muggleborn Slytherin and his halfblood friends, whom Mary had taken under her wing the year before—as a plain-looking girl with brown hair stepped up in response to Professor McGonagall’s call of, “Campbell, Rachel!”

Mary found herself holding her breath, despite not knowing this girl. There was nothing that really stood out about her, and yet, she just had a feeling… one that was immediately vindicated when the Hat shouted “SLYTHERIN” and the table abruptly went quiet around her.

So. That makes two, then. Something flipped over in her stomach. Mary wanted to be glad. And on the one hand, at least Dave had paved the way, so this girl might not have it as hard as he had. On the other hand, after the night of the World Cup… Well, she just had a feeling that Slytherin House was going to be an even worse place to be a muggleborn this year than it had been in the past. If the Truce was failing, Dave and the new girl would be caught right in the middle of it.

Mary tried to catch Lilian’s eye, to see if she was thinking what Mary was thinking, but she was already whispering something to Daphne as conversation started up again. It was Blaise, sitting on the other side of Daphne, who caught Mary’s gaze and held it, an unreadable expression on his face—less like he was trying to communicate something, and more like he was just observing her, waiting to see what she would do. After a second, she looked away, disconcerted.

In any case, Dave and his friends had strategically sat themselves next to the empty seats for the new first years, and when Campbell sat down—hit with a casual drying charm by Morgana as she passed the prefect—they immediately engaged her in conversation, ignoring the glares from the unfriendlier members of the House. The girl had a stubborn set to her jaw that reminded Mary a bit of Gin, and gave her a little more hope that, with the support of the three second years—and Mary, if she had to step in—she’d be able to survive the Snake Pit.

Campbell was the only incoming Slytherin Mary was certain was a muggleborn before she was Sorted, but there were a couple others she wasn’t sure about—students with surnames that seemed to be muggle, though they might have been halfbloods, or possibly newcomers to Britain with connections to pureblood families in other countries. From the whispers that spread around the table when each was Sorted, the other students weren’t sure either.

One of them, a slender girl with enormous brown eyes whom Professor McGonagall had called “Khanna, Simran!” sat herself close to Campbell and Dave’s friends, looking nervous enough that Mary suspected she might be a muggleborn as well. The difference between how the two girls, and the other possibly muggleborn or halfblood students, were received and students like Anton Yaxley—who was greeted with cheers and welcoming nods from his sister’s friends and immediately surrounded by a group of first and second year boys whom he’d probably known since childhood—was stark.

There was a big cohort of students this year, Mary noted: nearly twice as many as hers across the four Houses. The class sizes were still recovering from the war, and the number of muggleborns especially was increasing—for years, the Death Eaters had killed any muggleborn babies that showed signs of magic. Hermione had been lucky to escape them.

If the Dark Lord came back… all the progress they’d made since the war would vanish.

She couldn’t seem to stop thinking about it. The thought lay a dark cloud over the feast for her, and she found herself growing quieter, drawn into her own head. Even the food didn’t taste quite as good as usual, and she picked at it, pushing her mashed potatoes around on her plate.

What finally drew Mary out of her melancholy was twofold: first, the announcement that Quidditch was canceled—she shared horrified looks with Lilian and Sadie, hoping she’d somehow misheard—and, directly following, the dramatic entrance of their new Defense professor, Auror Moody.

Tonks’s old boss?! Tonks had talked about the senior Auror a lot; he’d been her mentor for Auror training before retiring a few months back. All Mary really knew about him was that he was paranoid and believed in ‘constant vigilance.’ But she hadn’t expected him to look so bloody weird. And if he was meant to be teaching them Defense, why hadn’t Tonks mentioned it during the World Cup?

A strange hush had fallen over the hall, and she noticed after a second that half of her table was glaring at the new professor with even more open hostility than they’d displayed towards Campbell. Mary turned to Lilian and muttered, “What’s all this about?”

“Beats me.”

To her surprise, it was Theo who answered. “He’s a famous Auror, racked up more arrests and kills during the war than the rest of them combined—and there’s a rumor he was part of Dumbledore’s little militia back then as well. Half the people at this table have had relatives killed or sent to Azkaban by him.”

Well, that would explain it. Still, unlike her housemates, Mary wasn’t exactly displeased at the thought of having a prolific Auror at the school for the year, especially one that Tonks trusted. If the Dark Lord was going to try something, it could only help. Actually, maybe that was why Dumbledore had hired him in the first place, if Snape had told him about the changes in the Mark. Has Dumbledore actually done something sensible for a change? And if it was kind of last-minute, that would explain why Tonks hadn’t mentioned it.

Although… If this Professor Moody had fought in the war, did that mean he’d fought against Snape? She glanced up at the High Table, where the strange wizard was sitting directly between the Potions professor and Dumbledore, to find that, to her slight dismay, he and Snape already seemed to be shooting each other poisonous looks. If it had just been Snape, it might have been explicable by the fact that he hated Defense professors on principle, but if Professor Moody was doing it too…

It was still better than last year, she’d supposed, when she’d been caught between Snape and Remus. At least she didn’t have any personal attachment to Professor Moody. It just would be nice if the people she was relying on to keep the Dark Lord from killing her weren’t too busy fighting each other to focus on the real threat.

The Slytherins took the news of the Triwizard Tournament with considerably more composure than the rest of the Houses—one of the Weasley twins actually shouted at Dumbledore in his excitement—though whether that was due to the understanding that they were to behave themselves in public or because the rumor had already spread throughout the House while they were on the train, Mary couldn’t say.

After dinner, they went back to the common room, where Snape introduced the new first years to everyone. Usually, he let the upper years go right after that, but this year, he made them stick around for a few extra minutes while he reminded everyone of the Truce. Whether that was because of the new muggleborns (she’d managed to confirm that Khanna was one too), or because Morgana had already told him what happened on the train, or because of the World Cup and the Mark, Mary wasn’t sure. Maybe all of the above.

He’d responded to her Patronus with a letter the day after the riot, mostly just to say ‘I told you so’ and that they would discuss things further when she was back at the castle. She was meant to have coffee in his office next weekend, once the usual furor of the first week died down. In the meantime, though, he hardly seemed to notice she was there, seeming far more focused on the new first years—particularly, she thought, Campbell and Khanna, who were already looking as though they were wondering what they’d gotten themselves into, sticking close to each other as the first years from established families shot them icy looks.

In any case, once Snape finished with the start of term formalities, she was finally free to go to bed—or so she thought. Because right before she and Lilian could step into the tunnel that would lead them to their dorm, Cassius Warrington stepped out in front of them and said, “C’mon, team meeting.”

With Flint’s graduation, Warbler was the most experienced member of the Quidditch team and had been tapped to be the new captain this year. He must be disappointed, Mary thought: he’d be graduating at the end of the year without ever getting to actually lead the team.

She and Lilian followed him dutifully to the House library, since Snape was using the common room for his usual lecture to the snakelings. Joining them were their keeper Sadie Rosier, her reserve Blake MacDougal, Derrick Bole (chaser) and William Higgs (reserve chaser), Warbler’s fellow beater Sextus Feldsmark—and, of course, Draco, Vinnie, and Greg, who were chaser and the two reserve beaters, respectively. Draco refrained from giving her and Lilian the stink-eye, but probably only because they had an agreement, heavily enforced by Flint in years past, that all conflict between players was to be kept away from the team.

“Alright,” Warbler said, stepping up to the front of the room. “I assume all of you heard the Headmaster say that there will be no Inter-House Quidditch Cup this year, but that does not mean that this team will be disbanded. I still fully intend to hold practices, and if you lot don’t want to get your arses kicked for being over a year out of practice next autumn, you’ll show up to them.”

Mary hadn’t been expecting that, but she didn’t have any objections. If she could still play Quidditch this year, she would. Especially because they might be able to throw together some unofficial matches.

“How often?” Sadie asked.

“Twice a week,” Warbler answered. “I’m thinking Tuesday evenings from after dinner until curfew, and Sunday mornings from eight to noon, unless anyone objects. We should have our pick of times—I would be surprised if the Gryffindors or Ravenclaws keep up their practices this year.”

That was reasonable, Mary thought. Usually they met four times a week from the start of term until their first match, then decreased in frequency after every match until finally, after the final match of the year, they were meeting only once a week, and for half as much time as usual. Warbler’s proposed schedule would be enough to keep them relatively sharp, but not as grueling as when they were preparing for an approaching match.

Not everyone thought so, however. Snark—Sextus Feldsmark, that was—let out a groan and said, “What if we’ve got better things to do than practicing when we’re not even playing? I’ve got OWLs to study for, you know.”

Warbler turned on his fellow beater with a sharp look. “Go ahead—assuming you’re confident that you can beat other contenders for your spot in tryouts next autumn, when they’ve been practicing and you haven’t.”

Vinnie and Greg exchanged an excited look, and Mary knew just what they were thinking: with Warbler leaving, if Snark dropped off the team, they’d be almost guaranteed the starting beater positions next year. Actually, they might have won them from Snark anyway—the ability to coordinate with each other was one of the most important aspects of playing beater, and once Warbler was gone, it was unlikely that Snark would find a new player he could work with better than the two fourth year boys worked with each other. Still, she supposed they’d be glad to have the competition reduced further.

“Also,” Warbler added, “I’ll be choosing a new captain at the end of this year, and anyone who decides to leave the team now won’t be eligible.”

Oh, that was an interesting thought. If Warbler and Bole graduated and Snark dropped off the team, Mary and Draco would be the two most senior members, and the only other person remaining who’d played starting string at all would be Sadie. In other words, odds were pretty good that Mary could end up being Captain. If she hadn’t already been sold on continuing Quidditch practices, both for the fun of flying as well as to make sure Draco didn’t steal the seeker position out from under her, that would’ve done it.

Snark, on the other hand, just scoffed and said, “I’ll take my chances.” He stood, heading towards the door.

A moment later, Bole also stood. “Since I’m graduating this year anyway,” he said, looking slightly embarrassed, “think I’d rather focus on my NEWTs.”

Mary looked around the room—chances were good that the people around her would be the starting lineup next year. Sadie for keeper; Draco, Lilian, and Higgs for chasers; Vinnie and Greg for beaters; and, of course, Mary herself as seeker. MacDougal was the only one who didn’t have much chance at starting, unless he somehow managed to unseat Sadie, but he didn’t follow the older boys out of the room—though maybe he just figured he’d be bored without Quidditch.

“Alright then,” Warbler said. “We won’t hold official try-outs, but spread the word around that we’re still practicing and see if anyone else is interested. We’ll try them out on a case-by-case basis, maybe see if we can train up some more reserve players for next year. Now, unless anyone has any issues with the proposed schedule…?”

“I think we should meet more often,” Sadie said, because of course she did. Her reserve keepers had nicknamed her ‘Sadist’ for a reason, after all. “I don’t know if twice a week is enough.”

“I’ve got NEWTs this year, and I won’t be flying with you next year anyway—I’m basically just coming to these practices in an advisory capacity. Not to mention I’m putting my name in for the Tournament. But the rest of you are free to meet more often if you’d like.”

“Right.” Sadie turned back to the rest of them and said, “Raise your hands if you agree to more practices.” No one raised their hand at first, and then she glared at MacDougal and he reluctantly put his up. Still, it was two against six.

“There you have it,” Warbler said while the girl scowled. “Meeting adjourned. We’ll start practice Sunday after next, since that’s about when we’d normally have trials.”

Then, finally, they were free to go to bed. Mary and Lilian rushed out the door, heading for the fourth year girls’ dorms. “Hey Lils,” Mary said, once she was certain Sadie was out of earshot. “What do you think my chances are of making Captain next year?”

“Ooh!” Lilian squealed, like the thought hadn’t occurred to her. Then, more subdued, she added, “I think it depends on whether the Sadist poisons you in your sleep first.”

“What about Draco?”

Lilian shook her head. “No, he’s all talk. Plus, he’s too scared Maia would kick his arse if he tried.”

Chapter Text

The first few days of term went well enough. Of course, rumors were flying as to which students intended to enter the tournament. Besides Warbler, she’d heard that Thane Rowle, Meissa Tiffald, and Adrian Lestrange planned to give it a go, plus a handful of students from other Houses—Diggory from Hufflepuff and Johnson from Gryffindor seemed to be the favorites. There were some underage students intending to try to subvert the age restrictions as well; by Monday afternoon, the whole school had heard of the Weasley twins’ boasting.

Privately, Mary wondered what they would do if one of them actually got chosen. They didn’t seem to like to split up for—well, anything. Maybe they’d take turns with the challenges, both of them claiming to be Fred, or George—whichever one had actually been chosen.

Not all of the rumors floating around had to do with the Tournament, however. A lot of them centered around Professor Moody, and each was more outlandish than the last. From her housemates who’d had him already, though, Mary had picked up a few things that seemed plausible: he was intense; he wasn’t afraid to demonstrate Dark curses for his classes; and he didn’t seem to like Slytherins.

It wasn’t until Wednesday afternoon that she was first able to see for herself, however. As Professor Moody stalked into the classroom on his wooden leg and began his—well, she thought it was almost more of a speech than a lecture—she decided that her housemates hadn’t been wrong, at least about the first point: he was intense.

And she soon was able to see about his attitude towards Slytherins—or, at least, those with Death Eaters for parents—when he began surveying the class on curses. “Do any of you know which curses are most heavily punished by wizarding law?”

After a moment, Ernie Macmillan from Hufflepuff raised his hand. “The Unforgivable Curses, sir.”

“Yes, that’s what they’re called—because they’re the only three curses which it’s considered an Unforgivable Act to even cast. But what are they?”

There were a few titters around the room, and Ernie looked abashed. “Er… Is the Cruciatus one of them?”

“Yes,” Professor Moody said. Then, pulling out one of the spiders from the case on his desk, he cast Engorgio on it, followed by Crucio—the same spell which had taken the minds of Neville’s parents, Mary knew. The spider twitched and curled in on itself, and she watched with morbid fascination, wondering just how much it had to hurt to turn people into the near-shells she’d seen in St. Mungo’s last Christmas. From the corner of her eye, she noticed Lilian wincing and looking away—apparently her soft spot for creatures even extended to spiders, at least enough to not want to see them tortured.

“Any others?” he asked, once the spider was back in the jar.

This time, it was Draco who raised his hand. “The Imperius Curse.”

A strange look spread across Professor Moody’s face: almost a smile, but too mean-spirited for that. “Yes, you would be familiar with that one, wouldn’t you?” he asked, possibly rhetorically. Wait, he wasn’t going to… “Came in rather convenient for your family after the war.”

Dark Powers, he was. As much as everyone knew that the Malfoys’ Imperius defense had been dragonshit, to actually say so, to Draco Malfoy’s face, was basically Moody announcing that he had absolutely no respect for the Truce.

Mary had the feeling this was going to be a long year.

Sure enough, Draco’s eyes widened in shock before narrowing, an ugly red color coming to his usually pale face. “I wouldn’t call being forced to follow the Dark Lord ‘convenient.’ And I don’t think my father would be pleased to hear you are suggesting otherwise—particularly during class, Professor.”

But Professor Moody didn’t look in the least bit intimidated. Staring straight at Draco, at least with the eye that wasn’t spinning in his head, he said, “Yes, I know your father well… very well, in fact. You can tell him Moody’s keeping a close eye on his son.” Then his eyes seemed to scan out over some of the other Slytherins: Vinnie and Greg, Pansy and Millie, Theo. No one needed to tell Mary what they all had in common.

“That goes for the rest of you as well,” he added, and while he could have been addressing the whole class, everyone knew who he really meant. “I’m sure your parents would be glad to hear from me… Oh, yes.” Then, with a hint of humor in his voice, he added, “Though it might be hard to get a letter to some of them.”

What the fuck? That was just… He had to mean Pansy’s dad, didn’t he? Everyone knew her dad had been sent to Azkaban in ‘81. Had Moody put him there? Not that Mary thought it was a bad thing for Death Eaters to be jailed—well, maybe in Azkaban, since that was, like, a human rights violation—but taunting a teenage girl over her dad being in jail was just…

Mary didn’t like Moody. She already hadn’t much, but that sealed it. Even if she hated Pansy, that was just beyond the fucking pale. She looked around, wondering if anyone was going to object to his behavior, but apparently they’d all decided they’d rather not draw his attention further. None of her housemates looked happy, though. Even Blaise, who was normally laid back, was giving their professor a sharp stare. His mother was the architect of the Truce, after all; he’d been raised to take it seriously.

She shot Theo a sympathetic look, though she wasn’t sure if he noticed it, glowering down at his desk the way he was—but Moody did, and he turned those creepy eyes on her for a second before turning back to the jar.

“The Imperius Curse,” he began, as though he hadn’t just threatened the parents of a quarter of his students, and began to explain the effect of the curse, demonstrating on the spider all the while. Mary didn’t pay much attention, having first heard of the Imperius all the way back on the train in first year, when Zacharias Smith and a few other Hufflepuffs had explained it—and the open secret of the bogus Imperius defense—to her and Hermione.

Instead, she found herself thinking again of the World Cup, and something struck her: what if that was what the Dark Lord had done? If he hadn’t been planning to kill or abduct someone, maybe he’d been putting them under the Imperius. She was pretty sure the target had been someone important, like maybe in the Ministry or Wizengamot or something. Having someone like that under the Dark Lord’s control would certainly be useful to him. Or maybe he’d been possessing someone else, like he’d done to Quirrell.

“And the last one?” Moody asked when he was finished. “Anyone know that one?”

A few hands went up, and he called on Susan Bones this time. “The Killing Curse,” she said.

“Right.” Moody pulled the spider from the jar once again, setting it on the desk, and it immediately began attempting to run away. However, the curse was faster: “Avada Kedavra.”

There was a rushing sound, a flash of green light, and Mary felt the most disorienting moment of déjà vu. That was the spell she’d survived as a baby, she knew—Professor McGonagall had told her.

Given the way he’d acted so far, Mary probably should have expected Moody to single her out, but it still took her aback to hear him announce to the entire class that she was the only known survivor of this curse—like everyone didn’t already know. Seriously? What part of don’t talk about the war was so hard for people to understand recently?

“Now,” Moody continued, “as I said earlier, those three curses—the Killing Curse, the Imperius, and the Cruciatus—are known as the Unforgivable Curses because to cast them on a human is an Unforgivable Act, meaning that you will earn yourself a life sentence in Azkaban… or should,” he added, with another dark glance in Draco’s direction.

“As this class seems to be knowledgeable when it comes to the Dark Arts,” and it didn’t sound like a compliment, especially when he glanced again at the Slytherin half of the room, “why don’t we see who can name some more Unforgivable Acts? Yes, Mr. Zabini.”

“Early childhood mind-molding,” Blaise said. “Through the use of legilimency, I mean, on children under the age of seven.”

“Correct. And why is that an Unforgivable Act?”

“Because it produces a level of dependence on the caster comparable to that seen in house elves—and it’s irreversible as well, especially if the kid doesn’t know it’s happening. Their minds and personalities are permanently changed, basically molded into a shape dictated by the caster. It’s worse than the Imperius because it’s permanent, and because the victims don’t even feel it—they think they’re acting of their own free will.”

Mary had vaguely understood that mind magic could be used to do horrible things—Riddle was an example of that—but Powers, that was terrifying.

“Very good,” Moody said. “Anyone else? Don’t be shy,” he added, when no one raised their hands. “Mr. Nott.”

“Certain types of Demonic Congress,” he said. “Specifically to do with summoning greater demons to our plane.”

“Good,” Moody said. “Any others? From the Hufflepuff side of the room, maybe?”

Perhaps uncharitably, Mary had the suspicion that he was hoping none of them would have a response so that it would look like it was only Slytherins who knew things about the Dark Arts. But to her surprise, Susan raised her hand again.

“Some types of necromancy,” she said when called upon. “The ones that have to do with trapping or making use of human souls.”

“Can you give an example of this?”

“Er… No, sorry sir.”

“The raising of Dead Hands would be one example,” Moody said. “Trapping the soul in the body of the recently deceased and forcing it to do the caster’s bidding.” Several people around the room, mostly Hufflepuffs, shuddered.

To Mary’s surprise, Lilian raised her hand next. When called upon, she asked, “Would making a horcrux be one?”

Mary’s first instinct was to get annoyed—Snape had told them not to talk about that—but then, it wasn’t like she was saying, ‘The Dark Lord made multiple horcruxes and Gin Weasley got possessed by one.’ Just saying that they existed wasn’t giving much away.

“Yes it would, Miss Moon, though that falls more under soul magic than necromancy. For those who don’t know, a horcrux is a Dark artifact created by killing a human being and twisting their soul into a copy of one’s own, overwriting their very essence, in order to anchor oneself to the mortal plane.”

More shuddering. Even Mary, who already knew about horcruxes, felt uneasy: she’d known it involved murdering someone, but not destroying their soul.

“Mr. Zabini?”

“Would metaphagy be considered an Unforgivable Act as well?”

“Yes, along with all other forms of subsumation. Metaphagy,” Moody said, and he was definitely addressing the Hufflepuffs more than the Slytherins now, like he assumed they were the ones who needed this sort of thing explained, “is when a legilimens subsumes a human soul, destroying it for magical energy.”

More horrible mind magic applications. This was certainly making Mary feel wonderful about being a legilimens, especially when she could very well imagine the Dark Lord doing things like this.

“Anyone else? Mr. Nott.”

“Becoming a Black or White Mage, sir.”

“Explain what that means for your classmates, please.”

Glancing around the room, Theo said, “A Black or White Mage is a person who dedicates themselves into the service of a Dark or Light Power, respectively. They act as an instrument of their Patron on the mundane plane, attempting to shape the world in the image of that Power.”

Hannah Abbott—her House was Light and progressive, Mary knew—laughed nervously and said, “There’s no such thing as the Powers.” Progressives, as far as Mary could tell, seemed to believe that what traditionalists called the Powers was just a way people conceptualized magic, rather than sentient beings that existed when people weren’t ‘talking’ to them. Which seemed ridiculous to Mary, after what she’d experienced during rituals, but whatever.

“Then why is dedicating yourself to one an Unforgivable Act?” Theo retorted, raising an eyebrow. “If they don’t exist.”

Hannah looked stumped at that, and Moody cleared his throat heavily. “No matter what stance you take on the Powers’ existence,” he said, “it’s a fact that some mages have managed to perform illegal rituals which grant them power or knowledge beyond normal wizarding abilities. This is an Unforgivable Act both because it involves regularly practicing high ritual, which is illegal all by itself, and because those who do it make themselves into dangerous, destabilizing elements in society.”

They went on a bit longer, talking about stuff like ritually created vampires and blood alchemy, but they soon seemed to have exhausted the range of Unforgivable Acts the students either knew about or were willing to admit to knowing about.

As they filed out of the classroom, there seemed to be a sharp contrast in the students: the Hufflepuffs were noisily chattering amongst themselves (Mary caught snippets like “horrible” and “soul magic” and “He just killed it!”) while the Slytherins fell into a heavy silence, all clustered together, their usual divisions along political lines seemingly forgotten. They let the Hufflepuffs go on ahead, lingering together in a corridor just down the corner from the Defense classroom, looking around at each other.

No one else seemed to be saying anything, so Mary decided she would. “What a dick,” she said, not even caring if Moody heard her, and a handful of them—Pansy included—broke out in laughter.

“Come on,” Daphne said, taking charge as usual. “We’re gonna be late to Transfiguration.”

Once Transfiguration was over, Mary headed back to the dorms to drop off her book bag before dinner, only to be caught by Blaise asking if they could talk. She had a feeling she knew what it was about, but after that Defense lesson, mind magic was the last thing she wanted to think about. But for all she knew, all that talk of child enslavement and soul-eating had just reminded Blaise, ‘Oh yeah, I did mean to teach Mary occlumency.’ He was that kind of person, she was pretty sure: there was nothing she could think of that would possibly horrify him.

Sure enough, once they’d sequestered themselves in a corner of the common room, anti-eavesdropping charms in place, he said, “So, Professor Snape wants me to teach you occlumency.”

“Yep…” Mary agreed, feeling suddenly self-conscious, maybe because she didn’t actually know what Snape had told him about her situation.

Apparently taking pity on her, Blaise said, “He wrote me to say you’d started dreamwalking this summer. Gotta say, I never would’ve pegged you for a legilimens—even now, I can’t really feel your mind reaching out to mine at all.”

“Should it be?”

He nodded. “Usually once you start dreamwalking, you also start slipping into other people’s heads whether you want to or not. That’s why it’s so important for people like us to learn occlumency. Especially since Snape said you might also be an empath as well. Feeling other people’s feelings without being able to shield yourself is… unpleasant, at best. At worst, it could drive you mad.”

“I don’t know if he’s even right,” Mary confessed. “I mean, I’ve never noticed myself feeling other people’s feelings or hearing their thoughts or anything.”

“If you’re dreamwalking, you’re at least a legilimens. Though he didn’t really explain why he thought you were an empath, other than that he felt like your mother might’ve been one.”

He was clearly fishing for information, and she felt a spike of anxiety. She didn’t want to tell him about her Undead, Evil Grandfather; they weren’t that good of friends. She had barely even made herself tell Hermione, and Lilian still didn’t know. But did she even have a choice, if he was going to be in her head?

Blaise held up both of his hands like someone calming a frightened animal, and her anxiety only increased. “Hey, you don’t need to worry so much,” he said quietly. “Yes, I can feel that you’re freaking out. No, I’m not reading your mind right now—that’s what people always think, you know, as soon as they find out I’m a mind mage. I’m occluding against you, and I won’t pick up on whatever it is you don’t want me to see unless I stop. Not the details, anyway.”

Just when she’d started to relax a little, though, he added, “But if you want to learn occlumency, you are gonna have to get over it. It’s hard to have many secrets from the person who teaches you. If you’re not comfortable with that, I bet Snape would make time to teach you himself instead of having me do it.”

“No,” Mary said quickly, followed by another spike of anxiety, because, if Blaise was an empath—did he know? He had to, right? That she… felt things for Snape. She wasn’t even fully convinced it was a crush, but it was something, and if he could pick up on her feelings just by being next to her…

Blaise sighed. “Fine, but you’re really going to have to get past freaking out like this if you want to learn. If it helps, I know enough secrets about basically all of our classmates to blackmail the hell out of them, but I don’t. Because Snape would kill me, and because it’s just kind of shitty. And since Snape went out of his way to order me to teach you, I’m betting he’d be even angrier than usual if I use anything I learn against you.”

That… made a bit of sense. And yet, the idea of it—of giving up all privacy within her own head to the coolly detached, enigmatic Blaise Zabini—went against all of her instincts. She was afraid she wouldn’t be able to make herself do it… but she had to. Just a few days ago, she’d decided that it was time to grow up, to take the threat of the Dark Lord seriously. This was sort of like her first test, she decided, and she wasn’t going to back down.

“I’ll get over it,” she said, clenching her hands into fists.

Blaise examined her for a moment, eyes scanning over her face, then nodded. “Not tonight,” he said. “You need a little more time to get used to the idea.”

She really doubted that a few days would make her feel any better about doing something so completely contrary to her instincts, but she didn’t want to do it now either, so she wasn’t going to complain.

“Are you free at all this weekend?”

“On Sunday,” she said reluctantly. Saturday, she was meant to be talking with Snape, and they had a lot to talk about. Maybe if there was time after that, she could even ask him for tips on how to be more okay with letting Blaise in her head. (Who had taught Snape occlumency, anyway? She couldn’t imagine him giving up his privacy like that, even when he was younger.)

“Sunday, then, after lunch. We can meet in my room—it would be best to have some privacy.”

Now that they were fourth years, that was actually possible. For the first three years, no one but each student and the seventh year prefects (and the professors, she assumed, or at least Snape) had access to their bedrooms, but now that they’d put up their own wards, they were free to have friends over.

But… “If someone sees me go into your bedroom,” like Draco, who was in the same section of the dorms and would love to get back at her for the train, “people are going to think that we’re… you know.”

Blaise smirked. “Is that a problem? People will notice we’re spending time together eventually, and Snape said you want to keep your mind magic a secret. Better they assume we’re snogging than they realize I’m teaching you occlumency. I mean, not that non-legilimens don’t learn occlumency sometimes too, but it would be kind of out of character for you to approach me about it on your own.”

Mary thought about that for a moment. It was vaguely embarrassing, the idea of people thinking she and Blaise were doing that… but he had a point. And being embarrassed about that sort of thing seemed like one of the childish things she was meant to be putting aside to focus on serious matters—like learning to keep the Dark Lord out of her head.

Plus, if she was lucky, maybe it would even discourage the boys who kept asking her to Hogsmeade every time a visit rolled around. It wasn’t like she was interested in anyone else, so if everyone thought she was already dating someone…

“Alright,” she finally said. “Daphne won’t have a problem with it?”

Laughing, Blaise said, “Trust me, she won’t. Not unless you’re intending to somehow prevent our getting engaged. I’ve already snogged half the Hufflepuffs in our year; it’s really nothing to do with her.”

“Oh…” Mary wasn’t sure what to say to that, except, “Which ones?” He’d mentioned being friends with Justin Finch-Fletchley; was Justin into blokes? Was Blaise? He acted like it sometimes, but she was never sure if he was joking.

Blaise laughed. “A gentleman wouldn’t tell and a lady wouldn’t ask. But if you guess, I might just tell you.”

They spent the rest of the evening playing Guess Who Blaise Has Snogged—managing, at dinner, to pull Lilian and Daphne into the game as well—and by the time she went to bed, Mary had almost forgotten to be terrified about what she’d agreed to do on Sunday.

Almost.

“I hear that you’re covering the Unforgivable Curses in your Defense Against the Dark Arts class,” said Professor D’Onofrio, the Italian wizard who had replaced Binns the previous winter. He taught History of Magic, except, it wasn’t always history that they talked about. Mary and Hermione had decided that a better description would be history plus social studies.

In any case, the professor had been very popular ever since he’d arrived at Hogwarts simply because he didn’t give homework. Instead, every week he would give them a topic to research, and then they would debate it in class. The only written assignments were to a pair of hefty term papers. But it wasn’t just that—he was also a good teacher.

He’d told them in their very first class, “A fully competent History of Magic curriculum should include not only the dry facts of names and dates and events, but discussion of the cause and effect leading to each event, allowing one to place it in the larger context. It should also include discussions of current events, and the formation of history: the practices and policies of the institutions that shape your nation’s history, its interactions with other nations and between the peoples within its own borders, and the social forces and principles which have affected and continue to affect the political landscape of history-in-the-making.”

Their discussions the previous year had ranged from whether dementors should be used to guard prisoners to whether the Statute of Secrecy should be maintained into the twenty-first century. It was like a complete one-eighty from Binns’ class: Mary was almost never bored in History now. And it seemed like that would continue to be the case this year.

“Given that,” he continued, “I thought that we might discuss whether casting these three curses ought to be considered Unforgivable Acts, or whether they should treated the same as any other spell and evaluated based on harm done to the target, as well as intent. Before we get into that, however, I would like to see if everyone is aware of the specifics of British law when it comes to the Unforgivable Curses. Can anyone name an instance when casting one these curses would be considered legally permissible in Britain?”

Zacharias Smith immediately raised his hand. “Casting them on spiders, sir,” he confidently said. “Because otherwise, Professor Moody would be in Azkaban already.” The rest of the class tittered at this.

“Only on spiders?”

“On any animals, creatures, or non-human beings,” Blaise said. “Professor Moody said it himself in class: casting these spells on a human is an Unforgivable Act.”

Wait. “Beings?” Mary repeated, unable to stop herself. “It’s legal to use those curses on non-human beings? Like… house elves and goblins and werewolves?” Like Cammy? Remus? Someone could just murder Remus for no reason other than that he was a werewolf without being punished for it? What about Professor Flitwick—he was only half-goblin, did that count?

“That varies significantly depending on the being type,” Professor D’Onofrio said. “In most cases, it’s not legal—simply not Unforgivable. For example, casting any one of these curses on a goblin would be highly illegal and, in the case of the Killing Curse, treated the same as killing a human with a non-Unforgivable Curse. Can anyone tell me why that is?”

Susan Bones had an answer to that, which wasn’t surprising, given that her aunt was head of the DMLE. “Because goblins are citizens of a foreign nation. It would become a diplomatic issue if Britain allowed its citizens to go around killing them.”

“Not to mention, they have our entire economy hostage,” Blaise muttered, quietly enough that she didn’t think the professor could hear.

“What about werewolves?” Mary asked. A few of the Slytherins glanced at her, knowing exactly why she was asking.

Before Professor D’Onofrio could answer her, Blaise did. Of course he did—he had a thing about werewolves. He’d even wanted to be one when he was a child, according to Theo.

“When they’re transformed, it’s legal to use any of the Unforgivables on a werewolf, or to kill them with any other curse,” Blaise said. “When they’re in human form, it’s… well, it’s not legal exactly, but it’s generally not prosecuted as harshly as killing, torturing, or enthralling a human without the Unforgivables.”

Every time Mary thought Britain’s Creature Laws couldn’t get any worse…

“Mr. Zabini is correct,” Professor D’Onofrio said. “Moving on,” he added as several people raised their hands, probably because they’d already had several heated debates about nonhuman rights in the previous term, “can anyone name any other exceptions to the law? Any instances in Britain in which it would be legal to cast the Unforgivable Curses on a human?”

“In self defense?” Lilian suggested.

“No, there’s no provision for self defense in the law.” Before they could ask why, Professor D’Onofrio explained, “It is assumed that anyone acting in self defense would use a different spell—for example, stunning their attacker rather than killing them. Anyone else?”

Lilian blushed a bit at having guessed wrong, and Mary shot her a sympathetic smile. It was a reasonable guess—she had been thinking the same thing.

Once again, Susan spoke up. “During the war,” she said. “Director Crouch was head of the DMLE at the time, and he legalized use of the Unforgivables by Aurors when fighting against suspected Death Eaters in ‘78, as well as killing rather than capturing them.”

“Not just when fighting,” Theo said. “They used them on prisoners, too.”

“No, they didn’t,” Susan objected. “Director Crouch didn’t make that legal.”

“But—”

Professor D’Onofrio cut them off. “The use of Unforgivables on prisoners was not formally legalized during the war. That does not mean, however, that it never took place. The letter of the law is one thing—how and when it is enforced is another.”

In other words, if the only people in the room were Aurors and prisoners, well, the Aurors weren’t exactly going to arrest themselves. Why is Britain like this? Mary frequently found herself asking that question during History lessons, but it never stopped being relevant.

“In any case,” Professor D’Onofrio said, “Those are the two major exceptions in Britain: during the war, and their use on non-humans. Now, can anyone give any reasons why these curses should be classified as Unforgivable?”

“Intent,” Hannah said immediately. “I mean, you need to mean them to cast them, right? A good person wouldn’t even be able to cast them.”

“Define ‘good’,” Blaise snarked.

“Yeah, what if someone’s just defending themselves?” Lilian asked. “How does it make you a bad person to want to kill someone who’s trying to kill you?”

“Well, it’s really Dark, isn’t it. A good person would just want to get away—they wouldn’t want the other person dead.”

Blaise, who still didn’t seem to be taking this very seriously, said, “I didn’t know being a bad person was considered worthy of a life sentence in Azkaban.”

“Yeah, the law should be based on what someone does, not how they feel,” Mary chimed in.

“I have another reason,” Leanne Malone—another Hufflepuff—said, maybe just to keep the argument from getting too heated. “If… well, it doesn’t quite work now, but if we were to make them illegal under all circumstances—like, even against non-humans, or when the spell doesn’t even work—then it would be a lot easier to punish people for them. All you’d have to do is check their wands, and if they cast it, then boom. Straight to Azkaban. It would save the trouble of a big, complicated trial.”

“That wouldn’t work,” Susan countered at once. “Someone could steal your wand, cast an Unforgivable, and then have you sent to Azkaban for it.”

“Oh, right,” Leanne said, going a bit pink. “I didn’t think about that.”

“What if they use Veritaserum or legilimency or something to figure out who actually cast it?” Zach Smith suggested.

Blaise shook his head. “Strong enough occlumens can get around that. And a legilimens could even plant false memories on someone.”

“But that’s the case for any crime, isn’t it?” Draco asked.

“Well, yeah,” Blaise agreed. “In any case, we’ve established that just checking a person’s wand isn’t enough to prove they cast it.”

“I think they—or, maybe just the Imperius,” Mary amended, “should be legal for self-defense. Like, if you’re just using it to make the person stop trying to kill you, and not to do anything bad to them. Professor, you said that it’s assumed you could just stun the wizard attacking you, but—what if you aren’t that good at dueling? Because I’m in Dueling Club, and fighting to knockout is hard. And Professor Moody said that the Unforgivables are unblockable, so if your life’s in danger, wouldn’t it be better to use one of those than something that might not even land?”

“It’s not like using an Unforgivable automatically ends a duel,” Theo pointed out. “Both sides were throwing them around during the war. People can dodge them, and the Imperius can even be resisted, especially if you have occlumency training.”

“Well, okay,” Mary said, “but it still seems like your chances of survival would be better if you used the Imperius—or the Killing Curse—rather than a stunner on someone who’s trying to kill you. Even if there’s no guarantee, I don’t think people should be punished for trying to survive. Especially if they’re attacked by someone way stronger than them.”

…Actually, if the Dark Lord attacked her, maybe she should use an Unforgivable on him? Yeah, he’d probably kill her anyway, but it would at least up her chances. Though that would require that she be able to cast one in the first place.

“But it just escalates the situation,” Susan said. “What I mean is, if someone thinks you might use an Unforgivable on them, then they’re more likely to use one against you. Or another serious curse. Director Crouch was removed from his post for a reason—aside from it being wrong to use Unforgivables, allowing them during battles just led to more people being killed. The Death Eaters stopped holding back.”

“I don’t think Death Eaters should’ve been punished that harshly for using Unforgivables after the Aurors started using them,” Draco said. “I mean, if whoever you’re fighting might kill you—or if they’re going to use Unforgivables on you if they catch you—why wouldn’t you do whatever you could to fight back?”

“The Death Eaters were using Unforgivables before the Ministry was!” Zach retorted. “All Director Crouch did was even the playing field.”

Professor D’Onofrio clapped his hands together, drawing their attention. “Remember, class, we’re debating whether these curses ought to be Unforgivable in the abstract. This is not the time or place for an argument over the war.”

At least one of their professors cared about the bloody Truce, Mary thought. Still, watching her classmates snap at each other, she couldn’t help think that recent events—the World Cup, and Moody’s lesson—had destabilized a certain tenuous balance they had been suspended in since she had arrived at Hogwarts, and she was more than a little anxious about what would happen next.

“Can you believe it?”

“You’re going to have to be more specific, Maia,” Mary said with amusement, watching Hermione pace back and forth in the grassy courtyard where they were spending their free period. They’d come out here to study and get some sun, but so far, they hadn’t gotten much studying done at all. Hermione hadn’t even sat down.

“Your Defense and History classes talked about the Unforgivables too, right?”

“Yeah. Are you asking if I can believe that they’re not Unforgivable if used on non-humans, or that Director Crouch legalized them during the war? Or that people say the Aurors used them on prisoners too?”

“Yes!” Hermione exploded, throwing her hands up.

“Oh, well, then… yeah, kind of. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s horrible, but… it’s Britain. At least they removed Crouch from office—well, that office, anyway.” That was honestly better than she’d expected.

“Well, yeah, but… they didn’t punish him for it. Even now that it’s come out that Black was in Azkaban for twelve years without a trial, no one seems to be doing anything!”

“Like what?”

“Like…” Hermione ran a hand through her hair. Her curls had been much less frizzy lately, like she’d finally gotten the hang of taking care of them, but the more she messed with them, the more they expanded, forming a little cloud around her head. “I asked in class, and Professor D’Onofrio said that the wizarding world—or the ICW, at least—does have a concept of war crimes. Which torturing or mind-controlling prisoners clearly falls under. By all rights, Crouch ought to have been sentenced as a war criminal—but because he was on the winning side he’s just walking around. He’s still a Ministry Director!”

Mary decided to cast a Muffliato, just to be on the safe side. “I agree with you, I’m just not sure what we’re meant to do about it.”

Hermione scowled. “Maybe when your godfather is reinstated as Lord Black, he could do something…”

Sirius’s case was going to trial before the Wizengamot in about a month, and Mrs. Tonks was pretty confident he would not only be exonerated, but also acknowledged as Lord of his House. As it turned out, while his parents had disowned him, they hadn’t disinherited him like Mrs. Tonks’s parents had done to her. Basically, he was no longer recognized as their son, but was still a member of the House of Black. The only surviving member, actually, who wasn’t either married into another family or in Azkaban. His mother, Madam Walburga, had died back in May.

“Dunno,” Mary said. “I guess he could try to at least get Crouch in trouble for leaving him in Azkaban without a trial, but you know they’re claiming it was an accident due to all the chaos at the end of the war. I doubt they’d do much about it, since he’s not in charge of law enforcement anymore.”

“I know, but… argh!” Hermione let out a noise of frustration bordering on a shriek. “And the Creature Laws too. I just, I hate this country.” Then, turning to Mary with an unnerving glint in her eye, she added, “Never mind Black—you’ve got a Wizengamot seat, too. You could do something about this.”

Mary blinked. “I… think you’re overestimating my power here, Maia. Unless this is all just a scheme to get me to start a new political bloc so you can win your bet.” Although, now that she thought about it… “I guess I could at least talk to Mr. McGonagall and ask him to change how he’s voting. So far, he’s been voting however he thinks my grandfather Charlus would’ve, but, well, he was really Light, and the Light’s…”

“Full of racist arseholes?” Hermione suggested. Then, “Not that that makes them much different than the Dark, just, they hate non-humans instead of muggleborns.”

“Hey, Ars Publica isn’t that anti-muggleborn,” Mary protested. Honestly, while she still felt too young and uninformed to know which party she supported, they didn’t sound all that bad to her. At least, not compared to some of the others. “The Allied Dark aren’t even really that Dark—not in the traditional sense.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “It’s semantic drift, Lizzie. Whatever the word ‘Dark’ meant politically before the war, when people say it now, they’re talking about the Allied Dark and the Death Eaters.”

“Well, yeah, but they’re kind of wrong, aren’t they?”

With a shake of her head, disheveled curls bouncing, Hermione said, “Doesn’t matter. Will you talk to Mr. McGonagall?”

“I guess so, but I don’t entirely know what to say,” Mary admitted. “I mean, if I just want to say, ‘By the way, I’m in favor of Creature Rights and against war crimes,’ that’s easy enough, but there are so many issues, and I don’t know what I even think about half of them.”

“Hm.” Finally, Hermione dropped down to sit on the ground beside her, apparently done pacing. “What if I do the research? I could look into the political stuff for you and come up with stances that seem reasonable and write it all down, and then you could check it and see if you agree. I think we’ll probably agree on most things anyway, just by virtue of us both having, you know, common sense, which no one else in bloody this country seems to have.”

Mary snorted at that. “That would be helpful, actually, except, don’t go overboard. If you give me like a hundred meter long scroll, I’m never going to be able to actually read it in enough detail to know whether I agree or not.”

“Got it. I’ll keep it under six feet—okay, okay, three,” she amended, seeing Mary’s expression. “Just some overarching principles to guide how you want him to vote.”

“I should talk to Catherine about this first, actually,” Mary realized. “I don’t want to accidentally do something stupid. Like, if House Potter is suddenly going to start voting like a member of Common Fate or, I don’t know, the more decent Houses in Ars Publica, people are going to react to it, and I don’t want to be caught unawares.”

“Fine,” Hermione said, though she sounded annoyed at being stymied in her quest to revamp Mary’s political stance. “It’s a stupid way to run a country, you know. Inherited seats in the legislature shouldn’t even exist.”

“I suppose that’ll be top of your list, huh?” Mary teased. “Democratic Expansionism.”

Hermione shook her head quickly. “Not far enough. I’m not talking about a House of Commons, I’m talking about getting rid of the Wizengamot.”

“Well… I don’t entirely disagree, but I don’t think I’m ready to have my first political position as a member of the Wizengamot be ‘abolish the Wizengamot,’” Mary said, and Hermione scowled. “Ask me again in a few years. Or maybe you can just get elected Minister of Magic and try to do it yourself.” Not that they’d let the Minister dismantle the Wizengamot either, but it would at least be less impossible for the Minister to do so than a random muggleborn schoolgirl.

“That won’t do either,” Hermione said dismissively. “The Ministry is just as bad—I mean, Crouch. And have you paid attention to anything Fudge has been doing in the past… four years?”

Mary giggled; Fudge had only been appointed four years ago. “They all have to go, then,” she teased, although Hermione didn’t seem to be joking. “I guess you’ll just have to name yourself Lady Protector.”

They’d covered Lady Cromwell in History back in the spring. Basically, in times of crisis, the Wizengamot had the ability to appoint a Lord or Lady Protector who would have almost unlimited authority for the duration of the emergency. But in the seventeenth century, a witch named Frances Cromwell had unilaterally declared herself Lady Protector and fought a devastating war against the Wizengamot to attempt to force them into submission. She was basically considered the worst Dark Lady or Lord of all time, and had been a big part of the reason why the Statute of Secrecy was created in the first place, seeing as her war had spilled over into the muggle world. After that, the Wizengamot had never appointed another person to the office—it was basically tainted by association.

(Which actually, it turned out, meant that Magical Britain couldn’t declare war, since that would require they appoint someone—hence why what people called ‘the war’ had never been officially recognized. Because their country was absurd.)

Anyway, all that was to say that Mary was implying that Hermione ought to just become a Dark Lady, conquer Britain, get rid of the Wizengamot like Cromwell had tried to do, so that she could fix the country herself. Which was probably not something she should joke about out in the open, but she’d cast Muffliato, and anyway, they were fourth year girls! It should be obvious to anyone listening that they were only joking.

Still, it was a little concerning that Hermione’s first reaction to that was to grin and say, “Did you know Lady Cromwell was a muggleborn?”

Yes, in fact, Mary did. Because Hermione had talked of little else for an entire week back in April. Instead of saying so, Mary just shook her head and said, “I’ve created a monster.” Still, she had to admit, she’d prefer the Dark Lady Maia over the Dark Lord Voldemort. Less likely to try to kill her, for one, and she’d probably use her powers for good.

Chapter Text

“How was your first week back?” Snape asked, pouring two cups of coffee from the pot the house elves had sent up. Unlike the stuff they served in the Great Hall, the elves always sent him the good stuff—he’d told Mary once that he’d been going down to the kitchens to beg them for it since his fourth year. Though she thought he was mostly only asking to be polite, Mary couldn’t help but let out a groan, and Snape chuckled. “That bad already?”

“Well, let’s see,” she said. “Draco broke the Truce before we’d even gotten to school. Moo—Professor Moody not only broke the Truce, he also made us all watch him use the Unforgivables on a spider.” Which, actually, had been a useful lesson, but it was still a lot for her first week back. “In History, a fight nearly broke out over the war. And Hermione might be planning to become the next Dark Lady.” At his raised eyebrow, she elaborated, “She thinks we need to get rid of the Wizengamot and the Ministry, and maybe have Director Crouch arrested and put on trial for war crimes.”

Sitting down in the armchair across from her, Snape pinched the bridge of his nose and inhaled slowly. “Would you kindly ask Miss Granger to refrain from doing so until we’ve finished with the first Dark Lord?”

“I tried,” Mary said. “Right now, it seems like she’ll settle for revamping House Potter’s political stance. She’s writing me three feet of parchment on it as we speak. Don’t worry, I’ll talk to Catherine and Aunt Minnie first,” she added quickly—and then, seeing his expression, “And you. Just to, you know, make sure I’m not doing anything that will make people want to assassinate me… Any more than they already do.”

“Much obliged.”

“So…” she said, when he didn’t say anything else. “It kind of seems like the Truce is… failing.”

“It does,” Snape agreed, staring darkly into his coffee mug—the same one she’d bought him last Christmas. “Although, it was always going to.”

“Oh?”

“There are varying opinions, but if you were to ask me, the Truce was always going to do more harm than good in the long run. In the immediate aftermath of the Dark Lord’s… temporary defeat, yes, it saved lives—particularly as Lady Zabini convinced the Blackheart to remain in Azkaban as part of it—but it prevented any true resolution to the war. Not unlike covering a cauldron which is on the verge of boiling over without removing it from the heat. The pressure of the repressed hostility on both sides has only been building, and at some point, it’s inevitable that it will blow up in our faces.”

Well, when he put it like that, it seemed obvious. (And also made her understand a little bit better why the Ministry was covering up Bellatrix’s escape.) It was just… “But you’re really strict about making sure that we follow it.” Why did he care so much if he thought it was a bad thing?

“Yes, well, when that particular bomb does go off, I would prefer it not to be in the middle of the school where I teach.” Then, with a glare at nothing in particular, he added, “Though it seems like that might be asking too much of the world.”

Mary hesitated for a moment before speaking—generally, professors were meant to back each other up, like Slytherins, but she and Snape were pretty informal by now, and she already had the impression he hated the wizard, so she finally flat-out said, “I think Moody’s a dick.”

That earned her a snort. “You will not find me disagreeing.”

“Did he—I don’t know, fight against you during the war?”

“Yes, of course. He was not only one of the most prolific Aurors, but also one of the Order’s main battlemages. He killed no small number of my… compatriots. Besides that, he was the one to take me into custody after the war.”

“You were arrested?” she asked. She thought she’d heard something like that before, but wasn’t quite certain. When Snape nodded, she said, “Did they… in History class, Professor D’Onofrio said that it was… well, not legal, but accepted, to use the Unforgivables on Death Eater prisoners during the war.”

“No, I was spared such treatment.”

Mary shook her head. “I’m so glad they at least made Crouch step down over it.” In response, Snape scoffed. “What?”

“They didn’t make him step down over the use of Unforgivables on prisoners. The Ministry was widely in favor of that, even if the law did not explicitly allow for it,” he explained. “They only made him step down because his son was discovered to be a Death Eater. He participated in the attack on the Longbottoms that put them both in St. Mungo’s.”

“…Seriously? War crimes are fine, but the Ministry draws the line at being related to a Death Eater?”

“It was more complicated than that, but in a sense, yes. Until the revelation of his son’s Death Eater status, he was on track to become the Minister of Magic.”

Maybe Hermione should just conquer Britain.

“In fact, I suspect Bellatrix may have purposefully taken Barty—Crouch’s son, that is—along on that mission as one final act of revenge against his father. That’s the main reason he was recruited in the first place, although he would have been worth recruiting on his own merits alone.”

Somehow, it didn’t surprise Mary that Bellatrix had recruited her enemy’s son as retaliation. “He was a good fighter?” she asked.

“Not especially, but he was an exceptionally talented cursebreaker, and an omniglot besides, like his father—that is, someone with the ability to pick up languages at native fluency simply by being nearby while they are spoken. He was two years ahead of me in Slytherin, and said to be the best Runes student the school had seen in years. His main work as a Death Eater involved breaking through wards whenever necessary.”

Though it was rather silly, Mary now found herself imagining a young man who looked much like Bill Weasley, except with a Dark Mark on his arm. “So… what happened to him?” she asked. “If his dad was head of the DMLE when he was arrested, did he at least get a trial?”

“He did. His father sentenced him—along with the Lestranges—to life in Azkaban. Which, in Barty’s case, turned out to be rather short: he died roughly a year later. It was that which led to Crouch being removed from his office—in short, Barty’s death made him a sympathetic figure in the eyes of the public, and public opinion turned on Crouch.”

That didn’t make her feel much better about Britain, to think that the public could so quickly shift from cheering Crouch on in his actions to disavowing them. As for Crouch putting his own son in Azkaban and leaving him to his death, she wasn’t really sure whether that made the whole thing seem better or worse. On the one hand, at least Crouch hadn’t been the sort of corrupt politician who would pull strings to get his family a lighter sentence. On the other hand, she had firmly come around to the idea that Azkaban shouldn’t exist at all, and she didn’t know what kind of person could send their own kid there. Particularly when that kid had apparently only been recruited to get back at their father in the first place.

But they’d gotten really far off track. As interesting as it was to hear about the people Snape had once fought alongside, it wasn’t like knowing about some dead cursebreaker was going to help her. “What about you? Why did you even get arrested if Dumbledore vouched for you?”

“Well, it was necessary to hold a trial to determine my… innocence,” Snape said, which, duh. Mary felt a bit dumb, though also angry. Snape had gotten a trial because Dumbledore had vouched for him, and this Barty Crouch because his father had been someone important, but Sirius hadn’t. But even as she was stewing on that, Snape added something which only made her angrier: “It was not necessary to send me to Azkaban for several weeks, however.”

“They sent you to Azkaban?! Why?”

“Officially? A clerical error. Unofficially… the Headmaster likely wanted to make sure I was well aware of what fate he had rescued me from, and what might happen if I were to renege on our deal in the wake of… the events that ended the war.”

Mary’s mouth fell open. It was really getting exhausting, finding new things to be outraged over every day, and yet… She really had no good response to that, other than, like, cursing Dumbledore, which would almost certainly get her expelled. Finally, she scowled and said, “He’s a dick, too.”

A more wholehearted laugh from Snape this time, and despite her anger, part of her was pleased to have drawn it out of him. “He is,” Snape agreed.

It was strange, being able to talk to him like this. Mary wondered if it was her imagination, or if things were a little different between them—friendlier, more casual—than they’d been at this time last year. Maybe even last term.

Like her letters over the summer, for example. She hadn’t intended to be so cheeky, but then his first letter had come back, full of melodramatic complaints about her writing to him but still answering all of her questions, and she couldn’t help but tease him a bit. And instead of rebuffing her, he’d played along, and it had just… snowballed.

Even Remus and Sirius, when she sent them letters, she didn’t talk to like this—despite the fact that Sirius seemed like, well, hardly a real adult, and kept begging her to be less stiff and formal with him. It was strange to admit it, considering who Snape was as a person and the way he’d broken her trust last year, but she actually felt more comfortable with him than she did with them. More like they could just talk to each other as people, somehow.

Maybe that was partially because of what he’d done last year. Before that, it was embarrassing to admit, she’d kind of put him up on this pedestal. But the discovery that he’d been lying to her about Sirius had changed things. See, no one was entirely trustworthy, she thought. Now she felt like she had a better understanding of Snape’s limitations, which paradoxically made her feel like she could trust him more. She didn’t have to wonder how he would let her down; she knew.

Not only that, but she’d screamed at him, completely lost her composure, and instead of playing the Professor Card and putting her in detention for a month, he’d listened to her, tried to fix what he’d done, and apologized. Like she was his equal or something, and not just a student. And their secret visit to Pettigrew… well, that wasn’t a normal thing a professor and student did together, either.

It was exciting, feeling like things were different—like she could talk to him as a person and not just a professor—but also a bit nerve-wracking, because she was always slightly afraid she was going to overstep her bounds and get rebuffed. So far, though, she seemed to be doing alright.

…Except that she should probably be paying attention to what he was saying.

“We were going to discuss the events of the World Cup. Or, more precisely, I have already heard Minerva’s accounting of the events, but it would be helpful if you were willing to allow me to examine your memories of that night directly.”

“Oh, sure.” Letting Snape legilimize her over the summer had been a little scary—not because she didn’t trust him, it was just kind of, well, invasive. But this would be the fourth time now, and she felt like she was starting to get used to it. Which was good, considering her plans for tomorrow.

Still, staring straight into his eyes was—well, it was… a lot. Just, embarrassing, somehow. She wanted to look away, or squirm in her seat, but made herself stay still. Like always, she felt a pressure building in the back of her eyes, and Snape’s own eyes… changed, somehow. A little more shiny, somehow, harder to look away from, as he slipped into her mind.

As always, he was very polite about it. Only observed the events from when Hermione woke her up to when they had arrived in Fulton’s office at the Ministry, without touching any other parts of her mind so far as she could tell. She could feel him there, looking, but couldn’t tell what he thought or felt about the whole thing, which—it was just disappointing in general that she was supposed to be a mind mage but couldn’t seem to actually read anybody except the one person whose mind she wanted to stay out of!

When he withdrew, however, she had some idea how he must be feeling: annoyed. Or, at least, he looked annoyed. “Mary Elizabeth,” he said sternly, and she wanted to flinch already, despite not knowing what she’d done wrong. Insisting on going out to look for Lilian, maybe? But she wasn’t apologizing for that, no matter what he said!

“Yes?”

Snape let out a slow exhale before speaking, like he was getting ahold of his temper. “You knew that there was a possibility the Dark Lord or his servant would be at the World Cup.”

Wait, she hadn’t said that out loud. Which meant… he could hear her thoughts in the memory? If she’d known that, she would have thought twice about letting him see it! But instead of saying so—especially because he might have already told her once that legilimency worked that way, and she’d just forgotten or something—she said, “I’m sorry!”

“What were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t!” she cried. “I was being stupid—childish—I know I was. You don’t have to tell me—I’ve been thinking it ever since that night. I wanted to go to the World Cup, and I was afraid you or Aunt Minnie would stop me if you knew, so I convinced myself I was remembering it wrong, or that nothing was going to happen. I think I knew I was being childish even before the riot, I just… thought I could get away with it without anything bad happening. I was thinking about how the Dark Lord was probably coming back, and just… really wanted to have at least one chance to just be a stupid teenager and see a stupid Quidditch game before horrible things started happening again.”

Wait, was she over-explaining? Or, like, being manipulative, trying to make him feel sorry for her so he wouldn’t scold her? Or was she just being honest? She genuinely wasn’t sure.

In any case, if she had been accidentally being manipulative, it seemed to have worked, because Snape looked marginally less pissed off now and was just kind of looking at her in thoughtful silence. “I suppose you have since learned the lesson that we regretfully do not live in a world that will allow you such things.”

That was one way to say she’d gotten kicked in the teeth by reality. “Yeah,” she said, her voice coming out weirdly small. “I won’t be that stupid again. Promise.”

For a second, Snape almost looked sad. It made her feel awkward—she didn’t want him yelling at her, but she didn’t want him pitying her either—so she added, “Do you think he was the one who cast the Dark Mark? Do you think he got whoever he was after? Oh! That reminds me, I had this thought: if he wasn’t trying to kill or abduct someone, maybe he was possessing them, or putting them under the Imperius? If he got someone important under his control, he could do a lot of damage, couldn’t he?”

Snape’s eyes narrowed slightly again, but this time, she was pretty sure he was thinking, not angry. “He could. That’s certainly a possibility, but we unfortunately have no way of knowing for sure. You haven’t had any more dreams?”

“Not of him.”

“Are you certain? You’ve been writing them down?”

Mary nodded. “Yep, just, normal dreams.” And then she remembered that wasn’t strictly true, and neither was her saying she hadn’t dreamt of the Dark Lord, because she’d had that super weird dream about him—or, teenage him—betrothing her to Snape. Which—all of that was something she’d successfully pushed from her mind for this whole conversation, buried under the more pressing issues, until this very moment, and she suddenly found her face heating and had to look away from him.

Which, unfortunately, just made him think she had something to hide. “Mary Elizabeth, if there is something you are not telling me… again…”

“No, no, really,” she said quickly, blushing all the harder. “I mean, maybe some of my dreams have been weird, but, like, normal weird. But nothing like the dream I had over the summer. I promise.”

“Good,” Snape said. “You are continuing to work on lucid dreaming?” When she nodded, he added, “And you are meeting with Mr. Zabini for occlumency lessons?”

“First one’s tomorrow.” She’d kind of wanted to ask Snape for advice on how to not be worried about letting Blaise in her head, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to, mostly because she was already embarrassed enough. Instead, to change the subject, she asked, “How about you? Any change in the Mark, or other—I don’t know, signs?”

“It’s still slowly continuing to darken, and twinges on occasion, but that’s all.”

“I wish we had some way of figuring out what he’s up to,” Mary said, frowning.

“Indeed.” Then, exhaling slowly, Snape added, “I suspect I do not need to tell you this, but you really must be as cautious as you are able this year. If anything strange or suspect happens, anything at all, bring it to me at once. Do not go running off on your own, or sneaking around the castle in the middle of the night.”

“Of course.” And then—oh, she really didn’t want to do this, but after her fuck-up with the World Cup, she knew it was the responsible thing to do. “Do you… think it’s safe for me to go to Hogsmeade? Professor McGonagall signed my permission form, but if you don’t think I should go…” Admittedly, she wasn’t even sure if Aunt Minnie still thought she should go, since she’d signed the form back in early August, before the World Cup—before she’d heard from Snape about the signs of the Dark Lord’s return.

She braced herself for him to tell her not to go, but to her surprise, he said, “The Headmaster has decided on having additional chaperones in the village—myself, Moody, and Flitwick, as the best battlemages or duelists among the faculty, will be there for the entirety of each visit. If you stay within populated areas—preferably within the view of myself and the other professors, but if not, then at least near large groups of students or villagers—I think you should be able to attend.”

Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t keep a grin from spreading across her face. “Thank you! I’ll be careful, I promise!”

Snape gave her a rueful shake of his head. “Seeing as I am not your guardian and would not be able to unilaterally forbid you from the visits, it’s hardly necessary to thank me.”

“Yeah, but, I wouldn’t go if you said I shouldn’t. Like I said, I’m done being stupid.”

“Will wonders never cease.”

“Hey!” she protested, but he was smirking, and she found herself grinning again. This—him teasing her—was a lot better than talking about how awful and dangerous the coming months were likely to be. Even though she knew it was important. But I’m not being childish anymore. “What about Moody?” she asked, glad that Snape wasn’t making her call him ‘Professor’ now that they’d established that neither of them liked him. “I mean, other than him being, you know… a git. Do you think he’s actually going to help keep me from getting killed, or is he totally useless?”

“He might prove helpful,” Snape said—reluctantly, it sounded like. “For all his shortcomings, he would not have lived through the war and the decades as an Auror before and after if he were useless. When it comes to fighting Dark wizards, he is one of the best. Or, he was.”

“Was?”

“It’s too soon to tell, but there are… rumors that he’s not been well since the revelation that Peter Pettigrew survived and that Black was claiming innocence. As well as being his compatriot in the Order, Black was Moody’s junior partner in the Aurors. By all accounts, Moody took the news of his betrayal extremely hard, believing he ought to have known all along that Black was a Death Eater. So, when it came out that he had not been one after all…”

“He’s going mad with guilt or something?”

“Reading between the lines of what Dumbledore has said, and others who know Moody well, I believe so. He’s been acting erratically as of late—more so than usual, that is.”

“Great. So, maybe he’ll help, or maybe he’ll go completely mad and make everything worse.”

“Maybe he’ll help you, yes.” With a slight sneer to his lip, Snape added, “He will almost certainly make my year worse, whether he assists in keeping you out of the Dark Lord’s clutches or not. The revelation about Black’s… innocence does not seem to have convinced him to reevaluate his judgment of me.”

“He still thinks you’re a Death Eater?”

“Correct. He believes that I escaped justice by hoodwinking Dumbledore, which he views as a personal affront. Every time we have crossed paths since the war, he’s gone out of his way to needle me and make it clear that he believes I should still be in Azkaban, where he once put me. I suspect he will do his utmost to make my life miserable throughout this year—or, more miserable,” he muttered under his breath.

Despite herself, Mary almost wanted to smile. It really wasn’t funny, just… Snape could be so dramatic sometimes. She wondered idly if he would consider Moody better or worse than Remus, but didn’t think she should ask. Instead, she said, “Well, that’s one more tally in the column of me hating him, I guess.” Snape didn’t say anything, so she decided to change the subject. “Is there a way you can tell Dumbledore we think the Dark Lord could’ve taken control of someone at the World Cup without telling him how we know?”

He sighed. “Likely not. In any case, I would want something more concrete before I went to the Headmaster. We still have no idea if this is even the case, nor do we know who the target might have been.”

“Do you have any ideas?” she asked.

“It would depend on what his goals are. I doubt that he’s making a power play this early, not when he has only a blood golem in place of a body and a single follower. More likely, he’s looking for something that will help restore him to true life, which would suggest he would target some sort of expert in bio-alchemy or ritual magic…”

“I don’t know… I’ve just got this feeling that’s not right. Maybe I’m wrong, but… I feel like it’s someone important. Like, not just in a really specific field of the Dark Arts.”

“Unfortunately, there were quite a number of important people at the World Cup.”

That was true. And… even worse… “If he is controlling someone important—like, through the Imperius, or possession, or whatever—then wouldn’t the Triwizard Tournament be the perfect opportunity for him to get to me if he wanted? I mean, there will be a lot of important people visiting for that, won’t there?”

Snape pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes, it is suspiciously convenient. Once the guests begin arriving, you would do well to be on your guard—or, even more on your guard than you should already be.”

For a moment, Mary was reminded of Moody shouting ‘CONSTANT VIGILANCE’ at them in class. If he and Snape had nothing else in common, there at least was that. “I will be.”

“Good. Also, I hope you are intelligent enough not to need this warning, but the definition of ‘being on your guard’ leaves no room for attempting to circumvent the age line and enter your name into the Tournament, as the Weasley twins are no doubt planning. I would say that the age line is sufficient to keep you out, but given that nothing seems to happen at this school without your somehow being drawn into it…”

Mary snorted. “You think I want to enter this Tournament?” She was mostly just exasperated it was happening at all—it meant no Quidditch all year (she’d still only been able to play a single game with her Firebolt!), tons of strangers who might be planning to murder her, and seemed like yet another way for the Headmaster to encourage the students to put themselves in mortal danger.

“I should hope not, but given some of your stunts on the Quidditch field, you do seem to enjoy showing off for a crowd.”

She scowled at him. “That’s different. Besides, like I said, I’m not being stupid like that anymore. I’m taking this seriously.”

“Well, I’m glad someone at this school is. A bloody Triwizard Tournament. Honestly.” Snape looked so offended by the idea that she had to stifle a laugh behind her hand.

“Really, I’m very on board with keeping my head down. I would say I’m hoping to have a normal year, except I’m pretty sure that would just tempt the Chaotic Power or something into sending me another monster or murderer to fight.”

“Please do not say that,” Snape said, looking genuinely pained at the idea. Mary mimed zipping her lips, like Hermione did sometimes.

“I’ll stay as far away from excitement and danger as physically possible,” she assured him. “Promise.”

He scoffed, looking like he didn’t believe her—that, or he didn’t believe the universe would allow her to. She had to admit, her track record wasn’t great. Even when she wasn’t intending to put herself in danger, it just sort of happened.

They speculated for a little while longer on what the Dark Lord might be planning, but without any more information to go on, they were really only making wild guesses. Finally, when their coffee was long gone, he said, “The vision from Lammas which you mentioned in your letters—are you considering moving in with Black after his trial concludes?” Though his tone was carefully neutral, Mary could sense the distaste underneath.

“I am,” she admitted, “but… I don’t want to talk about that. Not with you, I mean.” She valued Snape’s opinion on most things, but when it came to Sirius, she thought it was better not to talk about either wizard with the other. That seemed like the easiest way to keep the peace moving forward, especially once Sirius was more a part of her life. Still, she gave him a small, apologetic smile, feeling a little bad—though if he was hurt, he didn’t show it.

Instead, he only said, “Understood. And the Grangers? Has there been any progress on your adoption?”

Mary’s stomach sank. In the hubbub of her first week back, she’d almost managed to put that out of her mind. “They won’t be adopting me,” she admitted. “I… changed my mind.”

“Oh?” He sounded surprised.

“After the World Cup, I just kept thinking about that muggle family, and how easily it could have been the Grangers, if we’d brought them with us and people had noticed they were muggles. And with the Dark Lord trying to kill me… it just doesn’t seem smart to have a paper trail connecting them to me. They could get hurt.”

“And how did they feel about this? And Miss Granger?”

Looking away, feeling oddly like she was being interrogated, Mary said, “They were all sad, but I think they understood—Hermione especially. She saw what was being done to those muggles, after all. And it’s safer for everyone this way.”

Snape was silent for a long moment, and then, quietly, he said, “That was very selfless of you.”

“Not really,” Mary insisted, as uncomfortable as she’d felt when Dan had said the same thing. “It’s not safe for me either if people know I’m with them. And I don’t want to lose them.”

When she glanced up at him, Snape didn’t look convinced.

“Seriously,” she said. “It’s no big deal. It’s just a piece of paper anyway. I’ll probably never have to see the Dursleys again.”

She mostly believed that. After that first morning, when she’d cried for hours, she’d felt okay about the decision—and anyway, all that crying had probably just been because she was exhausted from everything that had happened at the World Cup.

“It might be possible to find someone else to take over your muggle guardianship,” Snape said. “A muggleborn or halfblood mage, perhaps—they would have a legal identity in muggle Britain, while also being able to defend themselves.” Then, to her utter shock, he added, “Were it not for the necessity of keeping our relationship from the Dark Lord’s knowledge, I would offer myself.”

Wait, seriously? The only problem Snape had with adopting her was that the Dark Lord might find out?

“That’s okay,” she said quickly, even while reeling from what he’d said. “I mean, it only really matters if I’m in the muggle world and something happens, or I need a guardian’s permission for something, but I don’t think I’m going to go to the muggle world much for a while. If the Dark Lord comes back, then even visiting the Grangers is probably a bad idea. Besides, if someone does follow the paper trail and thinks they can get to me through the Dursleys…”

“Good riddance?” Snape suggested with a smirk, and she grinned.

“Good riddance.” He didn’t know that, but those were the final words Aunt Petunia had spoken to her when Aunt Minnie had taken her away.

Even as their conversation continued, however, she couldn’t help but be stunned that Snape had said he kind of wanted to adopt her. She ought to have been flattered, and yet, something about it made her weirdly uncomfortable. And unfortunately, she was pretty sure she knew what that was.

See, she’d done her very best to put it out of her mind—it had even been easy for a time, with the World Cup and everything that came after—but she hadn’t actually managed to make herself forget her revelation that maybe, she might possibly fancy him a little. Or, at least, it seemed the most plausible explanation for the weird ways she felt and acted when it came to do with him.

But she’d been hoping to keep it out of her mind during this conversation. Not that she thought he’d read her mind without her permission or anything (although she was very glad she hadn’t thought about the topic at all during the memory she’d shown him), but it just made things awkward. Made it harder to act normally around him.

Like, right now, now that she was thinking about it, she found herself stealing glances at him, asking herself, Do I really fancy him? It was one thing to believe she might when she was alone in her bedroom at Urquhart Mansion, and quite another to believe it when faced with him in his full… Snape-ness.

It was just… was she even allowed to fancy Snape? No, that wasn’t what she meant. It wasn’t like there was a rule against it, it was only that it seemed to be somehow against the nature of things. He was nothing at all like the sorts of people Mary associated with the concept of ‘fancying,’ like from hearing her friends talk.

He wasn’t handsome like Diggory, or Kirke, or, hell, even Blaise. His hair wasn’t so bad now that he’d broken the curse on it, but he only seemed to own a single outfit, and his teeth were all stained and crooked. And she had to wonder why—surely they could be fixed with magic, and she knew he had plenty of money after dissecting and selling the basilisk. Did he just not care? And his face was, well, not ugly per se, but strange. Too intense, somehow, all jutting angles and ridges and sunken cheeks and dark bags under the eyes.

(She quite liked his hands, though. She’d only noticed, just now, how long his fingers were—elegant, even discolored from hours of brewing. And the careful, precise way they moved.)

Appearance aside, he wasn’t especially nice or charming. He might not be a Death Eater anymore, but he still liked to hurt people sometimes. He’d broken her trust more than once, and frequently taught her lessons in the most ruthless ways imaginable—puppy dissections, and poisonings, and Gryffindorish psychological torture chambers. He was, well, not as intimidating as she’d once found him, but still a figure of such importance that she couldn’t even bring herself to think of him by his first name, even when invited to.

(But he was brilliant, and surprisingly funny once you were looking for it. And he’d killed for her, and brought her the man who’d betrayed her parents and let her hurt him.)

He was old—her parents’ age—and she still didn’t fully believe he hadn’t been in love with her mother. And he was meant to have been her godfather. He had said that he basically saw her as a niece, or even something like a daughter—hell, he’d literally just said that if things were different, he would adopt her!

He was probably the absolute worst person she could fancy, and if he knew how she (maybe) felt, he’d be disgusted.

Still, the way she’d been so fascinated by simply touching her fingertip to his bare forearm, and the way she’d been so worried about how she looked before she saw him, but then afraid that he would think she was trying too hard, and how she had even stopped in the loo on the way here to check her hair and uniform, and how she kept remembering taking his elbow when they walked through the garden… She didn’t think any of that was normal. That wasn’t how she was meant to feel for someone who was like a godfather, she was pretty certain. She didn’t feel that way towards Remus, or Sirius, or anyone else either their age or her own.

It was only Snape.

She still couldn’t imagine even kissing him (let alone anything more!), but she could imagine falling asleep cradled in his arms as he carried her to safety. She could imagine that very well. Overall, no matter how much she thought about it, her thoughts went in circles. It seemed simultaneously impossible that her feelings for him were a crush, and impossible that they were not.

“Anipsiá?”

“Hm?” Mary looked up to see Snape examining her, his eyebrow raised, looking amused, and immediately blushed. “Sorry, did you say something?”

Chapter Text

Mary threw on her cloak before creeping through the dungeons to the fourth year boys’ dorms—just because she’d decided she would accept people thinking she was snogging Blaise didn’t mean that she wanted them to if she could help it. Luckily, he’d left his door cracked, or else she wouldn’t have known which room was his. Two of them, Theo and Draco, had their House crests on their doors, but she definitely didn’t want to accidentally knock on Vinnie or Greg’s door instead!

She slipped inside, pushing the door shut behind her before pulling off her cloak. Blaise hadn’t even stood up from where he was sitting cross-legged on his bed, his Charms textbook open beside him, so she took a seat in his desk chair, prompting a smirk from the git—she was certain he could tell that she felt awkward about being in a boy’s room for the first time, and that he thought it was funny.

The first thing he said was, “You seem marginally less terrified than you were Wednesday night. Good job.”

Mary bristled a bit. Why did he always have to act like he was making fun of her? “It’s not like it’s weird for me to be uncomfortable letting you in my head.”

Blaise shifted, moving to sit on the edge of his mattress, facing her. “No, it’s not,” he admitted. “Out of the range of reactions people have to learning I’m an empathic legilimens—even if they don’t have to let me legilimize them—you’re actually doing pretty well.”

“Well, I have to let you do it either way, so there’s not really much point in freaking out, is there?”

He considered her for a moment. “No, I guess there’s not.”

And yet, just thinking about it was causing her anxiety to build again, despite telling herself that she was being stupid. Blaise was just… She didn’t dislike him or anything, but she didn’t get him, or trust him all that much. If she was going to let someone poke around in her head, he wouldn’t have been anywhere near the top of her list. Especially when there were things he might see in her head that she’d never told anyone—things she’d hardly even begun to admit to herself…

“If it helps,” he said, “I probably know most of your secrets already.”

Mary flinched slightly, then glared at him, opening her mouth to tell him off, but he spoke again before she could.

“No, I wasn’t legilimizing you just then. Not actively, anyway. Your feelings are just… loud. Most people’s are, when they haven’t had occlumency training.”

Right. That was why she was doing this. To keep people out of her head—not just the Dark Lord, but Dumbledore and Blaise and, honestly, even Snape, when it came to things she didn’t want him to know. Still, she couldn’t help but feel a twinge of dread as she asked, “What do you know?” Not that she wanted to know, except, she kind of did.

“Normally, I would ask if you were sure you wanted me to answer that question, but since I’m going to be legilimizing you anyway, it would probably help if I just tell you. This’ll go a lot easier if you’re not preoccupied by worrying about what I’ll see in your head, or trying to keep me away from things I already know.

“So… let’s see. I know that my teaching you occlumency has something to do with the Dark Lord, something you and Snape are both very worried about, but not the exact details. I know that the muggles you lived with before you came to Hogwarts were at minimum seriously neglectful, possibly outright abusive. I know that you, Lilian, Granger, Morgana’s crew, and probably some others dosed most of the school with Veritaserum and questioned them in second year, but not the Slytherins. Obviously, I know that you and Lilian put Thorpe in the hospital wing last year. I know you knew Sirius Black was innocent before the story broke in the papers—you probably met him while he was still in Britain, though I’m not sure when. I know you’ve never snogged anyone and that you’re insecure about your looks. And, yes, I know you fancy Snape.”

As he’d been speaking, Mary’s mouth had fallen open, and her face had grown redder and redder until it was practically burning. For a moment, she couldn’t think of anything to say. It was just—this was exactly the sort of shit she’d been afraid of when she’d first found out that some mages could read minds! “I… you… I do not fancy Snape!” she said, because apparently that was the most important thing to address.

“Another thing that’s going to make this more difficult than it needs to be? Lying to yourself. You can hardly learn to defend your mind if you don’t know it first. And besides, it’s just annoying, having to poke around in someone’s brain and being able to see them deluding themselves. So you’d better just face it now: you, Mary Potter, have a crush on Professor Snape.”

“I… I don’t think so,” she lied. “Can’t I just, like, admire him a lot? Or, maybe I want him—okay, this is embarrassing, but maybe I just want him to be like my dad or something? He’s my godfather,” she added, a bit desperately, because that had always worked before when people like Remus or Catherine had questions about their relationship. (She tried not to think about how uncomfortable she’d been when he’d said he would adopt her if things were different.)

“You could,” Blaise said, smirking a bit. “But you don’t. Those are decidedly unfilial feelings wafting off of you whenever you lay eyes on him. I’m an empath in a school full of hormonal teenagers, Mary. I know what a crush feels like.”

You don’t know anything about me, she grumbled inwardly. Just because he was an empath didn’t mean he knew how she felt better than she did!

“But you’re way too embarrassed to admit it out loud yet,” he added, “so, moving on. The thing with the Dark Lord—would you tell me what it is? Snape wouldn’t without your permission, but even he admitted it would help with these lessons if I know what’s going on.”

That… maybe she could actually do. At least, it was less awful talking about that than about her feelings for Snape and how they should be described. But…

“You can trust me, you know,” he said. “For one, Snape is a way stronger legilimens than me, and we have regular lessons together. If I were going to betray you to the Death Eaters, he’d know the second the thought even crossed my mind and would literally kill me. I know I’m a bit Dark, but the Zabinis have always been neutral.”

“Your mum named Bellatrix Lestrange your godmother.” And, for that matter, dated her, or at least shagged her.

Blaise shrugged. “Already told you, she was hedging her bets. Mum runs a muggle tech company, remember? We’re hardly blood purists. And she hates the Dark Lord—I can feel it every time she talks about the war. As for me, I just want to stay as far away from the whole mess as I can.”

The trouble was, she couldn’t tell if he was telling the truth. Which just made her wonder, again, if she was really a mind mage at all. But everything he’d said made sense, especially the part about Snape killing him if he betrayed them.

“Fine.” She nearly told him not to tell anyone, then realized it would be redundant. “I kind of… dreamwalked into the Dark Lord’s mind over the summer.”

Blaise immediately burst out laughing.

“I’m being serious!”

“Oh, I can tell,” he said, still laughing. “That’s why it’s so funny. You really have the worst luck, don’t you, Potter?”

She tried to glare at him, but honestly, he was right. It was ridiculous. “Yeah, so, Snape thinks my mum did some weird soul magic back in ‘81 to try to kill the Dark Lord and it went wrong somehow. Forged some sort of a soul bond between us, so that his mind is the closest to mine in some magical sense, even though he’s nowhere near me. It also means he can’t possess me—his wraith tried, back in first year, after Snape killed Quirrellmort.”

Blaise stopped laughing. “Quirrellmort?”

Wait, was there something Blaise actually didn’t know about her life? “Yeah, he was possessed by the Dark Lord. There was this creepy face in the back of his head. He tried to murder me, so then Snape killed him, and his wraith tried to possess me but couldn’t, and then Snape did this Light devocation ritual and banished him.”

“What the hell is with your life?” he asked. “I mean, I knew he didn’t die of a magical STD he caught from a vampire in Romania like people were saying, if only because I can’t really believe any self-respecting vampire would have shagged him, but… Dark Powers, Mary.”

Wait, was that what the students had been told? A magical STD? “Yeah, no, he was possessed.” It was actually a little fun, recounting to a relative outsider just how fucking insane her life was. “Then, in second year, his teenage Horcrux possessed Gin Weasley and opened the Chamber of Secrets, kidnapped us and the Weasley twins for three days, and made us do some Black Arts ritual to make him a body and ran off to Miskatonic. He sent me a birthday present last year.”

“I really wish I couldn’t tell you were completely serious right now. What?”

“Right, that’s… He’s my grandfather,” she said. “The wraith, I mean, not the teenage Horcrux. Which is probably why I’m apparently a mind mage—and a Parselmouth.”

Blaise’s eyes widened. “So that’s why Snape thinks you’re an empath.”

“Yeah. Apparently he thinks my mum probably was one too, just not a strong enough one to notice.”

“That’s pretty normal for weak mind mages,” Blaise said. “I can think of, like, four different Hufflepuff empaths who think they’re just really good with people.”

“Are there many mind mages in the school?” Mary asked, pleasantly surprised that he wasn’t freaking out over the Undead, Evil Grandfather Thing. Overall, the conversation was going a lot better than she’d feared. It was even kind of freeing to just lay it all out there.

“A handful,” Blaise said. “Most are fairly weak, though, and I’m pretty sure we’re the only ones in our year.”

“Do most people… I mean, Snape said a lot of people don’t know until puberty, right? But you’ve been a mind mage for ages. Is that unusual?”

“Fairly, yes. I came into my legilimency at eight, and that was uncommonly early—my empathic abilities, I got even earlier than that, at five. I started learning occlumency then, which might have caused my legilimency to start early; familiarity with mind magic can help speed things up. You might find your own abilities getting more noticeable once we’ve been at these lessons for a while.

“Actually, you should be glad that you know a mind mage who can teach you occlumency in the first place. My mum’s not one, so I had to practice against a boggart.”

“Your mum… made you practice occlumency against a boggart when you were five?”

“Yeah?” Blaise said, like he didn’t really see the problem. “Anyway, most people are like you—they only present around third or fourth year. Only other exception I know of at Hogwarts is an empath in the year below us; I’m pretty sure they were already aware of their abilities when they got to school, though I have no idea how young they started.”

Mary was vaguely curious who he was talking about, and whether it was someone she knew, but she got the feeling he wasn’t going to tell her. Still, she couldn’t help feel that being able to read minds and emotions since he was young child, and having to learn occlumency via boggart, explained some things about who Blaise was as a person.

“So anyway,” she said, remembering that she was here for a reason, “that’s why it’s so urgent I learn occlumency. Because if the Dark Lord realizes there’s a connection between our minds…”

Blaise whistled. “Shit.”

“Yeah…” She shifted in the chair, trying not to let herself think too hard about what would happen to her in that situation. “So, how do we begin?”

“Well, I guess we should start with, how much do you actually know about mind magic?”

“Not much,” she admitted. “Snape told me a little about it ages ago, like, in second year. Something about it being like divination, but with compulsions, and also like some kinds of freeform magic. Snape sent me some books over the summer, but I, er…” She blushed.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t tried to read them—she knew how critical it was! But they’d been so dense, and she’d been lacking so much of the necessary context, that she’d ended up reading the same paragraph over and over again, trying to make sense of it. Anyway, she’d always learned way better from trying stuff on her own than from reading about it.

“Learning occlumency out of a book isn’t something most people could do,” Blaise said sympathetically. “Alright, let’s see… I think the easiest way to think about mind magic is to split it into two categories. There’s the kind that happens inside of someone’s mind, and the kind that happens outside.”

“Wait, outside? How does that even work?”

“It’s like what I said earlier, about you thinking loudly. So, you know how there’s ambient magic around us all the time? Non-occlumens, their thoughts and feelings tend to… seep out of themselves and sort of… taint the ambient magic without them meaning to. Which makes them very easy for mind mages to pick up on, through what’s called passive legilimency. Or passive empathy, I guess.

“It doesn’t seem like you’ve come into your power enough to experience this, but learning occlumency is critical for—well, for all mind mages, but especially empaths like us. When I’m not actively occluding, I just… pick up on everyone’s feelings all the time, unless they know occlumency themselves and are polite enough to keep a barrier up. Last year, for example? If I wasn’t occluding, I wouldn’t just feel the dementors—I’d feel everyone else’s misery from the dementors.

“Some people pick up more than others, though. Snape says most legilimens don’t get as much… emotional nuance, you could say, from passive legilimency as I do. And mind mages differ a lot in how much they prefer to shield themselves from other people’s thoughts. Snape is on one end of the spectrum: he’s pretty much always occluding, thinks it’s rude to ‘eavesdrop.’”

Blaise sounded slightly exasperated, like he thought this was silly, but it made Mary feel so much better—she’d been getting more and more nervous throughout Blaise’s explanation, thinking about what he’d said about her feeling things loudly and what that might mean for all the time she spent around Snape.

“He’d prefer I didn’t eavesdrop, either, but me, I just don’t like fully shutting myself off. It’s different for empaths, I think. It would be like… voluntarily depriving myself of my hearing or something. Not impossible, but uncomfortable. So I sometimes leave myself open to it, depending on how many people are around and whether they’re feeling unpleasant things. As long as I’m not actively legilimizing people, Snape doesn’t give me too much shit for it.

“Then, there can also be compulsions that are laid generally, on the ambient magic, rather than being pushed into a specific person’s mind. Empaths are especially known for this, actually, which is another reason you definitely need to learn occlumency before you come into your power.”

“Wait, why?”

“Hm… At the World Cup, do you remember the veelas? How people—men—reacted to them?”

“Yeah.” She frowned a little at the memory—all the men in the stadium had suddenly started acting really odd, trying to climb over the barriers to get to the field. It had been a little creepy, actually. Aunt Minnie had explained, her mouth pinched like she disapproved, that it was something called the ‘veela allure.’

“That was an empathic compulsion. Veela are empaths by nature; they use mind magic to communicate with each other. Mature ones, like you saw at the World Cup, can turn it on and off, though they might sometimes forget if they aren’t used to being around humans.

“But young veela… or young empaths, for that matter… they don’t have that much control. Their feelings tend to bleed out into the ambient magic and start tugging on the minds around them. Which means, if a non-occlumens is around them, they’ll inadvertently be compelled—they’ll start feeling what the empath feels, basically. If you’re happy, they’re happy. If you’re scared, they’re scared.

“Aside from the awkwardness, lots of non-mind mages won’t really understand that you’re not doing it on purpose. They’ll see it as a mind magic attack, like you’re purposefully trying to compel them to feel certain things. It can lead to really… unfortunate situations. Imagine you’ve got a young empath, veela or human, that’s just coming into their power and doesn’t really have control over it yet. Then add in teenage hormones. Put that empath in a room with someone they’re attracted to, someone that doesn’t know occlumency, and… well. It’s neither person’s fault, really, but the empath tends to be the one blamed—and that goes double for veela, because a lot of people are just flat-out racist.”

Mary winced. “Right, so, occlumency. I really need to know it.”

Nodding, Blaise said, “There’s really a million different reasons for people like us to learn it. And the way you start is, basically, by getting a better sense of your own mind. For a non-occlumens, the barriers between their mind and the rest of the world tend to be permeable. That’s why people let their feelings leak out everywhere. What you need to do is learn to feel where your mind begins and ends, to put up a sort of rudimentary barrier. It doesn’t need to be strong enough to keep people out—I mean, eventually it does, but the first step is just having any barrier to keep your own thoughts from leaking out.

“It’ll help, too, with people trying to legilimize you. Even if you can’t keep them out, the first step is just being able to tell they’re trying to get in. The way legilimency—active legilimency—works is basically, you extend your mind out, the same way you’d extend your magic out if you were doing freeform magic, and try to make contact with someone else’s mind. Only, once you do, you have to sort of… It’s hard to explain.

“Basically, everyone’s mind has, well, some people call it a frequency, or a feel to it, or whatever. A unique character, let’s say. To get into someone else’s mind, you need to match that—artificially take part of your mind and shift it into resonance with theirs. If their mind is unguarded, they might not even be able to feel it happening—they’ll just experience your mind as part of their own.

“But once you learn rudimentary occlumency, you should hopefully be able to tell when people are trying to legilimize you—most people, anyway, if they’re not really good at it—because, no matter how well they match your mind’s frequency, they’re still coming from outside the barrier, which means you know they’re not you.”

That… made a lot of sense. Mary was suddenly irritated at all the hours she’d spent fruitlessly trying to wrap her mind around the books Snape had sent. “Why couldn’t Snape have just told me that the first time we talked about it?” she demanded. “Or, like, sent a book that explains it like that? I would’ve got it way faster!”

Blaise laughed. “Because Snape is rubbish at teaching novices anything. Haven’t you noticed his classes were the worst in our first couple years? He shouldn’t be teaching anything below a NEWT level—Potions, mind magic, whatever. He doesn’t have the patience for it, and he knows his subjects so well that he can’t remember what it’s like not to know.”

For some reason, Mary felt a weird mixture of amusement and annoyance. After a moment, she realized it was because Blaise seemed to know Snape really well. Like, way better than she did. If he’d been training with him since first year… “Can you read him?” she asked.

“Kind of,” Blaise said. “Not his thoughts, usually—he’s too good of an occlumens for that. But, well, my empathic abilities are really strong, and it’s hard for even Snape to keep himself completely shielded from me. Most of the time, I can only pick up little flashes here and there, but during my training, when we’re in mental contact, I can pretty much feel whatever he feels. Well, assuming he doesn’t use occlumency to completely stop himself feeling things at all—that’s a thing occlumens can do, and it’s better than just shielding your feelings when it comes to dealing with empaths—but he usually doesn’t bother.

“His feelings are… basically exactly what you’d expect. Kind of dry, restrained. Occasionally amused, more frequently annoyed or pissed off. And before you ask if you’ll ever be able to read him, I don’t know. It really depends on how strong your abilities are once they’ve fully developed.”

Mary frowned to herself. Given that Blaise had developed his powers at five, while she still didn’t think she’d ever picked up on any thoughts or feelings that didn’t belong to the bloody Dark Lord, her hopes weren’t exactly high. But figuring out what Snape was feeling was totally not the purpose of all this.

“You might get a chance to find out someday, because you’ll probably want to take lessons with him eventually. I can teach you basic occlumency, but I’m nowhere near his level. He once described my legilimency as being ‘reminiscent of a drunken buffoon bumbling around a china shop’—though, as you might guess, his standards are really high. I can get you to a point where you can counter attacks by weak legilimens, or non-mind mages using the legilimency charm. Once you’re at the point that you’re ready to learn to counter more subtle mind magic attacks, though, he’s going to be more helpful than I am.”

Well, that was just great. The idea of letting Snape in her head for extended periods of time, now that she apparently fancied him, was terrifying. But she’d promised herself she’d do whatever was necessary to prepare for whatever the Dark Lord had planned for her, and she could hardly back out because of a stupid crush. Maybe learning basic occlumency would take long enough that she’d get over it, or maybe she could at least get good enough at it to hide her feelings.

Even as she thought it, though, she didn’t feel very hopeful. From what she could tell, Snape was pretty much the strongest mind mage around, with the exception of the Dark Lord. The idea that she’d ever be good enough at occlumency to hide from him when they were in direct mental contact seemed a bit absurd.

Well, then, she’d just have to get over it, since the whole thing was stupid anyway.

“On the other hand, there’s stuff I can help you with that Snape can’t—the empath thing, mostly, assuming you do turn out to be one. Empathic legilimens are really rare; most people are one or the other. If you turn out to be one, you’ll be the only other one I’ve ever met.”

Mary still wasn’t sure she believed she was, especially since the only real evidence seemed to be that her grandfather had been one, and maybe her mum as well. But it sounded like she wouldn’t really know until she came into her power, and Blaise said learning occlumency could make that happen faster, so she supposed she’d better get started.

“So, okay, I understand that I need to ‘feel’ my own mind to start with, but how? I managed to feel my magic and use it to do a wandless Finite once, but I was under this weird sensory deprivation hex at the time—long story. I just don’t know how to tell what feeling my mind should, well, feel like.” It was like—no, not like, it was trying to exercise a sense that she hadn’t even known existed until a few months ago.

“The easiest way, if you’re alright with it, would be for you to legilimize me and feel me do it—feel what my mind feels like to me, that is.” Before she could object that starting with legilimency hardly seemed easy, he continued, “We’d do it through reciprocal legilimency: basically, I would legilimize you, and then have you sort of follow me back to my own mind.”

Part of her had hoped she’d just start with meditating on her magic or something, that she wouldn’t have to let him into her mind just yet, but the faster she learned occlumency, the better. “Alright…” she said reluctantly.

“I’ll use the legilimency charm this time,” he said. “It’s not necessary for me, but it’ll make it a bit more obvious when I enter your mind, give you a chance to kind of practice noticing the intrusion.”

As Blaise raised his wand and spoke the charm, Mary braced herself, expecting something like when Snape legilimized her—for him to pull up a memory and start looking through it, something like that—but it wasn’t like that at all. There was no sense of Blaise looking through her head, no feeling of him steering her mind. There was just suddenly a Blaise Zabini with her in her head, just… hanging out.

Not like a little tiny version of him, but like, a weird sort of feeling—perceived with a sense she’d barely ever used before—that somehow just felt like him. Like, essence of Blaise inside her mind. Relaxed, unobtrusive, with a sort of light curiosity and a hint of amusement. Very different from when Snape did it: with him, she could feel that he was there, but nothing else. Snape’s mental presence was like a blank wall.

“I’m not occluding,” Blaise said, or, didn’t say, but the meaning of the words were conveyed to her somehow. “It would be rude, closing myself off when you’re letting me into your mind. Besides, you’ll be in my head in a moment, anyway.”

“Right… How do I do that again? …Can you even hear me?”

It wasn’t exactly like Blaise said, “Yes, Mary, I can hear you.” It was more like he just conveyed a feeling of agreement, mingled with both amusement and approval. “You want to sort of… push against my mind, almost like you’re trying to throw me out. I’ll grab onto your mind at the same time, that should make it easier.”

Mind magic was frustrating—the idea of trying to push with her mind was just weird. But Mary stared into Blaise’s eyes—a sort of distractingly pretty golden color that she didn’t think eyes were meant to be—and just tried to go towards the Blaise-feeling as hard as she could.

Then, suddenly, the Blaise-feeling was all around her, easy as that. It was actually a bit anticlimactic. She’d kind of hoped that she’d suddenly find herself understanding Blaise more than she currently did, maybe seeing some memory that conveniently explained why he was the way he was, but it was just sort of like having him in her mind had been, except more. Like, she could pick up on his surface thoughts and feelings, but she’d been able to before, too.

“Don’t worry.” Amusement again now. “You’ll get to know me better the longer we keep doing this—especially if we get to me teaching you legilimency.” He thought it was cute, she realized, that she was frustrated by how bloody inscrutable he was. Git. “Pay attention, now,” he said. “I’m going to… well, there’s different levels of occluding. I won’t occlude against you, so you can feel what I’m doing, but I’ll block myself off from the ambient magic. See if you can feel it.”

Then he did, and she could, though she had no way of describing what it felt like—except, like Blaise had said, sort of like he was closing his eyes or blocking his ears, cutting off a sense, even though there was no one around for him to feel except Mary, who was already in his head. But there was more to it than that, a sort of… enclosing feeling. One that felt claustrophobic to him, but didn’t seem so bad to her. It was kind of like… secure. Like being in a small, cozy room.

It didn’t really feel like anything she’d experienced before, and she was suddenly grateful that she’d ended up asking Blaise to teach her this: because she had no idea how long she would’ve stumbled along on her own, trying and failing, if she’d been trying to learn from Snape’s books—or even from Snape himself, who probably would’ve just expected her to know what to do right away, without him even explaining.

She still didn’t get Blaise, but she felt a little more comfortable with him now. If nothing else, he at least was the kind of person who’d take hours out of his day to patiently show a complete novice the basics of occlumency. And he really seemed to want to help her, for whatever reason, even if just to pay back Snape for the time he’d invested in training him.

That was all they did that day—Blaise occluding, Mary observing, and then just sort of trying to get her to a point where she could feel his presence in her mind more clearly and tell it apart from her own. Not much at all, and yet, before long, she felt utterly exhausted, like when she’d overused her magic trying to learn the Patronus Charm, and Blaise said, “That was a good start. Let’s call it a day.”

Mary liked that idea… and yet, for some reason, she hesitated. She found herself thinking again about what he’d said earlier—the fact that he could tell how she felt about Snape, even when she couldn’t. Now that she was a little less terrified about Blaise knowing all her secrets, it was almost appealing, the idea of having someone who could just tell her once and for all what it was that she felt.

“I can if you like, you know,” he said. “Got a memory I can take a look at?”

Mary almost chickened out, but in the end, the desire to know overcame her embarrassment, and she purposefully turned her mind back to that day in the Urquharts’ garden, when Snape had shown her his Dark Mark and she’d touched his forearm.

And then immediately regretted it, because she was flooded by this sort of condescending, amused fondness from Blaise, like, “Awww, that’s adorable.”

“Fuck off.” She tried her best to pull away from the memory and push him out of her mind, though whether she managed it or he just was polite enough to leave on his own, she wasn’t sure. Then, for the first time in hours, she was alone in her own head—it was disorienting, actually. A tiny bit lonely. But she had a distraction in the form of an incredibly infuriating boy smirking at her from where he sat cross-legged on the bed in front of her.

“So…” she muttered, and his smirk widened.

“Yes, Mary, that is a textbook crush. Trust me, I’ve seen a lot of them. Also, Merlin, you’re adorable, and now I’m finally allowed to point out how cute you’re being about Snape. I’ve been holding this in since last year.”

She was pissed off enough at him continuing with his condescension that it took her a second to process what he’d said. “Last year?!” she repeated. “I didn’t even realize I might fancy him until last month!”

At that, Blaise laughed out loud. “What did I tell you?” he asked. “Adorable.”

Mary glared at him, but she had the sinking feeling that he just found that ‘adorable’ too. Bastard. Crossing her arms over her chest, Mary said, “I don’t see how it’s so obvious. I don’t even want to snog him. How can it be a crush if I don’t want to snog him?”

Pursing his lips and staring off into space for a moment, as though putting on a show of thinking it over, Blaise suggested, “Because you’re a prude?” with a sort of false innocence to his tone.

“Excuse me?”

“Mary, you are so obviously embarrassed by just talking about snogging. I doubt you’ve managed to make yourself think about it long enough to figure out what you want.”

“I’m not a prude,” she grumbled, unwillingly remembering when Catherine had called her one the previous summer for not feeling comfortable undressing in front of her for the ritual purification bath.

“Mary Potter, I say this with nothing but affection: you are the biggest prude in our year, including Theo, and I’m pretty sure he’s asexual. Pansy calls you Princess Potter behind your back, you know.”

That was ridiculous. If anyone in their year was prissy, it was Daphne, not her! Mary played Quidditch, and cursed, and, well, she was just nowhere near as poised as Daphne was. “Pansy is a cunt,” she said, just to prove how much she wasn’t a prude.

Blaise just gave her a knowing smirk and said, “Swearing doesn’t mean that you’re not a prude.”

“Fuck this, I’m leaving.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being a prude!” Blaise shouted after her, still laughing. “Embrace who you are!”

When Mary had been puzzling over what, exactly, she felt for Snape, she hadn’t expected the question to be resolved by Blaise Zabini straight-up telling her. That was, if he even knew what he was talking about, which she wasn’t sure she should believe he did.

But then, Blaise was the biggest slag in her year, and his mother was a famously popular woman. Lady Zabini’s beauty and allure were almost as well known as her penchant for (allegedly) murdering her husbands and stealing their fortunes. When combined with him being an apparently quite powerful empath, she had to admit that if anyone but her would know whether she fancied Snape, it would be Blaise.

For a little bit there, while they’d been in each other’s minds, she’d almost started to feel comfortable with him. And yet, at the end of the day, she still wasn’t quite sure what she should think of him. But whether she trusted him or not, she had the feeling she’d have no choice this year than to get to know him very well.

Hogwarts being Hogwarts, Mary probably should’ve expected a professor to eventually use Unforgivables on them in class, but even so, it took her by surprise when Moody announced he would be placing each of them under the Imperius as a sort of training exercise—teaching them to recognize or possibly even resist its effects.

Which sounded useful, actually, but also very illegal, as the Hufflepuff half of the room was now vigorously protesting. The Slytherin half was suspiciously silent, making her wonder if Moody was going to be their shortest-lived Defense professor yet: given that half their year hated him already, and that they’d spent the previous week learning just how much trouble he could get into for what he was doing, she’d be shocked if Draco or Pansy didn’t write their parents and try to have him sacked, if not outright arrested.

She was in the middle of mulling on that, wondering if she cared that much whether he got sacked or not—on the one hand, he was an arsehole, but on the other, he seemed reasonably competent and not like he was trying to kill her, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to try her odds at a second Defense professor this year—when someone gently kicked her desk.

Turning around in surprise, she immediately caught the golden eyes of Blaise, who used the eye contact to push a thought at her: “The Imperius is basically another form of mind magic that non-legilimens can do, like the legilimency charm, which means you can resist it using occlumency. Think of it like a really strong, not at all subtle compulsion.”

“Thanks,” she replied—or, really, she just pushed a feeling of gratitude at him, a little surprised he’d gone out of his way to give her a hint. Then again, maybe he just figured they should use the opportunity for her to get a little more practice in.

Mary was a bit surprised that no one—not even Zach Smith, who’d been pitching a huge fit—took the opportunity to leave when it was offered. She was much less surprised, if still pissed off, to see that Moody seemed to be taking the opportunity to humiliate certain students when he put them under the curse—in particular, Draco, whom he made crawl across the floor of the classroom on his hands and knees like a dog. In some cases she’d be happy to see Draco knocked down a peg, but outsiders targeting Slytherins just because of who their families were was just not acceptable.

But she didn’t have much time to stew on this before it was her turn, and she stepped up to the front of the classroom, heart pounding. She elected to close her eyes, attempting to focus on the tiny bits of occlumency she’d learned in her single lesson so far: pulling her mind in, separating herself from the world around her. She wasn’t sure what difference it would make, since the Imperius was unblockable—it wasn’t like she could put up a barrier to keep it out—but maybe it would at least help her notice that the compulsion was a foreign one. From what Blaise had said, she wasn’t expecting anything so insidious as what Riddle had done in the Chamber.

Moody’s gruff voice said, “Imperio,” and then the world… shifted. It was like all the tension went right out of her—all need to be on her guard, to take responsibility for herself, vanished. Her eyes opened, dimly taking in the wizard standing in front of her—the one who would tell her what she ought to do, so she didn’t need to worry about anything anymore.

There was a voice in her mind—Moody’s voice—saying, “Jump onto the desk…”

It wasn’t like Riddle at all, she would think later. She was perfectly aware that the thought didn’t come from her own mind, she just… didn’t care. If Moody said she ought to jump on the desk, then she probably should. She trusted him.

Wait, what? That seemed… not right, somehow. Memories floated up through her mind: sitting in the armchair in Snape’s office, a mug of coffee in her hands, saying, “Moody’s a dick.” Pansy, looking down in shock and anger as Moody joked about her father. Draco, crawling across the floor.

But he’s an Auror. He wants to protect me from the Dark Lord. I can trust him. Or maybe she just wanted to. It was a relief, not having to be responsible for herself anymore. Not having to be afraid that she was making the wrong choices, putting herself in danger again. But… Just because he wouldn’t let me die doesn’t mean he wouldn’t try to make me do something stupid. Like Draco.

The voice was still saying to jump onto the desk. But that seemed really silly. Mary wasn’t really the sort for jumping on things, and she was even less the sort for letting arseholes tell her what to do.

You know what? No. Fuck this.

She wanted, so badly, to jump right up onto the desk… but she didn’t want to give the git the satisfaction of her doing what he’d told her. So she compromised: she lifted one leg up, planted her shoe on the side of the desk, and kicked it as hard as she could, watching it topple to the floor with a loud clatter.

Once the spell was over, Mary shuddered, barely even noticing Moody praising her performance. That… okay, that hadn’t been as bad as Tom Riddle slipping the urge to trust him into her mind when she wasn’t even aware of it, but it had still been gross. The desire to please Moody, to let him tell her what to do, went completely against her personality, and it left her feeling weirdly dirty. Too much so to even feel proud of herself.

At least Blaise clapped her on the back and slipped the thought, “You’re a natural,” into her head. That meant a lot more than any praise from Moody—Blaise was the mind mage here, after all, not their professor. If she’d been able to think about it in advance, she wouldn’t have predicted she’d be good enough at occlumency after a single lesson to resist the bloody Imperius!

Well, at least partially. Blaise still had her beat: when instructed to sing Celestina Warbeck’s hit, “A Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love,” he just stood there for a long moment like he was concentrating hard on something before smirking and saying, “I would prefer not to.”

Mary decided maybe it was just an inherent mind mage thing, rather than a result of her one and only lesson, but it still felt good to succeed at something.

“How come you two are the only ones who beat it?” Lilian complained as their group headed out of the classroom.

Mary didn’t freeze or anything, but her heart caught, and her step faltered slightly. She had decided after the World Cup not to tell Lilian she was a mind mage, or any of the other stuff about the Dark Lord—as good of friends as they were, Lilian could be very much, well, a teenager, and Mary just wasn’t certain she’d take the need for secrecy as seriously as Hermione had. But she couldn’t think of any other excuse!

Luckily, Blaise had her covered: setting a hand on her shoulder, he said, “Potter here is just too damn stubborn to let anyone tell her what to do. As for me, you can credit my mother for training me as an assassin since the age of five.”

Which, of course, completely took everyone’s attention off of Mary as Lilian and Tracey Davis, who’d fallen in with their group for some reason, tried to figure out whether he was joking or not. Normally, she’d be right there with them—being an insider to Blaise’s ridiculous life just felt bloody weird.

Chapter Text

Mary managed to catch Rachel Campbell and Simran Khanna, the two muggleborn snakelings, as they were headed back to the common room Thursday night after dinner. “Could I get a word?” she asked, and they turned to look at her, apparently surprised—she hadn’t really interacted with them at all, other than welcoming them to the House during the start of term feast.

Dave, on the other hand, had taken them under his wing—much in the way Mary had done for him last year, though he didn’t have nearly as much clout within the House—and had come to her yesterday, asking if she could try to do something to help them. Although they had each other, which was more than Dave had had at first, they were still being iced out by the rest of the House, and Campbell had already complained to him several times that she wished he’d never told her to consider Slytherin.

She wasn’t sure how much she could really do—if people broke the Truce, that would be one thing, but their housemates just being arseholes to the girls wasn’t really something she could change—but she’d told Dave she’d at least try. Since he’d fallen in with Alex and Nora and found his footing in the House, he hadn’t needed her help as much, but she still felt responsible for him, like a little brother or something. Hell, if they went through with the patronage agreement when they were both of age, she would be responsible for him.

But she didn’t want to just right come out and say, ‘Dave says you guys have been having a rough time of it,’ because, well, they didn’t know her. Dave might have told them she was alright, but to them, she was just some random fourth year girl, and they had plenty of reason to be on their guard.

So, instead, she asked, “Weird question, but how are you enjoying your flying lessons so far?”

The two girls exchanged a look, like they were thinking, ‘What the hell is this witch on about?’ Campbell looked a bit suspicious, like she thought Mary was trying to play a trick on them, but Khanna smiled tentatively and said, “They’ve been amazing, actually. One of the best parts of Hogwarts so far.”

“They’re alright,” Campbell agreed, still holding Mary in her scrutinizing stare.

“Well, here’s the thing,” Mary said. “I’m the seeker for the Slytherin team. There’s no House tournament this year, but we’re practicing anyway—just twice a week—so we aren’t totally out of practice come next year. But a bunch of our players either graduated, or left the team to focus on their exams, and by next autumn, even more will be gone. We’ll have enough starting players at least, but we won’t have any reserve chasers—or beaters, unless Feldsmark comes back for his sixth year. We’re having informal tryouts Sunday morning. Are you interested?”

They exchanged another look. “Isn’t there like no way we’d make the team?” Campbell asked. “We’ve got basically no flying experience, and we don’t even own brooms.”

“Yeah, I asked a boy in our flying class, and he said first years never get chosen.” Which meant, Mary thought, that Khanna had enjoyed flying enough to at least ask someone about the team. A promising sign.

“Not as starting players,” she agreed, “but things are a little different this year. Honestly, no one really seems interested in trying out just to be reserve players on a team that isn’t even playing, especially when all the starting spots will still be taken next year if none of us choose to leave the team. If there’s not much other competition, I don’t think our captain, Warrington, is going to turn you down no matter how bad you are.

“Basically, it’s a chance for us to train up new reserves in advance, and it’s not like we’re committing to keeping you on the team. You’ll still have to try out again next year if you want to stay on, and there’ll be lots more competition then—but you’ll have the advantage of a year of practice flying with us.”

Khanna was starting to look interested. “You really think they’d let us on?”

“Really depends how many other people show up to try out. It’s worth a try, anyway. Even without any games, it’s a fun way to blow off some steam, especially since we’re not on that grueling of a practice schedule this year.”

“Hang on,” Campbell said. “Considering, like, everything about the past couple weeks, I don’t really see them letting a couple of mudbloods on the team.”

Mary tried not to wince at Campbell using the word to describe herself and Khanna. “Only person who really gets a say is Warrington, and he’s alright. Mostly stays out of all that shite. I’ll talk to him ahead of time, just in case.”

“Yeah, because the other players are going to love him making them put up with a couple first year muggleborn girls.” Campbell rolled her eyes. Mary could already see why she’d ended up in Slytherin—she certainly wasn’t letting her guard down easily. “Aren’t Malfoy and his goons on the team?”

Fucking Draco. Why was she not surprised that he’d already been a dick to these girls? “They are, but so are me and my friend Lilian. Sadie and Blake, the keepers, are alright too; they stood up for Dave and I last year.” Higgs, on the other hand, had been among Dave’s tormentors, but she could deal with the little shithead. “We’ll keep them in line. Draco knows I’m not afraid to put more snakes in his bed.”

Khanna snickered at that, but Campbell still didn’t look convinced. “Why do you care so much if we try out?”

Hoping that this wouldn’t somehow put them off, she admitted, “Dave asked me to see what I could do about people being mean to you, and I figured, being on the Quidditch team would give you something you’re known for other than being muggleborns. That, and it’s a good way to make friends. It worked for me, anyway.” It probably wouldn’t work as well for them as it had for her—being a reserve chaser or beater in a year they weren’t even playing was very different than being the star seeker during a year they won the House Cup—but it was a start, at least. “Besides, Lilian and Sadie and I are kind of sick of being surrounded by boys all the time.”

She didn’t actually mind, but it got a giggle out of Khanna and a sort of half-smile from Campbell, at least. “Come on, Rachel, why not?” Khanna asked, nudging her grumpy friend’s arm.

“…Fine,” Campbell said. “Which are the ones that get to hit things again? Beaters?”

“Yep,” Mary said.

“Great, I’ll do that.”

It took a bit of arguing on Mary’s part, but Warbler finally agreed that he’d give the girls a try if no better candidates showed up. Even a pair of novice first years riding the terrible school brooms were better than going into the coming school year with no reserves at all. Plus, getting another beater would be good just because they always liked to have even numbers of them for practice, swapping them out in pairs, and at the moment, they only had three.

She’d been a little worried that she’d underestimated the amount that Slytherins would care about the Quidditch team this year, but she needn’t have been: when she got out to the Quidditch pitch Sunday morning, the two girls were the only new players who’d actually shown up to try out. Apparently the Triwizard Tournament was exciting enough that people just couldn’t be bothered with anything else.

Draco, Vinnie, and Greg snickered among themselves, asking if the little firsties really thought they could get on the team—not knowing that Warbler had already tentatively agreed—but they restrained themselves from any ‘mudblood’ comments, thankfully. Flint had always enforced a No Politics On The Pitch rule, and Warbler seemed to be following in his footsteps.

Still, it was funny as hell to see their expressions—and Higgs’ as well—when Warbler announced that the two girls would be their new reserve seeker and reserve beater. Draco even tried arguing with the decision, but when Warbler asked whether he wanted to stay on the team or not, he quickly shut up. Honestly, even Draco was probably smart enough to know that if he wanted to have a chance at being captain next year, he’d better not let Warbler get the impression that he’d let politics get in the way of doing what was best for the team.

After the informal tryouts and a short practice, Mary showed Simran and Rachel the changing rooms, Sadie and Lilian trailing behind. She enjoyed seeing the first years’ reactions—the rooms were styled after old Roman bathhouses, with one hot pool and one warm one, but the cold pool was replaced by unheated showers. “But we just cast warming charms on the water when we use those,” she assured them.

Exchanging a look with her friend, Simran said, “We haven’t learned that one yet.”

“Lizzie and I can teach you,” Lilian assured them.

“We only really use this room when the weather’s good—otherwise, the trek back to the castle afterward gets pretty miserable,” Mary added. “Oh, or after games, mostly just to give the stands time to clear out. Except we have to take turns with the boys then—it’s supposed to be one room for girls and one for boys, but when we’re playing another team, we just end up splitting the rooms up by House.”

“The Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs all shower together,” Lilian added with a giggle. “Boys and girls and all.”

Rachel wrinkled her nose. “Is that normal?”

“Kinda?” Lilian said. “I wouldn’t do it, but…”

“Mages—wizards and witches, that is—tend to be a bit different about nudity than you’re probably used to,” Mary explained, since Lilian and Sadie, having grown up in the magical world, wouldn’t know that. “Like, magical clothing is way more modest than muggle clothes, but when it comes to changing and stuff, at least when it’s all girls, no one really cares.”

She was leaving out the fact that she did, but luckily, Lilian didn’t call her on it. For the past two years, she’d pretty much always gone back up to the castle to shower, even if the other girls didn’t, but she would’ve felt bad about ditching the two first years she’d dragged onto the team, and anyway, she was still a little out of sorts about Blaise calling her a prude. She knew it was silly, that there was no reason to feel embarrassed about changing in front of other girls, she just was.

But maybe she could be different this year. She was trying to be more grown up, and the revelation that people called her Princess Potter made her want to be a little less modest, if only out of spite. Plus, it wasn’t like Simran and Rachel knew how embarrassed she was. She could just be another cool older girl who didn’t even care about parading around naked, like Sadie.

Actually, the way the younger girls hesitated, standing awkwardly together and trying not to look, made Mary feel a little braver about stripping her robes off. For once, she wasn’t the most self-conscious person in the changing rooms! Trying to pretend that this was totally normal, she did this all the time, she followed Lilian and Sadie into the open showers. “I’ll set the warming charms for you guys if you want,” she called back to the stragglers—who finally seemed to overcome their shyness enough to follow, if only not to keep her waiting.

In some way, the shared experience of embarrassing public nudity seemed to warm the newcomers to the three veteran players, and vice versa. Once they were clean, Sadie demonstrated her patented Drying Charm trick for the curious first years (the trick was to wrap your hair in a towel first, then cast the charm on the hair and towel together; it kept most of the frizz away), and the five girls chattered about Quidditch all the way up to the castle and all through lunch.

The first few weeks of school passed relatively uneventfully, all things considered, which was good: between the uptick in homework (preparing them for their OWL year, Professor McGonagall had said) and Sirius’s trial approaching, Mary had more than enough to occupy her mind. For a time, with no more dreams of the Dark Lord or signs of his activity, she was almost—almost—able to put the whole thing out of her mind, even if there was always an undercurrent of anxiety in her thoughts.

Snape, on the other hand, seemed preoccupied by it, as he was in even worse of a mood than usual. Some of it could have been Moody’s continued hostility towards him, but Mary didn’t think that was all. She realized somewhat guiltily that it must be harder for Snape to put the Dark Lord out of his mind when he had to see the Mark on his arm every day, feel it aching. Especially if he really would have to return to the Death Eaters when the Dark Lord came back—which she still thought was a bloody terrible idea.

At least his bad mood didn’t extend to her most of the time. He was a little terser on the occasions they met—less often than they had in the spring, but they did make an excursion out to the Senior Woods to pick herbs while the weather was still good, and he seemed almost to relax then, like her presence was more tolerable than most people’s. (Or maybe she just wanted to think that.) When the other students were around, however… He’d taken to dropping hints in class that he was intending to poison one of them to test their aptitude for brewing antidotes, and she thought some of the Gryffindors might have actually fallen for it.

When she wasn’t studying and doing homework in the library with Hermione and sometimes Lilian, or picking herbs with Snape, or on the Quidditch pitch with the team, she was practicing her occlumency with Blaise. For all that they’d started off fast, she didn’t feel like she was making progress very quickly. Mostly, now that he’d given her an idea of what she needed to do, they were just meditating a whole lot.

At least no one had noticed her sneaking into his bedroom yet.

Once, it would’ve been harder to hide this from Lilian, but her friend had been spending more time with Daphne and sometimes the other girls in their year, so she didn’t notice Mary slipping off to the boys’ dorms a few times a week. She had, however, made certain that Mary attended the first tea party of the year. Despite understanding why they were important, the best thing Mary could say about the parties were that they were at least less frequent, and slightly less terrible, than the ones she’d attended over the summer, if only because they weren’t being supervised.

Hermione, meanwhile, had presented Mary with a three-and-a-half-foot scroll of parchment detailing House Potter’s new political platform—complete with section headers, references, and footnotes. Both grateful and overwhelmed (and a tiny bit annoyed, despite herself, at Hermione trying to take over her political career for her, as barely existent as it currently was), Mary had only gotten as far as writing Catherine to ask her thoughts on the matter. Of course, she would speak to Aunt Minnie as well before doing anything, but she wanted to make sure she wasn’t going to completely embarrass herself if she brought this to her guardian.

The weekend after tryouts was the first Hogsmeade visit of the year, and the first one Mary had been able to attend. She’d looked forward to it all week, but as it turned out, her friends hadn’t just been trying to make her feel better last year when they’d said it wasn’t that interesting. The village was pretty enough, she supposed, just not that big. She went with Lilian, Hermione, Gin, and Luna, made something of a girls’ day of it, but within a few hours, Mary had seen basically all she cared to see, and they ended up just sitting around the Three Broomsticks with the Weasley twins, listening to them talk excitedly about their plans to start a joke shop with the money they’d won gambling on the World Cup (after they’d given Hermione her cut, of course).

Mabon arrived at the end of the fourth week of the new term, and Mary, after a little bit of hesitation, decided to attend the ritual. On the one hand, the ritual last year had been… a lot. On the other hand, if she’d actually paid attention to what the Powers had shown her—or if bloody Snape had been honest with her—she could’ve learned the truth about Sirius much sooner. Lilian, on the other hand, had decided not to attend, but Mary really couldn’t blame her for that. She was only just starting to get her life back on track after the last Mabon ritual.

Before the ritual, however, came the morning post—and with it, her second late-birthday/Mabon present from Tom Riddle. This time, however, she’d been smarter about it, and had managed to quietly wrap the book-shaped package in a napkin without touching it and slip it into her book bag. Snape wasn’t at the High Table when she looked—he rarely ate breakfast—so she decided to hold onto it for his inspection until after Potions, which happened to be her final class of the day.

She did end up seeing him earlier than that, though it wasn’t in a situation where they could talk: while she hadn’t been sure if he would, he was among the professors and students (mostly Slytherins and Ravenclaws) who swarmed out to the inner courtyard just before noon for the ritual. He caught her eyes as she entered the courtyard, and she gave him a tiny wave, which he acknowledged with a slight nod of his head.

This year, it was Morgana’s boyfriend Perry Wilkes leading the ritual—the same boy who’d been involved in the Veritaserum Conspiracy two years ago. Unlike the last time they’d done the ritual in the courtyard, they didn’t have to form a spiral, but only sat cross-legged on conjured cushions on the ground, the space having been magically expanded to make room for all of them.

Mary ended up between Hermione and Blaise, with the Weasley twins off to one side and Theo and Daphne on the other. She noticed that Lilian wasn’t the only one who’d abstained this year: Draco didn’t seem to be there either, and though she’d invited Simran and Rachel, she didn’t see either girl among the crowd. Maybe they were too intimidated by the whole Powers thing, or maybe they just didn’t believe it was real.

She tried not to feel too nervous as Perry explained the purpose of the ritual and began the invocation. Like last year, it seemed, and like the Urquhart Lammas ritual, they would be seeing visions, this time of a moment when the thread of their lives had been touched by one of the Powers, altering its trajectory in ways they weren’t aware of. Or, either had been or would be—if she understood Perry right, the vision could be of the past or the future, though she wasn’t entirely sure how that worked. The Urquhart ritual, at least, always showed multiple possible futures, implying it wasn’t set in stone. But maybe some moments were? Especially, she supposed, if they happened because the Powers wanted them to.

In any case, unlike on Lammas, there was no potion to drink. Just an invocation that they all chanted in unison, their voices echoing throughout the courtyard, and then Mary’s eyes slipped closed and a scene came into view.

The scene was of Diagon Alley, looking to be about the same time of year it was now. The Alley looked strange, however. People’s clothes weren’t much different, but the faces of the buildings were, giving Mary the impression that it was some significant amount of time in the past. Or future, she supposed, but no, something was telling her it was the past.

There were many people walking down the street, but one caught her eye: a little girl passing through the crowd seemingly alone. She looked to be about seven, but if she was pureblood, she could be a few years older than that—they often were small for their age, Mary had noticed. She was adorable, with big dark eyes, prim robes, and pretty black curls. And yet, something was off about her.

She was walking almost unnoticed among the crowd, brushing her small hand inconspicuously against people’s arms—no, not people, only witches. No one seemed to notice; Mary only did because she was watching the girl. After each witch, the girl would glance down at her hand—the one that had touched them—and frown.

What is she doing?

Finally, the little girl seemed to find what she was looking for: just past the Leaky Cauldron, the girl found a witch who made a small ring on her hand glow a bright white. At the sight of it, she grinned minutely to herself. Then her face changed, shifting into an expression of fear, but… wrong, somehow.

The witch she’d touched, Mary realized, was an Auror, her coppery hair clashing badly with the brighter red of the Auror robes. She looked to be in her mid to late twenties, and there was something in the shape of her face that reminded Mary of herself. Actually, she thought, both of them reminded her of herself—the Auror and the little girl. She was beginning to have a bad feeling about this.

It grew stronger as the girl turned to grab the witch’s hand. “Please! Please, Miss! Auror! You have to help me! You have to come see!” she shouted, then turned and ran away—in the direction of Knockturn Alley, Mary noticed with growing dismay.

“Miss? Girl? What’s wrong?” the Auror asked, looking worried, but she followed.

“Come on, please, hurry!” the girl shouted over her shoulder, disappearing from view for a moment as Mary’s perspective followed the witch.

The Auror came around the corner to find the little girl huddled on the ground in an alley between two buildings, shaking as though she was crying, but—it was wrong, it was all wrong. Mary wanted to shout at the witch to be careful, to run, but she could do nothing but watch as the Auror reached down to the girl. “What’s wrong? What do you need?”

A flash of white light came from the little girl—a wand, hidden in her sleeve. The Auror dropped like a stone. Not unconscious, though, because her eyes widened in shock. A body bind, Mary realized. When the girl stood, her face was dry, and she was grinning to herself as though she’d just pulled off a wonderful prank.

A moment later, a man came around the corner, one Mary instantly recognized: Tom Riddle, looking roughly the same as he had in that photograph from the Festa Morgana in ‘64. Before doing anything else, he hit the paralyzed Auror with a stunning charm, knocking her out, then grinned at the little girl, who smiled brightly back at him. Dropping into a crouch, he wrapped one hand around each of their wrists, the girl and the witch, and the three of them winked out of existence.

Mary knew what moment this was—Mabon, 1959—and she knew who the little girl and the Auror were—a young Bellatrix Black, and her own grandmother, Matilde Harrison.

No, she thought, panic beginning to build. I don’t want to see this—I don’t! She knew that it could help—if she could show Snape later, they might learn something new about her relationship with the Dark Lord—but she didn’t think she could stand it. Not seeing it with her own eyes.

Still, Mary followed them, pulled by the memory into what appeared to be the bedroom of a derelict muggle house. She watched, unable to look away, as Riddle woke the witch up and stared into her eyes, clearly delving into her mind with legilimency. His own eyes were red now. When he was finished, he laughed happily. “Perfect,” he said. Then, to Bellatrix, “Well done, child.” He hit Matilde with another stunning spell.

Beaming with pride, little Bellatrix set about stripping the unconscious witch of her clothes and tying her to the bed. At this point, Mary discovered that she could, at least, focus on other details in the room if she wanted, rather than looking directly at what was happening. Which, maybe she should focus, if she was going to show this to Snape later, but—she desperately didn’t want to see this. And with what she knew was coming, she was grateful for the ability to at least kind of look away.

Only, not really. She could still see them; they were just out of focus. Little Bellatrix was straddling the woman now, holding something in her hand—a knife, Mary realized, when she chanced a look. She kept her eyes on them just long enough to verify that Bellatrix was carving runes into her grandmother’s flesh before looking away.

Matilde must have woken up by this point, because, though she didn’t scream—silenced, Mary thought—Mary could see movement, and then a petulant, childish voice complained, “Stop wriggling! You’re ruining it!” More movement, followed by Bellatrix raising the knife and bringing it down—stabbing Matilde, she thought, though she didn’t want to look closely enough to find out. She repeated this a few more times, and the movement stopped.

Once Bellatrix was done cutting, she began dabbing something onto the witch—some sort of potion, Mary thought, though she wasn’t sure. Matilde wasn’t moving, but Mary knew she couldn’t be dead, or else she herself wouldn’t be there to witness this. This moment is why I exist, she realized with a sickening lurch. What did it mean for her, that her existence—hers and Lily’s—had come out of something so evil?

Then Riddle was back in the room, and Bellatrix was cutting the ropes binding Matilde to the bed, freeing her. Riddle was naked now—another thing for Mary to try not to look at, to try not to think about what it meant. She’d never seen a naked man before—didn’t want this to be the first time. Didn’t want to have to remember this for the rest of her life.

“Go ahead,” Bellatrix said, giggling. “Go on, Miss Auror. Run! Run away!”

And Matilde did, scrambling to her feet, running from the room, stumbling either from fear or the damage Bellatrix had done to her legs or both. Riddle laughed again, chasing after her, and then Mary was alone in the room with Bellatrix. Good, it was better that way… except now little Bellatrix was following them.

Was she going to watch? Somehow, despite everything that had happened, that was what struck Mary. She has to be… Powers, she can’t be more than nine or ten years old. What had happened to Bellatrix to make her able to chase after the naked Dark Lord and his soon-to-be victim with a curious smile on her face, prim little robes spattered with blood?

I can’t see this. Mary had told herself that she was going to be strong, endure seeing her grandmother’s violation at Riddle’s hands, so that she could report back to Snape—so they might be able to learn something from it. Something that could stop him, or at least help Mary protect herself. She wasn’t going to be childish anymore, not after the World Cup. But…

Please, she begged the Experienced Power, not even knowing if it was listening. Please, don’t make me see this. I don’t want to know.

There was no response, just a tugging in her chest as Magic tried to force her into the next room, after the three of them. But… she’d withstood the Imperius Curse, hadn’t she? She didn’t know if this was the kind of situation where occlumency would be helpful, but she had to try.

I won’t look, she told herself. I won’t, I won’t.

By tooth and nail, she managed to keep herself in that empty bedroom. She could still hear noises through the open door, though, muffled enough that they must have been coming from downstairs. Screams, and the sound of blows—they were hitting her. A harsh, guttural voice calling out something in a language she didn’t recognize, and Riddle’s own voice responding in kind.

Then Bellatrix again, speaking loudly enough that even Mary could hear her: “On behalf of the Unwilling Bride, I thank you, Destructive Power, for avenging the violation she has suffered here today. Go, now, and take your forfeit.”

What did that mean? Mary didn’t want to look, but she was terrified she’d miss the one piece of information that would make all of this horror worthwhile. At least it sounded like maybe the worst was over. Should she give in? Let herself follow them?

Before she could make up her mind, she heard quieter voices in the other room—Riddle and Bellatrix, she thought—and then Riddle entered the bedroom again. He was dressed in his robes once again, thank the Powers, and looked completely unharmed, so she had no idea what Bellatrix had meant about something being avenged. Why had it sounded like she was speaking on the witch’s behalf?

Riddle stayed only long enough to light a fire—and not in a hearth. As it began consuming their surroundings, Mary gave into the pull of the magic and followed him back down to the living room. Bellatrix was there, and Matilde, who’d begun screaming again. She was still naked, and bloody, and—something else. Her limbs were… wrong. Bent. Riddle had—he’d broken them. He’d broken her arms and legs while he was—

A wave of nausea came over Mary, and she shifted her attention as best she could. She watched Bellatrix’s face instead, searching for any clue that might tell her why this little girl was the way she was. Matilde was—just a dark shape on the floor. A thing Mary could pretend didn’t mean anything at all, could ignore the visceral wrongness of the very shape of it, not a human body but something unspeakable in the corner of her eye—if she only tried hard enough. If she closed her ears, pretended the screaming was something else. White noise.

“Ever killed anyone?” Riddle asked.

It was obscene, the way Bellatrix chewed her lower lip innocently, like a child called out in class who didn’t know the answer. “No…” she admitted.

“Want to?”

Mary knew better than to expect hesitation or guilt, but she still hadn’t expected Bellatrix to simply shrug, like she didn’t care much either way. In some twisted way, it might have been better if she’d still been acting excited and childlike.

Now that Bellatrix was approaching Matilde, Mary focused on Riddle instead, watching him. He looked vaguely pleased, maybe a little bored. He was as handsome as he’d been in the Chamber, but she couldn’t see anything human in him at all. (He’d broken her, and he didn’t—it was nothing to him.)

Then Bellatrix was back, tugging at his sleeve. “Master? My Lady says it would be more interesting not to kill her.”

What? Her Lady? Mary looked around, but there was no one else in the room. As she was doing so, she heard Riddle say, “No excuses, Bella. I don’t do loose ends. Kill her and have done with it.”

“Yes, Master.”

The need to know at last overcoming her horror, Mary turned, just in time to see Bellatrix straddling the witch, wand pointed at her head. The last thing she wanted to do was get any closer, but Magic was pulling her again, tugging her, and at least, she gave in. Let herself be pulled towards the horrible thing on the ground, and let herself hear Bellatrix whisper, “My Lady says we must give you a chance,” before firing a spell straight at the witch’s head—one that caused her mangled form to slump down against the floor. Looking dead, but she wasn’t—Mary’s existence was proof enough.

Bellatrix, herself only a child, had kidnapped her grandmother, had tortured her and taken part in her rape—and then disobeyed Riddle to spare her life. A child’s inexplicable choice, bringing Lily into existence, and Mary after her. For her ‘Lady,’ whoever that was.

Before Mary could see any more, she was ripped right back to the Hogwarts courtyard, where she had almost forgotten her body was. The bright sunlight cut into her mind like a spear, and she wobbled, nearly falling to the ground in her sudden disorientation. Despite hours having passed in the vision, it was still noon—still just before lunch. And yet, it didn’t feel real. None of it did, not the sunlight or the courtyard or the people all around her.

Part of her was still back in that house, listening to her grandmother’s screams.

Chapter Text

Mary waited until everyone had begun filing back into the school for lunch before turning and walking away. Luckily, Hermione seemed preoccupied by whatever she’d seen, because she barely reacted when Mary told her to go on ahead. Once the crowd had dispersed, Mary slipped through a side door to the grounds, trying not to draw attention to herself. Then, assured there was no one in sight, she took off running.

She didn’t know where she was going. She just ran, legs pumping and lungs burning, because as long as she was doing that, she didn’t have to think about it. Didn’t have to hear her grandmother screaming, and Bellatrix giggling. Didn’t have to remember the way the knife had glinted in the girl’s hand. She ran and ran until her legs gave out, and when they did, she found they had carried her all the way to the edge of the lake.

Seated on the ground, Mary drew her knees close to her chest and hugged them, closing her eyes. Clear your mind, she told herself. Blaise had said occlumency could be used for this—for distancing yourself from thoughts you didn’t want to think.

She sat there, her mind as blank as she could possibly make it, for she didn’t know how long. The air grew colder, and her body shivered automatically, but she barely felt it. There were tears on her cheeks.

The sound of footsteps approaching, scraping over rocks, snapped her out of it, and Mary turned to see Blaise approaching her, hands in his pockets, looking like he was simply out for a casual stroll.

“We have Potions in ten minutes,” he told her.

Mary shrugged and didn’t say anything. He paused for a moment, looking at her, then sat down on the ground beside her.

“I felt it, you know,” he said, almost conversationally. “After the ritual. Whatever you saw, it must have been bad. I figured I’d leave you to it, since you’re the type who likes to process things alone, but it’s been a couple hours now.”

“Oh.” She probably should care about that, shouldn’t she.

He was looking at her, she could feel his scrutiny, but she didn’t look back. Just stared out over the dark mirror of the lake. The sky was overcast, making everything grey—she could hardly tell what time of day it was. It didn’t feel real. Finally, almost robotically, she said, “You should go back inside. No reason for both of us to get detention.”

“Nah, I’m good,” Blaise said. “If I go too long without getting detention, Snape misses me. He pines away in that creepy office of his, thinking, ‘If only Mr. Zabini was here to liven up the place.’”

He paused, like he was waiting for her to laugh, but she couldn’t seem to be bothered. After a moment, he turned and looked out over the lake with her. The wind had picked up, blowing her hair and robes around, and she shivered again.

She wasn’t sure how long passed before she asked, “Did you really watch your mum kill three of her husbands?” He’d implied that once, in second year, when Lilian had asked how he could see thestrals. When he didn’t answer right away, she added, “You know all of my secrets. It’s not like I’m gonna tell.”

How messed up was it, that this somehow felt real in a way nothing else had since the ritual? Like the real world was murder and torture and rape, and classes and lunch and friends belonged to the false world?

“No,” Blaise finally said. “Only one of them—Number Five.”

“How old were you?”

“Seven.”

Younger than Bellatrix had been in that memory. Mary supposed it shouldn’t surprise her that Lady Zabini hadn’t thought better than to kill someone in front of her seven-year-old son, given her closeness to the Blackheart.

“Did you like it?” she said, trying to picture a tiny Blaise grinning, blood spattered over his robes. “Or was it…”

“Do you really want me to answer that question?” he asked, glancing at her again, which she supposed was answer enough.

It was stupid, since she’d been the one to ask, but she found herself wondering just who it was that was sitting out by the lakeside with her with nobody else around. Who she’d reluctantly trusted enough to let into her head. The whole ‘Blaise’s mum is a serial killer’ thing had become such a joke among the Slytherins that she rarely thought about the implications of it—of what it must mean for Blaise to have grown up with that, to see it as normal. Of what kind of a person that life must have made him into.

“Hey,” he said, his voice surprisingly gentle. “If it makes you feel any better, it’s probably not as bad as you’re thinking. It’s not like Mother just woke up and thought, ‘You know what my kid would love to do today? Help me murder someone.’”

So he’d helped, then, not just watched. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know, but after a long pause, she asked, “Why, then?”

“She thought it would make me feel better,” Blaise said. “Something about ‘restoring my agency’ or whatever. Not that it really bothered me all that much in the first place—it was mostly just confusing, the way he’d touch me, not like traumatizing or anything. But I’m not sure if Mother believed me. Anyway, she said we should punish him together, so… we did. She doesn’t usually hurt them much, but Five was different.”

Mary couldn’t even handle that. For some reason, she just let out a kind of sharp, humorless laugh. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m not—gods, I’m not laughing about you getting molested. I just… has the world always been this horrible?”

“In my experience?” he asked. “Yeah.”

“Do you think…” She paused. The question was potentially offensive, but she didn’t think Blaise was the type of person to be offended very easily. “Do you think it fucked you up somehow? Either part of it, I mean—the touching or the murder. Or—do you think you were just born as the sort of kid who would like killing someone?”

What she really meant was, How do children like Bellatrix happen? But she couldn’t feel Blaise listening in, and she didn’t think she was projecting her thoughts this time, so probably the most he could sense from her right now were her feelings—and she wasn’t even sure what those were.

“I think I was already like that,” he said. “No clue if I was born that way, or if it was due to presenting as a mind mage so young, or being raised by Mirabella, or just being her son. Mother is… not an ordinary person. I don’t mind it, though.”

Mary considered that for a moment. She didn’t think Bellatrix minded either. Had Riddle made her that way? Or was that just who she was? For that matter, what about Riddle himself? Was there something about being an empathic legilimens that just turned a person, paradoxically, into a psychopath? Would it happen to her too?

“Don’t you think that makes it worse?” she finally asked, rather than any of the other questions floating around her head.

“Not really,” Blaise said, still sounding like they were discussing nothing more important than a problem for class. “I understand why you’d think that: you think that it means I was fucked up even more, that I don’t see anything wrong with it. But I’m the way I am, and all things being equal, I’d rather not feel upset over that.”

That made sense, but Mary still felt kind of… empty. Far away from herself.

“I’m not a nice person,” he added after a moment. “But I’m not going to hurt you or anything. Even if I liked hurting people, which I don’t, there are plenty of reasons it would be counterproductive.”

The thing was, she believed him. It just didn’t make her feel any better. Then again, she wasn’t really sure what would make her feel better right now. “What time is it?” she asked—rhetorically, because she immediately cast a Tempus.

“Potions should be wrapping up about now,” he said, “and you didn’t eat lunch. We should get back.”

“I don’t get you,” she muttered. Blaise could tell her that he’d enjoyed killing his stepfather while simultaneously worrying—or, maybe not worrying, but at least keeping track of—whether she’d eaten. Still, she let him take her hand and pull her to her feet.

“Not much to get,” he said. “Just your garden variety mildly sociopathic empath with a serial killer for a mum and a demon for a dad.”

Mary stopped in her tracks. “A demon?”

“Maybe. Or maybe I’m just messing with you. If you want to find out, get better at mind magic.” He called that last bit over his shoulder, strolling on ahead like he didn’t much care whether she followed—like he hadn’t come all the way out here and skipped Snape’s class just to see if she was alright.

“You’re such an arsehole,” she muttered, trailing after him, but the thing was, she wasn’t sure she believed it.

Severus very nearly canceled class and went out looking for Mary Elizabeth himself.

True, it was not unusual for students to skip classes on occasion, no matter the repercussions, but she never had before—at least, not his. And this soon after the World Cup riot, and her dream, and with the Mark on his arm growing ever darker… What was more, when he asked Miss Moon about her absence, she said she had not seen Mary Elizabeth since before lunch. He knew she had attended the Mabon ritual, but after that, it was anyone’s guess where she’d gone.

Before he could decide on a course of action, however, Miss Greengrass approached his desk and asked if she might have a word. Quietly, she informed him, “Blaise said he was going to go talk to Mary, and that they might or might not be back before class.” She looked a little pained, no doubt at having to explain her friend’s irresponsible behavior to their Head of House.

Not kidnapped or otherwise harmed, then—just skiving off with Zabini for some bloody reason. “Fine,” he snapped, sending her scurrying back to her desk. Then, to the class: “Since Miss Potter and Mr. Zabini have not seen fit to join us today, we will proceed without them.”

His mood was darker than usual as he taught—enough that he made Longbottom cry, although admittedly, that was not a difficult task. Either something was wrong with Mary Elizabeth, or she had simply decided to renege on her promise to behave with a modicum of sense this year in favor of embracing all the recklessness teenagers were known for.

In either case, he was not so reassured that he did not shut himself in his office the moment the class ended with no sign of the girl, scrying the tracking spell in order to ascertain her location, which seemed to be halfway across the grounds.

When Mary Elizabeth and Zabini reached the side door that led back into the castle, Severus was already waiting, leaning against the door frame with his arms folded across his chest. “Care to tell me what was so dreadfully important that you could not be bothered to attend my class?”

Without missing a beat, Zabini looked at him innocently and said, “We were snogging, sir. I suppose we lost track of time.”

“Blaise!” Mary Elizabeth gasped, smacking the boy on the arm and turning a rather dramatic shade of red. “We weren’t, I swear, he’s just being a git,” she babbled to Severus, and he resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. He had truly hoped that the summer might have cured her of her little infatuation, but it seemed not.

“Ow, you violent heathen,” Zabini complained, but without much conviction—given Mary Elizabeth’s size, there was no way the blow had truly hurt. “You agreed it was a good alibi.”

“For people,” she hissed. “Not for Snape.” Turning back to Severus, she said, “I’m sorry, sir, we were just… it’s hard to explain. But it’s my fault. Can we… talk in your office?” She sounded a little desperate, and he decided to take pity on her.

“Mr. Zabini, I’ll see you tomorrow night at eight for detention,” Severus said, dismissing the boy.

“Yessir,” he drawled, not even pretending to be upset. Mary Elizabeth was still protesting, insisting that he wouldn’t have missed class if it wasn’t for her, but Zabini just shook his head and said, “S’alright, Mary. It’s like I told you—he gets lonely without me.”

The only thing that kept Severus from snapping at him was that he had long since learned it only encouraged the boy. He was—well, exactly as incorrigible as one would expect Mirabella Zabini’s son to be, even without considering the fact that his father had allegedly been an incubus (or so Zabini had been told by his mother—as it was meant to be impossible for humans and demons to interbreed, she might have been pulling his leg).

“Come along, then,” he said to Mary Elizabeth, leading her back through the door.

Despite the almost playful nature of the scene he had witnessed between her and Zabini, she was quiet as they walked through the halls, a troubled expression on her face, and he suspected that her absence that day was more likely due to some emotional trouble than teenage rebellion. His bet was on her having seen something during the Mabon ritual which she wished she had not.

Given his own vision, he was more troubled than he usually would have been by her and Zabini disappearing together all afternoon—wondering, even, if sending her to him for occlumency lessons had been the right thing to do—but that would have to wait. For now, he led her to his office, grateful that the halls were empty, the students already mostly being at dinner.

Once they were inside, he called up an elf from the kitchens and ordered them both dinner along with two cups of coffee, one of them decaf. The last thing he wanted to deal with was a hyperactive teenage girl, particularly this late in the day. He let Mary Elizabeth get some food in her before asking, “Care to tell me what happened today?”

Setting her plate aside—not fully empty, but she didn’t seem to be interested in eating any more—she said, “Not really, but I should. I learned some stuff that might be important. Short version is, the Mabon ritual showed me, uh, my mother’s conception.” Severus’s heart sank, but she went on. “I learned something new, though: Bellatrix was involved. She… helped.”

“She would have been nine years old at the time,” Severus said. That was the only reason he had not suspected her in Harrison’s torture in the spring of ‘81. He knew that she had been Marked at fifteen, and even that she had first met the Dark Lord on her fifth birthday—she’d told him once—but he would not have believed even Bellatrix would be participating in the rape and attempted murder of an Auror two years before starting school.

“Yeah,” Mary Elizabeth said, a haunted expression passing over her face. “She looked even younger. It was… And there’s some stuff she said that I think might be important, so I should show you. Only… I’m sorry, I knew that I might be able to find out something that could help us, but I… didn’t watch all of it. I couldn’t. I know that I can’t afford to be childish like that, not with the Dark Lord returning, but…”

Gods and Powers, was Mary Elizabeth apologizing to him for looking away from her grandmother’s rape? For a second, he loathed with all his heart the world that they lived in—the world that she was growing up in, that these were the things that a fourteen-year-old girl had to think about. It was a struggle to keep his voice steady as he said, “It was not childish. If you were able to spare yourself some of the mental trauma of witnessing such an event, all the better.”

Then, after a moment of hesitation, “If you would rather wait to show me the memory…” After all, that would mean reliving it herself, unless he was to borrow Dumbledore’s Pensieve, which would be difficult to come up with a believable excuse for.

“No, I’d rather just get it over with,” she said quietly. And then, “I didn’t mean to skip Potions. I wasn’t really thinking at all. I just went out to the lake for a long time—I had free periods after lunch, so it would’ve been alright if I hadn’t stayed so long. Blaise came out there looking for me. He only missed class because I wouldn’t come back, and he didn’t want to leave me alone.”

“Don’t worry about that,” he said. Then, “If you are ready, I will begin.”

“O—okay,” she said, raising her green eyes up to meet his, looking at him with fear—not of him, he thought, but of the rest of it—as well as a certain level of trust. As though she believed, with his intervention, the situation would magically be made better. It was surprisingly painful.

Severus watched through Mary Elizabeth’s eyes as Harrison was kidnapped and tortured at the young Bellatrix’s hands. He felt her horror, heard her thoughts as she pleaded with the Deceptive Power not to make her witness the full event, as she utilized her rudimentary occlumency to keep herself from seeing it. When they finished, she was trembling, and he felt like he ought to be doing something to comfort her—but he had no bloody clue what. He was hardly the comforting sort. Finally, he picked up her forgotten coffee, cast a warming charm on it to bring it back up to a palatable temperature, and placed the mug back in her hand.

“Thanks,” she mumbled. “I’m alright.” It was clearly a lie, but if it made her feel better to hide her distress, he wouldn’t contradict her.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” he began slowly—it was true, and yet, a completely useless thing to say. There was so little he could do for her.

Mary Elizabeth shrugged like she was dismissing his words. “Does it help?” she asked. “Any of the stuff I learned.”

“It does,” he said, though he was not completely certain yet. “We know that the ritual invoked the Destructive Power, likely in some sort of psychodrama in which Bellatrix pretended to be helping their victim. We know that Harrison was unknown to them before, and that she was chosen for some quality useful to the ritual—if I had to guess, they were probably seeking a virgin. And we know that the Powers wanted Harrison to live, almost certainly so that Lily would be born.”

“Her Lady,” she muttered. “That’s what Bellatrix said. That’s… the Powers?”

Severus nodded slightly. “It was an open secret among the Death Eaters that Bellatrix was a Black Mage,” he explained. “Do you know what that means?”

Mary Elizabeth’s eyes widened. “Yes, we just talked about it in class,” she said. “It’s an Unforgivable Act, right? And it means she’s… doing the bidding of one of the Powers? Or, an Aspect of a Power?”

“Precisely. Now, we were never certain to which Power Bellatrix was dedicated. I always suspected Destruction, which could still be the case—but Bellatrix did not address the Destructive Power in the way I would expect a dedicant to. Given the wording she used—that things would be ‘interesting’—I think it’s possible that her Patron is Chaos instead.”

Frowning, the girl said, “I really don’t like the sound of that. Moody said that Black Mages are really powerful, and that they… ‘destabilize society,’ was how he put it.”

“An oversimplification, but if she is dedicated to Chaos, that would not be inaccurate.”

“Why would Chaos—or another Power—want Lily to be born?”

If it had been a Light Power, or even one of the more benign ones which were nonetheless considered Dark, Severus might have suspected that the goal had been to create an opponent capable of stopping the Dark Lord. But considering the sort of Aspects which Bellatrix was likely to serve…

“Most likely to draw the war out, and to make it more ‘interesting,’ as Bellatrix said in your vision. Without Lily among the Order, the Light would not have been able to match the Dark Lord and his followers. Whether it was Chaos, Destruction, or another Dark Power, there is no doubt that the longer the war went on, the greater the opportunities for—well, chaos and destruction.”

“I… don’t know what to do with that information,” Mary Elizabeth admitted. “I didn’t think Lily was that important to the war. And, I’m glad she was able to stop him—kind of—but it’s weird to think she was only born to… destabilize things more, I guess. And… is my life just a side effect of that? I suppose it’s better not to really matter than to be born just to destroy things, but…”

It was an admittedly disturbing existential question, but not one she should be troubling herself with right now. “If you would like my advice, do your best not to think of it at all. Think of the possibility of the Powers meddling in your life as similar to the problem of a prophecy: you have no control over it, and might well make things worse if you try to understand and counter it, so it’s best to simply ignore the possibility and go about your life.”

She snorted. “I don’t really think that’s possible when someone’s spent over a decade trying to kill me because of a bloody prophecy.”

“True,” he acknowledged. “Still, you will only drive yourself mad trying to work out the means and motives of the Powers. They are not human—nor are their minds, such as they are, knowable to us.”

Mary Elizabeth just hummed noncommittally, frowning to herself. Then, a bit abruptly, she asked, “Is it normal for a little kid to be a Black Mage?”

At that, Severus let out a humorless laugh. “No, it certainly is not. But as you saw today, it appears that very little about Bellatrix at that age could be described as normal. At least it explains quite a lot about her, knowing that she has been dedicated to some Dark Power since childhood.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, getting another of those haunted looks. “I’ve been wondering… do you think she was born like that, or is it because she’s a Black Mage? Or do you think he made her that way? Riddle, I mean. She kept calling him ‘Master.’ And, I just don’t understand how a kid could…”

“With Bellatrix, it could go either way. Riddle is certainly a corrupting influence, and I know for a fact that Bellatrix had known him for nearly five years at that point, but Black Mages have a reputation for being rather inhuman—not to mention that the Blacks are not especially known for being paragons of sanity. Admittedly, Bellatrix was always the worst of them, but… there is no use speculating when we have no way of knowing for sure.”

Mary Elizabeth frowned to herself, as though thinking hard about something. “So… Riddle told Bellatrix to kill my grandmother, but the Powers told her to let her live, and she listened to them. That means… she’s more loyal to whatever Power she serves than she is to him, isn’t she?”

Severus, admittedly, had not thought of it like that. While he had always suspected Bellatrix of being a Black Mage, the implications of that fact—that there might be, for her, a master beyond even the Dark Lord—had not occurred to him during their acquaintance. But there was no denying that, in the vision, the young Bellatrix had disobeyed a direct order from Riddle. He had never known her to do so before, even during the latter years of the war, when she had circumvented his authority as much as possible.

“I suppose so,” he finally said. “Or, in any case, she was when she was a child. It is possible that her loyalty to the Dark Lord grew over time. In particular, taking the Mark would have bound her to him strongly enough that it would have been difficult for her to prioritize any other calling over her service to him at that point.” Particularly when there were rumors that Bellatrix’s Marking had been more… reciprocal than that of a typical Death Eater.

It was interesting, however, that the Riddle in the vision had not seemed to consider the possibility that Bellatrix would disobey him, even after she had objected to his order. He must have been entirely confident of his hold on her… Perhaps his ability to penetrate Bellatrix’s near flawless occlumency had not yet developed. It might have been a result of her taking his Mark, rather than a sign of his skill.

“What about the runes? Did you recognize what they were for?”

“Not with complete certainty, but my suspicion is that they were intended to facilitate possession of Harrison by the Destructive Power, which would be the voice you heard. I will look into translating them, as well as what you heard of the exchange between Riddle and the Power.”

“Okay. Do you… want me to help?”

“No. I will let you know if I turn anything up, or if I need more information from you.”

“Okay,” she said again, taking another sip of her coffee, that troubled frown never leaving her face. Then, with a loud breath, as though gathering her courage, she said, “I don’t know how to feel about it. What Riddle did, I mean. It’s evil, obviously it is. But it’s the only reason I exist. Does that mean… Should I wish that it hadn’t happened, and that Lily and I had never been born? Or, if I’m glad that I’m alive, does that mean that I’m glad that that happened to her—to my grandmother?”

“There is no particular way you ought to feel about it,” he said, even as he inwardly cursed the world once again for turning Mary Elizabeth’s adolescence into this. “Your wishing it hadn’t happened will not erase you from existence, nor will it save her. It is in the past, and she’s long dead. You can have compassion for her suffering without wishing to negate your own existence. In any case, the cause of Lily’s birth is not that Riddle violated her mother, but that Bellatrix spared her. That, you can be glad for without troubling your conscience.”

“I don’t know,” she said softly. “I… You saw her, at the end. If it were me… I think maybe I’d rather be dead, than survive something like that and have to remember it. And for what? She lived just to give birth to Riddle’s baby after what he did to her, then had to give up her kid to someone else, and then was tortured to death a few years later. I… no. It would have been better if she’d died. For her, at least.”

Severus wanted to say something to comfort her, but there was nothing he could say. She was, unfortunately, entirely correct. He felt suddenly, strikingly useless.

For a long moment, they only sat there in heavy silence. Neither one moved, not even to sip their coffee, but only felt, together, the impossible weight of all the suffering that had brought them to the present moment. All he could think was that it had taken her even less time than himself to learn that there were things in this world so painful that it was a cruelty to be forced to survive them, to continue existing in their wake.

When he finally spoke, it was to say something so entirely stupid that he could hardly believe the words were coming out of his mouth—but anything else, anything that might acknowledge what she was feeling, he had no idea how to put into words. “I’ll need to give you detention for missing my class,” he said, as though reciting from a script. “I do not mean to punish you, but it’s best to keep up appearances. You can serve it with Mr. Zabini tomorrow evening, and I will simply have the two of you make up the lesson with me.”

“I don’t care,” she said, with a sort of blank, absent quality to her voice. “I mean, I understand.”

He still felt that he ought to do or say something, rather than allow her to remain in this state, but it was hardly as though he could somehow relieve her of the burden she now carried. The fact was that her reaction was a normal, proportionate one to the world she lived in. His sense of his own uselessness, however, only grew.

True, he could physically protect the girl from some sources of harm—when she didn’t go running off into danger alone, anyway—but when it came to her mental well-being, there was little he could do for her. Particularly given that she lived such a life that she’d felt responsible for watching that horrific scene in order to gather information for them, and he could not even say she had been wrong to. If what she had witnessed helped them to understand her connection to the Dark Lord, to find a way to protect her from him, then it would be worth it.

He only hated that they did not live in a world where such a thing was unnecessary, where he could say that there was no reason good enough for a teenage girl to be forced to witness such things.

While he was brooding, Mary Elizabeth had begun rummaging in her book bag. “I almost forgot, I got another parcel from Riddle this morning. The young one. I think it’s another late birthday present. Don’t worry, I didn’t open it this time, just wrapped it up in a napkin and put it in my bag.”

Technically, there were some curses which could affect her simply by keeping the object in her vicinity all day, but he admitted that he was being rather paranoid. After all, he did not truly believe the teenage Riddle would attempt to curse his ‘heir’; he only wanted her to take reasonable precautions.

She handed the parcel over, and he began casting diagnostic charms on it. As with the year before, they turned up nothing of note, so he moved on to examining the packaging. “From the Americas again,” he murmured—assuming Riddle hadn’t rerouted it through there a second time. Then he carefully opened it, examining the contents as Mary Elizabeth waited patiently. As before, a note had been included, and he snorted at the contents.

“What?”

“You’ve hurt his feelings.” Then, reading aloud: “After this was returned to me when I attempted to send it to you on Yule, I was uncertain whether you deserved it at all. However, I have decided to give you one more chance. If you do not follow my advice to get your wards tuned, this will be the last thing you receive from me.”

“Bossy,” Mary Elizabeth muttered, but she didn’t sound that amused. Given what she’d witnessed today, he supposed she might be worried about the potential ramifications of Riddle being angry with her, particularly when she was incapable of informing him that her noncompliance was due to inability rather than defiance.

It was not wards that were causing his gifts to be returned, but rather, a result of the Dark tracking spell which Severus had used to trace her when she had disappeared into the Chamber in her second year. (Not that it had done any good, since he had been unable to get to her at the time.) Very few tracking spells worked within Hogwarts. This particular one did, but at the cost of preventing anyone but himself from ever tracking the girl with magic again—owls included.

Not that Severus was at all displeased by that outcome, even if it had disrupted Dumbledore’s own trackers.

“What did he send this time?” she asked, and he presented the book to her: A General Introduction to the Mind Arts. She immediately went a bit pale—paler, anyway, than she’d already been. “Do you think he knows?”

Shaking his head slightly, Severus said, “I think that he is aware that, as of a year and a half ago, your mind was entirely unprotected, and believes that it would benefit you to learn occlumency. At most, he may think that, as his blood relative, you are likely to eventually discover an aptitude for mind magic and means to help you along the way.”

“Oh.” She visibly relaxed. “What should I do, then? About the ward thing?”

“There is really nothing you can do. In any case, it wouldn’t do to give Riddle the impression that you can simply be pressured into following his orders when he holds no real authority over you. If he wishes to give up his efforts to win you over as an ally due to his own ego, that is his choice. In truth, I would not be surprised if this was a test: he wants to see if you will put in the effort to keep his attention.”

“Well, to hell with that,” she muttered, and he suppressed a smile. He had noticed that Mary Elizabeth did not appreciate feeling pushed around by others. “I don’t want to make an enemy out of him, though. One of him trying to kill me is bad enough.”

“He did not threaten to do anything more than cease sending you gifts,” he pointed out. “I doubt even he would be prideful enough to make an enemy of his only heir over this.”

“I guess not,” she said, still sounding worried. “It’ll be a bit of a relief if he does stop sending me stuff, though. I know what you said about keeping my enemies close, but…”

“It’s one less thing to concern yourself with?” he suggested, and she nodded quickly. “That’s entirely understandable.”

Mary Elizabeth took the book from him, beginning to page through it. “At least it’s in English this time,” she said. “Took me months to translate his last present.”

“If there were mind magic books written in Parsel, I’m sure he would have sent you one,” Severus replied, only half joking. He suspected that Riddle was thrilled to share the language with his heir—his older self had had Bellatrix to speak it with, but at sixteen, he might never have met another human Speaker.

(Not that Bellatrix was a Parselmouth, from what he understood—she claimed to have simply picked the language up from spending so much time around the Dark Lord. Which, if she had been his… servant? follower? apprentice? since before the age of nine, made sense.)

For a moment, the girl sat there, looking down at her new book, and yet, he had the impression she was not actually reading. An impression that was vindicated when, without looking up, she quietly said, “You were in the war, and you were a Death Eater and everything. You must have seen… awful things. How do you…” She trailed off, though he had a rough idea of what she meant to ask.

Her words, unfortunately, were enough to shake certain memories loose from his mind. The murder of Lily’s parents. The slaughter at St. Mungo’s the summer of Mary Elizabeth’s birth. The Revels, the initiation of countless young idiots into their ranks, seeing them realize only too late—only when the knife was placed in their hands—what they had gotten themselves into.

The Golem Downs at Glastonbury.

Samhain of ‘79, when the dead had walked the earth.

With thoughts like those in his mind, it was very, very easy for Severus to understand why the Destructive or Chaotic Powers might have wanted Lily Evans to be born. Without her, how differently the war would have gone. No massacre at Diagon, no Battle of Artemis. No tynged twisting the Dark Lord’s mind to madness.

But Mary Elizabeth had asked him a question—or tried to, at least. “How do I cope with it?” he finished, and she nodded, raising up her head to look him in the eye again, biting her lip as she did. “Poorly.”

That actually drew a startled laugh out of her, and his lips twitched at her reaction.

“I don’t have answers for you,” he said, more seriously. “Practicing occlumency will help. Lucid dreaming as well. Luckily, those are two things which you would be doing anyway. But, in any case, troubled sleep and the memory of things you would rather forget will not kill you. It is something one learns to live with after a time.” Then, feeling like he ought to be more helpful, he added, “There are mind healers,” ignoring the fact that he never had and never intended to visit one.

“I think I’ll stick to occlumency and lucid dreaming,” she said, as he’d expected she would. “Letting Blaise in my head is bad enough. Thanks, though.”

Severus hesitated, unsure how to put his concern into words. Finally, he asked, “How have your lessons with Zabini been progressing? Do you feel… comfortable with him?”

Mary Elizabeth’s brow wrinkled slightly in confusion. “I mean, he’s Blaise. I trust him enough to let him in my head, if that’s what you’re asking. As he put it, if he actually betrayed any of my secrets, he’d have to deal with you, so… And he says I’m doing alright so far. It’s just slow.”

That hadn’t been quite what he was asking. He was less concerned that Zabini would betray Mary Elizabeth’s confidence than that he might manipulate her in some way, being an empath. And yet, it was true that Severus himself should see such a thing coming. Thus far, Zabini had given him no indication that he had any harmful intent towards the girl.

And yet.

But to voice his concern aloud would only worry her needlessly—he had no concrete reason to suspect Zabini, and she needed to trust him if she was to learn from him. He still believed the boy was the best option to teach her occlumency, especially considering her… interest in himself, which would make any lessons between them extremely uncomfortable.

“Yes, I’ll be keeping an eye on him. However, if you notice anything that I do not—if you have any concerns—please do come to me.”

Mary Elizabeth frowned. “You sound like you don’t trust him.”

“He’s a Zabini,” Severus said—which did not convey much information, and yet, she looked as though she understood what he meant. “You can trust him as long as your interests align with his, and no further. I am… attempting to ensure that continues to be the case, but I would not completely let your guard down.”

“Is there anyone you would tell me to completely let my guard down around?” she asked, sounding slightly amused.

“No,” he admitted after very little consideration.

“I thought so.” Her eyes shifted for a moment, like she was refraining from saying something, and he had the horrible suspicion she was thinking something about how she could let her guard down around him. Thankfully, she did not say so.

Although he suspected it was not entirely unconnected when she said, a moment later, “I know it’s a bit late, but could I stay here for a while and read my book? I just don’t really…” She trailed off, though he was almost certain she meant to say that she did not wish to be alone in her dorm room following what she had seen.

“If you wish.” Severus was not overly concerned with sending her back after curfew if necessary—he would be in his office for hours yet, and she had mastered the Disillusionment Charm the year before, so her extended presence was unlikely to be noticed.

As she began to read, or at least to pretend, he found he could not help but think of his own vision earlier that day, pondering yet again what it might mean.

As the courtyard fell away, Severus found he was looking at himself in his own office, sitting across from Zabini. It could have been any number of times, and yet, he knew at once that it had not yet happened, without being entirely sure why. Perhaps because Zabini’s appearance had changed over the summer—he’d grown taller, broader, less of a boy and more of a man—and if the scene had occurred in the past month, it would have been more familiar.

He also knew that it was not too far in the future. There were some subtle differences in Zabini’s appearance that suggested some time had passed—maybe half a year or so—but he doubted it was so far out as the next school year.

As per usual for their lessons, he was legilimizing Zabini, attempting to help him improve his subtlety and control of his mind magic. The frustrating part was that, as he was watching from outside of himself, he had no idea what it was that his future self saw in the boy’s mind. He only saw his own eyes widen with shock, then horror, before he broke the contact almost violently, rising to his feet. Severus would never be so forceful, so careless, with a student’s mind—not unless he had seen something shocking enough to cause him to momentarily take leave of his senses.

“What in the ever-loving fuck was that?” his own voice demanded, strengthening his suspicion. What could he have seen, to make him react in such a way?

“I didn’t mean to show you that,” Zabini said, his voice trembling slightly as he stood as well—another sign that something was very wrong, as he almost never lost his composure. His eyes had widened only slightly, but that was enough for Severus know the boy was as disquieted as he himself seemed to be. “That was… private.”

“Was that…” Severus began to say, trailing off.

“Monday night,” Zabini answered. “Don’t tell me you don’t know—”

“Obviously I know,” Severus cut him off, almost snarling. There was anger—no, fury—in his voice now, and he stepped closer to Zabini, looming over the boy as though to intimidate him. “But—did she? Did she know that you were—”

“Of course.” It was rare that Zabini showed genuine emotion, and yet, he did not seem to be faking his offense at the question, unfinished as it was. “You actually believe I would do that to her? To anyone? She asked me to. She wanted my help—”

“Enough,” his older self snapped. He turned away, setting one hand down on his desk, hunched over slightly as his hair fell around his face. “Go,” he said, more quietly, something defeated in his voice. “Just go.”

Zabini damn near scrambled from the room, as though genuinely frightened of him, and Severus watched himself slump down into his chair, burying his face in his hands with a strained groan. For the rest of the vision, his older self just sat there, staring almost blankly at the wall opposite his desk, a look of abject horror on his face. He did not speak, nor move again, before Severus was called back into his body in the Hogwarts courtyard.

Severus did not know for sure, of course, that the she in the memory was Mary Elizabeth, but that was the most logical guess, both in terms of being a shared concern of his and Zabini’s as well as in the strength of his own reaction.

It seemed that Zabini would do something to, or with regard to, Mary Elizabeth. And yet, not something which would hurt her, or Severus’s anger would not have vanished so quickly. His future self seemed to have believed the girl deceived by Zabini in some way, only to discover that this was not the case—that she was aware of whatever it was the boy had done, had requested it herself. Following this, he had evidently decided Zabini was not to blame, and let him go free. But this had not quelled his horror. Only his anger.

Whatever would occur involving this unknown ‘she’ who was almost certainly his Anipsiá, it was something that would disturb Severus profoundly—would shake him to his very core. What on earth was Zabini going to do to her? What would she ask him to do that Severus would find so unspeakable?

And what the fuck would it have to do with the Powers?

He snuck a glance at Mary Elizabeth now, seemingly absorbed in her book—or maybe just in her thoughts. There was nothing so far, nothing Zabini had done or thought, to indicate that he could not be trusted with her. And yet, Severus could not help but feel that he may have, with his suggestion that she take lessons from the boy, set into motion a chain of events which he would, in time, come to deeply regret.

Chapter Text

“Are you alright?” Hermione asked as they sat at their usual table in the library, far enough from Madam Pince that she wouldn’t hear them whispering to each other. “You weren’t at dinner yesterday, and Lils said you missed Potions.”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” When Hermione didn’t look convinced, Mary sighed and said, “Bad vision at the ritual. I don’t really want to talk about it.”

She wasn’t sure why not, except that she’d been up half the night picturing the horrible things that had happened in that house, and even reliving it for Snape had been bad enough. She just didn’t feel like getting into it in detail now. Plus, it kind of felt like one of those things that she might prefer to keep between herself and Snape, like what had happened with Pettigrew. She’d told Hermione the basics about Matilde Harrison already; that was enough, wasn’t it?

“Okay…” Hermione bit her lip and frowned, clearly incapable of letting it go. Sure enough, after a second, she asked, “When you say bad, is it like, Lilian’s last Mabon vision bad? Are you going to…”

“Have a mental breakdown?” Mary finished, momentarily glad that Lilian had blown them off to hang out with Pansy after only an hour of studying. Otherwise, it would’ve been way more awkward to have this conversation.

Hermione nodded guiltily.

“No, not like that. It wasn’t anything I didn’t already know—not for the most part, I mean. Nothing earth-shattering. Just… some things I could have lived without seeing.”

“Like my vision last year,” Hermione said, even though that wasn’t really that similar. She’d discovered that her mum had nearly aborted her, which, while upsetting, wasn’t exactly ‘hearing screams of pain and despair in your mind every night’ bad.

“Yeah,” Mary lied, grateful that Hermione seemed to be dropping it. Just to be sure, she changed the subject. “What about you? You’ve seemed a bit distracted since the ritual.”

“Oh, it’s nothing bad. Just… thinking about some things.” When Mary didn’t immediately respond, just raised an eyebrow, she said, “Okay, so, when I was little, my parents were having trouble getting their practice off the ground, and they started talking about maybe moving back to one of their home countries. Well, probably France—I don’t think Mum really wanted to go back to America, she was just being stubborn.

“But anyway, right around then, this really cheap office space opened up just down the road from our house, and everything just kind of fell into place for them to buy it and set up their practice, so we stayed in England. What I saw yesterday, though, was that that wasn’t a coincidence. Somehow, the Powers kind of… set things up that way. The space’s former owners getting caught committing tax fraud, my parents running across it, everything.”

“Huh.” Mary wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but it hadn’t been that. “Why do you think the Powers did that?”

“I mean, obviously it was to keep my family in Britain, right? So… either it’s about my parents, and the political stuff they’ve been doing, or… it’s me. Like, someone or something wants me to be here—in Magical Britain, at Hogwarts. Like there’s something I’m supposed to do. Is that… does that sound really egotistical of me?”

“No,” Mary said quickly, shaking her head. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Hermione hid a smile. “It got me thinking, I know you said in your letter after the World Cup that you weren’t sure I shouldn’t go to Beauxbatons. No, no, it’s okay,” she added, seeing the look of guilt on Mary’s face. “I know you were just worried I’d get hurt for being a muggleborn, or for being your friend. And, you said you’d feel selfish saying I should stay just so you’d have me around.”

“I would,” Mary said, though she was still glad Hermione had come back to school.

“Yeah, well, I was thinking about that, and realized, it’s not for you. What I mean is, obviously I want to be there for you, but I don’t think the Powers care much whether you and I are friends unless it’s going to have some bigger impact on the world, you know? I’m not here for you, I’m here so I can… do whatever it is I’m meant to do. So, no matter how dangerous it gets, I’m staying—and you can’t feel guilty for that, because it’s got nothing to do with you.”

Though she wanted to smile, to be proud of Hermione, she couldn’t help but think back to her own vision and the ensuing conversation with Snape. As she might have expected, Hermione immediately picked up on her shift in mood.

“Lizzie? What is it?”

“Don’t—don’t get mad, I’m not saying this is the case, but… it’s just, the Powers aren’t good. Not all of them. They’re not like, I don’t know, the muggle god trying to steer us to some higher purpose. As far as I can understand, they’re more like… I don’t know. A million different pieces of Magic, all with their own agendas, and a lot of them aren’t the same as ours. I just… I don’t know if the Powers having something planned for you is necessarily a good thing. How do you know it’s not, I don’t know, Chaos, or Destruction, or Death?”

Hermione went silent for a moment, peering at her. “What did you see yesterday?”

“I told you, I don’t want to talk about it.”

Sighing, Hermione said, “I’ve thought about that. I just don’t really know what I could do about it. If I’m going to end up doing what the Power want anyway, then I might as well try to believe it’s something good, I guess. I think I’d go a bit mad otherwise.”

Well, Mary could understand that. Maybe she should try not to think about it either.

“Hey, maybe what I’m meant to do is help you take over the Wizengamot and make this country less horrible,” Hermione added. “What’s up with that? Did you talk to Catherine yet?”

“She wrote me back. Says I should meet with Professor McGonagall to talk about it.”

“Oh.” Then, utterly incapable of being patient, Hermione added, “So, will you?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m going to. I’ve just got a lot going on, and you know how busy she is. We’re meeting next Saturday, but I’m not sure if we’ll have time to talk about it with Sirius’s trial coming up right after.”

It had been scheduled for the first Monday of October, and Mary had special permission to leave the school to attend, at least the first day of it—these things tended to go on a while. But in any case, on Monday, her guardian would be delivering her to the Wizengamot Hall before coming back to school for her classes.

Mary still wasn’t sure how Aunt Minnie felt about Sirius being innocent. The older witch kept her emotions close to her chest, but Mary picked up on an air of regret from her sometimes, like she thought she ought to have given him the benefit of the doubt after the war. That was, just from reading her expressions and tone of voice, not through reading her emotions themselves… she thought.

“But after that? You’ll talk to her?”

“Of course.” Hermione didn’t look convinced, though. “The Wizengamot’s not going anywhere, Maia.”

“Neither is injustice,” Hermione grumbled, and Mary had to cover her mouth to keep from laughing too loudly.

“Yeah, well, injustice will have to wait until we’ve finished our Charms essays.”

As Mary had suspected, there was no time to discuss House Potter’s political position with Aunt Minnie during their monthly tea. When she reached the professor’s office on Saturday afternoon, she found they had some special guests: Catherine Urquhart and Andromeda Tonks, who wanted to go over a few things with Mary and rehearse what she would be saying to the press.

On Monday morning, Mary woke before dawn and called Cammy the house elf to her room to help her into her dress robes—the ones she’d worn to the Wizengamot in January, not the ones she’d bought for what Blaise said would be a Yule Ball. She was surprised to find they fit her a little differently now—she hadn’t thought that her body had changed all that much, and yet, she must have filled out a little when she wasn’t looking. (Not that she had much in the way of boobs yet, but still, it was a promising sign.)

This time, it was Aunt Minnie who escorted her. They’d come to the decision that she should minimize public appearances with the Urquharts for the time being, in hopes of not making it immediately obvious to the public that she was spending her summers with them. It was too late to keep it completely secret, but it would at least add some small layer of protection.

Together, they Flooed to House McGonagall’s office in the Wizengamot Hall, where her guardian inspected her one final time. “You remember what you’re planning to say?”

“Yes, Aunt Minnie,” Mary said a little nervously. They’d decided that the best defense was a good offense, but that didn’t mean she was looking forward to setting herself against some of the most powerful people in Magical Britain.

Her guardian nodded, and together, they made their way through the labyrinth of corridors up to the Chamber of Governance.

Today would be Mary’s first time seeing either Sirius or Remus since the end of last term, since they’d left for Aquitania—a magical country overlapping with southern France, and one of the many parts of the world which refused to extradite to Britain so long as Azkaban existed.

It made her anxious, thinking of Sirius back on British soil where he might once again be locked up, but she understood that there was very little chance of him going back to Azkaban. They had Pettigrew, they had Mrs. Tonks, and they had Dumbledore. While Mary might not be his biggest fan, he was the Chief Warlock, and from what she heard, he apparently felt really guilty about leaving Sirius to rot (as he should, she thought bitterly) and was fully prepared to fight to keep him free.

Not to mention the fact that the entire nobility was furious with the Ministry and looking to make a very clear point about how noble wizards ought to be treated. That, after all, was why Sirius was being tried by the Wizengamot rather than the Ministry. While the Ministry’s Department of Magical Law Enforcement had been allowed to handle the Death Eaters captured at the end of the war, given that the Wizengamot was a bit preoccupied with, among other things, half of their acting Lords and Ladies being arrested, the revelation that Sirius Black had been put away for twelve years without a trial ensured that this would no longer be left in their hands.

The other Noble Houses might not like the Blacks—might, even, have been glad to see the House nearly extinguished by the end of the war—but neither did they want to allow a precedent of members of the nobility—heirs to Noble and Most Ancient Houses, in particular—being sent to Azkaban by the Ministry alone.

Magical British politics had begun making a lot more sense to Mary once she’d learned to see how much of it was shaped by the tension between the nobility—represented by the Wizengamot—and the commoner-held Ministry. Not that Mary supported, as many of the Lords and Ladies of the Wizengamot did, the elevation of the nobility over the rest of the country—and if she ever started thinking like that, she was certain Hermione would be glad to kick her right in the head. In her opinion, they were both corrupt, just in different ways.

But this time, it was the Ministry that had completely fucked up, and Mary was looking forward to setting things right, even if it meant using her power as Heir Potter to do so.

That wasn’t entirely why she was here, however. Mr. McGonagall, Aunt Minnie’s brother and her proxy until she came of age, had already been firmly instructed to vote in support of Sirius’s exoneration. Mary wasn’t necessary for that; she was just another teenage heiress with limited power. But what she was, was the Girl Who Lived, and the daughter of the people whom Sirius was accused of betraying. And that was something far more powerful.

She entered the Chamber of Governance side-by-side with her guardian to the sounds of an enormous crowd, the usually empty press section for once packed to the brim. They had arranged the timing with Mrs. Tonks during their meeting, and it was just as they’d planned it: Sirius and Remus were already there, surrounded by reporters from the Prophet and other newspapers—some even, she thought, from the Continent. Normally, Mary avoided the press as much as humanly possible, but today, her celebrity status might actually do some bloody good in her life.

“Godfather!” she shouted over the crowd, and the entire collection of reporters swung their heads her way in unison, the sight of which was strangely comical. Thankfully, they parted just enough to allow her to run through their midst, throwing her arms around Sirius’s neck, abandoning her composed noble-girl act in favor of a display of youthful excitement—also an act, of course.

While Mary’s reputation was not quite as pristine as it had been when she first joined the wizarding world, back before she’d gotten sorted into Slytherin and outed herself as a Parselmouth, it should still make a difference in the court of public opinion for Mary Potter, of all people, to be seen publicly affiliating with Sirius Black, treating him as family.

He reacted with surprise, just the way Mrs. Tonks had said she would tell him to, hesitating for a moment before hugging her back. Mary did her best to look comfortable with him, even though they’d only met thrice before and she wasn’t much of a hugger. At least he smelled better now, and looked better, too, like he’d actually been eating over the summer.

When he released her, she turned to Remus, pretending like the press weren’t even there, even though their flashbulbs were popping all around her.

“Professor Lupin!” she greeted him, and this hug was a little easier for her—he, at least, she had known for years.

Then, finally, she turned to face the press, who had been growing even more insistent in their cries of “Miss Potter!” Sirius, behind her, slung his arm around her shoulders—that had been a victory for their side, getting an agreement that he wouldn’t be brought to the Hall in chains, looking like a criminal—and Remus ruffled her hair, prompting a glare from Mary, who had spent hours with Cammy taming her usual messy curls into elaborate braids for this event, thank you very much.

Mary locked eyes with the reporter from the Prophet—if she was going to talk to one of them, it might as well be the one who would have the largest impact on the local public opinion. Aunt Minnie hovered somewhere behind them, watching her calmly, trusting her to say what needed to be said. As soon as the reporter realized she was looking at him, he pounced.

“Miss Potter, aren’t you afraid? Sirius Black has been called a dangerous criminal; some say he broke into Hogwarts last year, looking for you.”

“A misunderstanding,” Mary said with a haughty raise of her chin, leaning back slightly against Sirius. “My godfather was trying to protect me from the actual dangerous criminal, Peter Pettigrew,” she explained, stressing her words like she was speaking to a child. “I’m not afraid, I’m furious.

“The unforgivable mishandling of my godfather’s case by the Ministry—and, in particular, by Director Crouch—not only led to an innocent wizard being sent to Azkaban, given life with the dementors in place of the Order of Merlin he deserved as one of the Light’s most dedicated soldiers against the Dark Lord, while allowing the one who actually betrayed my parents to walk free, but also denied me the home that I was entitled to as a child.

“Had anyone bothered to look into Sirius’s case before now, I would have grown up with my godfather, as my parents intended, being prepared to take my place as Lady Potter, instead of being raised in ignorance of the magical world. In fact,” she added, “I believe that the Ministry owes both my godfather and myself a great debt, and I look forward to finding out how, exactly, they intend to repay us for the irreparable damage their incompetence has caused the Houses of Black and Potter.”

With that, she started to turn back to Sirius and Remus, prepared to ignore the rest of the reporters’ insistent questions, but the follow-up gave her pause. “Couldn’t the responsibility for that be said to also lie with the Chief Warlock?” the same reporter asked, and when she glanced back at him, he was giving her a shrewd look. “If I recall correctly, wasn’t it he who decided that you would be sent to live with your mother’s muggle sister, rather than fostered by another wizarding family?”

Mary glanced at Aunt Minnie’s face—they hadn’t rehearsed this. And she somehow doubted that her guardian, who was among the loyalists to Dumbledore’s Light, would be happy to hear her speak ill of the Headmaster in public… but she was genuinely angry, now that she was thinking about it, and the opportunity was too good to pass up. Still, she wouldn’t eviscerate him too badly without Catherine and Aunt Minnie’s approval.

Giving the reporter a smile that she hoped was less sharp than it felt, she said, “Yes, well, perhaps the Chief Warlock owes House Potter an apology as well.”

Satisfied with her answer, the Prophet reporter moved on to another Lord of the Wizengamot who was on his way into the chamber. The other reporters kept trying to get Mary’s attention, but she didn’t want to go even more off-script than she already had, and they’d mostly just prepared that little speech, so she turned to Sirius and Remus, pretending the reporters weren’t even there, and asked, “So, how were your summers?”

Of course, people kept shouting and taking pictures, but they eventually seemed to realize the three of them weren’t going to respond and gave up. Most of them, anyway; from out of the crowd of the press came a small, colorful figure, one that Mary somehow entirely failed to notice until they were directly at her side, calling, “Mary Elizabeth!”

Mary turned to see, of all bloody people, Luna Lovegood. Wearing an unbearably pink bowler hat with a horrible yellow band around it, feathers of all colors of the rainbow sticking out, along with a card which was flashing back and forth between reading “QUIBBLER” and “PRESS.” And there was something strange about her—Mary found it hard to look directly at her, and not just because of her terrible outfit (the rest of it not being much better than the hat). Something was causing her mind to not want to fully focus itself on the girl; in fact, she had to use occlumency just to fight it.

Then Luna took her hand, and the difficulty vanished. “Are you under a charm or something?” Mary asked, keeping her voice low, though it didn’t seem like the other reporters were paying much attention to their conversation—which made sense, if Luna really was under some sort of stealth charm.

“A true journalist should observe the story, not make herself a part of it,” was all the answer Luna would give her. Brushing her hand over the two men’s arms, she greeted Sirius: “Hello, Fallen Star! It’s so lovely to see you again.”

So she had met him! Sure enough, Sirius hissed, “You! I thought I bloody imagined you!”

“I get that a lot,” Luna replied earnestly, and Mary snorted.

Sirius glared at the girl. “I thought you said you were going to warn her. That’s why I figured I imagined you, since you weren’t any bloody help at all.”

“I did!” Luna insisted, looking slightly wounded at his anger. “I told her the very next day.”

“She did,” Mary confirmed. “She came to me talking about a Fallen Star that wanted me to beware of rats, and something about the moon saying I should trust him. It was incredibly unhelpful. I spent weeks worried about getting the Plague or something.” If Luna had been more straightforward, it could have saved her months of ignorance, and Sirius all that time hiding out in the Forbidden Forest.

Pouting, Luna said, “You said you understood. What else could I have meant?” She tilted her head, clearly baffled by the idea that someone might not have understood her allegorical statement.

“What moon?” Remus interjected, looking troubled.

Luna giggled, like she thought that was a very silly question. “Mary Elizabeth can’t have forgotten her already! They only met earlier this year.”

If Hermione was here, Mary thought, she might have strangled Luna by now. Mary usually had more patience for the fae little Ravenclaw than the rest of them, and even she was feeling a bit, well, strangle-y. Before she could demand that Luna tell her when she had met the bloody moon, however, her classmate went on.

“They’ll be calling you in soon. Fallen Star, any statement for the readers of the Quibbler?”

Sirius smirked, apparently deciding to take her cryptic nonsense in stride. “I suppose you can tell them that the Moon is on my side.”

All in all, Sirius’s trial took nearly a week.

In Mary’s opinion, there was no fucking reason it should have taken that long. Just the confession of Peter Pettigrew alone—who trembled like rodent up there by the podium, held in chains enchanted to keep him from transforming, and who, thanks to Snape’s obliviation skills, showed no sign at all of ever having met Mary before—should have been enough to exonerate Sirius. But, this being the Wizengamot, everyone had to have their say.

Some of them, it made sense for the Wizengamot to hear from. There was Dumbledore, who spoke on behalf of Sirius’s work for the Order, and Remus, who told the Wizengamot of how his friends had become animagi to help him—and, in doing so, outed himself as a werewolf, but they had long since accepted that as an inevitable outcome of the trial. Better for him to do so, and control the narrative, than to wait for Pettigrew to tell everyone. Hagrid spoke, as the last person to have seen Sirius before the showdown with Pettigrew (to the discomfort, Mary was certain, of the Wizengamot, which was full of racist arseholes who would hate seeing a half-giant in their Hall).

Even Snape testified, though Mary wasn’t there that day, tersely informing the Wizengamot that his statement about Sirius being ‘the right hand of the Dark Lord’ had been sarcastic, obviously. Mary was pretty sure he only did that for her benefit.

Lady Malfoy spoke as well, and Lady Zabini—who had been close to Bellatrix for many years—on Sirius’s split with the Blacks, and the fact that he had, in fact, purposefully aligned his magic to the Light to spite his family, meaning that he was literally incapable of casting Dark spells.

They heard from Amelia Bones, who had replaced Crouch as Head of the DMLE after the war, on the gross miscarriage of justice that it was that Sirius had been denied a trial.

Many of the other speakers, however, seemed to have nothing at all to do with the case. It seemed that every Lord and Lady in the Wizengamot wanted a chance to say their piece, even if they were just repeating the same complaints about the Ministry’s actions or telling long, rambling stories about the time they’d met Sirius when he was only a boy.

Or so Mary had gathered, because, except for the first day and the final two days of the trial, the latter of which fell on the following weekend, she wasn’t able to attend. She’d asked, but neither Aunt Minnie nor Snape thought she should be missing an entire week of classes during her fourth year.

Instead, she, Hermione, Lilian, and sometimes Daphne followed the trial obsessively through the Prophet and the reports that Remus owled to her in the evenings when he could find time. Not all of the coverage was positive: while the Prophet enjoyed taking shots at the Ministry, they were far more favorable to them than to the Wizengamot, and some reporters had taken to alleging that the corrupt House of Black (a category which included Sirius, Lady Malfoy, Mrs. Tonks—in spite of her being disinherited—and even Mary, as Sirius’s goddaughter) were abusing their power and influence to get a mass murder off scot-free. But that was nothing compared to what they were saying about Remus.

Of course, they’d known that him outing himself as a werewolf would not go over well, but if he hadn’t done it, Pettigrew would have. Still, Mary had not been quite prepared for how intensely horrible people would be about it. It had been one thing, last winter, before she knew he was a werewolf, to find out that they were seen as inhuman beasts by most of Magical Britain. It was another thing to read those sorts of things about Remus specifically. It made her sick; in fact, in her first burst of accidental magic in years, she had set the paper on fire at the breakfast table.

The only thing that cheered her was knowing that Remus wouldn’t have to leave Magical Britain, even if he couldn’t find employment or housing after this—in exchange for him speaking at the trial, knowing what the consequences would be for his future in Britain, she knew that Sirius had promised him a large sum of money from the Black vaults as well as free use of the family properties. Based on Sirius’s last letter, Remus was still arguing with him about it, but she thought he’d win in the end.

Anyway, the press’s treatment of Remus was far from the only thing that angered Mary about the trial. Besides the Ministry’s statements—utterly devoid of responsibility-taking save for, ‘But Crouch isn’t leading the DMLE anymore!’ as if they wouldn’t have made him Minister if not for his son—there was also Moody. More specifically, the fact that he, as Sirius’s senior partner when he was in the Aurors, had declined their request to speak at the trial.

Mrs. Tonks had been so certain he would say yes! Her daughter, who’d trained under him, had been the one to write him. But according to Tonks, Moody had completely blown her off, and without even giving a good explanation for it. Sirius had said he was pretty sure Moody felt too guilty to face him or something, but Mary had the suspicion he was hurt by it regardless.

Despite this minor setback, at the end of the interminable trial, Sirius was cleared of all charges but becoming an unregistered animagus, escaping Azkaban, and evading capture (which was apparently a crime even when you’d been falsely imprisoned, because Britain), but Mrs. Tonks had successfully argued that his sentence be reduced to time served, which meant that he was free—while Pettigrew, on the other hand, would get the Dementor’s Kiss.

The image of an exuberant Sirius lifting his goddaughter off the ground in the Wizengamot chamber, swinging her in a circle with the force of his hug, would be plastered all throughout the papers the next day.

First, though, they would celebrate. That night, Sirius took Mary, Lilian, and Hermione, along with Remus, the Tonkses, and the Grangers (who’d played their own role in organizing his case from behind the scenes) out to dinner at some fancy Greek restaurant in Diagon Alley that Mary hadn’t even known existed. Sirius had actually bought out the place for the night just so they wouldn’t have to worry about the press!

Aunt Minnie had been invited as well, but she’d begged off, telling the girls to have fun and that she expected to see them in her Floo before curfew. Mary thought she still felt awkward around Sirius due to having believed him a murderous traitor. Still, after a slightly tense moment, she’d patted him on the shoulder and said, “I’m so glad you’re finally free.” (Which had earned her an “Aww, Minnie, I love you too” in response.)

They’d decided in advance not to discuss at dinner the fact that Mary had met him in the spring, or that she, Hermione, and Emma had known of Pettigrew’s survival and Sirius’s innocence before his request for a retrial hit the papers. Mostly because Tonks—the young one, that was—was an Auror and technically meant to report that sort of thing, but Mary had also mentioned to Sirius that she didn’t necessarily want to admit to Lilian that she and Hermione had kept the whole thing from her. (Or, not kept it so much as, Lilian hadn’t been speaking to them at the time, but still.)

In the wake of his victory, Sirius was in fine form, holding court over the whole table with a glass of (outrageously expensive, Mary was sure) wine in his hand and an enormous smile on his face. He’d even somehow persuaded the Grangers to let the girls’ have half-glasses each, Mary’s first real taste of alcohol. (She’d worried about Auror Tonks, but apparently the drinking age in Magical Britain was more of a polite suggestion, at least so long as there seemed to be responsible adults around. In any case, after two sips, she’d decided she didn’t like it and set the glass aside.)

Even Remus, who Mary knew must have been suffering in the wake of his werewolf status being broadcast to the entire country, as much as they’d known it was coming, seemed caught up in Sirius’s enthusiasm, smiling more than she’d ever seen. Everyone at the table, honestly, was in a great mood—there was just something infectious, almost magnetic, about Sirius that night. It made her wonder a little which one of them was meant to be the empath!

“It was the spookiest thing I’ve seen in my entire life,” Sirius insisted. Auror Tonks had apparently decided she could look the other way for once, and so they were all being treated to the full story of how he’d come to meet Luna Lovegood. “I was just leaving the castle after, er…”

“Menacing Ron Weasley’s rat with a knife?” Lilian suggested with a cheeky grin. She’d been nervous all week at the prospect of meeting the Sirius Black, but he’d quickly won her over.

“Yes, that,” he agreed. “So there ol’ Padfoot is, running like hell down this secret passage through the walls of the school, when out of nowhere appears this little girl looking like nothing more than a bloody ghost—long silver hair, pale skin, barefoot in her bloody nightdress! I thought she was a hallucination.

“So I go barreling straight into her, knocking this poor girl straight down the stairs, at which point I realize—okay, not a hallucination. I turn back to a human to check if I’ve accidentally killed the poor thing, but thankfully, she seemed alright, if a bit mad—just started laughing at me.

“Anyway, I’ve got no idea who this girl is, but I know she’s not dead and I have to get out of the castle before they catch me, so I make to run, and she tells me to wait, and then she grabs me—and you have to understand,” he adds genially to the Grangers, “I must’ve looked and smelled like hell warmed over by this point. But this little girl just grabs me by the wrist and starts spouting all this stuff—it was all completely mad, but she sounded so sincere. I can’t remember it all now, but there was something about the moon sending her to me, and about knowing I was innocent.

“So I ask who she is, and she says, well…”

“Something cryptic that didn’t answer your question at all?” Mary suggested, and he beamed at her, throwing an arm around her shoulder—he’d insisted on her getting the ‘seat of honor’ right next to him. She didn’t usually enjoy being grabbed out of nowhere, but decided she didn’t care enough to spoil his mood.

“Yes, exactly! Something like that she was a reminder that ‘even the gods cannot fight fate,’ and a battle between order and chaos. I swear to Merlin, I thought she was like a fucking apparition sent by the Powers themselves.”

“She has that effect on people,” Mary agreed, Lilian and Hermione giggling and even Remus cracking a smile as the rest of the table looked on in bemusement.

“So then, I told her that I had to get to the Fawn—to you, Mary,” he added, squeezing her shoulder. “To keep you safe. But she kept insisting that you were safe. When I tried telling her about Pettigrew, and about how I couldn’t track you through the godfather bond—of course, I wasn’t making much sense either at the time—she promised that she’d warn you about it all. But then…”

He trailed off, looking at Mary expectantly, and she knew her role in the story. Looking at the adults sitting around the table, she finished, “Luna took me aside after lunch the next day and told me, with all seriousness, ‘The Fallen Star says you must beware of rats.’”

The entirety of them broke into laughter—Mary, Lilian, and Hermione, who’d been the ones spending hours trying to work out the meaning of the comment, laughing hardest of all. Of course, it wasn’t really that funny—if she’d just been more straightforward, or if Mary had just tried harder to figure it out, it could’ve saved them all a lot of pain—but tonight, everything seemed alright.

“Having taught Miss Lovegood,” Remus added, “I can say that this doesn’t surprise me one bit. There’s something off about that girl.”

“I think she’s a seer,” Lilian proclaimed confidently.

“She’s not a seer,” Hermione insisted, just like she always did. “She always knows what she’s saying and remembers it after.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean she’s not a seer,” Sirius said, surprising Mary. “Not all of them go into trances, it really depends. But in any case, she’s obviously god-touched, at least. And having known her mother from the Order, I’m not the least bit surprised.” He laughed to himself. “Honestly, I should’ve known it was Pandora’s girl, but I was half out of my mind at the time.”

“God-touched?” Mary asked.

“Means crazy,” Lilian explained.

Sirius shook his head. “Not always. It’s a bit of a double entendre, actually. Most people use it to mean, well, out of touch with reality, but literally, it means someone the Powers have taken an interest in. Actually, we’re probably to blame for that,” he added, gesturing between himself and the Tonks witches. “The Blacks tend to be favored by magic for… reasons, but we’re also known for being quite mad, hence the link between ‘god-touched’ and ‘insane.’ But anyway, this Luna girl’s mum was both. She was friends with Evans, you know,” he added to Mary. “They were ‘healers’ together in the war.”

Except, he did air-quotes when he said the word ‘healers,’ and Remus coughed and nudged him. Mary was about to ask what he meant by that, but before she could—

“I’m not a Black, I’m a Tonks,” Tonks said.

Sirius laughed and took a swig of his wine. “You’re a metamorph named Nymphadora,” he said. “You’re a Black.” Then, with an expectant look, he added, “Have you guys considered my offer yet?”

“What offer?” Hermione asked curiously. Mary noted that the elder Grangers, along with Mr. Tonks, seemed to be adopting the strategy of sitting back quietly and watching the chaos, which was probably a smart move on their behalf.

“To bring them back into the fold,” Sirius said, then paused. “No, bugger that. Bugger the fold! To bring them in on my scheme to make a new House of Black—no arseholes invited.”

The Tonkses exchanged a look. “Yes, actually, we have,” Mrs. Tonks said. “And we’ll accept your offer. Much as I hate to tie my name to the House again, I’ll be able to get a lot more done with access to the Family’s resources.”

And by ‘get more done,’ Mary thought she meant, ‘continue using my pureblood upbringing to tear down the system by fighting for commoners and muggleborns.’ Honestly, Mrs. Tonks was the coolest—Hermione practically worshiped her.

“Fantastic!” Sirius shouted. Turning eagerly to the younger Tonks, he asked, “What about you?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll let you name me Heir for now, but you better not die before you find someone else to do it. Like hell do I want to be a Lady.”

“Yes, Sirius, you better get started on finding yourself a wife and making some new Blacks,” Mrs. Tonks teased.

“Oh, you didn’t hear?” Sirius asked, giving her a surprised look. “Your sister gelded me.”

There was a momentary stunned silence broken only by Lilian spitting out a mouthful of wine. Sirius paused, letting them all soak in the awkwardness, before cackling.

“I’m half-joking,” he said. “But Bella did hit me with a permanent sterility curse when I was a teenager. Said she wouldn’t have me befouling the family blood by knocking up a muggle—no offense,” he added with a nod to Emma and Dan.

“Oh my god,” Emma said. “She—your cousin sterilized you?”

“Oh, don’t look so upset,” Sirius said with a wave of his hand, looking mildly annoyed by all the suddenly concerned looks he was getting. “It was probably for the best anyway—who knows how many little bastards I’d have running around otherwise?” Then, with a smirk, he added to Tonks, “Speaking of, if you want some new Heirs, you could always follow in the footsteps of the original Nymphadora…”

“No, Sirius,” Mrs. Tonks said firmly, while everyone else—save for her daughter—shot confused looks at the both of them.

“Yeah, sorry, I don’t do party tricks,” Tonks agreed.

“Sorry, but what are you talking about?” Mary asked, having had enough of feeling out of the loop.

Sirius laughed, unconcerned with having annoyed the Tonkses. “The famous Nymphadora was a metamorph back in the seventeenth century, granddaughter—and possibly daughter, according to some rumors—of Henry Black.”

“Oh!” Hermione said. “The Chief Warlock? The one killed in Cromwell’s war? And Nymphadora was… the one who killed Cromwell and ended the war, right?”

“That’s the one. Anyway, as well as defeating a Dark Lady, and allegedly serving as her grandfather’s personal assassin, Nymphadora was known for fathering an absurd number of bastards.” Then, probably for Emma and Dan’s benefit, he added, “Metamorphs, you know. Male, female, it’s all the same to them. Aging doesn’t matter much either—some say the original Nymphadora is still out there somewhere.”

Dan, who was looking a little shell-shocked at this point, said, “Sorry, did you just say she’s immortal?” Then, turning to stare at Tonks, “You too?”

Tonks turned a bit pink—face and hair—and shrunk down in her chair. “I mean, I can still be killed… I just don’t have to age.” Oh… That was obvious, now that Mary considered it, but she’d never really thought through the implications of what being a metamorph meant. That was really cool, actually. She wished she could be a metamorph.

Meanwhile, Tonks’ mother was shaking her head ruefully, muttering, “I can’t believe I agreed to rejoin this bloody House.”

“Hey, most of the shitty ones are gone by now—even my bitch mother died over the summer, praise the Light, and no one’s seen Bella since she split from Azkaban, so with all luck, she’s fucked off somewhere far away.” Mary glanced around the table, but no one looked surprised at the mention of Bellatrix’s escape—Tonks had probably heard already, and passed the information on to her parents. Some Ministry secret.

Frowning, Sirius added, “Well, there’s still Cissa, but she’s not a Black anymore, and we can always hope one of her political enemies finally gets fed up and assassinates her.” That prompted a shocked laugh from Mrs. Tonks and an odd noise from Emma. Then, with a sly grin, he continued, “Hey, wait, aren’t we her political enemies now? So I understand it’s a ‘No’ on the bastards,” he added to Tonks, “but how about—”

“I am an Auror!” she protested. “You cannot be asking me to assassinate my aunt for you!”

“You’re right,” Sirius said, nodding seriously (no pun intended). “It won’t really be satisfying unless I kill her myself.”

“Sirius!” Remus hissed, looking very uncomfortable.

“He’s joking,” Mrs. Tonks assured the table, though she looked to Mary like she was trying to convince herself.

“I propose a toast,” Sirius said, ignoring the question of whether he was joking entirely, and Mary found herself fearing his toast was going to be, ‘Death to Narcissa Malfoy.’ Instead, he raised his glass and said, “The House of Black is dead. Long live the House of Black!”

The rest of them dutifully chorused it back to him, some with more enthusiasm than others.

“The House of Black is dead. Long live the House of Black!”

Chapter Text

“I’m so tired,” Mary complained, leaning against the inside of Blaise’s closed door. The day of classes following Sirius’s dinner had been exhausting, even more than she’d expected considering how late she’d gotten back to the castle.

After Sirius’s toast, things had gotten… a little silly. Her godfather had started talking about all the Black family properties he was going to visit, to see which of them could be made relatively habitable—only, being many drinks in and in a very good mood, this had led to him trying to just give away all of his family’s real estate to basically everyone at the table.

He’d offered Tonks her own townhouse in Ireland. He’d offered the Grangers a castle in France. He’d offered Mary a cottage in Hogsmeade so that “you girls can sneak out of the castle and throw massive parties there for all your friends” (which prompted a, “Sirius! No!” from most adults at the table). Luckily, they all knew better than to take him seriously.

Not only that, but Mrs. Tonks had joined him in getting drunk, possibly to cope with the shock of becoming sort of a Black again. Mary had never seen her less than perfectly composed before, and it was strange, to say the least. The pair of them had spent much of the remainder of the night loudly trash talking a whole bunch of dead family members and telling increasingly horrifying stories about their childhoods, to the discomfort of every single other person at the table.

(Though Mary thought some of the stories were at least exaggerated, if not outright made up—if Lady Malfoy had actually disemboweled Sirius when they were kids, wouldn’t he be dead?)

At one point, Lilian and Mary had mentioned Blaise, which prompted the pair of cousins to break into hysterical laughter—Mrs. Tonks crying actual tears—as they repeated back and forth to each other, “Zee has a kid. Zee has a kid! She’s a mum!” Which, having met Lady Zabini at the World Cup, Mary could kind of understand, but she still felt like she might be missing some important context.

Sirius had managed to sneak the girls more wine when the real adults weren’t paying attention, but Mary hadn’t drank any of hers, so that wasn’t why she was so tired, and Hermione had only taken a few sips. Lilian, however, had been rather silly herself by the end of the night, and when they’d Flooed back to school through the Leaky Cauldron—a fair bit after curfew, as despite Remus and Dan’s best efforts, Sirius had kept finding ways to distract them and keep them longer—Mary thought Aunt Minnie was going to have an aneurysm.

On the older witch’s face, she could almost see the desire to track Sirius down and give him detention like he was still sixteen years old mingling with her sympathy for what he’d been through. Finally, she’d just clucked her tongue, muttered, “That man,” took a few perfunctory points from both Ravenclaw and Slytherin, and insisted on walking Mary and Lilian down to the dungeons herself, presumably to make sure the latter girl didn’t fall down the stairs on the way there.

So, it made sense when Lilian showed up to their morning classes looking like hell warmed over. What didn’t make sense was that Mary felt even worse than Lilian looked, despite not having the excuse of being hungover.

Blaise winced sympathetically—or, actually, empathetically, because he said, “I know. I’ve felt the misery radiating off you and Moon all day. How much did you drink last night?”

“Nothing!” Mary insisted indignantly as she collapsed heavily into his desk chair. “I don’t drink. Lilian did, and Maia a bit, but I only had, like, a sip. I don’t know why I’m so tired.”

“Huh.” Blaise was peering at her with a sudden intensity that made her kind of want to crawl under his desk and hide. “Can I see?”

“See what?”

“Your dinner with Black—er, Lord Black.”

“I don’t think he likes people calling him Lord,” Mary said automatically. From the little she’d interacted with Sirius, she’d already discovered that all the fancy pureblood manners that the Urquharts had hammered into her were basically his least favorite thing in the world. Which was strange, because she’d thought the Blacks were, like, the most old-school of the Houses, but then, maybe that was why he didn’t like it. Anything associated with his family tended to be a sore spot for him.

Belatedly, she remembered that Blaise had asked her a question. Her mind was really not all in one piece today… “Yeah, sure, you can take a look.”

Since that day by the lake, she’d started feeling more comfortable with him. Part of it was probably thanks to their first lesson after Mabon, when he’d seen the flashes of her ritual vision in her mind and hadn’t reacted at all—had only pushed them away to help her focus. The message was clear: she didn’t have to talk about it unless she wanted to. She’d been uncomfortable learning occlumency from him at the start, but his total lack of judgment and unflappable nature meant that it wasn’t so bad to let him invade her privacy as it would have been with anyone else. Now that she knew part of his strangeness was because he was a mind mage, and because of how incredibly weird his upbringing had been, she found him much less unsettling than she used to.

Of course, it helped that the more time they spent in mental contact, the more of a sense she was getting for who he actually was as a person. Sometimes cold and detached, yes, but she had the feeling some of it was just an act. Underneath it all, he did care about his friends, even if he liked to pretend to be too cool for that kind of thing. Mostly Daphne and Theo, but she had the feeling he was starting to consider her one of them, too.

In any case, she didn’t really have any issue letting him take a look at her memories from last night, even if she didn’t know what he was looking for. But he certainly did, because when he broke contact, he was giving her a knowing, slightly pleased look. “What?”

“You, Potter, are definitely an empath.”

Wait, what? What did that have to do with the dinner with Sirius? “What are you talking about?”

“It’s like this,” Blaise said. “Last night, with Black, you felt good, right? Like you were floating, and the things that normally would have bothered you just didn’t anymore, and the whole night just felt… magical?”

Slowly, Mary nodded. That did kind of sum it up. She’d just thought of it as her getting caught up in Sirius’s excitement, plus being pretty happy herself at the fact that they’d won the trial.

“Yeah, that wasn’t yours. You were coasting on secondhand good feelings skimmed straight from your godfather. He should know occlumency, being a Black, but most occlumens don’t bother trying to shield their emotions unless they have a specific reason to. He doesn’t know you’re a mind mage?”

“No.” Mary was still reeling from the idea that she’d been feeling Sirius’s feelings without even knowing it. It hadn’t felt unnatural; she’d just thought she was in a really good mood!

“Right, so. Black’s radiating happiness, not bothering to occlude any of it, and you get a bit high on it. Then… do you know much about muggle music? The equipment side of it, I mean.”

That was a very confusing conversation. “Like musical instruments?” Her primary school had had a music class, but she’d never gotten very into it.

“Like amplifiers. Do you know what those are?”

“Er… they make music louder?”

“More or less. So, say you have an electric guitar. You plug it into an amplifier and play it, and the amp takes the signal from the guitar and, well, amplifies it. Then that’s plugged into a speaker, which actually plays the music, and the audience hears it.”

Why in the world did Blaise know this much about electric guitars? “I… think I’m following.”

“Right, so, in this analogy, Black is the guitar, and you’re… both the amplifier and the speaker. And everyone else at that table who wasn’t seriously occluding—which, from what I could tell, was all of them—was your audience. You spent the entire night taking Black’s good mood, amplifying it, and broadcasting it to everyone around you, which made them feel happy and excited, and then you felt that, too. Like an empathy feedback loop.

“No wonder you feel like shit today. You’re coming down from a high, basically. You’re not a very cheerful person most of the time—you’re more of a pessimist, honestly—and you’re going from coasting on the combined emotional high of, what, like ten people, to your usual stressed out, anxious emotional state. It feels like a hangover because it is one, kind of. You’re crashing, hard. Not to mention, you probably overextended yourself, using your abilities that much when you’re only just coming into them.”

That made a lot of sense, actually, but was really strange to contemplate. Mary could hardly believe that all this mind magic had been going on all night without her being aware of any of it. More importantly, “So, what can I do about it?” And is my normal mental state really as depressing as he makes it sound?

“It’ll go away on its own in a day or so. Try to sleep it off. Getting better at occlumency will help you avoid it happening in the future, but today, trying to practice is going to do more harm than good, so let’s skip our lesson.”

Thing was, she was getting better at occlumency! Admittedly, she was still kind of overwhelmed by how much there was for her to learn, especially after reading through some of the book Riddle had sent, but she was at least confident she’d be able to recognize when anyone who wasn’t, like, on Snape or the Dark Lord’s level as a legilimens tried to get into her head, even if she couldn’t stop them yet.

She just… hadn’t thought about it. That she’d need to occlude even when she wasn’t trying to protect her mind, or when there wasn’t a mind mage around. Which was dumb, since she and Blaise had had that whole conversation about how important occlumency was for empaths, but in all honesty, she had never really believed she was one. She’d thought Snape was just being… overly cautious, or something.

Well, she supposed she knew better now.

“So… I guess I’ll just go take a nap?” she ventured, already feeling a flash of relief at the prospect. Or, hell, maybe she’d just sleep through till the morning, in spite of it not being that late yet. Yeah, she had homework she ought to be doing, but she just… didn’t feel like it.

“You can if you want,” Blaise said. “Or I can try to help you.”

“Help me how?”

“Well, you don’t need any more excitement like you had last night—that would just make you crash even harder later. But your baseline emotional state is so different than Black’s that it’s making you feel even worse than you otherwise would. Compared to both of you, I’m pretty… neutral, I guess you’d say. I don’t feel anything that strongly. Black’s high, you’re low, and I’m just coasting along in the middle. If you like, I can give you a taste of that.”

Mind magic was really weird sometimes. But, you know what? Whatever. She was tired, and if it turned out to be too strange for her, she’d just say never mind and go to bed. “Yeah, sure.”

“Lie down.” At her suspicious look, Blaise chuckled and said, “I’m not trying to seduce you. If I was, you’d know.”

So far, she’d always sat in the desk chair for her lessons. Being in a boy’s bedroom was bad enough; sitting on a boy’s bed had always seemed like a step too far. But she didn’t have the energy to feel (too) weird about it as she stretched herself out on Blaise’s bed, on top of the covers. It helped that he swapped with her, getting up and sitting in the chair, like he knew that even in her current state, being in his bed together would be too much.

“You don’t need to do anything,” he said. “Just don’t occlude.”

She’d thought it would feel like something, like getting legilimized, but it didn’t. It just felt like the sadness and exhaustion she’d been carrying around all day was suddenly gone, tension vanishing from her body, her temples, like the lightness that came after setting down a heavy book bag. It wasn’t like with Sirius, when the world had seemed bathed in this glow, colors growing brighter, laughter coming easier. It just felt like the absence of worry, the emotional equivalent of a loud noise finally coming to a stop and leaving her in easy, blissful silence.

Mary sighed unconsciously, feeling like she was sinking into the mattress under her, comfortable in a way she could hardly remember ever feeling. Is this what it’s like in Blaise’s head all the time? Just… quiet? She meant to ask, but before she could, she was fast asleep.

She didn’t wake until the morning, coming to under the covers of Blaise’s bed, still alone. There was a note on the bedside table: Gone to Daph’s. Figured you wouldn’t much fancy sharing the bed, and I didn’t want to wake you. That was… surprisingly thoughtful, actually.

And, even better, the exhaustion was gone. Blaise Zabini, emotional hangover cure.

Her life, Mary thought, just kept getting stranger.

In the weeks following their dinner with Sirius, Hermione seemed to have found an entirely new level of motivation. Before she’d gotten too sloshed, Mrs. Tonks had said something about taking her on as a legal intern in a summer or two if she was so interested in her work, and Hermione had talked about little else ever since.

Besides that, Emma and Dan seemed to be settling into a tentative political alliance with the new House of Black now that they’d been ditched by the Malfoys (though they had at least decided to be less public about their political activities for a while, Emma more reluctantly than Dan), and Hermione was dead set on House Potter joining them.

Which didn’t sound like a bad thing, exactly, except that Mary was fourteen and not a politician, and she wasn’t sure how much her proxy would be on board with that—asking him to join in their scheming seemed like a much bigger request than just changing how he voted. She could appoint another proxy, but she didn’t really have any idea how she’d go about finding a good one, and she didn’t want to insult her guardian by removing her brother from the position.

She’d bought herself time by insisting that they just start with the political platform Hermione had written up, but even with that, Mary wasn’t moving quickly enough for Hermione’s tastes. Originally, she’d planned on bringing it up with Aunt Minnie at their next scheduled tea in early November, but that was “way too long,” according to Hermione. So she’d let herself be bullied into asking her guardian if they could meet sooner, only, when she mentioned that she might want to make some changes to how her seat was voted, Aunt Minnie had brusquely told her that since that wasn’t urgent, it would have to wait until November, because she had to prepare for the arrival of their guests from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang.

Anyway, Mary didn’t want to get on her nerves too much. She already felt lucky that Aunt Minnie hadn’t been too angry over her response to the reporter’s question about Dumbledore on the first day of the trial. She’d made a comment about Mary learning not to answer questions they hadn’t prepared her for, but in the end, she seemed to understand why Mary might be… cross with the Headmaster. It helped that the quote had gotten somewhat buried in all the coverage of the trial; it wasn’t like there was an article just about her taking a shot at him.

For a week or two after the trial, Mary had been afraid Dumbledore might confront her about her comment—well, not afraid, just kind of dreading it—but he hadn’t, either. In fact, when she thought about it, they hadn’t really had a conversation since her second year, at least not without Snape there to do most of the talking.

When she’d first gotten to Hogwarts, he’d talk to her alone sometimes, trying to get to know her or give her advice (which she’d mostly found confusing and annoying). But then she’d rather firmly rejected him a few times: first by being cold to him when he’d crashed her Christmas tea with Aunt Minnie in second year, and refusing his invitation to attend a Wizengamot session with him, and then again after the Chamber of Secrets, when he’d asked if he could legilimize her to see her memories of it, and she’d insisted on having Snape do it instead.

She wondered absently if the Headmaster was avoiding her, but, well, if he was, that was fine with her! He could think whatever he wanted about her comments at the trial, so long as he didn’t make it her problem. And he had apologized to Sirius, if only as part of the Wizengamot session after the trial, which had just been dedicated to all of them giving long-winded speeches apologizing to the new Lord Black for not doing shite to get him out of prison for twelve years.

In any case, the point was, all the professors were stressed out by the looming arrival of their visitors, and Mary didn’t want to test her guardian’s patience any further. Besides, as evidenced by Sirius’s week-long trial and the apology session after (which he’d described as “punishingly dull, honestly, haven’t I suffered enough?”) it wasn’t like the Wizengamot moved very quickly. So if she had to wait a few weeks to talk to Aunt Minnie about Hermione’s new platform, what was the problem? But Hermione seemed to think she was purposefully stalling or something.

Really, what did she want her to do?

So, she found herself avoiding Hermione as October went on. Not that they were in a fight, it was just stressful being constantly bombarded with questions about the whole thing when she knew Mary couldn’t talk to Aunt Minnie yet. She was well aware that Hermione would prefer if she were the one of them with a Wizengamot seat—and maybe it would even be better that way, since Mary couldn’t quite match her level of excitement over politics, or focus on it the way Hermione would—but the fact was, she wasn’t. It was House Potter, not House Granger.

At least avoiding Hermione wasn’t very difficult—without the time turner, and taking into account her politics obsession, her independent study with Professor Vector, and the fact that she had more friends than just Mary and Lilian now, she seemed to be too busy to spend any time with them that didn’t involve studying in the back of the library. So Mary hung out with Lilian and the rest of the Quidditch team, or sometimes Daphne if Pansy’s gang wasn’t around, or occasionally Dave’s crew. As for Blaise, she mostly saw him during their private lessons, which they were still managing to keep a secret so far, despite her spending that one night in his room.

Hermione wasn’t the only one that Mary found herself wanting to avoid as the autumn went on. There was also Sirius, who didn’t seem to have come down yet from the high of winning his trial, if his very frequent letters were anything to judge by.

It wasn’t an empath thing, obviously—she couldn’t feel his emotions through his letters. But he was still a lot sometimes, and she honestly felt drained just reading his long, rambling, exuberant letters. More than that, though, were his expectations of her. She knew that he wanted her to move in with him come July, and to let him take over her guardianship from Aunt Minnie. He’d certainly made enough veiled (and open) comments about it at dinner, asking her opinion on which of the Black properties she’d like to live in and then waving off her attempts to politely say she wasn’t sure she about living in any of them at all. He’d just kept insisting, “Sure, but I might as well make sure you’re comfortable when you visit!”

(How that creepy old house with the loud portrait she’d seen in her Lammas vision fit into all of this, she couldn’t imagine.)

It was tough, because she knew he’d been through hell, and she didn’t want to hurt his feelings. But on the other hand, he didn’t seem very… responsible. Admittedly, maybe it wasn’t fair to judge him by that one night, but she couldn’t help but wonder if living with him would turn into endless Party Times With Sirius. Which would be especially problematic if she wasn’t good enough at occlumency by then not to get swept up in his emotions. And she wasn’t really convinced that he wanted to be her guardian so much as he just wanted his shiny new goddaughter around to entertain him.

In any case, she’d put off the decision for now, though he’d told her (multiple times, with an unnecessary amount of intensity) that he’d let her know as soon as he’d gotten one of the properties fixed up so she could come for a visit. Pointing out that she kind of had to be at school hadn’t seemed to dissuade him much.

Every two or three letters that he sent her, she made herself write back, but her responses were usually half as long as his, which left her feeling oddly guilty, like she was neglecting him or something. But she had her own life, even if he—and Hermione, recently—didn’t seem to understand that.

Still, on a scale of problems she had in her life, a slightly overbearing godfather and best friend weren’t so bad. Comparatively speaking, the term had been positively relaxing.

That was, until Samhain arrived.

The students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang were due to arrive the night before Samhain, and the entire school was abuzz for a solid week beforehand. Even the professors seemed preoccupied, shorter tempered than usual. All sorts of ridiculous rumors were going around, like that Beauxbatons was full of veela and vampires and wilderfolk, or that Durmstrangers were all terrifying Dark wizards. All rubbish, of course.

Mary had begun the term sharing Snape’s annoyance that this event just had to happen this year. Yet, after months with no sign of the Dark Lord, she’d begun to relax the tiniest bit, and the excitement around the castle was rather infectious. It was rare, after all, that there were new people around Hogwarts who weren’t eleven-year-olds or Defense professors.

At least, between Quidditch practice and homework, which had really been piling up of late, she couldn’t say that time dragged on. Before she even knew it, it was the evening of the 30th and she and her housemates had followed Snape out to the grounds, where not only did their visitors make quite the dramatic entrance, but also…

“Lils!” she hissed, grabbing her friend’s arm a little harder than she’d meant to. “It’s Viktor Krum!”

“Circe, Morgana, and Lilith,” Lilian swore. “It is.”

They weren’t the only ones who’d noticed. A ripple spread through the crowd, whispers breaking out—mostly among Quidditch fans, girls, and girls who were Quidditch fans, like them. Over in the Gryffindor section, Ron Weasley seemed to be having a fit.

Mary and Lilian’s excitement only grew when they reentered the Great Hall and the Durmstrangers, after only a moment of hesitation, followed them to the Slytherin table—heading right for the center of the table, where the fourth years always sat! Exchanging a look, Mary and Lilian quickly started trying to make more space, and it paid off, because Krum sat right next to her.

Unfortunately, while Mary was busy exchanging wide-eyed looks with Lilian and desperately thinking, What’s a good way to introduce myself that will say, ‘I’m a Quidditch player like you, not just another annoying fan,’ even though, honestly, I kind of am?, Draco leaned over the table and said, “You’re Viktor Krum, aren’t you?” like he didn’t bloody know. “I’m Draco Malfoy—perhaps you’ve heard of my family?”

“…Hello,” Krum said after a long moment, barely looking at Draco. In fact, he seemed to be attempting to avoid eye contact with the entire table. Even his own schoolmates were giving him a bit of a wide berth, talking among themselves without a word to him.

What’s the deal there? Mary wondered. Given the way Headmaster Karkaroff had been fawning over him, she thought maybe the other students were jealous. Which was… familiar. Actually, the extreme discomfort and annoyance radiating off of Krum in response to the starry-eyed Hogwarts students and the special treatment he received made her wonder: Wait, is he like me?

By which she meant, he seemed to enjoy being Viktor Krum, International Quidditch Champion, roughly as much as she enjoyed being Mary Potter, Girl Who Lived. Which suddenly made her feel a bit conflicted and guilty about the way she’d immediately joined in on staring at him and conspiring to sit as close to him as possible. Lilian, on the other hand, had no such qualms, nudging Mary in the side and hissing, “Talk to him, Liz!”

Before she could overcome her hesitation, Draco flashed Krum what he probably thought was a charming smile and tried again. “I’m a seeker myself, you know.”

“Are not,” Lilian interjected, having apparently gotten fed up with waiting for Mary to make a move. “You played seeker for, like, a game and a half, and only ‘cause Lizzie had to sit those ones out.” Leaning past her to get a look at Krum, she explained, “Draco’s our reserve seeker. Liz here is our actual seeker. She’s great at it, too. And I’m a chaser. Lilian Moon… is my name.”

Mary winced. A strong start, and yet, at some point, Lilian seemed to have lost her ability to speak coherently. As Krum seemed to draw further in on himself, she found herself experiencing secondhand embarrassment on behalf of both Lilian and Draco. Maybe sitting next to Krum wasn’t such a blessing after all.

Still, just sitting there silently cringing wasn’t helping things, so she decided to stop being an idiot and try to just… act normal. “Hi,” she told Krum tentatively. “I’m… er, Elizabeth.” In anticipation of the newcomers, she’d worn her hair down so that her fringe would hide her scar and she might go unnoticed for as long as possible. She was a little worried Draco and his friends would give it away, but they didn’t say anything—probably didn’t want to completely lose Krum’s attention to the Girl Who Lived.

“Hello,” he said—with, she thought, maybe a hint less annoyance than he’d had when Draco had introduced himself, though that might have just been wishful thinking. Then, without a word, he turned to stare silently down at his plate. Beside her, she saw Lilian open her mouth again and gently kicked her leg.

Draco kept on trying to get Krum’s attention, but it didn’t seem to be going very well. Luckily, Dumbledore interrupted soon after, but just briefly—it seemed they still had a full feast to get through before he’d actually open the tournament.

“My father knows Karkaroff, you know,” Draco said the moment the food appeared, and Mary had to stifle a laugh—was he actually bragging about them being Death Eaters together? “He almost sent me to Durmstrang instead of Hogwarts, but Mother insisted on keeping me closer to home. Tell me, do they really teach you the real Dark Arts there?”

Krum looked up with a sort of weary air. “I do not know what you Brits consider to be ‘Dark Arts,’” he said impatiently, his voice so heavily accented that Mary found it momentarily difficult to work out what he was saying.

Looking a bit deflated, but still soldiering on, Draco said, “…You know. Dark curses and stuff.” Beside him, Vinnie and Greg seemed to be hanging on every word of the exchange.

“We learn polarized curses in our dueling class, yes,” Krum said, like someone talking to a simpering idiot. This was just getting painful.

“You have a dueling class?” Mary asked, finally deciding that maybe her not being a complete moron like Draco would make up for the fact that she was just another person bothering Krum. “We’ve only got a club that meets a few times a month, and only then because I convinced them to start it up again last year.”

Krum furrowed his rather enormous brow at her. “Then how do students learn to duel?”

“Oh, we don’t,” Lilian said cheerfully, leaning past Mary once more. “It’s honestly a joke. The only class we’ve got that’s anything close is Defense Against the Dark Arts, but the position is cursed, so we have a new professor every year. And more than half of them are either completely useless or, like, actively trying to kill the students.”

There was a long silence. “You are… bullshitting me,” Krum said. “That is how they say it, yes?”

“Yes, and no,” Mary said. “Since we’ve been here, one Defense professor… died in St. Mungo’s from a sexually transmitted infection he picked up from a vampire, one went to Azkaban for committing fraud, and one fled the country with a wanted criminal. That one was alright, though—the criminal turned out to be innocent.”

“He’s Lizzie’s godfather,” Lilian added. Across the table, Draco was looking very unhappy that they’d stolen his thunder.

Krum stared at them for a moment, then slowly shook his head. “I have heard many stories about Hogwarts before coming here. People say many things, not so good things, about Britain. I was thinking they are not true, but…”

“Well, maybe they aren’t all,” Mary said. “People like to exaggerate. You wouldn’t believe the rumors that have been going around about your school. A lot of the students here convinced themselves that all the students at Durmstrang are Dark wizards who go around learning Unforgivable Curses and blood magic in class. Isn’t that silly?” She shot a look out of the corner of her eye at Draco, who was glaring at her venomously, and grinned.

Looking even more confused, Krum said, “Do they believe students are selected for the school based on the polarization of their magic? This would make no sense. Blood magic, though, we do learn.”

Wait, really? “You do?” Draco asked, entirely too eagerly, leaning forward over his plate.

“Well, yes,” Krum said. “Most of it is in our class on, how you say, the healing magics.”

Mary had to try very hard not to laugh again at Draco’s expression.

“They hardly teach us any witchcraft,” Lilian complained. “Just potions and runic magic, really, plus a bit of astronomy and herbology. And Runes is only an elective. We have a divination class, but you wouldn’t even believe how useless it is.”

“The professor’s drunk all the time,” Mary chimed in, even though she’d never even taken the class. Telling their foreign visitor about how ridiculous Hogwarts was was surprisingly fun! After a moment, though, she had a thought: “Wait, how are you and your classmates going to keep up with your classes while you’re here if they’re that different?”

With a beleaguered sort of air, Krum said, “Most of us are already ahead. We will do our best, and will study on our own as well, but we will probably be behind when we go home.”

“Too bad they didn’t hold it at Durmstrang instead,” Mary said. Some of their classes sounded way better than Hogwarts’. Of course, it wasn’t like she would’ve gone, between being fourteen and very much not interested in more life-threatening situations. But she could imagine a world in which she was older and people weren’t trying to kill her all the time where she might have enjoyed a year visiting another school.

“That is what I said,” Krum agreed with a scowl. “Many of my classmates, they say we are crazy for going to Britain. Although, not as crazy as her.”

He shot a glance over Malfoy’s head, and Mary and Lilian followed his gaze to the Ravenclaw table, where an extraordinarily pretty witch with long, silvery hair was looking around the hall with an expression of faint disapproval.

“Her?” Mary asked, wondering if Krum knew her somehow.

“You cannot tell?” he asked, turning towards her and lowering his voice. “She is veela. Everyone knows Britain is very racist. A very bad place for veela.”

Oh. “I can’t disagree with you there,” Mary said. “A friend of mine is a werewolf, and you should hear what the papers have been saying about him recently.” She shot a glare at Draco, but he seemed to know better than to open his mouth this time.

They talked throughout the feast, mostly about how terrible Hogwarts and Britain were. Mary thought idly that it was too bad that Hermione was missing out on discussing her favorite subject, but then, maybe she could have a similar conversation with the Beauxbatonnais, particularly the veela girl.

Krum told them more about classes at Durmstrang—they had a low ritual elective, and even taught runic casting in their upper year runes classes—and Mary and Lilian, with some unwanted interjections from Draco and co, told him about their school’s Quidditch teams. They even invited him to the Revel the following night while they were at it. Mary was pretty sure most of the Durmstrangers would hear about it from the other Slytherins, but she’d kind of gotten the opinion Krum wasn’t really the type to talk to people much, even his fellow students.

Finally, when people had finished eating and the dishes vanished again, Dumbledore stood.

“The moment has come. The Triwizard Tournament is about to start. I would like to say a few words of explanation before we bring in the casket, just to clarify the procedure that we will be following this year. But first, let me introduce, for those who do not know them, Mr. Bartemius Crouch, Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, and Mr. Ludo Bagman, Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports.”

Two things occurred to Mary. First, So that’s Crouch. He looked very unfriendly—though admittedly, she could have been biased by the things she’d heard about him. In any case, she shot him the hardest glare she could, as though she could personally punish him for what he’d done to Sirius. He hadn’t even had to answer for it at the trial, the bastard. She still wasn’t sure if the Ministry hadn’t wanted him there or if he’d refused to attend, but either way, fuck him.

The second was, she was pretty certain she’d seen Ludo Bagman before—talking to Mr. Weasley and Prefect Weasley next to their campsite. And that made her nervous, because: he was a wizard, he was a Ministry director, which made him important, and he’d been at the World Cup, which were all criteria she thought would apply to whoever the Dark Lord had been after that night. And now he was at Hogwarts. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but… she didn’t like it.

Dumbledore went on explaining the rules of the Tournament and the Goblet, but Mary barely listened, too busy staring up at the two Directors. One had put her godfather in prison; the other, she thought, might be here to hurt or kill her. But what could she do about it, other than be on her guard? Even if she told Snape her concerns about Bagman, Dumbledore was hardly going to let him investigate a Ministry director without a good reason.

Can’t remember much of my dreams last night. Just flowers. A whole field of them, big white ones with kinda skinny, pointed petals, almost like stars. It was overcast and quiet, peaceful, but I felt strange. Like I’d been there before, maybe, or like there was something I’d forgotten to do. Like something was waiting for me, or like the whole world was holding its breath.

Mary sighed, closing the dream journal and slipping it back into her nightstand. At least she hadn’t had one of the embarrassing dreams again. It was just getting kind of tedious, writing all these dreams down when she knew none of them were important. Not like the dream over the summer had been. Nothing like that had happened again, not for months, and she couldn’t help but think it might have been a fluke.

She knew what Snape—or Blaise—would say if she brought it up. Writing her dreams down would help her remember them better, learn to control them, which would be helpful if she ever did dream of the Dark Lord again. In the meantime, though, she couldn’t help but find the exercise a little pointless, even if she would keep doing it nonetheless—she’d promised Snape she would, after all.

Tossing the dream journal back in her nightstand, Mary lay back in her bed and tried to decide what to do with her day. Despite it being Monday, they had the day off from classes, as Dumbledore had decided none of them would be able to focus with the excitement of the Goblet. Which, she could understand giving the sixth and seventh years the day off, and it wasn’t like she minded not having class—though she was certain Hermione did. She just thought it was rather silly, like a lot of things about the school.

She wondered idly if Snape would be angry that his lesson plans were being disrupted or glad to be free of them for the day. With him, it was really a tossup.

Another side effect of her lessons with Blaise, unexpected though it was, was that she’d started to accept that she had something of a crush on Snape. It was probably stupid that she’d taken so long to admit it to herself, and had tried so hard to convince herself that it was anything else, but… whatever.

It was still embarrassing, and she certainly didn’t want anyone else to know, but somehow, Blaise’s reaction had helped. Like, to Mary, fancying Snape had been literally unthinkable for so long, but Blaise seemed to find it totally normal, even if he was still condescending about how ‘adorable’ she was. He’d told her it wasn’t only her: apparently there were a surprising number of students, mostly in Slytherin, who found the Potions professor attractive, despite the jokes about his appearance.

Lilian had said much the same last term, but Mary had thought she was just trying to trick her into admitting to fancying him. Hearing it from a bloody empath, on the other hand, meant she had no choice but to believe it—not only would he know, but also, when she was in mental contact with Blaise, he couldn’t lie to her very well.

Except that, in some ways, it annoyed her a little bit to learn that Lilian had been telling the truth. Somehow, she didn’t want to believe that whatever she felt towards Snape was something as ordinary and childish as a crush, much less that it was no different than the way other students felt towards him. She wanted to believe that it was something more meaningful than that, or maybe just less embarrassing.

When Blaise had seen that thought in her mind, though, he had only smirked and said, “Yep, that’s a crush, alright.”

One side effect of admitting it to herself, though, meant that she’d started having more dreams like the one she’d had after he’d visited her at the Urquharts’. Ones that now filled her dream journal, making it feel like a bomb sitting inside her nightstand, just waiting to go off. Thankfully, the journal, which had been given to her by Snape, was keyed to only open to her magical signature, but she still lived in terror that somehow someone would manage to read it and find out her mortifying secret.

For now, though, she probably shouldn’t spend the whole day lying in her bed, thinking about Snape and crushes and dreams, the kind that weren’t about pretty flowers but instead about bare forearms and… stuff. That way lay madness.

In the end, Mary spent a couple hours working on her occlumency with Blaise, did some homework, then went out to the Quidditch pitch and flew around with about half the Slytherin team—the ones who weren’t really interested in sitting in the entry hall and watching people put their names in. It wasn’t like they were doing anything, just tossing pieces of paper into a cup.

(Or so she thought—she only heard later about Fred and George’s adventure with the age line. Apparently they’d wanted Hermione to help them circumvent it, but she was cross with them over something or another and had told them to work it out themselves. Mary couldn’t help but wonder if it would’ve worked if Hermione had actually helped them, but she supposed they’d never know.)

She also talked a bit with Blaise about what Krum had said the night before, the thing about the veela girl. Mary was kind of worried about her, especially now that she knew about what could happen to empaths who weren’t fully in control of their powers, and she figured Blaise, being all about Creature Rights as he was, would know more.

According to him, the situation wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. For one, the veela from Beauxbatons had to be at least seventeen, and since they generally came into their powers at around twelve, she’d likely had enough practice to control herself. Besides that, Blaise’s mum had told him that ICW law would apply at Hogwarts for the duration of the Tournament, meaning that the veela was considered a being.

(Yes, they were normally considered creatures in Britain, despite being obviously as intelligent and sentient as humans, for… some fucking reason. Honestly, Mary had given up trying to figure out the ridiculous Creature-Being Code. Hell, if they were operating under British law, the veela could have been arrested for owning a wand, even if she had been considered a being.)

Of course, none of that meant that people wouldn’t be horrible to her—and it wouldn’t just be restricted to one political group, either. Mary had learned by now that being horribly racist to non-humans was one of the handful of things the Light and Dark in Britain agreed on. (Well, maybe not Ars Publica Dark, but the Allied Dark, at least.)

All in all, Mary could understand why the veela girl had looked to be in a horrible mood every time she’d seen her. She could only wonder why the girl had chosen to come to Britain in the first place, considering the reputation the country seemed to have on the Continent.

The other interesting thing about the school being under ICW laws was that a lot of things were suddenly much less illegal than usual, though Dumbledore didn’t seem to be rushing to tell any of the students that. Like those journals and books Snape had hidden from Miskatonic, for instance. Or like, if the seventh years had to do another weatherworking charm for the Revel, they wouldn’t have to hide it. Or if Snape hadn’t confiscated her dueling knife, Mary could’ve worn it around the school, even without a license.

She wondered how long it would take Hermione to start taking advantage of the sudden permissiveness. Honestly, Mary wouldn’t be surprised if she got into runic casting or something and blew herself up.

All in all, the foreign students had only been at Hogwarts for less than a day, and they were already making it even clearer to Mary than it already had been: compared to a lot of other magical states, Britain was kind of, well, fucked.

So was Hogwarts, if Mary was honest. Maybe it was from talking about it last night with Krum, or maybe it was the presence of Bagman and Crouch in the castle, or maybe it was just the fact that it was Samhain, but whatever the reason, she had a bad feeling about the whole Tournament thing. It built and built throughout the day, and by the evening, she was hardly in the mood to sit through the whole feast and the choosing of the champions.

Still, they were all meant to be there, and she didn’t really have any concrete reason for her feeling of dread, so when the designated time came, she followed Blaise, Lilian, Daphne, and Theo to the Hall and dutifully took her seat (nowhere near Krum or the other Durmstrangers this time, oh well). She picked at her food and barely spoke unless directly addressed by her friends, trying over and over to convince herself that it was nothing—nothing was going to happen.

Only, like Snape had said in September: when had anything dangerous and dramatic happened at Hogwarts without her somehow getting dragged into it? Okay, maybe Sirius breaking into Gryffindor Tower, but even then, she felt like she’d been kind of involved, just because everyone had thought she was.

After what felt like an eternity, it was time for the champions to be selected. One by one, their names were called out. Mary clapped for Krum with as much enthusiasm as she could muster—he seemed alright, at least. She was joined by what seemed to be the entire Hall, which wasn’t a surprise, given his celebrity.

Also unsurprising was the noticeable lack of applause when the veela girl, Fleur Delacour, was selected. Even her own classmates were lukewarm in their responses at best, though probably that had more to do with jealousy than racism. Despite her mood, Mary made sure to clap for her, joined in by a noticeable minority of the Slytherins (the ones from non-Allied Dark families, basically) and a spattering of students from other Houses.

When Diggory was selected for Hogwarts, Mary nearly clapped, operating on autopilot, before realizing that none of the other Slytherins were. (Though with the sheer amount of noise coming from the Hufflepuff table, she doubted anyone could even tell.) Right, that was a thing: she’d not really been paying much attention, but she’d heard that a lot of people really wanted a Slytherin champion, if only to show up the rest of the school. Warbler had been the favorite, and she shot him a glance, but he seemed to be taking his defeat with composure.

Once the fuss had finally died down, Dumbledore began to speak again, but before he could, the Goblet flared red a fourth time.

And all Mary could think, even before he called out her name, was, I fucking knew it.

Chapter Text

Why? Why was it always? fucking? Samhain? She just wanted one normal Halloween, where she went to the Feast and then went to the Revel and danced with her friends, and there were no trolls on the loose or basilisks in the walls or supposed murderers breaking into the castle. But she was doomed to never have an uneventful Samhain. As Dumbledore cleared his throat and quietly read out the name, “Mary Potter,” all she could think was, Absolutely not. I’m not bloody doing this.

Mary would have groaned and slammed her head down against the table, except that it was fully ingrained into her by now that the Slytherin table was a place to maintain her manners and dignity. They never sang along to the school song, never shouted and jeered like the other Houses when students were sorted. Slytherins were composed.

Instead, she just stared down at the empty golden plate on the table in front of her, dazed, not even hearing whatever Lilian was saying, or the buzzing of the crowd around her. But she could feel eyes on her, feel them prickling on the back of her neck.

Mary decided right then that wasn’t going to justify this nonsense with a response. She was going to sit right the fuck where she was until it went away and left her in peace.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see there was movement and whispering up at the Head Table, but she tried to tune it out. Even when Dumbledore called out, “Mary Potter! Mary! Up here, if you please,” she did not move or even turn her head. No. I refuse.

“Mary, didn’t you hear him?” Lilian whispered, nudging her.

Some part of her was aware she was being childish. But then, maybe she was being childish because she was a child. Or, maybe not a child, but certainly not a fucking adult, not someone who was meant to be chosen for the Tournament. So she was going to sit right bloody here until everyone just gave up on this random bit of stupidity, childish or not.

“Miss Potter, please come up here!” Now Aunt Minnie was shouting as well.

“Liz, you alright?”

With a glare, Mary finally turned to face her friend. “I’m fine,” she hissed. “I’m going to sit right here until Dumbledore gives up, and then I’m going to go to the Revel and I’m going to dance and have a nice, normal Samhain.”

“Uh, Lizzie, I don’t really think that’s how this works.”

“Mary Elizabeth.” Mary jerked slightly at Snape’s projected voice whispering into her ear. “Up here, if you please.”

Glancing up at the Head Table, Mary caught Snape’s eyes. He looked incandescent with rage, but his voice had been soft, so she didn’t think it was directed at her. Part of her wondered what he’d do if she just refused to move. Would he or Aunt Minnie come down here and drag her up to the front of the Hall themselves?

But Slytherins were composed. Without another word, Mary got to her feet, pulled her shoulders back, and began to walk down the long path to the front of the Hall, doing her best to pretend the students staring at her weren’t even there. Walking in long, purposeful strides, like—well, like Snape—her long braid swinging behind her.

She did not wait to be told where to go. With only the slightest of glances at Snape as she passed him, and none at the other professors, she strode down the front of the High Table until she reached the door where the three champions had gone. It opened on a small side room with a crackling fire, in front of which were standing Diggory, Krum, and Delacour. They all turned to stare at her, because of course they did, and it occurred to her suddenly that all of them were at least three years older than her and eight or more inches taller. Mary was reminded uncomfortably of facing Sandra Bletchley in the honor duel last year.

“What is it?” Delacour asked. “Do they want us back in the Hall?”

Mary had no idea how to answer that, so she didn’t. Krum, who’d been standing off to the side, kind of hunched in on himself, straightened up and took a few steps towards her, something like concern on his face. “What is it, Elisaveta?”

Ignoring Delacour and Diggory, she scowled at Krum and said, “You remember last night when I was saying that Hogwarts is a really stupid place?” Diggory frowned slightly, like he disapproved of her bad-mouthing the school in front of their foreign guests, but to hell with it. “Well… you’re about to see for yourself.”

Before Krum or the others could respond to that, there were footsteps behind her, and Mary’s heart gave a weird little flip at the sight of Director Bagman heading straight towards her. She had a bad feeling about him, and after what had just happened in the Hall, it had grown stronger. He reached for her arm, and she very quickly stepped out of his way, moving closer to Krum as though the enormous Quidditch player might protect her despite having only met her the night before.

“Oh,” Director Bagman said, looking slightly offended by Mary literally fleeing from him, before shaking his head and pasting that enormous, obnoxious smile on his face once more. To the other—no! the only three champions, he said, “Gentlemen … lady. May I introduce—incredible though it may seem—the fourth Triwizard champion, Mary Potter?”

“Very funny joke, Mr. Bagman,” Delacour said.

“Excuse me, fourth?” Diggory said.

“Mary Potter?” Krum said.

All of them were staring at her now, and Mary felt a bit lightheaded. “No,” she said. “No thank you.” She thought she might be in shock, just a little bit.

“Mary, your name came out of the Goblet of Fire!” Bagman insisted.

Mary gave him an irritated look for his presumptuousness. She hadn’t said he could call her that. Being irritated was good, actually—or, at least, it was better than being in shock. All she had to do was tell him—all of them—the entire bloody Tournament—to fuck off as strongly as possible and they’d leave her alone.

Drawing herself back to her full height, which admittedly wasn’t much, she said, “Director Bagman, with all due respect, I did not enter my name and have no intention to participate. I will not discuss this further until my legal guardian, Professor McGonagall, is present.”

She barely listened to him conversing with Delacour and the others about how this had happened, and whether she was too young—though a part of her heard and grew even more pissed off at Delacour acting like this was something she wanted. Like Mary was wrongfully stealing away the chance to get herself fucking killed. But whatever. Mary ignored the veela, eyes on the door, waiting for Aunt Minnie… and for Snape.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Krum staring at her, probably wondering why she’d given him a seemingly fake name, but she ignored him as well. She laced her fingers together behind her back, keeping her head up, her posture perfect, hiding in formality as though it would build a wall between her and the rest of them—particularly the suspicious, overly familiar wizard still insisting she had to compete.

Finally, the doors opened, and Dumbledore came in, followed by Crouch, the two other heads of the visiting schools, and Professors McGonagall and Snape, both of whom looked furious. The latter sight cheered her—made her think that, just maybe, one of them would get her out of this.

For a second, she had the strongest urge to go to Snape’s side—even to hide behind his back like a child and let him sort things out, or at least scream at everyone on her behalf. Instead, remembering what he’d said over the summer about keeping a low profile, she went straight to her guardian and said, “Aunt Minnie, I didn’t enter my name. I’m not going to participate in this Tournament.”

Madame Maxime and Professor Karkaroff were beginning to argue with Dumbledore, but Mary ignored them, focused only on the Professor, whose anger had been replaced by a disconcerting look of guilt. “I’m afraid it may not be so simple, Mary.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, her stomach falling.

Aunt Minnie gave a sharp whistle, and the squabbling headmasters fell silent. “Never mind the number of champions. Albus, Mary says she didn’t enter her name. How could this have happened?”

“I’m not going to compete,” Mary added firmly, looking now at Dumbledore, who was twinkling sadly at her. She had a sudden, vivid mental image of herself shoving her wand into his eye.

She distracted herself by making a list of all of the people she could appeal to if they somehow tried to force her into this. There was Snape. Sirius, maybe—he was Lord Black now. Mr. Fulton, her case worker at the Ministry. Blaise’s mum—if she could get the Director of Education on her side, Dumbledore surely couldn’t make her participate. Mrs. Tonks—yes, what she needed was a bloody solicitor. Emma Granger—maybe she could finally get the old goat bloody sacked.

But Dumbledore said, “I do not know how this happened, but Miss Potter must compete. There is a geas on the cup.”

“A what?” Mary asked, startled out of her thoughts, which at this point had devolved into trying to remember what Catherine had taught her about how mages could bring suits against each other through the Wizengamot.

“A geas,” Snape said, his voice icy, and Mary turned to stare at him almost pleadingly, “is a sort of binding magical contract, the breaking of which can have significant consequences.”

“Like what?”

“When the Goblet was created, it was to choose champions from warring tribes to represent their people. To refuse was seen by the creators of the Goblet as cowardly, and so the geas would make the deserter feeble in some way, to match their cowardice: for example, they might lose their magic, or be rapidly aged or de-aged.”

Mary shot him a betrayed look. He didn’t sound like he thought there was a way out of this. Why had Snape—why had any of them—let Dumbledore do this?

“I’m not even fifteen,” she protested to the room in general. “I’m not old enough to enter into a magically binding contract. Oh, and, more importantly, I didn’t put my name in.”

“Exactly!” Aunt Minnie said, looking relieved, though Mary still suspected it wouldn’t be so simple (maybe because Snape was still scowling). “Albus, surely she cannot be drafted against her will into this Tournament. She’s under the age of consent.”

“Unfortunately, when the Goblet was created, age was not considered a factor. It chooses the most worthy candidate out of each group of people,” Dumbledore said. She hated him, sounding all sad like this wasn’t his fault for deciding to host this fucking Tournament in the first place.

“How was I the most worthy?” Mary asked, her composure starting to slip. She caught Krum giving her what seemed to be a sympathetic look from past the wall of adults that had surrounded her. She felt so bloody short. “I mean, I’m alright at Defense, but, again, I’m fourteen.”

“My guess is that someone submitted Potter’s name under a fourth school, so that she would be the only one in her category.”

Startled, Mary turned to look at Moody. She hadn’t even heard him come in!

“Why would someone go to all that effort just to enter Mary in the Tournament?” Aunt Minnie asked, and Mary felt a twinge of disappointment. Sometimes she wished her guardian was a bit less, well, Gryffindor. Mary had understood at once what was going on, and from the look on his face, she was pretty sure Snape did, too.

“Evidently, someone wished to give Hogwarts two bites of the apple!” Madame Maxime chimed in.

“Think,” Snape said scathingly. “As Miss Potter stated, she’s hardly the best equipped student for this Tournament. If the goal was to give Hogwarts a better shot at winning, they would have chosen another sixth or seventh year—Mr. Warrington, perhaps.”

“Much as I hate to admit it, I agree with Snape,” Moody growled. “Potter’s had attempts made on her life before, and it would take a powerful wizard to hoodwink the Goblet. Most likely, someone is hoping she won’t survive the Tournament.”

Although she been thinking the exact same thing, hearing it out loud—from an Auror, and not just Snape, who sometimes bordered on overprotective—made her feel a little dizzy. Especially as it was just beginning to sink in that there was no way out of this. No solicitor or case worker or Lord of the Wizengamot could get her out of a magically binding contract, even one she was not only too young to consent to, but hadn’t entered herself into in the first place!

“Moody, you see Dark wizards around every corner,” Professor Karkaroff said dismissively as Mary continued to spiral inside her head.

“Don’t have to look around the corner when there’s two right in this bloody room—”

“Alastor,” Dumbledore cut in warningly.

Mary tried to think. She was going to be magically forced to compete, so trying to talk her way out of it seemed to be a waste of time. But pointing out what an idiot Dumbledore was still seemed to have merit. Or, at least, she was angry and it might make her feel a tiny bit better, and maybe embarrass him in front of their guests, so…

“Excuse me, Headmaster,” she interrupted. “Just to make sure I am understanding you correctly… You took an artifact which was originally intended for use in drafting members of medieval tribes to fight to the death, into which one could enter anyone’s name, whether that person was a child, or completely infirm, or anything else, without their consent, and they would be forced, upon penalty of loss of magic or life, to participate in a Tournament which Professor Moody believes could kill the participants… and you brought this into Hogwarts and told us to enter our names into it?”

Not for the first time, Mary asked herself what the fuck was the deal with her school. It was like the administration, Dumbledore in particular, was actively trying to get all the students killed or maimed. She found it hard to believe they were just that stupid. (No wonder Snape was so pissed off all the time.)

Dumbledore blinked at her for a moment. “Well, yes. The Triwizard Tournament is a time-honored tradition—”

He broke off as Mary began to laugh. She hadn’t even meant to, it was just, what else could she do? This fucking school. This powers-bedamned old man. “Of course you did,” she said, laughing harder. Aunt Minnie tried to place a hand on her shoulder, but Mary shook it off. “Of course you did.”

“Miss Potter—”

“No,” Mary said, not even caring how rude she was being, or how many House Points she might lose. “No. I’m done with this. Someone can fill me in later on what I have to do to avoid losing my magic or being turned into a bl—an infant.”

She almost added, I hope you enjoy justifying yourself to the Wizengamot or You’ll be hearing from my solicitor or even I wonder what the Prophet would make of this, but she didn’t want to show her cards too early, not when she was this angry. She needed to calm down before making any decisions about how to handle this. Plus, she didn’t want to sound like Draco threatening to run to his father. Instead, she simply turned on her heel, making eye contact with Snape once more and thinking, very loudly, Please rip him a new one for me. Just in case he was listening.

“Miss Potter, come back here at once!” Dumbledore called, but she could hear in his voice that he wasn’t actually going to do anything about it, and so Mary simply tossed her braid and strode out of the room.

The instant the door closed behind Mary Elizabeth, Severus rounded on the Headmaster. In his mind’s eye, all he could see was the girl’s pleading look—the way she had seemed to believe, at first, that he could somehow fix this. His blood boiled. All he said was, “Dumbledore,” but that was enough, somehow, for said wizard to come to the conclusion that he should get rid of their onlookers as quickly as possible.

Which wasn’t that quickly, unfortunately. Maxime and Karkaroff were very angry about Hogwarts having a second champion and wanted to discuss it right that very minute, and Dumbledore’s argument that it would be better to wait until the morning, when everyone had had time to cool off, did not seem to convince them. Meanwhile, Minerva wanted to discuss the safety precautions that would be taken on her ward’s behalf, while Moody kept attempting to chime in with more theories on the person who had entered the girl’s name—shooting suspicious looks at Severus all the while.

In the end, Dumbledore left them all to it, simply stepping through the Floo of the room into his own office and bidding Severus to follow him, leaving the crowd to protest their exit in vain.

Although Dumbledore likely would not have agreed, Severus thought he ought to have been commended for waiting until they were alone in the Headmaster’s office before exploding. “Did I not tell you,” he snarled, “that hosting this Tournament, given recent events, was the most asinine, dangerous—”

“Come, Severus, you hardly could have predicted—”

“Predicted what? That hosting a Tournament which was canceled in the seventeen hundreds due to excessive student casualties would put our students in danger? That allowing something life-threatening to take place in this castle is a near guarantee that Miss Potter will be somehow roped into it?”

Dumbledore, infuriatingly unaffected by his anger, took a seat at his desk and stared at him. Severus, however, did not sit, preferring—needing—to pace. After a long pause—one of the old goat’s methods, wait until you’d exhausted yourself in your anger before responding—Dumbledore said, “You know as well as I do that the decision to revive the Tournament was made—by the Ministry, not myself—long before we had any sign of Lord Voldemort’s” (Severus flinched at the name, thinking, Fuck you) “return.”

“Any sign, Dumbledore?” he hissed. “What the fuck would you call his possessing a professor and attempting to steal the Philosopher’s Stone less than three years ago?”

The Headmaster hesitated, then corrected himself: “Before we had any sign that he might have allies, or a way to escape his wraithlike state.”

Like they hadn’t both known this day would come. But Powers forbid the old goat take any fucking responsibility for his own idiotic decisions. “If Miss Potter is hurt in this Tournament…”

“What will you do, Severus?” Dumbledore asked calmly, still just looking at him, and it was all Severus could do not to curse him in the fucking heart for this—this power play. Lording it over him, so obvious that neither of them needed to say it: Severus would do whatever the fuck Dumbledore told him to.

He didn’t dignify the question with a response, only glared, though part of him couldn’t help but keenly feel his impotence—a cornered animal attempting to make himself look big, to pretend that he had the power, in the hopes that that which was threatening him would be intimidated away.

Dumbledore sighed heavily. “I no more wish to see Miss Potter hurt than you, Severus. We are on the same side.” Severus laughed sharply at that, but the Headmaster pretended not to hear it. “Once you are finished with your temper tantrum, we can discuss who might have entered her name into the Goblet, and what can be done to counteract their plans. I will enlist Alastor as well. Rest assured, Mary will be protected.”

He didn’t believe a single fucking word the lying, useless old goat said, but what was the point in arguing with him? It was like talking to a brick wall. Instead of deigning to respond to any of his useless promises, or his infuriating trivialization of Severus’s quite justified anger, he snapped, “Then how about you tell me what life-threatening situation the girl will be forced into first? I know you’ve already planned the tasks out.”

It had been a point of contention between them, in fact, Dumbledore refusing to tell him what was planned in advance. The old goat had acted like it was a game when he’d asked, smiling mysteriously and telling him he’d find out with all the rest.

“So you can tell her?”

“Yes.” There was no point in denying it. They both knew he would.

Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. “You do realize, of course, that that would be cheating.”

Severus was going to kill him. To hell with curses—he’d do it with his own bare hands. Choke the fucking life out of him and relish it.

“Dumbledore,” he said, as sharply as he could. “Do you think I give a single flying fuck about the integrity of this ridiculous Tournament? Do you want your Girl Who Lived to die horribly in front of the entire school?” The Headmaster hesitated, frowning. “Tell me what the task is or I will find someone who will.”

So, Mary was stuck. She was a fucking Triwizard Champion.

“One normal year!” she shouted to Lilian and Hermione, who were waiting for her by the stairs to the dungeons when she emerged from the room. “One bloody normal year at Hogwarts! Is that so much to ask?”

Hermione stared at her for a moment before breaking into giggles. “I’m sorry,” she gasped, between peals of laughter. “I’m sorry, it’s not funny, it’s just… You sound so much like Snape sometimes. I think you must be spending too much time with him.”

“Ten points from Ravenclaw,” Mary muttered, but even as Hermione and Lilian laughed harder, she could hardly bring herself to even crack a smile.

“I guess you didn’t get out of it, then?” Lilian asked as the laughter died down and the air of foreboding settled back over them (or maybe just Mary, she wasn’t entirely sure).

She shook her head despondently. “When has my life ever been that easy?”

“How are they making you compete?” Hermione asked. “Maybe we can find a way out, owl the Board of Governors or something…”

Though she should be grateful for her friend’s support, Mary found herself getting annoyed instead. Or maybe she was just so pissed off that it was overflowing onto Hermione even though she hadn’t done anything wrong. But she didn’t feel spending twenty minutes having Hermione ask her all the questions she’d already asked herself, so she said curtly, “We can’t. There’s a geas on the Goblet; if I don’t compete, I could become a squib or possibly even die. Moody thinks someone entered my name under an imaginary fourth school to trick the Goblet, probably to try to kill me. They’re still talking about it, I guess—I just kind of left, and no one stopped me, so.”

She broke off, overwhelmed, and set off for the dungeons, Hermione and Lilian trailing behind her.

“Why does this shit always happen to you, Lizzie?” Lilian asked.

“Don’t know,” Mary said tersely. “But I fucking hate it.”

“Who do you think—”

“Look.” Mary stopped walking, and they did too. “I don’t really want to talk about this right now, okay?” If she did, she’d probably explode, and her friends didn’t deserve that. “I’m just gonna go…” She trailed off, realizing she didn’t even know where she was going.

“Um…” Lilian said. “Some of the prefects were talking about a pre-Revel party in the common room. You know, to celebrate…” She trailed off, but Mary knew what she meant to say: to celebrate one of their own being chosen as a champion.

Right, so, Mary definitely wasn’t going there. “I’m gonna go wait for Snape,” she said instead. “Hopefully he’ll be done yelling at Dumbledore soon.”

Somehow—she wasn’t sure if it was an empath thing, or just a friend thing—she could feel them hesitating behind her, not wanting her to leave, even as she turned and headed for Snape’s office, but she didn’t wait.

“Liz!” Lilian called, and she reluctantly stopped, turning to look over her shoulder. Just as she thought, both Lilian and Hermione looked uncertain and more than a little worried—about the Tournament, the way she was acting, or both. Lilian hesitated for a long moment before asking weakly, “See you at the Revel later?”

“Dunno,” Mary said with a shrug. Honestly, she couldn’t even bring herself to think about that right now. “Maybe.”

She stared at them for a moment. Despite how much they clearly wanted to help—looking for a way out, following her—it was moments like these that made her feel very far away from the both of them. Because no matter how much they cared, it would always be her that things like this happened to, not them. It was her having dreams of the Dark Lord, her that he wanted to kill.

“We’ll figure something out,” Hermione said. Mary wished it made her feel better, but it didn’t.

“I’ll see you guys.” With that, she headed for the corridor to Snape’s office, Disillusioning herself as she went. Hopefully no one but him would walk down that way tonight anyway, but if they did, she wanted to go unnoticed.

When Snape returned to his office some interminable amount of time later, Mary was sitting on the ground with her back against the door, staring blankly at the wall opposite her. If he’d been less observant, he might have tripped over her outstretched legs, but instead he stopped just beside her and reached down a hand to help her up.

She followed him into his office and canceled the spell, taking a seat across the desk from Snape, who was digging his fingertips into his own temples, looking pained. He opened the conversation with, “Are you incapable of spending one year at this school without getting into mortal peril?”

He sounded genuinely furious, but she knew he wasn’t mad at her, and suddenly, the humor she’d been unable to muster earlier arrived, a slightly hysterical giggle bursting out, because Hermione was right: they did sound like each other sometimes.

“Oh yes, it’s hilarious,” he grumbled to himself. “Here I am, dedicating myself to keeping you alive, and Dumbledore decides to make you fight a bloody dragon.”

“No, no, I’m just laughing because,” Mary said, trying to get ahold of herself, then broke off abruptly. “I’m sorry. A what?”

A dragon. Mary had to fight a dragon.

Or, according to Snape, steal an egg from it. Because that was so much fucking easier.

“What am I going to do?” she muttered, having long since abandoned her chair in favor of pacing back and forth in Snape’s office. “What am I going to do?”

“We,” Snape said firmly, “are going to prepare you. For the Tournament, and for whatever it is that the Dark Lord is planning.”

That finally stopped her, pressing pause on her panic. Maybe she was biased, but when Snape offered to help her, it didn’t piss her off. Though that might have been because he, unlike her friends, wasn’t a teenager and might actually be able to do something. Hermione could do research for her, true, but Snape had killed someone for her. If she had to bet on which one of them could get her through this year alive, there was no contest.

“What do you mean, prepare?”

“Sit down,” he said, with what seemed to her to be an unwarranted level of calm, and yet, it somehow helped—like, Well, if Snape isn’t having a mental breakdown right now, then maybe I shouldn’t be, either. She sat down. “I’m going to train you,” he told her simply, like it was that easy. “I was a Death Eater during the height of the war. I trained under the Blackheart herself. I know how they fight, how they think. I can make sure that you do as well.

“You don’t need to win this Tournament. You simply need to put in enough effort to satisfy the geas while keeping yourself alive in the process. As for whatever the Dark Lord is planning, we will do our best to discover and counteract his plot, while simultaneously ensuring that you know enough defensive magic to extract yourself from dangerous situations.”

“I’m fourteen,” she said dully. Less than a year before, he’d been telling her that she had no chance of even taking Sirius in a fight; now he was saying he could teach her to fight the Death Eaters?

“And the Blackheart was fifteen when she took the Mark,” Snape pointed out. “Nine when she took a fully trained Auror captive.”

Okay, he was definitely just trying to make her feel better—unless he was trying to say she should become a Black Mage or something. “I’m not Bellatrix.”

“No, you are not,” Snape said. “Bellatrix sought out danger and violence. You will avoid it. You do not need to become a world-class battlemage; you only need to know how to distract or incapacitate your opponent long enough to run away.”

When he put it like that, it sounded… slightly more doable. Still terrifying, though.

“Mary Elizabeth,” he said firmly, then paused, waiting for her to meet his eyes. When she did, he said, “I have told you before that I do not intend to allow you to come to harm. Do you trust me?”

She should say no. Even Snape could only do so much. Against most people, she’d bet on him, but when it came to the Dark Lord or the Blackheart, or a dragon, how could he really protect her? Except… she did trust him. Even with how horrible everything was, and the suspicion that he was only trying to make her feel slightly less doomed by pretending she stood a chance, the certainty in his voice settled something in her.

“…Yes,” she said, reluctantly.

“Good. I will check my schedule and establish a training regimen for you. In the meantime, here is what we know.”

From there, Snape told her what he and Dumbledore had discussed after she’d left. The first task apparently was to occur on November 24th, and the Headmaster had agreed, at least, to look into additional safety measures that could be put in place—whatever good that did. As for how she’d been chosen in the first place, Snape and Dumbledore agreed with Moody’s hypothesis that the Goblet had been confunded into believing she was a champion from a fourth school.

Not only that, but it seemed she had written her name on the piece of parchment, which Snape had taken from Dumbledore—because the name was written in her own handwriting. And looking at it, she was almost certain that it had been cut off of a Charms essay that she had lost the other morning, when her book bag had split on the way out of the Great Hall, spilling her belongings to the ground. Whoever put her name in the Goblet must have purposefully made the bag split, but there had been so many people around that day that it was impossible to tell who’d done it.

“What about Director Bagman?” Mary asked.

“What about him?”

“Well, I don’t know how he would’ve stolen my homework, but he was definitely at the World Cup—he was the announcer. And he’s, well, male, and works for the Ministry, so he fits the profile of who the Dark Lord might’ve been after, especially if he knew Director Bagman would be running the Tournament. Then, as soon as my name was drawn, he was the first one saying that I’d have to compete. He seemed excited about it.”

Snape frowned. “Perhaps we ought to take a closer look at him. Other methods of control like the Imperius aside, I would not be surprised if he were simply being blackmailed. He is known for having some… unsavory dealings. In fact, he was put on trial after the war for passing information to the Death Eaters, though it was determined that he hadn’t known the wizard was working for the Dark Lord, and he was cleared of the charges. Unfortunately, if you noticed the amulet he was wearing, it carries an enchantment to prevent mind magic attacks, which means that I cannot simply legilimize him.”

Wait, there were amulets to prevent legilimency? Should she have one? She supposed if it would keep her out of the Dark Lord’s head, Snape already would have suggested it. Actually, it was probably just like the anti-dreamwalking wards on her bedroom, but in amulet form. But also, “Isn’t that suspicious?” she asked. “It’s like he’s got something to hide.”

But Snape only shook his head and said, “It’s standard procedure for high-ranking Ministry officials to wear such amulets if they’re not sufficiently trained in the mind arts, and I doubt Bagman is much of an occlumens—particularly given the frequency of blows to the head he received during his past as a professional beater. No, his wearing that amulet is not evidence of guilt, but it does make things more difficult for us.”

“Dumbledore’s not going to listen to us about him unless we tell him about my dream, is he?” Mary asked, mostly rhetorically. She was pretty sure she already knew the answer.

“No,” Snape confirmed. “For the meantime, be on your guard against Bagman—against all of them, in point of fact. Everyone even remotely involved with the Tournament. Do not go anywhere with them alone, is that clear?”

She nodded quickly. It wasn’t like she’d want to go anywhere alone with Bagman anyway.

By the time they’d finished talking about who might have put her name in, and what they might be planning, and what the two of them should do about it, it was long past curfew. “Were you planning to attend the Revel tonight?” Snape asked.

Mary shifted in her chair. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I had been looking forward to it, but—”

“Then you should go,” he said, to her surprise. “Living with the threat of the Dark Lord looming over your head will be difficult enough without you giving up activities that you enjoy.”

She wondered for a moment if he was speaking from experience, but she could hardly think of any activities that he seemed to enjoy. Or maybe he didn’t have any, and that was how he knew it was bad.

“I guess,” she said. It didn’t seem like she was likely to sleep much tonight anyway—she was exhausted, but her thoughts were racing in a way that suggested another sleepless night was on the horizon. If she had to choose between staring at her ceiling all night trying and failing not to imagine getting killed by a fucking dragon or dancing with her friends at the Revel, she’d pick the latter.

Not that she especially felt like dancing right now, but once the ritual began and the spirits of the dead joined them, that wouldn’t be a problem. And the morning after all-night rituals like the Revel in first year or the Urquharts’ Lammas celebration, she didn’t feel as tired as she would if she’d just stayed up all night by herself, so, it was clearly the better option. “Yeah, I’ll go.”

Snape stood, summoning his cloak from the hook on the wall, and said, “I will walk you out to the Forest, just to be safe.”

It was entirely ridiculous that, at a time like this, after everything that had happened tonight, and knowing that Snape was just worried someone would try to snatch her as she walked alone across the grounds, her heart would still do that weird little flippy thing at the offer. Crushes, Mary decided, were completely ridiculous. Why is that exciting? Bloody hell, Mary, get it together.

“Okay,” she said, very normally—or so she hoped.

They were both Disillusioned as they walked across the grounds, the better to keep anyone from seeing them together, and Mary made sure to keep her voice down, despite the fact that she didn’t see anyone around—they were taking a different route than the students normally did, and were running late besides.

“Are you going to stay for the Revel?” she asked. “We could split up when we get there so people won’t realize we showed up together.”

“That won’t be necessary. I will be returning to the castle once I see you safely there.”

“Oh.” Maybe she shouldn’t ask, but she was curious. “Why don’t you ever go to the Revel?” She’d heard that he’d maybe gone once or twice that the older students could remember, but that would have been before her time.

“I… do not care to visit with my dead,” he said after a moment.

“Like, from the war? People you—” She cut herself off, realizing maybe she shouldn’t say it.

“People I killed, yes. And those I lost.”

Like my mum? she thought—but that, she couldn’t quite work up the courage to ask.

A moment later, they reached the little trail of light-globes the Slytherin prefects had set up, marking the way to the clearing in which the Revel was held, and Snape ended the charm on her. With a muttered, “Thank you, Theíos,” she headed up the path, uncertain whether he’d be trailing her a few more meters or making his way back to the castle—when Snape was in what she liked to call his stealth mode, it was nearly impossible to tell whether or not he was there.

Mary was relieved to find that she wasn’t too late: the ritual hadn’t started yet. Everyone was still standing around waiting for the master of ceremonies—Thane Rowle this year, she’d heard—to begin. She was far less pleased to discover that, as soon as they took notice of her, a cheer went up through the assembled students.

“It’s Slytherin’s Champion!” Sadie shouted, throwing an arm around her shoulders. She smelled like firewhiskey. A moment later, thankfully, Lilian was there tugging Mary away and off to the side, where she and Hermione were waiting.

“I told Daphne what Moody said about your name being entered under a fourth school,” Lilian explained, a little apologetically. “Everyone at the party decided that means Slytherin is its own school now, and Hogwarts doesn’t have any authority over us. They’re a bit, well…” She nodded her head in the direction of their rowdy housemates, all rules of composure seemingly forgotten.

Hermione was looking exasperated next to her, which suggested to Mary that she’d probably spent some amount of time already arguing with tipsy Slytherins that that was not actually how the school rules worked. “Were you with Snape this whole time?” Hermione asked.

“Tell you later.” Everyone was paying way too much attention to her; only her death glare seemed to be stopping some of them from picking her up and parading her around on their shoulders or something. Bloody idiots.

“Elisaveta?” an accented, tentative voice said from behind her, and she turned to see Krum standing halfway in the shadows—alone, as usual, and hunched over as though embarrassed of his size. “Or… Mary?”

She shrugged. “Either is fine—my name’s Mary Elizabeth.”

“Then you may call me Viktor,” he said. “But why did you not say you are Mary Potter?”

“Do you like having everyone staring at you and asking for your autograph and stuff?” she retorted. Not that he’d said he disliked it to her, but just based on his expressions and body language, it wasn’t that hard to work out.

He laughed a little. “No, I do not.”

“You know Lilian already, but this is our friend Hermione,” Mary added, realizing she was being a bit rude by ignoring her friends. “She’s a Ravenclaw. Don’t worry, she doesn’t care about Quidditch at all, so she’s not going to act all… you know.”

“Viktor Krum,” he said politely, nodding to Hermione, who gave him a tentative smile back. A moment later, a gong rang out: Rowle had apparently decided it was time to be getting on with things.

Mary watched the anchors take their place around the bonfire, surrounded by the rest of the students. Rowle began the invocation, joined by the other participants as, one by one, they made their sacrifices. Fruit, meat, wine. A clear liquor, set alight and burning blue. A handmade tool, a piece of art. A black rabbit, its blood spilled by Rowle, its life draining away into the dirt in front of the fire. The flames burned higher; the diagram cut into the ground began to glow silver and black.

Then, finally, the sacrifice of feeling. Mallory Prince, the seventh year Ravenclaw prefect, was the final anchor this year. Taking a ceremonial dagger in hand, she drew it across her forearm, letting her blood spill, calling out in invocation in what Mary was pretty sure was Ancient Egyptian, then threw the blade into the fire.

Defying physics, the dagger spun through the air, landing point-down at the center of the bonfire. The flames turned blue and cold, sucking all of the heat from the air—she could feel it even where she stood. There was a sense of magic rushing past her, sucked into the fire like a vacuum.

“We bear witness!” all the gathered students shouted—Mary among them.

“So mote it be!” the nine replied, Mallory loudest of all, and then she turned and walked into the fire, throwing up her hands, staring up at the stars as she continued chanting in that strange language.

The first time Mary had seen someone do that—Aradia Carmichael back in first year—she’d almost screamed. Even now, her heart gave a little jump at the sight, but she knew enough not to worry. According to Theo, what Mallory was doing was offering herself up to the Deathly Power as a host—giving it the option to possess her if it so chose, to join the dance. Theo had said it was mostly just to be polite: no one could remember a time Death had actually accepted the offer, though people liked to tell stories of Revels decades ago when it had.

Hermione grabbed Mary’s hand and squeezed, and then spirits were spilling out of the hole in the Veil, out of the fire, filling the clearing, taking over their bodies and pulling them into the dance, dozens of students moving together as one. There was no music, but that didn’t matter: Magic told them where to move, and they stomped and clapped in unison.

The trials of the night suddenly ceased to matter. She wasn’t Mary Potter, not really, not the Girl Who Lived or a Triwizard champion. She was Magic, the same as everyone else in the dance. She was the spirits who flowed through her, taking over her body—their lives were as real to her as her own. She laughed to herself at the thought that someone might be going to all this effort just to kill her, as though Death were not coming for her anyway, just as it was coming for all of them. A year, a century, what did it matter? It was all the same. She was no longer afraid—could not even remember why she had been afraid.

Death walked among them and touched her with loving hands, and Mary knew that, even if she were to walk through the fire and out the other side of the Veil, it would be the same—magic, one way or the other. Nothing to fear. She closed her eyes, threw her head back, and the world dissolved into flowers.

Chapter Text

Mary’s temporary sense of perspective, or acceptance, or nihilism, or whatever the hell it had been faded with the dawn. By the end of a full day dealing with both the knowledge of what was waiting for her and the obnoxious reactions of the rest of the school, she was right back where she’d started—pissed off and scared. Even worse, when dinner ended and she was on her way to Quidditch practice, hoping she might be able to fly off some of her feelings, Aunt Minnie caught her in the entry hall and asked her to come up to her office. They already had plans to have tea together on Saturday, but apparently she just couldn’t wait.

Some part of Mary couldn’t help but think, Oh, sure, now she has time for me. Nothing like mortal danger to get her guardian’s attention.

Once they were settled in Aunt Minnie’s sitting room with a tea service—Mary still hadn’t told her guardian she didn’t even like tea, knowing that it was just one of those things one had to do as a pureblood girl—the older witch said, “First of all, how are you doing?”

Mary fought the urge to groan. While she knew Aunt Minnie meant it, she also knew that she was supposed to behave herself better than that. Instead, she said, “Better than last night, but that isn’t saying much.”

“No, I suppose it isn’t.” Aunt Minnie shook her head. “I’m very sorry that this has happened, Mary. I promise, the school is making every effort to ensure that you will be safe.”

None of the things Mary wanted to say, like, ‘Snape already told me’ or ‘I doubt that will help,’ seemed like things she could say, so instead she just said, “I appreciate that, Aunt Minnie.”

“I hope you aren’t letting Alastor and Severus frighten you too badly,” she added in a disapproving of tone. “We don’t know for sure that whoever entered your name intended you harm.”

Mary only kept her temper by reminding herself that she’d never told Aunt Minnie about her dream over the summer. In fact, she wasn’t even sure her guardian knew about the prophecy. With the information Aunt Minnie had, it was probably less obvious than it was to Mary and Snape that she was in danger.

Still, part of her was incredulous at her guardian’s naivety—she couldn’t help but see it as the same trait that had led her to approach Quirrellmort and tell him that Mary thought he was possessed. Aunt Minnie just seemed to have this inherent need to believe that things like that—namely, people trying to murder Mary—just couldn’t happen. She was in some sense an optimist, at least compared to Snape—and to Mary herself.

That was the same trait, Mary thought, that led Aunt Minnie to trust the Headmaster, which was the reason Mary couldn’t share what she knew with her. Because Aunt Minnie would run straight to Dumbledore, telling him about her dream, or that Snape had shared the prophecy when he wasn’t supposed to, and Mary wasn’t going to let that happen. She wasn’t even certain what she was afraid Dumbledore would do if he knew about the link between her and the Dark Lord, or about said Dark Lord being her grandfather, but she just plain didn’t trust him.

As evenly as she could—honestly, she thought she deserved a medal for not blowing up again, like she had last night—Mary asked, “What other motives could they have?”

Aunt Minnie frowned to herself. “Perhaps to embarrass you, if they think you’ll do badly in the Tournament? To tarnish your public image? It could be one of your political enemies, or maybe another student you have a quarrel with—Miss Bletchley, perhaps? She is old enough to pass the age line.”

“You heard what Professor Moody said,” Mary argued. “He said that it would take a powerful wizard to trick the Goblet.”

“You never know… Perhaps an especially talented NEWT student…” Aunt Minnie trailed off, wrinkling her brow like she was trying to convince herself, before shaking her head and adding, “If someone wanted to do you harm, surely there are less… roundabout ways than this Tournament.”

That was actually a point Mary and Snape had considered—it was just such an odd thing for the Dark Lord to do, especially if he just wanted her dead—but Mary still felt it was more likely that he was involved than that he wasn’t. “Aunt Minnie, I really do think I’m in danger. And so do Professors Moody and Snape. Doesn’t that count for something? They both fought in the war.”

“That is just the problem, lass. Alastor and Severus are great wizards, but they never quite left the war behind, I’m afraid. They see enemies around every corner.” Before Mary could remind Aunt Minnie of how Snape’s Dark Mark was getting darker—that, at least, she should know—she continued, “I am not saying that there haven’t been… signs. Even Albus says so. I simply don’t believe that He Who Must Not Be Named would have any reason to enter your name into this Tournament, regardless of what happened in 1981.

“But I know you are worried about it. I promise you, Mary, I and all the other adults at this school will do our utmost to protect you from any danger—whether it is You Know Who, or only the dangers inherent to the Tournament. We will not allow you to come to harm.”

Mary couldn’t help but give her guardian a disbelieving look. “I don’t mean any offense, Aunt Minnie, but based on the past three years, I’m not quite reassured by that. Especially considering that it was the adults of this school, or at least the Headmaster, who decided to host a potentially deadly Tournament in the first place—without precautions to keep underage students from being forced into it.”

Frowning again, this time at her, Aunt Minnie said, “The Tournament was the Ministry’s idea. I’m afraid our hands were forced. As for your name being entered, this is the first time this has happened in the recorded history of the Tournament. You cannot hold the Headmaster responsible for failing to predict it.”

Oh, yes I can. Was it really that unreasonable of her to think that if Dumbledore was a more sensible sort of person, he would have realized how bloody stupid it was to host a famously deadly Tournament in a school, with no security measures in place to keep someone from being entered against their will—even people under the magical age of consent, for the love of the Dark—and resisted the Ministry? After all, he was constantly fighting with them about all sorts of other stuff.

Mary didn’t know if it was unreasonable or not, and honestly, she didn’t care. The fact was, Dumbledore was the one in charge of the school where she seemed to wind up in life-threatening situations year after year, and she couldn’t help but lay that at his feet.

Aunt Minnie’s frown deepened when Mary utterly failed to answer. “Mary, I understand that you and Albus haven’t always seen eye to eye—and he’s made some significant missteps in your case—but he is not your enemy. I let it slide last night, since you were clearly upset, but the way you behaved was not acceptable, especially in front of important guests.”

Wait, was she changing the subject from whether or not someone was trying to kill Mary to scolding her for being rude to the Headmaster? It seemed like she was. Merlin, Morgan and Mordred, I hate this school.

“Oh, don’t give me that look,” Aunt Minnie continued. “Yes, the situation is very upsetting, but you know that more is expected of you as Heir to House Potter. Especially now—you are going to be under a great deal of public scrutiny. I am telling you this for your sake, Mary: you’ll certainly regret it when you come into your station if you have burned bridges and permanently damaged your reputation in a fit of teenage anger.”

A fit of—Mary decided to utilize some of her occlumency techniques before she ended up having a ‘fit of teenage anger’ all over this fucking sitting room. With what she thought was an impressive amount of restraint, she said, “I’m sorry if I’m more concerned with my survival than my reputation.”

But Aunt Minnie was unmoved. “I know things seem terrible right now, but you will survive this Tournament, and when you do, I do not want you to have made things more difficult for yourself than they will already be as a relative outsider.”

Right, because it always came down to that: Mary having to be extra perfect to ‘make up for’ being a supposed halfblood who’d grown up in the muggle world rather than on a manor estate.

“In any case, you know as well as I do that behaving rudely will not improve your situation. You do not have a choice about whether you participate in this Tournament, but you do have a choice about how you behave yourself, particularly when in the presence of Ministry officials, foreign visitors, and the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot of which you will soon be a member.”

Inwardly, Mary thought that it might improve her situation if she made Dumbledore look so bad that he got sacked. Despite her guardian’s naivety, Mary still believed that Hogwarts would be a safer place for her with Aunt Minnie as Headmistress.

And yet, she wouldn’t say so, because she’d already had this conversation with Snape. Last night, she’d been very much ready to do everything in her power to retaliate against Dumbledore for the situation he’d allowed her to be forced into, from bringing a suit against him in the Wizengamot to dragging his name through the mud in the papers.

But Snape had asked her not to. Not because he liked the Headmaster any more than she did, but because, as he’d reminded her, Snape’s own fate was tied to Dumbledore’s. If Dumbledore left Hogwarts, Snape probably would too—and if Dumbledore lost his political credibility, people might begin to second-guess his support of Snape’s innocence, especially if the Dark Lord returned. If Snape had to go back to him as a spy, and Dumbledore didn’t have the power to get him exonerated a second time once the Dark Lord was gone…

Well, that and, aside from being a fucking idiot with no concern for the safety of his students, Dumbledore was still both an incredibly powerful sorcerer and the one person in a position to unite a non-Ministry opposition to the Dark Lord—and given how many Death Eaters were in positions of power in the Ministry, as well as potential moles like Bagman, arseholes like Crouch, and idiots like Fudge, that might well be something they needed.

The point was, Mary knew better than to make a political enemy of the most powerful wizard opposing the Dark Lord who wanted her dead, even if she did still feel he was responsible for a good portion of the danger she was facing (no matter how unfair Aunt Minnie thought she was being). Or, at least, she knew that when she could calm down enough to think, or when she talked with Snape.

In any case, this conversation had pretty much convinced her that she wasn’t going to find an ally in Aunt Minnie. When it came to keeping Mary away from the Dursleys, or making sure she got the education she needed as Heir to House Potter, she had been genuinely helpful, and Mary was still grateful to her. But when it came to matters of life and death, well, she just couldn’t be counted on. Her priorities were all wrong, but then, she hadn’t been involved in the war in the way Snape had. Aunt Minnie lived in a world where making a good impression on the Urquhart ladies at tea was the most important thing a girl like Mary had to worry about, and nothing Mary said would convince her otherwise.

(Well, maybe if Dumbledore said so, she’d listen, but if Aunt Minnie wasn’t an ally, Dumbledore was even less of one.)

The point was, Mary had her ways of dealing with adults when she knew they couldn’t be counted on: tell them what they wanted to hear, then find a way to work around them. At least she had Snape.

“I understand,” she said, bowing her head slightly. “I’ll make more of an effort to keep my temper.”

Aunt Minnie’s expression softened. “I only say this for your own good, you know. You’re in a very stressful position, and it’s natural to be upset. I don’t blame you for that. But my job as your guardian is to help you navigate this as best I can, and to make sure that you do not lose perspective.”

“I know, Aunt Minnie.” Lose perspective? Fuck off.

With a sigh, Aunt Minnie added, “The first event of the Tournament, the Weighing of the Wands, will take place on Friday afternoon, and Albus says that dreadful Mrs. Skeeter from the Prophet will be attending to write an article on the champions. I’ll accompany you to make sure that she does not try to take advantage of the situation. And remember, if she—or any other reporter—asks you a question you are not prepared to answer?”

“‘I have no comment on that at this time,’” Mary echoed dully. Aunt Minnie had taught her that after her comment at Sirius’s trial.

“Very good. Now, perhaps we ought to owl Miss Catherine, see if she can make the time to come up to the castle to help you decide how to present yourself…”

It was with great difficulty that Mary resisted the urge to bang her head against the wall.

It was not just Aunt Minnie, either. In the days after Samhain, it seemed to Mary that everyone at Hogwarts had entirely lost their minds.

The Hufflepuffs were furious, of course, and had voted to shun her as a House. They’d even made badges telling people to support Diggory (coupled with “Potter Stinks!”), which were soon spotted all over the school. The Gryffindors had never liked her much to begin with, so they’d gotten in on the badges as well, while the Ravenclaws seemed to think she was doing the whole thing for attention. Overall, other than her handful of friends in the other Houses, they all seemed to hate her even more than they had when the whole Heir of Slytherin thing had been going on.

The Slytherins, on the other hand, were almost too enthusiastic about having a champion of their own, rubbing it in the other Houses’ faces and making retaliatory badges (“Mary Potter: Slytherin’s Champion!”), which only made the rest of them hate her even more. Some of her housemates at least believed she hadn’t put her name in, but the rest of them seemed to think she was just obeying the Second Rule, because when she insisted she didn’t enter, they just smirked at her and said, “Of course you didn’t.”

At least there were a few sensible people left. Mostly just her friends and Snape, but still. (And Viktor, she supposed—not that she’d talked to him since the night of the Revel, but whenever she saw him, he was trudging around with an irritated glare on his face, looking exactly like she would look if she weren’t meant to be behaving herself.)

Even Hermione had moved past bargaining by now and into full-blown research mode, poring over books about dragons (disguised, of course, so no one would know they knew about the task already) and coming to Mary with all sorts of information—most of it, sadly, useless, or just serving to make her even more terrified of what was coming.

Comparatively, Lilian was less helpful, but at least she wasn’t making things worse like everyone else in the school. Being well aware of just how much Mary hated the whole thing, she’d taken to trying to distract her from it, dragging her out to the pitch for impromptu flying practice when they had time and passing her silly notes in class. And she’d spoken to Warbler, gotten him to institute a No Talking About the Tournament rule for Quidditch practice.

And Blaise was alright, too—he was helping her learn to defend herself, anyway, which was more than she could say for most, and he never brought up the Tournament or teased her about it, which was more restraint than she would have expected from him. Sometimes, she thought he understood even better than Hermione just how bad the situation was, if only because he spent so much time in her head.

Mary had written to the Grangers, to Catherine, and to Sirius and Remus, but time would only tell whether they’d be of any help or would just go the way of Aunt Minnie’s well-meaning uselessness. In the meantime, at least she had Snape. If she hadn’t… well, she didn’t know what she would have done.

They met the evening after her infuriating talk with Aunt Minnie. “We have three weeks and one day until the first task,” Snape began, and it cheered her more than she would have expected that he said ‘we,’ not ‘you.’ “As it is unlikely the Dark Lord will make a move before then, our preparations for the next few weeks will center around your surviving the dragon.

“Now, I don’t give a rats arse whether you win or not,” he added, prompting a snort from her, “and I don’t think you do either, correct?” She nodded. “In that case, we need only to develop a strategy by which you can at least make a token effort at acquiring the egg without getting killed.”

Technically, of course, Mary knew this was cheating. There was no way she was meant to know the task this far in advance. But, who gave a fuck? It wasn’t like she was going to win. She didn’t even want to win. All she wanted to do was not get eaten or burned to death in front of the entire school.

“Stupid question,” she said, “but, the egg is going to be enchanted against summoning, right?” Otherwise, she could just summon it right to her hands.

“Undoubtedly. They will expect all the champions to at least know a simple summoning charm. Now, it is unlikely that you will be able to harm the dragon, as their armor is highly magically resistant—if you try, you will probably only make it angry.”

“Er, right. Don’t want that.”

“In order to get the egg away from the dragon, you will likely need to physically take hold of it. As I see it, there are three options: move quickly enough to evade retaliation; find a way to go unnoticed, either by stealth, distraction, or both; or lure the dragon away from its nest. Preferably, you would use some combination of these strategies.”

They brainstormed for a long time; long enough that Mary was exhausted from thinking, and her suggestions were becoming increasingly unrealistic, by the time that Snape said they should call it a day.

“Before I go,” she said, “I was wondering, are these lessons a secret? Like, if people wonder what I’m spending so much time on, what can I say?”

“Most people should not know that I’m helping you. Cheating is… not unexpected, in the Tournament, but you are expected to be discreet about it. And, as we discussed over the summer, it is best that our association not be known to those associated with the Death Eaters.”

“Right.”

“As for Miss Granger and Miss Moon, you may tell them, so long as they know to keep their mouths shut. And, of course, I expect Mr. Zabini will know from your lessons with him. I have already spoken to Dumbledore and informed him that I will be meeting with you regularly to ensure you are capable of defending yourself, and that I have already told you the contents of the upcoming task. I believe he will turn a blind eye so long as we are discreet. After all, you are at a substantial disadvantage due to your age, so it is hardly unjust to level the playing field.”

Mary supposed that made sense. Given how busy Dumbledore kept Snape, it wasn’t like he could hide the fact that they were meeting for hours at a time multiple times per week. But… “Didn’t you say that you don’t want him to know that you—er, that he could use me as leverage against you?”

“Yes, but there is a balance to be struck. He is already aware that my priority is keeping you alive—after all, I vowed it to him when your mother died.”

“You never told me that,” she said quietly, uncertain how to react to the news.

Snape blinked at her for a moment. “I suppose I hadn’t. In any case, he is aware that I am concerned with your protection, and that you trust me. What I want to avoid is him beginning to suspect that my loyalties might be compromised—that is, that if his orders were to go against your interests, I would find a way to circumvent them.”

Mary had really been trying very hard to forget about her crush, but it was difficult. If it had been based in shallow things like his appearance, it would have been easier, but the trouble was that it was deeper than that. At first, she’d tried telling herself it was stupid, that she was being silly, but she was coming to realize that it wasn’t, and she wasn’t. What else was she meant to do, when he said things like that to her?

And, for that matter, how was she ever supposed to get over it?

Mary made it through the Weighing of the Wands, at least. Skeeter—who was known for being deep in Lady Malfoy’s pocket—tried to get comments out of her, but Aunt Minnie managed to chase her off. Meanwhile, Viktor glowered through the entire thing and barely said a word to the press, and Mary watched him jealously. How nice it must be, she thought, to care so little about one’s public image.

That wasn’t to say all went well. In hindsight, it had been awfully naive of them to think that just because Mary didn’t say anything to the press, they wouldn’t come up with something to print about her anyway. The following week, Skeeter’s article on the Tournament was printed, the majority of it dedicated to Mary herself. Skeeter had spoken with various sources around the school, and the picture they painted of Mary was far from good.

So far, it seemed, she was a cold, unfriendly bitch, a snob, and a dangerous delinquent, all at once. The story of her duel with Bletchley had been twisted beyond recognition into Mary attacking and nearly killing an older Slytherin girl with Dark magic—if she had to guess, the ‘anonymous source’ had been none other than one of Bletchley’s friends.

Not everyone hid behind anonymity. Colin Creevey was quoted claiming that Mary had cursed him in Parseltongue for looking at her wrong, and Leanne Malone from Hufflepuff—whom Mary had never spoken to in her life, despite them being in the same year—said that Mary was obviously a Dark witch who’d tricked her way into the Tournament just to have an excuse to act out her violent fantasies in front of the whole school.

Well, whatever. Aunt Minnie and Catherine couldn’t possibly be angry with Mary for that, since it was completely out of her control. Though she was more than a little worried that Catherine was going to suggest a press conference, like she had once before, in the hopes of improving her public image. Like she had time to care about that shit when someone was literally trying to kill her!

The Grangers had written back with an appropriate amount of sympathy but without anything helpful—though as she’d made it very clear that she couldn’t leave the country or get Dumbledore sacked, she supposed there was only so much they could do. Meanwhile, Sirius had only asked, somewhat mysteriously, when her next Hogsmeade weekend was, so she had to assume he was planning something.

She’d considered skipping the visit. It fell on the final Saturday before the first task, and she really felt like she ought to be doing something useful. Training or something, as she and Snape had been doing almost every free moment for the past two weeks. Plus, honestly, she’d kind of gotten her fill of Hogsmeade the first time around. But Snape was going as a chaperone, and he’d told her it would be best if she went along as well, rather than staying behind in the partially empty castle without him or Moody when they still didn’t know who was after her.

She was on her way into the village on Saturday morning, in the midst of a veritable sea of students and a scattering of chaperones, when Sirius came bounding right up to her with an enormous grin. “Mary!” He was wearing muggle clothing—extremely tight denims, which she thought might have been made for a woman, and a t-shirt reading ‘LED ZEPPELIN,’ which sounded familiar—a muggle band, maybe? His hair was longer than it had been at his trial, wild and loose, his facial hair grown out into a neat goatee, and he looked healthier as well.

It wasn’t like she wasn’t happy to see him, but she wasn’t in the best of moods and it was really too early in the morning for anyone to be so energetic. “Hey, Sirius,” she said a little tiredly, ignoring the curious stares of her classmates as she stepped out of the crowd to meet him—whether they were staring because he was Lord Black, or because he’d been the fugitive haunting the castle last year, she wasn’t quite sure, but she’d already gotten enough of them staring when it was just her.

“I’ve got a surprise for you,” he said, grin still widening. “Mind coming with me for a sec?”

“Er.” Mary turned, surveying the crowd. “Just let me check with Snape first.”

“Oh, come on, I’m your godfather. You don’t need Snape’s permission to hang out with me.”

Holding back her temper—which had been increasingly difficult ever since Samhain—she cast a quick Muffliato and said, “It’s not about permission. He and Moody are here to protect us; I need to make sure they don’t think I’ve been kidnapped or something.”

“Very responsible,” Sirius said, sounding like he disapproved. “Moody’s here, you says? Been meaning to ask why he’s been avoiding me…”

“Yeah, he’s around here somewhere,” Mary said distractedly. “I’m sure you can find him if you look. Let me just go talk to Snape real quick.” And if Sirius searching for Moody kept him and Snape from getting close enough to pick a fight with each other, so much the better.

She found Snape just outside the Three Broomsticks, glaring intimidatingly at the students streaming inside. “Sirius is here, Professor,” she said, mindful of the eyes on them—he was Professor Snape right now, not Theíos. “He wants me to go somewhere with him; it’s a ‘surprise,’ apparently.” She injected just a little of her exasperation into her voice, partially just so Snape wouldn’t think she wanted to go off with Sirius and get snippy about it. “Is that alright?”

As she might have expected, Snape scowled. “Students aren’t meant to leave the village.”

“Don’t you worry your grea—your head about that, Snape,” Sirius said from behind her—damn. “We won’t be.”

Despite him mostly keeping a civil tongue, she could tell Sirius’s tone was designed to infuriate Snape, and it was clearly working. “Given recent events,” Snape said, his voice very clipped, “it is best that Miss Potter stay within the vicinity of… responsible adults.”

“And that’s supposed to be you?” Sirius asked with a scoff. “Which one of us was a Dea—”

“Sirius!” Mary interrupted loudly, turning to him with a forced smile. “Give us a minute, will you?” For a moment, he looked like he might argue, but she stared at him and hardened her gaze, and he took a few steps backwards.

Mary turned back to Snape, casting a Muffliato only to realize he’d cast one at exactly the same time. “If you really think it’s too dangerous, I won’t go,” she said quietly. “But even you have to admit he’s a good fighter. I don’t think I’ll be any less safe with him than I would be in the village, and I’d like to have a moment to talk with him about everything that’s going on.”

Snape gave her a long look before saying, “Make sure to be back on time.”

“I will,” she assured him, then canceled her spell and turned back to Sirius. “Right, let’s go.” Before you and Snape tear each other’s throats out.

“Any luck with Moody?” Mary asked as they walked down what seemed to be a residential street. Technically, she knew people lived in Hogsmeade—the Tonkses did, for example—but she’d only been to the train station and the main street of the village so far. The only times she’d been to magical neighborhoods were for the summer tea parties, which rotated between different girls’ houses, and even then, she never went outside, only arrived and departed through their Floos.

Sirius shook his head, wavy dark hair swaying with the movement. “I swear he’s avoiding me, the great git. I don’t know what he thinks is going to happen if he talks to me. If I went around cursing everyone who left me in Azkaban, there’d be no one left.”

Mary winced, even though he didn’t say it with much anger; it was still hard to think about what he’d gone through.

A moment later, they came to a stop in front of a large stone house sitting somewhat apart from the others on the street. Sirius turned to her, an expectant smile on his face. “What is it?” she asked. Well, obviously it was a house, but other than that, she had no idea.

“It’s the cottage!” he declared grandly. “Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten; we just talked about it last month!”

Mary turned back to the house and stared for a long moment. “Sirius, that’s not a cottage,” she said. “That’s, like, a small manor house.” It was nearly twice as big as the Grangers’ house, for crying out loud!

Sirius threw his head back and laughed. “By the House of Black’s standards, this is a cottage,” he informed her. “If you’d seen Ancient House or Château Blanc, you’d understand what I mean.” Then, seeing the uncertain look on her face, he added, “Oh, don’t worry, I’m not giving it to you—I mean, I still don’t understand why you don’t want it, but whatever. I’m moving in!”

Before she could ask any more questions, he was ushering her through the door and into a large entryway. The interior of the house was strange: grand, and yet with an air of neglect that lingered despite what seemed to be a recent cleaning. Bits of dust remained on the molding, and there were cracks on the paintings that hung on the walls, as though Sirius had only done the minimum to make it habitable.

“I’ll be staying here the rest of the year,” he was saying. “This way, I’ll only be a stone’s throw away if you need anything, or if something happens, with this whole Tournament business.” As he spoke, he was ushering her into a parlor that looked far more lived-in than the rest of the house, though no cleaner. There was a turntable on the coffee table, records piled up beside it, articles of Sirius’s clothing and takeout containers scattered about the various surfaces.

“Don’t mind the mess,” he added, hurriedly clearing off a place on the couch for her. “No house elf, you see, and I never did get the hang of all that domestic stuff. Not that I had much chance to practice!” He let out a sharp, slightly bitter laugh.

Mary sat a gingerly on the edge of a couch cushion, feeling entirely out of place in what seemed to be a bachelor pad, if movies were anything to go by. She suddenly had a memory of Gin calling her ‘prim and proper’ the year before and pushed it out of her head, trying to decide what to say. “You’ve moved into Hogsmeade because of the Tournament?”

“Well, yeah, but don’t go getting all awkward about it,” he said. “It’s the most convenient option anyway—most of the other properties are way too big to fix up without a team of elves. There is the townhouse in Cobh, but I’d rather be in Hogsmeade.”

At the word ‘townhouse,’ a fragment of memory flashed through her head. “Weird question,” she said, “but does the townhouse in Cobh have a really loud, mean portrait in the entryway and a bunch of house elves’ heads mounted on the wall?”

Sirius looked at her as though she’d lost her mind. “I’d say you were talking about the townhouse in Islington—where I grew up—but I don’t recall there being a portrait like that. Why do you ask?”

She hadn’t actually thought that question through; since the vision had been part of the Urquharts’ family ritual, she wasn’t really supposed to tell him about it. “Er, no reason,” she said, causing him to raise his eyebrows further. “I really can’t say. But, er, that townhouse—are you planning on moving in there anytime soon?”

With another rough laugh, Sirius said, “Not for all the gold in Gringott’s.”

Huh. It made Mary a little nervous, wondering what could happen between now and the coming summer to force Sirius to move back into a place that he seemed to hate. But there were more important things to talk about now than her Lammas vision. “Well, er, thank you,” she said. “For—Aunt Minnie doesn’t think there’s anything to worry about. That, or she’s just trying to convince me not to worry. So, er, thanks for… taking it seriously.”

Was that a weird thing to say? She had no idea.

Sirius gave her a fond, slightly exasperated look. “You’re my goddaughter, Fawn. You really don’t need to do the whole…” He waved a hand at her and trailed off. “Anyway, of course I’m taking it seriously. Moody’s right: not many people could’ve hoodwinked the Goblet. And after the incident at the World Cup…”

Mary hadn’t told him everything—not about the dream she’d had, or that she’d seen Snape’s darkening Mark—but she’d written him a long account of everything that had happened the night of Samhain. “Yeah,” she agreed. “I mean, I don’t know what on earth the Dark Lord could want with entering me in the Tournament, but there’s just too much weird stuff going on for it to be a coincidence, right?”

Sirius nodded. “Maybe he’s trying to make your death look like an accident, if he’s not ready for the world to find out he’s back…”

“But there’s got to be an easier way, right?” she asked. “Sure, people have died in the Tournament, but it’s hardly a sure bet.”

“Yeah…” He frowned, staring off into space like he was trying to think it through. But it didn’t seem like he could think of anything, because he gave a quick shake of his head and said, “So, what are you going to do about this dragon? I was thinking maybe a Conjunctivitis Charm—their eyes are their weak spots.”

Mary shook her head. “I met a baby dragon once—long story. They move their heads really quickly. Don’t think I’d be able to aim right. But Snape and I have a plan; I’m going to be going for evasion over offense.”

“You and Snape?”

She’d thought about it and decided there wasn’t really any reason Sirius couldn’t know—at least as much as Dumbledore did. “He’s training me,” she said. “Not just for the dragon, but for whatever the Dark Lord ends up trying. And if you have a problem with that, I don’t want to hear it.”

Sirius held up both his hands in a sort of placating gesture. “Not a word,” he said, in a tone of voice that implied he very much had things he would like to say about the idea. Though he then contradicted himself by adding, “But if you want to learn to fight, I can help you with that. I’m a better battlemage than him, and I can teach you Light spells.”

“You’re also not in Hogwarts,” she pointed out.

With a dismissive wave of his hand, he said, “We can ask Minnie to let you come visit me on weekends. Or you could just sneak out, actually. I know some passages… I’d have to come get you, though, don’t want someone attacking you along the way.”

Well, at least he’s kind of being responsible about suggesting I sneak out of Hogwarts. “That’s alright,” she said. “I think Snape and I have it covered. Thanks, though.”

“What can I do, then? I’m right here in Hogsmeade, and, you know, unemployed, other than the whole Lord Black thing. I’m just a rich, useless layabout.” That prompted a small giggle from her, and he smiled broadly. “Come on, give me something to do.”

The thing was, as much as she appreciated the offer—it was way more than her actual guardian was doing—she couldn’t really think of anything. Snape pretty much had things covered, and it wasn’t that she mistrusted Sirius, but she didn’t really know him. At least not well enough to tell him all the stuff she was keeping from Dumbledore. Not until she was certain he wouldn’t go behind her back and tell the Headmaster.

Finally, racking her brain, she said, “Do you know Ludo Bagman?”

Sirius frowned in confusion. “I’ve heard of him. Former beater for the Winbourne Wasps, now some big-shot at the Ministry, right? What about him?”

“This is just me grasping at straws, I think,” Mary lied, “but he’s involved with the Tournament, and as soon as my name came out of the Goblet, he was basically insisting I participate. Plus, he’s wearing an anti-legilimency amulet everywhere, and Snape says he was accused of passing information to the Death Eaters during the war. It’s not like I have any evidence that he’s the one who put my name in, he’s just… suspicious.”

“Well, I can ask around,” Sirius said, sounding a bit disappointed that she didn’t have anything more substantial for him to do. “In the meantime, you’ll be careful not to go anywhere alone with him, yeah? Or that Karkaroff, for that matter—you know he was a Death Eater, right?”

She nodded. “Snape told me.”

Sirius opened his mouth, then seemed to think better of it and closed it again. “Well, at least Moody’s at Hogwarts, even if he’s being a ridiculous prat at the moment. Dumbledore probably wants him there to keep an eye on Karkaroff.”

Yeah, and to make Snape’s life miserable too, Mary didn’t say.

When she failed to respond, Sirius added, “Try not to panic too much, alright? Minnie and Moody and Dumbledore—and even Snape—are there at Hogwarts to keep an eye out, and I’ll be around as well. I’ll come to the school for all the events, and you can see me during Hogsmeade weekends as well, or even just regular weekend, if you want to sneak out, and—oh, you could come stay here during the winter hols, get a break from everything. I’m trying to convince Moony to come stay, too—he’s been hiding out in France again, you know.”

This was why, despite her generally liking him, Sirius was so exhausting to hang out with. He just so clearly wanted to spend time with her more than she wanted to spend time with him, and given any opportunity, he’d just start… making plans, without even really consulting her. And it wasn’t that she didn’t want to get to know him, just, it was hard to do so when he was immediately acting like he’d been in her life for ages.

The Mary who’d lived with the Dursleys and dreamed of someone coming to take her away would’ve probably enjoyed it, but the Mary who had Snape and Aunt Minnie and the Grangers just found it kind of uncomfortable, like he was trying to slot himself into her life without considering whether there was space for him. Or maybe she was being unfair—he’d broken out of Azkaban for her, after all. But she still didn’t know that she wanted to spend all that time with him when she couldn’t get through a conversation with the man without feeling intensely awkward, and the fact that he’d moved to Hogsmeade for her left her feeling more smothered than relieved.

“That’s nice of you to offer,” she said carefully, “but I think I’ll probably be using that time for training and schoolwork and stuff—they’re assigning a ton of it this year. But I’ll let you know.” He looked a little sad, like he realized she was blowing him off, and she felt a stab of guilt, even as she tried not to.

“Really,” she said, a little more strongly. “I’m glad you’re here, Sirius.”

Chapter Text

“So, found out about the dragons, have you?”

Mary swore inwardly. She’d been talking quietly with Lilian in the corridor, but apparently Moody had exceptionally good hearing, because he had stopped her and asked her to stay and talk, keeping her from her lunch. And now, she was going to have to come up with a response that would keep him from finding out that Snape had told her.

On the plus side, his office was full of cool artifacts, mostly for detecting danger. She peered around at them rather than looking at his unsettling face, wondering where she could buy this sort of thing; it certainly would come in useful enough, given, well, her entire life.

Right, the dragons. Maybe if she just didn’t mention how she’d found out… “Well, yes, but it’s not like I have any chance at winning. I’m just trying to get myself through this tournament in one piece.” Like Snape had said, him helping her was just leveling the playing field.

“Don’t sell yourself short, Potter.”

Mary was a little peeved at him leaving out the ‘Miss,’ but she knew it was a lost cause. Moody was just… not a very polite person. Particularly to Slytherins—although he didn’t sound too hostile towards her right now, at least.

He went on, “Anyways, it’s alright. Cheating’s a traditional part of the tournament. Always has been.”

“So I’ve heard.” What was the point of this, then? She’d literally never had a conversation with Moody before, so him calling her into his office like this was strange… Well, at least it didn’t seem like he was going to turn her in for cheating. “If I’m not in trouble, then, er, why did you want to speak with me, sir? Have you found any leads on who might have entered my name?”

“Not as such, but I’m looking into it. There are several suspicious individuals here at Hogwarts this year…”

“Like who?” Mary asked, a little suspicious that he was just going to say—

“Snape, for one.”

That.

“Professor Snape is my Head of House,” Mary said, injecting a note of irritation into her voice, “and I am certain he did not put my name in the Goblet.” She might not have bothered arguing, except that Moody was meant to be an additional layer of security, and if he was investigating Snape, he was wasting time he should be using to look into literally anyone else.

“You may not know this, Potter, but your Head of House is a Death Eater.”

“Was.” And here she’d been hoping Moody would be even the slightest bit helpful. “He was cleared of all charges on Dumbledore’s word.” Not that Dumbledore’s word meant much to her, but she’d gotten the impression that he and Moody respected each other.

“Dumbledore’s a trusting man,” Moody said, in a tone of voice that implied he thought this was a major character flaw. Which, actually, was something Mary could agree with him on. “Believes in second chances. But trust me, Potter: there are some spots that never come off.”

Oh, come on. This man really had a problem with the Truce, didn’t he?

Deciding to drop the pretense of politeness she usually kept up with professors in the face of Moody’s… unique communication style, Mary said, “Sorry, sir, but I’ve only just met you, and if it’s between trusting you or my Head of House—who, as it so happens, has saved my life on multiple occasions over the past few years—I’m going to go with Professor Snape. So if you wouldn’t mind focusing on the people who might actually be trying to kill me, I would appreciate it.”

Moody only gave a disgusted shake of his head. “You’re blind, girl—”

“Miss Potter,” she corrected coolly. “You won’t change my mind on this. Who are your other suspects?”

After a moment of regarding her, as though trying to decide whether to continue trying to convince her that Snape was a big, scary Death Eater whom she shouldn’t trust under any circumstances, Moody finally muttered, “Karkaroff. He’s also—”

“Yes, a Death Eater,” Mary said, frustrated. “Do you have any suspects who I haven’t already thought of? I was hoping that, as a Head Auror, you might be able to do something about the threat to my life that I, a teenage girl, could not, but I am beginning to think my confidence might have been displaced.”

Maybe she was being a bitch, but the way he was talking about Snape—the way he’d been treating him all term—was really starting to piss her off. Not to mention the way he acted towards the other Slytherins.

Moody narrowed his eyes at her. “You sound like Snape. Just how much time have you been spending with him, anyway?”

“Dark Powers, this conversation is a waste of my time.”

Mary could hardly believe she was speaking to a professor—well, a professor who wasn’t Snape or Remus—this way, but she’d actually dared to hope there might be one other adult in this bloody castle with a functioning brain between their ears and an understanding of just how much danger she was in, and instead, she got this rude old fool who was wasting his time investigating (or really, harassing) the one person who definitely didn’t want her dead.

She stood to leave, but Moody snapped, “Sit down, Potter. I am a professor, and you will address me with respect.”

Unable to stop herself, she replied, “Oh, my mistake. Given the way you were speaking about Professor Snape, I didn’t think you cared about that sort of thing.”

Moody stared at her for a moment, eye spinning in its socket as though to express his irritation. “You’re very loyal to him,” he finally said, a sort of dark, judgmental note in his voice.

“He’s my Head of House,” she said. “I think you’ll find, Professor, that we snakes look out for our own.” In other words, don’t fuck with my friends and expect me to play nice with you.

With a harsh laugh, he said, “Trust me, I know all about that.” Then, peering at her intently, he added, “You’re all Evans, aren’t you?”

“I’m afraid I wouldn’t know.”

“Well, I would,” he said. “I knew your parents, you know. Fought alongside them in the war.”

Was that supposed to make her like him any better? Pettigrew had known her parents too, and look how that had turned out. “Yes, I’ve heard,” she said flatly, giving him as little to work with as possible, letting the uncomfortable silence stretch on in the hopes he would finally get to the point.

Moody heaved a sigh. “We’ve gotten off on the wrong foot,” he grumbled. “I’m not your enemy, Potter. Your parents were great folks, and I hate seeing you put your trust in people who don’t have your best interests in mind.”

“I think I’ll be the judge of that.” For that matter, if he missed her parents so much, why was he avoiding Sirius? Then again, maybe dead people were easier to deal with than the living: you could remember them however you wanted. “Was there anything else, Professor? I was hoping to have time to eat lunch before my afternoon lessons.”

For a moment, Moody looked lost. Then he said, “I was just wondering if you knew how you were going to get past your dragon. Thought maybe you could use some help.”

She only barely restrained herself from rolling her eyes. “The task is tomorrow, Professor. Of course I have a plan. I’m not an idiot.” He still looked uncertain, so she stood, brushing out the wrinkles in her robes. “Thank you for your concern, but it’s unnecessary. Good day, Professor Moody.”

It was Snape, as her Head of House, who led Mary from the castle out to the tent on the day of the First Task. The two of them walked in silence over the grounds, Mary trailing half a step behind. Her nerves were calmed, somehow, by his presence, despite knowing that he would not be with her when she faced the dragon.

She had a strategy, at least. They’d come up with it together, with some input from Hermione. She just had to hope it would be enough… Going over the details of the plan in her head, Mary almost didn’t notice when the tent came into view through the trees and Snape came to a stop, nearly running into his back before she stopped as well. He turned to look at her, not yet moving to guide her into the tent, so she just returned his gaze, wondering what he was going to say.

Finally, his voice rather clipped, Snape told her, “You will be fine. You have prepared for this adequately.” From him, that was basically a ringing endorsement. Reaching out and setting one hand atop her shoulder, he added, “I will be very annoyed with you if you manage to get yourself killed after all the effort I put into helping you.”

“Wouldn’t want that,” Mary said, biting back a smile despite her fear. She kind of wanted to hug him, but she never had before and didn’t think she should start now, especially out in the open where someone might see them. Instead, she said, “I’ll be fine,” reassuring herself as much as him. “It’s just a dragon. No big deal.”

Looking pained, Snape muttered something under his breath that sounded rather like, “Just a fucking dragon, Dark Powers, I will burn this school to the ground.”

Mary wasn’t really sure how to say goodbye to Snape before marching off to what might be her doom. She felt somehow unsatisfied, like there was something more she needed to say or do, but couldn’t quite figure out what, if hugging was off the table. For a moment, they just stood there, looking at each other, his hand still resting on her shoulder.

Then she gave him a shaky smile, trying to look brave, and said, “Well, Theíos, I’ll see you on the other side.”

Inside the tent, she found Viktor, Diggory, and Delacour already waiting, and it occurred to her for the first time to wonder if they knew about the dragons. She hoped they did—it wasn’t like she really cared if she won, and she didn’t want to see any of them get burnt to a crisp after going in completely unprepared. But it was too late now. She was sure they’d all find out in a moment.

“Miss Potter!” Bagman said happily—at least she’d managed to teach him not to address her so familiarly. “Come in, come in, make yourself at home!”

Giving him a wary look, Mary crossed the tent to stand near Viktor. They hadn’t really talked since the Revel, but of her fellow champions, he was both the one she was on the best terms with and the most intimidating. Not that she thought Bagman would try anything here, even if he was working for the Dark Lord, but it made her feel a little better to have a big hulking eighteen-year-old wizard at her back.

She listened intently as Bagman began explaining the task to them, if without actually using the word ‘dragon.’ When he said they had to “collect the golden egg,” she breathed out a sigh of relief—some part of her had been a little afraid that Snape’s information would turn out to be wrong.

While there was no good way to have to face a dragon, stealing something from its horde seemed to Mary to be one of the least horrible options. It meant she wouldn’t need to directly confront the dragon, only get around it, and that it wouldn’t be attacking her or anything, at least until it noticed what she was up to. It was still terrifying, of course, but she’d had some time to get used to the idea. Besides, if there was one thing she was good at, it was stealing golden balls while someone tried to stop her. Hell, the egg wouldn’t even move. And really, a dragon was sort of just like a giant bludger… that could breathe fire…

Okay, the analogy fell apart a bit the more she thought about it. Still, she was feeling pretty good about her plan.

Bagman offered Mary the bag, saying, “Ladies first,” and she couldn’t help but wonder if it was a trick of some sort. Maybe she was being paranoid, but Delacour was a witch too. Then again, maybe he was just being nice to her because she was younger and smaller than the rest of them, and he felt bad she had to do this.

In any case, Mary reached into the bag and pulled out a figurine: a Chinese Fireball, along with the number three. Of the dragons Hermione had looked up for her, this one was one of the smaller breeds, at least. It was named for its rounded, mushroom-shaped fire. Mary thought, a bit absurdly, that maybe this was a good sign—she’d even pulled the dragon with bludger-shaped breath.

Next to her, Diggory inhaled sharply and said, “We have to face a dragon?!”

Well, that answered her question of whether he knew. She felt vaguely sorry for him—yes, he was three years older than her and had volunteered for this, but he was also a Hufflepuff. Sending one of those up against a dragon just felt… mean. (Then she remembered that Tonks had been a Hufflepuff too and decided to revise her opinion, because that witch was far from helpless.) At least Viktor and Delacour didn’t seem surprised. She might’ve felt guiltier if she was the only one who knew—Snape had made it sound like they’d all be cheating.

Once the rest of them had pulled out their dragons (a Swedish Short-Snout for Delacour, a Hungarian Horntail for Diggory, and a Welsh Green for Viktor), Bagman turned to her. “Miss Potter, could I have a quick word? Outside?”

Oh no. Not that she knew for sure he intended anything bad, just… she’d promised both Snape and Sirius that she wouldn’t be alone with Bagman, and she wouldn’t even if she hadn’t promised, because she wasn’t stupid. But he was a Ministry Director, and it would be rude of her to outright refuse him. She looked around in a panic, her eyes landing on Viktor.

He immediately stepped forward. “What is this about, Mr. Bagman?” he asked. “I hope you are not planning on offering her special help. That wouldn’t be very fair of you.”

“I—of course not,” Bagman stammered. “I just wanted to—well, that is…”

So, either he was planning on offering her help, or he actually was up to no good. Before he could come up with an excuse, though, a whistle blew. “Good lord, I’ve got to run!” he said, sprinting out of the tent, Delacour following.

“Thanks,” Mary said, turning to Viktor. She tried to keep her voice low, but even still, Diggory was shooting them a look that hovered between confused and suspicious, so she cast Muffliato. A moment later, the crowd erupted in noise at the sight of Delacour, further drowning them out.

“It seemed like you did not want to go with that man,” he said, shrugging.

“I didn’t,” she admitted. “I don’t know why, really, he’s just… too friendly. Creeps me out.”

“Do you think maybe he put your name in the Goblet?” Viktor asked, eyes widening in surprise.

Doing her best to ignore the screams and gasps of the crowd outside the tent, she said, “I don’t know. I’m just… being cautious. If you don’t mind, if he tries to pull me aside again…”

“I will help,” he said, giving her a firm nod of his head. For someone who looked so pissed off all the time, she thought, he was actually pretty nice.

Outside, Bagman shouted, “Good lord! That poor girl!”

Mary scowled and cast a charm to muffle the noise; she thought she’d have a better chance if she wasn’t too terrified to move or speak, and her only hope of avoiding that was not to think about the dragons at all.

Unfortunately, Viktor didn’t know that, because he asked, “Do you have a plan?” Then, quickly, he added, “I am not—I worry for you. You are very small.”

That actually got a small laugh from her. “Being small can be useful,” she said. “It makes me sneaky.”

Viktor didn’t look convinced. He examined her for a moment and said, “Be careful.”

“You, too.”

With that, he lapsed into his usual silence, so Mary canceled the spell and stepped off to the side, still trying to ignore the noises. She really wished she’d gone first; the longer she waited, the longer she had to listen to the other champions’ attempts, the more her tenuous confidence was slipping away.

Finally, Delacour seemed to get her egg, because the crowd broke out in applause. She caught Viktor’s eyes and nodded, as if to say ‘Good luck,’ and then he was gone and it was just her and Diggory.

They hadn’t said a word to each other since her name had come out of the Goblet. Not that they’d talked much at all before then—actually, she wasn’t sure if they ever had. She knew his little sister from the tea parties, and his mum was a friend of Mrs. Tonks and occasional collaborator of Emma’s, but Diggory himself, she barely knew. And given that he seemed to be encouraging the rest of his housemates in their vendetta against her, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know him.

Even now, he was giving her a suspicious look that set her on edge. “What were you and Krum talking about?”

“That’s private,” she said, not rudely, but not kindly either.

Diggory was silent for a moment before saying, “I just think that if two champions are going to team up, it would be us.”

Mary fought back a laugh. Given his general air of hostility, she didn’t think he really wanted to team up with her. He was just afraid that she and Viktor had made some sort of pact and left him out of it. She doubted he wanted to work with Delacour either, even though he’d been polite enough to her so far—his dad was the Director of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, and his uncle, the leader of Ars Brittania. Their family was known for being one of the most staunch anti-Creature Rights Houses. A Diggory, working with a veela? She couldn’t imagine that at all.

But she also couldn’t imagine him working with her. “I don’t think your housemates would approve of that. You’re the real Hogwarts champion, remember?”

“How did you get the Goblet to choose you?” he asked, instead of responding to her question.

Mary straightened her back, raising her chin haughtily. “If I were to ally myself with another champion,” she said coolly, “it would not be someone incapable of answering that question for himself.” In other words, I didn’t, you bloody moron.

Diggory just shook his head. He didn’t speak to her again for the rest of their time in the tent.

It made her feel a bit better, putting on what she was coming to think of as her Pureblood Ice Princess act. It was almost like she could stop being afraid by simply pretending to be someone who wasn’t. And it worked well to push away presumptuous arseholes like Moody, Bagman, and now Diggory. If he thought she was some sly, conniving bitch, she might as well act like one.

Mary spent her last moments adjusting the charm on her bun, making sure that her hair wasn’t going to come loose and get in her face. She’d finally put on the contacts that she’d gotten over the summer. She’d been too nervous to try them at first, but the last thing she needed was something happening to her glasses while she was dealing with, as Snape had put it, ‘a fucking dragon.’

(Her brain, absurdly enough, chose this moment to comment that Snape hadn’t said anything about the change in her appearance, despite having never seen her without her glasses before. She shook her head slightly to dispel the thought, annoyed that even at a moment like this, she was capable of being silly over him.)

Come on, Potter. Scary ice princess. You got this.

Finally, Mary was called out into the arena. The first thing that occurred to her, besides the noise of the crowd, was that the Chinese Fireball was actually quite beautiful. Like a snake, but even more regal and powerful. She’d never seen a full-grown dragon before, but a small part of her could almost understand why Hagrid had wanted one.

The plan she and Snape had come up with was really a series of plans, in order of increasing complexity. Plan A was to simply ask the dragon for the egg. Norbert hadn’t responded when Mary had spoken to her in Parsel, but the little dragon had seemed to find the sounds soothing, at least, and Mary was still holding out some hope that maybe Norbert had just been too young to respond coherently.

Of course, she called her broom to her hand before doing anything else—it wouldn’t do to get the dragon’s attention and not have a quick escape route. Besides, Plan B involved her broom, as did most of the other plans in the series. Snape had even taught her a better summoning charm than Accio—Aparicium was a NEWT-level charm, but then, so was the Patronus, and she’d been able to learn that last year. Aparicium worked kind of like apparation, Snape said, except instead of moving yourself to a place, you were moving something from that place to yourself.

The one downside was that, unlike Accio, you had to know exactly where the object was, and it didn’t work through barrier wards—but for today, all she’d had to do was leave her broom in the bushes right outside the castle and cast the charm, and the Firebolt was in her hand in an instant. A ripple of interest went up through the crowd; Bagman shouted something she didn’t bother listening to.

Once that was sorted, Mary stepped cautiously forward; the dragon coiled tighter around her clutch of eggs.

<Hello there,> Mary hissed, but she realized that she couldn’t quite raise her voice above the crowd while speaking Parsel, and she didn’t want to get too close. She cast an amplification charm on herself and tried again. <Hello there. You are very beautiful.>

From the crowd, she could hear an unsettled sort of murmuring. Bagman was saying some nonsense she only half-heard, his voice audibly shaking. Honestly. People were such bloody idiots sometimes. She knew the papers were going to have a field day with this, but, to hell with it.

Unfortunately, the dragon didn’t respond.

<Are you a Speaker?> Mary tried. <The last of your kind I met did not answer me either, but she was only a kit.>

Still nothing. Damn, and here she’d dared to hope this could be easy.

Well, just in case the dragon could understand her, even if it couldn’t respond, she added, <I do not mean any harm to you or your babies. One of your eggs is an imposter, snuck in among your clutch by humans. There is no hatchling inside of it. I only want to take it back.>

With that, she took to the air.

It wasn’t that much like a Quidditch match. Or, maybe it was, if she had been a chaser instead of a seeker, and the goal had been to get the quaffle out of the goal instead of into it, and the keeper weighed several tonnes and could potentially be lured away from their post.

Anyway, all of that was to say that the flying tactics Mary had been practicing with Lilian the past several weeks, in between her training with Snape, didn’t work quite as well as she’d hoped. She found herself having to fly way closer than she wanted to in order to try to lure the dragon away from the eggs; the Fireball seemed rather content to stay right where she was, paying little attention to Mary until she got close—at which point, of course, she let loose with her fire.

Mary was able to dodge it all so far, luckily, though it occasionally there was a narrow miss, especially as she got closer and closer. At least her strategy wasn’t a complete failure—the dragon was moving more with each approach, rising up onto her hind legs, flapping her wings, extending her neck to snap at her.

I need a better diversion, Mary thought. Plan C, then.

She wasn’t even sure how smart dragons were, or how easy it would be to trick one. Only magical snakes were able to hold a real conversation in Parsel; mundane serpents didn’t quite have the intelligence for it, though they could express simple thoughts. But she doubted that its inability to understand her meant the dragon was stupid. Probably, the species were simply too different. Still, she knew what the dragon wanted: to protect her eggs. And even intelligent creatures could lose their heads if you threatened something they cared for.

It would be hard to get the timing right, flying and casting at the same time. But after a few test dives, Mary managed to pull it off: she swooped in towards the Fireball, as close to the clutch of eggs as she dared, aiming her movements to put her just outside of the dragon’s line of sight for a split second. She cast the illusion in that moment, and when she pulled out of her dive, she looked to all the world as though she had one of the dragon’s real eggs, smooth and large and colored a red that darkened to black at the top, cradled under her arm.

There was a gasp of confusion from the crowd, and Bagman shouted, “She’s grabbed the wrong egg!”

Idiots, the lot of them. But she was certain that, somewhere out there in the crowd, Snape was smirking.

The Fireball let out an enraged screech and took off into the air.

Mary zoomed upwards on her Firebolt, rocketing up into the very clouds, remembering her first Quidditch game back in second year, when that crazy elf had set a bludger on her. She had gotten it to chase her up into the sky before abruptly reversing directions, and the bludger had overshot her by several meters when she’d turned. After that, it had just been a matter of getting closer than that to the ground, and she had sent the bludger crashing into the mud.

Now, she had to do roughly the same thing, except with a full-grown dragon at her heels, shooting balls of fire that she had to zigzag to avoid. No big deal. She was starting to think she shouldn’t have been so relieved that the Fireball was on the smaller side—like her, actually, that just made it faster. She had to push herself faster, fly higher, just to put enough distance between them to pull off the stunt.

They must have been up hundreds of feet when Mary turned her Firebolt on a dime—marveling, even now, at how well it responded—and went hurtling back down towards the earth. She dropped the illusion, now that the dragon could only see her back, racing as fast as she could towards the clutch of eggs. Closer, closer, years of training making the gold stand out in her vision unlike anything else, and then she was there, almost skimming the ground, snatching the egg up as she veered ninety degrees and flew parallel across the earth just as the dragon flared her wings behind her, stopping herself just short of crushing her eggs.

Of course, Mary had forgotten that back in second year, even after she’d caught the snitch and sent the bludger crashing to the ground, it had shot back up again and come down on her arm, breaking it. And now, just as triumph and relief overtook her, there was a burst of heat at her back. Mary changed direction, pulling back up skyward, and was able to avoid taking the fireball full on—but it still caught her on the back of the leg.

Snape had enchanted Mary’s dueling robes to be flame-retardant in advance of the task, because they weren’t idiots, but he’d warned her that protective enchantments could likely only do so well against dragonfire—and she could hardly show up in professional dragon-handling gear without making it obvious that she’d cheated. They’d hoped that it would be enough, especially for glancing blows, but this was not a glancing blow. The fire burnt right through the leg of her trousers, searing the flesh of her calf, and she screamed.

A second later, she was out of reach of the dragon, which had settled back down over its eggs, covering them with a protective wing, but the remaining bits of her trouser leg were still burning, and her calf was in agony.

Coming to a stop, Mary dropped the golden egg unceremoniously to the ground and frantically cast the charm to put out the flames, and another to lower the temperature inside the wound, topping it off with a jet of water from her wand. Because obviously the first thing she’d done upon learning she’d be facing a dragon was learn fifty different spells for putting out dragonfire and healing burn wounds (as well as bites, a skill she was very thankful not to need).

Some of her panic subsiding, Mary let out an inarticulate scream of anger, feeling a rush of hatred for every single person who had contributed to putting her in a position to be set on fire by a fucking dragon—who hadn’t even had the decency to provide her with protective equipment or any advanced warning. Fucking lunatics, I hate them, I ought to bloody set them on fire, Bagman and Crouch and fucking Dumbledore!

“Miss Potter,” someone said from behind her.

Before she realized what she was doing, Mary whirled around in midair and shrieked, “FUCK OFF.”

She realized a moment later that she was looking at Professors Snape and McGonagall. The latter looked shocked; the former, a mixture of angry and amused. She was pretty sure the anger was about her getting scorched, though, not about her language.

“Oh,” Mary said, some of her rage subsiding, her trained politeness reasserting itself. “Er, sorry, Professors.” It wasn’t their faults she’d gotten burned, even if Aunt Minnie had been less helpful than she would’ve liked.

“That’s alright,” her guardian said, still looking rather concerned. She seemed to overcome it a moment later, though, stepping forward like she wanted to hug her, but Mary, still flooded with adrenaline, flinched back, her broom responding to her intent and carrying her out of reach. “You did very well.”

“Let’s get you to the medical tent,” Snape said, and Mary flashed him a grateful look for not wasting any more of her time when her bloody leg still really fucking hurt. “Can you walk?”

“Er, probably not,” she said, “but I’ll just fly, it’s alright.”

“Come on, then,” he said, and she shot past Aunt Minnie. After a moment, she surpassed Snape as well, leaving him behind, not even thinking about how rude it was. He and McGonagall would want her to get medical treatment as quickly as possible, and she was faster than them on her broom.

Madam Pomfrey was waiting at the entrance to the medical tent, and her expression tightened when she saw Mary speeding up on her broom. “What happened?”

“Burned my leg,” Mary said shortly, figuring the Healer would appreciate directness. “Not sure I can walk.”

“Dragons!” she said disgustedly, holding the tent flap open and guiding Mary to an open bed. “Last year dementors, this year dragons, what are they going to bring to this school next? Oh dear, that’s a bad one.” That last comment was upon seeing the back of Mary’s calf. “I can save the flesh, but it might scar.”

Mary found she didn’t care. It wasn’t like she wasn’t already covered in scars, not just from the killing curse but from unicorns and thestrals and whatever Dark cutting curse Riddle had used to bleed her in the Chamber. As long as her leg would heal, she’d count herself lucky. Her charms out in the arena had only been a stopgap measure.

Madam Pomfrey continued muttering to herself as she worked, and through the pain, Mary found herself giving the Healer a speculative look. She’d never really realized how infuriating it must be to be the Hogwarts Healer, watching the Headmaster send the students into danger year after year. In the past, she’d found Madam Pomfrey a bit annoying, seeing her mostly as an overbearing figure who kept insisting on keeping her in the hospital wing long after she felt she was recovered enough to go back to her own room. But she now found herself feeling something like solidarity towards the matron.

Lowering her voice conspiratorially, Mary asked, “Do you ever just really hate this school?”

The Healer gave her a startled look, and for a moment, Mary thought she would be rebuffed, but then the corner of her mouth twitched, and she said, “More than you can possibly know. Days like this, I could strangle that Dumbledore with my own two hands.”

A moment later, as Madam Pomfrey finished slathering her leg in thick orange burn paste and bandaging it, the congenial atmosphere was interrupted by the sounds of a group of people approaching from outside, all talking at once. The tent flap opened again to reveal Hermione, Lilian, and Sirius.

Until this moment, Mary had almost forgotten that her godfather had been watching from the stands, and she noted with irritation that he looked excited. For all he said he was taking the threat to her life seriously, she’d gotten the feeling that secretly, part of him found the whole tournament rather exciting. Or, at least, he was sorry that she had to go through it, but kind of wished he was in her shoes. If it hadn’t been for the geas, she was pretty sure he would’ve gladly Polyjuiced into her and faced the dragon himself.

“That was bloody brilliant, Fawn!” he announced, grinning broadly, like now that she’d survived, he was allowed to stop pretending not to be excited. Mary glared at him.

“Yeah, except the part where my bloody leg got barbecued.”

Sirius looked a bit abashed at her irritation, hesitating as Hermione and Lilian approached her bed.

“I’m so glad you’re okay, Lizzie!” Lilian said, before launching into a mile-a-minute description of every single thing the rest of the champions had done. Mary only half listened, closing her eyes and leaning back against the pillows behind her. Madam Pomfrey had left, probably to check on her other patients again.

Slightly more subdued now, Sirius asked, “How are you feeling?”

“Burnt,” she said curtly. “And bloody pissed off.”

He snorted at that, and Mary tried to glare at him, but a moment later, she found herself laughing, too. What else could she do?

Then Snape billowed in through the entryway, egg under one arm—oops, she’d forgotten it in the arena—and unceremoniously pushed his way past the visitors to reach Mary’s bedside. Sirius looked like he wanted to snap at him for that, but before he could, Hermione said something to him, drawing him into conversation as if purposefully trying to distract him.

“Mary Elizabeth, report.”

With an amused huff at his curtness, she said, “My leg will be alright, but it might leave a scar.”

“No other injuries?”

“Nope.”

“Poppy!” he snapped, and Madam Pomfrey appeared a second later. “Is Miss Potter able to walk back out to hear her score?” He said it like he was hoping she would say no, like he didn’t think she should be on her feet.

“Absolutely not. If the Headmaster has a problem with that, he can take it up with me.”

Mary didn’t care all that much about hearing her score, but she didn’t want the crowd to think she had been broken, nor did she really fancy the idea of laying around here while people fussed over her. “I’ll fly back out, then,” she said. Snape opened his mouth to argue, but she added, “It’s fine.”

(Her brain took this opportunity to suggest that she add, “If you don’t like that plan, you can pick me up and carry me out there,” but she immediately dismissed the ludicrous thought. What was wrong with her?)

After more grumbling from Snape and Madam Pomfrey, Mary summoned her overrobe from where she’d left it in the other tent, pulling it on over her head. Fighting in just a dueling tunic and trousers was one thing, but she wasn’t used to being robe-less in front of people, except when she wore muggle clothes around the Grangers. It made her feel exposed.

Fully clothed again, she mounted her broom from the bed with help from Lilian, careful of her bandaged leg. She didn’t race ahead this time, but only floated alongside the group as they made their way back to the arena—her friends with Sirius, and, walking off to the side, separating himself as always, Snape.

Hermione was carrying the egg in her arms while Lilian and Sirius chattered away (“I really thought Delacour was done for!”), and Mary found herself feeling rather annoyed by their excitement. She just wasn’t really in the mood for talking, or being talked at. “I’m gonna just…” she muttered, not bothering to explain herself, because she’d just been burned by a fucking dragon. She could be a little rude if she wanted. And then she flew away from the rest of them, pulling up alongside Snape.

“Hey,” she said, unnecessarily, as she fell into place beside him, hovering in the air. It was strange, being at his eye level, not having to look up when she turned her head to talk to him.

“Hello, Mary Elizabeth,” he said quietly. He sounded very tired.

“I hate this,” she admitted, keeping her voice low so the others wouldn’t hear. “I just, I really hate it.”

“As do I.” He sighed. “If there was a way for me to spare you all of this…”

Mary knew that he would if he could. That had never been in question. “There’s not, though.”

“No. No, there is not.”

Mary came in second to Viktor, even though she’d been faster than him and he’d gotten some of the eggs smashed. (Which the dragon keepers looked rather upset about, Charlie Weasley included, but personally, Mary thought it was their own damn faults for agreeing to bring brooding mothers from a bloody endangered species to fight schoolchildren for sport. As Hermione always said, wizards hadn’t any sense at all.)

Allegedly, her low score was because she’d gotten singed and hadn’t been able to leave the arena under her own power. Personally, she thought it was just because Karkaroff was an arsehole, but whatever. It wasn’t like she bloody wanted to win.

Diggory came in last, having gotten hurt even worse than her—the whole side of his face and one of his arms were covered in the same paste and bandages that adorned her leg. Mary felt a twinge of guilt at that, knowing that he was the only champion who hadn’t known what was coming. Sure, he had entered the tournament on purpose, unlike her, but then, he was also a bloody Hufflepuff. He didn’t have anyone looking out for him, no one who had the guts to cheat. Professor Sprout would probably faint at the very thought.

When the scoring was over, Bagman called them back into the champions’ tent for another word. Mary left the egg with her friends, continuing to use her Firebolt as a sort of ad hoc wheelchair. She was supposed to go up to the hospital wing after dinner to have her leg looked at again and receive a second layer of burn paste—hopefully by then, she’d be able to walk on it.

Once Bagman was finished telling them about the second task (he’d seemed a bit concerned that she’d lost her egg already, the idiot), Viktor approached her and asked, “Want me to walk you back to the castle?”

Did she? She was in a terrible mood, but on the other hand, he wasn’t a super chatty person or anything, so she doubted he’d annoy her. And it would hopefully scare Bagman off if he was thinking of trying to catch her alone again.

“Yeah, alright,” she said. “I’ll be flying, though—can’t really put weight on my leg right now.”

Viktor nodded, but didn’t say anything, at least not until they were heading across the grounds, out of earshot from the other champions. Only then did he say, “You fly very well.”

“Thanks,” she said, trying to muster up a smile—it was difficult when she could still feel the pain throbbing through her calf, even with the potions she’d been given. But it meant a lot, coming from him. “I saw you at the World Cup, you know. You were great.”

Viktor just kind of grunted. He didn’t seem very good at taking compliments, she thought.

“If you want,” she added, “the Slytherin Quidditch team practices Tuesday nights between dinner and curfew, and Sunday mornings from eight till noon. You’re welcome to join us. Sometimes I go out on my own and practice my seeker moves, too.” Last year, she was sometimes joined by Draco or Envy Seran, but her tentative truce with Draco had been strained due to his behavior this year, and she hadn’t seen much of Envy recently. Still, she bet the older girl would join them if she got Krum to fly with her.

“I think I would like that.”

Just then, a witch in acid-green robes jumped out in front of them: that bint Rita Skeeter. Mary barely kept from rolling her eyes.

“Miss Potter!” she shouted. “Mr. Krum! A word!”

“No,” Viktor said flatly, walking a bit faster, and Mary smiled a little, but she found herself hesitating.

She knew, especially after her conversation with Aunt Minnie a few weeks ago, that she shouldn’t speak to the press. Her guardian, Catherine, even Snape, would tell her not to. But… she was just so angry, and she felt so bloody confined all of a sudden, all these rules that she had to follow even when she was being put in danger by everyone around her. Watching Viktor, how little he cared about his public persona, made her wish she could be more like that—that she could just say what she was really thinking.

So she slowed to a stop, watching Skeeter’s eyes widen in delight. Mary had been floating along at Viktor’s eye level, enjoying not being short for once, so the reporter had to crane her head back a bit to look up at her. Ahead of them, Viktor slowed to a stop and turned back, concern on his face.

“Congratulations, both of you!” Skeeter said. “Is there a reason you’re walking together?” Eyes sparkling in anticipation, she added, “Have you formed an alliance? Are you dating?”

Allowing herself to roll her eyes this time, Mary said, “We’re talking about Quidditch. Next question.”

Knowing Skeeter, she might put out a story saying that they were dating or something anyway, but Mary didn’t really care about that. Recovering from the disappointment, the reporter said, “Right, well… I wonder if you could give me a quick word? How you felt facing that dragon? How you feel now, about the fairness of the scoring?”

“Mostly,” Mary said, feeling a little lightheaded at what she was doing, “I feel that this school’s Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, is a deranged old fool who shouldn’t be allowed within fifty feet of a child. I was entered into this tournament without my consent, Mrs. Skeeter. As you may have noticed, I am fourteen, not even old enough to enter into a magically binding contract, but Headmaster Dumbledore brought an artifact into this school capable of forcing me into one, regardless of my age. And then sent me against a dragon without even providing me with basic protective gear, or more than a few minutes’ warning. If I had died today, it would have been on his head.”

She started to peel off, then thought better and added, “Oh, and as for the scoring: who gives a damn? Look at my leg.” Mary rotated in midair, peeling the bandages loose, and exposed her charred flesh to the reporter, prompting a disgusted, shocked noise—and the flash of the camera hanging around her neck.

Before Skeeter could say anything more, Mary tied the bandages off and flew away. She caught up to Viktor, who had started walking quickly again, the better to get out of Skeeter’s earshot.

“I do not think you should have said that,” he said, sounding worried, but also, maybe, a little impressed. “Will you not get in trouble?”

Mary glanced down at her bandaged calf. In her mind, she could still feel the pain of the dragonfire burning her flesh. “You know,” she said, “I really don’t care.”

Chapter Text

“ALBUS DUMBLEDORE ‘DERANGED OLD FOOL’ SAYS MARY POTTER” read the Prophet headline on Friday morning. Mary skimmed it, noting with mild surprise that Skeeter hadn’t even embellished her words, as she’d heard the reporter was prone to doing—but then, there’d been a witness, and anyway, Mary had given her quite enough to go on already. (There was a little tidbit at the end speculating about her and Viktor’s relationship, but she’d expected as much.)

What was more, they’d actually printed the photo. Over and over, in the pages of the Prophet, Mary turned on her broom, unraveled her bandages, and brandished her charred leg at the viewer.

All around the Slytherin table, people were giving her… looks. Not judgmental, exactly, but wary and curious, as if reevaluating their opinion of her. Between her performance in the task and her insulting Dumbledore to the press, she thought her reputation in the House might actually be improving. There’d been a party last night to celebrate her victory, but she’d only stayed for a short time, claiming exhaustion and hiding in her room. She just hadn’t been in the mood to deal with people—not to mention her leg had hurt enough that she was confined to the couch, which just made it easier for drunk idiots to corner her and drag her into conversation about the dragon.

She knew there was no helping the looks she was getting now, though. Unlike becoming a champion, she’d brought this on herself when she’d decided to speak to the press. So she kept her head up, despite the fact that she already regretted what she’d done—it was too late to take it back now, so she might as well own it.

The one plus side, she thought, was that her comments about Dumbledore had drowned out the story about her speaking Parsel to the dragon. She supposed that making her out to be a Dark witch would have contradicted the story Skeeter was trying to tell, where she was a poor innocent victim forced into danger by the Headmaster. Which was pretty much par for the course for Skeeter, seeing as everyone knew Lady Malfoy was backing her. And Mary, in her anger, had put herself right in the middle of the battle between the Chief Warlock and the leader of the Allied Dark… on the Allied Dark’s side.

Yeah, she might not have thought this one through.

From the High Table, many pairs of eyes bored into her. Not only the Headmaster’s, nor just Aunt Minnie, but almost every single professor or staff member was looking at her. Some, like Hagrid, looked angry. Others, like Professor Vector, looked almost approving. (And some, like Snape and Sinistra, were not looking at her only because they weren’t there, because it was morning and they were probably asleep.)

So, the question was… who was going to yell at her first?

The answer was Aunt Minnie. “Mary, I don’t even know what to say,” was how she began when they met that evening, sounding very tired. “Did you actually say those things to Skeeter? In front of Viktor Krum?”

Mary didn’t really know how to defend herself—there wasn’t anything she could say that would make her guardian understand how she felt, and she just plain didn’t want to grovel. “Yes, I did,” she admitted.

Aunt Minnie pressed her fingers to her temples the way Snape sometimes did. “I really thought you would know better than this,” she muttered.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Mary said, surprising herself with a rush of anger. She knew she’d been rash, but having Aunt Minnie get on her case about it still rankled. “Am I acting immature? It’s almost like I’m fourteen. What, I’m old enough to fight a dragon, but not old enough to make up my own mind about what to say to reporters?”

“You know I’m only looking out for you—”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t ask you to!” She shouldn’t be raising her voice like this to a professor, but then, she knew that the witch was Aunt Minnie right now, not Professor McGonagall. “Maybe you could try worrying less about my reputation, and more about the fact that someone is trying to kill me!”

Aunt Minnie opened her mouth, closed it again, took a deep breath. “We do not know,” she began slowly, “that anyone is trying to kill you. Jumping to the worst conclusions—no matter what Severus and Alastor say—will only needlessly frighten you.” Mary bristled—okay, to hell with it, she’d raise her voice all she wanted—but Aunt Minnie continued, “But you are… not entirely wrong.”

She blinked. “What?”

“You are not wrong… to be angry with the Headmaster.” Aunt Minnie looked at her from across the desk with troubled eyes. “In truth, I am angry with Albus as well. He promised me that the precautions he was taking would keep you safe, and yet—” She broke off, a sharp note of anger in her voice. “I spoke with him about it last night. Rest assured, Mary, I will be taking a closer look at the safety measures in place for the upcoming tasks.

“I can’t say I’m happy about your speaking to Skeeter, but I am not angry with you. I’m… concerned, that is all. As you say, you’re under a great deal of stress—more than anyone your age should be—and can be forgiven for acting out. I am only trying to stop you from making things worse for yourself. You have enough to worry about without drawing the attention of a vulture like Skeeter.”

Mary wasn’t even sure how she felt; it was all a big tangle in her chest. Anger, that Aunt Minnie still wasn’t taking the threat to her life seriously. Relief, that she was, at least, taking Mary’s side instead of Dumbledore’s. Resignation, because she didn’t believe that any ‘safety measures’ they might put into place would be enough to protect her. Grudging understanding, because the words Aunt Minnie said… didn’t not make sense.

Besides all that, she suddenly found herself exhausted, not even wanting to yell. It wasn’t like it would do any good.

“I’ll tell you what,” she finally said. “If I make it through this tournament alive, then I’ll worry about my public image. I’ll even let you and Miss Catherine hold a press conference.”

“Mary, that’s not funny,” Aunt Minnie said sharply, but Mary just shrugged.

Wasn’t meant to be.

Mary had hoped that that rather mild scolding would be the end of it, but life had other plans, because later that very weekend, she was summoned to Snape’s office and informed, “The Headmaster wishes to speak with you tonight.”

That was… probably not good. Her first question, though, was: “Why are you telling me that?”

“Sit down,” Snape said, so she did, limping her way to one of the armchairs by the fire. Her leg had healed enough to walk on after the first day, but it wasn’t fully better yet—dragonfire was worse than regular fire, and she’d gotten scorched pretty badly.

Once she was seated, he continued, “I assume you have noticed that Dumbledore’s attempts to speak with you have decreased in frequency.”

Mary had just been thinking about that the other day. The last time she’d talked to the Headmaster had been all the way back in June, with Snape, after they’d chased away the dementors. She hadn’t spoken to him alone since April the year before, when she’d come out of the Chamber, and he’d asked if he could legilimize her to see what had happened. (She’d declined, and asked for Snape to do it instead.)

“Well, yes.”

“Dumbledore… has come to the conclusion that it is best for everyone if he keeps his distance from you.” She wondered idly if he’d told Snape that, or if Snape had legilimized him. “You clearly do not trust him, and your interactions have never been, shall we say, productive.”

Mary considered this for a moment. Honestly, she hadn’t given too much thought to why she hadn’t talked to Dumbledore alone in years, why he had stopped doing things like finding her in that mirror room in the middle of the night back in first year and speaking in riddles. After all, he was the Headmaster, and busy enough that it had seemed more unusual for him to make time to regularly speak with a student. But based on what Snape was saying…

“He’s given up on me,” she concluded. “Or, I mean, when I first got here, he thought… he thought I’d be the Girl Who Lived, and I’d listen to him and make public appearances with him and make him look good. He thought I’d trust him. But I don’t, and he’s realized that he can’t, I don’t know, charm me into liking him, so he’s just leaving me alone.”

“Yes,” Snape said. “Or, no, not entirely. He is leaving you to me. The Headmaster knows that you trust me, and he… relies on me, and trusts the control he has over me, if nothing else. He has decided it is best for everyone if I handle you for him, so to speak.”

“Oh.” She frowned. “Do you… report on me to him, or something?” She didn’t ask this angrily, though, or even suspiciously. Snape had promised not to tell Dumbledore about her dream, and she’d believed him. She knew that Snape kept secrets from the Headmaster, not only hers but his own as well.

Sure enough, Snape said, “Enough to assure him that I have the situation in hand. Nothing that would compromise our… secrets.” Mary knew that he meant not only her dreams, but her family heritage, and everything with Sirius and Pettigrew, and all the other little conspiracies that they’d built up between them over the years. “In the meantime, he is concentrating his efforts on Longbottom.”

“You mean he’s…” What was the word for it?

Snape seemed to know what she meant. “Grooming Longbottom for the role he envisions for him in the war to come, just as he had hoped to do with you? Yes.”

Wait, did that mean… “Does Neville know about the prophecy, then?” And about who Dumbledore thought it was about.

“No. He only knows that his kindly old Headmaster has taken an interest in him. They have tea, occasionally. Dumbledore is hoping that gentle encouragement may improve Longbottom’s confidence.” He snorted to himself, making it clear what he thought about the prospect of that.

Mary didn’t think she liked the sound of that. Compared to her, Neville was… well, kind of naive, and vulnerable to anyone who treated him like he was actually worth something. Just look at how he’d reacted to finding out Mary considered him a friend, or how he followed Gin and her brother around like a puppy. Should she warn him? But she wasn’t sure there was a way to do so without revealing to Dumbledore what Snape had told her.

Anyway, she probably shouldn’t be thinking about Neville right now. She had problems of her own to worry about. “So, Dumbledore asked you to ask me to meet with him because… you’re meant to be handling me?” She inhaled sharply as she put it together. “And I went and badmouthed him to Skeeter, so he thinks you’re doing a bad job?” If she’d realized Dumbledore would take it out on Snape, she never would have—

“Not precisely,” Snape said. “There is no cause for alarm yet. The Headmaster… believes that he understands why you would be angry, and why you might say something inflammatory in a fit of temper. Your comment was inconvenient for him, yes, but it has not made him suspicious. In fact, I have the strong impression that it has improved his opinion of you.”

Wait, what? How could calling him a ‘deranged old fool’ to the press make Dumbledore like her more? “What do you mean?”

“I have told you before that the Headmaster finds you… unnerving because of your similarities to a young Tom Riddle. In addition, he has thought more than once that you are rather like Lady Malfoy at your age. He finds it… unnatural for a child to be so stiff and formal.” Okay, that definitely sounded like he was reading the Headmaster’s mind. “The fact that you do not have your emotions under control is, in fact, a point in your favor. While both Riddle and Lady Malfoy are prone to viciousness when provoked, both are controlled, and already were by the time they were your age. Neither would have spoken without thinking first of the consequences.”

So… what Mary had done was kind of stupid and shortsighted—after all, she and Snape had talked about how she couldn’t just get Dumbledore sacked without causing a bunch of new problems, and anyway, if she made a political enemy out of the Chief Warlock at her age, he’d probably crush her—but that was maybe a good thing? Because it made her look more… normal? Less like a spooky little Dark Lord knockoff, and more like an actual teenager.

Honestly, she thought it should have been obvious from the start that she wasn’t really that much like Riddle or Lady Malfoy. She could act all proper, Catherine and Aunt Minnie had seen to that, but it didn’t come naturally to her. It was something she had to work at. Hell, Aunt Minnie could have told the Headmaster that—how often did she complain about Mary losing her temper, or otherwise forgetting to be a perfect little lady?

Anyway, “So, does that mean he’s not going to yell at me?” Not that she could really picture the Headmaster yelling at anyone in the first place, but…

“No, he is planning to sympathize with you,” Snape said, the tone of his voice making it clear that he considered this a far worse fate.

Mary wrinkled her nose. “Do I have to?” Then, with a grin, she added, “Wait, can I yell at him? That would be dumb and teenager-y of me.”

“I’m afraid not.” Damn. Not that she’d really expected Snape to say yes, but, well, it was worth a try. “In fact, it would be for the best if you apologized to him.” Seeing the look on her face, he added, “I will not force you to, but it would help to reassure him that I still have you… under control.”

“But isn’t it bad if I’m too controlled? Won’t that just make him think of Riddle?” She knew she was grasping at straws—really, she just didn’t want to.

Snape shook his head slightly. “Riddle would not have spoken without thinking, but he also would not apologize. Not to the Headmaster. His pride would not allow him to lose, even if it served his interests.”

“That’s what you want me to do, though,” she said glumly. “Lose.” The idea of apologizing to Dumbledore when she was still limping from the bloody dragon he’d set her up against was just unbearable. Letting him feel all superior—think she was just some dumb, irrational teenager, like she didn’t have good reasons to blame him…

Snape settled back in his chair, looking at her for a long moment. “The last time we discussed this, you agreed that it wasn’t in your best interests to go provoking the Headmaster at the moment. Have you changed your mind?”

Leave it to Snape to cut right through her. “Well—I… He deserves it,” she finally said.

“He does,” he agreed. His gaze on her was steady but too perceptive, and she found herself wanting to look away. “But that is irrelevant. Is it in your best interests?”

She knew what he was getting at. Slytherins picked their battles. Slytherins didn’t lash out just because they were angry and cause more problems for themselves. But it—all of it—made her feel like she was trapped in a cage, screaming to get out. “No,” she finally admitted.

“Trust me, Mary Elizabeth: I sympathize with your anger towards the Headmaster. But just as you would not attempt to take on the Dark Lord in a duel at your current skill level, you are not prepared to start a political feud with the Chief Warlock before you even come into your position on the Wizengamot. If you wish to make an enemy of Dumbledore, you will need resources and support that you currently lack. Pick your battles. Allow him to believe he has won.”

Mary scowled; she hated when he was right. Which, unfortunately for her, was basically always. “It’s just so stupid that this is what I have to be worried about, after the dragon,” she grumbled. “So I said something rude about him to Skeeter. It’s hardly life or death.”

“It’s not,” Snape agreed. “But if you get in the habit of allowing yourself to act reactively, without thinking, when you are angry, then when the situation is life-and-death, it will not turn out well for you.

“You are not wrong that you are in a very unfair position, and that you are being exposed to both dangers and responsibilities that someone your age should not be facing. I will not hold it against you for acting your age. I only worry because the rest of the world—the Dark Lord, the public, all of your enemies—will not go any easier on you simply because you are fourteen, and will not hesitate to use against you any mistakes that you make.”

That was actually very similar to what Aunt Minnie had said, and yet, somehow, it was a lot easier to swallow coming from Snape than from her. Mary scowled again. “I know,” she admitted. “I just hate the idea of apologizing to him. I want him to feel bad for letting this happen to me. Acting like I don’t—”

“Is just that: an act,” he said smoothly. “And a necessary one. Showing your true feelings, losing your temper, allowing yourself to be drawn into arguments—these things should be reserved for those you trust. People who might listen and change their behavior, rather than simply using your feelings against you. Do you think that I allow myself to explode at the Headmaster every time he is being a fool? No. I tell him what he wants to hear, and then I find a way around the obstacle that he presents.”

“But you do yell at him, don’t you?” she couldn’t help but point out.

“Yes, sometimes, but I am useful to him. He permits me certain liberties, so long as he trusts that he can control me in the end. You will note, however, that I do my yelling at him in private. If I began to cause problems for him, in the political realm or otherwise, he would be much less forgiving.”

“And… he’ll forgive me losing my temper, but only if he thinks he can control me,” Mary said, following the thread of his logic. “Or that you can control me for him.”

“Precisely. We have been allowed a great deal of privacy as Dumbledore has turned his attention away from you and onto Longbottom. We were able to hide our dealings with Black and Pettigrew right under his nose, and he does not look too closely at what I am teaching you in our meeting together. Do you wish for this to continue, or do you want the Headmaster watching your every move, just waiting for you to betray him? Trust me,” he added with a grimace, “it is not a comfortable position to be in. It took years for him to allow even this much slack to the leash on which he keeps me.”

That sobered Mary, reminded her that she wasn’t the only one at risk. If Dumbledore stopped trusting her, that might make him suspicious of Snape, too. “I… want things to continue,” she admitted. “I’ll, I’ll say what I need to say to get him off our backs.” And yet, she was still angry—couldn’t help being. It just, it wasn’t fair. She should be allowed to be angry with the person who’d nearly gotten her killed, to speak without a team of people telling her what she could or couldn’t say.

“I hate this,” she muttered under her breath, even though part of her was embarrassed at her own immaturity, knowing that she’d gotten herself into this situation. “I almost prefer the Dark Lord—at least I don’t have to play nice with him! All he wants is to kill me.”

Snape smirked at that. She thought he was going to tell her how stupid she was for thinking that, but instead, he said, “There is a certain simplicity to combat which politics lacks. Speaking of, I have a surprise for you which may raise your spirits.”

“Oh?” Mary looked at him expectantly, but he shook his head.

“You will apologize to Dumbledore first. Think of it as incentive.”

“Ah, Miss Potter,” Dumbledore said when Mary entered his office. His voice was friendly, but his eyes, she thought, were not. Not unfriendly, either, just… sharp. “Right on time.”

It was the third occasion Mary had ever been in the Headmaster’s office, and the first that she’d been there alone, without Snape or Lilian as a buffer. She felt almost like a spy walking into enemy territory. Like Snape, she thought, which grounded her. I just have to be more like Snape.

She knew what she had to do, and she wanted to get it over with, rather than sit through an interminable chat in which he tried, as Snape had said he would, to ‘sympathize’ with her. Stepping forward with her back straight and her hands clasped together, looking directly between Dumbledore’s eyes so that he wouldn’t notice her avoiding eye contact, she said, “I wish to apologize to you, Professor, for the comment I made about you to Rita Skeeter, and for my behavior on Samhain. I have since come to realize that it was unfair of me to place the blame for my situation on you.”

Could he tell she was lying? Probably, she thought. But what else could she do? He didn’t need to think her sincere—only cowed. Taking in a slow, steady breath, she continued, “I was frightened, sir, over the danger that I would be facing in this tournament, especially after my leg was burned. For that reason, I lashed out. It was immature and short-sighted of me, and had I realized the potential consequences, I would not have done it.” That was true, or mostly true. “I apologize for my actions towards you.”

And then—oh, she didn’t want to say it, didn’t want to give him the power over her it would imply, but she meant to do this properly, and Snape had said he was unlikely to take her up on it, so she added, “If there is anything I may do to right the imbalance between us, I beg you, speak.”

For a moment, Dumbledore fixed her with that uncomfortably sharp stare, and she fought the urge to hold her breath—but then his face softened slightly. “There is no need for all that with me, Miss Potter,” he said. “I’m not angry with you. I understand why you did what you did. That is, in fact, what I asked you here to tell you—and to ask if there is anything that I can do for you, as your Headmaster, to make you feel safer in this castle.”

Right, the Headmaster had never seemed to like it when she put on her formal manners. And now she knew why: he thought it was ‘unnatural,’ according to Snape. But there were ways to soften that impression—letting him see a glimpse of the real person beneath the formality. Or, at least, something that looked real. Snape had told her to think not about what she wanted to say, or how she wanted to act, but instead about what she wanted the Headmaster to think of her.

“Sorry, sir, but I’m afraid it’s a reflex at this point,” she said, with a small, self-deprecating smile. “Professor McGonagall—and my tutor, Miss Catherine—wouldn’t be very happy with me if I made a halfhearted apology to my own Headmaster.”

Dumbledore examined her for a moment before smiling back, which she thought was an encouraging sign. Just when she was starting to hope that he might accept her apology and let her leave, though, he said, “Why don’t you sit down and have a cup of tea with me?”

Mary really didn’t want to do that, but Snape was right: she didn’t trust Dumbledore, which meant she had to keep her act up. Anyway, even if he could tell she was faking, the important part was that he felt she’d obey him. “Thank you, Headmaster,” she said.

Reluctantly, she took a seat in front of his enormous desk, accepting the proffered teacup and pouring as much milk into it as she could without being completely rude. The whole time, Dumbledore just watched her, sitting there quietly with that phoenix of his on its perch behind him. She suddenly remembered Snape telling her that one way he’d known she’d taken part in a Dark ritual down in the Chamber of Secrets had been that she’d flinched at Fawkes in the hospital wing after emerging—phoenix song was painful to Dark witches and wizards.

“I apologize that I haven’t taken the time to speak with you since your name was pulled from the Goblet,” Dumbledore began, once she’d finished preparing her tea. “I confess, I rather had the feeling that I would just make things worse.”

Mary wasn’t sure what to say to that. This was why she liked the formal pureblood manners, sometimes, no matter what a pain they were: because people didn’t just go around saying, ‘So, I’ve noticed you hate me’ and then expecting her to respond to that. She’d really been banking on this whole thing staying subtext.

“That’s alright,” she finally said.

“Severus tells me you are under a great deal of stress,” he added. “Not only from this tournament, but from the aftermath of the World Cup. You are keenly aware, I suppose, that if Lord Voldemort returns, your life will be in danger.”

Er, yes? But why was he talking to her about this?

“I know you don’t have the best opinion of me, Mary,” Dumbledore continued, and she had to fight not to show her irritation at his familiarity. “But I hope you understand that we are on the same side. Neither of us want to see Lord Voldemort return, correct?”

“Yes,” she admitted.

“We have not always understood each other in the past,” he said. He really liked to talk, didn’t he? “And I know that some of your… friends might have told you things which have made you think quite badly of me. I am not very popular among certain sections of the student body, or with their families. But if Lord Voldemort returns, it will be important for all of us to put aside our differences and focus on our common enemy.”

In other words, she thought, ‘Don’t undermine my political position and take up with the Allied Dark, because you’re going to need me soon.’ Which, well, he wasn’t wrong. Unfortunately.

“I agree, sir.”

“You really don’t need to be so formal with me,” he insisted again, his eyes twinkling a bit, as though teasing her. “I promise I’m nowhere near as particular as Minerva about that sort of thing. And, if it puts you at ease, I thought that ‘deranged old fool’ was a rather nice turn of phrase. I always like a bit of poetry in my insults.”

Well. How the hell was she meant to respond to that?

Mary was silent long enough that Dumbledore smiled to himself and said, “Well, if it makes you more comfortable, you can continue with the formality.”

“I… am trying to show respect,” she said carefully, which was kind of true. With people she really respected and trusted, like Snape, she didn’t act this way. But Dumbledore was an authority figure that she’d pissed off, and the Urquharts had taught her a certain way of interacting with people like that. Besides, if she let herself speak informally with him, it would be hard for her to keep from showing her true feelings.

“I appreciate that,” he said, though she thought there was a hint of irony in his tone. “Well, Miss Potter, you clearly want to leave my office as soon as possible, and I won’t keep you much longer. I only hope you know that myself, Minerva, Alastor, and Severus are taking the matter of your safety very seriously, and that if you have any concerns, or anything at all that you need help with, you should always feel free to come to me.”

“I know,” she lied, rather than ask how the events of Thursday afternoon equated to him taking her safety seriously. “I will.”

“And,” he added, looking somewhere between amused and sad, “in the event that you don’t feel comfortable coming to me, I hope that you will at least speak to Minerva or Severus. There are dark days ahead, my dear, and we will all need each other.”

This conversation was getting really awkward. “Okay, I will,” Mary said, and she meant that, at least.

As she was on her way out the door, Dumbledore stopped her. “Thank you for coming to speak with me, Miss Potter.”

“…You’re welcome,” she said. “Thanks for the tea.”

What a weird old man, Mary thought to herself as she headed down the stairs. And yet, despite his complete refusal to accept responsibility for her burns, or for her being in this bloody tournament to begin with, it was somehow one of the better interactions she’d had with him. Reading between the lines, it seemed like they were both on board with the whole, ‘Mary likes Snape and McGonagall better than Dumbledore, so let’s keep using them as intermediaries’ thing, which was about the best she could hope for.

And now, she’d get Snape’s reward—whatever it was he had planned. Yeah, she decided. She could live with this.

The surprise turned out to be twofold. First, Snape presented her with a box, informing her that it was an ‘early Christmas present.’ Mary opened it to discover a gorgeous new set of dueling robes to replace the ones which had been burnt, complete with a full set of protective enchantments (ones which could be suspended in the case of official duels, which didn’t allow for that sort of thing).

Next, once she’d ducked into a loo to change—the robes fit perfectly, which made her blush like an idiot, wondering just how Snape had known her measurements—and thrown her overrobe on over the dueling kit, he Disillusioned her and led her off down a corridor she’d never once entered, and from there into the dungeon tunnels. This led them, after about fifteen minutes of walking, to an empty dueling arena.

“This room does not appear to have been used since before I was a student here,” Snape said. “I have spent the past several weeks testing and strengthening the wards; you could probably invoke the Black Arts in this room without it coming to the Headmaster’s attention, though I would prefer that you did not put that to the test.

“Now that you are past the dragon, and have several months before the next task, I thought that I might begin training you in battlemagic. It may come in useful in the upcoming tasks, but, more importantly, you should be prepared to defend yourself should the Dark Lord or his followers make a move.”

Mary nodded eagerly. Even if she didn’t really believe she could become a strong enough battlemage in a few months to take on Death Eaters, it was better than doing nothing. And at least right now, with her leg mostly healed, she was itching to do something physical, to curse something, rather than playing the polite little society girl that everyone seemed to want her to be.

“I had intended to begin with theory,” Snape said, smirking at the look of dismay on her face, “but something tells me that today, you would rather an… active lesson.”

“Yes please,” she said, not even trying to hide how little she wanted a lecture right now.

Snape conjured a piece of chalk and directed it to draw a circle around his feet a little less than a meter in diameter. “This is a training exercise that the Blackheart was fond of. Your goal is simple: force me to step out of the circle by any means necessary. You may use any spell in your repertoire; you may use physical force; and if you think yourself capable of it, you can even try legilimency. Bellatrix would typically fight back, but given that you are just starting out, I will restrain myself to defensive spells only.”

That didn’t really sound fair at all, but Mary supposed that was the point: Snape was so far beyond her in battlemagic that this was pretty much the only way to give her a chance of not being knocked on her arse in the first two seconds.

“What about Unforgivables?” she asked, and he raised an eyebrow. “Not that I know any—though Moody did demonstrate the wand movements in class. I’m just saying, if anything goes…”

“Bellatrix allowed the use of Unforgivables during the exercise,” he admitted. “For now, I will ask you to refrain, as your wand is still under the Trace.” What did he mean, ‘for now’? Before she could ask, though, he added, “Any other questions?”

“Er… what if I hurt you and don’t know how to heal it?”

“You won’t,” Snape said, a hint of smugness in his voice. She would have been insulted about him assuming there was no way she could manage to hurt him, but honestly, he was probably right.

With no more questions, all that was left to do was to remove her overrobe and begin. She wasn’t sure why she felt awkward about it—he’d seen her in dueling robes before, including at the first task less than a week ago. The tunic and pants covered everything that was normally covered by her robes. It was just… It felt like she was undressing in front of Snape, and that made her face heat up, no matter how much she tried not to think about it.

You’re an idiot, Mary. Focus on learning not to die, not your stupid crush.

Finally, though, she was ready, decked out in her fancy new dueling kit and settled into a fighting stance, wand in hand. Snape was holding his wand too, but he wasn’t in a proper stance or anything, just kind of standing casually in the middle of the circle.

“Well,” he said. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Mary attacked.

Snape did not step out of the circle, no matter what she did. Without him fighting back, she was able to try for over half an hour before becoming too exhausted to keep fighting, and yet, he didn’t even seem to have broken a sweat. It was like flinging herself at an immovable wall.

“Merlin and Morgan,” she swore, dropping down to sit on the floor, panting—fuck her manners. “I’m completely doomed, aren’t I?” She couldn’t even win against an ex-Death Eater who wasn’t even attacking her!

A glass of water appeared next to her, and she looked up to see Snape leaning over to hand it to her, probably having conjured it. “You are not doomed,” he said. “This is day one.”

“I’ve been in Dueling Club over a year,” she grumbled, though she accepted the water and took a long gulp.

“Dueling is not battlemagic,” Snape said. “Dueling is a sport. Which is not to say that your experience is useless, but only in the same way that your experience playing Quidditch was useful when you had to out-fly a dragon.”

“Yeah, and that worked out well for me.” Part of the reason she’d done so terribly at their little game was probably that her leg still wasn’t entirely healed—or maybe she just wanted to believe that.

“You survived,” he said firmly. “Now, give me your wand.”

“My wand?” Mary asked, but even as she spoke, she obeyed, placing it into his hand. Snape summoned the bag which he had brought with them from beside the door and began pulling out what looked to be ritual implements. “What are you doing?”

“Just a bit of low ritual, while we’re within these wards,” he explained, not looking up. “It will only take about ten minutes.”

“What will?”

“Removing the Trace from your wand.”

“What?”

Snape looked up then, pausing his preparations for whatever he was about to do. “If you are put in a situation in which you have to defend yourself, I do not want you to waste any time worrying about whether you will be expelled or arrested for it,” he explained. “But I need you to promise me that you will only use magic outside of school, or magical settlements, if your life is in immediate danger.”

“I—of course,” Mary said, a little stunned both that Snape was helping her break the law and that he thought she was trustworthy enough for this, especially after their long conversation on Saturday about how she’d impulsively insulted one of the most powerful people in Magical Britain while being a stupid teenager. “I promise.”

“And you will not tell anyone that I’ve done this. Not Miss Moon or Miss Granger, not Minerva, and definitely not Black.”

“I won’t, I definitely won’t,” she said, still staring at him. “Thank you.”

“You can thank me by not getting me arrested for this,” he muttered. “Now, quiet, I need to work.”

While she’d meant to do so right away, between her injury and all the fuss with Dumbledore, and then Snape’s little training game, it had taken several days for her to remember to actually open the egg she’d taken from the dragon. With it being three months away, the second task didn’t really feature heavily in her thoughts, especially not with Snape deciding to begin teaching her battlemagic. But even if she didn’t need three whole months to prepare, it would be best to at least get an idea of what she’d be dealing with as soon as possible.

Opening the egg in her room, however, didn’t give her anything but a headache, so her next step was to bring it to Snape, hoping he’d know what to do with it. If he didn’t, she wasn’t sure what she’d do—ask Hermione, maybe.

Luckily, once he was finished wincing at the horrible screeching which ensued each time she opened the egg, Snape immediately informed her, “The clue is in Mermish.”

“Mermish?”

“The language spoken by merfolk.”

“Oh. Wait, why do you know what Mermish sounds like?” she asked.

With a deeply pained expression, Snape said, “Both the Headmaster and Bellatrix happen to be fluent in it.”

Mary had a mental image of Dumbledore and Bellatrix Lestrange sitting on rocks in the ocean, screeching back and forth at each other. No wonder Snape had that expression on his face.

“Too bad you don’t speak it,” she said. That would certainly make things a lot easier. Even if the Headmaster didn’t hate her after all, he still seemed unlikely to translate her clue for her, and it was hardly as though she could somehow track the Blackheart down just to ask her for help with it.

Snape, however, didn’t look discouraged. “Mermish is understandable to non-speakers underwater,” he told her. “It is mediated with mind magic, similarly to how Parsel is automatically understandable to Parselmouths. With me.”

Snape led Mary out of his office and down the hall to the Potions classroom, and from there through the apparent cabinet which hid the entrance to his private lab. Once inside, he filled a large pewter cauldron with water from some charm—not Augamenti, the jet of water was too strong for that, but he’d cast silently, so she wasn’t sure what it was.

Taking the egg from her, Snape placed it into the water, which rose to about ten centimeters under the rim. “Place one ear into the water,” he instructed her, “and open the egg.”

Mary felt very silly dipping the side of her face into a cauldron of water in Snape’s lab, and she wondered briefly if he was making her do it this way just to amuse himself, but she did want to find out what the clue was, so she did as instructed. Holding her braid out of the way as best she could, Mary dipped her ear into the water, fumbled the egg open, and listened to the song.

“Right,” she said, straightening up and accepting the towel Snape conjured to blot the side of her head dry. “They’re going to take something of mine, give it to some merfolk, and give me an hour to get it back from them. Are there merfolk in the lake?”

“An entire village of them,” Snape confirmed. “That is almost certainly where the next task will be held.” Then, noticing Mary’s expression, the way all the color seemed to drain from her face at once, he asked, “What is the matter?”

“…I don’t know how to swim.”