Out of Snape's office, all of her anger and misery boiled away, Harriet felt rather ashamed of herself. But now she knew what to do about it, and the determination made her hungry.
The walk to the kitchens was going to be as familiar as the walk to class, soon.
As she climbed to Gryffindor tower with her picnic basket (small, by her own request), she ate a sandwich to prepare herself. Hermione wouldn't be nearly as difficult to convince as Ron, whom Harriet expected to be angrier with her than ever. If she could even find him, that was. . .
It was times like this she really missed the Marauder's Map. At least she knew Sirius Black had never got hold of it; otherwise she'd already be dead.
She hid her basket in an alcove behind a bust of Hieronymous Bosch just up the corridor from the Fat Lady, wiped her greasy fingers on her jumper, and steeled herself.
But the only Weasley hair in the common room belonged to Ginny, Fred and George, and Percy. Uh oh. It was almost curfew, so Ron couldn't be out, but it was much too early for him to be in bed. . .
"Have you seen Ron?" she asked Dean and Seamus, who were playing Gobstones near the fire.
But Seamus' only answer was a roar of rage and surprise: one of the stones had squirted ink in his face. Dean was laughing too hard to answer Harriet, if he'd even heard her. Rolling her eyes, she let them alone. No wonder Ron had been churlish for so long, if he'd had nobody for mates but these two plonkers.
Neville was paging through his Potions textbook with an air of forlorn confusion.
"Seen Ron?" she asked him, sitting down next to him.
Going beet red, he dropped his book on her foot. "I s-saw him go upstairs round an hour ago. He looked—um—"
"Ready to murder someone?" Harriet guessed. "Thought so. You doing that essay for Snape? You can copy mine if you'd like."
"Oh, n-no," Neville said, progressing to a steaming scarlet. "I-it's fine, I'll be all r-right—"
"What if we made a trade?" Harriet asked slowly, as the idea pieced itself together in her head. "Then you wouldn't have to feel guilty or anything."
"Trade?" Neville squeaked.
"You won't tell me what this plan is because you know I'm not going to like it," Sirius said. The light of the nearly full moon ran like quicksilver through his matted hair and made his skeletal face almost impossible to read; but his voice was dry. "Am I right?"
"You don't seem to need my confirmation," Remus said, "so sending me this message—Padfoot, it's not safe to meet this close to being done with it. We don't want to fail now."
"I've been trying to imagine what I'd hate so much you'd have to keep it to yourself," Sirius went on, ignoring him. "Can't really think of much, though. Mind keeps wandering. I'm not so good at concentrating anymore."
"What if the Dementors find you?" Remus persisted. "I wouldn't have come tonight if I hadn't thought staying away would make you do something even more dangerous."
"I stay a dog except when I meet you."
"Even that much is a risk. There are a lot of eyes looking out for you, Sirius." And at least one set on me. "We still have everything to lose. I'm not foolish enough to suppose we can only lose everything once in our lives. As long as we have something to protect, we have something to lose, again and again."
"Aren't you a ray of optimistic sunshine," Sirius muttered, but his hollow eyes were looking inward at something bleak.
"There's a great deal I'm afraid of," Remus said calmly. "Dying isn't one of them. In fact, it's the least of them. I don't want to outlive everyone I care about, Sirius. Not again. You don't either, I know."
Sirius lowered his head, his ragged bangs overhanging his eyes. Remus forced himself to keep speaking.
"Hate me when the plan is done," he said. "But let it happen."
"I'm not gonna hate you for doing what you have to do to keep Holly-berry safe," Sirius said. "For finding that worthless shitstain of a coward. I don't care what we have to do, at this point. I'd give my soul to get my hands on that fucking son of a bitch."
"Don't say that. With Dementors in the air, it's a wish that might come true too soon."
The light of the gibbous moon shone down on them like an indifferent sun. The idea that werewolves could never see the true, full moon, that they longed for the sight of it the way vampires longed for the sun, was a romantic fiction. This was as close to it as he needed to be.
Harriet went to fetch Hermione first, since Ron couldn't get up the girls' staircase and she didn't trust his temper to wait until she'd parted Hermione from her first and dearest love, the books.
"Hi, Harry," said Hermione absently (after Harriet had come into the room and stood over her, repeating her name, before she even noticed she wasn't alone). "Goodness, what time is it?"
"Time for you to set aside your books and papers and come along with me. I've got something to show you."
"Harriet, tomorrow morning would be—"
"You're coming with me tonight," Harriet said in her best steely voice, "if I've got to pack you onto that bloody Shooting Star—which makes you go backwards when you try to go forwards—and kidnap you."
Hermione looked up like she was about to protest, but whatever she saw in Harriet's face made her shut her books and follow meekly down the stairs.
When they climbed out of the portrait hole, Harriet saw that Neville had been successful: though looking so guilty and anxious it was a wonder his face could fit both emotions at once, he had managed to finagle Ron out of his dorm and into the corridor.
"Where did you last have Trev—" Ron was saying to him.
Then he saw Harriet and Hermione. His face went red as a tomato and hard as stone. He spun round, preparing to storm off, and Hermione said in a shrill, strained voice, "Really, Harry, I have far too much studying to do—" and turned in the opposite direction as Ron, ready to climb back into the common room.
"You're not going anywhere," Harriet said, grabbing her by the back of her jumper and leveling a finger at Ron. "And nor are you, Ron Weasley. You're both coming with me. Thanks, Neville," she added, and he gratefully ran off, so eager to get away from them that he charged down the stairs and out of sight.
"You tricked me out here," Ron said, still fuchsia in the face.
Harriet chose not to answer this and fetched her picnic basket instead.
"Harriet," Hermione said, frowning deeply at the basket, as if she knew it had been a source of house-elf labor.
"Come on, then," said Harriet to the both of them. "You'll never know if you leave now."
Then she turned away and started walking, so they could look at each other or not, however they chose. She was half expecting Ron to storm off, but Snape was righter than she ever would have guessed: Ron must have wanted very much to be friends again, because he followed them. He jammed his hands in his pockets and goose-stepped a good ten paces behind Hermione, who walked a good five paces behind Harriet, and he glared at his shoes the whole way, but he followed.
Harriet led them along the seventh floor into the left corridor, where an ugly tapestry hung, showing Barnabas the Barmy trying to teach some trolls how to ballet. They'd all three been down this corridor before, as it led to a hidden staircase they frequently used for shortcuts.
"Here," she said, pointing to a spot on the carpet, to one side of the tapestry. "I think it's best if you stand there, a bit out of the way."
"Harry, what are we doing?" Hermione asked.
"You'll see."
Harriet started walking back and forth in front of the blank stretch of wall, as Dobby had told her to do, thinking, We need a room where we can make up. . . we need a room where we can make up. . .
"The Room of Requirement gives whatever you ask for, Harriet Potter," Dobby had said. "There is being no limits that we has found, and we house-elves has been using it for hundreds and hundreds of years."
She had no idea what a room-to-make-up-in would look like, but on her third pass, Hermione said, "Oh!"
Harriet turned. A door had grown in the wall, a small door with a pointed arch like any door in a medieval castle, except it was made of bright white wood, and its door handle was made of gold.
She turned the golden key in the lock, pushed the door in, and stepped into a room of light.
It wasn't made of light, of course, but it was bright—and yet, as her eyes adjusted, she saw it wasn't that bright, only pleasantly lit, with a soft, warm glow. Trees grew up the walls, framing arched windows whose glass glittered with starlight. In the center of the room was a tidy cooking pit glowing with hot coals, with cushions and blankets scattered around it, and the air smelled sweet, like clean stone and forest.
"Blimey," said Ron's voice behind her. He was standing in the doorway shoulder-to-shoulder with Hermione.
"This is amazing," Hermione said. The light of learning something new shone out of her face.
Both of them seemed to have forgotten they were fighting. Harriet wondered if it was too good to be true that the room had done its job that quick.
But then they tried to step into the room at the same time, bumped shoulders, and looked at each other. Then they remembered. They both stopped, retreating into moody brooding (Ron) and stiff haughtiness (Hermione).
Harriet sighed inside. Of course it wouldn't have been that easy, not even for a magic castle.
"Here." She set her basket down next to the pit and knelt on the blankets and cushions. "I've got some things we can roast. I wonder if it somehow picked that up?"
Ron and Hermione did come inside and sit round the fire, but they did not speak, and they were clearly trying to sit as far apart from each other without sitting on opposite sides of the room. Harriet found herself wishing she'd asked Snape exactly how you made up with two people who were fighting with each other as well as with you, sometimes.
She decided to act like everything was normal until some brilliant idea flashed into her head. Opening the picnic basket, she said, "I've got some sandwiches and meat pies here—bread, muffins—pumpkin juice, hot chocolate—dunno how well those'll go together, though. . ."
"I'm not hungry, thank you," Hermione said.
"Sandwich, Ron?" Harriet asked him. "It's got five different kind of meats on it."
Ron seemed to struggle with himself, or maybe with his temper and his stomach.
"Go on, then," he said at last, holding out his hand.
"Hot chocolate, Hermione?" Harriet asked.
"Oh, all right," Hermione said, not sounding very reluctant.
The atmosphere still wasn't easy and friendly, but at least they weren't being so stiff and stand-offish anymore. They were at least looking at their food and drinks, instead of glaring at opposite curves of the room.
"The house-elves made this up for you, didn't they," said Hermione as Harriet buttered a muffin.
"Yep." Harriet speared the muffin on a long, thin tong that she found in the basket (which was much too small to fit it, despite being able to), and held it over the fire for toasting.
"Houf elfef?" Ron asked, his mouth full. Harriet was rather amused that Ron talking with his mouth full sounded exactly like the title on Hermione's medieval book.
"Did you know that house-elves don't get paid?" Hermione asked abruptly. "And they don't get holidays, or sick days? And they can never leave the service of their masters unless they're released? And the release is a mark of disgrace, and their children are born into the same service, and their children?"
Harriet had known some of this, though not all. Remembering the way Dobby had been so miserable and abused, she suspected that Hermione's books had glossed over some things. Hermione was worked up enough just over the elves' not getting holidays: there was no way she would keep quiet about the self-inflicted abuse.
"What are you going on about?" Ron asked her, though he seemed a lot more interested in reaching for a meat pie.
"House elves!" Hermione said indignantly (Harriet wanted to groan). "Working in the Hogwarts kitchens! Our beds are made, our clothes washed, our meals prepared, everything done for us, by slaves!"
"That's what house elves like," Ron said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, reminding Harriet that he came from a magical family like hers; only even more magical, because all his family were wizards and her mum had been Muggle-born.
Wait. . . if her mum was Muggle-born. . . did that mean Snape was, too? Since he'd known her mum as a kid?
Oblivious to these mad ideas, Ron was still talking. "Mum's always saying what she wouldn't give for a house elf, because they do everything and they're so polite and happy about it, not like us, always whinging if we've got to de-gnome the garden or help lay the table—"
"But it's slavery!" Hermione said, shocked. "How could your mother want a slave?"
"But they like it," Ron said, "so what's the harm?"
"Not all of them like it," Harriet said quietly. "Dobby was thrilled when he left the Malfoys, and he loves clothes and gets paid now, and has holidays and everything."
"But what about the others?" Hermione demanded.
"You've seen them," Harriet said, though she felt uncomfortable. "They're happy. You know Professor Dumbledore treats them as good as anything."
"When have you seen them?" Ron asked her, a lot more interested in this information than in Hermione's.
"I figured out how to get into the kitchens. I'll show you later."
"Brilliant," Ron said, looking (as she'd hoped) impressed and not offended that she hadn't shown him before (as she'd feared).
"I don't think we should any of us be going there and making extra work for them," Hermione said—rather bossily, Harriet thought. "We should be trying to decrease their workload, not adding to it."
"All right, then," Ron said, rolling his eyes. "You wash your clothes and make your bed, and then it'll be fine for Harry to show me where the kitchens are. You know, I always suspected Fred and George knew where they were, 'cause they'd turn up at all hours with food and snacks. . . Say, d'you think the house elves could get us stuff from Honeydukes?"
Harriet still hadn't told Hermione about the Map, and it would be suicide to do it now. All she said was, "I wouldn't be surprised if Fred and George knew how to get into Honeydukes on their own."
"You're surely not going to ask the house elves to get sweets for you from the village!" Hermione said hotly to Ron.
"I don't see what ruddy business of yours it is if I—"
"Say," Harriet interrupted, "why don't we all go at least an hour without quarreling over something? Then we can try two hours, and after that, three. Maybe we'll even work up to a day, eventually."
"She's the one quarreling," Ron said, flushing and making Hermione blush angrily, too.
"I am not—" Hermione said, and she went to set her hot chocolate down, maybe so she wouldn't throw it at Ron's head. But as she reached down, a low table that just appeared out of nowhere, at the perfect height for her cup.
They all stared. Ron even stopped chewing.
Hermione slowly withdrew her hand. The table and her mug stayed right where they were, quite in harmony with each other.
"It's the Room of Requirement," Harriet said, amazed. "Dobby told me about it. It becomes whatever we want and need. You just have to walk up and down in front of the blank wall outside three times, really concentrating, and you get. . ." She waved at the room.
"Blimey," said Ron.
"I can't believe we never knew this was here." Hermione twisted round to stare at all the trees and the windows. "It's just down the hall from Gryffindor Tower. . ."
She stood and went over to the trees, running her hand down their smooth, bright trunks. For the first time, Harriet noticed the warm light seemed to be coming from everywhere: the walls, the trees, the windows.
"What did you ask for, Harriet?" Hermione asked, now fingering one of the leaves on a vine wrapped around a tree trunk.
And for once, Harriet decided to be honest. "A place where we could all make up."
Hermione stopped but didn't turn round. Ron cleared his throat and picked a piece of lettuce out of his sandwich. Harriet tried not to roll her eyes.
"What did you think we were doing in here?" she asked.
Hermione turned from the window, a kind of stiffness come back over her. She didn't say anything, though, and Ron was now mashing the top of his sandwich down. Harriet tried not to sigh.
"Look," she said, "we've all had good reasons to start being angry with each other. But now we're all unhappy, so it seems stupid to keep fighting."
Ron and Hermione still didn't speak, but were now staring at the same patch of floor.
"I'm tired of fighting," Harriet went on. "I want us to be friends again. I miss when we were. Is that what you two want?"
Ron and Hermione looked up from their mutual patch of floor and stared at each other, not speaking.
The moment went on and on, and no one broke the silence.
But that was all right, because Harriet knew she had her answer.