Chapter Text
Harry lets out a long breath, relaxing back into his seat on the train. Ron glances at him from the seat opposite him. He raises an eyebrow questionably, but Harry just gives him a tired smile. He nods in understanding, going back to his chocolate frog cards. Afterall, Ron’s tired too. So’s Hermione, although she is currently burying her nose in a book beside Harry. They’re all tired; it’s been a long two weeks.
The Quidditch World Cup. The Death Eaters. Everything else.
So much for a quiet year, Harry thinks, tilting his head to look out the window. And we haven’t even gotten to school yet. I haven’t even told them about the box.
The box in question was discovered by Harry in the Dursley’s attic over the summer. It was the morning that the Weasley’s were arriving to pick him up, and he had been allowed permission to get an old backpack from the attic. The backpack ended up being mouldy and the zipper would stick, although Mr Weasley did some spells on it to make it better, but Harry wasn’t surprised by the state it was in. Why else would they allow him to have it?
It was as he was searching for the bag that he came across a small wooden box with painted flowers decorating the lid, and the initials ‘L. J. E.’ in swirly, gold lettering in the centre. His curiosity got the better of him, and he peaked inside – surprised to find that it wasn’t locked, or in one of the cardboard boxes like the other things in the attic.
The box is his mother’s.
He had barely enough time to register that fact before Aunt Petunia’s shrill voice called out to him to get moving because they would be there soon. He had shoved the box into the backpack (which was how he discovered that not only was the bag disgusting on the inside, as well, but that the zipper sucked too) and fled the attic before he could change his mind. He wasn’t able to get a good look in the box until after the Cup fiasco, and has still yet to have a moment alone with Ron and Hermione to mention it. Even now, on the train, Neville, Ginny and Luna are with them. They’re his friends too, yes, but this is about his mum, and Ron and Hermione are his best friends. He wants to tell them alone. Together. He wants them to know. To help him. He can’t figure it out without them, that’s for damn sure.
And there is plenty to figure out. Starting with that book.
“Do you suppose that the dabberblimps are disheartened by the stormy weather?” Luna suddenly asks, breaking the silence that has enveloped them since Neville drifted off twenty minutes earlier, his head propped against the window, and his breath fogging the glass with every exhale. “Or do you think the heliopaths have removed their webs again?”
“What?” Ron asks, a tad rudely.
Ginny shoves her elbow harshly into his side and he yelps, before chucking the small pile of cards he collected from throughout the train journey at her in retaliation. The cards are from everyone else’s chocolate frogs, since no one else collects them aside from Ron, although Harry still has his first card, the one of Headmaster Dumbledore, in his trunk. Most of them fall to the floor, but the few that land on her she scoops up and throws back, right into Ron’s face.
“Are heliopaths like nargles?” Harry asks, leaning forward to see Luna past Hermione. He hears her let out an annoyed huff, but Luna doesn’t seem to notice, her gaze directed to a random point on the ceiling. “Do they steal your shoes too?”
“They are much more averse to borrowing and forgetting than simply stealing.” Luna says, her gaze still on the ceiling. “But they cannot be deterred by cork.”
That doesn’t really answer Harry’s question, and has noticeably confused the rest of the compartment – sans Neville, who is still sleeping – but Luna shuts her eyes and starts humming under her breath, clearly content to let the confusing conversation fester around them, so Harry leaves it be.
He sends Ron a sharp glare when he twirls his index finger in a circle beside his temple, head tilted towards Luna, and Harry gets an embarrassed flush and put-out glare in response.
“It’s okay, Harry,” Luna says, startling both boys. He looks back at her, but her eyes are still closed and she’s back to humming.
“Maybe you should work on your potions essay?” Hermione tells Ron, closing her book.
She had thought it would last the entire train ride, but she wasn’t expecting them to spend so long in silence. This is certainly the quietest trip to Hogwarts she has had yet, between looking for toads, looking for her friends, worrying over escaped prisoners, and the dreaded dementors.
“Snape will give me a bad mark either way, so what’s the point?” Ron grumbles, leaning over to pick his cards up from the floor. Ginny helps by pushing them towards him with her foot.
“You won’t get a bad mark if you actually put some effort in.”
“Yes I will. Snape is a biased git who only gives good marks to the Slytherins. And you.”
“Yeah, because I work for the good marks. I put the effort in. If you did too, then—”
The train lurches suddenly, making them all yelp, and Neville wakes and falls to the compartment floor with a startled squeak. Harry’s eyes automatically search the sky through the window, expecting dementors again, but it’s too dark to see. The lights are still on, thankfully.
“Oh,” Hermione says, as doors start opening and voices filter into the hallway. “We’re here already.”
“We are?” Neville asks from the floor, rubbing a hand against where his head collided with the wall on the way down. “That was quick.”
“Not quick enough,” Ginny grumbles, giving Ron another glare. “I’m sitting with the twins at the feast.”
“Be my guest.” Ron says, standing up. He almost steps on Neville’s feet, but he pulls them towards his chest quickly before they can be trodden on.
“Watch it!” He says, scrambling to get up off the floor.
“We haven’t encountered Malfoy yet.” Ron says, wincing in apology at Neville, as he turns his back on Ginny to address Harry.
“Don’t jinx it!” Harry cries, fixing the lapel of his robe.
“Too late,” Hermione nods towards their compartment door.
Malfoy and a few other fourth-year Slytherins saunter past, but thankfully don’t stop or notice them. Harry lets out a breath. Here’s hoping to a Malfoy-free year, he thinks dryly. Even as he thinks it, he knows it will be far from true. He won’t get a Malfoy-free year until he’s graduated. Maybe not even then, in all honesty.
Ginny leaves them to catch up with the twins and Lee Jordan, and Ron mutters under his breath as he replaces the tie in his pocket for his frog cards. He starts tying it on the walk to the carriages. This time, Harry doesn’t startle when he sees the thestrals, and Luna reaches out to pat the one pulling their carriage before climbing on after Neville.
“What were you patting?” Ron asks, yawning.
“A thestral.”
Ron blinks, then frowns. “A what?”
“A thestral. A breed of winged horses who can only be seen by those who have witnessed death.” Hermione says, sounding as though she is reading from a textbook.
Ron gawps at her, before turning fearful eyes towards where he thinks the thestral might be standing.
“It’s a little more to your right.” Harry comments dryly.
He looks at Harry curiously, before his eyes widen in recognition, and he drops his gaze to his lap, shifting uncomfortably. Hermione slips her hand into Harry’s and gives it an encouraging squeeze.
“Who do you think the new DADA professor will be?” She asks, hoping to change the subject.
“We haven’t had a vampire yet.” Harry says lightly.
Ron scoffs. “That’s ’cause Snape’s a vampire. We can only have one vampire professor at a time, otherwise too many kids will die from blood loss.”
“Professor Snape’s not a vampire.” Hermione says, rolling her eyes.
“How do you know? Have you asked him?”
“No, but by your own admission we know it’s a lie. If Snape was a vampire, then at least one student a year would die from blood loss.”
“Maybe he doesn’t use students. Maybe he uses, like, people no one would miss or notice are gone.”
“Like homeless people? That’s rude, Ronald!”
“I didn’t say that! You said that! I said—”
“Are vampires like werewolves?” Harry cuts in, before their argument can get more heated. Even Luna’s looking between Ron and Hermione curiously. “Like, when a vampire bites you, do you also turn into a vampire?”
“You should know that, Harry.” Hermione says, frowning at him. “We learnt about vampires in first year. We should have learnt more in second year, and last year as well, but, well . . .” She trails off with a shrug.
“We didn’t learn about vampires from Quirrell, ’Mione, you learnt about them. All Quirrell said was that he had allegedly encountered one in the Black Forest.” Ron grumbles, crossing his arms and slouching in his seat.
“And Lockhart had his useless book, Something with Vampires.” Neville adds, scrunching up his nose.
“Voyages with Vampires,” Hemione tells them. “Not that it had much to do with vampires.”
“And Lupin had us write an essay,” Harry reminds Hermione, before she can go on a rant about Lockhart’s books. “But I don’t remember reading about how non-vampires can become vampires while I was researching.”
“Rufus Scrimgeour is a vampire,” Luna says, tilting her head to one side, her gaze on the forest floor beneath the carriage’s wheels. “Daddy wrote an article on him for the Quibbler, but the ministry wouldn’t let him publish it.”
“Probably because it’s not true.” Hermione says, frowning.
“Or maybe because it is.” Luna says. Her tone is that of someone who would look you dead in the eye as they speak, but Luna’s gaze doesn’t waver from the ground.
“So, vampire bites: do they turn you into a vampire or not?” Harry asks, bringing the conversation back around.
“I . . .” Hermione trails off, chewing momentarily on her bottom lip. “I’m not sure. I’d need to do more research. Perhaps there are tomes in the library, or maybe . . .”
Harry lets Hermione’s voice wash over him, relaxing a little. He likes this; likes being like this. Carefree. Happy. At Hogwarts. He’s away from the Dursley’s and Little Whinging, the dementors and Death Eaters. He’s safe, and happy, and with his friends.
And he’s got his mum’s box, and a weird book, and about a bajillion questions.
Hopefully Hermione won’t be too wrapped up in her vampire research, because Harry knows that as soon as she catches wind of the book, all of her free time will suddenly be put into that. It’s one of the reasons he wants to tell them when they’re alone; she won’t want to wait once she’s learnt of it.
He can hardly wait, and he doesn’t even know the first thing about how to do anything about it.
“Well then,” Hermione mumbles, watching where Professor Moody is now sitting at the head table. “He’s not a vampire.”
“Nope,” Ron says, around a mouthful of chicken.
Harry glances over the head table briefly before looking back at his plate. Still full from the chocolate frog he had on the train, he only has a small serving of vegetables and a glass of water. He nudges his food around his plate for a while, appetite waning the longer he goes without eating, but his stomach already feels so full.
“Hopefully he’ll be better than the last ones.”
“Lupin was good,” Neville says between bites of his bread roll.
“Lupin is a werewolf. Quirrell had Voldemort on the back of his head, and Lockhart is an egotistical, selfish fraud.” Hermione counters automatically, as though she has prepared for this argument in advance. She probably has, in all honesty.
“Yeah, but Professor Moody’s an Auror. That means he’s got to be good, right?”
Hermione shrugs, sipping her drink. “We’ll see.”
Neville turns to Ron and asks him about the classes he is taking this year. Harry feels a warm pressure on his arm and looks to his right to see Hermione has shuffled closer to him. She tilts her head towards him nonchalantly, keeping her gaze on the slice of lamb she is cutting into bite-size pieces.
“Just eat a little more Harry,” she says under her breath. “It’ll get easier.”
Harry freezes, staring at her in shock. What? How? How does she—what?
Hermione meets his panicked gaze and gives him a soft, sad smile. “I love you,” she says in response to his unspoken questions.
Warmth blooms in Harry’s chest, and he finds himself smiling at her before he can stop himself. That’s how she knows. That’s how she knows what the Dursley’s do; that they lock him away and starve him and when they let him out, he can’t eat much of anything for weeks. Months. He’s never really eaten much of anything, and she knows why.
Because she loves him. She pays attention, and she notices.
“I love you too,” Harry tells her, the words whispered and just for them.
Hermione’s eyes shine with love or happiness or tears.
“Um,” Ron clicks his fingers at them, drawing their attention away from each other. He raises an eyebrow, clearly trying hard not to glare at the two of them. “Are Neville and I interrupting something? Should we leave you two alone?”
“Yes, actually, you are interrupting.” Hermione says, stabbing a piece of lamb with her fork. Instead of putting it in her own mouth, however, she all but shoves it into Harry’s, who has to take it quickly before the fork tines stab him. “Harry and I were discussing his transfer from divination to arithmancy, and I think you should do the same.”
Ron’s mouth falls open in shock. “What? No! I’m not taking arithmancy!”
“Do you want to take divination?”
Ron splutters, cheeks turning red, and Harry takes pity on him.
“It’ll be fun,” Harry reassures him.
“Fun?!”
“We’ll both be in the same boat, being a year behind everyone else, but it’s another class the three of us will have together.” Harry says, accepting another bite of lamb from Hermione.
Neville quirks an eyebrow at the action. “Do you two often share food?”
“But I hate maths!”
“Yes.” Hermione says, in response to Neville’s question.
“It’s not really maths, it’s numerological technology.”
“Huh, I never noticed before.” Neville says, turning back to his meal.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“It means,” Hermione says, slipping into lecture mode. “It is a form of assigning numerical value – that is: numbers – to a word or phrase.” She catches Harry’s eye. “Like algebra.”
Ron still looks confused, but as Hermione continues explaining the intricacies of arithmancy and numeracy to a flabbergasted Ron, Harry lets the words wash over him. Hermione’s already told him all about arithmancy anyway, since he asked her about it at the end of last year, and again during their stay with the Weasley’s over the summer.
“When are you speaking with Professor McGonagall?” Hermione asks, bringing Harry back into the conversation. He must have been zoned out for a while; the dinner plates have been cleared away and platters of fruit and ice cream are in their place for dessert.
“I have a meeting with her tonight, after she settles the firsties in.”
Hermione nods, then gives Ron a pointed look. “Good. Take Ron with you.”
“But—!”
“No buts, Ronald! You know that this is the right decision. You can’t keep doing divination just because it’s easy; we all know that it’s a half-useless class for anyone who doesn’t have an ‘inner-eye’, which you don’t.”
“I could have an inner-eye.”
“You don’t even have an outer-eye, sometimes.”
“Hey!”
“Could we head up to the dorm?” Harry asks. Ron has already finished the bowl of ice crem he served himself, while he and Hermione opted out of having dessert. “I, uh, there’s something I need to tell you.”
Harry is grateful that Neville is deeply immersed in a conversation with Hannah Abbott, from Hufflepuff, about herbology. He doesn’t want him to feel excluded, even if he is.
“Of course.” Hermione says straight away. She puts a hand on his arm, frowning in that worried/concerned way that she is known to do, especially towards Harry. “Are you okay?”
Am I? Harry isn’t sure. He will be though. Hopefully.
“So then I thought I could try some unlocking charms, but I spoke to Percy—”
“You spoke to Percy?”
“—and he said that locked objects are different then doors, so a simple, Alohomora—” He waves his wand over the book (again), but again, it does nothing. He sighs, slumping back against the headboard of his bed. “Might not work.”
“Do you think it’s dangerous?” Hermione asks, looking between the charms book she pulled from somewhere and the book Harry found in the box. “I mean, if your mum went so far as to locking it with a spell . . .”
Harry shrugs. “I don’t know. It could be dangerous, but it could also just be private. For all I know it’s just a cookbook or a diary or, I don’t know, pornography or something.” He waves his hand, huffing, then kicks at Ron’s knee when he snickers.
The three of them are up in the boys’ dormitory, sitting on Harry’s bed. Harry is at the head of his bed, sitting with his pillow propped up behind his back, Ron’s at the foot of the bed, leaning against one the bed posts, and Hermione’s sitting beside Harry, one leg folded below the one swinging above the floor, and the box and all its contents spread out before them.
They have already looked through the photo album, filled with pictures from Lily’s time at Hogwarts, and what must be her first year out of it, before she married James. The most interesting thing about the book is the revelation that Professor Snape and his mum were friends. And quite good friends, apparently. The younger Professor Snape is featured in almost every photo of their younger years, but he disappears in what might be their sixth or seventh year, when Lily seems to start hanging around some girls Harry doesn’t know, and James, Sirius, Professor Lupin and the rat more.
There is also a small jewellery box that has a silver necklace with a lily charm on it, two rings – one sliver with an emerald gemstone, and a gold, double-heart signature ring, although it isn’t actually engraved – and a sliver bangle that is engraved with ‘Happy 11th Birthday [heart] Mum + Dad’ on the inside of the bangle.
Then there’s the book.
The book itself looks like any other leather-bound notebook. The leather is navy-blue, and it has the initials ‘L. J. E.’ imprinted on the cover, above an engraving of a lily. It doesn’t look magical in any real way, other than the fact that where a lock would be on a muggle diary, the leather from the front cover joins with the leather from the back cover and twists together like a vine, making the book impossible to open.
“Maybe you don’t need a spell.” Ron suggests, rubbing his knee.
“What do you mean?” Hermione asks, before Harry can.
“I mean, what if you just cut it open?”
Harry’s mouth falls open and he feels the blood drain from his face. This must have been how Ron felt when they were told to ‘follow the spiders’ in second year.
“We’re not cutting it!” He all-but shouts, snatching the book up and hugging it to his chest, curling his legs up to better protect it despite the fact that Ron has already held his hands up in a placating way.
“Okay, okay,” he says, sharing a nervous glance with Hermione. “It was just a suggestion, mate. I wasn’t going to just grab a knife and have at it.”
“Oh.” Well, I suppose I should have known that. This is Ron after all; he knows how much my parents mean to me. He wouldn’t do something that could potentially destroy something of theirs. He uncurls slightly, grip loosening on the book, but he doesn’t put it down. “Sorry.”
“All good, mate. I get it.” He smiles, and Harry knows that he does.
“Maybe we could ask Professor Flitwick?” Hermione suggests, returning to her book. She scowls, and flips the page, apparently finding whatever she just read unsatisfactory. “He’s the charms professor, and you told us that he taught your mum and really liked her. Maybe she went to him for help when she wanted to, uh . . .”
She trails off, and the three of them turn their eyes to the book. They’re not quite sure what his mum did, exactly. It seems like it’s more than a simple locking charm; like, maybe there’s wards on it too. Harry’s skin almost tingles with the magic radiating off of it. The last time that happened, he was looking in the Mirror of Erised.
“I don’t know if I want to tell a teacher that I have a magically charmed, possibly dangerous book in my possession.” Harry mumbles, tracing the initials with his thumb. The book tingles under his touch, but remains shut.
“That sounds like more than just a locking charm,” Hermione mutters, after Harry tells her about the tingling. “It could be a ward, but I’ve never heard of a ward reacting to touch like that, or being directed towards an object, for that matter. Usually you either can’t feel it, because you’re not a threat, or you can because it hurts you. It didn’t hurt you?”
“No.” Harry shakes his head, sitting up straight and crossing his legs. He passes the book to Hermione and picks up the photo album. “It felt, like . . . warm, maybe?”
He flips through the photo album until he finds a photo of his mum and Professor Snape in their second year. They’re in the Slytherin stands at the Quidditch pitch, huddled close together and grinning. As he watches, the wind whips Lily’s scarf into the younger Professor Snape’s face. She bursts out in laughter as he splutters and tries to push it away, before dissolving into laughter himself.
Harry smiles down at the picture. It’s definitely one of his favourites, despite his harshest teacher being in it. Professor Snape looks different though. He’s younger, obviously, but he looks kinder. Happier. Like whatever darkness is surrounding him now hasn’t touched him yet.
Harry didn’t know how tired Professor Snape always looked until he saw these pictures. The war certainly affected more people in more ways than Harry could ever comprehend.
Unless it wasn’t the war?
“How’d it end up in your aunt’s attic?” Ron asks, scratching absently at his nose. “I thought you said she didn’t have any of your mum’s things?”
“That’s what she said, but Aunt Petunia is notorious for lying. And it’s not like I’m going to ask her about it; asking questions never ended very well when I was little.” It more often than not ended up with him shoved in his cupboard with a stinging bottom and a mouth full of soap.
“Do you think she knows?” Hermione asks, giving Harry That Look again. He ignores it.
“Knows what? That it’s gone?”
“Yes, and that it was even there. You said yourself that you’ve been in the attic multiple times before and never saw it, even though you should have from where you said you found it.” She shrugs a little, twisting further around to face him better. “It’s just a little strange that she would want to hide something she has from your mother from you, but then send you into the attic when it was out in the open, if she knew it was there.”
“She may have just forgotten.” Harry says, frowning a little. “She was a bit stressed, ’cause she wasn’t too thrilled about me being picked up by freaks.” The word leaves his mouth before he can stop it, and he cringes in apology at Ron, cheeks flushing.
“Freaks?” He asks, raising an eyebrow. “That’s what she calls us?”
Harry shrugs a little. He won’t mention that that’s also what she calls him; he didn’t even know his name was Harry until he went to school, he thought it was ‘Freak’ or ‘Boy’. Something tells him that his friends won’t react too kindly to learning that, though, so he keeps it to himself.
“She just doesn’t understand magic, and is scared by it.” Harry says instead.
Hermione frowns at him. “Don’t defend her, Harry. Your aunt—”
The door to their dorm opens, cutting Hermione off, and they look up to see Dean and Seamus entering, Neville a few steps behind them. The otherwise quiet dorm is instantly filled with chatter, and seemingly not noticing Hermione sitting with Ron and Harry – which is not that much of a surprise, as after three years the other boys are rather used to her being in their dorm with them – Seamus starts getting changed for bed. He’s undoing the buttons of his shirt, his robe and tie already dropped on the floor, shoes kicked off, when Harry glances up from the album, notices, and flicks his wand at the curtains around his bed.
“Drappes claudere,” he says, and instantly the curtains draw closed around them.
“Honestly Seamus,” Ron says, jumping off the bed before the curtains can close around him. “Did you not see Hermione?”
Seamus’ responding squawk is covered by Ron and Dean’s laughter, while Hermione rolls her eyes in irritation and casts a Lumos. With the curtains drawn around Harry’s bed, it’s too dark to see properly.
“I know you don’t want to talk to Professor Flitwick,” Hermione says quietly, “but we might need the help. There’s only so much we can learn from the books in the library.”
“We can sneak into the restricted section again.” Harry says. That’s one of the most frequent rules they break, at least outside of curfew. The two typically go hand-in-hand anyway.
Hermione smirks lightly. “Of that, I have no doubt. But it still might not be enough.” She chews on her lip for a moment, the other boys’ chatter filling the silence. It seems as though Seamus has gotten over his embarrassment. “Maybe Professor McGonagall could help.”
Harry shrugs noncommittally, then his eyes widen. Shit, I forgot to meet with McGonagall!
“Maybe, yeah, I dunno—Ron!” He shoves the curtains aside and leaps off his bed, almost tripping with his haste.
“What?” Ron asks, his head springing up from the quidditch book he and Dean are flipping through.
“We have to meet with Professor McGonagall. Come on!” Harry grabs his hand and pulls him out of the dorm before he can protest. Hermione’s right: he can’t let Ron suffer through another year of divination.