Miss Granger was crying so hard Madam Pomfrey had to force-feed her a Calming Draught. Weasley was white as chalk.
"It was a suit of armor," he croaked, his freckles standing out on his face, as stark as drops of blood. "It started to fall over, and Harry dodged it, but the staircase hadn't swung back over—"
Tears were dripping off Miss Granger's chin onto her robes, but she had stopped sobbing, and her stare was glassy and unfocused now that the Calming Draught had taken effect. Weasley was gripping her hand. Minerva stood next to to them, her hand laid over her heart. She hadn't stopped clutching at it since they'd stopped the girl from hitting the ground floor.
"She was lucky," Pomfrey whispered to Dumbledore, just inside the barrier of the curtain drawn around the girl's bed. "If she'd hit the railing at a slightly different angle than she did, she'd have been paralyzed . . . "
Severus didn't trust himself to speak. He was afraid that if he opened his mouth, he'd break every window in the ward.
Dumbledore emerged, rustling, from the curtain drawn around the girl's bed and glided over to the children. "Harriet will be all right," he told them with a kindness that sounded infinite. "Would you like to see her?"
They trailed him to the bedside, Minerva following. When Dumbledore nudged the curtain aside, Severus saw the girl looking pale but deeply asleep, her black hair spread out on the pillow like a dark corona.
"She'll be all right?" Miss Granger asked in a calm, distant voice, still clutching Weasley's hand.
"Yes," Dumbledore told her gently. "By the morning she'll be herself again and ready to see you."
Severus routinely thought his relationship with Dumbledore was as complex as the mechanics of quantum physics—it encompassed resentment, admiration, loyalty, bitterness and grief on any given day, sometimes at any given moment—but he was always baffled by Dumbledore's ability to handle an emotional crisis without any apparent effort. When turned loose in a tense moment, Severus knew hewas sure to make it a disaster whether he intended to or not. But Dumbledore was able to induce enough docility in Weasley and peace of mind in Granger to allow Minerva to lead them away without any more display of reluctance than a mulish expression on Weasley's face.
Dumbledore turned to look at Severus as the door to the infirmary closed silently behind Minerva and the children. There was no twinkle this time, no lightness in his expression; he looked grave and thoughtful. But when he spoke, it was to Madam Pomfrey.
"How is she truly, Poppy?"
"Stable," Pomfrey said, her face lit by the multicolored back-glow of the diagnostic spells webbed in the air above the hospital bed. "I've put her in a healing sleep. Spinal injuries are nothing to be taken lightly, you know."
Severus's insides twisted, hard.
"Do you foresee any repercussions?" Dumbledore asked, quite serious.
"She should be fine," Pomfrey said. "I've repaired the damage, the sleep is just to make sure the nerves and muscles rest."
"Did the damage seem to be what Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger described?"
"She hit something hard—most likely stone—at high velocity," Pomfrey said, a bit tartly. "Other than that . . . "
"Thank you, Poppy, for your exceptional skill. Severus will be sitting up with her."
Severus resumed feeling annoyed. It was his strict intention, even if he had to barricade Poppy in her office, but he hadn't said anything yet. He'd had a whole repudiating speech planned. Infuriating old—
"If he must," Pomfrey said, giving Severus a stern look. "She'll be sleeping most of the night. She might start to stir in about five, six hours as her body resumes natural sleep, but other than that, there shouldn't be much to see."
Except, perhaps, a third attempt on her life. But Dumbledore was apparently keeping this from Pomfrey. That was fine with Severus. The fewer people fluttering around, asking questions and exclaiming, the better. He didn't know why Dumbledore turned everything into an enigma, but Severus kept things private simply because people were so bloody irritating. They bleated instead of acting or making useful plans.
Pomfrey set a charm on the girl's bed that made it glow momentarily. A little light flared to life above her heart, pulsing in time with her breath. It was apparently exactly what Pomfrey wanted, because with a satisfied nod she excused herself and rustled back into her office.
"The Bludger?" Dumbledore asked once the door had clicked shut behind her.
"House-elf magic," Severus said curtly. "Minerva knows now."
Dumbledore merely looked thoughtful. "And we don't yet know about the suit of armor?"
"You're welcome to look into it," Severus said, leaving I'm not budging unsaid (but audible all the same).
Logic dictated that Dumbledore was certainly the cleverer and more powerful of the two, that he was magically more capable of protecting the girl should a threat materialize in the hospital wing; but some sense more mutable than logic told him that Dumbledore didn't care as much as he did. Oh, Dumbledore cared, but the girl didn't mean the same thing to him. Protecting Lily's daughter was the only thing Severus had left. If he failed at that, then Lily, who had died from things he had done that could never, ever be redeemed, had died for nothing.
Dumbledore was watching him with that light blue, penetrating gaze, as if Severus was as translucent as water. Severus glared back, daring him to smile and say something cryptic and soft-hearted, wondering how he himself would react to it. But all Dumbledore said was, "Then I leave Harriet to your watch, Severus."
The night crept past. The hours were long on the cusp of winter, the windows black by half past four. Pomfrey sank the lights in the ward around eleven and retired to bed at precisely midnight. All the while, the girl continued to sleep, her breathing rhythmic and nearly inaudible even in the dead silence.
Severus did some marking for the appearance of the thing, but his mind wasn't on it, and he wound up grading on a sliding scale: top marks for the Slytherins, matching average marks for the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, and slightly below average for the Gryffindors. They were first year essays, and it was always funny to see the Ravenclaws' initial reaction to mediocre grades. He went ahead and gave high marks to a couple of Hufflepuffs, knowing it would try the Ravenclaws high.
Sometimes he wondered what it would take to make Dumbledore step in and do something about his methods, but for eleven years Dumbledore had only seemed complacently amused. Well, he'd never done anything about Slughorn, either. Slughorn had been just as biased, in his more pleasant way. If you weren't special enough to be a collector's item, he had barely known you existed. Severus knew every single one of his students, Slytherin or not; he simply loathed the sight of more than three quarters of them.
But once Madam Pomfrey went to bed, he forced all distractions away. It was deadly dull, but he was used to dealing with physical and mental boredom. Well, he ought to be; he taught vapid little human pustules to wipe their noses ten months of a year.
God, he hated children.
Dumbledore loved them—said they were little mines of potential, the keys to the future. Severus saw the potential, but any promise they possessed was always overpowered by their utter determination to squander it. It had been just the same when he was a child. He, on the other hand, had been determined to make something of himself . . . and then had wound up here, at the end of a long chronicle of sins and failures.
Had Lily lived, he wouldn't be here right now, in the shadows of the hospital wing, guarding her daughter as she slept. He probably wouldn't have had anything to do with the girl at all: as little as he'd attempted the first year of her schooling. Had Lily and Potter lived, they'd surely have had a brood of messy-haired, green-eyed children, and Severus would have relocated to Latvia before the first of Potter's hellspawn had darkened the halls of Hogwarts.
"I want three children at least," Lily had told him when she was about fourteen. "That way, if two of them don't get along, there'll be a third."
"And it'll get left out anyway," he'd said.
She had stolen his cigarette and faked like she was going to smoke it, but then dangled it over the edge of the river, threatening to drop it. "Well, what do you think is the perfect number, then, Mister Clever Trousers?"
"None."
"And I wound up with thousands," he muttered to the silent shadows cobwebbing the infirmary. Lily would have laughed until she cried, had she lived to see him teaching.
He wished he had her photograph. It was a bit mad, talking to a photograph, but he did what he had to.
Since he was a child, he'd done what he had to.
He sifted through his memories, combing back through the years. He was certain it was only Occlumency, his ability to shut down his emotions at will, that allowed him to do this; to find within the acres of grief, bitterness, and broken chances the memories that had once been something else, and hold off, until the charm was cast, the tarnishing knowledge of what they became.
He took hold of the memory of Lily dangling his cigarette just out of his reach, her face sly and sparkling, and hung it between thick nets of Occlumency. He shut out all the connected memories, the knowledge that she was dead and she would never have any more children, would never even know the one she'd had, allowing himself to remember nothing but the laughter in her face, the mock scowl as he deliberately spoiled her game, the sunlight in her hair, nothing like wine or apples or any color he'd seen since; a color that belonged to those memories, and to them alone.
Expecto Patronum, he thought.
The hospital wing filled with starlight as the doe coalesced in motes of brilliant silver and white. The clearer she became, the more he felt himself relax, as a sense of calm mixed, as always, with powerful sadness exhaled through him like waves up an ocean shore. He wondered how many other people could achieve hand-in-hand with grief what Dumbledore called the Patronus, the perfect manifestation of joy. Every memory he possessed of Lily was touched by the knowledge that she was gone, but her absence did not diminish her power that lingered in his heart. It would always be there, bound up in his sorrow, his guilt, his—
"Oh," said a soft, wondering voice.
He looked past the doe. In the circle of argent light it threw across the room, he could see the girl propped up on one elbow. Her eyes were wide, colorless and dark in the night, but she didn't seem to see him—she was staring, rapt, at the doe.
It had turned at the sound of her voice and now moved toward her, a trail of coruscating brightness lingering in its wake. The girl sat up, stretching out her hand, slow and dream-like. Severus kept absolutely still.
Then the Patronus faded, more slowly than it usually did, diminishing to an outline and then to a single mote of brightness where the heart would have been. The world seemed darker, colder, even though the Patronus gave off no warmth.
The girl lay back down, her face just visible in the soft light of the lamps that burned at the end of the ward. Her eyes were fixed on the spot where the doe had been. Severus watched the light shine in pinpricks in her eyes until she closed them some time later. Shortly after, her breathing slipped into evenness again, and she was asleep.
For the first time, he thought not only of what Lily had lost, but her daughter also, eleven years ago.
When Harriet woke up, she knew she'd been having a really beautiful dream. . . a dream about a doe that was made up of stars. . .
She felt very tired and groggy, so tired her eyelids didn't want to open and her brain just wanted to slump back into sleep. She could hear shuffling and voices whispering, and someone moving near her bed. . .
What were Hermione and the others doing? Why were they even awake? She was so tired, it had to be the dead middle of the night. . .
She forced an eye open a crack, and then pulled both of them open all the way. Snape was standing next to her bed, one hand on her hangings, looking at something to the side—
Except those weren't her hangings. They were pale curtains, with light glowing through the back. She wasn't in her dorm; she was in the infirmary.
That was when she remembered.
She lay still, listening to the whispering. She knew that if Snape saw she'd woken up, he'd order her to go back to sleep and she'd never find out what was going on. And after Dobby's warning, the blocked barrier at King's Cross, that evil, disembodied voice, the message on the walls, Mrs. Norris Petrified, Ginny acting weird, the murderous Bludger, and the falling suit of armor, Harriet needed to get to the bottom of it.
" . . . etrified?" whispered a woman's voice. Madam Pomfrey?
" . . . leeve so . . . " said a man's voice, quiet but deep. That was definitely Professor Dumbledore.
Harriet kept her eyes open just as slits. Snape hadn't moved from his spot next to Harriet's bed, just inside the curtain. She wanted to see what his expression was, but she didn't dare open her eyes enough to see.
" . . . sneaking up here . . . visit Miss Potter," said Probably Professor McGonagall. " . . . Albus hadn't . . . no telling what . . . "
Not Hermione, Harriet thought with a jolt of panic.
" . . . camera?" Madam Pomfrey whispered.
There was a sudden sound of something hissing, and even across the ward Harriet smelled something stinking.
"Gracious Rowena," said Madam Pomfrey clearly, but her voice dropped immediately, like she hadn't meant to say it that loud.
" . . . what . . . mean?" Professor McGonagall asked.
"It means," Professor Dumbledore murmured, his low voice carrying clearly this time, "that the Chamber of Secrets is indeed open again."
The words wrote themselves inside Harriet's mind in bright scarlet, just like the message on the wall outside Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. She sat up quickly, trying to see around Snape, to see who was on the bed and what had happened to them before he—
Snape swept the curtain shut, blocking his own face with shadows. "Miss Potter—" he started in a low, dangerous voice.
"Who's over there?" Harriet said quickly, pushing back her blankets to climb down from the bed. "It's not Hermione, is it?"
"If you put one foot on that floor," Snape said, "I will forcibly restrain you."
Harriet paused with her toes a few centimeters from the ground, and then slowly retracted her foot. "Who's out there?" she repeated. "What's happened to them?"
The curtain rustled to the side and Madam Pomfrey appeared, wearing a wooly cardigan sloppily pulled on over her nightdress, her gray hair in a braid. "Miss Potter," she said severely, "go back to sleep."
Grown ups! Frustrated, Harriet said, "I can't until I know what's—"
"It is not Miss Granger," Snape said in his cold voice.
Relief made Harriet sag on the bed. "But who is it?"
"Never you mind," said Madam Pomfrey in a voice that did not sound entirely steady.
"I do mind!" Harriet said indignantly. "Somebody said they were coming to see me, whoever it is!"
Madam Pomfrey looked at Snape almost helplessly; he looked as if he'd rather be anywhere but here. Forcible restraint or not, Harriet was about to jump down from the bed and run past them if they wouldn't—
The curtain snicked aside, revealing Professor Dumbledore in a brilliant purple dressing gown. He looked rather tired and grave. Harriet was suddenly sorry for making a fuss, but still determined to get out there and look.
"Poppy . . . Severus . . . Harriet has a right to know," he said calmly.
"Headmaster," Snape started in a dark voice, while Madam Pofrey said, "I really don't think—"
Professor Dumbledore held out his hand to the side, as if gesturing Harriet along. "Come, Harriet, if you wish."
Feeling embarrassed at her own fuss and shy in front of several of her professors in a nightgown, Harriet climbed down from the bed and followed Dumbledore resolutely across the space between the beds to the one directly opposite hers. Professor McGonagall's mouth was very thin again, but Harriet hardly noticed. She was staring at the body on the bed, rigid as a corpse, with its hands locked in front of its face like it should be clutching something, and its face . . .
"Colin." She swallowed a heavy weight that settled in her stomach like a sickness.
"Surely that is enough now, Headmster," said Professor McGonagall sharply.
Professor Dumbledore laid his hand on Harriet's shoulder. She expected him to steer her away and back to her bed, but he said in a grave, gentle voice, "These are Harriet's friends, Professor McGonagall."
Professor McGonagall's silence was like a living presence.
"Who did this to him?" Harriet asked, staring at Colin's wide, terrified eyes and thinking of the voice that whispered death and blood into her head, imagining it was Hermione on the bed like that, frozen . . .
"I am afraid the question is not who," Professor Dumbledore murmured. "The question is how . . . "
Harriet looked at Professor McGonagall's face, at Madam Pomfrey's, at Snape's, and saw they didn't understand any more than she did.
And knowing that none of the adults in this room had the answers was the most frightening thing of all.
The next morning, Harriet awoke to fluttering daylight. It was snowing, and the flakes drifting past the infirmary windows made shivering shadows on her bed.
Snape was still there, looking bad-tempered, his hair even lanker than usual. Whenever Harriet glanced toward the high curtain completely surrounding Colin's bed, Snape looked like he was restraining himself from saying something pretty nasty, only Harriet couldn't imagine why he'd restrain it.
Madam Pomfrey was checking Harriet over with glittering spells when the infirmary door crashed open and Hermione and Ron came tearing in. Even though Ron was at least half a foot taller, Hermione was outstripping him. Snape barely got out of her way before she skidded around Harriet's bed and flung her arms around her.
"Harry!" she squeaked, sounding near tears. "Oh, Harry!"
Hermione's grip was almost throttling her, but Harriet squeezed back just as hard, thinking of Draco Malfoy's You'll be next, Mudbloods. Colin was Muggle-born, too . . .
"You all right, Harry?" Ron asked. He looked pale and tired but alert. "If Hermione doesn't strangle you, I mean."
Hermione let go, to give him a dirty look, but then she turned back to Harriet. "We heard about—"
But then she noticed Snape. Harriet didn't think he'd moved or made any noise, but Hermione turned to look at him, went bright red, and fell mute. Ron's expression clearly said What's HE doing here, then? but he kept his mouth shut. Snape just looked at them, as good as a sneer, and then glided over to Madam Pomfrey's office. He didn't leave the ward, but for the rest of the time he ignored them.
Harriet ate the porridge Madam Pomfrey brought her and then escaped with Hermione and Ron. She felt Snape's eyes boring into her as she left, and scratched the back of her neck.
"We heard about Colin," Hermione said in a low voice as they hurried along the corridors thrumming with students on a Sunday morning. "That was him behind the curtain, surely?"
"Yeah." Harriet noticed a portrait of some bearded men in ruffs watching them with clear curiosity and added, "I've got something to tell you. Somewhere we won't be overheard."
"Lucky we know a place that's so depressing nobody ever goes," said Ron.