Certain Dark Things || Book Five

x. for bravery

The sun beat against Harriet's legs where they stuck out beneath the shade of the rangy, umbrella-like shrubbery.

She laid on her back on the warm earth, her hair spilling across the dry grass, hearing the insects buzz in the undergrowth. She wore a T-shirt and a pair of short trousers, her feet bare and warm in the direct light. Movement stirred beneath her neck as Kevin and Rick debated among themselves the best way to lure and catch the noisy little bugs, and the occasional ripple of water broke the monotony as Livius shifted in the fountain, breaching the surface to sun himself upon the stones.

Harriet turned another page in the old book she read. She squinted at the yellowing paper.

"—the netting, as described in this chapter, may be created with as few or as many runes as the creator wishes to utilize. The weaving is anchored to the golem's construct and will react when given the proper inertia [See CH. TWO, SECT EIGHT "Defining inertia", CH. FOUR, SECT TWO, "Keying inertia"]. The concision or complexity of the runes used to form the netting directly relate to the simplicity of the active golem and its set behaviors. Furthermore, the various runes will have different reactions to different materials, and pairing runes [See CH. EIGHT, "The language of rune crafting"] deepens the range of delineation and how variables can be interpreted—."

A soft hum left Harriet's mouth as she passed her lower lip through her teeth and nibbled at the dry skin. Considering what she'd read, she set the open book down against her chest and reached up behind her neck, retrieving Rick.

"Releassse me, releassse!" Rick complained as he wriggled in her hand.

"Calm down," Harriet sighed as she gently stretched him between her fingers, holding him up so she could see his paler belly. Her mum's wand was tucked beneath her thigh, and she grabbed it, pointing it at Rick. "Revelio."

A thin sparkle of magic trickled over the red snake. Tiny runes appeared, glowing through his dusky scales. There weren't many, but what was there—ehwaz, for movement, kennaz for vitality, ansuz for...communication?—were joined by a different rune Harriet had to look for in the book.

"Ger or Ior," she read. "In the futhorc, symbolizes the year, generous harvest, or the world serpent or other snakes." She scratched her head, wondering why someone would mix the permutations of runes and what that changed. Maybe it was like English in that it often borrowed words from other languages to capture a meaning. Brow furrowed, Harriet let go of Rick—shooing him before he could escape into the open sleeve of her shirt—and instead picked up Kevin, holding him as she had Rick. Repeating the spell revealed the runes on his pale, lime-colored belly, and they were all the same—aside from the addition of tiwaz.

Harriet flipped through the book. "Tiwaz—the rune of Tyr. For bravery," she read aloud. She eyed the little green snake attacking her finger for her manhandling. "Huh."

She didn't want to admit it, but she found studying this information fascinating. It was like a big puzzle she couldn't make heads or tails of until she figured out enough of the pieces, and her brain filled in the missing parts. Harriet hated thinking anything Slytherin assigned her was interesting. She wanted anything he considered worthy of pursuit to be boring or horrible, thereby associating what Slytherin taught as boring or horrible too—but the truth was Harriet enjoyed the reading insofar as anyone enjoyed lengthy, complex textbooks.

She didn't know how to feel about that.

Slow, unhurried footsteps crunching through the dry grass turned Harriet's head. She grimaced, thinking it might be Sirius or Remus coming to check on her again; the pair of them had turned into right ninnies, looking at her like she might bloody explode or break or—Harriet didn't know. She just wanted to be left alone. She peered beneath the branches, prepared to hide, but it was only Ron.