Certain Dark Things || Book Four

xlix. gladiator

It took nearly an hour for the rest of the competitors to pass through the trial.

Harriet paid her surroundings little attention, her heart fit to burst with every little sound that broke through the static of the rain and shook her into awareness. She only looked up when Elara's name was called, and the tall, stone-faced witch clasped her hands together before walking into the rectory.

Don't breathe, Harriet wanted to shout at her. Don't breathe, it's poison. She said nothing because Slytherin had his red, gimlet eyes resting upon her while Elara went to the door. Harriet wasn't brave enough to open her mouth.

Elara managed to return the runestone to Slytherin with only seconds to spare, striding out of the rectory with her back ramrod straight, her face a sickly tinge of green. She handed Slytherin the stone and, instead of joining Harriet and Hermione, left the sanctuary, heading outside. Harriet didn't need to follow to know she was ill in the bushes.

In the end, only Peregrine Derrick, Linden Craft, John Hawkworth, Hestia Carrow, and Hermione failed the task—but no one returned to the carriages in any sort of good humor, not even Lestrange. Only Craft needed medical attention, swilling a potion Slytherin dropped into his trembling hands as he struggled to breathe. That gave credence to Hermione's theory that whatever nasty, invisible fog lingered in the rectory was Dark magic.

Harriet and her friends didn't say much to each other as they made their way back to the castle. They didn't say much the next day either, and the cold Harriet had felt the night before barely seemed to dissipate. Elara soon came down with the flu, and all Hermione could do was sigh.

"Dark magic is harmful—almost carcinogenic in the effect it has on the body," she explained. "A great deal of the spells only cause little harms, but others can be more...insidious. They...linger."

Harriet didn't see Snape until their Potions lesson later that week, whereupon—as McGonagall had warned—he had a note for her, summoning her to her first lesson with him later that evening. She didn't complain, only shoved the note into her pocket and resigned herself to finishing her homework early. At least she'd been able to remove the sling the day before.

Harriet wandered back down to the dungeons a few minutes after dinner, finding Snape in his classroom on his feet but half bent over the desk as he scrawled on a bit of parchment. He reached up to tuck the long strands of his black hair behind his ear, pausing when he heard Harriet shut the door behind her.

"I'm here," she said, hands shoved into the pockets of her robe.

"So you are. And incapable of knocking, I see." Snape sounded more distracted than annoyed, continuing to write until he finished whatever he was working on. With a wave of his hand, his parchments and quills rose in the air and cloistered themselves inside the desk's drawers. Those drawers slid shut with the definite click of locks engaging. "We're not staying here."

He strode past Harriet back into the corridor, and she followed with a grunt, picking up her feet to match his quick, efficient pace. Instead of heading to his office or somewhere higher in the school, Snape took the stairs downward to the next sub-level, and he didn't stop until they came to a Moon Mirror framed by two rather woebegone statues. The one of the left was missing its face.

"Galatea," Snape said, surprising Harriet. He must have caught the sharp rise of her brow because he could only scoff. "Did you really think you and your reprobates were the only ones who'd figure the passwords out?"

"Well—honestly, yes. It took me months to chart out all the bloody moons, and I had to use the school's original blueprints."

"Your mistake was in trying too hard."